Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF RESPONDS to MAJOR Breaking LEGAL NEWS

Episode Date: January 16, 2025

Michael Popok and Karen Friedman Agnifilo are back with Legal AF podcast. On Tap: 1) The confirmation hearings have started and what does it mean for the DOJ and our democracy; 2) Volume I of the Jack Smith closing report is out to the public and the anchors provide their analysis; 3) Volume 2 on Mar a Lago is stuck in limbo. Will Judge Cannon allow it to be released; 4. Musk has been sued by the SEC again for stock swindling; why does it matter; 5. The Supreme Court is starting to push back against Trump and his worst instincts, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Support our Sponsors: Americans United: Join in the fight: https://AU.org/legalaf Levels: Levels: Levels is offering my listeners an additional 2 free months of the Levels annual Membership when you use my link, https://levels.link/LEGALAF Lume: Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Lume deodorant and get $5 off your Starter Pack (that’s over 40% off) with promo code legalaf at https://LumeDeodorant.com! #lumepod Mack Weldon: Go to http://mackweldon.com/?utm_source=streaming&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=podcastlaunch&utm_content=LEGALAFutm_term=LEGALAF and get 20% off your first order with promo code LEGALAF Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's midweek, which means it's time for Legal AF, the OG podcast, five years of the making. Wednesdays means Karen Freeman-Iknifilow joins Michael Popak, me right here on the Midas Touch Network. And we are so thrilled. Can't ask for a better opening act or to follow President Joe Biden and his farewell address following in the footsteps of George Washington talking about everything that we've known here in our audience, Karen, which is he's a great, he was a great president and continues to be a great president. Even into the last minute, we're better off, we're more prosperous. The kid from Scranton by way of Amtrak Joe in

Delaware made this country better, has been doing it for over 50 years. And it's a, it's a sad day. We had a sad couple of weeks here with certain icons leaving the public stage. Jimmy Carter, now Joe Biden. It's an end of an era, but, uh, you know, we got a lot of work to do. Roll up our shirt sleeves here. Uh, and especially on this podcast tonight, we're going to talk about the

beginnings of the confirmation hearings, just to kind of clear our throats here. Hegseth and Pam Bondi, big-time election denier. She'll say Joe Biden won, but she won't say Donald Trump lost. Very interesting. More importantly, I'll do a hot take on this another time, the Minister of Retribution showed up in the room and sat in during the confirmation hearings for Pam Bondi. We'll talk more about that. Pete Hegseth, you know, he had his confirmation hearing. It looks like that's about done.

FBI hasn't done a great job, Karen, on doing their background checks. And it looks like both of these are gonna get out of their committees into the floor of the Senate. We'll talk about all of that. Then we'll launch into the things right in our wheelhouse. Volume one, volume one is out. 140 pages, we've all gone over it.

Left, right, and center. And we can talk about special counsel Jack Smith's release. How we got here, I called it the squid game. It was like red light, green light. Every time we thought we were gonna get our hands on the volume one, it got blocked by somebody. Either Judge Cannon again or the 11th Circuit. But we'll talk about how all this played out.

Then we'll turn to volume two, which is Mar-a-Lago. I don't think we're ever gonna see the Mar-a-Lago volume two. I'm not even sure it's ever gonna get to Congress in time. We'll talk more about what Judge Cannon's doing related to that with a hearing scheduled for this Thursday. Then there's been some reporting about Steve Bannon who's always been Donald Trump's pit bull. He's always been his, apologies to pit bulls, he's always been his henchman. Anything he does is usually because Donald Trump has him do it. And suddenly

he's attacking and going after Elon Musk, claiming that he wants to bring him low and get rid of the guy. Is this Donald Trump using Steve Bannon to do some block and tackling? Or is this just an independent beef between Bannon and Musk? Is Bannon jealous? What's going on there? And what does it mean ultimately when you know Elon Musk moves into the I don't know if it was the Eisenhower building you know he's got the office building right next to the White House what does it all mean? I'll talk about that and if

it means anything. Musk, speaking of Musk, got sued today or yesterday by the Securities and Exchange Commission for stock swindling effectively, swindling the American investor and other investors out of $150 million. Why was the suit filed? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Why is Gary Gensler going out here in all his glory and taking on Elon Musk?

We'll talk about it, I think it's a good thing. And then we have a series of decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States that I want to cover with you, Karen, that indicate that I'm not saying they're having misgivings about giving Donald Trump so much power, but they certainly have dealt him three losses in a row in the last seven days or things related to him or important to him. You've got last week, five to four, the sentencing decision with Amy Coney Barrett rising up there, joining John Roberts, allowing Donald Trump to be ever forever indelibly marked as a felon. And then you've got

this case involving the fossil fuel and big oil who have been sued by Hawaii with a case that's been kicking around for a couple of years, perfect case for the Supreme Court to kill and not allow states or other class action cases against big oil or big fossil fuel because they've been, as alleged in the lawsuit, they've been deceptive in their marketing practices to consumers, making people believe that their products, oil and gas, are good for the environment and good for your health, when they're probably not. So that suit looks like it's going to go forward with the Supreme Court decision. We'll talk about that.

And RFK Jr., right on time, right before his confirmation hearing about the Department of Health and Human Services, he just lost as a lawyer before the United States Supreme Court in his argument that doctors have the First Amendment right to spread misinformation about medical treatments to their patients. No they don't, says the United States Supreme Court, all nine of them, and nobody jumped off sides and filed any kind of dissenting opinion or anything like that. What does it mean for the future policies and laws when the United States of America is being represented by Donald Trump and his Solicitor General? We will cover it all on the

midweek edition of Legal AF. Let's bring in Karen, who's in her alternate universe office on the set of law and order. No. Yeah. Yes. Everybody's like, no, why are there why are there greats? New York is terrible. She has to be in an office with greats. Yes, to my alternate universe. One of my favorite things I get to do with my time is I get to be the legal advisor to the hit show Law and Order. So I'm very proud that they have me now for the third season in a row. Yep. Yep. Yep. And they always do that rip from the headlines. And one day we'll

see if it's ripped from the headlines. Let's move on to our opening act here. Having followed the president of the United States, so honored of the close relationship between the Midas Touch Network and the Biden administration. I mean that in a good way. We're independent. We're people powered. We're legal AF'er, and might as mighty powered. But, you know, we've supported because it's the right thing to do all of the amazing and wonderful things that Joe Biden has been able to accomplish in his four years, you know, from judges to infrastructure, to clean energy, to, you know, oil and gas and making us less dependent on foreign powers, on properly managing his

foreign policy, making us safer and more secure, having great diplomatic relationships with our allies, all the things that Trump's going to destroy in the first hundred days of his administration. But we are in a better place today in many, many ways because of Joe Biden, both domestically and from a foreign policy standpoint. And we're going into a period, unfortunately, of darkness where we're going to be less secure from an economy that's going to be gyrating because of late night social media posts by Donald Trump freaking out traders and brokers and things like that. And then freaking out our allies who we rely on on much to Donald Trump's chagrin for our

intelligence to keep us safer, to have coordinated military operations. Throw that all out the window. Our allies are not going to cooperate with Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbard is head of the National Intelligence Apparatus and that is a big problem for the United States. We just watched Hegseth, Pete Hegseth, he of 13 years on Fox and Friends. I guess that's a new training academy to be the head of the Pentagon. And Pam Bondi, who just is a continued election denier, who not only refuses to admit, Karen,

that Donald Trump lost, which is weird, but it also shows how corrupt already the incoming administration is and how close they are to the world of corporate lobbying. I don't know if MAGA thought they were draining the swamp. All these people are swamp things. They're coming out of the swamp, and that was very apparent in the Pam Bondi confirmation hearings today. What was your takeaway from Hegseth and Bondi for Attorney General and Pentagon respectively?

I mean, look, to my takeaway is that these are done deals, right, that these hearings aren't really going to be any sort of informative illustrative thing for the American people. Both Hegseth and Bondi were loaded for bear fighting back and really just They they are confident. They are confident I think they wouldn't be this confident and this combative to the democrats asking legitimate questions If they didn't know they had the votes behind the scenes

and so there's been this huge push behind the scenes for this sort of beauty pageant, you know, where they've been traipsed around Capitol Hill and making sure that they get the votes ahead of time. And then they go in there with this confidence and this defiance, and you just saw it on full display. And, you know, the thing that's really – the Hegseth one in particular was the one that struck me the most because he's got Republicans coming out and saying how's the he's the most qualified person that could lead the Defense Department, which really the uber super conservative MAGA right wing Ivy

leaguers. Like you've got JD Vance, now you've got Pete Hegseth, who went to Harvard and to Princeton. And they sort of that's like the the shiny MAGA object that they think means that you can't possibly touch their qualifications because they have that. So that seems to be where I think it is. And we just have to be very careful. And look, Kash Patel is the one that's terrifying to me. I hope that he does not get through to the FBI. Same with Tulsi Gabbard, not that Hegseth and Bondi aren't also equally concerning, frankly. But Hegseth in particular, look, he's gonna have the entire United States military

essentially in his hands. And these are the lives of our service people. And I just hope he has the humility to handle this job and to take on this job and to keep our service members safe and keep their lives safe. And frankly, to treat women who are in the military, the many, many thousands of women in the military with the respect and dignity that they deserve.

So it's a big job ahead of them all. And same thing with Pam Bondi, she's gonna be head of the Department of Justice. And frankly, the career prosecutors that work there are some of the finest in the nation. So hopefully there isn't much damage that can be done there. It shouldn't be a political place anyway. Prosecution should never be about politics. It should always be about following the facts and the law. So my hope there is that it just happens to have somebody at the helm that has a different politics as I might have,

but that nonetheless, the standards of the Department of Justice will still remain the same. That's my hope. I know I'm slightly optimistic, but that's my hope of how it's going to go. But we haven't even gotten, like I said, to the ones that are most concerning that are coming up. But we have to steel ourselves for four years of MAGA, right? So, and this is just, it's starting now.

If people tune in, they might think that we flip scripts. You sound much more optimistic than I'm going to sound about Pam Bondi. My biggest problem with Pam Bondi, besides the fact that she seems to be in the back pocket of corporate, as a corporate lobbyist of corporations. I mean, she's worked for Ballard Partners, which is one of the places that people like Susie Wiles and her and others, foreign lobbyists, all the things that Donald Trump supposedly has told his voters that he's against is exactly the training academy that he's bringing in people into his administration. I mean, when MAGA wakes up,

they got to be having voter remorse at this point. You know, it's like, you know, all this talk about Greenland and tariffs that are going to raise prices on Americans, on housing and food and other logistical things, right, you know, all the pain that he's talking about, the debt that he's going to heap on to America with tax cuts. Everything is oriented around benefiting the billionaires in his incoming administration and the industries, the small subset of industries that supported him for the presidency. The oil and petroleum who gave him hundreds of millions of dollars, cryptocurrency that gave him hundreds of millions of dollars, banking interests and financial services that gave him hundreds of millions of dollars. They all literally have a front row seat at the inauguration

because they gave millions of dollars a piece for the inauguration to curry favor with this administration because they know he's so transactional that all you have to do is like pay a lot of money and you're going get policy that reflects you know what you would like to have happen. That's why when we get the Supreme Court we're gonna talk about the role of the Supreme Court and all this. Pam Bondi scares the crap out of me for a number of reasons. First of all she's the one that led the cheer during during the convention four years ago. Lock her up, lock her up, Hillary Clinton. That's a problem for me.

Her being the personal lawyer for Donald Trump, including one of his first impeachment lawyers, that's a problem for me. Her comments about prosecuting the prosecutors, that's a problem for me. And in addition to that, you have this overarching Heritage Foundation, Federalist Society view. And they've said it out loud. It's not like I'm putting words in their mouth. I'm just repeating what they've said publicly is that they don't want an independent Department of Justice. They never have. They believe that the founding fathers, the framers, put the

Department of Justice under the executive branch led by one person, the president, for a reason. And in order to have a unitary president, which is what they call it, to have this super president, then they consider him, and I've heard them use these words, as the prosecutor for America, not the head of the Department of Justice. They believe that that person reports

to the top prosecutor, that would be the President of the United States, and his name right now in about five days is going to be Donald Trump and that scares the crap out of me. Is she going to? She gave very limited assurances during the confirmation hearing today about how she's going to run that office. Is she going to meet with Donald Trump on a regular basis and go over her case list? America Arlen and others did not do that, but I believe that she will do that and she didn't really give that many assurances about that. I think if he calls her up, she's gonna take the phone call just like Sam Alito took the phone

call at you know, I think he's gonna Pam. Why don't you come over for a regular Wednesday lunch? Um that would be great. What's on? What are you? What's what do you got cooking there? Pam? What's who you going out? Are you going after the Biden family? Are you going after this media person I don't like? And this, you know, I got my list and let's bring Cash Patel in. Let's have a nice, let's have a full luncheon.

That's gonna happen. And that's the problem. The career prosecutors, if they don't all mass resign, which I agree with you, a lot of them will stay, US attorneys will all mass resign or be asked to, and they're already being replaced. But the policy is going to be them doing the bidding as henchmen for Donald Trump.

And we're just gonna have to hope that the federal court system led by Democratic appointed judges are gonna be a firewall against their worst instincts and urgings. I mean, I didn't like the fact that the guy that self-proclaimed the Minister of Retribution, former military officer, intelligence officer, allegedly showed up for the confirmation hearing because they're all, there's a whole group of wackos that are waiting to try to, when the door gets opened on January 20th,

to try to stream in and change policy. So we have a lot of rightful criticism about Merrick Garland and sort of his owlish behavior and conduct that kind of screwed us in terms of the prosecutions, but I'll take him over a Pam Bondi who's on a short leash with Donald Trump any day, any day and six times on Sunday. So one of the reasons that we all found Legal AF was just in case, break glass emergency, we're in break glass emergency. We're in break glass emergency. And it's going to be a supremely hot corner. You and I and Ben are going to have to talk about the hundreds, if not thousands of cases that are soon to be filed already prepared against what's already been prepared on the

Trump side, which is executive orders and laws. And we're going to be lurching from constitutional crisis to constitutional crisis. And we're going to see a lot, whether we like it or not, we're going to be seeing a lot of Pam Bondi up at a podium and a lectern talking about whatever she's talking about. I only hope that we remain as safe in terms of the prosecutions that Merrick Garland led, police brutality, terrorism, public corruption, or are those things going to be like in a museum behind

glass? This is what the FBI, the Department of Justice used to do. I mean, we're going to have to see what the next four years are they going to go after cities with policing problems? No way. Are they going to go after, you know, we haven't even gotten around to Harmeet Dhillon to head the Civil Rights Division? Okay, which is mind-boggling.

Are we gonna see voting rights cases, abortion clinics being protected, women's rights being protected, immigrants being protected from abuse? No way under this next four years. And that's gonna start with Donald Trump and then and then Pam Bondi. So anything else on the confirmation areas before we switch gears and go to volume one in the prosecutors report? The one thing that struck me that Pam Bondi wouldn't categorically really, in addition to the other evasive answers that she gave,

was these Jan six pardons that are gonna happen en masse. That's gonna be really interesting to see how that's handled. Is Donald Trump really going to pardon everyone? Or is he going to be selective? And she kind of cage Lee said, well, I'll advise, I'll be ready on day one to advise on any case that I was asked about, but not really to give a straight answer on this. And I think it's going

to behoove us to really as these pardons are given, to really pull out some of the ones that are extremely egregious and to show the video of the conduct of what these individuals did when and that Donald Trump has chosen to pardon them. I mean, don't forget we had assaults on law enforcement, we had people lose their lives, there was a lot of violence on January 6. It was horrendous. And I think we can't let that die when these pardons happen. And we have to keep that conversation going, because that's atrocious. We've got that on video and videos obviously aren't going to lie or exaggerate the truth. So I just think that's something that we have to keep an eye on.

I agree with you. I think the judges are going to be more important than ever at keeping the rule of law together. But I still have faith that career prosecutors will also be able to prevent some of the damage that could be done in the position, in the Pam Bondi and Cash Patel positions. That's where my optimism comes in. It's not about them. It's about the career FBI agents and the career prosecutors who believe in the rule of law and believe in justice. And they might have to do it quietly, but they will quietly follow the law and follow the facts. And if there's nothing there, there's nothing there. They're not gonna be able to bring cases.

Just like the accusations that this was a political witch hunt that Donald Trump says about his cases. Well, guess what? If the facts weren't there, he wouldn't have gotten convicted 34 times, right? No matter how much somebody wants to go after somebody, you can't if you don't have the evidence. And so I just think at the end of the day,

the justice system, whether it's the judges or the career men and women who work for the Department of Justice and the FBI, are gonna prevent a lot of the damage is all I have to say. So that's where my optimism comes in. Yeah, I hope so. The problem is getting search warrants authorized. Yeah, no, they're gonna hassle people.

I mean, the other thing too they're gonna do is they're gonna do things like, Donald Trump is going to do things like, make it so that his enemies are audited and so they have to hire lawyers to deal with audit. I mean, they're gonna hassle people and make them spend lots of money, hassle them in their lives in so many ways.

There's a lot of damage and mischief and things that they can do to people that they dislike. Whether it could be as retributive as these mass deportations or what they're going to do. I mean, they're going to do a lot of damage. That's for sure. Or at least they're going to try. I was literally just responding to this one thing about how I do think there are some stop gaps in place that I think I'm optimistic will at least prevent some of the damage. Yeah. Yeah. And I want to talk more about your prosecutor background and what you think line prosecutors and career prosecutors can do to help.

And it'll be perfect because we're gonna be talking about volume one, how smart Jack Smith was in so many ways to do volume one and volume two. We were debating a month or so ago whether it would be one volume or two volume. Thank God it was two volumes because one got out without having Judge Cannon

interfere with it. Volume one is out, it's 140 pages. We've all read it, we'll give you our own personal takeaways about its importance, it is important, it is part of now a chapter of history, a written chapter of history, in a way that the Jan six committee report was,

but then wasn't, it's more, I think Jack Smith's report is more powerful in its stinging rebuke of Donald Trump, basically saying, I would have gotten a conviction. I mean, I want to hear from you about a prosecutor saying out loud, I would have gotten a conviction, but for the fact that he became president again. Volume two stuck in limbo, we'll talk about what's going to happen with tomorrow. Will I never thought I'd say the sentence in this order.

Will Eileen Cannon allow volume two to go to the leaders of Congress? Such a crazy sentence for so many reasons. We're gonna talk about that. Will the public ever see the Mar-a-Lago report? Musk being brought down by Bannon, what's that all about? Then why is Musk being sued by the SEC now and does it matter? And then we'll finally we'll cover the Supreme Court

and three bad rulings for Donald Trump and great for democracy. Does it signal anything for 2025 and beyond and what they are signaling to Donald Trump? Or are these just random data points that aren't fitted together? We'll talk about it with Karen Friedman, Nick Nifilo and me. Many ways to support this Midas Touch Network podcast, Legal AF. As people know, we are people-powered, we are Midas Mighty and Legal AF are powered, meaning we are completely independent media. Nobody tells us what to say. I don't even know what Karen's gonna say. I barely know what I'm gonna say, let alone having any kind of conference with the suits like Jeff Bezos telling us what bigfooting

isn't telling us what not to say. and there's a certain amount of fresh air that comes from that a breath of fresh air that comes from that and we do that for for you and our audience I think appreciates it. Hit the thumbs up, hit the comment section, give us a rating on our podcasts which helps the algorithms tell the world that we're important to you and And then come over to LegalAF, the new channel that I'm curating with the Midas Touch Network. We're already at over 400,000 in four months,

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with some amazing new content there. You can come over to legal AF slash, or patreon slash legal AF as well. There it is, thank you very much. And then we've got an amazing group. I know that word gets over, you use a little bit hackneyed, but Jordy has put together an amazing collection.

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25% off your first order of $125 or more with promo code LegalAF. That's M-A-C-K-W-E-L-D-O-N.com, promo code LegalAF. And we're back. All right. Perfect opportunity for our former prosecutor, best friend, podcaster, Karen Freeman-Cnifilo to talk about the role of prosecutors and what, through her unique lens, speaking of unique lenses, through her unique lens, what volume one said to her. How did it speak to you, Karen, and then what were your takeaways of it and its importance in history. Yeah, so Jack Smith is required by statute to provide a report to the attorney general

of the United States and to Congress and to talk about his investigation, what it is, what it isn't, why he brought certain charges, why he didn't bring certain charges. And this is what the various statutes that make up the special counsel law requires him to do. The very law that, of course, Judge Cannon said is unconstitutional and does not apply, and he was unconstitutionally appointed, but that goes for volume two. So he was required to provide this report.

This is what special councils do. And sometimes they are released. And so, for example, we saw the report that was released about Joe Biden on the classified documents, that whole thing where that special counsel talked about things that were inappropriate, right? Talked about his mental acuity, etc. That's what happens. You release these reports, same thing with Bob Mueller, etc. These reports

are nothing new. The January 6 report, I was less excited to receive, although I 100% agree it had to be made public. We have to have this be a part of the official record of history. But I suspected given the detailed indictments that have been filed, both the original indictment and then the superseding indictment, as well as Jack Smith's voluminous description of what the evidence was that he filed in the case, we sort of knew what the case was and what would be there. And so that, from that perspective, I certainly didn't see anything surprising or knew that we didn't really know before in the report.

The Mar-a-Lago, that report is the one I've always thought I really wanted to see because that one has largely been a lot more not in public view because of the nature of that case, right? First of all, there was no hearings on it the way there were with the select committee in Congress, the Jan 6 hearings. So that's where a lot of the information came out of the January 6 one, but also because of the nature of that case with the classified documents, a lot of things in that case were

done under seal or the documents or the filings were redacted. And so there was a lot we didn't know in that case. And so that was a case I really thought would have been incredibly powerful to be released, given the egregiousness of Donald Trump's conduct. Donald Trump always had a one step removed from the violence of the January 6th case, right? Oh, I didn't, you know, and Jack Smith alludes to that in the report that the reason he wasn't charged with incitement to, you know, with the insurrection part of it was because you have to have a direct correlation, this intention to cause the violence. Jack Smith said that's one of the reasons he didn't pick that charge in this case. So that case, there was a little bit of one step removed. There was none of that with the Mar-a-Lago Classified Documents case, right? That was Donald Trump

obstructing justice, lying, keeping things in ways that were just reckless, waving classified things around. I know we're talking about volume one, but I have to put it in context of why it is that I really wanted volume two and volume one I was less excited about, but happy that it got released finally. The thing about volume one that was interesting, more than the 180 or so pages of the report was his was Jack Smith's four page cover letter that he wrote. He accompanied it with a cover letter, something I don't recall ever seeing before. Normally, the report is the cover letter, if you will, with like an executive summary. But he wrote a letter and I thought that was really interesting. In some ways, it was him defending his investigation. It's like he's been really attacked and he felt that the prosecutors

he's been working with, the special counsel, the assistant special counsels that he's been working with, the agents he's been working with, it was as if they were, he felt he had to defend the men and women working on that case because they'd been under siege and attack and these accusations and all the things that Donald Trump and his followers have done, he had to defend them. And so that was what I thought was most interesting

was this vocal kind of defense of himself and of his people and of their investigation. Just to talk a little bit about what you said that was in that four-page cover letter that was somewhat interesting, I had to reread that sentence that Jack Smith talked about when you said how he said he could get a conviction in the case. That's how I read it at first, but I had to reread it because it really isn't what he was saying. What he was saying was, but for Trump's election to president, there was sufficient admissible evidence to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. Really what he was doing was he was laying out what the legal standard is that

a prosecutor has to bring in a case. For example, we used to often say when we would not bring a case, you would say, look, I don't feel the evidence shows that I could prove this case beyond a reasonable doubt. That's the negative version of negative version of this. And prosecutors, when you bring a case, it's because you believe that you have relevant admissible evidence that you… Because it's one thing to have a ton of evidence. If it's inadmissible, like it's hearsay or for other reasons, it's not admissible. It doesn't matter. It's like it doesn't exist. So you have to have admissible evidence that's sufficient to obtain and sustain, meaning it has to sustain on appeal,

to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial. So he was just really kind of reiterating what the standard is, and frankly, that he had enough evidence to convict Donald Trump beyond a reasonable doubt, and therefore he felt enough evidence to convict Donald Trump beyond a reasonable doubt. And therefore, he felt it was to go forward. I think he also felt he had to justify his own kind of existence and approach to this case. Because he said, I came to this without any preconceived notions, right?

I followed the facts and the law wherever they lead. And if the facts didn't show a crime, I wouldn't have brought a case. And it did. And the fact that he didn't bring this insurrection charge, I think really, and he went into some detail in the report about that, I thought it really showed

that he was really taking this seriously. And where he didn't feel he had the facts and the law, he didn't bring those charges. He showed restraint. So it really kind of lends credibility to the fact that this wasn't political, that this wasn't just him looking for anything. Because if it was, he would have brought that and other charges as well. So look, he also explained, and I thought this was interesting, was there's nothing political about his, what he was doing, right? That it was the timing of things

that just kind of crashed into each other, right? It was, he was appointed special counsel and Donald Trump decided to run for president again. I mean, those two things happened at the same time, so there was no way that this wasn't going to collide, if you will. He explained all of that and put it all together in a way that I thought was very interesting and I think important, but also slightly, you could tell there's a little defensiveness that he feels he has to justify and defend his

actions. And I think it's because there's a lot of people who frankly decided to reject this and bought into the Donald Trump MAGA playbook. So, so I thought the report though was good. I thought that it was important. It's an important part of history. I liked some of the things he talked about, like really defending the line prosecutors who worked on the case with him and how important it is to apply the principle that no man is above the law and that's the principle that they applied. They can't control what the Supreme Court decides. They can't control what the public and how they're going to vote. They talked about those two things and they couldn't control that the Supreme Court was going to decide that one man is above the law. So really what they did was they put politics aside and they put all the things that they had no power over and control over aside and just did what prosecutors do, which is to,

and what Jack Smith has always done, he's a career prosecutor, has never been in the private sector, at least to my knowledge. And he just did his job for the right reasons and did his job for the country. And this is where they came out, right? You apply these facts to the law and Donald Trump, these four charges were utterly appropriate. So that was what I kind of took away from the report that I thought it was an important part of history. I'm glad he laid it out in detail. And the cover letter I thought was really good to put it in context for people.

Yeah. Yeah, my takeaways were similar. I think that it's, I'm going to get the conviction, but for the unique circumstances of the voters sending Donald Trump back to the White House. Short of that, I had more than enough evidence to carry my burden and to bring the prosecution in good faith. I follow the edicts of the Justice Department and the federal rule, the federal prosecutorial guidelines. I always have. I'm apolitical. This is Jack Smith now. I would never be involved with anything that smacked of politics or not being independent. Merrick Garland never had any

input or tried to bigfoot me in any way in my prosecution. I brought these things because that's where the facts and the law led me. I thought it was interesting on the why I didn't bring the incitement, although who really cares at this point because the whole case was going to go by the wayside anyway. It only mattered if he could actually get these cases tried. The delay, delay, delay that we'll talk about once it does settles about Barrett Garland didn't help all of the on purpose late filings by Donald Trump filing motions to dismiss at the very last moment when they should have been really filed at the beginning of the cases and courts letting them do it and having the immunity come up so late in the game, losing nine months while Merrick Garland

sort of fiddled around a little bit about whether he wanted to go after Donald Trump at all. Anyway, you know, all sort of came together for me in volume one. Nothing was really shocking. He downplayed, because I think that's the right thing to do when you're doing a final closeout memo, he didn't really go after the unindicted co-conspirators like Jeffrey Clark, originally Jeffery Clark, Rudy Giuliani, and Bannon and the rest, because, you know, he doesn't want to

and Baden and the rest, because he doesn't want to further indelibly mark them. He's already done that by way of the indictment, and I could see he didn't think that was the appropriate thing to do during the closeout memo. He certainly thinks that Donald Trump is responsible for Jan 6th and the damage and personal injury and pain and suffering to law enforcement. He made that quite clear. I liked, I didn't, I would say I liked, I thought it was appropriate for Jack Smith to also say, if this is what you think happened to law enforcement

by the Jan six mob, what do you think would have happened if they ever got inside and made their way into the Senate chamber and they were just probably just assassinated people, whoever they found. And he puts that squarely at the feet of Donald Trump, even though he said he didn't think because of the issue of intent, he didn't think he was going to bring the, that's why he didn't bring the incitement charge per se. Because he thinks Donald Trump definitely wanted to whip up that crowd,

foment that discontent, and point that armed rabble at the seat of our democracy. But there's this, you know, from a criminal prosecutor justice standpoint, did Donald Trump intend, like when he woke up this morning and he was shaving, did he intend to make that crowd or at that moment make that crowd go attack the Capitol? Was that a logical thought in his head? And that's the reason he didn't bring that but that's sort of academic at this moment and we now knowing what we know about it the question now is we move to volume 2 is will we ever see the light well that ever see the light of day I had a very spirited debate with Ben last on

Saturday but I think he's probably coming around in my position now. Because volume two has not yet been delivered by, on Mar-a-Lago, by Merrick Garland. Special counsel Jack Smith asked him not to do it as part of his transmittal letter. Merrick Garland agreed with it because there's still two co-defendants who have an appeal. The scary part of this conversation is the 11th Circuit, I think, is now just sitting on the substantive issue that's very important to America, which is, did Judge Cannon get it right or wrong on dismissing the indictment by finding that the special counsel was unconstitutionally appointed or not?

She's the only federal judge who have ruled that way. I would have liked to seen an appellate court reverse her, but we're running out of time here. We're down to four and a half days till till till Monday. And they don't rule by then. And Donald Trump does what we all expect him to do, which is to pardon Carlos de Olvera and Walt Nauta came over. No case, no live case or controversy. Appeal dismissed

without having issued their ruling. And having sat on the sidelines and watched Judge Cannon sort of make a mockery of both jurisdiction and what she's empowered to do. I'm not sure the 11th Circuit has any interest in ruling. They're ruling by not ruling and letting things become, as they put it, moot. And that's what we watch with Judge Cannon, who I thought overstepped her jurisdiction to even try to end separation of powers, to even try to block the delivery by the attorney general

to the ranking members and tell them whether there were any instances in which he overruled Jack Smith in the investigation. He declared that there were no instances in which he found that Jack Smith had exceeded his authority or scope of authority or done something inappropriate, but he said I'm not going to give them volume two while Judge Cannon's blocking it. Judge Cannon is continuing to block it. There's a hearing on Thursday. Full briefing is getting filed while we're doing the recording. And Judge Cannon's going to have an evidentiary hearing or some sort of hearing up in Fort Pierce, Florida,

about whether she's going to continue to block the Attorney General from doing his job, the statutory required to deliver the final report. Now here's what's going to happen. Merrick Garland has said that he would like, and if he was the attorney general at that right moment, he would like to release Mar-a-Lago volume two to the American public. It's in the public interest. But that's like a note he's leaving on the desk of Pam Bondi

because he's not gonna have time. If she rules on Thursday, let's take it from there, Karen. She rules on Thursday, let's take it from there, Karen. She rules on Thursday, Karen, Eileen Cannon. She rules, nope, I'm going to continue to block volume two. I don't, she doesn't really seem to have any respect for Congress or the separation of powers. Nobody seems to be intervening with amicus briefs. So she continues to block it. Now it's Thursday. Monday is pardon day and an inauguration day. Jack Smith, or he's out. Department of Justice takes an emergency appeal

to the 11th circuit. What happens then? Do we ever see Mar-a-Lago volume two? No, but this is just, first of all, unless someone leaks it, I guess, from Congress, which I doubt they will, but look, this is one of the most frustrating situations I've ever seen. This is, if hopefully Merrick Garland doesn't play chess, because if he does,

he will go down in history as the world's worst chess player. I mean, he just makes every wrong decision. And I don't understand why they decided, oh, let's let the 11th Circuit rule on the special counsel, whether or not the Judge Cannon's special counsel law works, is unconstitutional. Why do they care? Why did he continue? The only reason that she was able to maintain jurisdiction over this case and rule that this report can't be released is because the two defendants are up on appeal now to and Dale of Vietnam because Trump is dismissed right that's Jack Smith had to dismiss that but he kept those two low-level Cases these two guys who literally hold Trump's bags. I mean they kept them just to get a ruling from the 11th circuit Why did they think the 11th circuit was gonna do that?

I just think it's outrageous had they just dismissed the case against all three of them, and no other judge in any jurisdiction is going to rule on the special counsel issue. And P.S., if Trump, this isn't going to come up anyway, what's Trump going to appoint a special counsel for what? He doesn't care anymore. He's going to do things out loud and not try to make things look as if they are apolitical, which is the whole purpose of special counsel. So here we are. We're in the situation where Judge Cannon was even allowed to rule on this report because

if they had dismissed against the two remaining defendants that are up on appeal on this issue, she would not have had jurisdiction to be able to do this. Things would have gone forward business as usual, and PS, they could have released this report. But now here we are, and we're not going to be able to do this. Things would have gone forward business as usual, and PS, they could have released this report. But now here we are, and we're not gonna be able to do it. So I just, look, Merrick Garland is gonna go down in history as I think one of the most lackluster attorneys general we've ever had.

Is he lawless and dangerous? No, but did he meet the moment? He did not meet the moment in any way, shape or form as the attorney general during this time. He really didn't. And every, I don't know him. I've never worked for him, but everything I've read about him, everyone who has worked for him will say, well, he's very predictable though. This is how he's always been. He is somebody who's just a down the middle kind of guy. And even if somebody, even if he's being screwed, it doesn't matter.

He's still going to do the right thing. He's not going to fight back hard. And so, okay, fine. So he, I don't know why he didn't investigate the January 6 case for two years, allowing two years to pass. And that's why we're in this situation. Had this, that, if it wasn't for the select committee, I don't think he would have ever brought that case, you know, and appointed a special counsel. But we're in all of these situations because of him. And

once again, now with the Mar-a-Lago report, that's going to be buried and go down in history as something we'll just not know about. It's going to be a black hole. Let's see if something changes on Thursday. Let's see if Congress decides to do anything about it, but I don't have high hopes that we're going to see that report. I agree with you. I don't think we're ever going to see that report. I think Pam Bondi is going to bury it. We may see it 10 years from now, like we saw aspects of the Pentagon papers and all of that. But yeah, we're not going to see that Mar-a-Lago report. I think your analysis is straight on about Merrick Garland. We'll pick up more with my comments about Merrick Garland and, yes,

the predictable lack of meeting the moment. That's a great phrase that Karen turned up here about him and why it mattered and things that he could have done differently. We'll talk about that. And the United States Supreme, well, Elon Musk getting sued by the SEC and Joe Biden's administration in the waning moments of the Biden administration, why that matters. And then the Supreme Court starting to push back or shut back against Donald Trump already, maybe signaling that they're having second thoughts about how much power they gave a felon who is now gonna be taking the oath of office to uphold the Constitution.

Who's watching that inauguration? I'll tell you where it's not gonna be. It's not gonna be on the Midas Touch Network. We've made an editorial decision that we're not covering that. Taking a page out of Michelle Obama's book, she's right. And we don't wanna watch him solely the fine name of the presidency all over again,

especially while the flags fly at full staff instead of at half staff, half mass, to memorialize Jimmy Carter, the life of Jimmy Carter, another terrible, terrible, unpatriotic, uncivilized move by MAGA. We'll cover all of that. We're talking about ways to support the channel, the network and all of that. People powered. That means no outside investors. Nobody gives us money

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Let's get in here to the home stretch of the podcast. Karen, why don't you, you wanna talk about Elon Musk and the Securities and Exchange Commission filing and why you think Joe Biden's administration is doing that in the last four days? Yeah, this was a head scratcher for me, right? I was thinking, this seems so strange. It's like, what's that phrase? It's like throwing ice in winter, whatever, in a snowstorm. Like, why are they bringing this now? This was a 2022 violation. And it just made no sense because at first I thought, okay, what they're saying is, apparently, that the SEC, the Security and Exchange Commission, is essentially saying that Elon Musk failed to disclose for 11 days, 11 days past when he was supposed to, that he was secretly acquiring large stakes in Twitter. And as a result, the price was not going up.

And as soon as word got out that he was gonna buy it, it shot up by like 27%, which is what happens, which is why the Securities Exchange Commission has this regulation that says, when you're going to do that, you have to tell people because otherwise you are at an advantage and they are at a disadvantage because you're going to get something at a lower or depressed price. And they're saying that he paid about $150 million less than what he would have had to pay had he disclosed on time. And so first of all, it's 2025, right?

So this was almost three years ago that this happened. And why are they bringing this now a few days before the inauguration, the change in leadership? And it seems like Donald Trump will instruct his new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission to dismiss this action or not pursue this action. So why is he bringing it and why is he bringing it now?

And when you look at how Elon Musk has treated Trump and I'm sorry, how Elon Musk has treated the SEC, sorry, that was a slip. When you look at how Elon Musk has treated the SEC and the SEC's attempt to talk to him and get him to sit for a deposition, answer questions, do all the things that you're supposed to do in this and other matters, he just basically does the F-U middle finger to the SEC. And it's kind of like, you can't touch me. And that's how they act, how he's been acting. You can't touch me. And so I have now come to the decision that the reason they're bringing this is because they have to. They have to, they can't let it go. You can't let someone just consistently give the middle finger to our regulators. You just can't. It's not fair, especially the richest man in the world, right? And especially somebody who is going to hold lots of government contracts.

To me, it just seems like this is a situation where he kind of had no choice. You can't let the richest people… You can't have two different sets of rules, one for the richest people and one for everybody else. And so he had no choice. I just wish, given the timing, I wish they'd brought it sooner. This makes it look political. And I didn't love that.

But that's, I think, where we are and why it happened, even though it looks like it's going to die. Yeah. Okay, I'll pick up with that now. So, well, before I turn to the CC and Musk, we got a new order that's come in. Judge Cannon, in one of her infamous paperless orders, has decided in her infinite wisdom that she's going to let Donald Trump back into a criminal case that he was dismissed from. Trump moved to intervene in a case he was

dismissed from, my argument would be that he's back in the case, he should continue to be prosecuted, but she's going to let him be heard with his lawyers in her courtroom this week about whether the Mar-a-Lago volume two should be released. It's just the terrible turn of affairs. It just shows you how Judge Cannon is bending over backwards to help Donald Trump. He should be nowhere in this case. Intervention in a criminal case is never allowed, almost never allowed. To have him intervene in a case that he's been dismissed from, a criminal case, is an affront to our criminal justice system, is beyond the pale.

But she's doing these things now because she knows that she can get away with it because the 11th Circuit keeps issuing orders, saying things are moot. We're running out of time for appeal. So she's like, oh, I think it'd be interesting to have Donald Trump's lawyers in the room in a case that she dismissed and the Department of Justice dismissed Donald Trump from that case. So the 16th, which is the hearing on Thursday, is going to be quite interesting now. The Department of Justice has been ordered to turn over volume two in camera to Judge Cannon for review. I mean, it's become an entire cluster F or cluster legal AF. But anyway, let me go back now. I'm hoping to have Karen back on the pod today, but she is, as we know, on the legal,

on the law and order set. So let me see what I can do here to conclude the podcast. On the Elon Musk thing, I think there's another reason that the case was brought against him for stock swindling, which is effectively, let me just explain what happened here. When Elon Musk was buying up Twitter stock to buy it, he had an obligation under the securities laws, we call it a Reg 13D requirement, to inform the investing public so that there's equality of information in investors.

In other words, big time investors don't get an informational advantage. It's a level playing field. He was supposed to acknowledge and inform the world that he was buying up huge portions of the Twitter stock as a prelude to buying the company. And when he got to the 5% ownership mark where he owned 5% of the outstanding shares, he was obligated to tell people why. Because if you're holding Twitter stock, you may not sell, or you'll sell at a higher price

because it looks like Elon Musk is taking a position to acquire the company. And Elon Musk effectively saved $150 million or swindled other stock owners $150 million because he didn't tell people until 11 days after he hit the 5% mark. By that time, he hit the 10% ownership mark because 11 days in stock hit the 5% mark. By that time he hit the 10% ownership mark because 11 days in stock purchases is a lifetime. And so he bought the stock

for 150 million dollars less as soon as it was announced when he finally got around to filing, oh I owe 9% the stock shot up 27%. That just shows you that the investing market did not know would have wanted to know that information and it was denied to them by Donald Trump, by Elon Musk. See, I had my own Freudian slip there. Why is it important in the waiting days of Gary Gensler's SEC? Because the more the Biden administration does, the more Donald Trump has to undo, right? The more he piles up in front of him, talk about building a wall, Joe Biden is building a wall along with the SEC of laws, rules, executive orders, policies, lawsuits,

regulatory lawsuits, investigations, that Donald Trump has to spend scarce political capital and time trying to undo. Everything he has to undo is one less moment, one less focus, one less resource that he can use to progress his loss, his MAGA agenda. So that's why an outgoing president tries to Trump-proof in this case democracy, because even though for us it's an interminable period of time that Donald Trump's going to be president, we don't

want it to be for a moment longer than it needs to be or at all, but it is relatively short. Four years will go by. I mean, we founded Legal AF five years ago. It seems in a way like it was yesterday. We will be able to use this to force Donald Trump to use scarce political capital in the open, to pardon people, to dismiss lawsuits, to benefit his cronies and friends, is taking political hits that we can use at the midterm and that Democrats can use as a strategy to defeat MAGA at the next presidential election. That's why you do it. And you're also helping American lives, right?

The 300 million new acres of wild refuge that's been protected by Joe Biden in the last two weeks is important. The millions of people who have been given temporary protective status to at least delay deportation is important. All of the student loan forgiveness in the waning days, important. Yes, Donald Trump can try to undo some of those things. Some are not as easy as he may think, but that's why you get all, you empty the tank

when you're an outgoing president, especially when you've got one that's coming in like Donald Trump. So I agree. I agreed with all of that. Let me switch gears now and do the kind of the concluding segment here we're going to do on the Supreme Court of the United States. Three big losses for Donald Trump in the last week. Five to four decision, meaning Amy Coney Barrett slid over to the Democratic wing of the Supreme Court, joined John Roberts, willing or unwilling, and they ruled that they were not going to stop the sentencing of Donald Trump last week. Some people, of course, like me, are up in arms about what the sentencing was, which was effectively nothing, but it did stamp Donald Trump

finally as a judged felon, our first felon in 249 years. We broke our 249 year streak of not having a felon as president. Oh, we'll just have to start a new streak. So there was that. And she took a lot of, Amy Coney Barrett took a lot of hits in MAGO world for having done that. But she's starting to step up into her own,

like a justice in full. And even though she is not covering herself in any glory and siding on the wrong majority for all the cases that matter to me and our audience, or at least most of them, like the Dobbs decision taking away a woman's right to choose, anything that has to do with reproductive right, she's going to be on the wrong side of democracy as far as I'm concerned. But she has pushed back on certain areas like gun control and voting rights and Donald Trump trying to take advantage of the court. She's pushed back and pumped the brakes. I think we're seeing the rise of the Amy Coney Barrett court as the swing vote. We'll continue to follow that here and on Legal AF, the YouTube channel on a show we call unprecedented. Obviously, I do it with Dina Dahl over on Legal AF every week,

and we do a deep dive into what we could be watching over the next year, the rise of the Amy Coney Barrett court. That's the first loss. Second loss is in Hawaii, the state of Hawaii, the city of Honolulu brought a case three years ago, modeled after the class action cases brought successfully against big tobacco by smokers and their families who sued and have recovered billions, hundreds of billions of dollars against big tobacco. Similarly, the city of Honolulu and Hawaii brought a case against fossil fuel companies, big oil, 15 of them, and argued that their marketing strategies violated consumer protection and consumer fraud marketing statutes because they lied to the American people about the

health risks and the impact on the environment of their products, oil and gas. The petroleum companies got all excited because they gave hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump. And they wanted to kill that case. And they tried a couple of ways. Take it to federal court, and they tried to argue what's called federal preemption,

which means the federal government and Congress regulates in the area of like emissions and EPA, and regulates the oil and gas industry. So this violates that and states can't do it. And the Hawaii Supreme Court and the federal court in Hawaii said no, they're trying to do this through consumer protection and consumer advertising fraud statutes and that's okay. And that's something Congress has not big footed or preempted. So that got brought up ultimately to the United

States Supreme Court and they took one look at this and said, yeah, we're gonna let the case continue, which is gobsmacking to the petroleum industry because they're afraid and they should be afraid that the tobacco blueprint and the same, by the way, same lawyers, same plaintiffs' lawyers that were successful in bringing justice to victims of the tobacco industry are also leading here in the big oil and fossil fuel cases. They know what they're doing and they know where the memos are and where they're hidden

in big oil and those documents and those internal emails that will prove their case, I assure you. And they're afraid now that the cases the Supreme Court has turned their back on them, which they have, that even with Donald Trump, he can't do a darn thing about it. Now Congress could try to pass some sort of law insulating them the way the gun manufacturers wanted a law passed by Congress, but that's a political hot potato and very hard to get through a narrow margin of MAGA in Congress. We'll have to see what happens but the Supreme Court has said that kind of case is fine to go forward on state law grounds and that's a big loss for Donald Trump and

his big oil oligarchs who all supported him. And then lastly, RFK Jr. who's gonna have, I don't know, some sort of problem hopefully in his confirmation hearing, is a lawyer. People probably forget he's not a doctor, he's not a scientist, he's not a researcher, he's not any medicine-oriented person. He's pseudoscience, he's anti-science, and he brought a case as a lawyer to the United States Supreme Court twice, and he's gotten rejected twice. So he represents a group of doctors who are being disciplined by the state of Washington for giving out misinformation about vaccine and COVID,

and they're claiming, well, we have the First Amendment right to give you these alternative, untested, killer, literally medical protocols. And of course, RFK Jr., who believes in a lot of crazy science, decided, I'm going to protect them on First Amendment grounds. And the courts in, including the federal courts, the courts in Washington said, no, no, you're a medical professional. You have a Hippocratic oath not to do any harm. You can't kill people. This isn't

the marketplace of free ideas Like go into your garage and look for a cure for cirrhosis of the liver. That's not how this works, you know Doctors have an obligation to society. They're in a different class They don't they're they don't have a First Amendment right to lie about medical procedures and medical treatments And our VK jr. Thought they did and said they shouldn't be losing their law licenses or subject to discipline so he took a case and it went on an emergency appeal. First stop on the train was Justice Kagan because she's the judge over things in Washington and California and she looked at it and she said this is about a month or two ago I got this I

don't need any briefing I don't need anybody to tell me anything. Denied. And she has the right to do that. It's called the shadow docket, but she has the right to do that. They didn't like that. So RFK Jr. lobbed one in as special request to Clarence Thomas. Of course, you're gonna find one justice that's gonna side with him on these crazy theories. So he lobbed it into Justice Thomas, which was quite irregular. Justice Thomas looked at it and took the hot potato or the hand grenade and said, no, I don't want it either. And he tossed it lobbed it into Justice Thomas, which was quite irregular. Justice Thomas looked at it and took the hot potato or the hand grenade and said, no, I don't want it either.

And he tossed it to all of the nine justices in the United States Supreme Court. Even he didn't want it. And they ruled in a one-liner on Monday. Emergency application denied. That was it. But that is a powerful message that they do not believe that there is a first amendment right

for doctors to lie to the public. Thank God. And yet this is what RFK Jr., as a person who wants to head the Health and Human Services Department, this is what he's gonna have to defend for himself. All these crazy crackpot positions. So the question we have, we're gonna leave it on this podcast to be answered in later versions of this podcast and on Legal AF and on Hot Takes and that kind of thing is, is the Supreme Court starting to have second thoughts? And are they now, is the 2025 and into 2026

and beyond terms of the Supreme Court going to be about not benefiting Donald Trump, but holding his feet to the fire, not believing everything that comes out of the Supreme Court going to be about not benefiting Donald Trump, but holding his feet to the fire, not believing everything that comes out of the mouth of John Sauer, his new Solicitor General, former criminal defense lawyer. Are they going to say, basically, we gave you immunity on criminal cases, but on your crazy crackpot policies that you're bringing before us, criminal cases, but on your crazy crackpot policies that you're bringing before us, we're scrunching up our nose here on that. But remember, they are MAGA, the far right of the court.

They are federalists, and a number of them were handpicked to do tremendous damage to our social safety net and to our way of life. That's Amy Coney Barrett, who I talked about earlier, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. It's not that Republicans are all bad when they're Supreme Court justices. Most of my life, most of my adult life, we've had a Republican appointed Chief Justice. That's not the problem.

The problem is when three of them have been handpicked to dismantle our society, that's been the problem. So, well, Karen's back. So, I kind of wrap there, Karen, but if you want to comment on anything related to the Supreme Court or anything else, why don't you have the final word? Yeah, look, sorry, I had to step away for a little while. That's what happens when you do these things live and we have other lives. So, I had to step away. Thanks for holding down the fort as usual, Pope. Just look, it's a little bit good to see that the Supreme Court isn't full MAGA, full MAGA and just doing

everything that Trump wants, that there's still some semblance of impartiality and following the law and doing things so that the American people at least might have some faith in the United States Supreme Court again. And so that is a good thing, right? And as you were just saying, Amy Coney Barrett seems to be somebody who is really asserting her independence, along with Chief Justice Roberts, and will side with the liberals when they think that is the right thing. So it does look like they are at least trying to follow the law as they see fit. And hopefully that will limit some of the damage that could and will occur in the future. So I think it's great that you have started this new show on the Legal AF YouTube channel with Dina Dahl, where you are talking about all the Supreme Court cases and you're

really informing everybody and keeping people up to date on what they're doing, what they're not doing. It's called unprecedented and it's an invaluable service that you are providing to the general public because the Supreme Court is this kind of lofty ivory tower thing and so much happens there. And it's not just about the decisions that they hand down, but it's also about the cases they decide not to take, the law that they have decided to keep in place. And the more that we can translate that for people and for the American people, I think, and others around the world.

I mean, we now have a worldwide audience, which is great. People who are following what we're doing. It's just great. And so I think that's really a huge service that we can provide to people because the next four years are going to be critical to see where we stand with democracy. So this has been an incredible episode again to

be with you, Popak, and to do this. And we have reached the end of a legal AF, another midweek edition. It's amazing to follow Joe Biden, the great president that we had. He's always going to be a gentleman. He's always going to be an orator. Just think about the way he speaks compared to the way Donald Trump speaks and the words that he uses. And it's just something that we can be proud of,

not just of the four years that he has served, but also the man that he is and the person that he is and how honorably he has served this country. And so with incredible gratitude and thank you for your service, President Biden, in your closing farewell remarks, it is my honor to follow those remarks tonight with you, Popak, and to be here.

And I just thank you for your service.