Trump Lawyers Kill Their Own Careers with Latest Move

0:00Michael Popok:Well, just five days after Chief Judge Boesberg of the D.C. Federal Court threatened to refer Department of Justice lawyers to state bar associations for disciplinary actions because of their bad faith conduct in front of them. Pam Bondi just filed a judicial complaint against Judge Boesberg asking that he be investigated because of statements he made back in March, which suddenly have come to light again because the Department of Justice had Fox News run the article and run the story just two days ago. So they ginned up an event that happened in March where the judge made some comments, rightly so, about the defiance of the Trump administration causing a constitutional crisis and then used that to have Fox News just three days ago come up with a new report on an old story, then use that to file their judicial conduct complaint against Judge Boesberg.

1:08Michael Popok:Doesn't everybody see this is a direct response and retaliation because the judge has said he's going to refer all of those lawyers who lied in front of him for bar proceedings and bar disciplinary actions, including maybe disbarment? I see it. You will, too, here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. All right, let's get into it. Judge Bozberg is in the news. He'd rather not be. He's the chief judge of the D.C. Federal Circuit, where a lot of these cases involving Donald Trump have been filed. He's handling one major one. We call it JGG. That's the name of the plaintiffs in the case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union.

1:50Michael Popok:That was a group of 200 people who in the middle of the night were hijacked, thrown on a plane by Donald Trump and sent to El Salvador for a$6 million payment done without due process, without habeas corpus rights, without anything. And the judge, having reviewed all of the evidence presented to him, issued an order, a command, an injunction for the planes to stop being flown. I think only 20 or 30 had been flown when the judge had the hearing. But knowing that there was a hearing coming up in the morning, the Trump administration during the night started sending more planes. The judge stopped it, issued an injunction, yet two more planes at least went to El Salvador.

2:32Michael Popok:Our judge held proceedings. And then after the temporary restraining order was entered, the Supreme Court eventually removed the temporary restraining order. But because of the conduct of the lawyers and the Trump administration, the Bozberg found probable cause that the Trump administration Department of Justice was in criminal contempt. First judge ever to find a Department of Justice and an administration in possible criminal contempt. They appealed that, the Trump administration. It got stayed by effectively two Trump judges, Rao and Katzis, on the D.C. Court of Appeals, where it still sits.

3:16Michael Popok:But since then, there's been new information about the defiance, refusal, disobedience of the Trump administration, primarily coming through not one but two whistleblowers who got fired by the Department of Justice, who sent in 30 page complaints against Emil Bovee, who's about to hit his judge for the Third District Court of Appeal, Third Circuit Court of Appeal. sorry, his judge vote on the Senate floor this week. And this is all running interference to try to get Emil Bovee appointed because the whistleblower said that Bovee, when he was in the Department of Justice or is in the Department of Justice, had a meeting in March, same March period, in which he told the lawyers assembled that they were to tell federal judges to go F off, to go F you if they're asked any information about Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to try to get people out of this country and to a supermax, notoriously bad, murderous prison in El Salvador.

4:24Michael Popok:That all came out during the confirmation hearing. The judge, the same Judge Boesberg, on Thursday or Friday of last week held a hearing, And he said, that whistleblower report confirms everything that I found in my probable cause for criminal contempt. But because the appellate court, two to one with two Trump judges, put a pin in it and stayed his order, he was left with making the following observation. the lawyers in the room who promoted this who promoted this who allowed all of this to happen the violation of my orders the people to be sent to el salvador and all of that acted in bad faith it's supported by the whistleblower i'm going to be holding some hearings related to it and i'm considering making a referral to the bar associations about your bar licenses and right on Q.

5:19Michael Popok:The Trump administration had Fox News on the 17th of July run a story about something that happened in March in order to gin up this new complaint that Pam Bondi just filed. Let me show you. And it's actually cited in her letter. She puts the evidence of the conspiracy that I'm observing between the Trump administration and Fox News in her letter, Pam Bondi's letter. Let's roll the clip. John, great to have you with us. So when you hear these comments that were reported by the Federalists from Judge Bosberg. He's with these, you know, with the other judges, including justices of the Supreme Court, and they're talking at a conference.

5:56And he's suggesting, it sounds like, you know, hey, guys, are you concerned that this president is going to push us to a constitutional crisis by ignoring our orders? How does that sit with you? Martha, I'm really disturbed by the reported comments. Look, I'm not one to focus on an individual judge and say they ought to be impeached, as the president has said with Judge Boasberg, or to infer some kind of nefarious motives. But what he did here was really inappropriate. And I think it's worse than what the media has been reporting so far. You know, as you said out in your introduction, Martha, this judge has been wrong on so many issues involving Trump.

6:39Michael Popok:You'd think he's reporting about something that happened, you know, like yesterday. It happened that the statements that Bozberg made at a judicial conference, which I don't think he's going to deny, which anybody with their eyeballs can actually state and see that the Trump administration is being defiant and disobedient against federal judges. We've got three United States Supreme Court justices that have said it in the courtroom, in their opinions, in their dissents and in conferences and interviews since they've been on summer vacation. Just read Ketanji Brown-Jackson. Just read Kagan. Just read Sotomayor.

7:15Michael Popok:It's exactly the same thing that Boesberg is saying. They're going to make, are they next going to make complaints against the three of them? You know, sometimes covering the political and legal news cycle feels like chasing a laser pointer, chaotic, relentless, and sometimes exhausting. And just like my cat, the news can go from napping to total mayhem in a split second. But when the headlines get too wild, there's one guaranteed comfort. curling up on the couch with my cat and knowing she's eating like the queen she is thanks to Smalls. This podcast is sponsored by Smalls. If you're a listener of this show, you know that Chanel cannot live without Smalls.

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9:09Michael Popok:Let me read to you from the letter. I'm going to post it in the legal AF substack also. This is sent to Chief Judge Srinivasan of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Dear Chief Judge Srinivasan, on March 11th, 2025, by the way, they never date their letters. Let me just see something. It's like a thing with this Department of Justice. They never date their letters because they don't want it to be so obvious that it is stale news. So March, an undated letter that came in yesterday, March 11, 2025, Judge Boesberg attended a session of the Judicial Conference of the United States, which discussed administrative matters.

9:59Michael Popok:Okay. Judge Boesberg attempted to improperly influence Chief Justice Roberts and two dozen other federal judges by straying from traditional topics to express his belief that the Trump administration would disregard rulings of federal courts and trigger a constitutional crisis. Well, he had a lot of, you know, he had four months of the Trump administration actions to fall back on. Judge Bozberg had no basis. This one made me laugh out loud. The Trump administration has always complied with all court orders. They haven't. They haven't. That's why there's 200 people sitting or had been sitting in El Salvador until they got human trafficked by the Trump administration and traded to the Maduro regime in Venezuela to release 10 people.

10:43Michael Popok:That's the same 200 people. They didn't comply with Judge Zinnes' orders to return to Braco Garcia. They didn't comply with certain orders of federal judges not to destroy departments and divisions, not to defund, not to put whole government agencies and employees through the wood chipper. None of that. All violations. Multiple contempt proceedings. Multiple observations by federal judges of defiant, disobedient, contumacious conduct by Donald Trump. And then we have the whistleblower who finally said the truth, which is they were told the Department of Justice lawyers were told to lie to federal judges.

11:19Michael Popok:So let's use that as the backdrop. All missing, of course, from Pam Bondi's undated letter that she didn't even sign. She had Chad Mazel, who's participated in some of these immigration litigation matters, as the chief of staff. I have to look him up. I'm not even sure he's a lawyer. Anyway, they throw him, you know, Pam Bondi doesn't even have brass ones enough to sign her own complaint letter. She puts her chief of staff up to it. That's courage. That's professional ethics, Pam. So they then outline that right after that statement, he then finds the administration in probable cause for criminal contempt, issues orders, temporary restraining order, which they all blow by, blow through and don't comply with.

12:06Michael Popok:then they have here's the trumped up part right the manufactured part on page um they also don't like page numbers who makes these things i don't have page numbers i don't have dates but it looks like it's on page uh three they say in a recent interview so it's it's suggesting that they didn't know about it till they watch fox news which is a lie because it's obvious to me that they got this guy to go on Fox News to attack Bozberg so that they could bring a letter on information that didn't look as stale. But I don't know how reporting about something that happened in March, three, four months later, makes it less stale.

12:45Michael Popok:But here's what they say. In a recent interview, University of California Berkeley law professor John Yoo criticized Bozberg's actions. Then they drop a site to it, as if this makes the information more credible, because John Yoo went on Fox News to be interviewed. Here's what they want to have happen. They want a special investigative committee to inquire about Boesberg's conduct. They want interim measures, corrective measures during the investigation. And they want to have, here we go, the JGG case reassigned from Boesberg. This is what they want. They want to get rid of Boesberg. It's what they always wanted.

13:25um respectfully a person not named pam bondi all right if i'm srinivasan the chief judge

13:33Michael Popok:of the appellate division i reject this these are not inappropriate comments to make in a committee these are not inappropriate comments to make before cases that are in front of the court or could be coming in front of the court no more so than and i and if i were him i would cite judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, Judge Sotomayor, Judge Kagan, all Boesberg's bosses who have expressed similar, similar problems about this administration. They asked Ketanji Brown Jackson recently, what keeps you up at night? The assault on democracy. Well, who does she think she's talking? Who do they think she's talking about?

14:12Michael Popok:Let's roll that clip. I would say the state of our democracy.

14:23I would say that I am really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government. All right.

14:38Michael Popok:I'm going to continue to follow it all right here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Take a minute. Free subscribe here. Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel. That's the love we need to keep us on the air. Hit the subscribe button all for free. No paywall here. No smoke or sunshine. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

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