Trump Rushes for Emergency Hearing at SCOTUS

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0:25Michael Popok:Well, Donald Trump hates the publicity and the news reporting he's getting out of his UK visit. He hates what Kash Patel has done to him by his failed performance before the House and Senate Judiciary Committee. So right on time, we have a new filing. The emergency application filed by the Solicitor General John Sauer to try to get Lisa Cook of the Board of Governors, who just voted for a rate cut to get her off of the Federal Reserve so Donald Trump can get complete control. so that he can go from having three votes about interest rates to having seven votes about interest rates or eight votes about interest rates because he's got to get rid of Lisa Cook first.

1:05Michael Popok:And they've been trying to frame her for mortgage fraud, which is untrue and false. And the exact same thing that they claim she did, four different members of Donald Trump's cabinet has done, including the Treasury Secretary and the person that's accusing her of having committed mortgage fraud, His own parents committed mortgage fraud, if that is mortgage fraud, and property tax fraud to boot. And now you've got the emergency application. Wait till you hear what they're arguing to the United States Supreme Court on the emergency application. I mean, of course, if I had an 84 % winning streak on emergency applications on shadow dockets, I'd take a shot too.

1:44Michael Popok:But this is a ludicrous, ridiculous legal analysis. I'm giving it too much credit just calling it a legal analysis. I'm Michael Popak. You're here for the legal analysis on the Midas Dutch Network and on Legal AF. Let's talk about the application. This is a shadow docket, meaning the first stop on the shadow docket is John Roberts. Lisa Cook is still on the Federal Reserve. She just voted in the Federal Open Markets Committee meeting yesterday, along with 12 other people, 11 other people, 11 to 1, they voted to cut rates a quarter of a point. Now they're trying to get her off before the next meeting.

2:21Michael Popok:All this has to do with whether she took out two primary mortgages, primary home mortgages on two different properties. You can only have one primary mortgage, only one primary residence. Everything else is your secondary home, your second home, your vacation home, your rental property. Why does it matter? Because sometimes banks give you a rate cut if it's your primary residence. The theory being you won't default on the place that you live. That's not what she did. That's not what the evidence shows. But they keep arguing it even though it's wrong, hoping to make it so. Their first argument in their brief, which I'm going to post on Legal AF Substack, is that you as a court can't even review, a Supreme Court, you can't even review the actions of the president.

3:07Michael Popok:Because when there is a for-cause requirement to fire somebody that Congress has given to the president, but they haven't told the president what the for-cause can be, the president has free hand to declare the for-cause reason, the bad conduct reason, anything that that president declares it to be, and it's not reviewable by the federal courts. How convenient. So in other words, the for cause is whatever Donald Trump says it is, and it can't be reviewable. And for that point, John Sauer couldn't help himself. He had to mention the immunity decision, the one where the Trump administration, where Donald Trump won and got immunity from criminal prosecution, in which they also made comments about the robust powers of the presidency and Article 2.

3:54Michael Popok:He loves talking about that case that he won. He also spends a considerable amount of time talking about Black's Law Dictionary, but spends zero amount of time talking about a May of this summer decision just several months ago by the United States Supreme Court about for cause and the Federal Reserve. In the Wilcox case, which is not discussed anywhere, tellingly, in this new submission, the Supreme Court, in handling another matter involving the National Labor Relations Board, said out loud that the Federal Reserve and the chairman or others can't be removed from the Federal Reserve without for cause, that Congress put that protection in.

4:37And the Supreme Court was going to allow that protection to stand because of the unique history and quality of the Federal Reserve as an independent central bank.

4:49Michael Popok:Even though they're letting, the Supreme Court is letting Donald Trump fire everybody, all the commissions, all the agency heads, everybody he doesn't like, but not the Federal Reserve, they said. The hands off, you have to have a for cause. Now, for cause has been defined in case law to mean generally inefficiency, neglect of duty and malfeasance. And that's what was applied by the judge, Judge Cobb, when she handled the case at the lower level. Judge Cobb found that Lisa Cook's due process rights were violated because she has a property interest in the continuation of her 14 year tenure as on the on the Federal Reserve until 2038.

5:33Michael Popok:That gave her Fifth Amendment due process rights. That issue was upheld two to one by Judge Garcia and Judge Childs by the appellate court just above them, finding that, yes, she has a due process right. The due process right was violated and therefore her firing is blocked. Due process means you're given an opportunity to defend yourself in some sort of hearing setting. There's a determination. There's a hearing and you get due process. She got no due process. You know what the due process is that John Sauer tells the Supreme Court she got? There was a mean tweet, a social media posting by Bill Pulte.

6:10Michael Popok:He's the Nepo baby, you know, billionaire son of Mark Pulte, Pulte Homes Construction, who bought his way on to Freddie May and Fannie Mac, the mortgage liquidity provider, in order to be Donald Trump's henchman. And he goes after Democrats only, Democrats only for purported mortgage fraud. And he posts, you know, these these half ass incomplete documents. Oh, I got two two pages with Lisa Cook's signature on it. She took out a mortgage in Michigan and a Michigan and an Atlanta mortgage in Georgia at the same time. Primary residences. Yeah. Reuters broke the news, if you had done your research, Palti, that the credit union that Lisa Cook got her mortgage from had known that it was her second home.

7:00Michael Popok:She declared the Georgia property be her vacation home. She did not take the mortgage, the property in Georgia as her primary residence for property tax abatement or cut. She took that in Michigan. 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 were approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to.

7:40So 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 thepopokfirm.com, thepopokfirm.com, or you can call 877-POPOKAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877-P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popok a call. And I'm really proud of you, Popok. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.

8:25Michael Popok:But you know who violated this? If this is the definition of mortgage fraud, you know who committed mortgage fraud? Bill Pulte's parents. Because his parents, Mark Pulte, and his wife have a house in Florida, primary residence, declared homestead, and a property in Michigan. Same thing. In fact, they got a tax cut on property taxes. And now the tax assessor has clawed back$200 ,000 from the Pultes because they can't live in two places at one time as primary residences. You know who else has the exact same issue as reported by Bloomberg and ProPublica? at least four members of Donald Trump's 15-member cabinet, including the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessette, who went on air to attack Lisa Cook when he has the exact same issue from two properties he purchased in Massachusetts, both listed as primary residences in 2007.

9:16Michael Popok:But they keep pressing this hand. Now they've called it the apparent unexplained mortgage fraud. If you go to page three of the brief, and he repeats it, He says on the bottom of page three that the district court alternatively held that the president's reason for removing Cook, apparent unexplained mortgage fraud, is not permissible for a cause. There's nothing apparent about it. She has an explanation. If she was given due process, she would have fixed that explanation. They instead rely heavily on Judge Katzis in the two to one in the dissent of the two to one decision from a few days ago in which Judge Katzis, a Trumper, said she doesn't have a property right in her continued employment as a federal officer.

10:05Michael Popok:And therefore, she has no due process rights. You can't review what the president does. Whatever he says is cause is cause. And that's what Congress has delegated to them. then what's the difference between for cause and at will? What's the difference between for cause or fire at will? You know, the Supreme Court went out of its way in May, which of course Sauer never addresses, went out of its way in May to say you can't fire anybody in the Federal Reserve, at least the chairperson, without for cause. If there's no difference, if all you have to say is, I don't like the way you look, and there's no due process, and you can't challenge it, that's the exact same thing as firing the person without cause.

10:42Michael Popok:So why was the Supreme Court all hot and bothered about writing an entire piece in a case not about the Federal Reserve to say don't fire the Federal Reserve except for cause. Never explained in the brief. Lots of references to Black's Law Dictionary, which is ridiculous, but nothing explained there. Then on page six, they talk about this Bill Pulte BS charge against her, if you want to call it a charge. Bottom of page six. On August 15th, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, William Pulte, sent a criminal referral letter to the Department of Justice. Director Pulte identified two mortgage agreements that Cook entered into within two weeks of each other in June and July 2021.

11:28Michael Popok:One for a house in Michigan and one for a condo in Atlanta. In each agreement, she stipulated that it would be her primary residence. and then on August 20th Trump and Cook publicly released the reference on social media that he was going to fire her and then she never gave an explanation so that's how she got fired that's due process everybody Judge Cobb during her hearing was like you're not suggesting that the social media posting and then a gap of five days in which she didn't quote unquote defend herself is due process are you and they said yes and then of course the court of appeals said that can't possibly be due process and sustained her ruling on that ground.

12:12Michael Popok:Then when you get down to page 24 of the brief, this is where whatever Trump says goes. It says, bottom of 24, finally, the district court worried that the government's argument would mean that in practice, the president could remove members of the Federal Reserve at will. That's incorrect. If the president provides no reason at all for removing a member, a court could properly review that decision. But once the president identifies a cause, judicial review must cease. That's all he's got to do? He's got to come up with a bullshit reason and that's enough to fire her? Okay, here's what should happen.

12:52Michael Popok:The United States Supreme Court properly applying their own precedent from May in a case with Trump's name in it called Trump and Wilcox should deny this emergency stay. Judge Roberts should not issue an administrative stay. She's still in her job. The status quo means she's still in her job and it shouldn't be disturbed. And if the issue is a stay and takes her out of her job, he's disturbing the status quo. Is there enough votes, four or five, to grant this petition on emergency relief and to take Lisa Cook out of her job to destroy the independence of the Federal Reserve? That's a good question.

13:30Michael Popok:And we'll continue to follow it right here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. I don't think this should be an emergency application. I think the stay request should be denied. I don't think an administrative stay should be issued either. But we're going to get full briefing on this, whether it's shadow docket or otherwise. I'm sure we're going to get an oral argument, and you can follow it all on Legal AF YouTube, and you can read the new filings on Legal AF Substack. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

14:24Michael Popok:podcast and hot takes where legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe. If you love this episode, make sure you're subscribed to the Intersection Audio Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. It's my solo ride, and we release new episodes daily, all completely free.