Judge Catches Trump in Cover-Up that can Take Entire DOJ Down

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0:30Michael Popok:It's not just a fundamental abuse of prosecutorial power that was found by Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick today in the Comey case against Pam Bondi, the Department of Justice under Donald Trump and Lindsey Halligan, his prosecutor in the Eastern District. It's not just that. It's that the judge also has effectively found that a affidavit that was filed in one case just last week by Halligan and Bondi. That that means she's either lying to Judge Curry, who's trying to decide whether Lindsay Halligan was illegally appointed or not under a statute, or she's lying to Magistrate Judge Fitzpatrick in his case.

1:10Michael Popok:He's trying to decide whether the defense should get the grand jury transcripts to see how badly and poorly and unconstitutionally presented the case was by Lindsay Halligan in front of the grand jury. Judge Curry looked at the grand jury materials to decide for herself whether Lindsay Halligan should stay on as a prosecutor or not, or she should be bounced. And remember, Judge Curry, or I'll tell you now for the first time, Judge Curry last week questioned the two hours of missing grand jury proceedings. Lindsay Halligan decided to file a new affidavit after the hearing was over to solve the mystery of the two-hour missing grand jury proceedings.

1:48Michael Popok:She said there's nothing missing. It's when they were deliberating. But Judge Fitzpatrick, in his new opinion today, says that can't be true. She either, because either they got information from the grand jury through contact, which they should not have had, and they have lied to Judge Curry, or they're lying to me here in this court. Leave it to Lindsey Alligan and Pam Bondi to prepare a document in one case that kills them in another case. Does that surprise anybody? I'm Michael Popak. You're here on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network. Let's take a moment to look and unpack what is in this 24-page memorandum opinion by Judge Fitzpatrick.

2:25Michael Popok:There's two major issues. I'm only going to cover one here. One has to do with how the government has run roughshod over the attorney-client privilege relationship of James Comey and the way they used search warrant materials and the way they didn't use a proper search warrant, the way that they reviewed things, the way they presented that to the grand jury, all in violation of James Comey's attorney-client privilege relationship. That will be the grounds for a motion to dismiss the indictment, I assure you, now that the judge has ordered that the entirety of the grand jury material gets turned over to the defense.

2:58Michael Popok:See, up until now, only judges had the grand jury material. Judge Curry in her case about whether Lindsey Halligan should be dismissed as an illegally appointed federal prosecutor, U.S. attorney, and the case in front of the respective judges about the Comey and Letitia James case about whether the indictment should be dismissed for a vindictive prosecution or for infirmities and constitutional violations of rights during the grand jury process itself. Now, in the grand jury process itself, the judge, Judge Fitzpatrick found that Lindsey Halligan made two fundamental errors of constitutional law that every novice prosecutor knows, but not somebody who's only been a prosecutor for like 25 hours when she decided to go in and get her indictments.

3:45Michael Popok:Nobody even went with her, by the way. She was by herself. She practiced automobile insurance law before that in Florida. She was probably never in federal court. And they don't send down Pam Bondi or Todd Blanche or Stan Woodward or Jeanine Pirro or any of the people in the Department of Justice at a senior level, maybe who tried a case to go sit with her. I never let a young lawyer go in and handle their first anything without having a senior lawyer next to them and doing second chair. No, they sent her in by herself. So is it any surprise that she screwed it up? And what's the screw up? She left the impression with the grand jury that James Comey had to testify on his own defense.

4:25Michael Popok:And if he didn't, there could be an adverse inference, which is exactly the opposite. Under the Fifth Amendment privilege, you don't have to incriminate yourself. You don't have to testify. And the jury is instructed not to make an adverse inference based on that. But she said something that flipped it on its head. She also flipped the burden. which is a cardinal sin. The burden on proving the case and to convict somebody is beyond a reasonable doubt, and the burden sits with the prosecution, not the defense. The defense doesn't have to testify. The defense doesn't have to put on a defense. If the prosecutors never meet their burden, the person walks free, and he's already presumed innocent.

5:04Michael Popok:That's our system. No, she flipped it to suggest that he had to prove that the government's evidence was somehow not enough. That's just ridiculous, novice prosecutor, amateur hour, of course, to Comey's benefit. Now, here's the lie. And this is why be careful when you file things in other courts, because it might come back and bite you in the backside in this particular one. If you recall, I reported last week that Lindsey Halligan filed after the hearing went terribly for her and her lawyers before Judge Curry, sitting by designation of South Carolina federal judge, about whether she was illegally appointed under what we call Section 546 Vacancy Reform Act or not.

5:54Michael Popok:She didn't like the way that hearing went. She didn't like when the judge said there was two hours missing of grand jury transcripts. So she tried to answer the question. How this came up is the lawyer for the Department of Justice, Mr. Whitaker, said that Pam Bondi has ratified all that Lindsay Halligan did in the grand jury room. And Judge Curry said, how could she possibly ratify? That means approve after the fact. How could she do that if she doesn't know what happened? and he says he knew and Whitaker said she knew what he what she did in the room during grant and she says she couldn't have because there's a two hour missing gap in the grand jury transcript prepared by a court reporter.

6:37Michael Popok:Now they try to fix it by saying oh judge got it wrong she's been on the bench for 30 plus years she's a senior status federal judge she got it wrong okay she's handled thousands of criminal cases. Here's what they said Lindsay Allegan files this declaration which then kills her with Judge Fitzpatrick today. She writes, I, Lindsay Halligan, submit this declaration to confirm that the grand jury transcript accurately reflects the full extent of my appearance before the grand jury and to explain that the period in question consisted solely of the grand jury's private deliberations during which no prosecutor may be present.

7:15Michael Popok:There are no missing minutes contrary to the suggestion raised by the court. Okay. And she goes on. She was never in the room alone. She was never in the room again. It ended at 4, 28 p.m. That was the ballgame. Except the indictments were not returned until 6.40 or 6.50 at night. And there was a major screw up by her in her office where she presented to the magistrate judge, a different one, the indictments. And the magistrate judge said, why do I have two indictments? Why are there two signed indictments, one with two counts and one with three. So to fix that, she had to bring the jury foreperson back and the prosecutor back, Halligan, to talk about it, right?

7:57Michael Popok:But never reflected. Then Bondi compounds the error, the lie, by filing a new ratification the day after the hearing last week in which she says, I now know everything that happened in that room, except for the two hours, and I ratify everything that she did. Here's how the judge addressed that. Ever wake up sweaty, freezing, or just plain uncomfortable? The temperature in your bedroom can make or break your sleep. That's why I switched to Miracle Made Sheets. They're inspired by NASA technology and use silver-infused temperature-regulating fabric to help you sleep perfectly all night long. With Miracle Made, you'll sleep at the perfect temperature.

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9:21Michael Popok:You'll save over 40%. And when you use promo code legal AF, you'll get an extra 20 % off plus a free three-piece towel set. They make an amazing gift. And with a 30-day money-back guarantee, there's no risk. That's trymiracle.com slash legal AF, code legal AF at checkout. Thanks to Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. and hoisted them on his own petard. He says on page 16, finally, the record is well established that the grand jury was originally presented with a three-count indictment signed by the prosecutor. The grand jury, however, rejected count one of the original indictment and found probable cause as to the two remaining.

10:03Michael Popok:At some point, the prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan, prepared and signed a second indictment that removed count one. At the return of the indictment, the government presented both the first and second indictments to the magistrate judge. The first indictment indicated that the grand jury failed to find probable cause. The second indicated that they found probable cause. Both indictments are fully executed by the grand jury foreperson or the prosecutor. So now we got two indictments that are inconsistent with each other. Presented with two facially inconsistent indictments, magistrate judge Fitzgerald says, The magistrate judge at the time continued to question the grand jury foreperson and the prosecutor to unwind this procedural knot.

10:46Michael Popok:The magistrate judge then accepted the return of the second indictment. The second indictment was a new indictment, and therefore the undersigned Judge Fitzpatrick concluded after reviewing the grand jury transcript that the prosecutor would have been present for the second indictment to present it to the grand jury for consideration before it was returned in open court. That's what he thought when he reviewed the grand jury transcript. It now appears that may not have happened because on November 14th, last week, the prosecutor filed a declaration, which I just read to you, with the court attempting to address the issue of whether the transcript of the grand jury was full and complete.

11:29Michael Popok:The prosecutor stated that after the grand jury was left to deliberate on the first indictment at 428, she had no further contact with the grand jury. She further stated that at approximately 640, she was notified by the then first assistant U.S. attorney, that's Maggie Cleary. She's been fired since then, by the way, that the grand jury returned a true bill on only two of the three counts. The prosecutor, according to her declaration, then proceeded to the courtroom for the return of the indictment. The hearing on the return of the indictment began at 647 p.m. Footnote 14 or 11. if the court is to read the prosecutor's declaration as suggesting that there was no contact between any government official and the grand jury after 4 28 p.m.

12:17Michael Popok:that then it begs the question of how the then first assistant learned that the grand jury had refused to indict on one count and how the first assistant knew which count had been rejected to the grand jury all before the indictment was returned in open court. In other words, how did Maggie Cleary know to tell her, tell Halligan, that the jury had not returned an indictment on one of them if she didn't have contact with the grand jury or by Maggie Cleary having contact with the grand jury? Where is the affidavit of Maggie Cleary? It's missing because they fired Maggie Cleary, making Lindsey Halligan's statement a lie.

12:56Michael Popok:And that's what the judge is saying. So this is an example where, oh, what a tangled web we weave. They filed an affidavit. One of these two things can't be true. Somebody's lying, and it's likely Lindsey Allegan and Pam Bondi. Somebody lied to either Judge Curry or Judge Fitzpatrick. because if Maggie Cleary, who's no longer here, I think they should call Maggie Cleary in, by the way, to be examined by the judge. If Maggie Cleary was the first assistant, which she's identified as being, how did she learn if she didn't learn it from the grand jury? And if no government official was ever with the grand jury, how did they learn about the fact that there were two indictments and one of them was wrong?

13:39Michael Popok:Big problem. Here's how the judge concluded. He made 11 findings as required by the federal judge, Nekmanov. In the 11th finding, he has ordered, he says that the grand jury transcripts on page 22 and recording do not likely reflect the full proceedings because although it is clear that a second indictment was prepared and presented to the grand jury, the transcript and audio recordings of the proceedings do not reflect any further communications after the grand jury began deliberating on the first indictment. Where is the second indictment deliberations? That's what everybody wants to know. And where is Maggie Cleary?

14:19Michael Popok:That's the other issue. So he's ordered the grand jury materials to be turned over to the defense so they can use it for their motion practice. He also made a series of findings that the attorney-client privilege relationship was violated for James Comey, that there are infirmities in the way that Lindsay Halligan presented her case to the grand jury, which can now be used by James Comey and then later on by Letitia James, because I'm sure the same things happened with her, to get their indictments dismissed. This is bombshell news. The indictment is on beyond, barely on life support against Comey, likely Letitia James too.

14:58Michael Popok:And Halligan, she should resign because she's going to get canned by Judge Curry. I have no doubt about that. Till my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Come over to Legal AF YouTube channel. help us get to 1 million subscribers in the next two or three weeks. Until my next report, this is Michael. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in 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.

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