Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Dumpster Fire GOP Causing MORE Legal Chaos!
Episode Date: May 22, 2022Anchored by MT founder and civil rights lawyer, Ben Meiselas and national trial lawyer and strategist, Michael Popok, the top-rated news analysis podcast LegalAF x MeidasTouch is back for another hard...-hitting look in “real time” at this week’s most consequential developments at the intersection of law and politics. This week, Ben and Popok discuss and analyze: 1. A Trump-appointed Louisiana Federal court judge siding with 24 Republican state attorneys general and stopping the Biden Administration from allowing asylum seekers to remain in the country while their application is reviewed. 2. The 5th Circuit deciding to deprive all federal agencies from using administrative law judges to hear cases of fraud and financial penalties, and finding their use over the last 50 years unconstitutional. 3. The Supreme Court siding with Ted Cruz and against bipartisan donor finance reform laws, and allowing candidates to make unlimited loans to their campaigns, and for their donors to pay them off after the candidate wins election 4. John Eastman’s late night filing to protect his emails with Trump and Trump’s inner circle from going to the Jan6 Committee on privilege grounds, and what it could mean for a future prosecution against Trump and others. 5. A Clinton-appointed Tennessee Federal court judge striking down Tennessee’s new anti-transgender bathroom signage criminal law as improper “compelled speech” under the First Amendment. 6. The latest developments in the final days of the January 6 Special Select Committee’s investigation, including the testimony of Bill Barr and Rudy Giuliani. And so much more. DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/legalaf Feals: https://feals.com/legalaf Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 Zoomed In: https://pod.link/1580828633 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
A Trump federal judge says COVID conditions require that a Trump CDC policy under Title
42, expelling asylum seekers stay in place.
That's right, they are citing current COVID conditions.
A radical right fifth-circuit court of appeals panel has issued an order that truly could destroy all agency
operations, whether it's the SEC, the Social Security Administration, really causing
havoc and chaos in our government.
The Supreme Court rules that donors can reimburse candidates for loans made by the candidate to their campaign whenever they want
after the election because of a Ted Cruz manufactured lawsuit that we had talked about on previous
legal AF. More John Eastman emails emerge and he can't stop digging his holes on this one. I think he's trying to show that he was somehow not that involved in it,
but every email that comes out shows that he and Trump were at the center of this coup in search of a legal theory.
And a district judge in Tennessee strikes down a law that would require private businesses to pose signs discriminating against transgender Tennesseans.
We will also give you some more January 6th updates.
This is Legal AF, Ben Myceles, and Michael Popock.
We ain't talking about celebrity law gossip on this show.
We ain't talking about pop culture.
We are getting right into the law and the legal issues
that truly matter to you, Michael Popak.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
The non-celebrity edition of Legal AF.
I'm not doing any of that on Legal AF.
No, and I'm the one who's moving a tick tocky,
there and I'm not gonna bring on any llamas.
This is hard hitting political legal intersection.
That's always been our alley.
That is our sweet spot.
That's what people come to legal a F for and that's what we're going to deliver on today.
Let's talk about this US district judge Robert Summer Hayes, a Trump appointee. He's siding with 24 Republican State Attorney Generals,
who were siding this Trump policy under Title 42.
This Title 42 is a law under our US code
that goes back to the 1940s.
And it basically says where there are pandemics or massive
communicable diseases and the CDC believes in such that individuals who cross the border
can be exported, not can be expelled, not deported, not have any process whatsoever.
And so if there for, is an asylum seeker
who says this cartel is going to murder me, what this law would basically say is if there's
a communicable disease exception, the United States doesn't have to give that asylum seeker
any type of process under international rights in situations of massive global pandemics or communicable diseases.
And so at the same time, Donald Trump was downplaying COVID in every other area in life.
He was saying that because of COVID, because of how serious COVID is, that asylum seekers,
immigrants should not have due process whatsoever, citing this title 42.
So at the same time, Republicans, people like Trump, were in there basically saying, look,
the CDC doesn't have the power to do evictions.
The CDC doesn't have the power to institute policy regarding masks.
The one area where the CDC, according to these Republicans have power,
wouldn't you know would be for people
who are asylum seekers coming to the United States
and saying, hey, if you don't let me in,
I'm gonna get killed, I'm a political prisoner,
I'm this or that, let me hear the process.
And this is where Trump issued an order under Title 42.
And at first, because of COVID and because Biden's following the science,
there is a global pandemic, the Biden administration had not made any efforts
to remove Trump's policies under this Title 42.
And Biden was being criticized by a lot of people who support the rights of asylum seekers.
But eventually, Biden decided, hey,
based on the conditions of COVID,
based on what this law truly is supposed to stand for,
we are no longer going to be invoking
the pandemic aspect of it,
the communicable disease aspect of it.
There could be other ways we can try to regulate the inflow of asylum seekers and immigrants
from other countries, but we can't invoke this statute at no longer applies.
But here we have a radical right Trump judge saying COVID, currently the current COVID conditions
would require basically this to transpire. And for this
lot of stay in place, Popeye, what do you think's going on here? Oh, I know what's going on here.
Has nothing to do with COVID. It has everything to do with immigration policy and 24 states,
including Louisiana, which is where this case was brought Arizona, Missouri, and others,
not wanting to have immigrants in their country.
Emma Lazarus, who wrote the poem, at the base of the Statue of Liberty,
gave me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses is spinning in her grave.
We have no coherent immigration policy.
Title 42 isn't making it any better. Cytle 42 allowed, as you described then,
the government at the border,
at the southern border, in this case,
although it applies now because of a nationwide injunction
to every border that we have,
including with Canada,
but it starts with the southern border.
And just to put some, and to round that out,
the Title 42 allows, had allowed that if somebody was seeking asylum the way
you described it because they're in fear of their life, because of persecution, because
of death, death squads in their country, to stay in the United States while there is
asylum application is pursued and that can take years.
Asylum applications take a long time. So rather than leave the person that is in possible physical harm in the country for
which they are seeking political asylum, we normally before Trump, before he in 2020,
he passed this part of rule 42, this CDC rulemaking, to prevent on the basis of communicable diseases, as you said, we would
normally have taken them in. Now, look, the numbers are staggering here. 8,000 people a
day enter the United States at the Southern border, border every day. 235,000 people have
entered from the Southern border legally, not illegally, legally since April.
Okay. We have millions of people who come to this country and there are various exceptions to
rule 42 on the books. Biden, recognizing that the CDC health considerations no longer apply,
has now come back and said, okay, we are now going to do what we always
did for the humanitarian standpoint from an immigration policy standpoint. We're going
to let these people stay here rather than deport them or not let them enter at all. Now
look, there is a double edged sword to that. Let's be frank, the US government, Homeland
Security, Secretary Mayorkas is not ready to have the
numbers go from 8,000 people seeking
us a entry into the country at the
southern border to 20,000 a day.
And that could, that's the prediction
of what will happen once Title
42 is successfully removed or this
barrier is removed. That's a lot of
people and a lot of children that
have to be housed.
We already saw what that looked like with people in cages at the start of the Biden administration.
We can double that. So there's a policy consideration here. I get the reason they want to,
they want to drop the policy, but let's let's talk about the reality. Now, I don't think this order
or the 24th state attorney generals give a crap
about COVID policy. And even in the order when you read the 47-page opinion, it's clear that what they
are, what the judge focused on is the argument that the wave of illegal migrants will bring in violent
people and drug traffickers.
There's very little mention,
if you really look at the decision, as to COVID.
This is all about increased healthcare
and increased education costs at the public level,
at the state level, that these state attorney generals are saying,
if you bring all these people in,
they're gonna end up in my state.
That's going to lead to healthcare costs and education costs.
The judge says, yes, that's a reputable harm.
There was very little discussion been about the numbers of COVID cases that
Mexicans have COVID, that Canadians have COVID.
It wasn't that. It was all what's going to be the focus of the midterm election,
which is immigration policy is in shambles
and they're going to blame it on the Democrats and say this is going to let criminals to paraphrase Trump
rapists and drug dealers into the country. And this is a way to try to fix a health, a immigration policy
that the Congress has never in the last eight years been able to resolve.
We do not have a coherent, dignified immigration policy. We didn't have it under Trump.
We didn't have it under Obama. We don't have it under Biden. And Title 42 doesn't make it any better.
But we're going to have to see what happens next. We know what happens next because the court
of appeals that this case will be appealed to by the Justice Department is Ben, which one?
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
We're going to be talking a lot about the Fifth Circuit again today.
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
And we know that's an unfriendly environment for Biden.
So I would, you want to make a prediction?
What's your prediction about the result?
Oh, the result's going to stay the same because I'm about to tell you about a fifth
Circuit opinion, which is just batshit crazy. And so when you have these Trump judges and radical
right judges stacked on the courts, Popeyes, to your point, the order doesn't reference
COVID yet the order is actually should be about COVID because the very nature of this title 42 is a communicable disease law.
And so what we see consistently on legal AF
as we break down these issues is the inconsistency
of radical right judicial philosophy and policy
and for all their talk about strict constructionism and following the letter of
the law, that's just the usual gaslighting that you'll see when the radical right creates
their slogans for anything. And one thing to address, Pope, which is the comprehensive
immigration policy is always blocked by the radical right extremists because they like it. They want
there to not be a comprehensive policy. If a comprehensive policy shows any degree of compassion,
what they would actually want to see. Or if it supports the democratic policies,
or if it supports democratic policies, they are against it. Well, and if the Democratic policy shows some level of compassion and care for human beings
and views a human being not from the United States in a way that is a human, a human with dignity
as a human, that is where Republicans think that these individuals, you know, to use the phrase
are, they call them illegal aliens and view them as worse than animals. That is how Republicans view
immigrants from other countries. That's taken one step further to carry on with what Karen and I
talked about on the Wednesday podcast. The great replacement theory, which is now basically
GOP policy, is that immigrants are being brought in by Democrats and Jewish Democrats who
have high fertility rates because we're making new Democrats by letting immigration in.
So they point to us, which is also a Nazi-based anti-Semitic trope that leads to mass shootings
like the one in Buffalo.
It is exactly what you just said. Republicans do not want coherent dignified immigration policy
because it undermines their other theory that's on the Tucker Carlson show that we're trying to
manufacture a higher degree of Democrats by letting every immigrant in here regardless of their
status or their
entitlement, which is not true. Never been the Democratic policy is not the Democratic
policy. And that's where we are. And when you see crises develop, when you have these
xenophobic tropes and shutting down the border and you slogans like America, first, and
you see the baby formula crisis because we can't import baby formula for other countries based on Trump policy. It's just a small microcosm of just the absurdity of where their policy
goes in a globalized world. So we talked about the fifth circuit. So what states are within the
fifth circuit? Well, you have Louisiana, Judge Summer Hayes, who we just talked about is from
Louisiana. You got Mississippi and you got Texas.
And so that is the fifth circuit court of appeal,
pretty much filled with radical right extremist judges.
The least extreme judge on this panel
that we're talking about,
which is a three judge panel for this decision
was actually a Reagan appointee.
And it was a two to one vote,
and the two to one
the people who were the two were far more radical than the Reagan appointee and the Reagan appointee
was like, what the hell are you talking about? We're going to the SEC case though, right?
Of course, we're going to the SEC case right now. Oh, yeah, you gotta let me do my transitions
into the SEC case. He's anxious folks to talk about the SEC case, which is, you probably know the pronunciation.
Is it Jarkicy?
Jarkicy?
No, Jarkicy.
Jarkicy versus the SEC.
And in this case, basically, it was a hedge fund.
Jarkicy, the hedge fund, was defrauding its investors to the tune allegedly of $25 million.
The SEC initiated an administrative action against Jarksey, and the administrative actions
by the SEC are purely civil. The SEC can refer their cases to the Department of Justice. Frequently, you'll
have the Department of Justice step in, you know, either before or after SEC investigations
or civil actions take place. But the SEC actions are often injunctive relief to stop a party
from violating securities laws. Or they could be actually civil claims
against people like Jarksey for ripping off people.
And those go in front of administrative law judges
or the SEC can file actions in federal court
and they can file civil lawsuits in federal court
against people like Jarksey
and sometimes they're in these administrative law judge hearings.
And Popak, you could talk about what administrative law judges are,
but there's a whole system of administrative law judges in our federal system
to adjudicate disputes within the large federal bureaucracy that we have.
For legal AF listeners, the state
version of the administrative law judge, everybody remember the Marjorie Taylor green hearing
where she was being challenged under the election laws there. She went in front of an administrative
law judge. The administrative law judge ultimately makes a recommendation in that case
to Brad Raffinsberger, the Secretary of State.
And here with the SEC, the concepts are kind of similar where there's an administrative
law judge who will have this hearing.
And the administrative law judge would then make a recommendation to the SEC.
The SEC is appointed by the president, so they could be removed by the president.
And so the SEC would confirm the recommendations of the administrative law judge.
But this was a system that's been going on for a very, very long time.
It's not a disputable thing, administrative law judges, you know, in the social security
administration, when people would challenge, you know, in the social security administration
when people would challenge, you know, benefit decisions. You go in front of an administrative
law judge who makes the decision whether or not you should, you know, be able to be entitled
to benefits. This exists throughout our system. These administrative law judges, the Dodd
Frank Act, which Congress passed after the 2008 financial crisis,
bipartisan basis, expanded the SEC's ability to seek penalties and administrative proceedings.
And here we have the fifth circuit.
Basically, this is one of the challenges by Jarksey, where you ever hear those stories,
Popok, where someone's like pulled over by a cop and when they're getting a ticket, they go like, the people don't have the right to like you as an officer don't
have the right to give me a ticket because technically, the people can't be against me
as a defendant. It's just one of these like wild conspiracy theories.
Free the free citizen type cases. Yeah. And Jaxi basically said administrative
law judges shouldn't be able to exist, you know, it's
unconsent, the concept is unconstitutional, and the fifth circuit was like, yeah, we don't think
administrative law judges are, you know, should exist. And the fifth circuit gave various reasons
why they thought it shouldn't exist that these people are, they can only be removed for cause,
and there's all of these layers of the, and the president should be able to remove
these administrative logics.
What this ruling basically says is that the whole SEC system
of enforcement is unconstitutional and goes against the,
and then by reference also,
if you know it doesn't say this in the order,
all the other agencies that do the same things things like social security administration, every other agency, they can't do ALJs either.
So what in the world is going on here?
Yeah, so I have a background and this is everybody knows I was the global head of litigation
for a Wall Street firm.
And this really starts with a series of cases that started in 2018.
I was sort of involved with one of them, but I can talk about it. So in the case of
Lucia versus the SEC, there was a, that went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court that
all administrative law judges have to either be appointed by the president, the head of the agency,
in this case, the head of the SEC, or by a court, not by the staff.
So as an up until 2018, the SEC,
the Security, the Exchange Commission,
and all administrative agencies had a habit
of having staff level people appoint these judges.
And then in 2018, the Supreme Court said,
you can't do that.
So the Supreme Court, even then, completely do that. So the Supreme Court even then completely
eviscerated the SEC's policy of having staff-level people appoint administrative law judges.
The administrative law judges could only be removed for cause. They were not lifetime appointments,
but they could not be removed for any other reason. The Court didn't like that either in 2018,
but left that as an open issue, an open
issue now, which is coming back to the Supreme Court in a series of cases, including this one.
Supreme Court is going to rule off of this case that you just described and to other fifth
circuit cases about the entire framework that's been used for 50 years by the SEC, the IRS,
the Social Security Administration. And it really comes down to another issue
as well, Ben.
What is a private right and what is a public right?
Because there's a long line of cases,
a long line of cases, going back to like third good
Marshall on the court that says, if the US and its own name
is prosecuting public rights, I.e., you violated a federal statute,
they can do that and choose to do that in an administrative proceeding
within their agency, or they can choose to take it into federal court their choice.
The issue here is that the fifth circuit has said that the hedge fund manager, who was fined $250,000 or so
as part of being found to a violated fraud law, SEC fraud law, in the way he operated
that hedge fund.
He raised the argument based in part on the case I just described in 2018 and said the
whole process is illegal. That
person, even though it was now confirmed by the head of the SEC, that's what they did after
2018. They just blanketed confirmed by an order of the SEC, all of the original administrative
law judges. So that issue that was in Lucas has been sort of removed. But he said, I am being I am being fined for fraud. And that's like a debt collection. This was the leap of faith here.
And that debt collection, I have the right to a jury trial, even though it's civil, not criminal.
If it's a fraud case and it's debt collection oriented, I have the right to a jury trial. And since
the SEC isn't, isn't handling jury trials on an administrative level, I get to go to federal court.
And the fifth circuit said, yeah, that seems reasonable.
And so, like you said, they said, since there's no jury trial available to this person,
and we're going to find that he is the right to a jury trial, and that this is not vindicating public rights, even though it is.
It's vindicating private rights, even though it is. It's vindicating private rights
because they're collecting money,
then this case is out, you're gonna have to file,
whatever case you have, you're gonna have to file
that against him in court.
Now, the Supreme Court has all teed up for this
to come up to them because there's two other cases
that are now sitting in front,
they've decided to take, including this same week.
So the first case that decided to take, decided to take is a case brought by an accountant.
Her name is Cochran.
So Cochran versus the SEC.
Just the same week that the fifth circuit just came up with that ruling.
The Supreme Court said, we want to decide and weather.
And this is an interesting issue, whether the fact that the judges can only be removed
for cause makes them unconstitutional. She's challenged that. She's also said, I don't have to wait
to the end of the hearing, I can challenge the jurisdiction and the validity of that judge
at the SEC level right now. And the Supreme Court seems to have agreed with her because they're taking it up.
So the Supreme Court in the next term
is gonna decide the case that you and I just described,
the case of Ms. Cocker and the accountant,
and the case of the hedge fund manager
to decide once and for all,
whether SEC administrative law judges
need to be able to be removed for something other than cause.
They've already decided on the
appointment issue that's done and whether a jury trial is required if somebody is sued for fraud
by one of these administrative agencies. This is a lot for us to unpack once the Supreme Court makes
that ruling next term. We're seeing a lot of themes here about things that federal courts, particularly the radical right extremist
federal court, circuit courts, and the radical right extremist current Supreme Court are doing
with certain laws, the Voting Rights Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, the McCain Fine Gold Act. And when we talk about what these acts kind of have in common,
these were bipartisan pieces of legislation
that were designed to help with systemic problems
that were harming our country.
And it took a lot for politicians to come together and do this.
So the Dodd Frank Act, which I referenced earlier
in the podcast dealt with the 2008 financial crisis and expanded the SEC's abilities to seek penalties
and administrative proceedings. So what's the radical right extremist court doing? They're attacking
that very right to address the wrong that was taking place that led to the financial crisis
so you can have these rogue hedge funds
not have accountability or weaken the SEC's powers
to bring accountability.
We've talked in the past about the Voting Rights Act of 1965
and what have the federal courts done there?
Well, they took away the rights of the federal government
to have to approve the maps that states would give,
what's called pre-clearance.
And now they've basically shifted it
that the states should have their maps presumptively approved,
not the DOJ, not the government, basically saying
this map is racist or this maps inappropriate. So then you have civil rights groups try
to challenge these maps. And then by the time you challenge them, you basically say these
maps are too late. We've just seen this recently. You and I called what was going to happen in
Florida recently. And this was state courts basically saying it, but a lower state court in Florida, actually
in a point D of DeSantis, this judge Smith was appointed by DeSantis, you know, in Judge
Smith basically said, look, under the Florida Constitution, we have an anti-political
gerrymandering provision under our Constitution.
And even though DeSantis, you've waited until
like basically we're literally about to start voting, I can't uphold this map that's
both racist and politically, Jerry Mander. But what did the conservative extremist, I
should call myself out using the word conservative, the radical right extremist Florida appeals court.
Yeah, the first, the first, the first, they basically use the argument, well, we're getting,
and so what I told you, they were going to say, well, it was really wrong for the lower
court to try to overturn an issue and injunction on the map that DeSantis, because we're really close to the election now,
and you're overturning the status quo map,
which is the DeSantis map,
was one of the main reasons they used.
That's gonna ultimately go to the Florida's top court,
the Supreme Court, and what are they gonna do?
They're appointed by DeSantis,
or they're all DeSantis and Scott.
A point to it.
They're gonna hang on the argument of,
hey, the Constitution may say this,
we may want to address this gerrymandering issue, but you can't disrupt the status quo,
civil rights groups challenging this so close to the election.
So we need to uphold the map.
So again, we're going to see courts, you know, the radical right always calls, you know,
the courts of democracy loving people activists.
It's the exact opposite. You have these courts overturning
a constitutional provision in Florida, these bipartisan laws and these bipartisan rules at a federal
level. And then we go to the McCain fine gold, you know, which was campaigned finance reform.
And we see how the courts are again trying to destroy and are destroying bipartisan pieces of legislation.
So one of the things that McCain fine gold said is that there would be a federal cap on candidates
using political contributions after an election to recoup personal loans made to their campaign. And so those words are clear. Donors were always
able to loan their campaigns money. That there was no restrictions on that. The issue here is that
after the election, so after they win, if they go into debt, and there's like a 20-day limiter, however, but in the future, now can businesses and wealthy donors basically
say, Oh, cruise, you're in debt. You've got you, you, you won't let us repay that debt
for you. And so the idea is that by repaying a candidate's debt, that will allow. It's
not an idea. It's obvious corruption. It's would be a clear quid pro quo from someone if I go popok.
You're in debt.
What's your mortgage, popok?
I'm gonna pay your mortgage for you after,
you become a judge, popok.
I'm gonna pay your mortgage for you after.
I'm not expecting anything.
And then I appear in front of you.
What do I think is gonna happen if I pay your mortgage, pay your debt after or pay what you've done, the money you've loaned your
campaign to run for a judge ship. So there's obviously that conflict in there. And that's a
real problem. And so McCain find gold said, you can't do that up to $250,000. That's the problem,
Ben. This is this is where you and I are going to have a little bit I don't know about disagreement, but I take I read the case differently my problem with McCain fine gold is
That it gave two outs
That there were that were then used by Amy Coney Barrett the others the six to three majority in the decision to allow Ted Cruz who purposely
Loaned his campaign
Above the limit. Yeah, the limo is 250. We loaned his campaign above the limit. The limit was 250.
He loaned himself.
260.
I got it.
I could do that part.
He purposely went 10,000 above the limit,
and he purposely went beyond the 20 days.
But here's my problem.
If the problem you're trying to solve
is a problem of quid pro quo corruption,
that you're going to lend yourself your campaign money.
It's not really the mortgage issue.
You're going to lend yourself campaign money.
And then a donor after the election, knowing that you've already won, comes in and relieves
that debt for you, that could be corruption, right?
Which is called quid pro-co corruption. Here's the problem. Why is that not a
problem at the $250,000 level and why is that not a problem up to the 20th day?
Why have those outset all, all that allowed is the Supreme Court to say, is this
real, A, you haven't demonstrated in any of the briefing one example in the history
of McCain Feinckold where there's been quid pro quo corruption.
Look, I know that I know that's such a Mallory Kagan said this is going to open the door to it,
but it's put on the books for a long time. There's not been one prosecution. There's not been one
bribery charge that's shown that in that loan
arrangement that it's led to somebody voting a certain way or doing something.
Now you and I know it probably happens, but it didn't help the case that there was
not one example brought by the Department of Justice. That's one. Two, if you're
shutting the door down on it, I don't think there's limits. Then McCain, fine gold,
I think, embedded in the legislation, a problem. I think if think there's limits. Then McCain, fine gold, I think embedded in the legislation,
a problem. I think if there's quid pro quo corruption, it's at 250 or lower and 250 and higher. It's
on the day 21. It's on day 20. Why have a blanket, a blank, why have that? So this is what the 6-to-3
majority led by Roberts wrote. You haven't given us an example where that corruption, you have to have.
If this is core political speech, which right wrong, they're indifferent.
The Supreme Court has ruled that donating money, especially a campaign,
a candidate himself or herself donating money is core political speech protected
by the First Amendment.
And the only way that you can interfere with that is if you show a compelling reason that you can interfere with it. And if the
compelling reason is quid pro quo, which is what everybody says it is, give me an example where
that's happened. So that what you're legislating for is not overbroad to interfere with the first amendment right now. Look, I've got my own problems with
unfettered undoluted, unbridled use of money as a first amendment expression, but that ship has sailed.
So now I was not shocked. I don't know if you were that they ruled that you that a candidate, I don't like it being Ted Cruz,
but it is a candidate can loan themselves money over the 250 limit and go beyond the 20 days and somebody can relieve them of
that debt. And that is first amendment expression by the candidate and that's first amendment expression
by the donor. Show me corruption. You don't have any. We're finding the law to be invalid. I mean,
we're not that shocked by this. Are you ready though, just to be completely debunked alive?
I'm you sure in front of, I mean, are you really ready for what I'm about?
You got a good person.
It may, it may be embarrassing.
I'm, it's very hard to embarrass the Pope.
I mean, okay.
So the citizen United case that established the so called first amendment, right, was when it was in a 2010,
number one, McCain fine gold when they passed
this legislation was 2002.
The McCain fine gold when they passed the bill would not have predicted eight years later
that the Supreme Court was going to come up with this incredibly radical and disturbing
decision that changed the law.
So change the law.
They've had to Congress twice.
In that period, I know we're all embarrassing each other on YouTube. We've controlled Congress
as Democrats twice under Obama for the first two years and under Biden for the first
two years. So change it. But that's not how the, I mean, come on, Popak, you're better
than that. That's not how the government where, of course, we want to change it. McCain
fine gold took forever to do where you have McCain and fine gold. You
have Dodd and Frank, you have these very rare situations. Democrats want to and these
legislations are being blocked every which way by Republicans. Like right now, yes, Democrats
would like to change the law. Are you telling me, Popeyes, that right now the Democrats would
bite in and with Democrats controlling both houses can change this law.
We could have done it with Obama.
When?
When could we have done with Obama?
When did Democrats have a 60 person majority in the Senate to block?
Well, then we're back to filibuster reform.
Then the Democrats always are great about we're never going to get rid of filibuster reform
in case we lose again.
And then we're going to have the Republican shove everything down our throats. Everything is
being shoved down our throats now through the court system. Get rid of the filibuster
reform, get abortion on the books, get campaign finance on the books and get immigration reform
on the books and then deal with it in the court system. How about that?
Well, I agree. I agree with you pivot away from the true rationale that I gave, but I accept that
there should be filibuster reform.
But the McCain find gold was a compromise.
Why was it 250 and not 500?
Why was it 250 and not 25,000?
Because there was a time where you had someone like McCain and find gold who were trying
to come up with bipartisan legislation and strike a deal
that was messy and that doesn't fully make sense,
but that tried to address a clear quid quote pro
with this.
But wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Where is the quid pro quo example?
I thought that's how you were gonna embarrass me.
Where is it?
No, no, no, no, no, I can go there.
I'll embarrass you there also.
Okay, what is it?
The quid pro quo example, No, no, no, no, I can go there. I'll embarrass you there also. Okay, what, the quiz examples.
The quid pro quo example, if you have to point to,
I have to point to the building being blown up
before showing the risks that the building
are going to be up blow up.
But you have to,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie,
Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, implicit fundamentally in an idea where donors can pay back people's debts who have already
won.
I mean, it was so common since within the legislative purpose of McCain-Fightgold that
this arrangement is rife with problems, that there needs to be things to stop that from
happening. And the fact that this law has been on the books since 2002,
when there is big debts incurred,
this legislation was probably a factor
that could stop that from happening.
And the reason they picked 250 is because what a candidate
can do is loan themselves a shitton of money,
knowing that it'll always be repaid.
And by capping it at 250, it kind of disincentivized the really vicious quid proco arrangement from happening,
because it's just so obvious that the quid proco arrangement would exist. So now, finally,
we take away this cap.
Five episodes will have to agree to disagree. There shouldn't have been a cap.
We'll see what the people say. We'll see what we'll see.
There shouldn't have been a cap. But it was. But it was a great debate, but you have to come up with common sense legislation.
You have to have compromise.
The Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United
in 2020 was absurd and it's continues to be absurd
and I think whatever.
There was a great, great popoccyan and bend debate.
I feel like it is a good time.
The Lincoln Douglas debates.
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check that out. Popok, that was heated, man. That was a, I had to go for a walk. I had
a time to walk it off. Discussion that we had right there. Let's talk about, you know,
we're not in the hot seat on this one. John Eastman, more John Eastman emails. So I just
want to frame and I want you to talk about
a little bit, Popeye.
We talked about the January 6th committee,
subpoenaed all of these emails from John Eastman.
John Eastman purports to be Donald Trump's lawyer
at or around the time of the insurrection and thereafter.
John Eastman who lives in California as a former retired professor at Chapman University of Law School in California. He files a lawsuit.
Central District Federal Court California Southern division gets goes in front of Judge Carter, who I told you about I've appeared in front of Judge Carter's and no nonsense. nonsense, judge out here in former Marine, former marine decorated, um, Clinton appointee,
and judge Carter says it's more probable than not more likely than not that the conduct
that Donald Trump engaged in was criminal conduct with Eastman, when Eastman's claiming the
attorney crying privilege, one of the exceptions to the attorney client privilege is a crime
fraud exception.
Lawyers and clients can't commit crimes together.
They can't work on crimes together, even if the lawyers necessarily not aware of the clients,
even engaged in the crime, the lawyers still can't be helping a crime being committed.
And Judge Carter looked at the facts and said that, you know, seems that,
seems that Trump's gay to the criminal activity. A coup in search of illegal theory is what Carter said and Carter ordered a huge tranche of documents
to be turned over to the January 6th committee. But lots of people don't know this. There was 90,000
emails. There are emails that were on this Chapman server. There were emails that were on this chatman server. There were emails that were on this University of Colorado
server as well. The Colorado emails have now been turned over to the January 6th
committee because he was working at Colorado University at the time of the
insurrection and they're based on the public records request. There's no
exception. So Colorado turned over all of those records and in those Colorado
emails even, I mean how devastating are those?
I mean, he literally says in the emails, we need to replace the electors.
Just let's, we shouldn't even count them.
Like we should just, let's just lie and say that Trump won.
So we could do our own slate.
He says that in the emails, we don't even need to count the votes.
Let's just say Trump won the vote in the state and elect our own slate
But now we have this home is there's like
tens of thousands of more emails that are right issue here that we haven't discussed and
Our man Eastman I say that sarcastically
He's doing everything he can not to turn these over. And he his brief was like the most absurd
rambling, ridiculous brief ever. And he's all that he's leaning in. That collections were stolen and
and Judge Carter's going to read this and say, what in the heck are this man talking about?
Carter already feels that way about him. So so there were these filings last week, late at night
already feels that way about him. So so there were these filings last week, late at night,
where Eastman made further claims about why attorney client privilege applies here. But in doing so, he further linked Trump to the insurrection and said, look,
Trump was passing me notes. I was getting all these handwritten notes from him at the insurrection.
And so all he's doing now in doing this is showing
that Trump was directly involved in all the activity that this judge has said was criminal.
It's a weirdest thing. First of all, I want to ask you a question.
You agree with me that the attorney client privilege is held by the client.
The attorney has to protect it. Everyone agreed with that. That's what the law is.
It's not held by the attorney. Whereas the where is Trump? Trump has not intervened in this case. To assert, he holds the attorney client
privilege. To assert the attorney client privilege. Eastman, the lawyer is asserting it on his
behalf, but normally, just so people know, if a legal AF world, it's the client that holds the
privilege. The client would have to be before the court. It's not always. It's not always. It's the client that holds the privilege. The client would have to be before the court. It's not always. It's not always. It's the client's privilege. That really hasn't
come up. Why Eastman is digging to use your law of holes to continue our theme today
with a shovel in both his hands. I have no idea. It is obviously a, the 50 pages or 40
pages that were filed late at night on, it was actually just filed yesterday later late last night or the night before. Goes through all the reasons that John Eastman continues
to believe that the election was stolen from Donald Trump. There's, there's a whole section
starting at the very beginning that the big lie is really the big lie that there is, that
there is proof that the big lie is what the January six committee's
doing is what he says in the open power.
Right.
There's a lot.
How absurd is that?
Right.
And that and goes over again, every state and why there's fraud and why there was vote
switching with software, all of the bullshit that's been completely rejected by every federal
agency that's charged with security
of the elections integrity of the election every court in 70 cases, everybody that with a brain
in their head who has looked at the evidence as this was the most secure and had the most
integrity of any election ever. What they don't like and what they say and they and they convert to fraud
is that in light of the pandemic, many state legislatures which are empowered to do this,
some of which were democratic controlled, change the voting laws to allow people to have
ease of voting because people were like in lockdown during parts of this election, so they made mail-in voting
easier.
They made in-person registration and voting easier.
That's not fraud.
That's state electorates who have eyes and ears and the five senses realizing that if we
don't do these things, there's going to be a very small population of people that are
going to be willing to stand in line for 12 hours in a pandemic
to cast a vote. That's all this is. So everything that they say it's fraud, when you really look at
the next level, it's they don't like the fact that COVID protocol policies were put in place by
state legislatures so that we can have an election for the first time. And so they didn't cancel the election.
So that people would be able to vote.
That's what they don't like.
That's not fraud.
That's just a change to accommodate a pandemic.
All right, so let's put that aside.
So this is like 22 pages of the big lie,
including citing things like Denise DeSousa's documentary
that just came out, books that have been written
by other crazies as source material
that the judge should read in camera. I mean, they're going all in crazy with this filing,
but the best part is what you pointed out then. He had to, I guess he felt he had to, in order to
defend the attorney client privilege and what's called the attorney work product privilege
and litigation
privilege, which is when you anticipate litigation, which they always did, there's another cover,
another privilege cover for that. He had a show, the link between himself and the client,
the client being Donald Trump. So he says in his filing, Ben, not only are their handwritten
notes directing traffic by Trump, but that there were six conduits in the Trump campaign and in the
Trump White House that he, Eastman, communicated with to get to the president, meaning he has tightened
the, he has tightened the circle to include the White House meadows and others and the campaign
into his nefarious interactions
with the president of the United States.
So by defending the privilege to Lord knows
what these handwritten notes say,
he had to describe in generalities the notes
which has now, he's basically committed professional suicide
because he's made it worse for the client
who's gonna be prosecuted hopefully one day for his role in the insurrection and a conspiracy
to overthrow the country, which the, which the, the, the sitting federal judge who you
just said, a Carter already believes and the Jans, and then to say, I don't know if you
saw the attack of the Jansix committee, the Jansix committee, which has done 1,000 interviews.
We're going to talk about this at the end of the pot, 1,000 interviews, including key people, family members of Donald Trump,
lawyers for Donald Trump, people that were organizers, people that were there on Jansix,
people that were there before Jansix, 1,000 people have testified, they've looked at millions
of pieces of documentation.
These guys had the balls to say without having seen the JAN-6 committee report
because it hasn't been issued.
We haven't even had the hearings yet.
Oh, they're picking and choosing.
They're not reading full things.
They can't be, the JAN-6 committee can't be believed.
I mean, this is all the continuation of Ginny Thomas,
QAnon, the undermining of democracy in America.
This brief is just exhibit, you know, double Z in that.
And they're willing to do this to go because, you know,
so he's not facing any, yet,
Eastman is not facing a criminal prosecution, right?
We haven't heard he's gone into the grand jury.
He's focused on him.
So he's doing all this civil stuff in California,
but it's going to kill him on the criminal side.
I don't get it.
I don't understand it.
Here's my view of if there's a way to get it, it is that whatever is in these documents
is really, really, really bad.
And so it makes more sense, you know, sometimes Akam Merzrazer, the simplest explanation,
sometimes is the one.
The info in this is so bad that he's going through these steps to do anything he can
to try to prevent them from coming out.
And one of the things he hoped that he could achieve through writing this legal nonsense
is to try to delay this till after the open hearings or till after
the January 6th report by trying to manipulate and delay the legal process, but judge Carter
very astutely recognized that's what was taking place.
The reason why this brief was filed last week is that the judge ordered and expedited a
quicker briefing schedule based on the January 6th committee needing these documents.
Now, Eastman previously was arguing, I'm not being prosecuted. There's no emergency here.
We don't need to even discuss this. There should be a month, we should talk about these over the
course of months and have a normal briefing schedule and Judge Carter saw right through it and
said, nope, tell me immediately why you think these documents should not be turned over right away. And I think Judge Carter is going
to reject these arguments.
Well, there's one more brief coming. The Jan 6th committee gets to respond to this filing.
So that's going to be fun for you and me to talk about next week.
Oh, stay tuned to that.
And more January 6th, enough to discuss before doing that, though, I do want to turn to a legitimate
first amendment case, not the Republicans like Ted Cruz claiming, I mean, they won the
case. So it's what the Supreme Court claims now is a first amendment right under Citizens
United, which is absurd to me, but a case that the First Amendment really is at playing
what the First Amendment was intended for
was a federal judge in Tennessee struck down
a law in Tennessee that would require business owners
that would provide equal access to bathrooms
for transgender Tennesseans.
The law in Tennessee would have required these business owners to basically post a sign
that was a very transphobic sign about the bathroom policy of the store owners.
And the store owners filed this lawsuit and said the government of Tennessee is violating my
First Amendment right because they are forcing me to speak government words that are anti-transgendered
persons that I don't agree with under criminal penalty under criminal penalty. And I don't agree with hate speech. I want to have an accommodating
place that respects the dignity of all human beings. And by making me say things that are harassing
intimidating and discriminatory to transgender Tennesseans, the government is impeding on my first amendment free
sprites by forcing me to speak the way I don't want to speak by posting those signs.
The court in Tennessee agreed and the judge granted summary judgment and
struck down the law. This will go to the court of appeals afterwards. But I think
the judge got it right. I think this Tennessee law was offensive.
And to me, this is where it's a real First Amendment issue when the government, we see these
two examples. One, we have Ted Cruz in my view, perverting and mutating the First Amendment
to allow unlimited loans to his campaign. And they're saying, that's, you know, that's
how the Republicans want to use for all their free speech talk, use free speech there. And here we have an example of Republicans
trying to force hate speech on to people who have the right to their free speech, which is rejected.
I like the judge a lot, judge a
Leda, Troucher or Troucher, and I like her background a lot compared to these
Republican appointments. She was the, she was a US, she was an assistant US attorney,
she was a bankruptcy judge, she was counsel for the University of Charleston,
she was the chief of staff for the mayor of the city in Tennessee. She's done it all,
and she got it right here. She's done it all.
And she got it right here.
She rightly noted that it's not all compelled speech
by the government that is unconstitutional
through 42 USC in 1983, which is the claim.
Some compelled speech forcing somebody
to put warning labels on cigarettes or devices.
That's compelled speech, but that's okay.
It's when the government uses its power and its police power, literally, to criminalize
and to force you, as you said, to take a position that is it odds with your true convictions.
That's a violation of core principles of the First Amendment.
I think she analyzed
that, pardon me, exactly right, because if you are a club owner, a restaurant owner, which
are the two plaintiffs in this case, or any business of public accommodation, and your
feeling is that transgender citizens, Americans have the right to use the bathroom that aligns with their with their gender preference. Right.
The fact that you will be a criminal in the state of Tennessee. If you a now if you don't put a sign on that in their view, and I want to talk about legislative history here, just to show you what's in the minds of these Republicans.
what's in the minds of these Republicans, to announce that, hey, warning,
there might be transgendered Americans along with you
in the stall.
The legislative history was really disgusting
and the judge pointed out at it,
which was they have equated the Republican Tennessee
legislators have equated people who are transgender
with being pedophiles and rapists.
And just like they used to do or still do,
that gay people are pedophiles. They shouldn't be schoolteachers. They shouldn't be work in day camps,
that type of thing. Literally, the legislative history that led into this compelled,
unconstitutional speech is we got to keep people who happen to be transgendered citizens out of bathrooms because they may rape somebody.
I mean, that is how disgusting and low this is fallen in states like Tennessee.
And thank God we have federal judges like the one here that was appointed by Clinton who did the right thing.
Now we're going to have to see Ben, what do you think the sixth circuit, sixth circuit, court of appeal is going to do. It's not the fifth, but what do you think
the sixth is going to do when this thing comes up for review?
You know, I need to look at the panel. It could go either, I mean, it really could go either
way. It's going to depend who the panel is.
The panel of three judges, you know, panel of three judges, like in the fifth circuit,
almost no matter what the panel is, you're always going to
kind of get into one on the most extreme position.
Here I would just put it out of the coin toss of 50-50.
And once I have the panel, I can tell you pretty much exactly what the outcome is going
to be.
So those that are following along, and I'll put it in League of Lay-F community, Twitter
community, the case is Bongoongo productions, LLC versus Lawrence.
These cases always have strange names because it's the name of the company.
But that is the case and it will go to the sixth, we'll see who the panel is.
And then somebody will, the Tennessee guarantee if they lose at the sixth or
winner lose this case is going up to this Supreme Court with the
with the six to three super majority in favor of the right way. Just disgusting.
Disgusting to me. It's just disgusting to me that this is what the radical right, you know, spends their time doing like they passing laws that intimidate and harass and
Treat human beings like second-hand or second-class citizens. It's really disturbing and disgusting and that's across the board
The only legislation that they pass is how do we discriminate against a group of people?
LGBTQ plus women how do we how do we you know
against a group of people, LGBTQ plus women, how do we, how do we, you know, immigrants,
how do we project our hate onto a group?
Not how do we help Americans?
How do we project the hate and the venom that we have
and put that into the world?
Did you see, I put it on my Twitter feed,
you might have had it on my touch.
Did you see Huckim Jeffries,
two-minute clip about Thomas?
It's powerful. it's powerful.
It's powerful.
You know, why do you hate so much, brother Thomas?
Why do you, and he listed many of the things that you just did,
I just think he's gonna be the next speaker of the house
once Nancy Pelosi steps down,
but to hear him call out a Supreme Court justice
and by extension, the Republican Party and the GOP party,
which is fine for me because it's not like he's sitting.
Yeah, I used to like it when I never heard from Clarence Thomas.
Now that he's emboldened that he has the numbers and his wife, he can't stop talking.
He's constantly on lecture series and the summer hasn't even started yet.
I mean, defending and took, I don't know if you saw it, he took a pot shot at Roberts recently.
He longed for the days of the court in 2008 when everybody got along.
It's all gaslighting.
The court in 2008 as still tilting, still made some really bad rulings.
In 2008, it was nothing like this. I mean, this is as radical and extreme as, you know, as it's been in a very, very,
very, very long time.
Let's talk about January 6th updates, Michael Popak, Jan 6th updates, Bill Barr.
He's already informally spoken with Liz Cheney and some other investigators from the January 6th committee. They apparently went to his home
And just talked with him about what happened cup of coffee with Bill Barr
Cup of coffee with Bill Barr and
And Bill Barr though is said to that he's going to testify not in public
But testify formally under oath in front of the Jan 6th Committee. You think that's gonna happen?
Yeah, and then we just you and I talked before we started.
I didn't know it until now.
Giuliani just gave nine hours of sworn testimony
behind closed doors to the Gen 6 committee.
While many of that might have been an invocation of Fifth Amendment
or some sort of attorney client privilege,
I'm sure he talked and I'm sure there's a lot of things that we're going to see in the June
Gable to Gable hearings and in the final report that come out of Rulie Giuliani, but they did
this so smart then we've been talking about the Jan 6th committee. I think we're on our 66th episode
of the of the main legal AF podcast. We've been talking about Jan 6th unfortunately for a long time
and covering it. But
they did, they're getting more, this is the leaks that's been coming out, they're getting more
from the staff members and the executive assistants and the people just below the mark meadows of the world who have all, you know, listen, they got careers, reputations, and they're facing jail time, they're talking,
and they're not, and they're not asserting Fifth Amendment,
and they're not asserting Attorney Client Provelage,
and they're just draining all that information
out of this kind of second tier, not second tier person,
but second level person who's in every room,
every meeting who's in the dining room with Trump,
who's in the situation room,
who's with meadows taking notes. There's always Trump, who's in the situation room, who's with
meadows taking notes. There's always somebody. These guys are very rarely alone and they've gotten
so much out of them that now they're just, okay, let's get that final round. Who's going to come in?
Is we're going to get meadows, we're going to get Giuliani, we're going to get power, who are we
going to get? But they don't need it. They have so much evidence. It's their like probably bursting at the seams to put on this hearing later in June.
Oh, I can't wait for that hearing. We've got some very, very, very special guests coming up as well on the Midas Touch podcast of,
we'll just say some members of Congress who are leading the January 6th committee efforts. And so we will excited to have those interviews.
And you know who else is also in the room where it happened, who's you're talking about other people.
Shela Craighead, the photographer. Oh, I love her. Who got screwed by Trump on the book deal and
now is paying him back with the photos. Yeah. So on the book deal, you know, usually in every
presidential administration, the photographer would own their
photographs and be able to publish books. It's generally the
rule about what a photographer is. But Trump wouldn't claim that
those were his photographs and not the publics and trying to
basically prevent her from publishing those photographs as her own photographs.
You know, it's such a Trump thing to do.
But anyway, the good news is, is that she was there
on January 6th, which we've had a lot.
She's got a lot of photos of him
that the January 6th committee now has.
And so some of his movements and who he was talking to,
she's got photographs of that.
And it'll be interesting as the January
6th committee does their opening and tells their story.
Karma's a bitch. You know, she would have turned the photos over earlier, but she turned
them over pretty fast, having been blocked from publishing her book. Michael Popak, we
got some heated debates today. It was a great GLAF. We talked about a lot of issues. We'll
see what the people thought about those debates.
But again, you come to GLAF for the hard hitting legal news
of the week.
And I think week after week, we deliver,
at least do our best to deliver, Michael.
Always a pleasure spending these weekends with you
updating all the Midas mighty all the
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Store.mitustouch.com now and get your favorite legal AF merch, your favorite, minus touch merch.
Make sure you're getting the newest bracelets, the newest gear, again, store.mitustouch.com.
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We'll see you next time on Legal AF Ben and Michael Popak signing off.
Shout out to the Midas Mighty.
Shout out to the Midas Mighty.