Trump in Cold Sweat as Texas Judge Nears Extraditing ICE Agent to Stand Trial in Minnesota?

0:00Michael Popok:Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. The things that happened in Minnesota and to the American people by extension during the use and the abuse of ICE and Homeland Security that led to the deaths on the streets of Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Preddy and others like the shooting of Julio Sosa-Selis have not been forgotten, certainly not by our audience, certainly not by Legal AF and not by the people of the United States. by me. And there's a case we've been following closely and that we reported on at the time where an ICE officer named Christian Castro, along with another partner, was doing a traffic stop of this Venezuelan resident, Julio Sosa Salas.

0:50Michael Popok:And when he ran into his house, we now know from video footage, the ICE officer Castro fired through a door, hit Castro. There was a child in there as well, complete reckless disregard for anything that was happening on the other side of the business end of his pistol, and then lied about it and said that Julio Sosceles and his friend used brooms and shovels to attack them until the video came out. And then we reported that ICE and Homeland Security had to go to a federal court and dismiss an indictment against Julio Sosceles and his friend and admit false testimony had been used to obtain an indictment.

1:35Michael Popok:And then we sent her in and said, okay, what about the officers? Or shouldn't they be investigated and prosecuted by the Department of Justice? Well, leave it to Minnesota, leave it to Keith Ellison, the attorney general, the Hennepin County attorney, Mary Moriarty, to bring charges. And now the fight, which is going on literally as we are recording this video, is in a Texas federal courtroom because the Texas governor, Abbott, supported by his attorney general, is refusing to send back Christian Castro to Minnesota to face charges, the four counts of second-degree assault, the one count of a misdemeanor for false report.

2:13Michael Popok:And he's just, what? Extradite. And so what did we have to do? We had to have Keith Ellison's office and Mary Moriarty's office intervene and file motions to get that fugitive back to Minnesota for justice. And of course, we've got the great Attorney General from Minnesota, Keith Ellison, with us. Hi, Keith. Hey, good to see you, Mike. How's it going, man? Hey, you ran that down perfectly well. But it's going on right now in a courtroom. Well, right. Actually, the court hearing has started and completed. At this point, you know, what we have is that our assistant attorney general has made arguments before the court.

2:55We commend the court for listening in a professional judicial manner. And I also want to commend the Texas Rangers who have been professional all along. And of course, the sheriff of Cameron County has been operating in a professional manner. Everybody has been doing their job, what they're supposed to do, except for Governor Abbott. Abbott. Governor Abbott has a ministerial duty, just a paperwork kind of duty, to sign extradition papers to return fugitives who are being sought by the state that they fled from. And the governor has refused to do his job, which is very strange because Minnesota extradites people back to Texas And Texas extradites people back to Minnesota, in fact, has done three since Castro was arrested.

3:49But none of those three were ICE agents. None of those three were accused of shooting people in the in the course of Operation Metro Search. And so I think this I mean, I think it's an unmistakable symbol that the that the governor is trying to send, which is that when it comes to ICE violence, they will get sanctuary in Texas. And that's a very disturbing scenario. But we're not. But we're. But, you know, we have faith in the justice system. You know, we we believe that the court is going to make the right decision. The court did not rule from the bench. The court has signaled or indicated that he wishes to issue a decision as early as tomorrow, which is important because under Texas law, you know, the 90th day is.

4:48uh coming fast and so we need to get some expeditious action so they're holding him

4:54Michael Popok:under a fugitive statute for the 90 days that expires on thursday right by time this goes up it'll be the day the judge is going to have to make his decision judge fernando rodriguez and and you've had to go into court your people you know moriarty's people to implore that castro not be released, be recaptured, but that he be sent back on extradition. And even, so if the governor opposes it, which he has, in making political statements outside the courtroom, like, well, if the governor of Minnesota will admit to a fraud about whatever, I'll sign the extradition papers. If he doesn't sign it, can the court through a mandamus or other type of action force the extradition.

5:39Yes. Yes. And that's the relief we're looking for. Yeah. You know, for your listeners, you know, a writ of mandamus is simply a legal way to force an officer who has a duty to do that duty. You know, you know, that's what that is. And so that would be the form of the order that would say you must do this. And then we don't, even if the court, even if the district court rules according to the Constitution and the Extradition Act of 1793.

6:14Michael Popok:It's been on the books for a minute. It's been on the books for a little while. Even if they do that, then, you know, if we may need to, there may be an appeal process. I would hope there would not be one, a long one, but you just really never know how committed they are to wrongdoing. You know, I can say this for a law and order governor who, you know, the law and the order is to sign the extradition papers and he has refused to do it. So what we really know is that Greg Abbott's not really a law and order governor. What he really is, is if you hurt people who he doesn't like, then you can have a sanctuary in Texas.

6:59And if you and everybody else, he doesn't like at all. You know what I mean? So he doesn't like, well, he doesn't like Minnesota because we believe in liberty and justice for all, the rule of law, inclusive policies that help enhance the lives of all Minnesotans. And he's not in favor of that. So I guess that's why we're having trouble for him.

7:21Michael Popok:And this is a governor who had no problem sending his own Texas Rangers into Chicago, Illinois, to arrest legislators who were doing the only thing they can do in the minority, which was to avoid a quorum on the voting on the congressional maps. He also had no problem taking people in the dead of winter without proper clothing and driving them to, you know, blue state strongholds and cities and dumping them out onto the street. I think at least one of those people died from exposure. You know, he thought it was funny to, like, take other human beings and use them as political props. But then when it comes to this guy who's been indicted, I mean, you know, he's got the right.

8:02Michael Popok:He's innocent until proven guilty, but he's got to come back to the court of law. The stuff, Keith, A.G. Ellison, that you mentioned about all the times that it's been granted, even while this is going on, is all that information that's before the judge, including the threat. I'll sign it, but you've got to admit that you're committing fraud in Minnesota. Is that all before the judge? Yes, we made sure the judge had a full factual record because we wanted the court to understand that this is they're flouting the precedent here. They're flouting the law and that in his purported reasons that he's happy to say in front of a bunch of cameras have nothing to do with the legal standard for extradition.

8:50The only issue is, do you have the right Christian Castro? That's the only question. It's not, do you agree with the charges? Do you think they're proper? None of that matters. He will get a full fair trial in the state of Minnesota, as you just pointed out. But the only legal issue, the only relevant issue is identity, quite frankly.

9:13Michael Popok:Right. And on that, let me play a couple of clips, or we'll play one clip. And then I also want to talk about the Renee Good and Alex pretty investigation to round this out. But let's play the clip of you and the Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty announcing the charges. Let's play that clip. Today, the Hennepin County Attorney's Office filed charges against Christian Castro, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE agent stemming from the shooting of Julio Sosos-Eliz in North Minneapolis on January 14th. He is being charged with four counts of assault in the second degree and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

9:56Michael Popok:The four counts of assault are a result of Mr. Castro shooting through the front door of a residence with the intent to cause fear of immediate bodily harm or death to the four adults who were just inside the door. So talk about how it works in Minnesota. You've got your county attorney. You're the you're the attorney general in terms of these kind of investigations. Then we can talk about what Hennepin County is doing about Alex Preddy and Renee Good's assassination on the streets of Minnesota. Right. So in the state of Minnesota, in every state, you know, we have you have a different type of style in different states.

10:35And say, for example, New Jersey, the attorney general is sort of the top cop. He or she supervises the state police, supervises the crime lab, supervises every prosecutor in the state. In Minnesota, it's not that way. The county attorneys are independently elected. I have influence with them and I work with them, but I'm not their boss. They are accountable to the voters that put them in office. And so the Minnesota attorney general is sort of the well, we handle all Medicaid fraud investigations. That's our territory. Everything else we have to be invited in. And a lot of times counties will say, hey, look, you know, let's work together and we are happy to do it.

11:20And then also the governor can appoint me to be the prosecutor in the matter. That's kind of what happened in George Floyd and several other examples. But Mary Mariotti and I are working together on this matter, on the prosecution, because this is where the crime happened. But when it comes to the extradition warrant, we're also working together. But on that one, my office has the responsibility to represent the governor. And the governor is the one who served, who sent the extradition papers to his counterpart, Governor Abbott in Texas. So that's sort of my job to do that. But of course, we work hand in glove with the county attorney's office.

12:06And so we're reviewing each other's papers, making suggestions, talking things out. And they're great partners in Hennepin County. So that's kind of how it works. So the Hennepin County attorney's office was the one that actually filed the charges. But we have a memorandum of understanding on all these cases. But Mary's been a pleasure to work with us. Her staff has been, again, people, everybody's doing their job except Greg Abbott. Yeah.

12:29Michael Popok:And now the Department of Justice has sort of let it leak out that they're currently investigating Castro and might do a federal indictment there. I mean, listen, whatever brings justice. But I mean, it wasn't until it wasn't until the people of Minnesota investigated and brought anything to justice. I think if they're going to do it, it is certainly because you have shined a light on the criminality that's running here. What have you heard and what do you make of that? Well, I saw the news articles. But here's the thing. It doesn't really matter in terms of our case. If they were to have charged him, they could have brought him back without needing an extradition warrant.

13:14It's the fact that this is a state to state. if it was a federal thing, they could have just got him and brought him back. Now, here's the interesting thing, though. And grand juries are supposed to be secret. How could anybody know that there is a pending indictment? I mean, you either I mean, there's two worlds. There's you're indicted or it's secret. It's secret. So how do you have a, you know, I put it like this. District court judges in Minnesota do not like anybody talking out of school about grand juries. And I don't know who did that, but they might have some explaining to do.

13:59Michael Popok:Yeah. I mean, I'm having, I was supposed to have him on today, but he, like me, developed a cold. Don Lemon is going to join me to talk about his case. You've got a federal judge in Minnesota who's looking closely at the grand jury transcript. and determining what really happened there. I mean, your chief judge, Schultz, when he was rustled out of bed, he took a look at everything and said, this was a journalist doing his job in St. Paul. I don't know how he could be indicted, certainly not arrested. And then suddenly, oh, there's an indictment of all the journalists who were in that church that day.

14:33Michael Popok:It's just, you know. I have a prediction that a lot of these charges that have come from the Department of Justice, There's 15 activists who've been charged. They're called the Minnesota 15. Then you've got Don Lemon and people who are in that church. I just, I think some of these things will not, I predict that some of them will be tossed. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He's got his vindictive prosecution motion pending. Let me turn to the other investigations, because you made it clear in prior appearances with me, both one-on-one and when I go to the, I'm so privileged to be able to go to the Democratic Attorney General's.

15:12Michael Popok:We love having you there. I love being there. And you told me in an interview that, look, if the Department of Justice, which announced very quickly, like Harmeet Dillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division, Pam Bondi at the time, we're not going to investigate anything about the Renee Goode and Alex Petty shootings or any of the other shootings. Everything seems fine to us. How do you know that without opening the investigation? And you said, we're We're going to try to get a hold of as much of the evidence as we can, that we possibly can, and we're going to do our own independent investigation.

15:41Michael Popok:Can you give our audience any update about what's happening without breaching grand jury secrecy? You bet. The good news is that in Minnesota state, in state law, you only must have a grand jury in first-degree murder cases. Oh, interesting. That's Minnesota law. So a prosecutor can charge out anything except a first-degree murder via complaint. So is that a criminal complaint? Yes. Okay. But if you want to go murder one, then you've got to bring it in front of a grand jury. So there's that piece. We are diligently and doggedly investigating both of these cases every single day. And not just those two.

16:26There's other ones that we have our eyes on. We have, since you and I talked, Mike, you know, we've gotten more of the file, which is a good thing. I want to commend the U.S. attorney for sharing the amount of file that they have, but they have not given us the entire file. And we need the entire file because, look, I've been a criminal defense lawyer and now I've been a prosecutor. I know both sides of the job and both are important for our Constitution to work. I can tell you that we must have the full file. I mean, all of it. Now, we've gotten more of it than we had since you and I talked, but they still haven't given us the entire file and they still haven't given us a good explanation as to why they are they investigating.

17:12I don't know. You don't know. I don't know. I can tell you that I don't know. I could tell you this. Todd Blanche said that there was nothing to investigate in the Renee Good case. And I can tell you when it comes to Freddie, I don't know. I mean, look, there's a finite amount of video, a finite number of witness statements, a finite number of physical pieces of evidence handed over. You know, I mean, it's time to get moving on this. We're not dragging our feet. I want everybody who listens to your show to know that as evidenced by our pursuit of justice in the shooting of Julian Sosa Solis, we are after these cases and investigating them.

17:57Now, as you know, because, you know, you're a great lawyer, we can't say that we're going to charge them until we have completed our investigation. But we are pursuing this thing aggressively. The families of these victims deserve to know. The families deserve an expeditious investigation. And then when we have the file and are able to complete our investigation, we will make a decision about charging. And it will be one without fear of anyone, without favor towards anyone, just the evidence in the law. But I just want folks to know we are we're on it. I talk I check in with people working on this on a daily basis.

18:37And, you know, there are new things coming out. You know, we're we're continuing to do the investigative process, process information, identify, you know, critical issues, legal memorandum. random. We're doing our job. And if anyone has any doubt about our commitment to these cases, just look at how we're pursuing this matter. But we were able to get the full file on this one, and we have not on the others.

19:04Michael Popok:Yeah, I wrote down, I think that's a good thematic for the whole interview with you, the dogged pursuit of justice. And that's what you're doing, even if you have to cross, not party lines, but state lines in order to do it. I mean, that is the message. And look what your opponents are. Why is there an opponent to bringing Christian Castro to justice? If it happened in Texas and the person had gone to Minnesota and was a fugitive from justice in Texas, how quickly would you be, you would not be opposing extradition? three days yeah three days governor walls signs extradition warrants within about three days i mean that's his average sometimes quicker sometimes a little longer but it doesn't take long because we're serious about the process of justice look the united states justice system cannot work if governors have can can extradite who they want to and not extradite who they don't want to It just can't work like that.

20:09You know, this man, Christian Castro, committed the alleged acts in Minnesota, left there. And we now have the right to bring him back. And this is, you know, I was talking to a really sharp person today. And this lady asked me, so, well, wait a minute. If they committed a crime in the U.S., why can't they just be brought back? I said, you know what, that good question. Normally, I said, you know, you know why you don't know much about the extradition process? Because normally you don't really need to know much as the average informed citizen, because it's just done. It's just a ministerial act done.

20:49No problem.

20:49Michael Popok:The only hurdles is like if it's extraditing them to a foreign country, like the Tate brothers with their 56 charges, the UK, and then you've got to line up the legal systems and the law. We're 50 states. We're United States. So when you're talking about another country, there is this idea that it has to be illegal in both countries. Yeah. Right. But here's the thing. Now, some MAGA Republicans say that, well, we want to indict people who prescribe mifepristone. You know? Yeah. Well, here's the thing. If the person never left the state, then there's no extradition, right? Right. You know, if you committed the act in your home state - They're not a fugitive.

21:45You're not a fugitive at that point. Right. You stayed in your own state. You did what you did in your state where it's legal to do so, prescribe Mifepristone. Right. And then so we're going to drag you to another state and prosecute you because we don't allow Mifepristone.

22:00Michael Popok:And for our viewers who are tuning in, this is on the medicated abortion issue about telehealth medicine prescribing in states where it's legal and those shipments ending up in states where they have tried to ban it. We've got a Department of Justice that's busy. You know, Todd Blanche got caught on secret recording about trying to effectively do exactly what Trump and the others said they weren't going to do, which was not leave it to the states, but try to federalize the Hobbes decision and shove it down everybody's throats and worse. Better believe it. Yeah. Hey, man, if their lips are moving, you better know they're not telling you the truth.

22:35I use that line. Yeah. But the point is, this is a classic situation. situation somebody commits a crime in minnesota leaves minnesota to texas is trying to say i'm not i don't want to go back well if well we can charge them we can have them arrested and we can have them brought back to the state of minnesota that's that's the constitution that's the statutes that is law and order right there not in a political way but in the real way attorney

23:05Michael Popok:General Keith Ellison. He is dogged pursuit of justice personified. I always walk away from our interviews smarter than when I came into them. Seriously. Likewise, brother. About grand juries in Minnesota. Who knew you only do it for first degree murder? That's really a very novel way to do things. And I really do appreciate you updating and briefing our audience on these issues in real time. I mean, by the time this goes up, we will have the decision. And I'm hoping you're right based on the body language of the judge. He's going to do the right thing. He's going to follow the law and he's going to send this person back to Minnesota to be tried for the crimes that he's been charged with.

23:43Michael Popok:And then, of course, we'll always have you back whenever you like, especially about what's going on with the Renee Good and Alex Preddy investigations. And I'll see you day after Labor Day. Yes, you will. See you later, Mike. Thank you, Keith Ellison, Attorney General for Minnesota. You're here on Legal AF. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. I'm Michael Popak. 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 sub stack 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.

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