Transcript

LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 28 min · 15,235 words · 121 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF", an episode of MeidasTouch published February 5, 2026 (1 h 28 min, about 15,235 words). It mentions 18 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, Minnesota, Karen Freriedman Agnil, Lisa Graves, Jeffrey Epstein.

What this episode is about

The discussion focuses on the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows California to potentially gain five congressional seats through mid-decade redistricting in response to Texas' gerrymandering actions. Additionally, updates on the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein case are addressed, including delays in document releases by the DOJ, emphasizing issues of redaction and the disclosure of victim information.

Key takeaways

  • California's gerrymandering playbook: when in doubt, copy Texas, proving two wrongs can make a right—sort of.
  • The DOJ's Epstein document mess: transparency or chaos? Hundreds of victims exposed while Congress's deadline fades into obscurity.
  • Trump's courtroom hopscotch: attempting to dodge penalties by migrating his felony case—just another day in legal limbo.
  • Minnesota's ICE debacle: a tsunami of deportations revealing cracks in enforcement; even Justice lawyers are seeking sleep over sanity.
  • Court orders in Minnesota? Optional apparently! 96 violations showcase a system overwhelmed by chaotic immigration policies.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Minnesota, Supreme Court Justice, California, Karen Freriedman Agnil
  2. – 20:00: Roberts Court, Supreme Court Justice, California, Voting Rights Act
  3. – 30:00: Donald Trump, Roberts Court, Minnesota, Jeffrey Epstein
  4. – 40:00: Donald Trump, Midas Touch, Minnesota, Jeffrey Epstein
  5. – 50:00: Donald Trump, Supreme Court Justice, Jeffrey Epstein, Karen Freriedman Agnil
  6. – 1:00:00: Jeffrey Epstein, New York Times, Donald Trump, Department of Justice
  7. – 1:10:00: Minnesota, Jeffrey Epstein, Renee Mlin Good, Alex Jeffrey Prey
  8. – 1:20:00: Minnesota, Donald Trump, Department of Justice, Operation Metro Surge
  9. – 1:27:43: Minnesota, Alex Jeffrey Prey, Renee Mlin Good, Lisa Graves

Notable quotes from "LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF"

  • Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. I'm Karen Freriedman Agnil and with me today is the amazing Lisa Graves who's a regular contributor on Midas Touch and Legal AF YouTube channels.
    about Karen Freriedman Agnil · at
  • We're also going to talk today about the latest in the Jeffrey Epstein situation and what's going on there and how the cases are the documents are finally being released finally. Not.
    about Jeffrey Epstein · at
  • Is he trying to do that? So, I look forward to talking about that with you, Lisa. And finally, of course, Minnesota.
    about Minnesota · at
  • Through legislation investigations impeachment subpoenas or more. And so Trump has said quite openly that he does not want the Democrats to win the House because he doesn't…
    about Donald Trump · at
  • The underlying issue remains really problematic because the Supreme Court, the Roberts court has not yet ruled on the Ka case, which is a case out of Louisiana. in that case…
    about Voting Rights Act · at
  • This administration. and one FBI agent resigned because instead of investigating Good's death, they wanted to investigate her partner for daring to descent from the ISIS presence there in Minnesota. So, what's.
    about Renee Mlin Good · at
  • Course, Alex Prey who tragically was shot and killed. and this operation metro surge which has been really catastrophic for Minnesota in so many ways. I mean people neighbors are losing loved ones, right?
    about Operation Metro Surge · at
  • You're supposed to do. You have to really look at all the facts, interview witnesses, analyze. We don't even know in Alex Py's case who shot whose gun went off, right? Who shot…
    about Alex Jeffrey Prey · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Donald Trump — Person · Primary referenced political figure / subject of legal analysis · 16 mentions · first at
    Central to multiple threads: Manhattan felony conviction removal attempt, election 'nationalization' rhetoric, and alleged influence over Epstein-file handling and federal actions in Minnesota/Georgia.
  • Karen Freriedman Agnil — Person · Host · 3 mentions · first at
    Leads the episode agenda and frames each legal topic (California redistricting, Epstein files, Trump removal effort, Minnesota ICE surge). Name appears to be a transcript/ASR rendering of the host’s name.
  • Lisa Graves — Person · Main guest / legal-political commentator · 2 mentions · first at
    Provides extended analysis of Supreme Court (Roberts Court) election-law doctrine, Voting Rights Act risks, and federal overreach concerns tied to Minnesota and election administration.
    And Lisa, I'm so happy that you were able to stand in for Popo who could not make it today and on this midweek episode. So, thank you so much for being here. We have a really exciting lineup,.
  • Jeffrey Epstein — Person · Primary referenced subject of document-release controversy · 17 mentions · first at
    Discussed in connection with DOJ document dumps, victim privacy failures, and broader accountability questions around the 'Epstein files.'
  • Renee Mlin Good — Person · Referenced victim of Minnesota enforcement violence (as described) · 6 mentions · first at
    Cited as a person who died amid Minnesota unrest tied to federal enforcement actions; used to illustrate alleged lawlessness and lack of independent investigation.
  • Alex Jeffrey Prey — Person · Referenced victim of Minnesota enforcement violence (as described) · 5 mentions · first at
    Cited as another person killed during the Minnesota events; discussed in the context of disputed facts and the need for forensic investigation.
  • Tom Holman — Person · Referenced federal official managing Minnesota response · 2 mentions · first at
    Presented as the 'border czar' who traveled to Minnesota, sidelined other officials, and began drawing down ICE personnel to reduce tensions.
    Of Minnesota. And it looks like Christine Gnome has also been sidelined and Tom Holman in the border zar has gone there to try to calm things down.

Companies & orgs

  • ICE — Company · Business focus · 2 mentions · first at
    Key entity in the discussion about the operations and protests in Minnesota.
    So much is going on in Minnesota. It's a huge cluster. You know what? Over there, there's something like 3,000 ICE agents, and I think they finally are realizing that they have to back down because they're losing the battle there.
  • Department of Justice — Company · Case study · 5 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of handling the Epstein files and missing the deadline for document release.
    Are finally being released finally. Not all of them, millions of them, but not all of them. and the DOJ blew past the December deadline that Congress set that they were…
  • New York Times — Company · Case study · 4 mentions · first at
    Referenced for its investigation into the Epstein files.
    The photos unless there were so many of those and be able to redact out that information. Well, the New York Times when this when 3 million documents were dumped were able to…
  • Midas Touch — Company · Business focus · 4 mentions · first at
    Mentioned as a platform where Lisa Graves contributes.
    Here at Legal AF and on the Midas Touch network. So please if you're not a subscriber, subscribe to Midas Touch and to the Legal AF YouTube channel and to Legal AF Substack and…

Concepts & topics

  • Supreme Court Justice — Concept · Core topic · 15 mentions · first at
    Discussed regarding its rulings on redistricting and the Voting Rights Act.
    It's hard to it's hard to decide what to talk about. So, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court today cleared the way for California to basically potentially gain five seats in Congress.
  • Voting Rights Act — Concept · Core topic · 5 mentions · first at
    Central to the discussion about Supreme Court rulings and their impact on voting rights.
  • Roberts Court — Concept · Key argument · 12 mentions · first at
    Referenced in the context of its decisions affecting voting rights and civil liberties.
    The underlying issue remains really problematic because the Supreme Court, the Roberts court has not yet ruled on the Ka case, which is a case out of Louisiana. in that case…
  • Operation Metro Surge — Concept · Strategy · 3 mentions · first at
    Key operation discussed involving the deployment of ICE agents in Minnesota.

Places & events

  • Minnesota — Place · Setting · 20 mentions · first at
    Central location discussed due to the significant ICE operations and protests occurring there.
  • California — Place · Setting · 9 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of redistricting and gaining congressional seats.
    It's hard to it's hard to decide what to talk about. So, we're going to talk about the Supreme Court today cleared the way for California to basically potentially gain five seats in Congress.
  • Fulton County — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Discussed in the context of election issues and ballot seizures.
    It doesn't go that way. I hope that we have a fair election in 2026 in the midterms despite Trump's claiming he's going to send troops or nationalize the elections in some way…

Full transcript with timestamps

Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. I'm Karen Freriedman Agnil and with me today is the amazing Lisa Graves who's a regular contributor on Midas Touch and Legal AF YouTube channels. And Lisa, I'm so happy that you were able to stand in for Popo who could not make it today and on this midweek episode. So, thank you so much for being here. We have a really exciting lineup, things, a lot going on. Uh it's only February 4th and already there's just so much to talk about this month that I it's hard to it's hard to decide what to talk about. So, we're going to talk about uh the Supreme Court today cleared the way for California to basically potentially gain five seats in Congress.

This was something that uh the governor did in response to what Texas was doing and rejere gerrymandering the state uh mid mid decade. Normally it happens every 10 years around the census and it's kind of like what's good for the goose is good for the gander. And Texas did it and was allowed to do it by the Supreme Court. And so California said okay two can play at that game. We're going to read District 2 and they are hoping to flip five seats. We're going to talk about that because the Supreme Court ruled today essentially saying that that is okay and what that means.

Uh we're also going to talk today about the latest in the Jeffrey Epstein situation and what's going on there and how the the cases are the the documents are finally being released finally. Not all of them, millions of them, but not all of them. and the the uh the DOJ blew past the December deadline that Congress set uh that they were supposed to have these documents by December 19th. They didn't. They blew past the deadline saying we need more time because we have to redact sensitive information and victims information and photographs etc.

And so they did this giant document dump and an easy word search, an easy name search of a list of victim's names who they had by the way. So they could have done this name search and word search uh was the New York Times did it and found hundreds of examples where victims thousands of examples where over a hundred victims names were not only revealed but personal and and sensitive identifying information about them photographs of them etc. So the Department of Justice can't get out of their own way when it comes to the Epstein files. So, we're going to talk a lot about what's happening there and the victims who have gone to federal court to try to get them to intervene, to get the courts to intervene, to take this website down. We're also going to talk about Trump who once again is trying to get his case removed. Do you remember that case from from a long time ago now, it seems like, where uh he was convicted

of 34 felony counts by the Manhattan DA's office in uh my old office. He was convicted. He's trying to get that conviction and sentence removed to federal court. So he and it's not the first time he's tried, by the way. He tried that a couple of times before, but he's trying again. And uh he went to federal court in front of Judge Hellerstein. And we're going to talk about what how Judge Hellerstein responded to this effort to try to get the case removed to federal court. And what does Trump have up his sleeve? Why is he trying to do that? So, I look forward to talking about that with you, Lisa. And finally, of course, Minnesota.

So much is going on in Minnesota. It's a huge uh cluster. You know what? Over there, there's something like 3,000 ICE agents, and I think they finally are realizing that they have to back down because they're losing the battle there. And all the resistance, the protests, and the pressure is causing things to change. that not only have they moved Greg Bovino, who looks like a a Nazi SS um agent in his long coat. It's kind of quite scary, frankly. He was moved out of Minnesota. And it looks like Christine Gnome has also been sidelined and Tom Holman in the border zar has gone there to try to calm things down.

and he's already drawing down over 700 of the ICE uh agents and ICE troops out of Minnesota because I think they realize what uh what a disaster they have there. Other things are going on in Minnesota too. We have special a USA who uh is is trying to field these um all of these uh court cases of of all of these individuals who are being detained and bringing rits of habius corpus to try to get released and they they can't keep up. They just can't keep up. And she started crying in court and essentially asked to be held in contempt so she could get 24 hours of sleep. So very unusual for a Justice Department lawyer to respond that way. But I think it really just shows how what what a stress this has put on the system and how Trump just wasn't prepared. The the the administration was not prepared. You can't send this operation metroserve, 3,000 DHS, Customs, Border Patrol, and and ICE agents to Minnesota to do this

huge wave of not targeted deportation, which is the opposite of what they said they would do, which is targeted deportation of people with who are convicted of crimes or arrested and charged with crimes. They're just sweeping up everybody and and they can't handle the volume. And so the system is is crushing under its own weight. People are resigning uh in mass. Half the half the Minnesota US Attorney's Office has resigned or been fired. And so they just can't keep up with the volume. And as a result, they're blowing through court orders that judges are getting frustrated. One judge said 96 court orders have been violated. 96. That's that's astounding. Court orders aren't optional. They are something you have to deal with. So, we're going to talk about what all that means and everything that's going on. And uh Lisa, I'm so grateful that you are here. I want to hear your perspective on all of this and

get your insight and knowledge. You come to the table with so much experience. And so, we're so thrilled to have you here. Welcome to the midweek edition of Legal AF. How are you, Lisa?

I'm doing all right, Karen. Thank you so much. And as always, for that excellent introduction, the replay, the recap of what's going on and what we're going to talk about. So, yeah, an honor to be here.

What have you been up to these days, Lisa? Well, I've been uh I've been doing some writing, not yet published, about uh the way the Roberts court uh rulings have affected what's happening in Minnesota. basically the the way they have tried to rewrite write the rule rules in ways that make it harder for those lower court judges to issue restraining orders against actions that on their face uh in my view seem to be in gross violation of people's civil rights and their the freedom to descent the freedom to assemble um and the like. But um so that's what I've been up to. But I actually like you can't believe it's February. Can't believe it's the 4th of February and already so much has happened. But that's actually been my reaction to the year 2026. we came in.

It was I I think of like what's that saying? Uh when uh April or May uh the the comes in like a lion or comes in like a lamb and goes out like a lion. Um I feel like uh January we had no respit, no no real rest between the end of last year and this year just actually an acceleration with what's been happening in Minnesota uh and more. So um yeah, I'm happy to be here Karen and uh happy to dig into these topics. Yeah, even the groundhog talks to Tiny Phil, you know, here in New York. Even the groundhog didn't come out this year. So,

or winter. Yeah, I don't know if it's winter or if he's like, I don't know. I don't want to come out. There's, you know, anyway, I don't want to read too much into that. Um, let's So, speaking of this of Supreme Court and the Roberts court and something that you're an expert in, let's talk about the what happened in Cal this California redistricting uh victory that um that is a major victory for Democrats in California. Um, I'll frame the issue and I want to get your reaction to it. So, essentially, um, Governor Gavin Newsome w published this redistricting map and it was in direct response. They didn't even, um, try to hide that this was a direct response or what the purpose was. It was in direct response to Republicans who did this exact same thing in Texas. and it's in an effort to gain an additional five seats in Congress and try to flip Congress in uh in the midterms. So, you know, whether it will actually happen or

not, ultimately it's going to take a lot more than these five seats because many states are many uh red states are doing this like Texas are trying to do this and some blue states are also trying to do it. But this ruling, this was an emergency application to the United States Supreme Court that was uh brought by the California Republicans supported by Trump and basically saying it's not constitutional, that they can't do this, saying um essentially that they were trying to do this to try to give more votes to Latino and minority voters in California, which the Supreme Court has said you're not allowed to make race the motivating factor, the primary factor.

Um, it can be a factor, but it can't be the primary motivating factor. Um, the Supreme Court's been chipping away at the Voting Rights Act, uh, especially this Supreme Court. And so, but one thing that that might be surprising to people is you are allowed to take partisanship. You're allowed to say, "No, I'm doing this to gain partisan advantage. I'm not trying to give more votes to minor minority voters, which you would think would be something that is something you want to do, right? You want to give people who are disenfranchised kind of more of a vote because they're in the minority. You want to give them more um or give them appropriate access to voting, especially in the electoral college system. Uh and but but the Supreme Court had has uh ruled in the past that that is not okay.

Uh I think it was last year actually in fact. and um instead you are allowed to redistrict and draw maps that are just for partisan advantage. And in fact, this was the same argument that they made in Texas for why it's okay. In Texas, they said, "Oh, no, we're allowed to do this for this reason." And so Cal in California, the lawyers basically threw it in their face and said, "This is what you argued in Texas, so we're arguing the same thing." And not surprising, the uh the Supreme Court in an signed no dissents uh decision basically said we are not going we we're denying this emergency application.

Therefore, the map stands and which is important because this uh the the um registration for people who are going to run for these now open seats is opening right now. uh I think on Monday is when registration is and so so there was this temporal dead deadline and so the map stands and this was overwhelming overwhelmingly approved by voters in California. California has this thing called propositions. So Prop 50 was was put on a ballot in November and was voted on and it overwhelmingly passed and now this emergency stay basically says okay this is an emergency. So it's not fully briefed. It's not fully argued, so it has to go back down and and make its way through the courts, but it doesn't matter because this election, this is going to go forward with this map. So, talk about Lisa, what are what are your what are your thoughts on this and and what do you glean from from this um opinion, if you want to call it that,

or this order? Yes. Well, this is a good result uh today and it is consistent with the recent uh precedents of the Roberts court in as you point out what happened was the Republicans were trying to stop California from doing redistricting in response to Texas redistricting which was actually quite outrageous quite frankly given the fact that the Republican party had been defending what happened in Texas and what happened in Texas is actually unusual relatively unusual in American history for um you know just to kind draw the lens back a bit. The reason we have maps redrawn is um is typically based on the census. And so the constitution commands that a census be taken every 10 years and that based on the growth in population or loss in population then uh congressional maps are redrawn. And so our state maps uh on a on the same basis but you know not because the constitution commands it. Um and so for these um maps usually

what happens is every 10 years on the you know zeros so 2020 there was a census and then the next year the legislators would take up maps to address the changes in population. But what Trump has triggered is this really unusual and in my view quite suspect suspect uh redrawing of maps mid decade not based on the results of the census but in order to try to gain an advantage in order to prevent the house from becoming democratic and attempting to hold him accountable whether that's through legislation investigations impeachment subpoenas or more. And so Trump has said quite openly that he does not want the Democrats to win the House because he doesn't want to face any accountability for his actions and he said that he he could very well be impeached if the h if the Democrats take the House. So, he's been pressuring Republican controlled legislators with Republican governors to redraw their

maps to to take seats away from uh Democratic districts or districts that lean Democratic and and basically just skew the maps so that as many Republicans pos as possible can be elected regardless of the actual way an ordinary population might vote. And so, um, earlier this, actually, I guess late last year, the Roberts court allowed, uh, a change in maps in Texas, these five seats that were redrawn by the Republican legislature to go forward even though in that case, the lower court judge found that those maps did have a racially disperate impact and race was a factor was being considered as part of that redrawing. And that's the um redrawing that has effectively moved some leading Democrats out of their seats in Congress coming this election. And so it, you know, at least one black member of Congress who's now running for, I think, senator or governor, uh, you know, was the victim in essence of this redrawing. And in

response to that redrawing, California moved forward to say, "If you're going to redraw the maps, um, if this goes forward, we're going to redraw our maps, too." And then the Republicans attacked that measure even after they'd won uh in this ruling by the Supreme Court that allowed that Texas map to go forward. So it's a just result in that sense. But the underlying issue remains really problematic because the Supreme Court, the Roberts court has not yet ruled on the Ka case, which is a case out of Louisiana. Um, in that case, after the 2020 census, the white legislature in dominated legislature in Louisiana drew maps that allowed only one one uh house district to be a majority of black Americans, even though in Louisiana, black Americans make up 30 over basically a third of the population. And so instead of having there be any proportion, which is not required, but which would be common sense, the white

legislature drew maps that had five white majority districts and one black majority district. A lower court panel struck that down because the Voting Rights Act has long had um provisions to protect against vote dilution. And there are Supreme Court precedents that say that you cannot have measures under section two of the Voting Rights Act that dilute the black vote, that have the effect of diluting black votes. Basically, um, taking a vote that has meaning and rendering it meaningless. And so the Louisiana legislature responded to that lower court ruling, redrrew the map so that there were two black majority districts and four white majority districts. And then um that map was was pursued by white residents of Louisiana to attack it as unconstitutional. And that's the case that is still pending before the Supreme Court. I raise that because even though these districts are allowed to go

forward in um this election cycle in California um as the Texas seats are going forward in this election cycle in the 2026 race, I'm very concerned that the Roberts court will strike down section two of the Voting Rights Act, rule in favor of those white residents in Louisiana and say that going forward in the 2028 election that you cannot not have maps that protect against vote dilution, against the diluting the black vote. And I fear that Mike Johnson and Trump would use such a ruling to say that they're not going to seat any legislators who were elected in districts created to prevent the dilution of the black vote. And so it sort of could lay around like a loaded weapon uh illegitimately to provide pretext for an effort to try to overturn the results of the 2026 election. I hope it doesn't go that way. I hope that we have a fair election in 2026 in the midterms despite Trump's claiming he's

going to send troops or nationalize the elections in some way despite what we are going to talk about later uh about the Fulton County um situation uh in terms of uh the federal government seizing ballots. I hope we have a fair election. We're going to have to work hard as citizens to get as many people out to vote. Uh, you know, basically, I don't care your part, what your party is, but please stand up for the right to vote and get more people out to vote so that the results cannot be set aside. But I'm concerned that this Republican Supreme Court, this majority on the court, this Roberts court has been working to change the rules to aid Republicans. We know that the the the point you raised Karen about um allowing partisan redistricting is a direct result of this Robert's court because in a case called Alexander versus NAACP of South Carolina, even though lower court judges found that Nancy Mesa's district,

the first district of South Carolina, had been um constructed specifically to move over 20,000 black voters out of her district and into a different district in order to give her a safe seat um moving them out of a district that they their parents their grandparents had voted in for years. Um this gula of the gula community. The Roberts court in an opinion by Samuel Alo said that the South Carolina legislature could do that as long as their goal was partisanship, as long as their objective was partisanship, even if race was basically the core factor moving these black voters out of that district. And so the court has put its thumb on the scale in favor of these Republican legislatures uh even considering race like they did in uh in South Carolina expressly moving like with with um statistical methodical unmistakable um determination to move those black voters out in South Carolina. The court

has allowed that and that has unleashed this wave of mid uh mid uh decade redistricting and it, you know, it bodess poorly for the future if the Roberts court ultimately strikes down one of the last remaining enforcement provisions in the Voting Rights Act, section two of the Voting Rights Act.

You know, your fear about Mike Johnson refusing to seat these members of Congress is not something that we know he will do, right? I mean, he did it this he he refused to see um

Exact Exactly. And because she was going to be the the vote they needed to um to vote the Epstein Transparency Act, the Epstein File Transparency Act out onto the floor and you know, so he he's willing to to to do that if it suits him. So I I think your fear is well placed there for sure. Um, meanwhile, Donald Trump is calling to nationalize state elections. What what do you make of that? And what what what do you think what hey hay can he make there?

Well, it really is extraordinary. And if Mike Johnson had any um and I'll just say in my personal opinion, integrity, he would be objecting this because this is the constitution specifically commits the power to to uh handle state elections to the states. It is not a federal prerogative. It shouldn't be the federal government. the federal government should not be uh taking over uh the election process. It is uh one of the most significant threats to our democratic process that we've ever seen to have a president asserting this. And

it actually says it in the constitution, right? It's it's express it's expressly

it's a yeah for the states, not Yeah. Not for the federal government, not for the president. And we have a president who has denied the actual results of Americans voting in 2020 and sought to stop that vote from being counted and um in my view incited the crowd to assail the capital to try to stop that vote. That's what the indictment um on about January 6th Jack Smith's indictment was about. He said that he had ample evidence evidence beyond a reasonable doubt to prove the counts that Donald Trump Donald Trump was charged with. But this court, the Roberts court, intervened and effectively pardoned Trump retrospectively and paved the way for his return to power. And so we have right now someone in the in the executive office in the in the White House who has should have no role um taking over uh state taking over elections during the midterms. Federal elections are handled by state officials

and state officials have been doing this correctly, properly for decades. They're well trained. All All of Trump's efforts to try to change the voting rules in 2020 to his advantage, to try to block people from voting absentee, to try to uh assert fraud. Rudy Giuliani's really absurd claims that were rejected in court after court. Um he lost over and over and so he's the last person who should have these powers. But in fact, it wouldn't matter whether it was Trump or someone else in the sense that that's not what the Constitution says. So this is just another anti-constitutional, counterconstitutional unconstitutional maneuver by Trump in order to in his desperation try to stay in power regardless of what our law commands.

What does he threat? I mean, what what is your understanding of what he's going to try and do and to to quote nationalize federal elections? And what do you think the Supreme Court how do you think they'll respond to that? Well, you know, I think one of the things we're seeing is some trial trial runs. So, you know, I I think one of the fears coming out of Minneapolis is not just this um invasion, this siege by federal officers who outnumber the local police, but that there could be an effort to deploy ICE agents to polling places to try to intimidate voters, to possibly arrest voters. Um, and you know, we we know that they've been engaged in racial profiling. They fought for the right in essence. the quote right to do so. And the Roberts court uh in a in an emergency uh docket ruling allowed them in the case of their immigration enforcement to consider someone's race, ethnicity, appearance, last name, uh

language, accent, profession as a basis for stopping someone for what had been called Kavanaaugh stops. Um because Kavanaaugh, you know, bas basically gave this his blessing even though he's tried to walk it back a bit. But I I think that we could see Trump try to deploy federal troops or ICE agents to polling places to intimidate voters or even arrest people given what has happened in Fulton County with um you know the issue of the 2020 election in in Georgia has been litigated, litigated and litigated and Trump has lost at every turn. Those ballots had been audited and then re-examined uh by federal by local and state officials as part of their review of of the vote in 2020. uh Republican state officials, the governor of Georgia, the AG of Georgia, both of whom are Republicans, state the the secretary of state of Georgia, Brad Raffensburgger, everyone basically affirmed the certification of those

those ballots as valid. And yet Trump has gone in there and had them seized um at, you know, had the DOJ seize them, had FBI, the FBI seized them, and was even on a telephone call um basically acting like a cheerleader to the FBI FBI agents for seizing those pallets of ballots. Now, I I think that no one can have any confidence in the integrity of those ballots now that they've been seized by an administration that has been determined to perpetuate the big lie, the big lie that Trump won. And we can see that in the White House um uh uh website that they created around January 6 and other material that they've released in Trump's ongoing claims that he really won in 2020 despite the fact that he actually lost and that votes were counted uh that things were ballots were recounted again to make sure of the election results and he lost lost lost.

He was the biggest loser of 2020 and he can't accept it. that now he has the power of the FBI and DOJ doing his bidding. And I will say to you, Karen, one of the things that was tucked in that immunity ruling that John Roberts wrote, the one that is extraordinary counterconstitutional assertion invention of this super wide power of Donald Trump of a president engaged in quote official acts. that opinion uh basically said that the president could direct the FBI, could direct DOJ as part of this sort of unitary executive theory, as part of this the so-called official acts of the president. And that's what Trump is doing. That's extraordinary in our political system.

For years and years, in fact, for decades, it has been seen as verboten for a president to be directing the prosecution of anyone, including his enemies, but anyone. And there's a long-standing set of agreements. I saw them uh you know review them from time to time when I was at the Justice Department along with others in terms of the rules for contacts between the Justice Department and the White House in order to prevent even the appearance that a White House is directing prosecutions or interfering in prosecutions, let alone demanding that his enemies be pursued or that his um you know uh conspiracy theories be uh pursued through the force of law. And so, um, notwithstanding John Roberts's intervention in the, um, in the January 6 indictment, um, of Donald Trump and other criminal potential criminal cases against Donald Trump, the fact is is that what happened in Georgia is so unusual, so irregular, and so worrisome

because to go to your initial question, Karen, we don't know if he's going to try to seize ballots during the 2026 election or immediately thereafter with his loyalists trying go to a judge to try to make a case to try to stop the results from counting our votes from counting in the 2026 midterms.

Yeah. Well, you know, there's certain judges that they're going to make sure they bring cases to, right? Uh Judge Eileen Cannon, for example, I could see them trying to maneuver a case down there for sure.

County, right? Exactly. Exactly. Or Judge Casmic, right, in Texas. I mean, that's another one. There's certain judges that are that you could you could see them trying to forum shop. So, do you think he's going to try to also uh outlaw mail and ballots as well? And I mean that that seems to be a rallying cry and and what was Tulsi Gabbard doing at the exec? It was just, it's one thing to be, okay, yeah, he can be in charge of the FBI and the DOJ and whatever, and they're there executing the search warrant to to take these voting machines, but what was the director of national intelligence doing there?

Well, to to unpack your question a bit, like in Georgia, the head of the FBI in Georgia resigned uh because he would not pursue this really illegitimate, in my view, case. And in fact, they brought in an A USA not from Georgia uh but from Missouri to handle this case. And so the case is already fraught to begin with. And this is this is in line with what you mentioned earlier about uh what's been happening in Minnesota where six A USA's resigned because of the actions of this administration. and one FBI agent resigned because instead of investigating uh investigating Good's death, they wanted to investigate her partner for daring to uh you know, descent from the ISIS presence there in Minnesota. So, you know, what what's happened in Georgia just in the past week is unusual in numerous ways, including the fact that longtime career officials who have, you know, they may be Republicans, they may be Democrats,

but they have been trying to follow the law have been were unwilling to go along with this sherad. But as you point out, who was there? the director of national intelligence that which is the DNI which is Tulsi Gabbard someone who Trump chose to put in that role at the top the pinnacle of our national intelligence infrastructure the DNI is a position that was created after September 11th it um is above the CIA it's above the NSA it's above you know the 10 12 uh acronym intelligence agencies that found that Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 election notwithstanding Donald Trump's repeated claims that it was a hoax. Our intelligence community found that there was active an active effort by Russia to interfere. I'm sure if anyone ever had access to the books of FBI of Facebook, you would see it because they were spending millions of dollars on ads targeting Americans as well uh in that

2016 election. But Donald Trump wanted to put someone who was uh someone he could trust, a loyalist to him in charge of national intelligence, and he put Tulsi Gabbard. We've never had basically the head of the spy agencies involved in an effort to seize American ballots, to seize the ballots of American residents. It is beyond unusual. It is quite frankly outrageous for the DNI to have been on the ground. Supposedly, she was there because Trump asked her to. That's not her job. She actually doesn't have a role within the US in that way. Her role is supposed to be focused predominantly on foreign intelligence on gathering foreign intelligence and on the processes that these agencies are using you know for signals intelligence or geographic intelligence or human intelligence. They are not supposed to be focusing on Americans. They are not supposed to be involved in law enforcement, domestic law enforcement.

So it's an it was an extraordinary act. She went out there as a political act on behalf of her benefactor Donald Trump. She called Donald Trump on his cell phone from the the scene uh of you know the process of seizing those ballots and having the FBI agents there. He called her back. She put him on the phone to cheerlead to those agents that they were doing the right thing. Even though this is basically unprecedented in American history to have this kind of intervention by a president over um an election that was already litigated and resolved years ago and he lost and there was no deterrent to her personally in terms of her own integrity in my personal view or her actions or her actual official role or duties. Nothing impeded her from going there even though it was totally not her job. And it's actually quite worrisome because now we know there are a lot of relationships that Trump has with foreign governments.

Uh we know that there's been you know these um deals struck and you know uh rewards or presents or you know all sorts all manner of intermingling of his personal interests and our governmental actions with respect to some foreign foreign compan

foreign involvement in our elections. when this administration has rejected the actual independent assessments of the intelligence agencies in 2016 and now he has in essence directed the head of the national intelligence for the United States to be part of the process of seizing American ballots with no public statement of any evidence of any foreign involvement or interference in that Georgia election. no indication that the ballots would indicate any involvement by uh foreign agents or foreign governments. And in fact, back in 2020 when this issue of foreign interference was litigated in Arizona in the face of conspiracy theories that there was Chinese paper or other, you know, completely ridiculous, laugh out loud, uh false assertions about the Arizona election, those were roundly rejected in court. There is no evidence, none that has ever been made public, none that exists in my view to indicate

any foreign interfer foreign interference in that Georgia presidential race in 2020 or any state for that matter. Yeah, it's it's crazy. And and people aren't outraged by it enough. Po, I think, not because it's not outrageous, but because there's so much going on that it's like, how do you decide? You know, any other normal time, this would be something that would be on TV, on the news, in the papers every single day. What was she doing there? Why are they executing a search warrant now? Four years later, or no, more than four years later. It's like six years later. Yeah, six years later. Um, how is there how is there how is this not stale for search warrant purposes? How did a judge why would a judge or a magistrate sign off on this? Like there's so many open questions

to try to unpack here. But but, you know, it's like a fire hose of outrage, you know, with the with Minnesota, with Epstein, with, you know, all all the things going on. But but it's important that we have to keep calling these things out and really underscoring for people how unusual this is and and really how important the midterms are and people have to go and vote and and vote vote vote. I mean, we have to because that's that's what's so critical what's going on here. The world does not look anything like it has looked in my lifetime. It's it's so you know over the years it's like sometimes we're liberal, sometimes we're conservative, sometimes we're Democrats, sometimes we're Republican. you know, this is not liberal or conservative. This is not Democrat or Republican. This is truly lawlessness and autocracy and it's terrifying. And so the more we can kind of call this out, talk about what it is

and talk about the fact that it's really our democracy at stake. I think that's what why why we are spending so much time talking about these things and bringing them to everybody's attention. So we have to take our first break. So obviously we have to keep the lights on here at Legal AF and on the Midas Touch network. So please if you're not a subscriber, subscribe to Midas Touch and to the Legal AF YouTube channel and to Legal AF Substack and all there's so much that you can watch and read to stay informed and we really appreciate uh all the support and this whole community that is here. So if you can subscribe and you can be a part of that, that really helps us as well. U Midas Touch Network is over 6 million subscribers now and Legal AF YouTube channel has over a million. So we're growing at at lightning speed and it's because of this amazing community and all of you. So uh we're going to take our first break from

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All right, we're back. Uh, I want to start with uh what's going on in federal court in Judge Hellerstein's courtroom. Um, essentially just to remind everyone, so Donald Trump was convicted in May of 2024 of 34 felony counts by the Manhattan DA's office, where I spent the better part of my my career, 30 years I worked there. Um, and he was convicted of falsifying business records related to these hush money payments that he made to Stormmy Daniels, who he had an affair with and or I don't know if you call it an affair, but he had relations with

and his uh his fixer attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, helped broker these hush money payments. And he doctorred the doctorred the books to make it look like legal fees. and he was went to trial, was prosecuted and convicted of 34 felony counts in Manhattan. Now, Trump tried to get the case removed from state court previously to federal court and and it's called a removal, right? That's that's what they call it under the law. And it's it's essentially it you it's when federal officers are being prosecuted or someone who who's being prosecuted um who has a federal defense and they they want to have it removed to federal court so that they can have their case [clears throat] handled there instead of state court. and he tried to have uh the case removed, but Judge Hellerstein said, "No, that was entirely personal conduct. That had nothing to do with your presidency. That happened when you were a private citizen. It doesn't

belong in federal court." So that went down. So he rejected that. I think there was twice he went for removal in Helerstein's court and twice it was rejected. So he finally went to to trial. he was convicted and he uh after he was convicted in May, in July, a couple months later,

uh the Supreme Court ruled came down and ruled that this ruling about presidential immunity, right?

And um that that just created the whole situation we're in, but I'm not going to digress. and and essentially said, you know, I think you said earlier, it's almost like pardoning in advance, you know, proactively pardoning him and retroactively pardoning him for anything that you do while you're president. And so Donald Trump made the strategic decision to um to appeal to the state court first, Judge Rashawn,

and say, "I'm immune. you know, you you can't now you have to vacate my conviction. Judge Mawn ruled that essentially this was entirely private conduct. Any none almost none of this happened while you were president except one conversation that you had with Hope Hicks. And even if I took that out of the equation, the evidence, you know, the evidence against you was overwhelming. And so e so let's say we take that out I still find that the the the jury should have found you guilty or could have found you guilty and so we're going to proceed to sentencing after that he then went to Judge Hellerstein and said okay I I would like you to now remove it again based on I want to make this removal application again based on the immunity decision and Judge Helerstein there was a hearing uh he hasn't ruled yet but he essentially said you don't get two bites of the apple you waited too long. You should have come

here first if that's what you wanted to do is removal. But instead, you made a strategic decision to see if you can get Judge Mawn to do it. And then when he didn't go your way, now you're trying to get us to do it. And Judge Helerstein, it doesn't seem like my reading of the tea leaves wasn't having it. And because essentially what the lawyer for Donald Trump admitted to or or kind of said was, I just we just need you to make any ruling so that we can then appeal it and get it to the second circuit. You know, just just bring it to federal court. I don't care if you rule for us or against us. You know, if you rule against us, that's fine, too, because then we can just go to the second circuit, get them to rule. Again, it doesn't really matter what they do because we want to go to the Supreme Court because we know the Supreme Court will will basically do, you know, we we have our best chance at

an audience there, but they have to get there. They have to get to the Supreme Court. And Judge Hellerstein seems skeptical. I don't know. What did you pick up from from the hearing?

Yeah, I'm skeptical, too. Um, and I think he's rightly skeptical. And you know, this is an area where as broad as that ruling by John Roberts, that edict uh declaring that Trump had presidential immunity or immunity from criminal prosecution, it was specific to official acts. Now, there are an enormous array of so-called official acts that includes um as uh in essence, they've asserted pardons. Uh the you know, they've asserted all sorts of things that the president does in his official capacity. But as you point out and as the judge the judges have pointed out, Donald Trump's payment of this hush money for this um sexual relationship uh with Stormmy Daniels, uh this was before the election. This was before he became a president. you can't have immunity uh you even though I object to the Robert's uh ruling on immunity for president while acting as a president. You certainly don't get immunity for your

actions before you become president or after you stop being president. So it it it's it's really extraordinary that he's doing it. But but as you point out, it's all about getting to the Supreme Court and trying to make the case to the six Republican appointees to the Supreme Court that perhaps five of them would find some way to rule in his favor to get this case uh to get this case dismissed. I I think that on the merits as as you pointed out and as one of the judges pointed out, you know, only just a teeny tiny percentage of the of the activity occurred after he became president. And it was like incidental to what was already going on to try to keep this out of the news because because what was really going on was that Trump uh and you know his lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, did not want Stormmy Daniels to speak about the fact that Trump had had sex with a woman for money um at uh around around shortly after his

wife Melania had given birth uh to their to their son. um and that this would look bad for Trump, that it could affect his chance of be of of becoming president in 2016. So, the whole case, the whole hush money, the payment of the money was all about trying to win that 2016 election. And the idea that Trump can assert immunity or try to drag this case into federal court, I I do think that um it's a it's a it's a bad case for those claims. I don't think that he would prevail except that this Robert's court is a wild card in the sense that they have done so much to put their thumb on the scale in favor of Donald Trump in all sorts of ways. In any normal environment, I think this would be an openand-shut case against Trump.

But we just don't know what this Roberts court is going to do given some so many of the other things it has done to basically allow Trump to do things that no other president has been allowed to do like these tariffs that the tariff policy is specifically committed to Congress not the president like birthright citizenship. You know, all these things that are being challenged before this court that the court has not yet ruled on are things where in any other ordinary court, I think people would have a right to reasonably expect that this court would not rule in Trump's favor. But we just don't know with this court.

Yeah, we really don't. It's so interesting to see what happens. So, people are probably wondering, well, why is this happening now in front of Helerstein? And it's because Trump brought this. is you're supposed to bring it within 30 days of a ruling. He brought it almost 60 days later after he had already gone to Judge Mawn. He he makes application. Helerstein denied it. It was then appealed to the second circuit. And the second circuit

sent it back down to Hellerstein essentially saying, "You have to consider some of these arguments and have a hearing and make findings." And so that's why it's still that's why it's still uh bubbling around and we're going to have to he's going to have to rule and make a decision and I think take into consideration the things the second circuit wanted him to do. So this is still a live issue. It's still going on and uh we'll see we'll see what happens. Um, so let let's turn now to uh across the across the hall from Judge Hullerstein, Judge Burman, um, also in the Southern District of New York, who was uh who was the judge who was the trial judge for Gileain Maxwell.

Yeah. And he uh he although that case is over, although she's appealing, but it's over. she was tried and convicted and and she's now in in prison. Um people keep running to him to kind of and try to deal with the Epstein Files, right? So that that trial happens and then Congress passes the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which basically gave until I think it was December 19th as a deadline for the Department of Justice to turn over all uh records that they have. that it's it this got some holes in the in the law. It doesn't include things like the IRS records. It doesn't include other government records. It's like the DOJ and the FBI, right? So, there's still a lot of other records out there that relate to people who were financing the Jeffrey Epstein, his lifestyle, etc. There's a lot of government records. So, I think they need to pass an amendment to the law that fixes that. But the law also has

some holes in it that says DOJ can withhold certain things if there's an open investigation. So it's not a perfect law. But e but even so there are lots of documents that should be turned over and they keep writing to Judge Burman because some of those small small portion of them but some of those records were grand jury material for example and grand jury material is sealed and so Judge Burman had to unseal them in order to comply with the with this with the with the law. They've also gone to Judge Burman to try to enforce the law because they DOJ blew past the deadline and Burman said, "I I have nothing to do with it, right? This is not this is not my case. Like my case is over. I can't enforce this law. Maybe you should bring a new action so that we can enforce the law." And in the meantime, the DOJ said, you know, no need. We're working on it. We're working on it. We've got people working on it

around the clock. We've got lawyers working on this around the clock. There's millions, you know, sometimes they say there's hundreds of thousands, sometimes they say there's six million, then they say three million. Who knows? There's million. We know there's millions of records and documents, but we need to redact out the victim's information and redact out victim's photos and names, etc., uh as well as certain other they would said they're not going to redact people out for political reasons but but they there are people who I think they are taking out who they've determined are um are either they either they were innocent or you know it didn't go anywhere and so they're not going to let some people wrong you know get wrongly tarnished with this um with with this. So there were certain names to redact out there.

What the victims did is they gave over a hundred names uh to the DOJ so that they can know the names that need to be redacted out. And the way that works, because I'm a criminal defense attorney and I was a prosecutor, the way it works when you get terabytes of millions of discovery documents, whether you're turning them over as a prosecutor or receiving them as a defense attorney, no one expects you to be able to read every single document. And so I mean sometimes you have to read the vast majority of them but but typically the way you start such a search is you do word searches right you you you put you put them in a searchable database and you do word searches and so by giving over the victim's names that was in an effort so that the DOJ who had the Southern District of New York I believe had almost every lawyer in the office working on this round the clock and it's a way of giving them the name so that

they can whatever whatever file files they were in charge of. They presumably should be able to put the names into a computer and it should show you everywhere that it shows up. Same thing with photos. You know, there should be a way to search for at least look at all the photos unless there were so many of those and and be able to redact out that information. Well, the New York Times when this when 3 million documents were dumped were able to find thousands thousands. Not one or two or a few that they miss. thousands of records where over a hundred victims names and personal identifying information including photographs were leaked and the New York Times tried to do the right thing and tell DOJ look what you did you know there's a problem here and in the meantime a lot of the victims are like I never came forward I mean I didn't even know my name was in there or you know I never had anything to do with this I

wasn't one of the people who who wanted to do this now my life is turned upside down or some of the other victims are like I came forward but you promised it would this wouldn't happen to me. You know, it's it's it's very upsetting. And so they ran to Judge Burman understandably, to basically say, "Take down the website. Make them take down the website." And uh and essentially the DOJ, they were supposed to have a hearing today, but the judge canled it because the DOJ agreed to handle this, right? they agreed to um to to fix this.

So, but it's just it's just unbelievable to me. I how this could happen. I mean, and under any normal Congress, they should be having hearings to figure out what happened. I mean, I don't know. What What are your What are your thoughts about this, Lisa?

Well, we've spent we we the taxpayers have spent millions and millions of dollars on this redaction effort. The redaction effort began in part because uh Trump Trump ran in part saying, you know, along with some of his supporters that they needed to make the Epstein files public. Bondi promised to make them public. Uh claimed she had them on the top of her desk uh and she was going to release them all um or, you know, had a client list, etc. It was just a a constant drum beat. And then suddenly this past spring, it turns out that Bondi informed Trump that he his name appeared numerous times in the files.

And then suddenly they were trying to say, "Oh no, never mind. Nothing to see here. No no files could be released. There's nothing more to see." Even though in many of these instances, the men who were involved in predatory behavior with the women uh and girls uh that uh were recruited by Glenn Maxwell uh you know for Jeffrey Epstein's you know operations uh e even though basically they were the people who victimized them were never charged other than other than Epstein and Maxwell and so um you know that's what resulted in this effort in the House where some Republicans joined Democrats and saying, "Look, make the files public." And so since then, since that law passed, there's been this sort of roundthe-clock effort uh that's been described as involving FBI agents, a USA's um prosecutors, and others to redact the files. And yet, uh we've seen a really sloppy process, quite frankly, despite

the millions have been spent. We saw, as you point out, um the names of survivors of this racket, this Epstein Galain Maxwell racket, they're them named with personal identifiable information. Anyone who runs a website in America is actually required under US law to protect against revealing personal personal identifiable information is specifically defined in the law. But in this instance, to take special care, if they were supposed to be doing anything with this redaction, it was protect supposed to protect the survivors, the victims of this uh multi-year scheme uh by Epstein and Maxwell. And instead, what we've seen is redactions and deletions to protect Trump. At one point uh just this past week, they redacted a photo of Trump, like his face, from a photo that was just a public like a publicity photo. So they, you know, there was extra effort paid to protect to try to protect Trump in some ways. We

don't know all the redactions. There's been no cataloging of what things were redacted on what basis. Some of the redactions seem super irrational and very much designed to protect Trump. But now we've seen that they have been not so careful in uh handling the information about people who survived it. And and there's I guess two other things that I just want to flag uh for our for our watchers, our our listeners. One is that in Blanch's um Todd Blanch's uh press conference, he's the deputy attorney general, the guy who was formerly a criminal defense attorney for Donald Trump. Now he's being paid by us as the deputy attorney general. Blanch said that certain information was removed from files, including information about people who were um either assaulted or killed. He expressly talked about the removal of information around deaths and um I think the American people have a right to know if there were deaths in

fact discussed or documented in these files. It is horrifying that he uttered that sentence. There seems to be no reason for him to utter that sentence unless there is evidence. And the evidence, you know, that some have suggested is that some part of Epstein's operations might have included snuff films which in involve killing uh the person who is being prayed upon by pred sexual predators. So that should be known if that in fact happened. Where are the prosecutions? Where are the potential prosecutions or at least some sort of public accountability for presumably the men who were involved in this predation against these young women um or uh in some instances certainly with regard to Jeffrey Epstein and Gile Maxwell children girls who are not young women at all but are minors. So that I think is a really important component of this. And then the the second important component is um there's no like Blanch

just said that's it we're done. Even though there are more file files that have not been released that they possess and that they have not I think asserted in any proper legal way a a legal basis for excluding those or for not giving anymore. It's just like they basically said look here's enough. Hope this satisfies you. We're moving on. And then in response, Trump has asserted that the files exonerate him when in fact the files are very very troubling. First of all, they his name is mentioned uh I think according to the New York Times count at least 5,000 times in these files in different ways. And that's just the parts that we can see. Uh there are other places where his name appears to have been redacted based on the context of the files. And so that's just the the visible mentions of him. That's a lot of mentions by a sexual predator. Uh there are other components of the files. The second thing I would flag is um there

are conversations between Jeffrey Epstein and Steve Bannon about the 2016 election as it's going on. And that's at a time when Bannon was the key adviser to Donald Trump trying to protect his efforts to win the presidency, to win the White House in 2016. And even though purportedly Donald Trump stopped letting letting Epstein come to his club uh circa 2006 2007 10 10 years earlier even though they've been best friends for years and had been involved in uh these modeling agencies and this these other activities that have resulted in complaints against Trump complaints that he's denied but complaints of of you know sexual abuse or potential rape by Donald Trump which he's denied. So, there's a lot more that Congress should be investigating. Congress needs to get involved in investigating what happened, why there were no prosecutions, why Alex Aosta did not insist on a prosecution based on the more than a dozen girls

whose evidence was within the FBI files, within the law enforcement files at the time of Jeffrey Epstein's plea agreement back in uh 2006, 2007. There's, you know, the fact that we do not have justice for these survivors, that people have not been held accountable other than Gla Maxwell, who Todd Blanch, you know, met with, and then suddenly she was moved from a a proper uh prison at the right level security for the length of her sentence and moved to one of these country club uh country club camps, prison camps in Texas. You know, there has not been accountability for these crimes against so many women and girls.

Yeah. except Congress is going to be uh having the Clintons come and testify, which is, you know, that that's their big flex. You know, that that the Clintons who've initially said sent a letter saying this is the hill we're going to die on. We're not coming and now are coming. Uh but that's the only hearing they're going to have is is with regard to the to the Clintons. I mean, where are all the investigations now that we know how many that there's that there's more than a hundred there's hundreds of survivors that there are uh the the number of men uh that are involved in this

are it's it's it's astounding. And yet we don't we don't know about any investigations, right? We don't know about any prosecutions that are that are pending. And presumably there aren't any. Because if there were open investigations into these, they wouldn't see the files because that's that's one of the exceptions to the Epstein Files Transparency Act is that if there's a pending investigation, we can withhold those files. So by releasing them,

they're basically saying all these things, these horrible crimes that you're seeing that you know that that you're seeing evidence of, we're not investigating any of these. We're just going to allow this to continue. So, it's

I was going to say I mean I think it's a cover up for Congress not to investigate and just to have like you said just this flex around around Bill Clinton to demand that he testify but not demand that Trump testify or that other people who are mentioned in these files be called to testify. I'm sorry to interrupt Karen. I just want

No, you're right. You're right. that they are complicit in this cover up if they do not take further action to investigate. And if laws need to be changed to address uh sexual misconduct that um may have expired in terms of the statute of limitations as has happened in other instances regarding uh you know uh some famous uh comedians and other uh very famous people, then maybe we need to revisit those laws that are that might give some impunity for some of these abusers to get away with it. Because if if if that's part of the issue in terms of the lack of criminal investigation, that needs to be addressed. If um if Jeffrey Epstein was acting in some sort of intelligence capa capacity as Aosta, Alex Aosta asserted and then tried to walk back. But now you see in these files these ties to Russia and this this notion of um you know potential comprom or you know compromising material. We need to get to

the bottom of that. If if a sexual predator was allowed to pursue women and girls in America because someone in the intelligence community thought that he could provide them value information, we should know who made that decision.

Yeah. No, it's there's a lot that needs to be done. And it's I imagine if the Democrats take back Congress, this is going to be one of the first things they take they take up and do real special investigation into all of this.

Yeah. Um, we need to take our second and final break and then we are going to go straight to Minnesota where again so much is still happening. So, uh, we're going to take a quick break and come back and find out everything that's going on in Minnesota. Um, and, uh, we'll be right back.

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That's pdsd.com/legalaf. pds debt.com/legalaf. You're 30 seconds away from being debtfree. Get your free assessment and find the best option for you right now at pdsd.com/legalaf. We're back and Lisa, I want to turn our attention now to Minnesota because big news coming out of Minnesota. Tom Holman and the borders are uh went to Minnesota, sidelineed Christine Gnome and the others who were there and essentially is trying to take the temperature down is moving uh about a almost a third of the officers who were there, over 700 of them. still going to be over 2,000 of them there, but they're going to move a a big chunk of them to try to scale down the efforts in the area. And he said essentially that, you know, officials in Minnesota made significant progress working with state and local officials despite some differences. They're allowing ICE to take custody of illegal, you know, people who are here illegally or

undocumented before they're released from jail. Uh, but my question is it's unclear what policy has changed because there's never been a problem with ICE and DHS to take custody of people who are in jail or prison. I mean, even in blue states like New York, that's where most of the deportations happen. I mean, you've got someone who's arrested, you've got them convicted, they're in jail, they're in prison, and that's when they start the deportation proceedings. So, I that's always been the case, but but I guess he's going to he's going to advertise something that already existed as a win. And they're going to go back to to targeting, you know, targeting these individuals, people who are convicted of crimes, and this is cooperation, which has led to a safer environment for ICE officers, blah blah blah. It's just, it's just kind of BS.

But it is a good start. It is taking the temperature down because people were losing their lives, right? It's over a hundred people were injured. Uh many people were arrested. You two people lost their lives. Renee Good and um

Alex Prey. I I had Mayor Frey's name in my head. Of course, Alex Prey um who who tragically was was uh shot and killed. Um and this this operation metro surge which has been really catastrophic for Minnesota uh in so many ways. I mean people neighbors are losing loved ones, right? People are getting deported. People are afraid to go to work. So businesses are losing revenue. People aren't going or staying home. And you know it was heartbreaking today. Renee Good's family members testified before Congress, before this minority oversight committee talking about her and the brothers, her brothers talking about losing her and it was it was really heartbreaking to listen to and you know just really uh outrageous that this was Democratled and the Republicans of course wouldn't come and you've got this prejudging that's going on at the federal ederal level, right? We all saw with our own eyes what

happened to Renee Good. We all saw what our with our own eyes what happened to Alex Prey. But unfortunately, there's this gaslighting where no, no, it's justified self-defense, you know, and and because they say that somehow we're supposed to believe it. And and they prejudged it without doing an investigation. And perhaps they were justified, perhaps they weren't. But you don't know until you conduct an independent investigation into all a dispassionate one. You don't prejudge it and say, "Oh, no. It's justified." And and I've I've worked on many of uh many law enforcement involved fatalities. The one thing the the police commissioner, the district attorney, the governor, the mayor, whoever it is, never does is pre-judge it. They wait for an investigation. And and that can be frustrating for both sides sometimes.

No, I want you to call this outrageous or no, I want you to say this was okay or not okay. But but that's really what you're supposed to do. You have to really look at all the facts, interview witnesses, analyze. We don't even know in Alex Py's case who shot whose gun went off, right? Who shot him? How many people shot him? Did his gun go off? We have no idea what the forensics are. And certainly because there is no investigation into it, uh law enforcement presumably does not know either. And instead in, for example, in the Rene Renee Good case, you know, there were prosecutors who who resigned rather than rather than investigate uh Renee Good and and her wife. And it's just just the the level of kind of topsy topsyturvy upside down world or bizarro world here is is outrageous, you know, because they're not doing things the way they should be doing it. They're doing it the way that fits their narrative.

and and you know it's it's putting a huge strain on on what's going on in Minnesota to the point where we have a a lawyer who was a special assignment a special a USA or a special assistant United States attorney who had to go work for the US attorney's office. Her name uh is Miss Lei. Um, and she uh I think her name is Julie, her first name. And Julie Lei was I think she was like general counsel to ICE or she worked for ICE. And she went over to the Department of Justice to be a special AOSA to help deal with this overwhelming number of claims that were being filed, hundreds of claims being filed saying rits of habius corpus. you know, basically saying I'm being im people who are here who are being held in response to this immigration enforcement who bring these rits who bring these these legal claims saying I'm being held illegally. There was this huge number of them being filed and they couldn't keep up. So she came

over to help with that and unfortunately they still couldn't keep up with the responses, frustrating federal judges and she broke down in court in a way that I've never heard of before. crying, asked to be held in contempt, uh, saying that's the only way she's going to get 24 hours sleep, and said, "This job sucks. The system sucks. It's broken." You could tell the judge was trying to calm things down. Okay. Okay. You know, like, let's not have a have a breakdown in my courtroom because this is so unusual. But I think the strain on her is really showing because if you're going to have an operation metro surge and you're going to sweep up everybody, uh, including people, you know, they didn't go in with a scalpel, right, to to take the people this targeted enforcement of of violent criminals who they said they were going to do. They just swept up anyone who looked, you know, black or brown or spoke a

different language or fit the profile that they they thought, you know, fit what they wanted. Um, and as a result, a lot of people who are here legally who are citizens, there's a 5-year-old child, you know, people who are are getting are getting swept up in this, and it's it's outrageous. So, these amazing lawyers are doing an incredible job to try to bring these actions to release these people who deserve to be released, and they're not getting released, and judges are getting frustrated. Right. There was another judge in federal in uh in Minnesota who who essentially because um Julie Lei who who when she when she talked about how upset she was about the system that was in front of Judge Blackwell while well another judge Judge Schlitz essentially was ordering the acting director of ICE Todd Lions to appear before him last week basically saying why shouldn't I hold you in contempt because 96 times

ICE has violated ated court orders in 74 cases, 96 times. Like, you know, it's outrageous there. There I know it's a word that that I'm using a lot tonight, but it is. You can't violate a court order, right? It's it's not optional. It's not something that you're allowed to do. And and so if if you were going to do this type of operation and send 3,000 ICE troops, you probably should have been prepared and sent a lot of lawyers too who are going to handle all these filings so that you can deal with this barrage of incoming and not hold people that you're not allowed to hold and and comply with court orders. So, so it's really kind of a a a really disorganized to say the least and um an unprepared uh operation that's going on there that are causing innocent people to be held in jail when they're not supposed to, who it's causing people to lose their lives. And it's I I don't know how they're going to get out from under

this, but but I want to hear what you have to say about all this, Lisa. Well, it really is outrageous. I wish I had a a stamp. I would just be stamping it all over everything because it's it's extraordinary. It's outrageous. It's unprecedented. It's really unacceptable in America for this to be going on. to have this siege of an American city by the president uh through his loyalists and through these agents who um have been either poorly trained or allowed to think that they've got the license to hurt people. Um it it is uh it's extraordinary what we've been seeing on our TVs and on our social media over these past several weeks. And I want to just begin with the point you made at the outset, which is this is or at least I'm going to take I'm extrapolate from a point you made at the outset, which is this is all in part due to the lie that Donald Trump has been telling the American people and his followers about

the supposed millions of criminal uh aliens in America everywhere. It's just not actually true. It's a lie. uh there are people who are in the United States without documentation who've been working as dishwashers or hotel maids or you know in other capacity who have not committed any crimes at all and in fact being in the United States without documentation is not a crime. It's a civil violation and one that subjects someone to the potential for being removed. Some people without documentation are in the process of getting documentation. Perhaps they've married someone or they are trying to adjust their status or they're awaiting an asylum uh petition to be finalized whether they are going to be awarded asylum or not based on the circumstances that they fled in their their home country. And what we've seen in Minnesota is people who are US citizens, including a guy, being dragged out of

his house in his underwear or his shorts in freezing cold weather. Um, just based on either non-existent evidence or evidence that's not accurate or just a whim. Uh, they were going doortodoor to door on in neighborhoods in Minnesota, not based on any probable cause of any crime whatsoever. And it seemingly in response to a memo that Todd Lions issued last May, but was leaked just last month in which he asserted that this administration had a right not to follow the Fourth Amendment, that they did not have to get a warrant, that they could engage in warrantless searches of people's homes, uh, seize people without warrants, and to do so without following, you know, long-standing rules. And the point you made at the beginning of this conversation was about the normal process. So there there is a small number of people in this country who commit crimes. Most of them are citizens. A smaller the percentage of

that like much smaller um are immigrants who commit crimes. When they commit a crime, they're seized. They're charged. They're usually held without bond because of flight risk. uh whether it's in federal or state court depending on the rules and they face trial, they go to trial or they um plead, they're convicted, they're sentenced and they are um transferred to um to what used to be called INS to the control of the Department of Homeland Security and they are removed. This has been the process in place for decades. When I was working at the Justice Department on asylum law and helping to rewrite the asylum rules uh during the Clinton administration, there were only in super rare cases were people not removed. uh in those instances it was some people a very small number of people from Vietnam and Cuba because we did not have diplomatic relations with those countries and so could not make a transfer from the US to

travel directly into Vietnam at that time or into Cuba at that time because of the lack of of a formal relationship between our two countries and those individuals were not then released into the public. they remained in custody and there was an actual set of issues about whether you could hold someone indefinitely because they could not be removed to their home country. So this notion that there are all these convicted uh criminals who uh are foreigners who are just randomly walking the streets is not the case. If someone may have had a drunk driving arrest and they're awaiting an immigration proceeding to determine whether they could be removed based on that arrest or a conviction for drunk driving, you know, maybe that person could be subject to one of these sweeps. But even then, they're already in a legal process with DHS through the immigration court. And what this uh administration has been

doing has been seizing people when they show up for court. They're not fleeing. They're not uh people who are absconding from process. They're people who are participating in our legal process and trying to defend their rights. And so it's no surprise, as you point out, that in the face of 3,000 plus agents being flooded into Minnesota, a state which um does not have a huge population of immigrants, has a very well-integrated population of Somali who fled the civil war there and were granted permission by the United States government to come to the United States. Many of whom have um adjusted their status, have become citizens, many of whom have had children here, US citizen children. Uh they work in all fields of industry in Minnesota.

Um at the airports, you know, drive, you know, pushing people's wheelchairs so they can get to their flight. They work in restaurants all over the community. And they have been targeted because of racism by this president. An attack to try to weaponize, you know, a fraud investigation that was already resolved separately in order to justify this surge. a surge that has put more ICE and CBP or whatever acronym they're using on any given day agents into Minneapolis than there are police. There, I think fewer than 800 police in in Minneapolis handling all the things that happen in Minneapolis, car accidents, you know, crimes, uh, you know, investigations at, you know, people's houses. And there are, you know, four time there have been four times as many ICE agents as actual police. It's overkill. It's designed to intimidate. It's designed to disrupt.

It's it's something that no president has ever done in US history. And it has targeted Minnesota in part, I think, because it did not support Trump. It did not vote for Trump. And you can see the sort of twisted way this is proceeding because just two weeks ago Pam Bondi sent a letter or message to Governor Wall saying that they would withdraw the federal officers from Minnesota if he would just give over the voting files of motans that this administration has no right to. So it's extraordinary what we're seeing. It's extraordinary that we're seeing people being killed. Those two deaths, Alex Prey and Renee Good, have been ruled a homicide by the coroner. We're seeing the federal government absconded with evidence. Take evidence from the scene of those potential crimes, and I think they were crimes in my opinion, and and not allow state officials, whether they're the state prosecutor's office, the state

equivalent of the FBI, uh, to investigate those crimes. they, you know, not cooperating with them, but also keeping the evidence from them, hiding the names of the agents who were involved in those killings of people from other authorities, asserting that revealing the names is somehow doxing them when in fact, America has no place for for secret police. No officer, whether they're an an agent with ICE uh or our local police, should not have to have a name badge and a a a number to know who they are. In fact, we don't even know how do they know who each other is when they don't have any actual valid insignia on the outside of their uniform saying their name other than just a a you know a a vest saying police which could be bought you know in all sorts of locations in the country. It's a crime to impersonate a police officer.

But I don't even know if they know who they are. And in fact, they've sent these squads in in what almost seems like they've got some sort of quota of the number of people they're trying to arrest or seize or pump these numbers. And people are exercising their rights, their fundamental due process rights under the Constitution, which specifically says that no no one can be deprived of their life, liberty, or property without due process of law. No person. And so people, whether they're citizens or immigrants, have a right to seek court intervention if they are seized by the state. That is one of the most fundamental human rights in our constitution and in our bill of rights.

And yet this uh administration is acting as if it does not have to follow those rules.

Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it is just listening to you talk about it, it's like it reminds me of all the things that I can't believe is going on in Minnesota. There's just too many to count. And this whole thing started because of them, right? This whole thing started there's there's upset and unrest in Minnesota because they brought all those ICE agents and DHS agents there. there. Minnesota was doing fine before, right? This is nothing to do with like like that's the only reason there's a problem because they're going in and lawlessly

sweeping up so many people and Renee Good should be alive today and Alex Prey should be alive today. And I think you're probably right. There probably is a crime that was committed against them. But I I still reserve I still think there should be an investigation because I I do think that is important. But yeah, it it doesn't look from from what we see, it certainly doesn't I would say the opposite of what Trump says, which is it's justified. It does not look justified.

And so if it is justified, that's why they need an investigation because from the naked eye, it does not. It looks like assassination. It looks like a murder.

It looks like they lost their temper. And you know, they like, "F you." You know, f me, f you. Like that's what it kind of looks like to me. Um, you were so spot on, Lisa, about Pam Bondi saying, "Oh, okay. We'll stop, you know, because like either there's unrest or there's not, right? Either there's a problem or there's not. Oh, but we'll stop if you give us your your voting, you know, your your ballots, your your voter roles and your ballots." Well, those things are unrelated. And I think she's just they're just saying how this is a political flex that they're doing.

Another one. And and I'm happy to see though that people, the American people are pushing back and it's working. And the more we talk about it, the more we take to the streets, the more we vote with our with our fingers and our feet, uh everything we can do to stop this. We all have to do what we can do. Whether it's podcast, write a book, you know, whatever time you have. Even if it's just listen to a podcast, even if it's just subscribe to the Midas Touch Network or to the Legal AF network or to the Substacks, whatever it is, that is helping. And being a part of the community and not putting your head in the sand and not saying, "Gh, politics, it's just so depressing. I'm not going to have anything to do with it." Which I know some people want to do, and I get it. But it's important. And it's important because we need to stick together. We need to stay informed and we need to fight like hell. And so Lisa,

we have reached the end of another midweek episode of Legal AF. Again, so grateful to you for stepping in for Michael Pop, who couldn't be here, and we hope you'll come back often and your perspective is great and you we really appreciate it. Is there any final words you want to say to people before we sign off? I just want to say Karen, it's a joy to do these with you. Even though these are hard topics, I so appreciate your experience as a prosecutor in Manhattan. U it really helps inform people across the country about what the legal rules are or the norms are or should be. And really, it's an honor to be part of Legal AF and I just stand in solidarity with our watchers, our viewers, our listeners because together we actually can get through this. We can make sure this does not continue to happen in our country. We can vote, we can speak, uh, and we can, you know, hold each other's hands as we get

through this. Okay. Until the next episode of Legal AF on Saturday with Ben Myelis and Michael Pop. Uh, or next Wednesday with me and Michael Pop. Uh, we'll say good night to everybody. Take care. Thanks for listening.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF"?

Karen Frerichs Agnil (Host), Lisa Graves (Guest).

What is "LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF" about?

The discussion focuses on the recent Supreme Court ruling that allows California to potentially gain five congressional seats through mid-decade redistricting in response to Texas' gerrymandering actions. Additionally, updates on the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein case are addressed, including delays in document releases by the DOJ, emphasizing issues of redaction and the disclosure of victim…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

18 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, Minnesota, Karen Freriedman Agnil, Lisa Graves, Jeffrey Epstein, Supreme Court Justice. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "LIVE: Supreme Court HANDS Trump DEVASTATING LOSS + EPSTEIN UPDATES | Legal AF"?

The episode runs 1 h 28 min; the transcript is about 15,235 words in 121 timestamped sections.

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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 February 5, 2026.