Transcript

LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF

From MeidasTouch · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 1 h 37 min · 16,099 words · 116 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF", an episode of MeidasTouch published January 11, 2026 (1 h 37 min, about 16,099 words). It mentions 11 people, works and ideas, including Donald Trump, ICE, Department of Justice, Federal Reserve, Jim Alto.

What this episode is about

This discussion centers on significant legal controversies involving the Trump administration, including calls by Congress members Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie for an independent oversight of the Epstein files, and a troubling incident where an ICE officer is accused of fatally shooting Renee Nicole Good. Additionally, it covers judicial actions against Trump-appointed prosecutors for misconduct in their roles, highlighting issues of accountability and civil rights.

Key takeaways

  • Congress stepping in on Epstein? Talk about a plot twist in the legal drama!
  • ICE officer's cold-blooded act labeled 'self-defense'? Let's redefine the meaning of absurd.
  • When a federal judge plays the accountability card, even Trump appointees must heed the law.
  • Renee Good's tragic story proves mockery of justice can’t overshadow the truth caught on tape.
  • A wild day in court: ethics violations exposed like a poorly kept secret in a comedy show.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 10:00: Department of Justice, Donald Trump
  2. – 20:00: Department of Justice
  3. – 30:00: Donald Trump
  4. – 40:00: Donald Trump, Department of Justice
  5. – 50:00: Donald Trump
  6. – 1:00:00: Department of Justice, Donald Trump
  7. – 1:10:00: Donald Trump
  8. – 1:20:00: Department of Justice, Donald Trump
  9. – 1:30:00: Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, Justice Neil Gorsuch, Kanji Brown Jackson
  10. – 1:36:47: Donald Trump, Federal Reserve, Customs and Border Patrol

Notable quotes from "LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF"

  • The federal government led by Donald Trump.
    about Donald Trump · at
  • Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve trying to keep her job, more importantly trying to keep Donald Trump's mits off of the independence of the Federal Reserve.
    about Federal Reserve · at
  • Unless all the other little sidecars are ready to go along at the same time. So if Sutayor is taking a few extra days or weeks or months to write her descent, that majority…
    about Sutayor · at
  • But all you got to do is have Katanji Brown Jackson say, Yeah, I'm not done.
    about Kanji Brown Jackson · at
  • There's a little reported thing, Ben, that I did on a hot take recently. the Customs and Bureau, the Customs and Border Patrol, CBP. We talked about them a lot tonight as…
    about Customs and Border Patrol · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

Companies & orgs

Concepts & topics

Full transcript with timestamps

We have a lot to discuss on this weekend's edition of Legal AF. The Trump regime's Epstein coverup continues, but now the members of Congress who led the discharge petition, Ro Kana and Thomas Massie, are calling them out in federal court, requesting that a federal judge appoint an independent monitor or special master to take over the review of the Epstein files and make them publicly available. We'll talk about the request by Congress to a federal judge in the Gilain Maxwell case. We'll talk about the coldblooded murder by ICE by an officer named or let's call him a Gestapo or an SS named Jonathan Ross who murdered Renee Nicole Good in cold blood. We saw what happened on video.

The Trump regime immediately ran to the defense of the ICE Gustapo. Lied about what took place, lied about what we can see with our own eyes on the video. And then they refer to Renee Nicole Good. Again, say her name, Renee Nicole Good. They refer to her as a domestic terrorist who weaponized her vehicle as a terroristic weapon. That's not what occurred on videotape. And then they said the officer has absolute immunity, which is absolutely false. And as a former civil rights litigator who handled cases just like this, wrongful death cases for families who lost loved ones by police brutality. I'll break down my analysis of what took place. We should talk about a federal judge in the northern district of New York and the southern or the a federal judge in the southern district of New York who disqualified a Trump stoogge a uh one of these federal prosecutors who Trump appointed to be a United States attorney

in the northern district of New York. Uh this uh federal prosecutor was disqualified in a very scathing order. But in an even more scathing order, uh, a Trumpappointed judge uh, in Virginia called out Lindseay Halligan for continuing to put her name on filings as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia when she has already been disqualified by another federal judge in the Eastern District of Virginia. Judge Curry disqualified her. And then a Trump appointed judge, Judge Novak, said to Lindseay Halligan, "You better answer for why you're putting your name on these indictments of other uh criminal defendants because if you don't justify what you're doing, you're making misrepresentations about uh your identity to the court and that constitutes a major offense under the rules of professional responsibility."

Then we'll talk about a war powers resolution that was introduced uh and actually passed in the United States Senate on a fairly bipartisan basis. And we'll talk about the Supreme Court delaying some of its key rulings. Michael Popach, it's great to see you right now. Um we have a lot to discuss. And that Trump appointed judge was basically warning Lindseay Alligan. You may be disbarred very soon based on what you're doing. You don't even have to read between the lines. Just read the entire paragraph of what Judge Novak, he cited every rule of professional responsibility that she was violating.

I'm glad to see it was a Trump appointed judge who did it. Yeah. And he'll he he laid a trap for her. We'll get to in that segment and I want to see how she handles it. He said, "And not only do I want the answers to my questions, i.e. Why? You explained to me how you did not violate about five different rules of ethics and professional responsibility, including cander to the tribunal, misrepresentation, not abiding by rules uh generated by this uh by this tribunal in your continued impersonation of a US attorney. But he said, "And I want you to sign the pleading." So now we're going to see is it going to be citizen Lindseay Halligan or is she going to triple down on a on a bad hand and and sign it as the US attorney Lindseay Haligan which will only only be additional evidence for him to bar her from from continuing to practice at least in front of him. I think it's going to be a sizzling segment when we

get to it. Just one comment before we get going. When you said in the opening about say her name, I thought you were talking about Christy Gnome. Cuz one of the things we're going to talk about and call for here on Legal AF is for the impeach investigation by Congress led obviously by the congressional Democrats and the ultimate impeachment of Christy Gnome for her the criminal enterprise that she's running and her rogue leadership, lack of leadership in the in ICE. the fact that she actually took to a podium, cosplaying the whole way, wearing some sort of, you know, some sort of sombrero or hat or whatever, whatever ethnicity she was stealing from at the moment to declare without full evidence uh that that Renee Good, 37year-old mother of a six-year-old, married uh with a with an old dog in the back seat, blowing a whistle to protest on the on a side street in Minnesota, ISIS arrival that she was a domestic

terrorist and did that. I mean, you saw the vi the the worst part for Christie is when they ran and we'll we'll show a video. They ran a picture of the the they ran the video feed of what actually happened with her commenting on it. It was like, what is she watching? It's not the video at hand. And then for the Trump administration and Christine Gnome to have released the video taken by by ICE officer ICE agent Ross to think that exonerated them. First of all, why are they leaking parts of evidence in order to try to we know the answer? It's a rhetorical question. In order to try to support and defend the ICE officer, why don't they watch, for instance, what the New York Times has done in reconstructing a 360°ree array from video that they've obtained and then add to it the video from Jon Jonathan Ross, which will show clearly clearly that Renee Good was was an innocent First Amendment protester at best who got shot

in the face three times in cold-blooded murder. by an ICE officer. In any event, we always call for the same thing on Legal AF. We call for transparency. We call for accountability. We we call for an independent investigation. And and while we do that, the Trump administration under the stench of multiple levels of scandals and cover-ups is calling for one again, blocking the Minneapolis law enforcement and investigation community, blocking the Oregon community from another shooting that happened the next day from being involved in an investigation when all America is crying out for is accountability and transparency and a public reproach that we do not trust.

the federal government led by Donald Trump. We have a lot to discuss in this episode of Legal AF in other words, but let's start off with what Donald Trump wants to distract from, what he wants to avoid talking about, what he wants to cover up. I mean, you talk about Christy turning the Department of Homeland Security into a criminal enterprise separately. The entire Department of Justice is, in my view, a criminal racketeering enterprise covering up child sex trafficking. They're covering up the biggest child sex trafficking ring. And in a document that they filed with Judge Angle Meyer in the Southern District of New York, Judge Angel Meer is the judge who now oversees the USV.

Gileain Maxwell case. The federal government a few days back, the Department of Justice, very cavalerely, very cavalerely, Michael Popach said, "We're giving you a status update per the court's request. We turned over about 12,000 350 documents. That equals about 125,000 pages, about 10.22 pages per document. We're still in the process of review. We've got about another two million documents that need to be reviewed." Well, 2 million documents at about 10 pages per document. That would mean there's about 20 million pages outstanding. But then previously, there was a New York Times report said it was more like 5,000 documents or pages. The DOJ is not using the language that lawyers use to talk about document productions. So, it's unclear what type of electronically stored information or ESI they're actually talking about. Is it documents?

Is it pages? is it files? And they've used kind of warped and uh and conflicting definitions throughout this whole process. But if you take them at their word, which I wouldn't because I believe there's a lot more documents. They say 2 million documents. So that would be extrapolated to be about 20 plus 22 plus million pages. and they say, "Judge, we've got 125 lawyers and agents at the Southern District of New York working on this right now. Plus, we've got hundreds of other lawyers at Maine Justice in Washington DC and other uh divisions across the country who are working on this." Let me just tell our viewers this. When I would do document productions of far more documents than we're dealing with here, when I would deal with three, five, eight terabytes of documents, the way that would often be described is enough paper if you put it from the bottom to the top to fill five or six 80s story skyscrapers filled

with documents. said back in the day, no offense, Michael Popock, when Popac started practicing, he did document review like that. Actual, you'd bring in trucks full of documents that you would actually have to do trucks, you know, the big U-Haul style trucks of documents. Um, and if if if so for for me as I look at all the language that they're using, Popac, I don't believe the DOJ's even telling a cintilla of truth here and Roana and Thomas Massie are calling them out as well. And they're saying in a letter to the federal judge, whoa, they just admitted too, they just put it in a document by their own admission that they violated the Epstein Transparency Act, which we all know, right? It was due December 19th with the only redactions being redactions for the names of victims and the faces of the victims. That's it.

That's the only redactions. Not the perpetrators, not anything else. And they're so cavalerely just putting in in filings. Judge, we'll get back to you. And the fact that Popach they have 125 lawyers working on this. When I was doing this, that's the point I wanted to make. I had maybe me and a team of five lawyers. It would take us about 45 to 60 days. Maybe we'd request a brief extension, but we'd be able to go through all of the documents in that period of time. So, if you're telling me that I had 125 lawyers from the Southern District of New York to go through documents and you couldn't get this done, but then we know they're even lying there. Popac is back in March and February, they claim they had all the documents on there that the document was on Pam Bondi's desk. And then we know from Jason Leupold that Bloomberg is great reporting at his report reporting and foyer requests that they had a

thousand lawyers and FBI agents working on it from March till July with tens of thousands of overtime hours being build that the taxpayers are paying for and they couldn't get this document production done. So anyway, let me pass it over to you so you can talk about what Massie and Connor are doing requesting an independent monitor and saying the DOJ can't be trusted. crimes were committed is what they say in their letter to Judge Angel Meer. And and they say to Judge Angle Meer, "We need an independent monitor." Just why Judge Angelmeer? Remember that the DOJ requested that Angel Meer release the grand jury transcripts? Angel Meer at first before the Epstein Transparency Act said there's something called grand jury secrecy. I'm not allowed like by law I can't release grand jury transcripts. Then the Epstein Transparency Act passed and the judge said, "Okay, now with this act, with this law, I'll allow the grand jury

transcripts. I want to be clear that grand jury transcripts aren't going to add anything because it's hearsay based on an FBI agent. It's not the files at all." And there was a trial of Gain. So, anything that was in the grand jury was far more was discussed at the trial, but it's not the Epstein files at all. It's a small transcript. But then the judge said, "Okay, well, if you're making me turn over this based on the Epstein transparent, if you're requesting it, I want you to turn over everything else. So give status reports and confirm what you're turning over." And Popach, they confirmed to Angel Meer that they were going to be producing these records and they listed all the records that they would be producing and then they didn't produce it. So now I believe Angel Meer has jurisdiction to compel the production and I think that Kana and Massie think that he has jurisdiction as well and that's why they filed this

amicus letter. Talk to us about the amicus letter. Yeah, I think well I got get got get got get got get got get got get got get got get got get got get got a lot there but look the the the the the mistake that the Trump administration made was try to use and I mean use the federal judges as some sort of pawns in their attempt to continue to hide and delay the release of the Epstein files. So they ran to federal judges like Judge Angle Meyer, Judge Burman, Judge um King down in Florida, Judge Roenberg, and they went, "Well, we'd love to release the Epstein files." This is before the act was passed. Um but we can't because you know, a lot of it's trapped behind uh grand jury secrecy rules or federal judges who are overseeing it. So well, that was their first move. their first move and the reason why they're scrambling now because they didn't expect the discharge petition sponsored by Roana and Tom Massie to be passed.

They didn't expect there'd be enough defection defections. There was only one person in both chambers that voted against it. They they were caught politically flatfooted. So what they thought they'd be able to do is keep distracting and wasting time pointing to different piles of documents as being the Epstein files. The Epstein files were never with Congress. The Epstein files were always with the executive branch in the separation of powers. They are the judicial there they are the US attorneys. They are the prosecutors.

They're the FBI. They're the Department of Justice, the IRS, all the departments that have the records. So, first they ran and said, "Well, we'd love to do it, but Congress." Then they say, "Oh, we'd love to do it, but federal judges and federal judges, I don't know if you found this in your career, but they don't like to be used and and used as pawns." So all of them wrote in the summer before the act was passed scathing criticisms of the Trump administration effectively, including Angel Meer saying, "Why are you coming to us for the Epstein files? The files that you think I have, like Angel Meer said, I've looked at. Now, there's very little in there. You have the Epstein files. You have the mountain of evidence. You should be producing it. Then they came back to the judges like Angel Meer and said, "All right, well, we got the act now, so we'd like to get, you know, everything released." But what they

really did was inadvertently subject themselves. That that was the beauty and the brilliance of Kana and Massie. I wonder who were their strategic legal strategists on that one. just brilliant maneuvering to go back to the same federal judge and say, "All right, judge, they've asked that you supervise this process. You've taken oversight of this process. Great. this this letter that got uh that got uh submitted on January 5 by the Trump administration in which they said this is just shows you how much they completely the Trump administration completely disrespects the intellect of any voter let alone legal AF audience members at all. They just [ __ ] on them all the time thinking nobody will notice and that we won't follow through with continuity here on legal aid touch. They said, "Uh, we got a judge. We're gonna give you an update.

Um, it's going to take us a while. Uh, we're still redacting to protect the survivors," which we know is a lie. U, but we set up all sorts of processes for that. We won't tell you what they are. We won't tell you where we've looked. We won't tell you which agencies we've gone to to look for documents, but we know it's about 2 million more. You and I saw that. We talked about it last week. We're like 2 million more. Todd Blanch let it out and that's why the New York Times reported it that he thought it was 5.2 2 million during the holidays with 400 people working round the clock and blah blah blah. All right. Well, how do you go from how do you go from several hundred thousand to Midas discovering one of the only they only produce 12,000 documents, you know, of 120,000 pages, which is 0.02% of the Epstein files even at a reasonable estimate. But buried in there was a document you found that

said, "Hey, what about this assistant US attorney in New York talking about a million two in files related to the Maxwell prosecution. How about that at least?" And then 12 hours later, the the Trump administration, "Hey, we found a mill we found another million." That morphed and shapeshifted into 5.2 million a week or two later, as if we wouldn't notice. And then when they filed the letter with the judge, because now you're dealing with a federal judge, they lowered the number to two million. Nobody trusts the missing 3.2 million is because the the Trump administration in looked at all those files and determined that they were not responsive. They were either overinflating the amount of documents to make them look better in terms of transparency or they just lied to a federal judge about the the total amount and just lpped off 3.2 2 million.

We said last week and I certainly said on hot takes that somebody's got to get to the bottom like Judge Engelmire to the missing 3.2 to 2 million. They didn't even drop a footnote, Ben. They didn't even have the courtesy of of of not insulting our intelligence and drop a footnote as to the change in numbers. So Massie and Khana, as you outlined, wrote a letter and said, "Why are why are their numbers changing? Why don't you set up an independent pro an independent uh uh special master or an independent monitor to take over this process? See, this is the nightmare that's created by the Trump administration. They shouldn't have run to the federal judges to begin with, but now that they're there, the federal judges aren't going anywhere. And it was so smart for Congress to use the federal judges in that way to provide oversight and monitoring over this. Now, if I'm Judge Angle Meer, who's a very good

judge who's frankly opposed the Trump administration in a couple of orders in the past, if I'm Judge Angeler, I say, you know what, let's brief this issue. I know other people have written to the judge as well. Let's brief this issue. I think it's an I think it's an important one. He's already said, I don't really trust the administration in the way they've been handling the files to begin with. Lack of trust combined with shape-shifting numbers usually leads to the appointment of a special master. Now, who is that? That is going to be somebody like a former federal judge that's well respected, like a Barbara Jones, the person that was put in charge of the Rudy Giuliani when Rudy Giuliani had in the middle of the morning had all of his his devices picked up in a search warrant because he was criminally investigated. Barbara Jones was responsible for going through all those documents and making sure that the the

responsive ones were separated from the attorney client privilege ones. Same person who was appointed because she's like very popular to be appointed to be a monitor over the Trump administration uh sorry the Trump organization. So it's one of the same uh in its business practices. So you hire somebody like Barbara Jones or you hire Barbara Jones to do that kind of work and look at now all of the millions of dollars and who pays for that? The Trump administration taxpayers pay for that. But I think now it's required. I don't see any way around it. I think that the attempt to stamp on the news cycle by stealing decapitating the Maduro regime and allowing big oil to steal Venezuela's oil I think is now over the the death of Renee Good I think killed that that attempt to distract and now we're back to the things the two there are two demons no they're not demons angels that are tearing apart the Trump

administration from the inside one is the continued Epstein cover up and the cover up of the cover up which is even pissing off MAGA and Donald Trump's continued assault on other countries including allies in getting us into wars and and confflagrations that are at the that are the antithesis of uh America first. Those two things are tearing the party and uh and the Republican position apart before our very eyes. And there is authoritarian symmetry between what he's doing here, what he's doing abroad. I mean, and if you look also at the Orban regime in Hungary, one of the protest, the big protests that you're seeing within Budapest was that the right-wing authoritarian playbook was to say they're the ones who would be protecting the children and the women from the sex traffickers and that there's a sex trafficking kal and they are the ones who are going to fix it. Well, Orban gets into power and in Budapest, you've

got um their juvenile detention system basically turned into a sex trafficking ring over there and people protesting that the government is the ones covering up and perpetuating the sex trafficking ring. It's just fascinating that the authoritarian regimes utilize that same kind of talking point. We're the protector. We're saving you who are actually perpetrating the the the conduct. And then you see here whether it's the cover up of the sex trafficking ring in the United States, the cover up of Donald Trump's medical records, the cover up of the war crimes that are being committed, and then the wag the dog go to war against the entire Western Hemisphere, threaten Greenland as Donald Trump did, you know, then lie and say the oil executives have agreed to hundred billion dollar investments and then refer to the oil exe execs as Mr.

Exxon and Mr. Chevron. Then Mr. Rexon speaks and says it's uninvestable in Venezuela. So then Trump says, "Well, I guess the taxpayers are going to have to subsidize the oil companies to the tune of hundred billion dollars while taking away people's affordable care act subsidies and kicking people off of health care and then threatening more war to distract from the fact that people can't afford things that he's covering up a child sex trafficking ring that people can't afford homes right now." And the cycle kind of continues over and over and over again. And then the authoritarian tactics which is you know you take a look at Greenland for example and you go Greenland's basically has given the United States everything it wanted. There's a NATO alliance so that if Russia or China were to actually invade Greenland, NATO would join forces as it does under article 5 to stop China and Russia. So when Donald Trump says we

needed to stop China and Russia, we already have what's called NATO. So Trump's explanation there makes absolutely um makes absolutely zero sense. And you reflect on well what's what's it really about? And it's about Trump asserting that basically he and MAGA and their vision of United States is that of a predator. And they just want to see on a map you know basically you know that that belongs to the United States and they want to see Venezuela be operated and controlled by the United States. They want to see control and power and pain. And we see that here domestically when we get into the next segment with sending Ice Gustapo SS paramilitary forces and we've seen, you know, even like in Venezuela, Maduro, Deli Rodriguez, uh, Diodos Cabo, who's the henchmen over in Venezuela. They have the collectivos, you know, who are the repressive forces of the authoritarians. We saw that with Hitler

and Mussolini. You see that in Russia. You see the the paramilitary forces that go with the authoritarian and that's to me how Trump has used ICE which is totally unaccountable and border patrol and he uses them like a paramilitary force to basically retaliate against states that he doesn't like that didn't vote for him. So he's primarily targeting blue states. And you know, I guess Donald Trump says, "Well, you know what? The Supreme Court said we can't have the National Guard, but why do I even need the National Guard in these states when I have a paramilitary force?" So Trump sends 2,000 ICE Gustapo into Minnesota. And then he's now surged an additional 1,000 with the goal being to terrorize and provoke the community into protest and then to surge more forces there to show power and to inflict pain and to make blue states suffer. You know, as Donald Trump is basically declaring war within the

United States. I mean, that's what we're seeing take place. So, when we come back, I want to talk about that. And I want to talk about when Trump and JD Vance say that Jonathan Ross, the shooter, the killer of Renee Nicole Good, has absolute immunity. And when they say ICE has absolute immunity, what does that mean? We'll talk about that. Um, we'll talk about, you know, what we foresee happening in terms of criminal consequences, civil consequences, um, and more when we come back for our first break. Just a reminder, subscribe to Michael Pop Substack. the sub the substack is absolutely crushing it. One of the top Substacks now in the country.

So, search legal AF on Substack. Also, subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel. Search on YouTube Legal AF, hit subscribe there. And also, if you or someone you know have been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, if you if you're the victim of the negligence of somebody else, if you know somebody who was killed by other people's negligence, that's called a wrongful death case. Call the POPAC law firm 877 POPAC AAF or visit the popfirm.com. Call 877 popac or go to the popfirm.com. Popac has lawyers across this country.

The consultation is free. So wherever you're living in the United States, give a call, see if you've got a case, and the Popac firm will get back to you and we'll pick up your call. And they're representing a lot of people who watch and listen to the show. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back. I love coffee, but the jitters and crash, they were sabotaging my mornings. Mudwater completely changed that for me. I genuinely feel better, focused, and calm. Their OG blend tastes like a rich spiced cacao chai with lion's mane for focus. And Cortiseps for steady energy.

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After you purchase, they ask you how you found them. Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Again, for the people in the back ready to make the switch to cleaner energy, head to mudwater.com and grab your starter kit today. Right now, our listeners get an exclusive deal up to 43% off your entire order, plus free shipping and a free rechargeable frother when you use code legal AF. That's right, up to 43% off at mudwatermtr.com. After you purchase, they'll ask you how you found them. Please show your support and let them know we sent you. Welcome back to Legal AF. I want to discuss the tragic coldblooded murder of Renee Nicole Good, a 37year-old mother who recently had moved to Minneapolis as a city of love and inclusiveness.

Uh she was uh there observing ICE uh and she was peaceful. We we've seen the video that Jonathan Ross, the killer, the Ice Gestapo, released to an outlet that usually is very supportive of whatever police do and whatever the police misconduct is. And I guess he and the DOJ and Department of Homeland Security thought this was a helpful video for them where Renee Nicole Good says, "I'm not even mad at you, bro. I'm not even mad at you, bro." And then there's there's two officers. There's Jonathan Ross and another masked officer. And they're kind of also giving like conflicting instructions for her to like drive away.

And you see her very slowly turning her wheel slowly to get out of the way. And then this Jonathan Ross, you know, killer, this Gustapo goes and he shoots through the windshield and shoots twice in the window and shoots her in her face three times. And we can see what happened. There was a violation of all police protocols just from where they were positioned. But they're not police. This is like an unaccountable, you know, force, you know, that dresses up in military gear and has weapons and, you know, and and and also that footage that we've got at this point was taken from Jonathan Ross's cell phone. And so he was holding up a cell phone, taping it, and then also had a gun at the same time while standing in front of the vehicle. Then he moved over to the side.

But in any police practices manual, you don't approach the vehicle from the front like that. You you you just you you don't even engage in the situation like that to begin with. And I handled these cases as a civil rights litigator who represented the families in wrongful death cases of people who lost their lives due to excessive force. And I've deposed hundreds and hundreds of officers. And you know what I saw here is one of the most obvious examples of an excessive force of an unlawful shooting that clearly falls out any outside any any protocol at all. It was it was a murder and it's not subject on a criminal side of any form of absolute immunity. the officer can be charged um with crimes with state and federal crimes. Now, clearly at the federal level, this DOJ will never prosecute this officer. They will promote and applaud, and that's what we've seen the Trump regime do in terms of state

prosecution against Jonathan Ross. The problem right now is that the uh FBI and the DOJ has refused to allow Minnesota authorities to be involved in the investigation. They've cut them out entirely and they've said it's just the DOJ who's looking at it and if you can't get your hands on any of the evidence andor it's being tampered with by the DOJ and the FBI, it becomes difficult to bring criminal charges. Now, there's a statute of limitations which would continue past Donald Trump's term for a state charge of murder, of homicide against this uh Jonathan Good, against this ice Gustapo. So, if anything, you'd probably have to wait until uh you know, Trump is gone because Trump's DOJ will do everything it can to undermine any type of uh criminal prosecution, including not allowing the Minnesota authorities, the Minneapolis police, uh to get involved. But you already have, I mean, JD Vance went to Yale Law School.

He knows what he's saying is a lie, but he held a press conference where he says the officer is protected by absolute immunity, which is false. And I'll explain to you why it's false. I mean, it's just patently obviously false, but listen to what he says here. Play this clip.

President, thanks for taking my question. Um, so the head of Minnesota's investigations agency says that the US attorney's office has essentially cut off the state investigations agency's access to the investigation. What is the precedent for that? And why shouldn't the Minnesota officials on the ground have access and evidence to work on this investigation?

First of all, I wish the state officials in Minnesota would investigate why you have so many people who are using their vehicles and other means to actually interfere with a legitimate law enforcement operation. The precedent here is very simple. You have a federal law enforcement official engaging in federal law enforcement action. That's a federal issue. That guy is protected by absolute immunity. He was doing his job. The idea that Tim Walls and a bunch of radicals in Minneapolis are going to go after and make this guy's life miserable because he was doing the job that he was asked to do is preposterous.

Make this guy's life miserable. What about Renee Nicole Good, whose life is over, was killed, who was shot in the face. This guy's a murderer and you're worried about making the murderer's life miserable. Are you out of your freaking mind? Here is what Christine Gnome said when she was asked. How do you respond to people who say what you're doing and what you're saying is in direct contradiction to the video that everybody's seen here. Play this clip.

What I would This vehicle was used to hit this officer. It was used as a weapon and the officer feels as though his life was in jeopardy. It was used uh to perpetuate a violent act um that this officer took action to protect himself and to protect his fellow law enforcement officers. So, we'll let this continue to go forward and follow the same policies and procedures that every use of force situation does. But we've had almost over a hundred times that these vehicles have been used to ram law enforcement officers and to do damage and to harm them. When you take an action and use a weapon to harm someone and to incite violence against them and uh try to cause them injury or death, then it needs to be labeled exactly what it was.

Well, you've already violated every use of force protocol by labeling the victim a domestic terrorist before an investigation, then cutting out the local authorities from the investigation. We have a photo right here of Jonathan Ross. You see where he was positioned when he shot. You'll see there's an arrow going down. That's Jonathan Ross pointing the gun into Renee Nicole Good's car right there. And you see him right there. He was not run over by the vehicle. He was not injured at all. And Donald Trump claims that he viewed the clip of the event which just took place. And he said the woman driving the car was disorderly obstructing and resisting who then violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the officer and said that that officer who you see in that photo went to the hospital for the injuries because he was run over. That's him after that's Jonathan Ross after he shot and killed

Renee Nicole. Good. And we have a video then. I'm going to toss it over to you, Pop Puck. Here's the video right here of the cell phone footage. This video was taken by Jonathan Ross. Here, play this clip.

That's fine, dude. I'm not mad. Show your face. I'm not mad. That's okay. We don't change our plates every morning. Just so you know, it'll be the same plate when you come talk to us later. That's fine. US citizen, former [ __ ] you come at us. You want to come at us? I say go get yourself some lunch, big boy. Go ahead.

Out of the car. Get out of the [ __ ] car. Get out of the car. [ __ ] [ __ ] He said [ __ ] [ __ ] After he shot and killed her. And then even before that pop, he was saying get out of the [ __ ] car. Like who? Like who? She's driving in an area where she lives. Get the [ __ ] out of the car. These masked agent. It's

Yeah. Well, those are two different people. The get the f out of the car was his colleague who went to the door handle. Um, the entire episode now caught in a 360°ree array helped by the release, this spoon feeding release by the ICE and the Department of Justice to reach a conclusion to protect ICE agent Ross before all the facts are fully investigated have left a tremendous stain on the Trump administration. a stain so bad that there's already a leak from an administration official that's been reported in which they said, "I don't know how we recover from this."

Meaning Christine Gnomes rushed to judgment to protect ICE to comment about a video clip that clearly even the clip she was commenting on was a distorted um uh narrative of what had happened to try to grab the narrative. We saw what we saw in the Ross video is a peaceful first amendment protester partially blocking a road, an icy side street in Minnesota to protest the arrival in Minneapolis of 2,000 ICE agents. She had just dropped off her six-year-old at school. She had her aging dog in the back seat. Becca Good, her wife, is the one that's interacting at the back end of the vehicle. She engages with law enforcement. When law enforcement, not Mr. Not Agent Ross, comes around to the front of the car, you can see in a very peaceful, even Christian way, if you will, her engaging with law enforcement and saying, "I'm not mad at you. I'm not mad at you." In other words, why are you so so angry

with me? Why why are you mass such an angry face? Now they were annoyed because she obvious because she was blocking partially their departure. So they couldn't take it anymore. You can hear the anger building. The the officer the agent has not been identified yet goes and says get the f out of the car. So already adrenaline is amped. You and I have handled plenty of police cases, right? Already blood is rushing in ears. Already bad judgment is about to be made when you don't follow standard operating procedures and protocol. He goes to the door handle.

Ross, who we now know from reporting from MS Now, was involved weeks earlier with a with a an actual case where the car was weaponized against him during an attempted arrest and he was dragged 100 ft while he was hitting the person in the face with a stun gun. So, little post-traumatic stress disorder, anybody? A little trigger happy? Anybody? Where was the psychological evaluation to let him back on the street to begin with? Now, with that ringing in his ears, he's filming around the other side of the vehicle with his cell phone. Gun is holstered. Colleague, who I don't know if he's worked with him before or not, goes and tries to unlock the door. The wife, Becca, is trying to get back into the car after her engagement first amendment speech with the officer. She's her hand is on the handle of the passenger side.

Ross is in the wrong spot, by the way, as you properly commented for law enforcement purposes. He should have been closer to where his partner was, but he was too busy trying to film probably for posterity or posting on his social media or who knows what. None of them are wearing body cam. Now he's got the phone instead of doing proper law enforcement. So he's in he's distracted. He's standing in the wrong spot, but not in front of the car as we now know from the videos that have been uh obtained by New York Times and other places. So she did not turn into his way. She did not try to ram her car into him. She wanted to try at a mile an hour or less to get away off an icy road. There's many ways you deal with that if you're properly trained. You take down the license plate and you send for backup and you capture alive down the street. Maybe, and I think this would be extreme, maybe you shoot out the tires. But what you don't

do is you don't drop your cell phone, pull out your service revolver, and fire three times as the windshield is moving past you to get away. That you don't do. and the fact and then as the person dying and the car is moving away, you don't say under your breath, "Fucking bitch." Okay, that's why we call it qualified immunity, not absolute. Nobody has absolute immunity. JD Vance's mind is obviously mushed because his boss has absolute immunity for certain things that are criminal, okay, in the in the White House, but not law enforcement.

And the signal that they've sent out is that this administration thinks that law enforcement on the streets, right, can do anything and get away with it and will be absolutely immune. That's not the law. Whether it's 1983 actions or its civil rights actions or it's it's un undead uh deadly use of force actions, unreasonable use of force actions and prosecutions as a result. It is qualified. You have to first show you were doing your job and the color of your job. Maybe he passes that test, maybe he doesn't. The second is that your actions were reasonable. And that's where the evidence to be considered by a f factfinder and a jury, civil and criminal, will come into play. The problem is Trump administration has blocked state officials from doing their job. And I just had Keith Ellison on with a vi with a an interview, a special briefing for Legal AF audience on Legal AF YouTube uh earlier today. And what he had to tell

us was his investigation has started. They're going to gather as much evidence as they can, but the FBI is not sharing with them on purpose to penalize the fact that Minnesota is a democratic state. So polit so people are dying now on the on the on the uh because of politics and even and even more so I'm g you a clip from Keith Ellison very poignant message even more the outgoing governor Tim Walls declared that he's mobilizing the national guard think of this Ben to protect motans from their own federal government I mean I the fact that I even have to form that sentence is just is just eye watering to me. Now, Keith Ellison let it be known that he has been a pro he is a prosecutor. He prosecuted Derek Schovin who killed murdered George Floyd and he is ready and prepared if the facts present themselves to prosecute a federal officer. He's done it before. He will do it again and we we will let a jury and a

judge decide what immunity is appropriate here. But leave it to the Trump administration to mo to both make law enforcement and ICE unsafe and make the American people fear for their literally fear for their lives. And the other issue here that you and I have talked about at nauseium, but we will continue that Donald Trump by flooding the streets with unqualified, illtrained ICE officers, border patrol, national guard, he's effectively put Americans in harm's way. They are not trained for deescalation. They are not trained for first amendment protest for every They are a hammer in search of a nail. And everybody is a nail to ICE and border patrol. They come in amped up.

Many of them are not trained. They they did recruiting recently. Not that not that Ross fits the bill because he was in Border Patrol. He was an Army veteran. But they're giving guns and badges to 18year-old ICE officers. Bad things will happen. And it's not helping that within 24 hours, another shooting, just to show prove the point that he's under he's actually undermining law enforcement, legitimate law enforcement, Trump and the administration. 24 hours later, allegedly two Trenda are pulled over in a uh in a traffic stop or an arrest attempt in Portland, Oregon. and they they according to reports they allegedly try to run over uh border patrol who fires on them. Now if that story stood alone we would be like well let's get to the bottom of that. Was that trend aragua? But the instant polit politization by the Trump administration these two trenda released on the streets by the Biden administration. Um they

they weaponized their car. problem is we keep hearing about shoot first and defend and lie and lie and lie later. Maybe that's true, maybe that's false. All you and I demand on this show and our audience demands is transparency and accountability, not a rush to judgment, not a rush to protect the federal officer, over the fallen, over the US citizens who are dying. And this is the fifth time that it's happened. you and I covered in September when uh a resident of Chicago who also dropped his kid off at school was shot during another traffic stop by ICE. Okay, we should not it should not be a death sentence to oppose and resist the Trump administration, but it is. So, she didn't want to be a martyr when she woke up that morning when she kissed and dropped off her six-year-old. But Renee Good is now a martyr for a cause and people are taking to the streets this weekend with organized protest. And the

only thing that I recommend is something that and I'm going to play the clip from Keith in a moment is what Keith Ellison told me is that he fears that people will take matters into their own hands. Start battling it out violently with with ICE, giving Donald Trump an excuse for crackdown and suppression, which we don't want. Let me play a clip with Keith Ellison, who briefed our audience about what's going on in Minnesota. Where is the transparency and the accountability? That's what people are marching on the streets now for.

Let me tell you, Mike. So, there's about two or three seconds which were determinative of why this officer discharged his used deadly force and why Rene Renee Good lost her life. There's a very tight window. I think you're accurately pointing out that law enforcement policy is don't be parading in front of the car like that. That's bad. That's bad policing. But that aside, uh the real bad act that which I am perfectly comfortable offering judgment about is the surge, the lack of cooperation with law and lo local law enforcement, the lack of engagement with community, the lack of and then the escalating the raw number of ICE agents who've all been told, by the way, that the Somali community is gone. garbage that the Mexican-American community are all rapists and drug dealers that and gang members. Um, the bottom line is they've not only not only has this been a rush in recruitment and a rush in

training and a rush in evaluating the psychological fitness of somebody before returning them to duty. It is a blame and I mean a fault and a blame that must be lied at the feet of Donald Trump because it is his policy that led to this. This was foreseeable.

Yeah. So look the we're we are demanding justice in the name here on legal AF in the name of Renee Good and for her daughter and for her wife and I want the impeachment and I won't rest and I know you won't either Ben until we get the impeachment of Christy Gnome. Period. And now and I think we can do it. Look, the Epstein files and the crossover there of getting the Democrat, the Republicans who joined the Democrats with the death of that recent congressperson, it's a very slim margin if any for MAGA in in the House. If Hakee Jeff can force the issue, we'll get oversight hearings up immediately, get Christy into the hot seat, get the funding cut or limited until there is a complete overhaul and investigation of of Homeland Security under her control, and start those impeachment proceedings now. And if by God that doesn't happen now, I assure the American people in our audience that if you give us proper

results at the midterm, despite what Donald Trump's trying to do to suppress the vote and steal the Democratic vote, okay, then the Democrats will do the job of getting rid of people like Steven Miller and uh I don't know about JD Vance, but we'll we'll work on that later. And Donald Trump and certainly Christy. No, she has to go. And I and just as a signal to Christie, she better watch her back because Tom Hman, yeah, the bribery taking guy who's the borders are, he went on the new CBS propaganda network and gave an interview in which they asked him, "What do you think about Christine Gnome's comment about looking at the video and already and already saying that the investigation is effectively concluded and she's siding with the uh the ICE agent?" He said, "Well, you're going to have to ask her about that. All the all the evidence is not in. I have not looked at all the video. There's no rush

to judgement and a full investigation hasn't even begun yet. All right. That is that is another major leader in the Trump administration throwing Christine Gnome under the bus. So just one one other point and I I know people come to legal AF sometimes so we get hyper technical and as someone who previously litigated section 1983 cases. I want to at least provide you all with the argument that I think JD Vance is alluding to as it relates to a civil section 1983 case, a civil rights case for wrongful death and what they intend to argue there in a civil case. Let me be clear. In a criminal case, there is no absolute immunity for this or any ICE officer. It doesn't exist. It's not a it's not a doctrine. And they can be criminally prosecuted by the feds or by the state or both. We've explained to you the hurdles already of both. The feds under Trump aren't prosecuting this guy and they are preventing the state

from doing a criminal investigation. On the civil side, there is a case called Bivons versus six unknown named agents from 1971. And it says essentially that unless there is kind of a clearly established right to bring a section 1983 claim against a certain type of entity unless Congress speaks and says that this is an entity that can be sued. Unless they describe that the entity is subject to civil lawsuits. What this Bivvens doctrine has basically held is that there could be immunity. And what I think JD Vance is getting at and what I think the arguments we're going to see be made. You're like, "Well, Ben, you're giving them the arguments to make." No, I'm not giving them the arguments to make. I'm if anything I'm giving the civil litigators the opportunity to think through the arguments that the DOJ already knows because JD Vance went to Yale Law School and I and this is what I'm just letting you know what he's

implying. It's not a doctrine called absolute immunity, but because ICE and Border Patrol have been constructed by Trump and MAGA as this unaccountable entity and they're doing things that actually they weren't designed to do. Border Patrol is supposed to be at a border, right? Not going through as a paramilitary force and ICE is not supposed to be going through towns as a militarized force the way they are. and assuming the functions of an occupying military. Um, be what they'll argue is because Congress has not addressed via any law a private cause of action to sue civily against ICE agents for murder, for death. until Congress says that there's a cause of action. The Bivvens doctrine says, well, you know what? We unless it exists, the case has to be dismissed and there's immunity for it.

So, I think what he's alluding to is the Bivvens doctrine. And if that sounds familiar, do you remember the case where Michael Cohen sued the Department of Justice and Bill Barr for throwing him into solitary confinement um because he refused to sign a document that said he wouldn't publish his book during the first uh Trump term and he was there for like more than 50 days? He sued for a civil rights violation and the government said, "Bivven this is not something that Congress has authorized you to file a lawsuit in this case." And you may then be saying, "Well, Ben, how come there are lawsuits against police officers or how come there are lawsuits against highway patrol or others?" It's because in the case of the state or in the case of other entities who are sued at a federal level, they wave in law something called they wave sovereign immunity. They specifically allow civil lawsuits for violations of civil rights.

And so Popach, I know that's a it's getting very hyper techchnical, but I think that that's an argu that they're going to make a bivonsbased immunity argument for ICE officers and basically say they are the Gestapo. They are an unaccountable force for which Congress never made a law to which the civil litigators have to say well this falls into that unusual circumstance in bivons that there's an exception to it where you've now used these officers for where you've now used these unaccountable militarized pal paramilitary. It's more analogous to the types of cases where lawsuits have been brought before but that's a case that will go to the Supreme Court.

Yeah, I agree with you. I think I, as I've said, I think that there's two ways we never bring back uh we now have a child, a motherless child and a and a and a wifeless marriage with the death of Renee Good. So, when we talk about these things, we talk about justice in the aftermath. And when it comes to civil, I said that there's there's a number of different investigatory bodies or entities that will take over here if to do what the Trump administration is obviously too too corrupted to do. One would be a congressional investigation, which I think the Democrats are going to hope to open about as part of the broader conversation about Homeland Security and ICE under the leadership of Christy Gnome, they're going to have to also do the investigation, if you will, about um about Renee Good. And um you're we're going to see the testimony of people that were on the street that watched it, of Becca Good, her wife. um and others.

So, there's an investigatory component there. We're going to see Minnesota, the prosecutors there led by Keith Ellison and others do their investigation as best they can. They're actually asking, it's almost like they're crowdsourcing, crowdfunding it. They need evidence. They're not getting access to the forensics. They're not getting access to the bullet casings. They're not getting access to the first round of witness statements. They're going to have to go reconstruct everything. Now, fortunately, there's a lot of video on the street. We've seen the New York Times did a very good uh video array. CNN has like a 3D reproduction, forensic reproduction of what happened. So, they'll they'll get enough for them to make to make the to make the prosecutorial decision whether to go against the federal officer here in the in the ICE agent. Then we're going to have this battle of Minnesota versus um federal officer uh versus the

federal government. Then you've got this next layer which as you said is the plaintiff's lawyers, the plaintiff's bar step which you know I'm I'm a part of which which um goes after to get justice the federal government. You know I'm representing a flight attendant on the American Airlines flight um uh that that you know the army helicopter Blackhawk helicopter collided with you know 10 days into this administration. I mean that if anything was a sign from above, that was it, man. And so she her family needs representation against the federal government to take responsibility for her death both at the flight at the air traffic controller level and at the army helicopter level.

And so whether it's that or brutality by a federal officer and boy are we seeing that lately, right? Are we seeing ICE and other federal security officers and National Guards people who are not trained getting into altercations with the public and leading sometimes leading to their death? That's where the plaintiff's bar comes in. And and you walked through already the different causes of action and doctrines and immunities and defenses they're going to have to pick through, but very good plaintiffs lawyers are skilled at doing this. And yes, it's going to end up I I I assure you among all the other Trump president you could fill a case book with from from this just this term this this year of Trump cases that are reshaping the face good, bad and ugly of our criminal justice system, constitutional constitutional law and uh the separation the the the relationship between the states and the federal

government and the people and their federal government. And this is going to be another one of those cases where we're going to have to get to the bottom of what is, you know, can a person innocently protesting? Um, can she lose her life because of a pissed-off, illtrained officer who decides that he's going to stop her departure the only way he could think of at the moment, which was shooting her in the face. So, Pliff's bar plays a major role here. and and you know they have their own investigative uh entities. They use detectives and and and PIs and all sorts of things on the ground. But you're right, this is going to come and once again it's going to be laid at the at the feet of the United States Supreme Court, which of course you and I will talk about uh what the Supreme Court's doing uh in the current term later in the show. Everybody make sure you subscribe to Michael Pop's Substack. It's the Legal AF Substack.

Subscribe to Legal AF on YouTube and also make sure you if you or someone you know have been injured in an accident, whether it's a car accident, a trucking accident, sexual harassment or assault, wrongful death cases, you may know someone who was involved in a wrongful death. Call or text 877 pop af or visit the popfirm.com. That's 877POPAF or visit the popocfirm.com. Popox got lawyers all across the country for you to consult with. The consultation is free. So give a call, see if you have a case or you can let other people you know who may have a case to reach out to. Michael Popox firm. We'll be right back. When we come back, we got a lot more to discuss. Our last quick break of the show. Lately, everyone's trying to clean up their habits. Alcohol may be normalized, but so are the downsides. hangovers, poor sleep, excess calories, disrupted routines, missed workouts, and reduced next day clarity. For a better way to

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States attorney for the southern district the eastern district the northern district. Um, in California for example, their central district, eastern district, northern district, southern district. Some states like New Jersey only have one one district. And so, like Alina Haba, you all will recall, was unlawfully appointed by Donald Trump. And when we say unlawfully appointed, there's a statute which says you can be an interim United States attorney for I think it's 120 days. after 120 days. If you're not confirmed by the Senate, right, you're appointed by the president, you have to be confirmed by the Senate. And if you're not confirmed by the Senate, the federal judges can extend your term. So, you petition the judges to extend your term. And if they don't extend your term, then you're out.

Like, you're fired. Like, you you no longer have the job. And then the president can't appoint another interim. you have to then go through the proper process of just doing an appointment and getting a confirmation uh in the Senate. You get one interim for 120 days which can be extended. That's what the statute allows. So Alina Haba's 120 days expired. She stayed on unlawfully and then finally the third circuit court of appeals there said you're out. You're you're a squatter. Get the hell out of here. And then she kind of refused to leave at first. And then she finally left because she realized that it could have major implications on her legal license and broader implications to all of the cases that she's affiliated with could be tainted as a result of her being an unlawful prosecutor. Lindseay Halligan was moved into that position by Donald Trump after the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of

Virginia was kind of forced out or fired um because he wouldn't uh agree to prosecute Comey and Leticia James because there wasn't evidence to support the prosecution and because he was going by the law even though he's a Republican guy. He was appointed by Trump. He's just like there's no evidence to prosecute these people. I'm not going to lose my bar license or my credibility in doing a case like this. There's no evidence to support it. So then Lindsey Halligan was moved to that position, but as I said, you only get one interim, one. And the one interim was the other guy. Halagan, you can't get the second interim. So she was unlawfully appointed. She was disqualified by Judge Curry, who was assigned both the Comey matter and the Leticia James matter for purposes of dealing with disqualification.

um you had Hallagan was ruled to be disqualified, but as we've been reporting on Legal AF, she's continued to claim that she's the top prosecutor. She keeps referring to herself as the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in press releases, on documents, on pleadings. She doesn't even say interim. She promoted herself. She was disqualified. Then she promotes herself to the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. By the way, separately, she's been now the DOJ submitted her name to be confirmed by the United States Senate. Popach, I'll pass it over to you, but I wanted to I wanted to give this one thing. She uses as the cases she's like like there's a section that says, "What are like the key cases you've worked on in your career that exemplify the work you do?" She lists the Comey case and the Leticia James case that she was disqualified as like her big cases to

the Senate to be confirmed. And but what else would she do? She can't list anything else.

They can't list anything. So that's Halligan. And then there is the guy from the Northern District of New York, the top federal prosecutor who was also unlawfully appointed. Yeah.

So we have all these unlawfully appointed people and the judges now on a bipartisan basis are saying no. So talk to us about what happened with Halligan and Judge Novak and what Judge Chau fail deal do with the Northern District of New York.

Yeah. So in in the Eastern District of Virginia, there's now five separate judges uh including Chief Judge Brinkma, now Judge Novak, uh originally Judge Curry, this will be six, who disqualified and fired Lindsey Hagan, and then three separate magistrate judges who have all said aloud in courtroom or in written orders, why is Lindseay Hallagan still holding herself out as the US attorney after Judge Curry on November nomber the 24th fired her. Now, Curry's order couldn't be more clear. She said it was an illegal appointment.

It violates a certain statute that deals with this violates the constitution. Does an end run around the appointment clause and she is invalid. And her indictments, Comey, Leticia James are invalid because she's she is um illegal. Nothing that comes from her can be legal and the position is vacated and vacant and to be filled by the district judges. All right, that seems simple. Then weeks went by and the district judges didn't meet to fill the spot and Trump filed an appeal but didn't get a stay of the order. So the order is still binding and Lindsay Hallan just it was like it was like office space. She just showed up for work every day like with her badge, you know, US attorney. Hi.

Kept signing. It was like trolling America and trolling the judges. Signed Lindseay Halligan on indictments on filings. Uh uh um US attorney, Eastern District of Virginia. The judges started to get effing pissed off. So many of the judges would question other assistant US attorneys there on other matters and say, "Hey, while I got you here, Judge Nakmanov did it. Judge Brinkma did it." Why is Lindseay Haligan's name here on this pleading? And they all gave the same stupid answer looking down at their shoes. Uh Washington told us to do it.

Maine justice told us in an email to put her name on everything. Brinkova said, "Why doesn't she resign the way Alina Hobbit did?" Other judges said, "You need to drop a footnote in all of your pleadings." like um uh one of the judges will come to me in a minute, magistrate judge, he's judge Turner, he said you need to drop a footnote and say that uh she has been vacated and that position has been vacated and disqualified by Judge Curry's actions. Um others like Judge Nakmanov, who's the Comey judge, said it is an abuse. It is um it is a c it is a inconsistent position to be taking and I don't want it to happen anymore in my courtroom. And then it came to Judge Novak, a Trump appointee who on his own, nobody asked him to on his own initiative in another case off of an indictment from December.

He he issued his own order basically in order to show cause which says to Lindseay Hagan, Lindseay Alligan, you are to inform the court in two weeks, now about a week, uh why your actions in continuing to hold yourself out, effectively impersonate a US attorney doesn't violate these five or six different uh professional rules of uh rules of professional responsibility which govern all lawyer conduct. I'm a member of a number of bars. I'm I'm subject to it. Uh as is she. Why you haven't violated misrepresentation and fraud on the court. Uh failure to follow uh orders of the court. Uh all sorts of things related to fraud and misrepresentation and dishonesty.

That's your first thing. And why you're I shouldn't strip your name from everything. But he went further. He said, uh I want you to explain why. and then reminded everybody the power of a federal judge and the inherent authority of a federal judge to regulate what happens in their own courtroom. Why she shouldn't be banned and barred from continuing to practice in his courtroom at least. Maybe not for the entirety of the of the Eastern District, but in his courtroom on all cases explain herself. And he wants it signed by Lindseay Hallan. Here we go. Now, I think that's a invitation for her to resign. Alahhaba because if she signs that thing, Ben, as Lindseay Halagan, US attorney, he's going to freak out. And when you get a federal judge to freak out, that means sanctions. That means he she's basically going to invite him, which she doesn't need right now, while she's in the nomination process, a

federal judge, uh, barring her from his courtroom, or worse. Now, you got that going on. And I don't think she gets confirmed by the way in this I just I just don't maybe I mean we'll have to see what what what can do. same time you got Judge Scofield in uh New York in the Southern District and as you laid out there's 93 districts there's several in New York and Donald Trump put in places to go after his political rivals or critics um unqualified people who never have been prosecutors before to temporarily fill position positions in order during their tenure to go after his rivals. Lindseay Halligan, he has no real hope of getting her confirmed. She doesn't really want this job. She shouldn't want this job, but he wanted her to indict Comey and Leticia James. John Sarone up in the northern district of New York near Albany. That's who Ed Martin and Pam Bondi and Donald Trump, that's who he uh

he sicked on Leticia James' office in the New York Attorney General to investigate whether she violated civil rights. Now we got the civil rights division back open at the US Department of Justice. Uh whether they vi whether her office violated civil rights by going after Donald Trump for fraud. May I remind everybody that the entire family Trump got uh a judge to be fraudsters and are still under a monitor for their uh an independent monitor over their business practices uh in a in a case involving Judge Angoron after a several week trial. Be that as it may, that and and and whether the National Rifle Association, the NRA, was improperly investigated by the Attorney General's office. This all came out of subpoenas that John Sarone issued. Now, if he's invalid the way that Lindseay Hagan is that invalidly appointed and staying in that position and impersonating a US attorney, then anything that comes out of him, any

fruit of that poisonous tree, any subpoena or indictment is invalid. So smartly, after seeing what happened to Lindseay Hallan, uh the lawyers for Leticia James' office filed their motion to quash the subpoenas, arguing a number of things, including John Sarone is a phony US attorney. Now, John Sarone is a weirdo. Anyway, he he his 120 days, which is the most that a president or or attorney general can stick somebody in the seat while working through a confirmation process expired. After it expired, the only way it can get extended is not through the not through the executive branch, but through the district judges of that district. That's what happened in the southern district with Jay Clayton. But in the northern district, they were like, "No." So they did not extend his time, but he told the world that they did. So he lied to everybody and said, "Oh, they thank you. Thank you everybody. Thanks judges. I'm now going

to stay longer." And they were like, "We did not extend your time." So then he came back and published a letter that said, "Hey, great news. I'm a special attorney. I get to be the US attorney as special attorney." They're like, "No, you don't get to do that. You don't get to do that either." So, it gets sent downream down river to the southern district of New York in Manhattan because of the conflict with the judges if they have to pick the successor. And it lands before um the chief judge Scoffield. And she says, "I'm just going to handle one item. I'm just going to handle whether he's illegally appointed or not." She held a hearing on it and she issued her order. It came out about a day or two around the time that Judge Novak took on Lindseay Hakan. And her order, she said, is very simple. There's only four ways that you can fill a vacancy. Three of them have to do with the with the presidency and the Department of

Justice, and one has to do with federal judges in in that district. and the the rule that they were using at the very end as a last gasp effort or as the judge referred to it in this kind of shifting titles thing to kind of evade the statute and the constitution which doesn't work. One of them was referring to a statute that says you can extend the time for an additional 210 days under certain limited circumstances. The only way you can get the 210day seat is if you were previously in the office for 90 days or more, which John Cone was not, right? Or you were Senate confirmed for another position. Doesn't matter what. You could be the depart, you could be the secretary of agriculture. As long as you were Senate confirmed, you can go sit for 210 days and be the acting or interim US attorney. John Sarone doesn't fit that bill either. He was he can't be his own he can't be his own deputy. They

fired the deputy. They gave him another job. So she ruled you're illicit. You're illegal. Your subpoenas are quashed because they're illegal. And then she went further. Now she didn't go as far as Judge Curry in the Hallagan case because you know every judge shapes his own remedies. And with the benefit of all these other decisions, she came up with what I thought was a good way to thread the needle for somebody that doesn't really want to be involved in the case much longer. She said, "Here's what I'm going to do. You, Mr. Zarone are barred from being involved anymore with the prosecution of the or investigation of the National Rifle Association case against the New York Attorney General's office, Leticia James, or her offic's uh investigation and ultimate uh going after Donald Trump for fraud. You are out. You're not to be involved any longer. and somebody else in your office that is qualified, they need to issue

new subpoenas. And if they get issued, then the other side of course gets the right to quash. But you're out. But she didn't declare that he's out as the the Northern District of New York US attorney and create a vacancy. She didn't go that far. Although I'm sure there'll be new new uh new filings that are going to be made to have that accomplished, but that's not as far as she went in her remedy. But again, what we're watching is this is now the sixth time that judges, Central District of California, Nevada, New Jersey, two two courts in New Jersey, including the third circuit court of appeals, Eastern District of Virginia, and now in New York, where Donald Trump's handpicked unqualified MAGA prosecutor gets bounced. Ultimately, this is going to come, but not probably this term, to the United States Supreme Court, although it could be this term, to the United States Supreme Court. But again, this is

district court judges and appellet judges upholding the rule of law and and not giving into Donald Trump's worst excesses, which is to have anything he wants at any time he wants without regard to the Constitution or statutes. You mentioned the Supreme Court there, Pop Puck. Before we go, I want to give our viewers and listeners an update on what the Supreme Court did or I should say did not do. There were some expectations that on voting rights they would issue a ruling and on Trump's tariffs against the world there would be a ruling. At least people expected the tariff ruling to be handed down on Friday. That didn't take place. And it just goes to show you, right? Because that federal trade court, what was it already now 7 months ago? You know, it was fairly soon after liquidation day or whatever the hell Trump called it, liberation day. Um, fairly soon thereafter the district court made the

right decision, which is the federal trade court, and then it was eventually affirmed by the uh intermediary court. But throughout this entire process, it was the rulings were stayed to allow Donald Trump's unlawful status quo to remain the status quo. And the Supreme Court's just been, you know, taking its time and, you know, it's a pretty big area. And it just it just is interesting, right? because the Supreme Court sure was quick to give Donald Trump absolute immunity several years ago. But when it comes to these issues of, you know, uh of of potentially overturning his unlawful actions, it's like the level to which it just it takes the amount of time is is ridiculous. And justice delayed is justice denied. And it's at this point all the ramifications and harm, you know, have essentially have essentially been felt. And it's like I just think there are so many observers here in the United States and

abroad who look at our system and say it's so fundamentally broken. Like what is your what is your what are your courts even doing? Like what the hell is going on? So before we go Pac talk about that and I think you can also put in there also very briefly the war powers uh resolution. We've covered it on a lot of hot takes because I'm sure that's an issue that winds its way to the Supreme Court if it ever gets passed by both houses. And I know that Trump will veto the War Powers Resolution, but um in any event, talk talk to us about it all.

Sure. Sure. And and we're going to be doing full coverage as we always have on on the Supreme Court over on the Legal AF YouTube channel uh for 2026. Legal AF just launched a new podcast on audio. You can pick it up where and for your listening pleasure, wherever you pick up your audio podcast from called Unprecedented, a show I do with Dana Dah. We our recent episode we just had Lisa Graves who's uh one of the preeminent Supreme Court uh commentators out there talking about what we're watching in this particular term. But and and we do the live oral argument live streaming we'll be doing next week.

Lisa Cook, the Federal Reserve trying to keep her job, more importantly trying to keep Donald Trump's mits off of the independence of the Federal Reserve. Huge oral argument next week which will be up on Legal AF YouTube channel uh live. I I usually do a pregame show uh right before that. And then um there's another case that's up next week about transgender Americans in sport and we're going to hear how the federal United States Supreme Court feels about that issue uh which divides America. So that's all for next week. Look, there there is a certain stodgginess about the United States Supreme Court that um underlies a lot of what we've been watching with their complicity in using the shadow docket, the emergency docket to give Donald Trump the upper hand throughout this first year in his with his executive orders. But there's a calendar and there's a process when you're talking about the normal appellet writ

of Sir Shirari route. We're talking about the 70 cases a year that come up that way with the hundreds of pages of decision related to each case with the with the three different briefs and then friends of the court brief and the one or twohour oral argument and then the deliberation and the circulation of opinions and the writing of concurrences which uh and and the m and the uh and the opinion the majority opinion the concurrence which is uh I agree with the outcome but I don't agree with some of the jurist prudence and analysis and then the disscent which which is what it sounds like and multiple to sense and all these things have to be done and have to be finished before there's publication of the opinion or the opinion drops and then it only drops on certain dates. Now historically because the calendar on the Supreme Court runs as follows first Monday in October term opens and and it runs until the last

opinion drops usually in late June mid to late June right before they go away on summer holiday. Now, historically, the most controversial of their decisions, like ripping away a woman's right to choose, like that or immunity uh for the president, they'll drop in June so that they're off to Italy uh and away from America's press and the voters uh at that moment. If they start the term in October, then they have a couple of oral arguments in October, some in November, a couple of more in December. They take a break. They pick back up in the middle of January, February, March, and they usually stop taking oral argument around April or May. And then the opinions start coming out. But there's that process that they that they stick to and they will not release an opinion, the the majority opinion, unless all the other little sidecars are ready to go along at the same time. So if Sutayor is taking a few extra days or

weeks or months to write her descent, that majority opinion is not going out until that disscent is ready. Do I think sometimes that gets gamed a bit? Yes. By both Republicans who aren't happy with the result like Alo sometimes and certainly with the liberals who only have that as a weapon, especially when they're in the minority so much. So we don't we're not in the we're not in the world where like you know John Roberts or Gorsuch or Alto can go well we've waited long enough let's drop the m let's drop the majority opinion and the descent will follow later. No that's not how it works because not in this court but in history sometimes what starts out as a disscent ends up being the majority opinion because of the weight of its persuasiveness as it's being circulated among the jurists. Now this court is so ideologically divided and so politically divided that I doubt that will happen in

you know in in in this next generation but it has happened in the past. In any event they there's a call in response that goes on between the opinions. The majority opinion will criticize one of the descents. The descents will criticize the majority opinion. The concurrence will criticize whomever and they cite to each other and that's because they're reading each other's. to all have to be done before it goes out the door. That is a long-winded way of saying that normally when the first opinions get dropped in January as just happened on Friday, they're very rarely major decisions because they just had oral argument in October. These are not from last year. These are from this year. So October to January in the life of a life cycle of a case is very very short to do all the things I just described. So, was I shocked that the tariff decision or the uh or the uh uh the Voting Rights Act decision uh that

would destroy Voting Rights Act and allow redistricting all over again in many red Confederate uh former Confederate states didn't happen. No, I'd be shocked if it did happen. That means if it happened, and what I told people was if the Voting Rights Act decision comes out, destroying the Voting Rights Act and allowing all white districts in states As a result, that means MAGA MAGA has found a way to bend over backwards to help Donald Trump. And the and the denters couldn't stop it. But all you got to do is have Katanji Brown Jackson say, "Yeah, I'm not done."

Like, I'm I'm sorry. You're done. I'm not done. And just to show you the gap, and I'll use I'll use a an example that that'll people will remember. The Dobs decision three years ago which ripped ripped away a woman's right to choose was leaked. It was an Alto leak or it was a leak of the an Alto opinion. I'll leave it at that in March March. The actual opinion although it was pretty close did not get dropped until June along with the descents and the concurrences and the rest. So, you see how long these things take and when they and when they time it. But because the Voting Rights Act did not come out now, I don't think it comes out next week on the 14th when they drop the next batch.

Now, we're moving into when major decisions do get dropped. March, April, May, June. Now, we're too close to the election cycle, the primary and the ballot process, the the general and the ballot process. And as you get in about another month, we're going to be out probably out of the clear in the clear from from this decision on voting rights act affecting the midterms which Donald Trump is hoping for. States like Louisiana have already thrown in the towel. They're like, "Nope, it's coming out too late. We're just going to have to go back to the old map. Good. The old map wasn't great, but it's better than the map that they would draw eliminating another black district if left to their own devices." So, what I'm hoping is that by process, Trump's desire to grab another 10 or 12 seats before the election even begins will be thwarted.

So, that that looks like it's going to happen and we'll continue to monitor that here on the tariffs. Listen, listen. One thing you can say about one thing you can say universally about the Supreme Court is none of them are business people and they don't give a [ __ ] about how big a refund is going to be if they rule against the Trump administration. So they weren't going to I never thought they were going to rush to make their decision in January because there was 140 billion in tariffs and it was running at 140 billion you know a month or whatever it was. They don't care if they decide and I think they will five to four or six to three that Trump does not have that tariff power over 200 countries. They're going to tell Trump to start refunding if you figure out a way. I don't care if it's 300 million, 300 billion, 100 billion, whatever it is. You go, they don't care about numbers. You go figure it out. And

there's a little reported thing, Ben, that I did on a hot take recently. the Customs and Bureau, uh the the Customs and Border Patrol, CBP. We talked about them a lot tonight as officers, but they're also in charge of uh of tariff and um exports and they have changed on their website and they've added a new feature to allow for electronic refunds, which they never did before. It's not the automated thing that the that the hundreds of billions of dollars of importers and US manufacturers want to see, but it is an at least an acknowledgement that they might have to start making refunds. But I want everybody to tune in next week because we're going to have it up on Legal AF.

That Lisa Cook I want to get your impression on it. that Lisa Cook oral argument is not just about whether the the the uh Supreme Court is going to make good on its promise that it was going to protect the Federal Reserve from uh uh presidential overreach and violation of its independence which had said in another decision earlier in the summer when they he allow when they allowed him to lop off the head of the National Labor Relations Board, Gwen Wilcox, they they put a ring fence around the around the Federal Reserve I want to see if they make good on that because if they don't and they allow him based on social media posts and and selective leaks about her mortgages to fire the Federal Reserve, they are going to hand over that Federal Reserve and its interest rate setting capacity to Donald Trump. Now, one one little manage of expectations.

In May, uh Jay Powell is off as the chairperson and and his seat will be replaced. So Trump is likely to get a majority whether he gets Lisa Cook or not and grab hold of interest rates and then heaven help us. Michael Popak all well said. We'll be following that here on Legal AF. Just a reminder, make sure you subscribe to Legal AF on all platforms, specifically the Legal AF YouTube channel on YouTube right now. You're watching this there. Just search Legal AF. Make sure you're subscribed there. Legal AF YouTube is on its way to 2 million subscribers. If you have Substack, go check out Legal AF on Substack. If you don't have Substack, download Substack and search Legal AF.

Michael Pop gives daily updates. He goes live there throughout the day. It's one of the most read and viewed Substacks in the country. Go check out Legal AF on Substack. Also, if you or anyone you know has been injured in a car accident, a trucking accident, the victim of sexual harassment or assault, if you know someone who was killed in an accident, that's called a wrongful death case, or any other negligence type of case or medical malpractice, call 877 pop af or visit the popfirm.com. 877 pop af or visit the popfirm.com.

That's Michael Popox Law Firm. He has lawyers across the country who will give you a free consultation, let you know if you have a case. Don't be shy. Michael Popock is representing a lot of listeners and viewers of Legal AF. So, give him a call if you think you've got a case or if you know somebody, tell them to call Popox Law Firm. Thank you everybody so much for watching this episode of Legal AF. We're grateful for you. Hang in there. I know things are crazy. I know things are um you know caused by Donald Trump can be depressing, distressing, demoralizing at times. But remember there's more of us than there are of them. Remember that we're in this together. Remember that people power prevails when we don't give up. And the Trump regime is hoping that we give up, that we allow the fascist march to continue. We need to stand up for each other, to stand up for our rights, to stand up for democracy, for

this country, for a better, more empathetic, more loving uh world and country. That's what we're going to do every day here on Legal AF. Thank you everybody. We appreciate you. Have a great rest of the weekend and week depending on when you're watching or listening to this. Now, shout out to the mightest mighty and shout out legal afers.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF"?

Michael Popok (Host), Unknown (Host).

What is "LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF" about?

This discussion centers on significant legal controversies involving the Trump administration, including calls by Congress members Ro Khanna and Thomas Massie for an independent oversight of the Epstein files, and a troubling incident where an ICE officer is accused of fatally shooting Renee Nicole Good. Additionally, it covers judicial actions against Trump-appointed prosecutors for misconduct…

What is mentioned in this MeidasTouch episode?

11 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Donald Trump, ICE, Department of Justice, Federal Reserve, Jim Alto, John Sarcone. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "LIVE: Trump MURDERS US Citizen and EPSTEIN COVER UP!!! | Legal AF"?

The episode runs 1 h 37 min; the transcript is about 16,099 words in 116 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.