Legal AF Full Episode - 7/26/2025

22:16Ben Meiselas:And our secrets, our secrets, you know, our beautiful secrets, you know, should always remain together. But just think, if you were innocent, why would you believe that that carries with it a defamatory intent? Wouldn't the response be if you were innocent? Hey, we were rich guys who lived down the block from each other. I was asked to do this. I didn't know about his past and I was disgusted by it. I kicked him out of the club and I've never talked to him again. And anybody who reads further into my statements, you are the ones who are creepy or whatever. Isn't that what an innocent person would respond?

23:01Ben Meiselas:But instead, Donald Trump takes the birthday card and goes, oh, my God, this is defamatory. How is that more defamatory than you saying Epstein is a great guy who likes women on the younger side? How is it more defamatory than all of the things that I actually said? How is it more defamatory than you sending your DOJ to give the sex trafficker of Epstein queen for the day and treating him like a dick? Popak, I know you're reeling to go, but we got to take our first. This is an intense episode. We're getting we're digging into it. You're going to love this around. We got to take our first break.

23:39Ben Meiselas:I want to remind everybody that Michael Popak has a law firm, the Popak firm. At your request, he started this firm because you said, hey, Michael, if we've got cases, can we come to you? Before he couldn't. Now he has the capability. So if you've been injured in an accident, car accident, trucking accident where you've had to have surgeries, if you know someone who's been injured in an accident, catastrophic injuries, wrongful death cases, sexual assault cases, sexual harassment cases, medical malpractice cases, negligence, reach out to Popak's firm. Consultation is free. How do they find you, Popak?

24:12Popok:Yeah, thank you for doing that. And next week, I'm going to actually, I'm in a meeting with all of the lawyers, top trial lawyers that work with me on these cases. We're going to be meeting in Chicago next week and get together and talk about all the cases that we're handling for our Legal AF audience. So it's easy. You go to 1-877-POPOCAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F, and there's no AI there. There's a live person that will work you through your case and talk about and start the case evaluation process. Or you can do it with a form and read more about the firm at the law firm's website, thepopocfirm.com.

24:50Ben Meiselas:everybody subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. They're close to 1 million subscribers. Subscribe right now. Subscribe to the Legal AF Substack. Subscribe to the Midas Touch Substack as well. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back. We've got more info we're going to dig into, including the New York Times story with Donald Trump's message to Jeffrey Epstein on the book. To Jeff, you are the greatest. You are the greatest. The greatest.

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27:18Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to those sponsors. They keep the show alive, folks. We don't have outside investors, so support our sponsors. Discount codes in the description below. Okay, Michael Popak, let's get into it. So as I explained, that Wall Street Journal lawsuit that Donald Trump filed, perhaps the worst lawsuit ever. I mean, if you and I predicted how bad it was going to be for Donald Trump now with the New York Times expose coming out that they've seen the book, they know that Donald Trump is one of the many people like in the table of contents that are listed in this leather bound book, they confirm that they got another note from the book that kind of further confirms it.

27:57Ben Meiselas:And then the New York Times found a book, one of Donald Trump's books that he sent to Epstein where Donald Trump signed it and said, Jeff, you are the greatest. So, Popak, you were anxious to talk before the break.

28:08Popok:Yeah, I want to do it. I want to do it two ways. One, the reason why Trump is, as you say, in the past, is operating under the law of holes and digging a deeper hole for himself every time is because he has challenged the media to go after him and put a lie to his revisionist history that he wasn't that close to Epstein. He didn't know about Epstein. And Epstein, quote unquote, was a creep who he kicked out of Mar-a-Lago. That's not why he was kicked out of Mar-a-Lago. And that's a lie. They had a falling out in 2004 because they fought over a piece of real estate in Palm Beach that went to Trump for$50 million, but was bid up by Epstein because they were fighting over the same single family piece of property.

28:55Popok:That's why. Not because, or if you take it to its, if you take Trump at his word, which you never can do, Trump knew about Epstein being a pedophile in 2004 and didn't do anything about it, and then rewarded his prosecutor who cut him a sweetheart deal and let him get off while thousands of women were being raped and abused with a slap on the terrorist Alex Acosta and made him your labor secretary in the Trump administration as a reward? Which is it, Trump? Is it you knew and he was a creep and you did nothing else about it except reward people around them? Or you didn't know anything about it and you barred him because of the corruption thing?

29:36Popok:The easiest way, and you and I do this as lawyers in front of juries all the time, is take Epstein out of the equation. Let's suppose Donald Trump's relationship was not with Epstein. It was with Jeffrey Dahmer who chopped up people and ate them. You know, let's just take Dahmer instead of Epstein. And there's evidence of Donald Trump writing to Jeffrey Dahmer, your sweet little secrets, your little, you're an enigma. Now, when people say, give him a break, he didn't know Jeffrey was eating people. But why isn't it proper reporting to put the two and two together. You don't get to be best friends.

30:18Popok:And that's what they were for 15 years. I defy anybody, put it in comments tonight, name one other person, not named Trump, that Donald Trump was best friends with during that same period that he hung around with and did the Playboy thing in Palm Beach and in New York, like Jeffrey Epstein. Who else went to his wedding with Marla Maples? Who else went with him on the planes? Who else went with him to these phony beauty pageants in order to solicit whatever from women and girls. Who else? Nobody. And so now Donald Trump needs to rewrite history and he's challenged the media to put a lie to it. Every time he says, I wasn't that close, the book, the endorsement, the photo, the birthday card, the wedding picture, the this, the that.

31:05Popok:And the reason we're doing it or when you and your brothers dug up the 20-year-old civil testimony and deposition of Jeffrey Epstein, with somebody who was smart enough to ask the question, did Donald Trump have relationships or was he with young girls? I take the Fifth Amendment. The reason we're doing all of it, besides big circumstantial evidence, which is proving our case, is because Donald Trump is denying the relationship and the closeness of the relationship. He's suggesting that he couldn't possibly have known about Jeffrey Epstein's sex trafficking and his pedophilia. And that is, we're making the case to the American people that that is impossible.

31:43Popok:If we're making the closing argument, which you and I do almost every time we get together in some way, then it would be you'd have to bury your head in the sand and ignore all of these data points that we just laid out inside and around, orbiting around Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. You'd have to close your eyes to it in order not to suggest that at the very least, whether he participated in it or not is for another day, but he must have known about. I asked that of Michael Cohen, who doesn't really have any inside knowledge of that particular relationship, but I said, is it possible given the weight of examples that we have of the closeness of the relationship, including women and girls, that he would not have known?

32:27Popok:And Michael said, no, I don't think it's possible that he would not have known. So even those closest to him say that what we're saying, and this is what we're doing. It's not that we're convicting him of the crime of raping girls. I'm talking about Donald Trump now. But we are convicting him of the thing he is guilty of, which is that he showed tremendously poor judgment. He must have known about those relationships and is now getting embroiled in it and can't get himself out from under it. In fact, as I said at the top, he is the number one reason you and I continue to talk about it is because of how Donald Trump is handling this matter.

33:01Ben Meiselas:Look, he was found liable for sexual abuse. In a civil case, he's on camera talking about grabbing women's genitals. And he says, because you're rich, you can get away with anything and they let you do it. At his deposition, when he was asked about it, he says, that's just what men have done for millions of years, he said. He said, fortunately or unfortunately, that's just what men have done for millions of years. Then he's asked, oh, are you saying that the reason that you couldn't have sexually assaulted this victim or that victim is because you don't find them attractive. And he goes, well, they're not my type.

33:41Ben Meiselas:That's not my type. Then he looks at the lawyer asking the question, Roberta Kaplan, and said, by the way, you're not my type. And then Donald Trump went on a rant about E. Jean Carroll during his deposition, where Donald Trump said, and then she talked about how she liked it, and that she said it was sexy being sexually assaulted. She went on CNN and said it was sexy. And then Roberta Kaplan, E.G. Carroll's lawyer, was like, you're saying you saw her say that she enjoyed being sexually assaulted by you? Donald Trump's like, I think she said that on CNN. And then they took a break and she came back out and then said something completely different.

34:22Ben Meiselas:That's not actually what happened on CNN. With Donald Trump in Scotland today, let's not forget that during this sexual assault civil trial against Donald Trump, he could have defended himself. He could have showed up. But instead, where did he go during the trial? He ran away to Scotland. And so instead of him testifying, they just played his deposition and he didn't testify in that case. Let's also remember that Donald Trump was the one who refused to give his DNA samples when it was being requested. And then once the trial started and discovery was closed, then Donald Trump's like, well, now I want to do a test and on the dress and I'll give my DNA sample.

35:06Ben Meiselas:And people are like, you could have done that originally, but you refuse to do that. And so, you know, you don't just get to break the rule. Why wouldn't you give it originally if you wanted to, you know, if you wanted to clear your name in a situation like that. And so we know that. I've showed clips before as well of Donald Trump speaking before the young Republicans, high school kids who want to be Republicans, or I don't know why, but who consider themselves Republicans in New York and college students. And Donald Trump tells the story about how he claims a general went up to him and said, the most courageous act that general's ever seen, and this general's gone to wars, is when Donald Trump called grabbing women by their genitals, sexually assaulting them.

35:53Ben Meiselas:When he called that locker room talk, Donald Trump says, that general said to me, locker room talk. And that was the greatest thing I've ever seen, the most courageous thing I've seen. So we have these data points, which frankly should be disqualifying. And then you have Donald Trump weaponizing, weaponizing Epstein and the list and the files, which now we know he's in the files, which again, it was never a shocker to me based on the fact that he's in the files that have been released, which to me are incredibly damning to begin with. But Trump's used them against all of his political opponents, right?

36:34Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump would make all of these posts and say, you know, that the Democrats were involved in this and that what the real issues were, were that. And they're the ones who are covering it up. And Bill Clinton went to the island and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so he weaponized it when he was the closest. And now do you notice what Donald Trump's doing as well? I think we have a few clips that show this, where a reporter asked Donald Trump, what are you hoping that Blanche gets out of the Ghislaine Maxwell interview? And Donald Trump's like, I really haven't been following it but uh i talk talk about other people clinton larry sumner listen to what donald trump says when he's asked about it in scotland let's play it what are you hoping

37:19Popok:i really have no uh really nothing to say about it she is uh being talked to by a very smart man by a very good man, Todd Blanche. And I don't know anything about the conversation. I haven't really been following it. A lot of people are asking me about pardons. Obviously, this is no time to be talking about pardons. But a lot of people have asked about pardon. This is just not a time to be talking about pardons. Todd will come back with whatever he's got. You're making a very big thing over something that's not a big thing. You should be talking about it. If you're going to talk about that, talk about Clinton, talk about the former president of Harvard.

38:06Popok:Talk about all of his friends. Talk about the hedge fund guys that were with him all the time. Don't talk about Trump. What you should be talking about is the fact that we have the greatest six months in the history of a presidency, according to a lot of people. And we had an amazing six months. And this is sort of an example of it. Now we're meeting with the European Union, having we're also meeting with, as you know, the head of UK.

38:37Ben Meiselas:And then Donald Trump said before he left that he said he has a list. Trump says you should focus on Clinton, the Harvard guy, the hedge fund guys. And Donald Trump says that apparently Trump has the Epstein list. He goes, I have the list. He goes, listen to him. he goes, I have the list. I will give you the list of the people who were really the ones with Epstein. Here, play this clip.

39:01Popok:He's eager to get out of prison. Well, you know, he's a professional lawyer. I think he's been through things like this before. But, you know, you should focus on Clinton. You should focus on the president of Harvard, the former president of Harvard. You should focus on some of the hedge fund guys. I'll give you a list. These guys lived with Jeffrey Epstein. I sure as hell didn't. Thank you very much. Mr. President, you should tell me private questions.

39:30Ben Meiselas:He goes, I guess he's got the list. And then in the clip before that, do you notice that Donald Trump was asked, he wasn't even asked a question about pardons. He was saying the question was, what do you hope to get out of this? Then Donald Trump's eventually said, basically, that you should be talking about Trump, that you should be talking not about Trump, but about Clinton and hedge fund guys and Larry Sumner. And then Donald Trump brought up on his own, well, now's not the time to be talking about pardons. Not that it's off the table. And then he said, I haven't been thinking about it much.

40:04Ben Meiselas:But then he sent his number two. He brings up pardons. And then he talks about the list. But Popak, this was the New York Times headline, New York Post headline, and this is telling. Ghislaine Maxwell gave the Department of Justice info about 100 different people linked to Jeffrey Epstein, lawyers say. So we all know what, like, we need - That's another Murdoch paper.

40:29Popok:That's another Murdoch paper, right?

40:31Ben Meiselas:But we know what Trump is doing here. The plan is now, give a list, this is how Trump's going to try to deflect from himself. Give a list of other, and by the way, it's what a scumbag Donald Trump is too, right? Give me a list of other guys. Give me good names, not just Clinton. Give me those hedge fund guys. I'm going to throw their names out, right? To try to distract from me. Then let's have the media focused on all of them and not Trump, or maybe we all, every, you know, now it just becomes a bigger story and then they'll find all your house.

41:11Popok:Well, look, look, the false equivalency has already been established because they're trying to create a false criminal investigation and abuse of power. I did a whole hot take recently on the Midas Dutch network about this being six months in the most scandal written and corrupt department of justice we've ever known. Say what you want about Merrick Garland. He moved too slow. He was too ponderous. He was too tortoise-like, but he wasn't corrupt. And we've never talked about a corrupt Department of Justice. We've had a corrupt FBI under Edgar Hoover. And we've had presidents that used the corrupt FBI, but never a Department of Justice that sold its soul so quickly because of who it's owned by, who its daddy is, which is Donald Trump.

41:57Popok:And that's why Donald Trump has all of his former criminal defense lawyers as the top leadership in the Department of Justice, impeachment and criminal defense lawyers, Pam Bondi, Emil Bove, John Sauer, and Todd Blanche. That's the top, right? And then he brought in the political people, like, you know, the person that lost the Republican National Committee chairmanship. So she gets to be the head of the civil rights division as she chloroforms it and puts it out of business. That's what he has surrounding him. And so when he says, so the false equivalency is where Tulsi Gabbard, who's a crash test dummy that just pulled out.

42:33Popok:I thought she was basically being walked the plank. I think she was. And she says, I better make myself useful. I know. I'll go look in 2 ,500 pages of documents and reports by John Durham, Robert Mueller, the Senate Intelligence Committee, headed by Marco Rubio, the intelligence assessment, and I'll find something none of them ever found. And I'll find a link, which now Dan Bongino is running around with, of corruption at the highest level with the Obama administration in the final days because Putin was trying to get Hillary Clinton elected. Nobody believes that. Instead of Donald Trump. The reason they don't want Hillary Clinton elected and they want Donald Trump elected is because our adversaries want Americans at each other's throats and seething.

43:18Popok:And Donald Trump has that knack for being able to do that and weaken the American populace and the American experiment. That's why they love Trump, because if he's not a Manchurian candidate or an asset of Russia, he certainly acts like one. So they didn't want Hillary Clinton. Say what you want about Hillary Clinton, but she was competent. and they want her in there. So that makes absolutely no sense. At the same time, remember, Donald Trump was pitching the Russians to help him by releasing the emails that Hillary Clinton allegedly lost in her server. If you're listening out there, he said at a press conference, if you're listening, Russia, get me the email.

43:57Popok:So he was using Russia to try to win his election. But they've set up this false equivalency. Let's see if we go after Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama that'll be the equivalency of the Epstein and that'll balance it out and the hundred names my read of the reporting is that Blanche came in with the hundred names not the other way around and we're going to get to the bottom of that as well David Oscar Marcus is very happy with the results of the interview because this is just the kabuki theater that's happening fire James Comey's daughter who's the prosecutor who knows everything about the Epstein file.

44:36Popok:Other than you, she's probably the other person in America and Julie K. Brown that knows Epstein like the back of her hand. Don't have her in the room, of course, during the conversations. Then, as you read, the tell for Donald Trump is, whenever he says he hasn't thought about something, he certainly has thought about it. And then at some point in a week or two, he's going to pardon Maxwell. At the end, And the American people, however, are not buying this creation of these phony paper tigers, these, you know, as a comparison to the Epstein thing. But you're right for Donald Trump to say, I have, of course he has the list, the list, by the way, that that that what's your name said was on her desk.

45:19Popok:to ban bonding, is effectively all the names that are in the gigabytes of information that was scoured by the FBI. You know how you and I know that? Because the thousand victims have lawyers, and the lawyers know what their statements were, the 302s and the FBI statements, where they identified all the people that were involved. That's the Johns list. That's the list. And Donald Trump, you know, he had a Freudian slip, just like she did. Pam Bundy. There is a list, and Donald Trump's name is lousy on it, and that is the problem. I don't know how he makes this thing go away. One, we're never going to let it go away.

45:59Popok:The Democrats have outfoxed the Republicans on this, starting with the House Judiciary Oversight Committee and James Comer, where the Democrats got three Republicans, including Nancy Mace, to join with them to issue the subpoenas. Now, look, some of the subpoenas they're asking for, I don't like. Like, I don't want Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton to be sucked into depositions either for this charade. But they are going to issue it to Maxwell. They want the leather-bound birthday book. They want all this stuff that Donald Trump is desperately trying to hide. And the question I have for you, though, as we round out of the segment, this extended hot take is what do you think the impact on the midterms and on the MAGA ability to stay in in Congress is like the, what is the impact of the Epstein scandal coverup for Donald Trump and everybody who's got an R next to their name on the midterms?

46:59Ben Meiselas:You know, I'm not trying to cop out of answering the question and I don't want the audience to get mad at me when I say what I'm about to say. And I'm not trying to be facetious because I think it's an important question. So I say this with the utmost respect to everything out there. I don't care. With this one, I really don't care. Would it be great if it has an impact? Sure. But see, I just think the laser focus right now, instead of the midterm impact, it really just needs to be, do not let this be one of these moments where Donald Trump squirms out of it, right? We're the media now. This network gets more views than any other channel that's out there.

47:45Ben Meiselas:And Donald Trump has his ways of controlling the media to change the narrative, right? We're seeing it play out here. We see his formulation, right? I mean, Salty, throw up this video right here of like what they're saying on Fox, right? And other networks, see what Fox is doing, and then they bite the bait. So here's Hannity. One thing is crystal clear. Obama. Obama. This is the Obama. Play this clip. One thing is crystal clear. Barack Obama was a terrible president and he abused his power. He fomented a culture of pious corruption inside the halls of our federal bureaucracy. To this day, I can all but assure you that the former deep state actors who carried out this plot to delegitimize a duly elected president, Donald Trump, still believe they did nothing wrong.

48:38Ben Meiselas:They didn't care at all about the will of all of you, the American people. They believe their opinions mattered much more. And this information clearly is suggesting that they were willing to lie, manipulate, undermine a duly elected president. To them, using the almighty power of the U.S. government to subvert the will of the American people as what. Right. That's a form of brainwashing right there. And then other media controlled by Donald Trump. And you're going to do a take on this with the CBS approval going through and the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, basically saying we control CBS. Now we're putting an ombudsman in there.

49:15Ben Meiselas:We're going to basically control what their content's going to be. And that's there's a chilling effect across media. So Trump sits in the Oval Office with his team, Susie Wiles, all of you know, the DOJ, you know, what do we do here? Okay. Number one, let's, let's go for grand jury transcripts. We know the courts are going to deny him because we're not entitled to it. Blame the courts. What else do we do? We've got contacts with Elaine Maxwell. We know the lawyer there. Okay. Let's set up that Elaine Maxwell thing. Let's have her list other names. Let's get the media to kind of chase that. And we'll do that.

49:49Ben Meiselas:All right. What else are we going to do? Obama. Let's focus on Obama and say the 2016 Obama was involved, you know, in, in whatever. And then what do we do? Let's turn our attention to, you know, some other scandal and then try to get out of this, you know, get out of this cycle. And so we, we see it. So my point is, you know, not that we, we should care about the midterms and the impact of it. So it's not that I don't, I don't care with this one, Donald Trump and the GOP are basically the GOP, the guardians of pedos at this point. That's what the GOP stands for. And for me, this isn't an issue about blue or red or Democrat, Republican.

50:27Ben Meiselas:It's truly an issue about good versus evil. And we have MAGA right now, which weaponized the victims of sex trafficking, are the ones covering up for it, and they've revealed their plan all along. And to me, what I'm focused on, and I know you're focused on every day, is bringing the story to people and explaining what they're going to do. So we're steps ahead of it now that we control the media and more people are watching what we're doing. So

50:54Popok:listen, I didn't mean to set you up with it. I don't disagree that there are just some stories that don't, you've talked about this last week, that it just doesn't matter what the political impact of something is. It's just morally disgusting and depraved. And we got to call it out. Like if Donald Trump was accountable, like the question wouldn't be, how do you think that's going to impact the midterms? I mean, you know, you just have to follow the story and train our artillery on it. And like you said, and I agree with you, mainstream media, the only time I've ever agreed with Brendan Carr for the FCC, I did this in my hot take, is Brendan Carr said that mainstream media can no longer be trusted to the American people to provide them with news and information.

51:37Popok:I'm like, correct. They are now drafting behind Midas Touch and Legal AF in their reporting because we were out in front, you were out in front a year and a half ago talking about Epstein and reminding people why that connectivity, why that intersection between Trump and Epstein was so important, having nothing to do with electoral success. The good news is, as we sort of transition here, all the polls are out. All the polls post the big, beautiful bill, post his attack on human beings in California and other places, you know, in the immigration, depraved immigration policy. And it's all terrible for Donald Trump.

52:22Popok:I mean, he's 30 points under with independence. The only time he was ever like that is when he lost the last election. People hate his handling of the economy. I mean, hate it. Independence especially. I mean, they've left. Elvis has left the building. They hate his handling of immigration. Hate it. I'm sorry. Americans don't want to see children in handcuffs, human beings chased through churches, schools, factories, and farms. They don't want to see ICE agents high-fiving on secretly recorded video because they just made a bounty by tasing and abusing people that were stopped in an immigration stop, which is in Florida.

53:03Popok:I'll be doing reporting on that soon. And they hate it. And the two things he thinks got him elected are the economy and immigration. It was really just the economy. And on the economy and how he's handling inflation, he's in the toilet. Enten on CNN said, I thought there'd be a floor for how low Donald Trump could drop with independents. But apparently he's burst through that floor and there is no end in sight at how low he is going. And yet he continues to press the losing hand while we continue to talk about the scandals. It's a scandal a day. And scandals within scandals are in the Trump administration.

53:42Popok:I hate to remind people, but we're only six months into this shit show. If this was on network television, it would already be canceled.

53:52Ben Meiselas:No doubt. And if we were a parliamentary system where you could have snap elections, he would he would. And we had a multi-party system. He'd be gone, which, by the way, we may want to explore those systems right there in the future. They tend to seem a little bit superior to what we've got here in retrospect. But yeah, independence, Trump's approval is right around 28, 29 percent. And then on all of those issues, right around 25 to 29 percent approval. When we come back, I want to talk about some of the other cases that are out there. We spent a lot of time on Epstein. But I also want to talk about the anatomy of a deal.

54:33Ben Meiselas:And I just want to talk at the beginning about like why these trade deals are not real deals and what a deal means that they have to like exist to start off with. And how when Donald Trump talks about Japan and this and that, they're not deals. And I'll explain to you. We'll break that down. Then we'll talk about some of these other cases. Last quick break of the show. Reminder, Michael Popak's law firm, the Popak firm. If you've been injured in an accident, car accident, trucking accident, and if you've had surgeries, procedures, and you need legal help, you're the victim of a serious injury, reach out to the Popak firm.

55:07Ben Meiselas:If you know somebody who's been injured, anyone's in a wrongful death type of situation where they died as a result of an accident that you know. If you're a victim or know someone who's a victim of sexual harassment or sexual assault or otherwise, reach out to the Popak firm. Where can they find you, Michael?

55:24Popok:Yeah, I made it easy. Thanks, Ben. And it's two ways to approach the firm. One is to go on the website. You can learn more about the firm. It's at www.thepopockfirm.com. We got all our practice areas, all the things that we handle, a description of the other lawyers that work with me, and, of course, a free consultation form to fill out because we don't get paid unless you do in these kind of cases. or you can make a phone call and talk to a live person, no AI here, by calling 1-877-POPOC-AF.

56:02Ben Meiselas:Subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. They're on their way to 1 million subscribers. Subscribe to the Legal AF Substack. Grow in as well. Subscribe to the Midas Touch Substack. All right, last break. Lightning round when we return. Let's take our last quick break of the show.

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59:10Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Pretty comprehensive coverage right there on all things Epstein, all the updates there. I want to address two things. Let's talk about some other cases. Hope I can do that. Updates, big ones, too. Are any of these Trump lawyers going to lose their legal licenses? Yes. Remember what and remember, that's what we said was one of the tools that these judges were going to use because money doesn't matter because it's sanctioning the federal government. It's our taxpayer dollars. So that's not going to work, you know, in terms of, you know, sanctioning Trump or whatever. Unfortunately, given the immunity rulings, that's not going to work.

59:51Ben Meiselas:Right. But the issue becomes holding a lawyer in contempt and then referring the lawyer who lied to a court for disciplinary proceedings before a state bar where some of these DOJ lawyers will lose their legal licenses for lying to the court with pretty extensive records of perjury. that should be something that dissuades them from lying to the court. Even if that means they're going to be fired, like the Trump regime has fired lawyers who have been honest, but those people will go on and remain lawyers if that's important to them. And I guess if it's not important for you to go on and be a lawyer, then, you know, I guess you lie and then you can lose your legal license.

1:00:33Ben Meiselas:And, you know, hopefully you're going to retire soon because if you think that, you know, you're going to exist in this era forever, I think there's a problem there. We'll talk about that in a moment. Just the one thing I wanted to address before turning that side over to Popak are just these trade deals. For there to be a deal, a deal has to exist. So I just want everybody to exercise common sense, which our media doesn't do. So every time Trump announces a deal, our first question should be, where is it? Because deals are not social media posts. Trade deals are things we can read. The countries that make the deals, they have to present it usually to their parliament or their legislative branches for approval, usually almost always.

1:01:20Ben Meiselas:And that's what exists or supposed to exist in the United States as well. Even if Donald Trump's going to declare some emergency power or whatever that he's able to, whether it's Canada's attacking America, whatever crazy, hateful things he's saying about Canada or Mexico or Europe or other countries and lying about, okay, you still have to have a deal and we have to see it. And what are the terms of the deal? Now, trade deals are not numbers. Like a trade deal is not your tariff is this, our tariff is this, that's the deal. Trade deals are comprehensive, hundreds of pages, sometimes thousands of pages that deal with all aspects of a relationship.

1:02:05Ben Meiselas:But setting that aside, even the deals that Trump's claiming exist, even if they're short deals, they should be papered. So when Donald Trump claims, for example, with Japan, that we're imposing 15 % tariffs on all goods from Japan, reduced from 25 % from Trump's letter to them, which means still it's a tax on American importers, which is passed on to consumers. And prices are rising. Inflation is increasing right now. It's why Donald Trump's approval on inflation is like in the teens or in the 20s, because people are impacted by it, despite saying it's all gone. There's no more inflation, we stopped inflation.

1:02:48Ben Meiselas:We know you're lying. But Donald Trump then also says Japan will be investing$550 billion into the United States. And from that$550 billion that they're investing, America will get to keep 90 % of the profits from that investment and Japan gets 10%. Now, Now, Japan's entire GDP is less than the GDP of California. OK, so Japan's entire GDP is about four point two trillion dollars. California is like four point five trillion. So Donald Trump says we're getting a signing bonus from Japan that they're going to basically turn over what, 15, 20 percent of their entire GDP to the United States and only get back 10 percent.

1:03:35Ben Meiselas:Does that make any sense to you? And it doesn't because it's made up. It's a signing bonus. Well, where's the deal that says? That and sure enough, Prime Minister Ashiba and chief Japanese negotiator Akazawa went back to Japan and they said there is no binding agreement. And by the way, they really couldn't even make a binding agreement because there was just a new election in the upper house of Japan last week. Prime Minister Ashiba is about to resign in August as well. And so he can't even do a binding agreement, but there is no binding agreement. They've said that. They've also said that it's not a signing bonus to$550 billion.

1:04:15Ben Meiselas:And basically, if you look at a five-year period, say from 2018 to 2023, direct foreign investment from Japan into the United States was already about$783 billion. So for Japan,$550 billion was just a way of restating the direct foreign investment that Japan always does in general, not giving a new$550 billion as direct foreign investment. Japan holds over$1 trillion in American treasuries. They're the biggest holder by far. They employ the most Americans of any country in Japanese companies. There was no tariff that Japan had against American vehicles, which Donald Trump claimed existed. Japanese roads are just smaller and they don't like American vehicles.

1:05:01Ben Meiselas:And so there's no deal there. Or like when Donald Trump says, I got Australia to agree to open up their markets to American beef. Why would Australia want American beef? They're like the biggest exporter of beef. They've got the top premier beef. They don't want U.S. beef. It's not a real deal. our farmers here and our cattle ranchers, they're not going to be sending beef to Australia. It's all so stupid. It's all so dumb. It's all a fraud. It doesn't exist. And when we look at Epstein, when we look at these fake deals, you have to just come to the conclusion that everything this guy does is a lie.

1:05:35Ben Meiselas:And there's a reason. He's a liar. This is what he's done his whole life. It's why we keep on saying these things. This is a guy who is a sexual abuser. This is a guy who He's a criminal. He's a felon. He was found liable in a business fraud case for business records. He's been found liable for making up fake valuations for his property. He's literally a con artist. So it doesn't shock me that all of the things that he does is extort and then fraud. That's it. That's his MO. So I want to leave you at that. Popat, let's turn it over to immigration in some of these cases.

1:06:12Popok:Yeah. And nobody believes his tariff policies anyway. The Commerce Secretary's own family company is betting against the tariffs and selling products that bet that the tariffs are going to be struck down by the courts, which already started with the Court of International Trade. So I don't know. Just to end it there, even if they went to the Rose Garden tomorrow and announced 150 new quote unquote deals, these aren't deals that help the American people. They're just going to be passed through at least a third of the tariffs onto consumer pricing, meaning inflation is going to go up right around the time of the midterms and Christmas.

1:06:50Popok:None of the tariffs are a good thing. They keep pointing to the, we brought in$58 billion from tariffs, but what about the trillions? You didn't collect an internal revenue because you cut the tax rate. It's just all a sham and a fraud. And every time they get that the tariffs don't work, they point to the stock market. Well, look at the stock market. That is just another distractor. Stock market does not indicate health of the economy. Unfortunately, all the indicia that indicate the health of economy are in retrograde, meaning we're probably rolling into a recession under Donald Trump, and he won't be able to blame Obama or Biden for that.

1:07:27Popok:Courts, though, are figuring out, it's like AI, they've figured out how they need to respond to Donald Trump's illegal abuse of power immigration policy and is lying to federal courts and federal judges. And right on cue, when you and I heard and we did the reporting about Erez Ruveni, the whistleblower who worked 15 years in the immigration division of the Department of Justice, including when he worked in the Trump administration the first time around. They had no problem with him then when he was busy enforcing the Muslim ban. But, you know, he tells the truth to one judge that Abrego Garcia should not have been sent to El Salvador because he had an order in his back pocket of non-removal to El Salvador.

1:08:15Popok:He gets fired and now he becomes a whistleblower. 28 pages saying that Emil Bovey and others at a meeting told them to lie to federal judges effectively. When they're asked what's going on with planes that are fueling and being sent to El Salvador and other third countries, don't tell them, even if you know. And that we knew was bad and that that would somebody would be making a referral to the bar associations. And lo and behold, let's start with chief judge of the D.C. circuit, D.C. court, Boesburg. Now, Boesburg's in an interesting little bit of a knot, but he figured out a way to get himself and wriggle out.

1:08:54Popok:He's the judge that back in April found probable cause to find criminal contempt against the Trump administration and the Department of Justice starting to put officials in jail. A three-judge panel, two to one, of the D.C. Court of Appeals, led by Trumpers, Rao and Cassis, not only issued an administrative stay back in April, we're now in July, almost August, but they haven't done a darn thing. to advance the case. There's no oral argument. There's no supplemental briefing. The ACLU keeps filing with them. Here, Erez Reveni says that Department of Justice lawyers were told to lie to federal judges.

1:09:35Popok:They were like, all right, just put it in the docket. We'll get to it one day, meaning never. But so he can't move, he can't progress, Bozberg, his probable cause for criminal contempt. So when he was at a hearing on Thursday with this new information, he said, look, this whistleblower, this strengthens my probable cause for criminal contempt. And I know that the plaintiffs are frustrated, the ACLU and others are frustrated by the appellate court not moving on this, but there is something that I can do. And I'm strongly considering making referrals to state bar grievance committees and bar associations for disciplinary action against the Department of Justice because I've been lied to.

1:10:19Popok:It's effectively what he said. And we can have some hope that the D.C. bar in particular, which is not led by Pam Bondi's brother, although he tried, and is led by competent, really good people, are going to take that referral seriously. And they're not going to take a cop out like the Florida bar and say, oh, we can't go after Pam Bondi because she's in federal office. We've got to wait till she's out. Where is that in the bar rules? But I don't think the D.C. bar is going to do that. I don't think the New Jersey bar is going to do that against Alina Habba. We'll touch on that in a minute, too.

1:10:52Popok:So he said he did the one thing left in his toolbox. I'm going after you guys, the Department of Justice lawyers who lied to me. That's one set of lies that we've talked about. You've got the Alina Habba. This is the corruption of the Department of Justice. Alina Habba can't get the full-time gig of being the New Jersey U.S. attorney. Not only does Donald Trump have to have another scandal and another abuse of power that will get challenged in the courts to give his office wife the job. That's the only way she can get the job, is if he violates the statute, violates the Constitution, withdraws her name from confirmation at the Senate, so he can try to do some sort of appointment as special attorney and get her the job.

1:11:31Popok:Now, all this is going to do is buy another lawsuit against Donald Trump. If you're scoring at home, it'll be up to 500 lawsuits already against Donald Trump. And I also think there's another problem, because if I'm a criminal defense lawyer in New Jersey and I get an indictment that has the office of Alina Haber written on it, I challenge her appointment and challenge the veracity or the validity of the indictment. because once a person is found to have been improperly, unconstitutionally appointed to a position, then the argument goes that everything they did is void ab initio, void at the start.

1:12:13Popok:So we got that to look forward to in New Jersey. Then you've got another judge, Judge Zinnis, who's handling the Abrego-Garcia case, sort of a companion case with the one that Judge Boesberg is handling. and she's basically said, I'm going to take protective custody of Abrego Garcia. She's working in collaboration in her own way with the judges in Tennessee who have the criminal case. So the criminal case against Abrego Garcia, which we've always known was a fraud, is going to be dismissed. They're not going to pursue it. But he's not going to get released from federal penitentiary marshal protection.

1:12:52Popok:He's been now ordered by Judge Zinnis to be brought to Maryland, where she can keep a close eye on him as she continues to consider contempt against the Trump administration. Let me do a spoiler alert. She's going to ultimately find contempt against the Trump administration. And now she's got a different appellate court above her, one that doesn't have this Trump problem as much, the Fourth Circuit, and the chief judges there like Harvey Wilkerson, and I think who's already supported her twice before, and I think they'll support a contempt charge against the Trump administration coming out of Zinnis.

1:13:26Popok:That's something I look forward to. And then lastly, you've got this judge in the Eastern District of New York that I just did a hot take on, who wants to get to the bottom of why all of a sudden is Pam Bondi allowing the top leadership of MS-13, which I thought was one of the justifications to declare that Donald Trump had war powers under the Alien Enemies Act. Why are they all being sent back to El Salvador and having their charges, federal charges dismissed. We caught it early on, you and me, a couple of months ago back in April when she stood Pam Bondi in Virginia to try to embarrass the senator there who was supporting, or in Maryland, supporting Ambrego Garcia and saying, we caught an MS-13 top leader.

1:14:15Popok:We did. And then two weeks later, she dismissed the charges because this is the lie that the Trump administration makes. They set up the false narrative We're taking pedophiles, literally, it's a weird word for them, strange word for them to be using right now. We are taking pedophiles and drug smugglers and rapists and murderers and evers off the streets. And if you're opposed to our immigration policy, you're a pro-pedophile. We already know who thinks somebody's pro-pedophile. But that's not what's happening. 60 or 70 percent of the people that are being caught up in these bounties by Stephen Miller are not criminals at all.

1:14:51Popok:They might have muddy documented status, but they're not criminals. And so the judge in Long Island is like, you're dismissing the charges against the number two in MS-13 after he's already provided testimony and evidence that Bukele in El Salvador is in bed with MS-13 and you're sending him to Bukele? And apparently this other bargain that you and I will continue to follow is that Bukele is going to give Trump, here's an art of the deal, a 50 % discount on the$6 million that we gave Bukele to house human beings in Seacott. He'll give back half of it if Trump sends all the people that have testified against Bukele in the United States back to Bukele.

1:15:37Popok:And she wants to get to the bottom of that. She's ordered the court, she's ordered the Department of Justice by August 8th to give her a full report as to why the MS-13 people are being, their charges are being dismissed. What is the link between Bukele and that? And she also wants to know what and the 200 people that you just human trafficked to another dictatorship in Venezuela with the Maduro campaign and regime in order to get 10 Americans out. Why did that happen? Now, we know what Trump's going to do. He's going to argue, oh, state secrets, oh, diplomacy, oh, Article II powers. But it's a special shout out to that judge in Islip, Long Island, near one of your old hometowns, who is putting the Trump administration and the Department of Justice, putting their feet to the fire about this.

1:16:28Popok:And lastly on that, she also excoriated them because they actually had the balls to say everything about MS-13 and the dismissal of all these charges and the destruction of Operation Vulcan, which was supposed to take these people off the street. They wanted to do it behind sealed documents and behind the prying eyes of the public and the media. And she said in 21 pages, she said, absolutely not. And I find it appalling that you're trying to do all this without the public knowing about it. We got to still rely on federal judges, working federal judges to hold the Trump administration's feet to a fire and call out their abuse of power.

1:17:07Ben Meiselas:Michael Popak, we covered a lot, a lot on this episode. I want to remind everybody about the Popak law firm. If you or someone you know has been injured, catastrophic case. Fortunately, this happens to people. We know it happens to us. It could happen to you. and you want to go to a trusted voice, you were the ones who asked us, can Popak start a firm? So we started the Popak firm. We're getting lots of calls from our legal AF viewers and listeners. So if you have a case, if somebody you know has a case, reach out to Michael Popak. Popak, where can they find out these cases, sexual assault cases, harassment cases, car accident cases, trucking cases, medical malpractice cases, negligence cases, wrongful death?

1:17:50Ben Meiselas:Where can they find you?

1:17:51Popok:Yeah, easy. 1-877-POPOC-AF, or, and that leads you to a human being that will compassionately and passionately talk to you about your case before it comes over to me. And then www.thepopocfirm.com. You can read about the firm, the types of cases that we handle. It'll lead you right to another free consultation, free consultation form, which will ultimately get back to a human being and then to me. And I really do appreciate the support that Midas Touch and Legal AF has done for it. And as a result, we're handling dozens and dozens and dozens of cases for our audience and those who are related to our audience, whose family members and others.

1:18:32Popok:You know, these are the types of cases that in this part of my career that I want to focus on, which is the things that turn lives upside down and where we can go up against some of these major insurance companies to bring justice as much as we can in the courts.

1:18:49Ben Meiselas:Everybody check out the Legal AF YouTube channel. Subscribe. They're on their way to a million subscribers. We could still get there this summer. Let's try. Subscribe to the Legal AF Substack. Subscribe to the Midas Touch Substack. We appreciate you. We covered a lot. Keep fighting, folks. Keep fighting. Don't lose faith. We're in this together, side by side. We're going to keep growing. We're going to keep spreading the truth, spreading the evidence, and democracy, truth, facts, evidence will prevail. appreciate y 'all we'll see you next time on legal a app

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1:21:00Popok:I'm Hannah.

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1:21:38Popok:Uh, sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

1:21:41Ben Meiselas:You what?

1:21:42Popok:Yeah, great price. I even have seven days to love it or return it.

1:21:45Ben Meiselas:So there's no...

1:21:46Popok:No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyer's rejoice.

1:21:50Ben Meiselas:I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it. Buyer's rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven-day return policy at Carvana.com.