The Intersection with Michael Popok Full Episode - 6/24/2025
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This is Michael Popak, and you're on The Intersection on the Midas Touch Network. Two big themes for today's show. One, the Trump administration has been caught lying to federal judges, providing phony evidence that doesn't support their positions, and federal judges and or whistleblowers, insiders at the Department of Justice are fighting back. So lying to federal judges is theme one. Theme two is the F-bomb.

F it, F off, F them, they're F-ers. This administration curses up a blue streak. We got Donald Trump doing it in the Rose Garden before he's off to the NATO summit about Israel of all things. And then you've got the whistleblower report that Emil Bove, who Donald Trump wants to make a lifetime federal appellate judge, he instructed senior members of DOJ leadership

to look federal judges in the eye and his in his words, tell them to go F themselves, lying to federal judges and using the F-bomb here at the intersection. We're at the intersection of the F-bomb and lying to judges. And I'm going to piece it all together, including, of course, what's happening in Iran, which also goes to lying.

Let's start with Iran. It's on everybody's mind. I posit on a recent hot take. Did we just watch Donald Trump? I mean, I hate to be crass about it, but did we just watch Donald Trump bomb Iran not to set back or obliterate its nuclear arsenal?

but rather to improve Donald Trump's economy, to force the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates? Is that what we just watched? Well, that's a better explanation.

Then we took this high stakes military operation that undermines national security, puts millions of Americans in harm's way, including 40,000 soldiers, dropped tens of millions of dollars of bombs in inconsistent with our own intelligence assessment that Donald Trump has rejected. And we did it according to new reports to set back the Iranian nuclear program 90 days.

Tell me that's not what just happened. How could that even be true? Well, let's start there. How could it be true? Because there's not just three facilities in Iran that make up their nuclear capacity. There's at least four. Yes, we hit Natanz. Yes, we hit Fordow. Yes, we hit Ishfahan. But we didn't hit Pickaxe Mountain.

What's Pickaxe Mountain, Popak? It's the fourth site that's under a hardened mountain. That's under a mountain. It's a hardened facility that's double the depth of Fordow and where the missing enriched uranium probably resides right now. And that's all they need. All they need is a truck.

carrying the equivalent of 16 water heaters, holding 418 kilograms of enriched uranium and a bunch of centrifuges and take it off to another location before the bombing started. And of course, there's satellite imagery that shows just those trucks. Marco Rubio can't believe his own eyes and says, that can't be. The Israelis must have blown up those trucks.

There's no record of that. There's no record that we, and we certainly did not attack pickaxe mountain. And now you've got the Trump administration. This is how I know I'm right.

that this was done for two reasons having nothing to do with national security. To enhance Donald Trump's legacy as a wartime president, as a cover-up for his failings. And secondly, to influence and impact and bomb, if you will, the Federal Reserve to force them to cut rates, to lower interest rates, to create cheap money.

to fuel Donald Trump's failed economic policies. That makes a lot more sense than we just spent hundreds of millions of dollars and risk an all-out shooting war with the Arab world over 90 days of setback. They're so livid at the Trump administration about the revelation of this top secret information that we only set it back about 90 days, that Carolyn LeVette, during a press conference,

I guess she doesn't know what these words mean. She said that it was top secret and it was false and leaked to hurt Donald Trump. Well, which is it, Carolyn? Is it top secret or is it false? And if it's top secret and false, what's going on over there with intelligence gathering? No wonder the Trump administration is doing so poorly. It's relying on top secret, false and phony information. The major problem Donald Trump has is he doesn't trust in or believe in

the U.S. intelligence community. Tulsi Gabbard's on her way out. She was not in the Situation Room. She wasn't at the podium when they announced the bombing. She's been replaced effectively by John Ratcliffe of the CIA as the spymaster. And instead, Donald Trump is relying on Israel's intelligence. But Israel's intelligence has been saying the same thing for like the last 10 years, that they're three months away, nine months away, less than a year away from making a bomb.

And they are now. I think Donald Trump just created a self-fulfilling prophecy. If he doesn't think they are going to speed up the enrichment of the uranium to get to 90% enrichment and then shove it into a bunch of missiles supplied to them by Russia,

Using centrifuges that were not nailed in the last bombing. I don't know. Then he's got another thing coming. That's why we're watching not only a mentally impaired, diminished president, but now he's moved into the next stage completely erratic. That's why he's cursing up a storm. Let's talk about the F-bombs.

He says that Iran and Israel are both equally at fault for breaching the ceasefire. What ceasefire? The phony ceasefire that he declared in order to manipulate the financial markets again? The end of the 12-day war? Who said it was a 12-day war? Donald Trump? This is like mission accomplished. When George Bush said mission accomplished on that battleship and we knew the mission was not accomplished, it's the same thing. 12-day war, everybody!

And then a whole bunch of all caps threats against Iran and Israel for making Trump look bad. Don't do it. Turn your planes around. And then dropping the F-bomb on Israel. You know, they're fuckers. Pardon me. But what does that show you? It's not a strategy to be erratic. It's not a strategy to start cursing up a blue streak on your way to NATO. No.

The other reason I believe that it's that they didn't do this bombing run the U.S. in order to set back or obliterate the nuclear capacity of Iran.

is because I really think the other reason, besides influencing the Federal Reserve, was to influence NATO. Donald Trump was in charge of the timing of the bombing. And he did it just before he got on a plane to NATO, where he's going to try to convince the NATO countries to increase their contribution to military spending up to 5% of their gross domestic product. I think they're more inclined now, aren't they? They're now more inclined by Donald Trump's mismanagement of how Ukraine works.

is being attacked by Russia, Zelensky said out loud, NATO, you're next. Within the next five years, Putin is going to go after you. That, Donald Trump's undermining of NATO, undermining of Ukraine, that's also encouraged them to spend more on their national defense and on NATO defense. So these are all the reasons, because it can't possibly be

that we did this and entered a possible shooting war with the Arab world in order to set back Iran 90 days. Look for the money. Follow the money when you're talking about Donald Trump. That's one.

So we've got all of that. Tulsi Gabbard's out. We've got the cancellation of the briefing that the executive branch, the presidency was supposed to give to Congress about Iran. Why? Because he doesn't want to be challenged about his declaration that the 12-day war is over and there's a ceasefire when there isn't. Or that they've completely obliterated the nuclear capacity of Iran when they haven't.

So that's why they've done that. Let's continue with the theme here on today's intersection. Well, now let's turn to lying. We've got I've been talking about Erez Rufeni for a long, long time. He is the part of the Department of Justice in charge of immigration affairs. And he said,

was fired for telling the truth to Judge Zinnes about the Abrego Garcia case. We had two major cases going on at the same time, right? You had Judge Zinnes handling the Abrego Garcia case about this guy sent with 200 other people in the middle of the night without due process to El Salvador. And he had an order in his pocket to stop him from doing that. And then you had Judge Boasberg looking at why the planes were going to El Salvador in the first place.

And this attorney for the Department of Justice told the truth to Judge Zinnis. And she said that Arbrego Garcia was illegally sent over an order that prevented his removal to El Salvador. And the Trump administration knew it and did it anyway. And he was promptly fired by Pam Bondi,

and by Drew Ensign, I'll talk about in a minute, and by the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche. They said he wasn't a zealous advocate because he refused to lie to a federal judge. At the time, I was like, are you kidding me? They ordered him to lie to a federal judge? That alone should take away their bar license. That's a violation of the Code of Professional Responsibility and ethics. So I didn't think we heard the last of that Department of Justice lawyer.

And now he's gotten lawyers and he's prepared a 30-page whistleblower letter that he sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Why? Because he says that, and he's the insider, that Emil Bove, who is the number three lawyer in the Department of Justice, who was Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, who's effectively the bad cop within the Department of Justice, that he, on March 15th, ordered

This Department of Justice lawyer, Drew Ensign, and everybody else that was in attendance to lie to federal judges to allow Donald Trump to use the Alien Enemies Act at night under the cover of darkness to ship human beings without due process to El Salvador before anybody would notice. And that this lawyer was told by Emil Bove that they are to lie to federal judges, they are to violate federal orders, and tell federal judges to go fuck off.

Yeah, that is in his whistleblower letter. And that knowing that there would be an order that night, yeah, with Judge Boasberg, the Department of Justice lawyers, including Drew Ensign, lied to Judge Boasberg about whether those planes were being fueled and sent to El Salvador to avoid his injunction. That's a pretty, that's a pretty scandalous allegation that seems to have a lot of merit.

So he's going to testify under oath now. And the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee are going to have a field day with it about what Emil Bove told him in terms of violating a federal judge's orders. It should lead to the disbarment of Emil Bove, to Drew Ensign, the lead lawyer who's been advocating these positions in court. This whistleblower says that Drew Ensign lied to the face of Judge Boasberg.

He's also lied to the face of Judge Zinnes in Maryland about Abrego Garcia and his involvement in MS-13. If I'm the federal judges, I call immediate hearings because they, Boasberg already found the administration in criminal contempt or probable cause for criminal contempt. It's been stayed by an appellate court. But now he's got the goods. Now he's got the evidence. Zinnes does too.

If I'm them, I hold immediate hearings using their inerrant authority to find contempt against the Department of Justice and the Trump administration based on this new evidence. I call this whistleblower in for sworn testimony to the judge in an evidentiary hearing. I then make a referral to the bar associations where these people have bar licenses and I get their bar licenses pulled. That's what I would do. That's what I think is going to happen.

Judge Zinnis is on the cusp of finding them, the Trump administration, in contempt related to Abrego Garcia. Sure, they've asked to have the case dismissed. We brought Abrego Garcia back, Judge, finally. Supreme Court told us to do it in April. We did it two weeks ago, you know, because we have an indictment now in Tennessee about human smuggling. I'll talk about that case in a minute and the lies there related to that.

So Zinnis and Boasberg now have the goods, now have the receipts, have the evidence to find the Trump administration in contempt and start throwing people in jail. So we got the DOJ insider whistleblower, another example of inside resistance to the Trump administration. We knew it would happen eventually. We've heard from people who have been interviewed here on Legal AF, the YouTube channel, and on Midas Touch, who have said there is a resistance.

that finds that Donald Trump is doing rogue, criminal, lawless things. They just don't know what they should do next. This whistleblower did. And he should get commended for this. Sure, he's going to sue for money related to it. He had his 15-year career. He was a nonpartisan prosecutor. He was given an award in 2020 for the top person in the civil division of the Department of Justice. The day of the secret meeting in which Emil Bove told him the lie to federal judges and tell them to go F off,

He got promoted to a new job. And then he got promptly fired because he was telling everybody internally, have you told them? Have you told the Department of Justice and Homeland Security about the judge's injunction? Why are you lying to courts? Why are you lying in filings? And they got rid of him and fired him.

So we're going to hear a lot about him. It's funny. His only picture that's online, including on his LinkedIn and full admission, he is a LinkedIn contact of mine, is a artist rendering of him in court. There's no known picture of him. If you can find it, let me know and send it to me. Then we have, let me move into

Before we take our first break, let me move into Judge Holmes in Tennessee about Abrego Garcia.

Now we're into our second theme, the lying theme. We have the F-bombs. Now we got the lying to magistrate judges. Magistrate judges in federal court handle a lot of the day-to-day when it comes to criminal matters. They handle bond and bail and conditions of release and discovery disputes between the government and privilege issues between the government and the defense, that type of thing. The judge in the case, Judge Crenshaw, sort of does the trial. But the day-to-day work, Judge Holmes does.

and a very well-respected magistrate judge. People want to be magistrate judges because they eventually want to become federal lifetime appointed judges, and it is a feeder program for that. She held, about two weeks ago, a full-day hearing in which an agent for Homeland Security testified. They brought in all the records from a 2022 traffic stop involving Abrego Garcia.

Apparently, by the way, he likes to be called Kilmer Abrego. I'm just so used to calling him Abrego Garcia, but let me call him Mr. Abrego for the duration. So Mr. Abrego's lawyers are there because, you know, and he's able, you know, he's there, but he doesn't testify.

And the judge hears from the transcripts, doesn't really have the witnesses, hears from the transcripts of a bunch of confidential informants who are in the human smuggling business, not trafficking, smuggling. The difference, as the judge pointed out, smuggling is sort of consensual. Hey, can you take me across the border, Mr. Mule? And I'll pay you for it. Trafficking is, you know, against their will exploitation. He's charged with smuggling, that he had nine guys in a car.

that the car was owned by a human smuggler, by a smuggler, and that he didn't have a good story when he got stopped by the Tennessee Highway Patrol about where he was going. He said he was going to a job site or coming back from St. Louis. May or may not be true.

In order to, the issue only for Judge Holmes is whether on the charges that have been brought against him, the two charges of human smuggling. And by the way, that's the only charges, not all the other things that Pam Bondi in violation of the Department of Justice manual has thrown the kitchen sink at Mr. Abrego.

not child pornography, not child endangerment, not abuse of women, not rape, not drug smuggling, not whatever else, just the two charges in the indictment. I'm funny that way. I like to rely on an indictment that went through a grand jury. And the judge said, okay, first of all, in order for me to hold him pre-trial, meaning there's a presumption of innocence in our criminal justice system, even under the Trump world,

And there's only three grounds I can use to hold somebody in pretrial, in detention before their trial, because they should be allowed out. That is the presumption. It's if they're going to obstruct justice, and I have evidence that they will. If they were involved, if there's charge with a crime involving a minor, hold that thought for a minute, or they're a flight risk. And she went through methodically all the witness testimony, which she said was double hearsay, because no witnesses were in her courtroom.

And she can't rely on the agent who's reading a transcript of somebody of what somebody else said. It's almost it's almost quite it's almost triple hearsay, which is not doesn't have a lot of credibility in a courtroom. She said, look, your first confidential informant has been convicted of a couple of felonies and has been deported five times. And you're about to let him out for cooperating. So he had every incentive to lie against Mr. Abrego.

The cooperating witness number two is his brother and three is his sister. And you can't even get your story straight about whether he is an MS-13 or not, the gang. And he said, and your grounds to try to keep him in is that there was a 15-year-old in the car. But that's based on a piece of paper with somebody's date scribbled on it for birth date, which I can barely read. And the witness is not here. And I don't even think that's what...

The statute means when it says a crime involving a minor really means like human trafficking for sex, that kind of thing. She said, I don't see any grounds for obstruction of justice or that he's in MS-13 or for a flight risk. Because even if he's convicted, I looked at the stats, he'll get 12 months. That's not enough for somebody to generate a flight risk.

So she is not going to hold him, Mr. Abrego, in pretrial detention concerning his criminal case. But she also acknowledged that he's also the subject of a parallel immigration proceeding to remove him to a country not named El Salvador.

And she has no control over that one. So the good news is he's not going to be detained pretrial. Bad news is he's just going to be shifted over in another government van to an immigration facility where he's going to be held, subject to what Judge Zinnis does in her courtroom, back to Judge Zinnis, because she's been lied to about Mr. Abrego. And this is continuing the theme of lying to federal judges or bringing bad or phony evidence to them.

When I come back from my first break here on The Intersection, I'm going to talk about the new and gut-wrenching Supreme Court decision about deportation and the dissent by Justice Sotomayor. I'm going to talk about Harvard's big win and why that should change their calculus of trying to settle with Donald Trump. And we'll do it all here on The Intersection. So many different ways to support what we do. I am primarily in two places.

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It's not a quiz, but the thematics for tonight's The Intersection are the F-bomb and the Trump administration and Department of Justice intentionally, willfully lying in courts and making unbelievable arguments. Which brings us to Harvard. And I'll end with the Supreme Court decision about immigration.

Harvard. Harvard's doing great in the courtroom. It's got a judge, Judge Burroughs in Massachusetts, and she just for the second time in about 10 days issued her second preliminary injunction in favor of Harvard and against the Trump administration. She found effectively that Trump, using his own words on social media posts, has been hell bent on animus on attacking Trump.

and retaliating against Harvard because they won't bend the knee to him, that they won't allow the administration to take over the fundamental freedoms of academia. Who's on their faculty, who they select as students, how they select those students, and what they teach.

And Harvard fought back. And Donald Trump ever since has tried to cut their funding, has tried to take them out of the game of having foreign students at all, which is a very lucrative proposition for universities. They make a lot of money out of foreign students. They do because they pay top dollar on tuition and Americans get a lot of student aid and grants and tuition. It's a dirty little secret of academia. It not only improves their education,

their teaching environment, their student life to have a balanced, diverse student body. I certainly went to a school that had exactly that and I came out better for it.

But it's also, you know, when you have 20, 25 percent of your faculty paying top dollar the rack rate of your students, I'm sorry, international students, it helps. Even though, you know, Harvard has a huge, the number one endowment, just millions of tens of hundreds of millions of dollars that they can invest, they still need to bring in revenue each year. And Donald Trump decided to go after him and hit him where they live, competition.

cut off their flow of foreign students under the false flag of rooting out anti-Semitism on campus. I'm all for that. This is not what's happening, though. And the judge went through all of Donald Trump's social media posts and said, this is you attacking Harvard and its faculty and its students having nothing to do with national security. See, Donald Trump's lawyers came to court and lied. And the judge said, it doesn't even pass the straight face test.

It strains credulity. It is beyond the bounds. It's absurd, is what she said. To have the Trump administration argue to her face, so another lie, that the only reason that they're cracking down on Harvard admitting certain visa types is

doing it two ways, right? One, they're trying to cancel Harvard's participation in the student exchange program on the government side. And then on the immigration side, they're trying to cancel the visas for people who had Harvard as a sponsor.

That's the newest preliminary injunction. And the judge says, this is completely based on animus, not national security. Look at the timing of the social media post by Donald Trump and the Department of Justice and the Trump administration says, no, no, no. They're days apart, these postings by Trump and the retaliatory conduct. There's no causal link. The judge said that is borderline, bordering on the absurd, and I don't believe it.

She said this is all animated by animus. This is all animated by Donald Trump being upset and the Trump administration being upset because Harvard is fighting back. This violates the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment. It violates the Administrative Procedures Act. And then she ends her decision, quoting George Washington and his farewell address to the officers, in which she said the First Amendment is so important that if we don't have it,

then we will just be silently led to the slaughter. She's not going to let Harvard be silently led to the slaughter. She's not going to let America's democracy be slaughtered by the Trump administration over her dead body. So she's granted another preliminary injunction. Now, I know there is reporting, including coming out of the New York Times, that seems to suggest that Harvard is on the cusp of cutting a deal. And I have said this

More times than I care to repeat, but I'll do it one more time. Don't settle. It sets a terrible precedent. You're in the driver's seat. You're winning in federal court. You'll win at the First Circuit as well, the appellate court. You'll probably win at the United States Supreme Court, but given their...

peculiar rulemaking, I can't guarantee it, but it is worth the fight. Just like the big law firms have to fight back. Anybody that's been picked on and retaliated against from this presidency has to fight back. Now, the reporting in the New York Times is like, well, Harvard is sort of squeamish because they know what it looks like optically, and they don't want to look like they're appeasing. They are appeasing. Don't appease.

You can't cut a deal. It's like cutting a deal with Hitler. And we know what happened next. Yeah. Don't be Poland at the time. Don't be Neville Chamberlain in the UK. Be Harvard.

Stand for the principles, the bedrock of your principles. Stand up on them. You are standing on the shoulders of ghosts of Harvard that would be turning over in their grave if they knew that you were thrown in the towel against the Trump administration, especially when you're winning. Don't do it. You got Judge Burroughs on your side. I was saying your back pocket, sorry. That suggests corruption. But you have her on your side.

And all the things I've been talking about tonight, the whistleblower letter, Judge Burroughs order, all up on the Legal AF Substack. You can take a look for yourself that I'm accurately reporting everything. So let me turn now to the Supreme Court's decision. We're waiting on a number of Supreme Court decisions.

In fact, there's at least about eight or nine left. We're still waiting for birthright citizenship to be ruled upon. We're waiting for things related, if you can believe it, to Obamacare and preventative health. We're waiting on things related to censorship in public school, related to the LGBTQ plus community. I can tell you how that one's going to turn out. And we just got this one. Now, this one floored me. It was really a punch to the solar plexus. Why?

not because I trust the Supreme Court, I don't, but in a six to three decision, and you can guess the six, the MAGA six, they've decided that it's okay for Donald Trump without any notice or really any due process to remove people and deport them to third countries they don't even live in or nor did they come from. And that are dangerously, empirically dangerous countries. We are now offloading

to countries that don't share our values accepting deportees without due process. And the Supreme Court says that's okay. And the most terrible thing about it is they did it like cowardly in a one paragraph decision. Now, technically they'll say, well, we didn't rule on the merits. The merits will be for another day. We just said we're going to block the injunction of the lower court that was affirmed by the first circuit

that would have stopped these types of deportations and removals to third countries until there's a full briefing. And a year from now, maybe we'll take a look at it. In the meantime, they're allowed to do it. And Justice Sotomayor, in her 20-page-plus dissent, said effectively, this is an abuse of power by the United States Supreme Court I've never seen before.

There should be no stay because the Supreme Court is not giving proper weight to the irreparable harm, including life or death and torture to be suffered by these human beings if the Supreme Court is wrong. And that they should err on the side of protecting an irreparable harm and allow the injunction to stand. Because what is the big difference? What's the big deal?

These people stay in America under Sotomayor's theory. They're not tortured in South Sudan or Libya, where they're not from. They're not tortured there in countries that don't share our values, but want our money and relationship with Donald Trump and are willing to take these people. They stay here.

We do the appeal. And then if it turns out that they were, they're not entitled to, or they got too much due process or not enough due process, that'll get cleaned up a year from now. What is the big deal? That we house them in the United States in the meantime? Once we send them to South Sudan, we're never going to see them again or hear from them again. And that's what the Supreme Court effectively just ruled. But they can sleep at night or they try to sleep at night by saying, well, we haven't ruled on the merits.

And Sotomayor said two things, effectively. This is an abuse of power by the Supreme Court, who's exercising their equitable authority to grant a stay when they shouldn't grant it under these circumstances. And they are burying their head in the sand about the human suffering and toll by this order blocking the injunction. Her other argument is the Trump administration has unclean hands. Now we're back to round out this episode with lying in court.

She cataloged from the record at least three or four different instances where the Trump administration and the Department of Justice has told a lie to the federal judge in Massachusetts about many of these people. And they got caught telling a lie or submitting improper or false evidence. The guy who was raped and tortured in Mexico, who was sent to Mexico,

And when they said, well, we have evidence, Judge, that he wanted to go to Mexico. She says, let me see that evidence. And then they had, after he was already sent to Mexico, they had to admit, oh, no, no, that evidence wasn't true. We didn't have the statement that we thought we had. What? And then they violated, and this goes back to the top of the intersection, the orders of Emil Bove, up for the Third Circuit.

to lie to federal judges, don't tell them the truth and tell them to go F off. Same thing happened to this judge in Massachusetts. They didn't give a guy due process or notice. They sent him to Sudan, South Sudan, over the judge's order, right? They're not even asking for forgiveness instead of permission. They're just doing it. They don't care. Pound sand judge taunting the judge.

And what Sotomayor said, we have a concept in the law. It's called unclean hands. It's what it sounds like. You can't come to the court and ask for their equitable powers to be used, in this case, to issue a stay of an injunction. That's a court sitting in equity as opposed to law. You can't ask for equitable powers if you yourself have unclean hands. And who has the dirtiest hands we can think of, especially when it comes to court proceedings? Donald Trump.

And she pointed to the series of unclean hands and said, how did we exercise our jurisdiction? That's part of the abuse of power. And so I regretfully dissent. We're going to have to put together in a coffee table book all the dissents beautifully written by Sotomayor, by Katonji Brown Jackson, by Kagan during this era, because they're going to be found to be in the right on the arc of history, because they're on the right side of the angels in their decisions.

And I've been around long enough to see when a Supreme Court today

is criticized by the Supreme Court in the future. It may be 10, 15, 20 years in the future, where they say, what were they thinking? They were under some sort of spell or cult of Donald Trump. They are warped. How did they make these decisions in violation of due process, Fifth Amendment fundamental rights? I thought, at least based on the rulings, all emergency applications from the summer

I thought that I understood where the Supreme Court's majority stood, six to three, about Fifth Amendment, that at least there needed to be a minimum of notice, due process, maybe by writ of habeas corpus to get people before a federal judge, before you send them to a prison or a deportation center or remove them from the country. But this decision is completely internally inconsistent with all the other prior decisions.

Another example of reverse engineering. They wanted to give the Trump administration a win to allow them to continue their depraved deportation program and emboldened and already drunk with power Donald Trump in this area. And they reversed course from their own precedent from the last 90 days to do so and got called out by Justice Sotomayor. And what we're also watching

is the Trump administration, but with the complicity of the United States Supreme Court, abusing and exploiting the shadow docket emergency application process to get their way at the United States Supreme Court. It's why they're winning like eight out of 12 at the Supreme Court, because they are not allowing the Supreme Court, which is a deliberative body, to deliberate. They're giving them no time.

By its very nature, an emergency application has limited briefing, two briefs, two written legal documents, not three. No oral argument. There is absolutely no oral argument. All the oral arguments that I put up on Legal AF for you to listen to,

are non-existent in the emergency application world. The courts could hold oral argument, they just choose not to, the majority. So no oral argument, short one brief, a record, which is the facts developed by the trial court, below that scant, skeletal, right, on a short fuse. The judge didn't have time below. So it's on an incomplete record, limited briefing,

No oral argument, and then no real time for deliberation. That's what the Supreme Court, when it excels, excels at that. Months go by between oral argument. Maybe additional briefing is requested. Then there's the circulation of opinions, long 50 to 100 page opinions back and forth, trying to convince hearts and minds.

Picture law clerks over pizza boxes, you know, circulating their justices' opinion. What will be the majority opinion? What will be a concurrence? What will be a dissent? Months go by. Draft opinions. Finally, there's a vote. The senior judge or the chief judge picks who's going to write the opinion or whose opinion is going to be the majority. And we have a ruling. None of that happens in the emergency world, and Donald Trump knows it. Bring the emergency application. Claim a phony emergency.

The Supreme Court has already said they don't care about irreparable harm. They don't care anymore if the lower court, the appellate court, ruled to refuse the stay or not. That used to be a factor. Oh, did the appellate court below grant the stay or deny the stay? Oh, they denied the stay? Oh, well then for us to overturn that. No, everything's being done de novo. Everything's being done from scratch as if they are a trial court instead of an appellate court.

And Donald Trump knows it because he knows in that environment of stampeding them, but with their complicity and their assent, the majority, the MAGA, it'll just break down along political lines. He'll get his five votes at least. Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, probably Roberts, probably Amy Coney Barrett when it counts. And that'll be the six against the three.

And Donald Trump is exploiting this over and over and over again. And the MAGA right wing is allowing it because they believe in a unitary, all-powerful, all-knowing president, almost an omnipotent, omniscient president. And they support that. So they are as guilty as Donald Trump is. I'm telling you how it happened, but it's done with the Supreme Court's complete consent. And there's nothing other than writing eloquent statements

opinions that hopefully will be the majority decision one day in the future. There's nothing for the other three, the moderates, the democratically, the democratic wing of the Supreme Court that they can do. I've been outnumbered before from my politics. As I've said, in more than 50 years, I've never known a Supreme Court that's ever been dominated by moderates,

Democrats or liberals ever. It's always been Republican dominated. Sometimes it's five to four, sometimes it's six to three, but it was always moderate versions of Republicans. And as I've said before, back in the old timey times, you know, somebody who's a Reagan, Goldwater Republican and somebody that's a Clinton, Obama Democrat, Kennedy Democrat were always like very, very close. I mean, there were some key Republicans

issues on social issues where we differed, reproductive rights and women's rights being first among them. So I don't want to minimize it. But on the majority of the 60 or 70 cases that a Supreme Court would take, there was a lot of unity. It was hard. It was hard to tell each other's positions apart. But that's over. That's over.

The Trump administration, MAGA, has yanked the court so far to the right and the alt-right that even those that we say are sort of in the center are still alt-right and so far right compared to their contemporaries that were the center of the court in past courts. Roberts is way to the right of somebody like Kennedy, who was the swing vote for much of his time on the court because he was a moderate Republican appointee.

Sandra Day O'Connor. Amy Coney Barrett is so far to the right of, even though she's considered the centrist vote on some level, she's so far to the right of somebody like Sandra Day O'Connor that this is like apples and bowling balls in the comparison. So there's going to be a lot more reporting on Midas Touch and on Legal AF.

YouTube channel about the last gasp of opinions to be dropped, mainly from the full-blown appeals, what we call the writ of certiorari appeals, which have the three briefs, the oral argument, the deliberation I described. But there's still a couple of emergency applications still floating around. Once the gate shuts at the end of June with the last opinion to drop, birthright citizenship and the rest, nationwide injunctions and the rest,

We're not done. It used to be like a year ago, two years ago. It used to be the summer was relatively quiet in the world of Supreme Court practice because the new term didn't open until the first Monday in October. There were emergency applications occasionally, but not a lot, especially during the Biden administration. But now?

They've had more than 20 emergency applications. There'll be at least another five or 10 before the summer is over. So stay close to home, the Supreme Court, because you're going to be ruling on many, many of these things. And because at the trial court level, Trump is losing because he deserves to 90% plus. Same thing at the appeals level. But he's winning. He's winning at about a 70% level at the United States Supreme Court. And I just described why.

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