Transcript

LIVE: Popok Gives URGENT UPDATE on Breaking Legal news | 1/6/2026

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 58 min · 9,072 words · 64 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "LIVE: Popok Gives URGENT UPDATE on Breaking Legal news | 1/6/2026", an episode of MeidasTouch published January 7, 2026 (58 min, about 9,072 words). It mentions 13 people, works and ideas, including Alex Epstein, Celia Maduro, Democracy Forward, Judge Aileen Cannon, Wyoming Supreme Court.

What this episode is about

Michael Popoc provides an urgent update on significant legal and political developments, including a reflection on the January 6th oversight hearing, ongoing issues surrounding Melania Trump’s legal challenges, and discrepancies in documents related to the Epstein case. He also highlights a recent ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court affirming women's rights, emphasizing the contrasting political climate influenced by Donald Trump and MAGA ideologies.

Key takeaways

  • The Jan 6 insights remind us that history's lessons aren't just for textbooks; they're for political survival.
  • Melania's court gymnastics showcase a level of evasion rivaling an Olympic athlete—she's a master dodger.
  • Lost documents in the Epstein case: the government's version of 'Where's Waldo?' only with way more serious implications.
  • Wyoming’s pro-choice ruling suggests GOP's grip on power is loosening; the electorate may be tired of MAGA theatrics.
  • As Trump courts controversy, the Democrats cleverly capitalize on chaos, turning January 6 into a potent midterm rallying cry.

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Alex Epstein, Celia Maduro, Benny Thompson, Judge Aileen Cannon
  2. – 10:00: Alex Epstein, Democracy Forward, Ed Martin, Sky Perryman
  3. – 15:00: Benny Thompson
  4. – 20:00: Alex Epstein
  5. – 25:00: Alex Epstein, Judge Aileen Cannon
  6. – 30:00: American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Democracy Forward, Celia Maduro
  7. – 35:00: Kate Blanch, Michael Popac
  8. – 40:00: Wyoming Supreme Court, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
  9. – 45:00: Alex Epstein
  10. – 50:00: Alex Epstein, Democracy Forward, Judge Aileen Cannon, Judge Angel Meer
  11. – 55:00: Celia Maduro, Ed Martin, Alex Epstein, Smartmatic

Notable quotes from "LIVE: Popok Gives URGENT UPDATE on Breaking Legal news | 1/6/2026"

  • Welcome to the intersection a podcast on the Midas touch network. I'm Michael Popac and thank you for those on legal AF Substack live with me just a few minutes ago who came over with me here.
    about Michael Popac · at
  • Epstein, we seem to have lost government seems to have lost. I'm looking for it. 3.2 million documents.
    about Alex Epstein · at
  • It's not a regime change. It was a apprehension of Maduro and his wife leaving behind the entirety of his corrupt, illegal, illegitimate dictatorship regime.
    about Celia Maduro · at
  • Committee who for eight nights or nine nights led by Jamie Rascin, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson taught the American people what a corrupt, depraved, illegal, treasonous president we had and have. And.
    about Benny Thompson · at
  • Oversight committee hearing with a testimony from people that matter. Sky Perryman for Democracy Forward testified today and I'm going to have her back as a guest tomorrow. Her…
    about Democracy Forward · at
  • Actual participants in the attack in the Department of Justice itself. The new US pardon attorney, Ed Martin, tweeted from the capital grounds on this day 5 years ago and…
    about Ed Martin · at
  • We'll get to two million this year I got some great announcements we've got the American Civil Liberties Union joining us for regular reging on their cases regular, starting I think on Monday. I talked to them today.
    about American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) · at
  • Everything that you did prior to getting on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to obstruct justice. Todd Blanch, same thing. you know Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Steven Miller, you…
    about Kate Blanch · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Alex Epstein — Person · 13 mentions · first at
  • Celia Maduro — Person · 7 mentions · first at
  • Judge Aileen Cannon — Person · 3 mentions · first at
    Start with that. She is evading service of process and she's running to court to try to get, wait for it, Judge Cannon as her new judge down in Florida. Why not?
  • Benny Thompson — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Ed Martin — Person · 3 mentions · first at
  • Michael Popac — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Sky Perryman — Person · 2 mentions · first at
    Careers. sat stony silent during this oversight committee hearing with a testimony from people that matter. Sky Perryman for Democracy Forward testified today and I'm going to…
  • Kate Blanch — Person · 2 mentions · first at
  • Judge Angel Meer — Person · 1 mention · first at
    So, we travel forward and now they have to file a letter with Judge Angel Meer in New York who's supervising their production because he's also responsible for the Epstein case and I'm reading the letter about there it.

Companies & orgs

  • Democracy Forward — Company · 4 mentions · first at
  • Wyoming Supreme Court — Company · 3 mentions · first at
    To hit we got to hit things related to that and let freedom ring including from wyoming Supreme Court 4 to one decision in favor of a woman's right to choose. Yes in Wyoming I…
  • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — Company · 3 mentions · first at
  • Smartmatic — Company · 1 mention · first at
    Chavez, the predecessor to Maduro was used and by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic to change Trump votes into Biden, right? 90 lawsuits in federal court says that's you know election forensic auditors hired by.

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the intersection a podcast on the Midas touch network. I'm Michael Popac and thank you for those on legal AF Substack live with me just a few minutes ago who came over with me here. Appreciate each and every one of you. Let's get into what we need to talk about at the intersection of law and politics tonight. Let me kick it off with we're let me give you the rundown. We're going to talk about the Jan 6th oversight hearing today. I don't want to say commemorating memorializing Jan 6 five years ago today when a president of the United States led an attempted overthrow of his own government and as a reward elected to the presidency again when people not our people when people couldn't hold two concepts in their head at the same time which is I may not like Kala Harris but he's a felon and that didn't work and we got the return of Donald Trump to power and we see how that's how that's going. Talk about

that. There's some developments in the Melania Trump case. She's a coward. I'll start with that. She is evading service of process and she's running to court to try to get, wait for it, Judge Cannon as her new judge down in Florida. Why not? Uh Epstein, we seem to have lost government seems to have lost. I'm looking for it. 3.2 million documents. They were just here a minute ago. They were just on my desk, but they're gone. The math keeps morphing and shapeshifting. First it was we found a million documents. Then a week later it was we found 5.2 million documents. And now in a new filing in federal court, which I'll talk about in a minute, they say it's down to two million. Where the other 3.2 million documents go in the Epstein the Epstein child sex trafficking cover up cover up. So we got to hit we got to hit things related to that and let freedom ring including from wyoming Supreme Court 4 to one decision in favor

of a woman's right to choose. Yes in Wyoming I think that's another indicator of how upside down MAGA red and Donald Trump is right now with the electorate. I think it's another data point for a future success at the midterms. James Carville was just on Legal After the YouTube channel yesterday in an interview with the Court of History guys Sydney Blumenthal and Shawn Winsz. He thinks it's going to be a unmitigated wipeout for the Republicans based on all the data that he's had access to and that he sees. So we will we will [clears throat] talk about that.

Melania, we have to talk about the fallout from the It's not an invasion. It's not a regime change. It was a apprehension of Maduro and his wife leaving behind the entirety of his corrupt, illegal, illegitimate dictatorship regime in order to force them to get into bed with America big oil to allow Donald Trump to suck out all the oil in Venezuela. I mean, freedom is not on the march. Everybody, I know everybody's all excited. I live in Miami where there's a lot of V there's a lot of Venezuelans who are excited. I get it and I got the initial, you know, excitement, but freedom is not on the march in Venezuela. And now Donald Trump is using with his Department of Justice the excuse of the mess he just made in Venezuela.

Uh, and also a test case to demonstrate to the world that he's completely out of control. and Greenland, you're next to uh delay due process for a couple hundred people that they sent to Venezuela before Maduro's capture and now they're in the they've fallen into the mouth of Jeb Booseberg, chief judge in DC again. So, we will touch on that and so much more on the intersection. Uh thanks for being here and thanks for being such fervent supporters of the community that we are building. Let me kick it off with the Jan 6th hearing today. It is I thought it was a brilliant move by the Democrats to keep what happened on Jan 6, especially on the heels of Jack Smith's testimony and video testimony to the House Judiciary Committee to keep front and center what Donald Trump did. Allah the Jan 6 committee who for eight nights or nine nights led by Jamie Rascin, Liz Cheney, Benny Thompson taught the American

people what a corrupt, depraved, illegal, um treasonous president we had and have. And we can't ignore it and allow and allow Donald Trump by capturing or trying to capture and step on every micro news cycle every day, every hour with crazy that comes out of his mouth. We can't forget that history. And so it was important not only to fix in our historical firmament what happened, but to remind everybody as we move into the midterms and for us to capture the news cycle, especially on Jan 6 where the Trump administration was silent. I don't hear them talking about the peaceloving Jan 6th insurrectionist, at least not today.

But center stage were the Democrats because the Republicans are cowards. Same Republicans who were crawling on their belly along with their staff out of the capital with makeshift gas masks and who and running out the back door, you know, uh, like Josh Holly and others who were almost assassinated who then welcomed Donald Trump back when they saw that resistance was futile and they worried about their own political careers. sat stony silent during this oversight committee hearing with a testimony from people that matter. Sky Perryman for Democracy Forward testified today and I'm going to have her back as a guest tomorrow. Her organization is in 150 different battles with the Trump administration in courts. That's not hyperbole. That's an actual number. And I want to talk to her about a number of her cases, including those related to the Epstein files, which I get to next.

But she testified as well today. But let's kick it off with uh a few clips just to give you a taste of today from some of the leading Democrats. Let's start with Jamie Rascin. 33 pardon insurrectionists have since committed additional crimes uh since January 6th, including child sexual assault, terroristic threats, domestic violence, and conspiracy to murder FBI agents. And yet pardon in uh Trump indiscriminately pardoned all of them. When you reward and normalize criminal behavior, of course, you invite more of it. And the president didn't just free his riers for doing his dirty work. He punished law enforcement for doing their jobs, purging hundreds of career FBI agents and prosecutors just because they worked on J6. He installed actual participants in the attack in the Department of Justice itself. The new US pardon attorney, Ed Martin, tweeted from the capital grounds on this day 5 years

ago and described the mayhem as Marty Gro in DC. His senior counselor at the Department of Justice, Jared Weise, is another J6 defendant captured on body camera footage yelling, "Kill him! Kill him!" five different times as police were being attacked right next to him. These leaders at the Department of Justice today have never once regretted their participation in this nightmare. With election deniers and J6 conspiracists Pam Bondi and Cash Patel at the top of the DOJ, it's like the Joker and the Riddler and the Penguin have taken over Gotham City.

Yeah, I had the honor of um hosting a fundraiser for the Democrats in Miami uh right before Eileen Higgins won the mayoral race there, another data point against Trump and MAGA and hosted it. And Jamie Raskin was a keynote speaker to help Eileen Higgins get elected. And he said something that stuck with me. I want to repeat it here. I'll paraphrase it. Um he said that we as Democrats, the Democrats have to regain the vocabulary that we have somehow lost about our own party. What he meant by that is we've allowed the Republicans to call the Democratic party the Democrat party because they don't like the fact that Democratic is in our party. And Jaime went further. He said in his research from FDR and even before FDR, the way the Democratic Party talked about itself is that they were they referred to themselves as the democracy, not the Democratic Party, the Democracy.

So when FDR would give a speech, he would say the plureaucrats, meaning the Republicans, the the bureaucrats and the Republicans want this, but the democracy demands and what he meant was the Democratic party and the democracy sort of sused and uh combined into one. We have to get back to that. We are the party of the democracy. We should call ourselves the party of the democracy. We should use the big D democracy to identify who we are as a people. And when somebody meets you on the street and says what are your what are your values? What party do you associate with? You should say I am a representative of the democracy. And that stands in stark contrast to the other side. So, I'm on a campaign along with Jamie Rascin to reclaim the term the vernacular of democracy to identify those who are opposed to MAGA. Um, and so let's play let's move to Benny Thompson who was the co-chair along with

Liz Cheney of the Jan 6 committee. Remember their 600page report, eight days of of testimony to the public about what happened, what transpired on Jan 6 and Donald Trump's role on it. the links in the chain of the conspiracy to try to overthrow democracy and stop the peaceful transfer of power. Here's Benny Thompson today. The rule of law and our oaths continue to matter, especially as we see Donald Trump pardon those who were charged or convicted in the January 6 attack. Engage the military abroad while passing Congress. Tears down the the White House. shutter hold government agencies, order mass goons to round up and deport US citizens and unlawfully put his name on a memorial to a better man. The bipartisan January 6 select committee, which I was privileged to lead, was charged with uncovering the facts, circumstances, and causes of what happened on that awful day and to ensure it never happens again.

It was one part of ensuring our constitutional republic could withstand President Trump's repeated attacks, and it offers lessons for today. One such lesson was seeing how important it was for officials, most of them Republicans, to put their country over their party. They remembered their oath was to the Constitution and not to one man. And we need to remember that lesson today because five years on the danger has not dissipated. President Trump still refuses to acknowledge that he lost the 2020 election. Many who promoted or litigated his big lie have been rewarded with powerful positions. Dozens of nonpartisan career prosecutors and FBI agents who worked on January 6 cases have been sumearily fired. State election officials who stood up to the Trump pressure campaign have [snorts] been faced with threats and retaliation.

The Department of Justice has become an instrument for retribution. The message is clear. Uphold the rule of law and you will be punished. Only loyalty to one man will be rewarded. Violence and service of Trump. We have a lot of soulsearching to do in this country at the end of this Trump administration, perhaps beginning at the midterms when Donald Trump becomes the lamest of lame ducks. How did we let this person get back into the White House with his criminal element and it and the most corrupt uh cabinet in history, the most corrupt Department of Justice in history? How did we let it happen? and what do we do about it in the future? I mean, we're in it right now. You know, it's hard to build the airplane while you're flying it, but we're going to have to get a quick historical lens here to make changes when the Democrats take back power. They're going to have to have another Jan Six like committee, blue

ribbon committee made up of partis bipartisan people to talk about what happened, what just happened with the capture of the Department of Justice and the capture of the FBI and every other independent agency and cap and uh department by this president and how do we make the changes to ensure it never happens again from a Congress who has the the the balls and the brass ones and the conviction and the mandate from the people to rein in the next attempted future Donald Trump. If you think this one's bad, could you imagine somebody using the precedent set by Donald Trump to go even further? I can't envision what even further would look like, but I also don't want to envision it. And that's where Congress properly run by adults who are patriots who are states people who care about doing the people's business and representing the people uh will make that uh will make that difference. Adam Kinzinger, who's going

to be on my who's I'm going to be interviewing on Legal AF, I think next week, also gave a poignant reminder of why it's necessary to talk about this issue and continue to pin this on MAGA and Donald Trump, especially on the 5-year anniversary. Let's play his statement. Many of my fellow Republicans even want to pretend that Donald Trump wasn't responsible for it and that he did not condone the violence on January 6, even though we all can plainly see that it was Donald Trump who called on his supporters to march down Pennsylvania Avenue and fight like hell. It was Donald Trump who sat in the White House, as we discussed, for 187 minutes watching the attack unfold, throwing gasoline on the flames with his 224 p.m.

tweet targeting Vice President Pence in the middle of it. Right. So, I I could go on this one. And I have the live feed for today up as a video on Legal AF YouTube channel. you can just go over to the live tab and you'll find it there and you can listen to it in its entirety and I'll be doing clips from it with hot takes and analysis on legal a YouTube and Midas, you know, throughout the week. But let me while we uh while I've got you and we've got a nice crowd that showed up for today, let's talk briefly about Melania and uh what she's trying to do. It's a new year, but it's the same old Melania.

She's not going to allow without a fight, not going to allow the lawsuit that Michael Wolf, a very popular guy today. Let me shut off all of my phones here. Um, she's not going to allow the intrepid reporter Michael Wolf, who beat her to the punch and filed a lawsuit in New York State Supreme Court, the trial court level, to cut off her defamation demand on him for a billion dollars. She's trying to get that case. First of all, she's dodging service, you know. She's like, I think it's a Vander Holyfield. Who's the fighter? Is either Tyson or Holyfield that like just dodge the process server on a lawsuit against him? If you know, put it in comments.

That's what she's doing. It's like, you know, she's at Mara Lago. No, she's at Bedminster. No, she's at the White House. No, she's back at Trump Tower and, you know, trying to get process. See, federal courts and federal judges, even ones appointed by Donald Trump, like like Judge Vocasil in New York, they don't like dodging, evading uh defendants. The way a lawsuit works is you the filing of the lawsuit does not commence the action. I mean, it gets the case up and running. You pay your fee to your clerk and and the case is on the public docket, but it's got to be served usually personally served on the person who's the defendant. And until it is, there's no really there's no action.

Statute of limitations haven't stopped and judges don't have jurisdiction. It's a whole it's a whole mess. But when you have a party who's trying to evade service, then you can ask a judge for constructive service or serve the secretary of state or do a nail on the door and mail it later. Apparently, Michael Wolf's people serve the doorman. I've done work in New York City. Serving the doorman is a is a big issue because you never can get past the doorman to get, you know, to get into the building to get to the front door to get somebody of suitable age and discretion to take the package. So, you got to catch him on the street, which happens, right? She steps out for a shopping spree at Burgdorf Goodman's and some process server walks by and goes, "You're served." That could happen, too. But why is she fighting service? Take it like a first lady. Accept the service. Michael filed after receiving in October a $1

billion demand letter that he needed to retract and apologize because he did reporting based on his interview with with Jeffrey Epstein that connected Melania to Jeffrey Epstein to Donald Trump to young models to modeling agencies owned by Epstein and Trump to to Melania to Melania her agent back to Michael M back to Donald Trump to Epstein to the Lolita Express airplane to Donald Trump to Melania. He just recently said on an interview on on Legal AF that's up now uh Michael Wolf or up uh it's up recently that he he wouldn't be surprised if Melania's names are in the Epstein files. There was that close of a relationship. Well, she didn't like that. She wanted a retraction. So she h so she hired her her husband's law firms.

DLA Piper, a law firm in New York that does all of the corporate transactional work for Donald Trump's Truth Social. That's a set of cowards. In 2021, they said out loud that Donald Trump wasn't fit to be president of the United States because of Jan 6th. And now look at them. So they're representing it. and she also hired Trump's uh lawyer of last resort on defamation cases, Alejandro Breto, out of Coral Gable, Florida to file a uh to represent her. So they are trying to move the case from state supreme court. a case is trying to have a judge declare that everything that Michael reported is either true so can't be defamatory or is uh you know covered by the fair reporting privilege or his opinion or was taken out of context but it it can't be it can't support a defamation case that she's threatening.

That's smart, right? Get a judge to say that can't be defamation before she files her defamation case. and also arguing that she's just threatening the case in order to chill his first amendment rights as a reporter. Melanie didn't like that. So without appearing in the case, she had her lawyers try to remove it to federal court. Now they got Judge Vocasil, who was like one of the only Trump judges appointed in the Southern District of of New York in Manhattan. and she sort of sided with with MAGA in in a case in in the past which I won't bore you with the details of right now but not the greatest judge for this but there's now going to be a fight over whether uh Melania is entitled to take the case to federal court at all the only way she can take it to federal court is to argue that she is a resident of Florida not of New York because if she's a resident of New York then under the what we call

diversity jurisdiction analysis it's New York plaintiff That's Michael. New York defendant Melania. New York New York gets you out of federal court. New York, Florida, you you can uh you can go to you can go to federal court. Has to be complete diversity. Two different states or countries. So she's arguing I live at Mara Lago. Now look, I live in I lived in New York. I go back to New York frequently. I have friends in New York. I have lawyer colleagues in New York. And I was in New York for a long long time. Melania lives in New York. Her name's on the building. Okay. She lives on Fifth Avenue on the corner of 57th and Fifth next to Tiffany's. It's a big building. It has her name on it. It's called Trump Tower. It's diagonally across from Burgdorf Goodman where a jury, a judge to her husband, a sex abuser of Eugene Carol. Can't miss it.

down the street about uh 45 blocksish. Her son goes to college at NYU, my old alma mater, down on Fifth Avenue and 10th Street, University Place and all that. She lives in New York. That's where she does her spa day, her shopping sprees, friends with the, you know, lunches with the girls. Come on. Gets her hair done. And then occasionally she's at Mara Lago when she really has to be, when Trump wants her to be. or and or at the White House when there's like a state dinner. That's where she lives. She's gonna have to tell the truth about what bed she sleeps in, produce her travel records to show it.

She's opened up a can of worms here. But buried in this new letter that's up on Legal AF Substack that they just filed in LA. There it is that they just filed yesterday is really what they want. They want Judge Vocasil to send the case ultimately to Florida because they say and lastly the case should be sent to Florida if it stays in federal court. Right. So who's in the Southern District of Florida in the West Palm Beach area? Let me think now. Oh, I got it. There's three judges. two in West Palm across the bridge from Palm Beach and Mara Lago and one in Fort Pierce which is the upper north region of the um southern district of Florida. Middlebrooks Rosenberg are in West Palm Beach. Judge Middlebrooks is I think semi-retired or at least senior status. And then there's Eene Ailen Cannon. So, it's 5050 shot between Rosenberg and Cannon that this case is going to assign randomly to one of these two judges. And you know,

they're pulling for Canon. That's what this is all about. And then try to convince Canon, who's not a very good judge, that um Michael Wolf can't bring suit first and that it's not a strategic case to chill his First Amendment rights. But then they're going to have to litigate all of the, you know, Michael has said in his filing that the things that he's written are true, like comments about what happened on the Lolita Express between Trump and Melania. I wasn't there, but he did his reporting off of Jeffrey Epstein, who he was doing a biography of. So, be careful what you ask for. But I wanted to call out now that this is what she's trying for. She's trying for a one two step.

It's like a dance to get to Florida and get the case in front of Judge Cannon. That is for sure. So, when we come back, I want to talk about um [clears throat] the case involving Wyoming and abortion rights. I want to touch on Judge Boseberg rejecting the Trump administration's attempt to use Venezuela as an excuse not to give due process to 137 people. uh and you know a bunch of other things that'll pop into my brain but there's certain ways to support and we got a great crowd tonight pushing 10,000 uh uh that to support this the intersection Midas touch at legal afal af YouTube channel which has just crossed a million people with your help we'll get to two million this year I got some great announcements we've got the American Civil Liberties Union joining us for regular reging on their cases regular, you know, uh, starting I think on Monday. I talked to them today.

American Civil and when you combine the American Civil Liberties Union, Democracy Forward and all the um interviews we have of the Democratic Attorneys General, we will have three4ers of the public interest and other groups that are suing Donald Trump under one roof on legal audience as it is to the work behind the scenes because if we didn't get to to a certain size, like a million subscribers, and we didn't start being known where Legal AF became a brand and had street credibility. We're not getting Adam Kinzinger to join us. We're not getting Jamie Rascin. We're not getting James Carville. We're not getting former former federal judges. We're not getting senators. We're not getting the American Civil Liberties Union or Democracy Forward to join us. But thank you because you gave us that power and we're using it on your behalf on Legal AF. So become a subscriber on Legal AF. Then we set up Legal AF Substack. What an

amazing community over at Legal AF Substack. We we were just in the last two days number one in rising in all US politics uh Substacks. We're in the top 50 in general. And there I do two live reports every day. I do one at 12:00 p.m. Eastern time and one at 7:45 p.m. Eastern time. And I bring in interviews. We we just had Adam Clasfeld who literally I'll just wait for the ad to run. Who literally stepped out of the Maduro indictment uh uh sorry arraignment in New York, walked out onto the street and within a minute was briefing our audience on legal AF Substack with a live report with me which we then made into a YouTube video and sent it back. But that's the place to be. And if people are always like, "How do we keep legal AF on the air and everything that Popox's doing?" This is the way to do it. This is where independent media and journalism is living and being protected. Uh uh and it's over on

Substack. So, become a member. And I'm running a sale everybody in honor of January 6th and the Democrats hard work there. 20% off annual membership legal AF Substack. And that's a great way to support us. And then of course, we've got our sponsors. They're just people that know our audience, want to be with our audience, and our sponsors, and we have uh uh some tonight. So, here's a word from our sponsors. We spend so much time anti-aging. Our face, creams, Botox, lasers, but the scalp ages six times faster. That made me rethink everything. So, I tried Array, and I can genuinely endorse it. Easy routine, lightweight products, and my hair already looks healthier and shinier. And to be clear, array doesn't stop grays.

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Message and data rates may apply. See terms for details. and welcome back to the intersection with Michael Popac. I'm going to take some questions now from the audience, so to speak, from our chat tonight. We got about 10 almost I think we were over 10,000 at one point. Here's some things that I'm going to try to answer here. Uh, wrong one right day asked, "Will anyone in the cabinet ever be held to account or will he just give blanket pardons and are they scot-free?" Well, it depends on how you define scot-free. Yes, I think Donald Trump is going to try to pardon everybody in his cabinet, including himself on the way out the door. I I think and and and beyond the cabinet, you know, anybody in and around his administration, it's going to be another one of those 1,800 blanket pardon things that he's going to use an auto pen for, I'm sure, on the way out.

But that doesn't, you know, that's that's he's going to do that on day one. That doesn't mean that at midterms the Cong the Congress now in control of the Democrats can't do impeachment and removal proceedings. Amil Boe, Third Circuit Court of Appeals, come on down. You've been impeached and removed for everything that you did prior to getting on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals to obstruct justice. Todd Blanch, same thing. uh you know uh Pam Bondi, Cash Patel, Steven Miller, you know there's ways to get rid of people and that is through an impeachment and removal process uh you know showing high crimes and misdemeanors and other things like that.

So have I stressed enough the importance of this midterm election? So for criminal prosecution, you're right. If by the time the Department of Justice gets there, the new Department of Justice, doesn't that sound sweet? the new Department of Justice in 2028. If they already have in their back pocket pardons, you know, they could start the prosecution, but they're going to pull out the pardon as a defense uh in history. So, I I think that answered your question. And certainly, as you know, state charges can't be um and bar investigations can't be stopped by a federal pardon, despite the fact that Donald Trump is trying to use a pardon to help Tina Peters in Colorado. We're still waiting for the Colorado appellet court to reject the argument raised by Donald Trump's high school roommate that uh he can pardon state offenses as well, citing to George Washington. Butter Butterfly Life68 asked Popach, "How do we get the

immunity decision reversed?" That's going to take a bit. That's going to be uh packing the United States Supreme Court with three to five additional people and having that group now 12 or 15 in terms of size and people appointed by Democrats revisit the issue and overturn that president. I mean we have a we have a precedent for that. The Supreme Court has been re-evaluating its own president uh frequently including cases they just decided 5 to 10 years ago. So it but that's how it's going to have to happen. There's no other there's no other way. Um even if Congress tried to pass an act that took away the immunity of the president, that would be found automatically to have violated the separation of powers and the article the article two powers of the presidency. So that's not going to happen. It's going to have to be a new Supreme Court or one that's bigger and bolder and democratled.

Uh so that's the way that's going to have to happen. Um, Gabriel Clotier or Clotier depending upon where he lives 3686 asked Popac, "How soon can we expect a Scotas ruling on tariffs?" I think this Friday. They've announced today that the Supreme Court is going to uh make a ruling a ser they're going to drop some decisions on Friday. We've been waiting for that one. It could be the voting rights act which is on life support and probably going to be put out of our misery or their misery on on Friday. Uh it could be both.

uh you know and that you know so the voting rights act is the uh the case that's coming out of New Orleans uh involving maps and whether racial gerrymandering to ensure racial balance in a state is a violation of the 14th amendment or not turning the voting rights act on its head. So, we're waiting for that case and we're waiting for tariffs. One, two, or both, I think, get dropped on Friday. And you know where to go. You know where to go for that. Unprecedented, a podcast I do with Dena Dah that's now up on audio as of today. You want to be the first one to put a fivestar review down, now would be a good time on Apple Pod and every and it's also on a playlist that we have on uh Legal AF YouTube channel. So, I hope that answers your question. Let me turn to Wyoming because it was a little bit of a shock, but this is what's happening. It's it's hand-to-hand combat in states over a woman's right to choose. And we were I

think we were I think women and those that support women and to and to restore them to first class citizenship in America and not secondass citizen citizenship in red states that have taken away their reproductive rights along with the United States Supreme Court. I think we were heartened today by the 4:1 decision by the Wyoming, you know, ruby red Wyoming Supreme Court striking down two statutes that were passed in 2023 in the wave of um you know, excitement by MAGA after the DOS decision ripped away for the first time in history, a constitutional right that was given, ripped it away from a woman and a right to choose. and states like Wyoming quickly put on the books in this case uh that abortion was banned except in the in terms of a woman's health or life and rape and incest and abort and medicated abortion or abortion pills were banned. But the problem is Wyoming has a constitution.

And in article one, section 38 of their constitution, it said everybody has the right to make healthc care decisions for themselves. Now, how the state wiggled their way around it is they stuck in language in the bans that said that the decision to terminate a unborn child, you love using the wrong vocabulary, is not a healthcare decision. It's a right. It's just a decision to terminate an unborn child. And the four justices of the Supreme Court in Wyoming said, "No, this is the most fundamental and personal right of a woman and it goes to her health and healthcare." I mean, even the ban, even the exception to the ban demonstrates that, as they pointed out in their 70-page order, it says it's a ban, a total ban on abortion except to protect the life of the mother. Life, health kind of goes together, don't you think? Here's what the Here's what the uh Wyoming Supreme Court said in their ruling. And then I'll read

you what some of the um opponents, usually white guys who can't carry children, had to say about that. Um let me read it to you here. A woman, this is from the 4 to1 decision uh written by uh Chief Judge uh Boom Garden. A woman has a fundamental right to make her own healthcare decisions, including the decision to have an abortion. The state did not meet its burden of demonstrating the abortion laws further the compelling interest of protecting unborn life without unduly infringing upon the woman's fundamental right to make her own health care decisions. As such, the abortion laws do not constitute reasonable and necessary restrictions on a pregnant woman's right to make her own health care decisions.

Now, of course, right on Q, you had the American Civil Liberties Union, the only abortion provider in the entire state, you know, celebrate along with uh obstitricians and other women who were plaintiffs in the case. And right on right on quue to you know pee in their cornflakes was a guy a speaker of the house and remember his name because you need to defeat him in Wyoming. Chip Nyman uh who is a Republican from and you can help me in the chat tonight if you live in Wyoming. Is it Hullet or Hulet County told the Wyoming Public Radio, isn't that adorable? Public Radio still exists in Wyoming that he's in disbelief. But listen to his disgusting Orwellian vocabulary.

Quote, "Those little unborn human beings, those little men and women." Is that Did he fall asleep during health class? That's what he thinks inside he that was inside his mommy. Little men and women. Those girls and boys in the wombs have rights. Who's listening to their voices? They're now they have voices. Okay. according to now I don't think it's that far of a stretch to think that Chip Nyman would also support counting them in the census for the state and maybe giving them a mail-in ballot. Why not these little men and women with voices inside of the woman's womb? This is this is the false equivalency to put a um embryo because a lot of these states it's 6 to 12 weeks, not even a fetus on the same par as a born living adult human being who happens to be a woman. This is is this not our our problem here? The Freedom Caucus, I don't know how they stole that name, um, marked it as a dark day in Wyoming

history after decades of liberal leadership in the governor's office. They said, "The state supreme court has been filled with jurists who reject biology and human dignity." No, I think they have jurists who are human beings who are apolitical and impartial and are not trying to shove other people's morality or religious beliefs down our throat or up a woman's we'll leave it at that. Maybe that's what's going on in Wyoming. But for me, it's another data point that Trump and MAGA are in serious trouble. like the last special election a week or so ago, a Democrat won. Uh election night in America six weeks ago, blue wave.

Every election since Donald Trump's been in has either been a Democratic win and flipping a seat or overperformance by a Democrat substantially over what Kla Harris did against Donald Trump. like Donald Trump had won a, you know, a a district, let's say, by 22 points, but now the Democrat only lost by four or six. There's a pent up demand to vote in this country, right? Polling is great. Marching in the street can't beat it, but we are ready to vote. And if we were a country like a parliamentarian country and we had votes of no confidence, Trump would already be gone. Trump would already be gone. We don't have to wait around to see him try a military takeover of Greenland and a destruction of NATO and a takeover of Venezuela to suck its oil money into his coffers. We don't have to wait around for that.

There has been enough other things to destroy and try to crush the hopes and dreams of America and destroy our patriotism and our values to have him lose a vote of no confidence. The polling says he's lost a vote of no confidence when 65% of Americans and we'll see the new polling off of Venezuela, but I'm not sure that helps him. when 65% of Americans reject Donald Trump and hate Donald Trump and his policies including the things that he holds dear like immigration policy and foreign policy and it's worse with the republic with the independents who 75% reject Donald Trump and want their vote back and and people under 30 30 and under it's like 82% have said no that's why mommy won in New York City and Spamburger in Virginia and Cheryl in New Jersey and the rest. So, uh, big win and it means a lot and I think it's not an outlier. I think it's right on point and it is a data point to show you that we will be successful at

midterms and I think it's going to be a wipeout for the party, but we have to get up and vote and do the mailin and all of that in order for that to work. Let me turn now to um Epstein files. Well, this isn't going well for the Trump administration. This is what's tearing MAGA apart. It's like two demons that have just come out of Haiti and are now ripping MAGA apart. One is Donald Trump violating America first principles and getting us into wars in other countries which MAGA hates. That's one. And the lack of transparency around it and the obvious uh oil big oil dominating foreign policy. And then you've got the the continued Epstein cover up. Donald Trump has so painted himself into a corner, he can't get out. And now we've got a new missing 3,000, sorry, 3.2 million documents. What am I talking about? All right. Well, they've only posted, get this number, [clears throat] about 13,000 documents representing

about 130,000 pages have been posted by the Department of Justice and we're now almost three weeks past the deadline under the Epstein Transparency Act. that if you just take their denominator of 5.2 million from last week, that represents 0.06% of the total of the Epstein files. But now they don't like that number. So now they first said after might called them out based on one of those pages of the 12,000 and said, "What about this email that says there's a million Maxwell documents that are sitting in the Southern District of New York? What about those?" Then they came out, hey, there's a million documents sitting in New York we got to get to. We're like, all right, well, we'll put you down.

It's like it's like we're we're doing a ledger. We'll put you down for a million. Okay. Then a week later during the holidays, Todd Blanch drops a bombshell as the number two in the Department of Justice. He says there's 5.2 million. What a specific number. 5.2 million, not five. 5.2. All right. Well, we're working round the clock with 400 people and we'll get there eventually. You know, we're redacted. We're like, "Wow, 5.2 million." And we didn't even think it was that. And if it's 5.2 million, that means it's 50 million pages because it looks like the average document is about 10 pages long based on the the prior numbers. So, we're like, "Okay, we'll put you down for 5.2."

So, we travel forward and now uh they have to file a letter with Judge Angel Meer in New York who's supervising their production uh because he's also responsible for the Epstein case and and I'm reading the letter about there it is. I'm reading the letter. It's up on legal a substack. And all of a sudden, I see under overview of work in progress, they just blfully mention a new number. 2 million. No footnote. I'm looking at the footnote like, okay, what happened to the other 3.2 million? Nope. No. Just insulting everybody's intelligence. Just saying.

Did I say 5.2? I meant 2 million. Now, does anybody believe that they figured out that 3.2 2 million of the 5 million were not relevant and didn't need to be reviewed or were duplicative in a week. How is that even possible? It's not. They don't explain where the 3.2 million went from. Again, reinforcing what we've been saying on Midas touch and legal layoff illegal layoff and intersection from the beginning. We are never going to see the entirety of whatever you define as the Epstein files ever. Uh now lawsuits should be coming out of this.

I'm going to ask actually Sky Perryman who's going to be with me tomorrow with from Democracy Forward who has a pending Freedom of Information Act case in with before Judge Chutkin of all people speaking of Jan 6. She was the Jan 6th insurrection as criminal judge about the communications between Epstein and uh Trump. That's another thing you never hear about when they're doing their search. Have they searched Donald Trump's personal accounts? His personal phone and laptop and documents and hoorde of things that he kept at Mara Lago. Remember, he kept all that stuff.

He never returned it. That's the thing people don't remember. They're like, "Oh, the Mara Lago report. Oh, is she going to is Eileen Cannon going to release it or not? Oh, Jack Smith's kid just gave testimony." He kept all the stuff. He still has it. I guess falling out of the ballroom and out of the bathroom. He has all of our top secret and classified documents. He never turned it back. You know, the FBI went in and grabbed what they could, but there's still stuff there, you know, that left behind. You know, they did a raid, but there's only so much they can grab with on that. So, you have the um you have the shape-shifting going on at the Department of Justice. You have them wanting basically saying, "Believe me, believe us, you know, uh which we don't." And now public interest groups are going to have to get to the bottom of what happened to the other 3.2 million.

And this all matters to the survivors, of course, because we're getting even more and more information to help the survivors bring civil lawsuits around the country against people who they may not even have known was their predator um at all. So look, I think you know when you put all this together and you see what onto Venezuela here for a minute. when you're failing at home, when your economic record is dismal, when you're about to lose on the tariffs, I believe, uh, and you're which is the lynch pin of your entire administration, when you're about to when all of those things are about to happen or are happening, your poll numbers are in the trash. It's scandal after scandal and you can't get out from under the Epstein scandal. What do you do? What do you do? Wag the dog. You start a phony war. It's not a war. What?

Delta team took out 30 Cuban mercenaries that were guarding Maduro who are getting paid in oil. That that's that's taking over Venezuela. We didn't take over Venezuela. We kicked the dictatorship in the nuts and then said, "Do you like that? Because we're about to do another one in a second wave unless you give us all your oil." That's what happened. Freedom is not on the march. And then right off of what we saw with uh the Jan 6 committee and the um uh Jan 6 oversight hearing, Ed Martin, who is a senior who was a Jan 6 denier, an election denier, who represented Jan 6 insurrectionist, who's now the head of your and my committee on weaponization of the Department of Justice answering to Pam Bondi.

He basically in social media post in the last 48 hours suggested that the Department of Justice and Donald Trump may do a sweetheart deal with Maduro if he confesses to having a hand in election interference in 2020. This is the wet dream and the fevered imagination of Sydney Powell and Rudy Giuliani that a Venezuelan business person using software endorsed by Yugo Chavez, the predecessor to Maduro was used and by Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic to change Trump votes into Biden, right? 90 lawsuits in federal court says that's uh you know uh election uh forensic auditors hired by Republicans say that's and the cyber security unit which Donald Trump has put out of business of the federal government says that didn't happen and there's no proof of that happening but Maduro has every incentive to lie about it to get a sweetheart deal much like Galain Maxwell and to be given asylum somewhere and let him keep his money.

Trump gets the oil. Maduro gets uh out of looking at 50 years or 100 years in prison and Trump gets to rewrite history and say, "See, Venezuela did flip votes." But the fact that I even have to report on Ed Martin promoting this conspiracy theory tells you everything you need to know about the corruption of this Department of Justice. There is an antidote for this corruption and you found it. It's being with the Midas Touch Network. It's being on the intersection with me once a week. It's being a supporter, a fervent supporter and helping us build the community where we're all vibrating on the same frequency on Legal AF YouTube, you know, and becoming a sub. There we are.

Becoming a subscriber there and coming to you don't have to roll the next one. and coming to Legal AF on its Substack where we're doing live reporting twice a day. We have to speak truth to each other before we can speak truth to power. Now, some people have said, and I understand the point of view, Hobach, you're platforming Donald Trump and you're giving him a We're not. We have to criticize and critique and call out the abuse of power, the corruption, the lawlessness, the rogue conduct because that's what he wants. He wants us to get fatigued. He wants us to be have our speech and free speech chilled.

He wants corporate parents to crush their newsrooms. But we'll never let that happen here. We don't have a corporate parent. We don't have outside investors. We This is all people powered. This is memberpowered. That's it. And so if people would say, "How do you do 12 hours of content a day on legal aff,

paid membership, the products that are promoted here that we check out, you know, Jordy and I do our own screening of the products. That's the way you keep this community together. And then you get what I think we've all been looking for, which is to say we're not alone. The loneliness in the which is which is the the um the art of the devil, the art of Trump is to separate us from our government and from our fellow Americans and make us feel alone. We're not alone. We're We're not alone. We're together. And together as citizens, we will overcome the Trump administration. And we'll do it together. I'm glad you're here on the intersection every Tuesday night. Pick us up on the audio podcast platform of your choice. Leave a five-star review.

Let let friends come and join us here. One thing I've learned in running the Substack and running the YouTube channel, in doing the podcasting, is that there is no greater influencer in your life than you. people will follow you and if you say come to the intersection, come to the YouTube channel for legal AF, come to the Substack, I I see the numbers, the stats, you as a group individually are the most influential people in your lives to cut through the clutter of all the content that's out there and get people here. So, you are our marketing department, I guess, is what I'm trying to say. And I appreciate each and every one of you. Thanks for being here. I'll see you on Substack Legal AF Substack live tomorrow at 12 PM again at 7:45. I really appreciate you being here. Shout out to the mightest mighty and the legal Afers.

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Questions about this episode

What is "LIVE: Popok Gives URGENT UPDATE on Breaking Legal news | 1/6/2026" about?

Michael Popoc provides an urgent update on significant legal and political developments, including a reflection on the January 6th oversight hearing, ongoing issues surrounding Melania Trump’s legal challenges, and discrepancies in documents related to the Epstein case. He also highlights a recent ruling from the Wyoming Supreme Court affirming women's rights, emphasizing the contrasting…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

13 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Alex Epstein, Celia Maduro, Democracy Forward, Judge Aileen Cannon, Wyoming Supreme Court, Benny Thompson. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "LIVE: Popok Gives URGENT UPDATE on Breaking Legal news | 1/6/2026"?

The episode runs 58 min; the transcript is about 9,072 words in 64 timestamped sections.

More from MeidasTouch

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated January 24, 2026.