Blanche Crashes Ahead of Confirmation Hearing

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0:45Michael Popok:Seven days from today, one week from today, Todd Blanche will be sitting in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee answering hard questions about whether he's fit to be the Attorney General of the United States. And I am here to make the case against Todd Blanche, tie together all of the things that have happened under his leadership, his compromising, his independent judgment, his unwillingness to be an independent Attorney General, continuing to be the private criminal defense lawyer that he's always been for Donald Trump. Not only does he demonstrate an unwillingness to be independent from Donald Trump, to be willingly captured by Donald Trump, he brags about it.

1:31Michael Popok:He thinks it's a sign of honor that he continues to be and show fealty to the president of the United States over his obligation sworn to uphold the Constitution and to defend the Constitution against the tax and the rule of law by the Trump administration. He thinks it's a good thing that he continues to see Donald Trump as his personal client. I'm Michael Popok. You're on Legal AF. Let me make the case. Let's start with all of the examples where indictments have been dismissed by his Department of Justice or by judges because of fraud, corruption, vindictive prosecution. Everything I'm going to lay out for you now is a first in the history of the Department of Justice.

2:22Michael Popok:Once proud, once proud, now circling the drain of history as the worst and most corrupted Department of Justice in history. We'll start with the first time, but not the last time, a defendant was able to convince a judge that he had been vindictively prosecuted by Todd Blanche's Department of Justice. And I'm talking about Kilmer Abrego Garcia, middle district of Tennessee, in front of Judge Crenshaw. It was so bad, the vindictive prosecution, that the Department of Justice didn't even bother to try to carry its burden to defeat the motion to dismiss. All they had to do was put Todd Blanche under oath and let him testify to Judge Crenshaw.

3:06Michael Popok:And of course, they refused. Todd Blanch will never testify in a courtroom under oath about anything. And so that motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution, a badge of dishonor against the Department of Justice granted. Now let's move to Chicago and the troubled U.S. attorney's office there. There, the prosecutor themselves have had to dismiss a series of indictments in numerous cases because of fraud and corruption and abuse of the grand jury system by its own prosecutors. Obviously succumbing to the pressure Todd Blanche placed on them in Washington. This is extraordinary. a Department of Justice run now by Todd Blanche, has to walk into courts, multiple courts, and ask for a dismissal of an indictment they just obtained by a grand jury because of prosecutorial misconduct.

4:04Michael Popok:Never in the history of the Department of Justice have so many cases have had to be dismissed by the Department of Justice itself because of fraud or corruption or, in this case, abuse of process. This is on top of cases such as in Minnesota that had to be dismissed for false testimony being provided by the Department of Justice through ICE officers or false documents having to be admittedly used in court proceedings. This is all lays at the feet of Todd Blanche. Grand juries around the country rejecting and not indicting when the Department of Justice comes calling and asking for indictments of Donald Trump's political enemies lays at the feet of this guy, Todd Blanche.

4:54Michael Popok:300 judges, former state and federal judges from the appellate level down to the district court level, have joined together, right, led by former federal judge, appellate judge, J. Michael Luttig, Nancy Gertner, another federal judge, 300 of them. And they file briefs and motions to provide advice and counsel to current judges about how to handle the out-of-control and rogue Department of Justice under Todd Blanche. Their existence for the first time in history, speaking out and filing briefs and motions, is a result, a byproduct of the corruption that has been presided over and led by Todd Blanche as the Attorney General.

5:39Michael Popok:We also have the Jan, let's now let's turn to the, I was going to do Epstein files. Let's do Jan 6th first. The creation of the Jan 6th fund, an inquisition being held right now by Judge Williams in Miami federal court as to whether there has been a fraud on the court. Deception of the court led by the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche and Donald Trump's current personal lawyers to create a fake lawsuit, to create a phony cover for a settlement agreement with the IRS to create the Jan 6 fund. And that we're waiting any moment now. And if I know Judge Williams, it'll come out hopefully before Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing one week from today, her ruling about whether there's been fraud on the court.

6:34Michael Popok:Again, a badge of fraud and dishonor on Todd Blanche's leadership of the Department of Justice. The fact that he's being accused of unethical things, of fraudulent things in court. Not the first time. dozens of judges around the country, federal judges, have observed that you cannot believe or trust a thing the Department of Justice says or does in their courtroom, that they are lying. They are not being given any longer the presumption of regularity, a presumption that had stood for decades, where you start from the position that the Department of Justice is acting in good faith. Those days are over.

7:19Michael Popok:Nobody believes that under Todd Blanche. Not grand jurors, not jurors, not federal judges, not former federal judges. Then you've got a thousand, a thousand or more alumni of the Department of Justice representing their leadership, the heads of divisions, criminal and civil and appellate, who have all joined together and penned a letter to the senators on the Justice Committee, on the Judiciary Committee, opposing Todd Blanche. over a thousand members of the Department of Justice. And I haven't even yet gotten to the Epstein scandal and Todd Blanche's role in it. Now, if you can't remember who I'm talking about during this hot take, as I put together the case against Todd Blanche, let me show you a couple of clips of Todd Blanche in action.

8:16Michael Popok:One, where his feathers get ruffled because a senator calls him out for being the personal attorney of Donald Trump. And a second where he says he loves the president, blows him kisses, and says effectively that a lack of independence by the Department of Justice and the executive branch, that's a good thing. Let's play those clips back to back. The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact, but I'm the acting attorney general. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer would do something. The acting attorney general will do something. Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney.

8:53Will you agree that before you proceed with this fund, a federal judge will sign off and approve it? Will you agree to that? Federal judge. Any independent authority? What does that mean, an independent authority? It means not somebody who's getting to pick five of the members who is the president's former personal attorney. That would be somebody who would be independent. I'm the acting attorney general. The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact. but I'm the acting attorney general. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something. The acting attorney general will do something.

9:22Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney. And that's the whole problem. You've got his whole, you have a whole banner of his face hanging over the Department of Justice and you and everybody else walks under it. And you are acting like you're his current personal attorney. Mr. Chairman, I have no further questions. He appeared to be expressing frustration that the department wasn't actually following through on his wishes. I don't agree with that. I think the president wears what he thinks. He doesn't keep things from the American people. So yes, does he think things were going too slowly?

9:59Yes. Are things moving slowly? We have four years. So he is somebody who has high expectations for his cabinet and for this administration. It's not just the Department of Justice. It's in every single area. And so that type of communication from President Trump should make every American happy because it means that there's an executive, a chief executive that is making sure every one of his cabinet members are working as hard as they should. So telling us, telling any of us that we need to move quicker, that we need to make sure we're focused completely on mission. I know that there's a part of this country that takes that with shock and awe.

10:34But that's the same. That's the same president that we have had for four years and now for another year and a half. and it's why we're having so much success. I mean, if you look at the things that are happening today, it's tomorrow's tax day. There's a whole reformation happening. There's now no tax on tips. So you have thousands and thousands of workers in this country who need it the most, who get a meaningful break. You have a new fraud task force. That's all President Trump. We are going to focus very, very heavy on the fraud and waste that's happening across this country through our tax dollars.

11:06That's because the president is a driver of results. And so I don't have any issues with that. And as a matter of fact, I think it's why he was elected.

11:13Michael Popok:Now let's turn to the Epstein scandal, shall we? Because as we know from Pambandi, as we know from the reporting by The New York Times in the Situation Room, Todd Blanche is at the center of it all. He has been calling the shots about the Epstein files and slow footing, slow walking, failing to produce, over-redacting, and there's still only about half of the total files that have ever been produced have been produced. And it's taken multiple lawsuits against Todd Blanch and the Department of Justice in order to even get courts to order full production. We got a case going on right now, Katie Fang on this channel, on this station, brought against Todd Blanche in order of a court that Todd Blanche ignored.

12:05Michael Popok:There was a July 2nd deadline by Judge Emmett Sullivan, came and went with a shoddy submission by Todd Blanche that effectively said, we're not producing any more documents. bringing this to a head in Judge Sullivan's courtroom about a day or two before the confirmation hearing on the 15th. Todd Blanche won't testify at a courtroom despite being given numerous opportunities by courts to testify, to explain his position. He refuses to do that because he's a coward. Now, we know that Todd Blanche was involved and has called the shots on the production of the Epstein files. We know that he's been fighting against producing any more of them.

12:56Michael Popok:In fact, there is a case, and later today I'm going to have on, the head of American Oversight. American Oversight brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to force the Department of Justice to turn over everything they have about Todd Blanche related to Jeffrey Epstein, the Epstein documents, Ghislaine Maxwell, her pardon, immunity, her transfer of bureau prisons, reward for giving testimony, and all information about Mar-a-Lago and his role and his contacts, perhaps, with Judge Cannon. and he objects and he refuses to produce because he's a coward. Now, the things that I've just outlined from the Epstein files, the opposing alumni, the opposing federal judges, the Jan 6 fund, the fraud on the court, the vindictive prosecution findings, the dismissals of indictments by his own Department of Justice because of fraud that even they had to admit to, investigations into the settlement agreement that he entered into the day after Jan 6th.

14:05Michael Popok:The Jan 6th fund was created by himself, unilaterally trying to give a super pardon to not only Donald Trump, not only Donald Trump and his family, Donald Trump, his family, and other affiliates unnamed who now appear to have some sort of pardon for past and future criminal conduct, misconduct, and IRS liability. These are the categorical topics that have to be covered by senators when they cross-examine Todd Blanche. wholly unqualified to be the independent attorney general of the United States. Plain and simple. That's why there are bar complaints against his bar license pending in New York for all of the things that I just outlined.

15:04Michael Popok:I'm going to continue to follow it. You know where to go to watch the live stream of that cross-examination of that confirmation hearing here. Legal AF under the live tab. We'll be live streaming it. I'll do a pregame show and then we'll go right into the first question asked after some sort of statement by Todd Blanche. And we're going to continue to platform this issue to try to defeat him from being confirmed. You're here on Legal AF. If you like this kind of content, hit the free subscribe button. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF sub stack.

15:41Michael Popok:Every time we mention something and a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe. From lashes for days with the Viral Liquid Lash Extensions Mascara to awakening your eyes with lift and color from the brilliant eye brightener, Thrive Cosmetics is the go-to when you want to amplify your everyday look.

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