Trump DOJ Judge Complaint Backfires With Total Exoneration

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2:30Michael Popok:Pam Bondi and Donald Trump's well-worn strategy of attacking federal judges they don't like and they don't like their rulings has hit a major roadblock because the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit, Jeff Sutton, has exonerated Chief Judge Jeb Bosberg of the D.C. District Court. Donald Trump doesn't like him because he wants to hold the Trump administration, Department of Justice, and Kristi Noem ultimately in contempt. He's made a series of rulings that shows that the Trump administration has been openly defiant and contumacious of his decisions, and they don't like it. So they immediately ran and filed some ridiculous manufactured ethics charge, claiming that four days before Jeb Boesburg was even assigned the case, which we call JGG, about 200 Venezuelan men who Donald Trump tried to make disappear in the middle of the night without due process over federal court orders by Jeb Boesberg.

3:30Michael Popok:He didn't even get the case until March of 2015. On March 11, he was at a judicial conference hosted by Chief Justice John Roberts, a friend of his, and he said that he had a fear of open defiance. This is Jeff Boesburg, open defiance, and that the Trump administration would not comply with court orders. That was March of last year. Boy, was his crystal ball, right? But the Trump administration didn't like that because within days, he found that the Trump administration was in open defiance of his orders. They said, aha, look, he was at a judicial conference. He said it out loud. He prejudged the case.

4:09Michael Popok:He was always going to find us to be in contempt. No, you're in contempt because you are openly defying the case law and the orders of federal judges. We just had a chief judge in all of the Minnesota federal courts, Judge Schultz, say out loud in an order that in the month of January 2026 alone, one month, that ICE had violated orders of those courts 96 times in one month. More, the judge speculated, than some agencies or departments of the government have ever violated in their entire history. So they didn't like that. They ran, they filed an ethics charge in front of the chief judge of the D.C.

4:55Circuit Court, Judge Srivanasen, who sent it to the Sixth Circuit to avoid a conflict.

5:00Michael Popok:and even though the ruling apparently came out on December the 19th, the media, we are just getting it now. I'm Michael Popok. I'll break it down for you right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. While you're here, hit the free subscribe button here, but come over to Legal AF YouTube channel and help do the exact same thing, continue to build our pro-democracy independent network there as well. All right, let's talk about what happened. March 11th Judicial Conference, hosted by the Chief Justice, Now, as a bit of a background, Bozberg is middle-of-the-road Republican. He was nominated by Obama, but also nominated by Bush.

5:39Michael Popok:He's friends with John Roberts, who put him on the spy court. He was the roommate in law school with Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. He's a well-liked judge, a judge's judge. They just don't like the fact that he's trying to hold the Trump administration accountable. He pulled everybody into a hearing on March the 15th, And he issued orders to stop planes from going in the middle of the night any longer to El Salvador's Cicot prison without due process. He was ultimately upheld by the Supreme Court, who said habeas corpus is the right thing to do to bring these people in on due process wherever they reside.

6:16Michael Popok:I mean, they quibbled about his procedure, but not about the underlying substance. He then started criminal contempt proceedings after these planes continued to fly. Well, what happened to those 200 men? They were eventually horse traded through the Trump administration with El Salvador back to Venezuela before Donald Trump took over the oil fields of Venezuela, hoping that they would get out from under federal jurisdiction. But no, the American Civil Liberties Union, who represents those men, is still representing them. And Jeb Boesberg is still involved with the case. We've got a filing that will be coming out today by the Department of Justice.

6:53Michael Popok:this, there's a hearing a week from today about due process that the Trump administration will have to provide these 137 men who are now spread out among Venezuela and other third countries. So all of this came to a mix because the Trump administration got pissed off by these rulings. And so in July, several months after March, they filed a judicial complaint alleging that he had violated these canons of ethics because he made this statement allegedly at the judicial conference and because he's ruling against them. And so the Judge Sutton, in his memorandum and order, which I have up on Legal AF Substack, he says, let me summarize it, then I'll read parts of it.

7:39Michael Popok:The judge says, you're coming to me with two complaints. And this is made by Chad Mizell, who was the then chief of staff for Pam Bondi, now out of the government back in Florida, where he was the chief of staff for her in Florida when she was the attorney general there. Two complaints. One, that Jeb Boesberg at a judicial conference hosted by the Chief Justice Roberts on March the 11th made a comment about his fear that the Trump administration would openly defy federal court orders. How's he doing with that prediction? Don't I start every hot take with another federal court order has been contumaciously violated, willfully violated by the Trump administration.

8:19Michael Popok:Oh, they said, oh, you can't make that statement. That's prejudging. That's engaging all of the judges in these issues. And it's far afield from what you should be discussing at a judicial conference. And the chief judge of the Sixth Circuit, where it got sent to resolve, said, no, first of all, you didn't give me the piece of paper, the exhibit that you say represents that statement. that he made. I know the Federalist Society is reported on it. I know that the Fox News is reported on it. But where's the evidence? You need to carry the burden of evidence. So the judge says, even if you gave me that piece of paper, which you did not, even if that statement was made, it is not so far afield from the tradition of the conference that a judge can't make that ruling, especially given the Trump administration.

9:03Michael Popok:So for that, X, no ethics charge. The second one, he said, you're really complaining about his rulings. I'm not a court. I'm an ethics panel, if you will. And I'm dismissing your complaint. He said, if you've got a problem with his rulings in this case, some of which have been upheld, some of which have been reversed by various appellate court judges, and you don't think he's following the law, okay, then argue that it's misconduct. File a motion for recusal or disqualification and let it work its way up the court system. If it gets recused and removed, the chief judge in that circuit, Judge Srivastan, can reassign it to another judge or use that as the basis for an appeal.

9:48Michael Popok:But you've come to the, you're barking up the wrong tree. You've come to the wrong court. And so, and I don't see anything based on the rulings that have been made that would make me change my mind. Complaint for ethics dismissed. Hey, everybody. Ben Mycelis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popak's new law firm. It's called the Popak Firm. Michael Popak's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm, really based on the popular demand by all the Midas mighty and legal AFers who are approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us?

10:28And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popak firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popak's firm is free. Give him a call. See if you have a case. It's thepopakfirm.com, thepopakfirm.com, or you can call 877-POPAKAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877-P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popak a call. And I'm really proud of you, Popak. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.

11:15Michael Popok:Let me just read you from how the judge got here. He said, after conducting an initial review, this is on page three over to four, the chief judge of a circuit may dismiss a complaint of judicial misconduct if he concludes that the claim conduct, even if it occurred, is not prejudicial to the expeditious and effective administration of the business of the courts, is directly related to the merits of a decision, is frivolous, the complaint is frivolous, or lacks any evidence. And then he says the complaint here warrants dismissal under all these grounds. And the main one is they didn't come forward with any evidence.

11:56Michael Popok:He says on page of four, the department identified one source of evidence, attachment A, this is the first full paragraph for the judge's statement and for the setting in which it occurred. The complaint did not include the attachment. That's the document making the charge. The D.C. Circuit contacted the department about the missing attachment and explained that if it failed to submit the attachment, they would consider the complaint without it. The department never supplied that evidence. You lose. You lose. But of course, he goes on to say, even if you submitted it, it's not going to help your case.

12:31Michael Popok:Now, let's talk about defiance of court orders. I don't know. I've done a couple of thousand videos in the last four years, including the end of the first Trump administration and now the start of the second Trump administration. Certainly hundreds and hundreds in this administration already. How many of them have been about court defiance by the Department of Justice, ICE, the Trump administration, whomever, of a court order? You know, hundreds, hundreds. In one court alone, as I said, 96 orders in January. So you just have to multiply that. It's tens of thousands of orders have probably been violated.

13:11Michael Popok:And we're allowed to comment on that. We're allowed to comment on what we are watching, you know, under First Amendment, under litigation privilege, whatever you want to call it. We don't, we can't, we're not bound and gagged like, oh my God, there's a, there's another violation of a court order. I can't say anything because why? This is not how democracy, our constitutional republic, our rule of law works. But they try, you see, whether it's attacking the press, the media, the independent journalists like Don Lemon or the Washington Post reporter or going after ABC or CBS or the Pulitzer Prize board or the New York Times or Midas Touch or Legal AF.

13:54Michael Popok:Or here, going after judges. It's trying to change their behavior, to chill their conduct, their First Amendment expression from doing their job. Look, I've spoken off the record with federal judges, ex-federal judges who have appeared on the show preparing for a story, and they've told me it is having an impact. Some judges are like, I didn't sign up for this. I don't, if I, I would normally write this sentence in my opinion, but I'm not going to because I don't want my family or me doxed, attacked, the vitriol, the ethics charges, you know, we'll never know the sentence, the opinion, the order not written because of Donald Trump's abuse.

14:41Michael Popok:Now, some of course, are profiles in courage. We've talked about those judges, Judge Schultz, Judge Menendez, Judge Tostrup in Minnesota, the federal judges against Donald Trump's birthright citizenship decision, the three or four federal judges on the United States Supreme Court that we talk about at length, those in Massachusetts, in Rhode Island, in New Jersey, in New York, in California, in Washington state that stand up for justice every day. And there are dozens and dozens and dozens of federal judges. And by and large, we are prevailing in the courts, especially the district courts, usually the appellate courts, occasionally the United States Supreme Court.

15:27Michael Popok:And we've got to just keep doing that. As the ACLU says, I'm probably going to butcher this, we have to delay, defeat, and dilute, right? Using crowds, courts, and courage. Slow the bad things down that we can slow down. Reverse the ones that we can get courts to reverse. Or challenge the Trump administration into blinking and playing chicken with them, which we often do and win. That's why there's billions of dollars of aid to states and organizations still flowing, because the attorneys general, the public interest groups ran to court, and the Trump administration folded quietly, didn't take the appeal, didn't follow through with the appeal, funded the money.

16:12Michael Popok:I could do weeks of episodes just where the Trump administration folded, and the American people were benefited. But in order to do that, you got to be in court, and you got to be here on Legal AF and on Midas Touch. Thanks for being here. I'm Michael Popock. Hit the free subscribe button. Help us over on the sub stack for Legal AF where I'm running a 35 % sale for annual membership just to get that ecosystem up and running. Thank you very much. Until my next report. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF sub stack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

16:54Michael Popok:You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

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