Legal AF Full Episode - 9/24/2025

25:21Michael Popok:So, you know, all the lawyers who have cases involving targets or people Donald Trump's going after one way or the other are all watching these cases and to learn from them on what to bring as as Donald Trump creates evidence to help help get indictments dismissed. Because, again, we're looking at, as far as I'm concerned, the most corrupt Department of Justice we've ever we've ever experienced. When we come back, we're going to talk about Tom Homan, the border czar, being caught on video, apparently, at a Cava restaurant, taking a bag of cash for$50 ,000. Taxpayer dollars, because it was undercover sting money.

26:02Michael Popok:and what he did with it and how they're trying to excuse themselves for it, or not really. I think actually there was a clip, we'll have to find it, a clip of Carolyn LeVette, the press secretary, basically conceding that he took the money but saying that there was nothing wrong with it. And then we have a win today for more than 20 states because of the way the judge ruled about Trump's attempts to tie FEMA funding to compliance with his immigration law to force states to help federal ICE agents and others do a crackdown on migrants in return for FEMA money allocated by Congress. It takes on a special result or a special shine because of what happened today.

26:56Michael Popok:As we know, we came on the air at 640 this morning. We had somebody that looks like a sniper up on a roof trying to, I don't know, take out somebody, but hit migrants. And then he himself died. So we have a dead, you know, two people in the hospital, three people in the hospital, and one migrant killed, and then the shooter killed as they try to get to the bottom of what happened in Dallas, Texas today. But, you know, we do have a ruling about trying to force states to participate in these inhumane attacks on other human beings. And then finally, we'll talk about the United States Supreme Court and what we think they just did about a 95-year-old precedent called Humphrey's Executor.

27:35Michael Popok:But fortunately, it's now that time for our commercial break. We've got our sponsors, our pro-democracy sponsors, as many ways to support what we do here on Legal AF and to keep the content coming to you uninterrupted. We've got this podcast itself. It lives in audio world on Apple and on Spotify, wherever you get your audio podcast from. Five years in the making, put in Legal AF, there you go. And then if you watch it on YouTube like this audience tonight or you listen to it, go back and forth between the two. That helps with the views and that helps with the ratings. Right now, because of our audience and their fervent support, we're regularly in the top 50 on audio, and we are regularly in the top 50 or so or even higher on YouTube's weekly ratings of all podcasts, regardless of genre.

28:34Michael Popok:So that's one thing you can do. Then we've got the whole, how can we become a card-carrying member of the Legal AF community? Okay, here you go. podcast, YouTube, Legal AF, the YouTube channel, where we're up to almost 820 ,000, 270 million views, amazing audience there, 10 videos a day with a dozen contributors, of course, including me, which I curate. Karen's actually going to have a great interview this week in her return to Legal AF, YouTube, which we're looking forward to. And so that's a place to come. No paywall. Hit the free subscribe button, and that's how you can support it. Then we've got Legal AF, the substack, there it goes.

29:13Michael Popok:Legal AF, the substack is a place where we can do sort of things at the immediate with an emergent voice, grab people together, put three or 4 ,000 people together to do a live, talk about issues, publish things that are a little longer written analysis. Other contributors are there as well. You're really going to like what's on Legal AF, substack. And if you can swing it, become a paid member. I kept the price low. I think it's $7 or$8 a month. And believe me, we give you much more than that in terms of content. And then, of course, we've got our pro-democracy sponsors. And here is a clip. You know, as much time as I spend prepping, reading, and recording for Legal AF, I didn't realize how much sitting all day was dragging me down physically and mentally.

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33:21Michael Popok:All right, let's move on to another scandal du jour. It's like it's another day. It must be a scandal in the Department of Justice and the FBI, this one involving a cover-up and a sting operation bribe scheme, all wrapped into one. They're getting the whole gang back together again. Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, come on down and bring with you Tom Holman. The borders are. You know, the guy that just heartlessly goes on all sorts of television shows and says, I think children in cages are okay. I think U.S. children, if they're born to migrants, they should be deported too. Their parents made a mistake.

34:00Michael Popok:We're going to fix it. You know, that guy. We're going to get rid of 11 million people over two years and see what happens to our economy. Well, it turns out that in September of 2024, under the Biden administration and a really competent FBI director named Christopher Wray, they were working on another target, not named Tom Homan, about public corruption. And during their investigation, that target on a case that was pending in the Western District of Texas, at least from a grand jury standpoint, they said classic whataboutism. Me? What about Tom Homan? And they said, what do you mean Tom Homan?

34:42Michael Popok:The guy that's going to be tapped to be the border czar for Donald Trump? Yeah, what about him? He's taking money in order to direct federal contracts if he gets back into office. They're like, hmm. So after corroborating that information, they decided to run a sting operation to see if that was true. So, and this sting operation doesn't have a lot of moving parts. This is relatively simple. This is as old as time. They made a meeting. They set a lunch in a reasonably well-known chain. And the two, what Homan thought were federal contractors, showed up. And at some point, literally a$50 ,000 bag of cash from a take from the restaurant itself was pushed across the table to Tom Homan and caught on video, because you don't do a sting without audio and video, in which they got him to say a version, according to those who have seen it, that he, if he gets into it, when and if he gets back into office, he will help direct federal contracts to the people that just paid him the money.

35:50Michael Popok:But then he tried to money launder it by saying, but I'm going to keep it in escrow or in my bank account until I make sure I get in. And then I won't spend it until the end as if that made a difference. Now, that$50 ,000 just to follow the money here, that's taxpayer dollars. That was taken out of the Treasury and the funds of the FBI to use as bait, right, to use as the honeypot. and Holman took it and kept it apparently. Now, the reason they didn't arrest him right there is because they wanted him to get back into office. And once he got back into office and like directed one of the contracts, boom, they were ready to bounce.

36:32Michael Popok:Of course, they ran out of time. That was September and they didn't realize that Donald Trump was going to get rid of everybody in the FBI and the Department of Justice. Now, further reporting, Karen, is that when the Department of Justice And Emil Bovee, the guy that's now a Judge Bovee on the Third Circuit, took a look at the file. Oh, Tom Holman, a bag of cash? Weaponization. We need to close this investigation. Not get the cash back. Just close the investigation. so we now have the reporting that there is a video of the sting operation and and before we go to karen tom holman went on i don't know newsmax propaganda center and gave a statement now watch his statement here watch how quickly he gets out from under the question of where's the money tom and try to defend himself on the 50 000 let's roll the clip what is the story with this and where did it come from?

37:34Well, look, as Justice Department said, I did nothing criminal. I did nothing illegal. I did nothing wrong. And this is a series of hits against me since the beginning of the year. There's been hit pieces about every week. There was a hit piece on my security detail saying I had 30, 31 security detail. I'm wasting millions of dollars. I had about a fraction, a quarter of that. I think I had eight security detail at the time. I had a four car caravan. I had two. Another story about I'm helping certain companies with contracts. Here's what people need to understand. Day one of the administration, when President Trump asked me to come back and we entered on duty, I met with ethics attorneys.

38:10And by law, you're supposed to recuse yourself from any company you had affiliations with before. But I took it a step further. I recused myself from all federal contracts. I won't have any decision making in any federal contract. including this recent case, people are saying, I'm going to line the pockets of people. I signed that declaration. I do not make decisions in any federal contracts. And just so people know, I make about 18 % of what I've made in my company to come back and serve my nation. So my family's took a sacrifice. I've taken a sacrifice. I'm back here doing the right thing. The hit pieces keep coming, but I know who's chumming the water.

38:50I know who keeps throwing this information out and the media jumps all over it. And they're going to see some legal actions real soon. I'm working on the legal team. I'm done with it. They can attack me all they want, but we're going to take action.

39:02Michael Popok:Where's the 50 ,000, Tom? And so now the Senate, the House Democrats led by Jamie Raskin have demanded that the Department of Justice and the FBI turn over the video. Democracy Forward is with us over on Legal AF. In fact, I'm going to be interviewing Sky Perryman tomorrow about their FOIA, Freedom of Information Act request about where's the videotape and why hasn't it been turned over? You notice in there, Karen, he never denies taking the money. He just has all sorts of excuses as to why. And the fact, let me just leave it on this. The fact that he signed whatever he signed, that doesn't matter.

39:38Michael Popok:There's new reporting, for instance, that one of Donald Trump's, Steve Whitcoff, who serves as our special envoy, but is also in crypto businesses and other businesses with Trump and the Trump family, that he was on both sides of a UAE deal to make sure that they got AI chips in return for a major investment in the Trump cryptocurrency business. He's not technically in charge of that procurement. He could have signed a similar document as Tom Homan. It doesn't mean he's not whispering in the right party's ears and lobbying for it, which is what the reporting is, that he was lobbying for it behind closed doors, even though he is not technically in the chain for procurement or technically in the chain for that decision making.

40:25Michael Popok:It doesn't mean he doesn't exert tremendous influence, just like Tom Homan does. Karen, what do you think about all this? What do you think the Democrats should do about it as this new scandal rocks the Trump administration? Yeah, well, first of all, every time I see a new scandal like this, I'm like, still, you haven't, where's the Epstein files? You know, it's like just so much of this is like a distraction from Epstein. So I think we have to mention it every single day until all of that comes out. But, you know, look, I look at this. And obviously, when you read what the bribery statute is, and you look and see if this is in fact illegal, there are questions, right?

41:01We don't, we haven't heard the tape. We haven't seen the tape. We don't know what was said. But the FBI is pretty good. They know what to say. Right. They set these up. They speak to lawyers. They speak to prosecutors. They try to make sure that before they they do anything, they know exactly how to do this. They do a bag of cash because that way because he could come out and say, look, I was a lobbyist. Right. When I when I left from the first administration, I was I was a lobbyist or I was whatever whatever is, you know, he's going to say he was doing. I can take money to make introductions and that sort of thing.

41:32But when you're taking a bag of cash, right, that just looks bad. It smells bad. And the question is, right, is this going to, was he considered someone who's about to be a public official? Because that is what would be required, I think, to be part of, you know, to be prosecuted here. And we'll see if it fits the law. But it just looks bad. And that statement, as you said, when he got on the air, first of all, he kept the money, right? This wasn't a legitimate business dealing. This was an FBI agent, right, giving taxpayer dollars as sting money. So he's keeping taxpayer dollars, number one. Number two, the other thing that was weird about that statement is he basically was almost like saying, I took a pay cut.

42:17I'm making 18 % of what I used to make. Almost like he's saying, I deserve to keep that money. Like, what does that mean? Right. Why was that part of that? I don't know. That just seemed really weird to me. So I think the Democrats, if they can get a hearing and an investigation into this, I think they should. The American people deserve to know. They deserve to know exactly what this was. But we also know that Trump and his administration, they don't think bribery is a big deal. I mean, look at the Mayor Adams case, right? You have the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, who was under indictment for accepting bribes.

42:51And that case was just dismissed, completely dismissed. And that's the thing. Prosecutors have discretion to dismiss cases. And it's pretty easy to dismiss a case. Much harder to indict a case if, you know, that has no facts, like Jim Comey and the others. That will be interesting. That's a harder thing to do. You've got to find evidence and facts and convince a jury. But to dismiss a case, they can dismiss pretty much whatever they want. They have that discretion and they don't think bribery apparently is a really serious crime.

43:24Michael Popok:Right. I saw some commentators on some former prosecutors like you on MSNBC. They were like, I don't know, that's a little thing that used to be called bribery. And I don't know why it's, you know, you get Carolyn LeVette during the press, during her presser saying, get your facts straight. What are the facts? There's a video of him taking cash. I don't really understand. And it would be entrapment. Well, which is it, Carolyn? Is it he took the money? He didn't take the money because there was no sting operation or he took the money because there was entrapment. They just use it's like word salad.

43:56Michael Popok:They always accuse Kamala Harris of. It's just it's just kitchen, kitchen, magnet poetry. It's just they are words. I'm not sure she knows what they mean or what their legal import is, but they just throw out all of this stuff, hoping that the attention span of the media in the room will move on. And sometimes they're right about it. And sometimes, of course, they aren't. We are dogged, sort of laser focused on these issues and we won't let it die. And that's why they hate Midas Touch and they hate Legal AF. You know, I'm sure they didn't like the fact that Legal AF's video showed up in the hearing room when Kash Patel was being cross-examined.

44:36Michael Popok:Because they count on mainstream media and it's attention deficit disorder. You know, because they're on deadline, they're on timeline. You know, there's micro news cycles, you know, every minute, every half an hour. They have to, you know, they have to change the content. They have to change the website and the app. And that plays into the hands of Donald Trump, who's always hoping to grab the news cycle, hope the media forgets about it or won't find it interesting. Like on mainstream media, like a hundredth story about Epstein may be met, especially by the editors or the managing editors of that entity, with really, you know, is that really still a news story that people care about?

45:25Michael Popok:is that going to sell whatever over here with us. It's like this, we have to focus on this. I bump into people all the time that tell me, don't let up about the Epstein scandal or now the Holman scandal. Because not only are we gaining leverage from it, but it's important that we, at least here on Legal AF and on Midas Touch, we don't let up in our reporting. And we follow the story wherever it leads all the way through from beginning to middle to end. So that's where we are with that. Why don't we switch gears and talk about a win for 20 states and by extension, really all states in Donald Trump's attempts to go after sanctuary states.

46:09Michael Popok:There's many lawsuits like this one, but this is the one involving FEMA, which I just find to be, you know, like hurricanes and fires and mudslides. Exactly. They're blue and purple, blue and red. I mean, seriously, we're talking about people clinging to their rooftops by their fingernails, watching everything that they own blow away or drown or or whatever it is. And Donald Trump issued an executive order on January the 30th, soon after being sworn in 10 days later, in which he ordered a full review at every federal agency of every federal fund that has been allocated by Congress to go to states and figure out ways to punish blue states for refusing to cooperate with federal immigration law.

47:03Michael Popok:When I say refuse to cooperate. I don't mean they interfere. It's just that you can't by law, by constitution, you can't compel state officers and state agents to work for and conscript them into a federal army to enforce federal law. There's state law. Okay. That's our federalism system and state law enforcement will handle state law. That's what cops and sheriffs are for and state troopers and things like that and other agents. There's federal law, and federal law needs to be enforced as well, and they've got all their agents and officers and things, whether it's ICE or Border Patrol or FBI or you name it.

47:45Michael Popok:They've got their abilities to enforce alcohol, tobacco, and firearms, whatever it is. But you can't, by our laws of federalism, say to a state cop or deputy sheriff, of, hey, you over there, help me capture this person. Or, hey, you over there, participate in this federal drug interdiction thing. Or, no, you have to have your own force for that. That is well-established precedent and case law in our country. So the blue states all said, I mean, we're not gonna interfere with you, but we're not gonna help round up and capture people and send them to ICE detention. You do that. You do you. Trump didn't like that.

48:26Michael Popok:So he said, take away their FEMA funds. And now we've got a ruling by Judge Smith, a Republican appointee up in Rhode Island on behalf of 20 states, including Rhode Island and California, New York, New Jersey. And what did you take away from that ruling, Karen? He basically said, you can't do that. It's not appropriate. And this is a motion for summary judgment ruling, meaning the plaintiffs asked the court to declare that these several contested conditions that were attached to the award of these grants was beyond the scope of their authority and in violation of the Administrative Procedures Act and to rule that it's unconstitutional.

49:03and the whole, the court held that indeed it was arbitrary and capricious and thus invalid under the Administrative Procedures Act and in violation of the spending clause and unconstitutional and granted the motion for summary judgment. That means the case is dismissed. And, and that's great because, you know, they are, or I shouldn't say cases, it basically says you can't do that, right? You cannot withhold the funds. And so I think that that's a great thing for now, Obviously, of course, now that you see that these things go up to the Supreme Court, ultimately, Trump appeals to the Supreme Court that rules on the shadow docket, right, without full briefing and stays things or, you know, gets them to do his bidding for them.

49:45But this is a temporary, very good ruling. And, you know, frankly, it is so outrageous to, as you said, withhold these funds. I mean, these are life-saving emergency funds that Congress, you know, FEMA's been around since, I think, the 1950s and gives lots of money to states. It's almost like the country's insurance policy. Like, it could happen to anybody. You never know when it's going to happen to you. And when it does, FEMA steps in to help because today it could be me, tomorrow it could be you. I mean, this is part of the social contract we all pay into with our taxes. And this is what Congress has appropriated this money to be used for FEMA for this emergency relief.

50:27The president is not allowed to say, oh, well, I don't like you because you're a blue state and you're not following my policy, so I'm going to withhold that. I'm glad to see that the courts are holding the line still. And this is a good one.

50:40Michael Popok:Absolutely. And, you know, even the Supreme Court surprises us sometimes. Like, as we came on the air, we're still waiting six, seven days in to the Supreme Court making a decision about whether they're going to rule for or against Lisa Cook and the independence of the Federal Reserve. I mean, they wanted full briefing about whether they should grant a stay to block the trial judge's order keeping Lisa Cook in as Federal Reserve governor. She already has participated in one rate setting meeting. She's still working, presumably. It would disturb the status quo to take her out of her chair. and after full briefing, we're still six days out and we don't have apparently a consensus now, like later tonight or even during the show, something could come out with the Supreme Court.

51:32Michael Popok:But I'm not sure it's a good thing for the Trump administration that it's taking this long to try to find five votes to, and that's the scramble, right? Is there five votes to find that Lisa Cook's due process was violated and that the courts can review it? So we're going to talk about another case that's similar related to the Federal Trade Commission and Rebecca Slaughter later in the pod. But sometimes they surprise us. Like you would have thought if they had the votes, they would have already taken her out of her job. And I think her still being in her job is a very, very good thing. But look, if I was Donald Trump, I would keep banging away at the United States Supreme Court on an emergency docket, too.

52:13Michael Popok:He's winning 84 % of the time at the United States Supreme Court. And by comparison, for those that are wondering, I wonder what percentage Biden won. Biden won 52 % of the time on emergency applications. And how would you explain the 30 % difference? Politics. Politics. There's a reason that Alito and Thomas vote with Trump 92 % of the time and voted with Biden almost never. OK, it's nothing to do with like maybe Biden didn't have as meritorious legal arguments. Forget that. This is this is all politics. You can see it in the numbers. But he's losing. By contrast, Trump is losing in the 90 percent percentile at the state court level.

52:56Michael Popok:I mean, sorry, at the federal trial court level, like Judge Smith, a Bush appointee up in Rhode Island and in appellate courts. So you have this weird battle between federal district courts and appellate courts who are resoundingly rejecting Trump's doctrine of rule of law abuse and the unbridled power of the executive branch, whereas it's their bosses at the United States Supreme Court are ruling overwhelmingly in his favor in the, you know, 20 or 30 cases that make their way there. on the emergency docket. I have a question for you. Sure. What do you think that Biden should have expanded the number of Supreme Court justices and packed the court?

53:43Now, I know there were reasons at the time that we said it would about the legitimacy of the court and that's purely political and all that. Seeing where we are now and seeing what's happening today, does that change your view of whether he should have?

53:56Michael Popok:I don't think he had the political capital to pull that off. I I mean, other than the first two years post-COVID, you know, Joe, as much as he was the right person for the job at the first half of his administration, but the second half of his administration, because of his own issues that have become more public and then the Hunter Biden thing, I think he lost a lot of the ability to swing that. You know, it's one thing for FDR at the height of his powers during the Depression when he was so popular that not only did he win like the first two terms, he won two other terms. You know, you have to be at the height of your your political power in order to pull off something like that.

54:40Michael Popok:Yes, the Constitution doesn't talk about how many seats there are in the United States Supreme Court. Yes, we've had more or less of the Supreme Court over time. But you have to also have the juice to pull that off. I just don't think he did. That's why he went to let's do a blue ribbon panel. Let's make some recommendations. Now, having said that, I do think that whoever comes into power for the Democrats, hopefully in 2028, does bump up that court to 12 or 15. 15 is a very nice sounding number because 15 gives, you know, another six. And that would give nine votes for people that aren't named Donald Trump or Trump supporters.

55:24Michael Popok:It would be nine six instead of the six three thing that we're constantly seeing against our most people's vision of what the United States and its constitutional republic and rule of law should be about. We got to get rid of, we have to neutralize this group that gave Donald Trump criminal immunity and destroyed the balance of power and the three co-equal branches of government. Because we don't have three co-equal branches of government anymore. And we have a president who doesn't believe they're co-equal. We have to like, in order to neutralize them, we have to do what FDR wanted to do, pack the court.

55:59Michael Popok:But to answer your question, I just don't think Biden had to, it would have been great, but I don't think Biden had the juice to do it. And certainly I don't think he had the, there were so many things he needed to do that he also didn't do. Like he wasn't even able to get all of his federal judges on the court. I don't know if he would have had enough. And then there's also a question of what's the role of Congress in approving that. And he certainly didn't have Congress for most of his term. Yeah. You know, so that's that. Yeah, it's just such a dismaster. Right. But hopefully if we sweep in and control the three branches of government, that is certainly a legitimate discussion to have.

56:33Michael Popok:is should we have a 15-person Supreme Court like other countries do? Because nine is not a magic number. I mean, it's not even the number on a baseball team. It's like, this is nine. It could be six. It was lower in the past. I think it should be an odd number. No, it should be an odd number. 15 is an odd number, right? Well, no, I know, but that's why like six, 12. I'm just saying, ultimately, it should be an odd number. Yeah, it can't be 12. Yeah, I agree with you. I agree with all that. So when we come back from our last break, which we're supported by our sponsors here, thank you to our Legal AF sponsors, we're going to talk about something related to waiting on the United States Supreme Court for its decision about Lisa Cook on the Federal Reserve.

57:19Michael Popok:this time about this, what was like, I didn't even study Humphrey's executory. Or if I did, I forgot I studied it in law school. Unless you're in kind of that world, that rarefied world, and there are lawyers who are, that handle, you know, kind of this administrative area, you know, it was sort of like the, you know, the rap, the rule against perpet, the rule of Shelley's case, you know, like you heard it, but you never in 35 years ever thought you'd have to deal with it. And with Donald Trump, we have so many firsts. And now the question is, is the United States Supreme Court going to throw away a 95-year-old president, spoiler alert, they are, to allow Donald Trump just to pack all of these commissions and agencies, the SEC, the FTC, the CFTC, you know, the NLRB, well, we'll define all those later, and just pack them filled with MAGA.

58:10Michael Popok:And the answer to that is going to be yes, but we'll talk about the reason why. But of course, we've got ways to support Legal AF. Become a member of Legal AF YouTube. Become a member, there it is, of the Legal AF sub stack. Support the Legal AF YouTube channel, five years in the making, both audio and video. The reason we are in the top 50 in all the charts that matter about Legal AF after this amount of time has, yeah, something to do with the content, but mostly to do with the audience being so fervently in the community that we've built, being so fervently in support of what we do and how we do it.

58:49Michael Popok:And we appreciate it. But we still need to keep growing, you know, this world that we live in. We don't have an outside marketing firm and we do the best that we can, but we really rely on everybody in the audience to bring in new members, new friends, new families, you know, children and college students and different things that are hurting and struggling in this world that Donald Trump is trying to create. And Legal AF is a home for people that feel abandoned and feel powerless. And we're glad that you're here. So let's take our last break. If you've been noticing hair loss, thinning or shedding lately, you have to hear this.

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1:02:40Michael Popok:Welcome back. Thank you for being so supportive of all the things we do here on Legal AF. All right, Karen, homestretch. Why don't you tell the audience about Humphrey's executor and what the Supreme Court has just done, which indicates, I think, to both of us that Humphrey's executor is not long for this world and what is its impact on federal agencies and commissions and regulatory bodies created by Congress but are part of the executive branch? Yeah, so there's certain agencies created by Congress that were meant to be bipartisan or nonpartisan, right? So you want to have the, you don't want politics infecting decision making in certain agencies.

1:03:23And one of those agencies here is the Federal Trade Commission. And the Federal Trade Commission is an agency that is supposed to be doing what's in the best interest of trade, of consumers, of business, and not necessarily be at the whim of whatever political party is in power. And essentially what it looks like is they are going to, and there's a case from almost 100 years ago that people call the Humphreys Executor case involving an FTC commissioner. And basically the case is you can only fire one of these individuals for cause. This is who's sort of one of the commissioners, one of these neutral commissioners.

1:04:15And you can only fire them for cause, meaning they did something wrong while they were on the job or they're somehow not qualified while they're on the job. They have to have done something wrong. There has to be a reason. And what Donald Trump has been doing, and frankly, the Supreme Court's been allowing in many cases, is that he can fire these commissioners or these board members who are supposed to be protected and who are not supposed to be able to be fired unless there is some sort of cause. And so everyone's been kind of hinting that this Humphreys executor, this case, this law that has existed, it's going to be overturned because they're hinting at that by allowing certain individuals to be fired by Trump for no reason.

1:05:00And so what is happening now is on an emergency docket, it basically said that in an FTC particular commissioner, essentially said, you know what, you can fire her, that you can absolutely fire her. And, you know, in the emergency docket, which means it was not fully briefed, it's not fully argued. It's just one of these emergency kind of, no, there's a stay, I'm staying the stay, and I'm keeping the stay in place, you know, of all, that's how these things bubble up. And the three liberal justices were, and Justice Kagan wrote the dissent, but was joined by Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who basically said, we all know what you're doing.

1:05:52You're basic, but do it the right way. At least do it fully briefed. We know you're overruling Humphrey's executor. We know you're basically saying, you know what, this Congress created this law and establishing this agency, but the agency has expanded its powers over all these years since Congress created it. And now it's much more executive branch like. And we know. And so therefore, this this doesn't apply anymore. And and you can do this. And they basically said, look, then do it the right way. Don't do it in this emergency shadow docket here where nothing's brief. No one knows the reason why.

1:06:28And essentially, they essentially overruled a historical precedent, a very, very established precedent that's been around for a long time. And without any briefing, without any reason, without anything. And that's essentially what's happening. And she called them out on it like she has been all along. So I think this is what's happening here. I'm curious to hear from you, though, why this is different than who you just talked about, right? Why is it that this one they're allowing to be fired, but the other they – Well, I mean, yeah, okay.

1:07:06Michael Popok:So there seems to be a limit to how much they are willing to give Donald Trump in terms of power to fire at will everybody in the executive branch. See, the problem is that while Congress creates agencies and departments and will be Congress to create another agency or department anytime soon, because now they have to understand that whoever the president is at the time will automatically pack it with political cronies. And there will never be any longer a bipartisan or nonpartisan regulatory agency or commission ever because of the rulings by the United States Supreme Court. Because having granted this stay, keeping Rebecca Slaughter off the CFTC and asking people to brief for November and December term the issue of whether Humphrey's executor is inconsistent with executive power, just saying it out loud.

1:08:08Michael Popok:Now, every time Congress creates one of these things, if they ever do it again, they have to acknowledge that they can never require bipartisan, nonpartisan people on there. Which I've said, rather than wring our hands as Democrats and non-MAGA and say, oh, another loss at the Supreme Court. Donald Trump won again. He gets everything. I look at it a different way. I see it as a gift. Now, we're going to use. Okay, we know we had our upset day that there's no longer nonpartisan commissions and agencies. Okay, get over it. There isn't. And so if the Democrats come back into power, or when they do, in 2028, every board and commission from the NLRB to the Securities and Exchange Commission, to the Commodities Futures and Trade Commission, to the Federal Trade Commission, to the FCC, and the rest, except for the Federal Reserve, are going to be occupied with Democrats.

1:09:11Michael Popok:Every Republican will be fired on site. That is what the Supreme Court has allowed us to do. And we now should take full advantage of it and stop wringing our hands over it. So that's that. As to the Federal Reserve. Yeah. Why? Why is that one different? Okay. Well, you remember the case from May in Gwen Wilcox and the NLRB case. Technically, from an analytical standpoint, there is no difference. They have a sliding scale that they use. They say the more executive power that an executive agency or commission created by Congress exercises, the more they're going to allow the president to fire at will and not have any of these things like staggered terms and no one party can occupy more chairs than the other over a period of time.

1:09:59Michael Popok:All that's gone if they are found to exercise a lot of executive power, because they think that's inconsistent with the unitary executive model, which means all power is reposited in the office of the president for that branch. So, however, having said that, and so far no agency or commission has passed the test. All of they found all of them exercise too much executive power to not allow Donald Trump to fire them and reshape those commissions. He hasn't even reshaped them. Some of them he's put out of business. There is no merit systems protection board because there's only one person on it and there's no quorum.

1:10:40Michael Popok:And he hasn't replaced any of the other people. The National Labor Relations Board has no quorum because he hasn't replaced it. They're out of business, which is what he really wanted to do. And I would have thought that on the Federal Reserve, even though it's independent and it was created bipartisan and it's the central bank, that they would bend over backwards to find a way to give it to the president. But they didn't. So when Gwen Wilcox, who was the head of the National Labor Relations Board, argued, if you allow Trump to fire me, what's next? The Federal Reserve, that could be next. They kind of threw that argument in there.

1:11:19Michael Popok:So when they wrote the decision in May in allowing Donald Trump to fire Gwen Wilcox, they effectively said, no, no, you're fired. But the Federal Reserve that you raised as an example, we're going to spend a whole paragraph talking about we're going to protect the Federal Reserve because they were worried about Donald Trump. That was the last line firewall that the Supreme Court put up for whatever reason. And they started with really a historical, a misapplication of history, if that's possible. They said, well, the Federal Reserve is very similar to our first and second banks of the United States, you know, like the Alexander Hamilton banks.

1:12:01Michael Popok:And because of that and their unique role in American in the American government and their and their independence, we're not going to allow those were created differently. And we're not going to allow the president to fire them except for cause. And then without defining what for cause was. So when we read that, we were like, oh, they're trying to protect Jay Powell. They don't want Jay Powell fired. The question is, what are they going to do with the governor right below Jay Powell? There's seven of them on the Board of Governors. And so only if we didn't have the Wilcox decision from May, which gave us a window into the thinking of at least five, if not six Supreme Court justices, I would tell you that Lisa Cook's on life support.

1:12:45Michael Popok:But we have the benefit of the May decision, which I think is tying them up in knots about how I think some of them want Lisa Cook on the Supreme Court. They want him to be able to fire him. But others are saying, is that what we want when the president is a Democrat? And so there's that struggle going on. And this is not just to leave it at this, Karen. This is not about Wilcox, a one person. This is about gaining nine. nine, he gets Gwen Wilcox, he gets nine out of the 12 votes on the Federal Open Markets Committee, which is more than enough to set interest rates, which is what he wants to do in getting control of monetary.

1:13:25Michael Popok:Because the seven board of governors, by majority, pick the 12 members of the Federal Reserve Regional Banks. And from that 12, five serve on the Federal Open Markets Committee, along with the seven board of governors making a new committee of 12. And right now he's only got three votes out of 12. So he loses every time, nine to three or whatever it's gonna be. He wants to flip it the other way. He gets rid of Lisa Cook, he gets nine votes, he sets interest rates. And then you'll start bringing in a shopping cart filled with cash to pay for your groceries because that's what's gonna happen with hyperinflation in this country.

1:14:05Michael Popok:if Donald Trump gets control of the money spigot by setting interest rates at like one or two percent. Right. Wow. Yeah, it's bad. So changing the subject, did you see the Jimmy Kimmel? Did you see Jimmy Kimmel last night? I read a transcript of what he said. Do you have I thought he was great. I don't know what people doesn't solve the problem. First of all, you know, he still wasn't on 50 or 60 ABC affiliates because, you know, we're all learning about how affiliates work and they're in control of a company. And that company also is a control of papers like The Hill, news media outlets like people.

1:14:46Michael Popok:And I read The Hill sometimes. That's owned by Gen Star or Star Gen or whatever the heck it is that owns all of those 200 TV stations. So he's not everybody got to see Jimmy Kimmel last night. Well, they could go on YouTube, which has like 8 million. He has like 8 million views last night. I mean, he's got the most views. I think he broke the record on YouTube. I think he beat everything. His YouTube, it's probably even higher now. So I think everyone can see it. I think he was pitch perfect. I think he was great. But what I love the most about it is you kind of watch democracy work differently, right?

1:15:23Is people started canceling their subscriptions and then they listened. And it just, I bring it up because it shows the power we all still have, right? It's not just to vote. It's also not just at the ballot box. It's in decisions like this. And when you come together and you make intentional decisions like that, I do think our voices were heard. and this problem's not solved. It's still going. It's still, you know, the whole FCC thing is a shit show and Brendan Carr is a disaster and it's like a mafia boss. But it was a glimmer of hope and happiness for me to watch it. I liked it.

1:16:01Michael Popok:Yeah, I'm not sure how to buy people's hope and happiness. I mean, the question is, what was the deal, which we don't know about, to get Kimmel back on the air? Was there a deal? Is he going to temper his comments? Are we going to see over time the same Jimmy Kimmel being a critic to this administration? Or is he going to, quote unquote, tone it down? He didn't tone it down last night. He didn't tone it down. We're going to see what he's going to do. I mean, as we're on the air, you know, Comedy Central is still up and running. South Park is still up and running. Oh, God. Jon Stewart and John Oliver are still up and running.

1:16:35Michael Popok:You know, so, yes, it was a positive result. that but we know why abc as you said why abc did it they didn't do it because they're the bastions to protect first amendment no god no disney they did it because hulu got canceled around the yeah but that's my point is we have to throw out all the people like because a lot of those people are people who are watching this very show i could tell you that right now and so i think it's amazing and i want to just shout out to the people who who you know who are making a difference yeah And Hollywood did it too. The agents called the 400 actors that signed the ACLU letter, spoke, and they all said, you're going to be a pariah.

1:17:15Michael Popok:We're not going to do, no one's going to want to appear on Disney or Hulu or ABC at this rate. They were like, we better put Jimmy Kimmel back on the air. I'm like, well, obviously, but you're right. We are bigger than them. I'm going to say it again. We, and I don't just mean the legal AF community or Midas Touch. We are bigger than them. And it's time for the Slighting Giant to be awake now. I don't know what that phrase I was trying to use. To wake up. It's time. But our problem, I guess it's not a problem, is a timing issue. There's ways that we can act out as we just did. There's ways, but the voting doesn't start for another year.

1:17:57Michael Popok:And I know we're chomping at the bit, we're frustrated, but that's the binary political system that we have. Polling is great. His poll numbers, Trump's poll numbers are in the trash can. I mean, if the vote was held today, he would go down, I believe, in flames. Although the Democrats still have some issues, as you pointed out earlier, and their polling is not great on, you know, he's still polling higher. Republican brand is still polling higher than Democratic brand on the economy and immigration and crime. We got to fix that. We got to show that we got to remind people what the democratic brand is all about.

1:18:30Michael Popok:But no, I'm not going to crap all over Jimmy Kimmel's return. I'm glad that Jimmy Kimmel's back. I did my show, The Intersection, yesterday, and I said, there's two shows hopefully you like watching on Tuesday nights and one just returned, Kimmel. And that's a good thing. But Kimmel's become more than that. He's become a martyr. You know, Donald Trump made Jimmy Kimmel into the martyr, not Charlie Kirk and the way he handled this. And he's become the vessel through which all of our frustration and all of our fear and our criticism of the Trump administration about the First Amendment now rest on the slender shoulders of Jimmy Kimmel.

1:19:06Michael Popok:They'll be forever late, Charlie Kirk and Jimmy Kimmel, you know, whenever the history writes that chapter. And now, you know, what side were you on? That's what history is going to judge you on. What side are you on? And I think I'm glad that our Legal AF community is here with us. I'm glad that we had a hand in, however small, in building this community. I subscribe to the hummingbird theory. Every little thing helps. Being here, being in the chat, watching the audio, watching the video, being on Legal AF YouTube, being on the Midas Touch Network, being on our sub stack, being with like-minded people that vibrate on the same frequency.

1:19:45Michael Popok:That all helps accomplish and focus our attention on places that we can make change. And I think that's why we're here together. Karen, it's the new year. So you get your, although that might have been your final word. No, I have one more thing I want to say. You know, something happened this week that really hit hard for me in a really difficult way, which was the terrible autism press conference with the Tylenol and all the words that were used to describe people who have autism and families who live with autism and the lack of science, pseudoscience, that was being touted as if this is somehow something that people should listen to.

1:20:34Well, meanwhile, the weirdest RFK junior who, I don't know, he looks like he's going to a tanning salon or something like and cooking his skin. He's like, he has this like over charred skin in the background. I don't know what he's doing. Clearly, that's not healthy. But the language that was being used, how they were talking about people who are autistic or who have family members who are autistic was just so upsetting and so offensive. And, you know, I've spoken about it before. You know, one of my children is on the autism spectrum and she's the light of my life and the delight. And I wouldn't change a thing about her.

1:21:16And I know millions of other people feel the same way. And I think it's dangerous to start talking about things like this and to really give misinformation that has no basis in science to women who are pregnant. And so I just wanted to mention it because, frankly, my favorite people in the world have autism. I think they're the most interesting and the most spicy and have the coolest brains I've ever met in my life. There's nothing better than talking to someone who has autism.

1:21:46Michael Popok:So I wanted to thank you for sharing that. You know, I was I was thinking about it with you about covering the RFK Jr. Trump Tylenol press conference because I knew of your link to it. But, you know, I'm glad you brought it up. You know, it's such utter and complete unscientific bullshit. And now that may be the final nail in JFK Jr.'s coffin. Because if he loses the MAGA doctors that are on the oversight committee, which it looks like he has, who are now demanding to see the science, no science, behind that attack on Tylenol. If I were Tylenol, I would like to sue the government for defamation.

1:22:27Michael Popok:I know. I was wondering when they're going to do that. They told them not. They went to Tylenol and said, we're about to issue this release. They said, don't do that. You know, Tylenol, you know, when you and I were younger, you know, already had a major issue where somebody was tampering with Tylenol and people died as a result. They recovered from that. You know, it was a case study on how to how to save your brand. And now they have to do it all over again because RFK Jr. woke up one day and said there's a link between, and my wife used Tylenol during, not every day, but during her pregnancy.

1:23:00Michael Popok:And, you know, these ridiculous linkages. This is why Dr. Monterey left after three weeks because he wanted her to endorse this. It's not even pseudoscience is giving too much credit to the pseudo or the science. You know, R.F.K. Jr. wanted a real live doctor and scientist who was the head of the CDC to endorse these ridiculous connections. You know, if he wants to make these connections, he should go back where he came from, go on QAnon and go slide down the dark web. And he can make these comments every day. But for him, it's criminal malpractice for him to kill Americans and to make these kind of connections while he's our public health official.

1:23:44Michael Popok:And hopefully this will be the wake up call for even MAGA in Congress to get RFK Jr. out. I mean, if this was just to show you the benefit of winning in the midterms, he would be impeached. This would be an impeachable offense and hopefully convicted and removed. But for now, we're going to have to rely on MAGA. So I'm so glad you shared that with us. Yeah. Yeah. So we've reached the end of another Legal AF midweek. Michael Popak and Karen Freeman Ignifolo. This video, of course, people watching, appreciate each and every one of you. Video goes up on Midas Touch. And then we have the Substack for Legal AF, the YouTube for Legal AF, and of course, our pro-democracy sponsors.

1:24:27Michael Popok:Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

1:24:59Michael Popok:We'll see you next time.

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