Legal AF - 6/13/2026

18:53Michael Popok:All this shit that we're going to have to take down and pay for, you know, come when the Democrats get control. You know, I have a thought about what the ballroom should be used for when the Democrats get control of the White House. And I think it should be dedicated, It should be split into a museum, half of which is a wax museum about all of Trump's and his enablers and the insurrection. And the other half should be an Epstein survivors and victims commemorative or memorial. Maybe you take that Epstein-Trump library and you stick it in there, but it shouldn't be used as a ballroom. The next president should not acquiesce to Donald Trump's lawlessness and use it for its intended purpose.

19:38Michael Popok:I'm just sorry. I just don't think that should happen. On the Kennedy Center, it was very clear. 94-page decision, so clear that the general counsel of the Kennedy Center sent out a memo a week ago that instructed his staff to start taking the name down. Take it down from the website, take it down from emails, take it down from literature and postings and signs. In fact, Judge Cooper referred to that yesterday when he said, how can it be irreparable harm? You've already started the process of changing the name. It just seems to be the public letter thing that bothers you. And so they ran to Judge Cooper, having sort of ignored the name for a long time.

20:18Michael Popok:In fact, I thought they weren't going to fight the name change any longer. They were going to fight the closure. the closure. They didn't like the fact that they couldn't close the thing for two years, and they were considering their options there. But no, lo and behold, last minute, they throw in an emergency motion to stop the judge's order that the name come down by Friday. And Judge Cooper, who got mercilessly attacked, side note, by Donald Trump, as always, not only Cooper, but his wife, you know, in his social media posts, Chris Cooper's wife doesn't even have his name. She doesn't even carry his name.

20:52Michael Popok:She's embarrassed. I'm like, are you kidding me? That's how you go after a man's wife, judge's wife, you know, in the middle of all of this? So now they got to run back to the same Judge Cooper. I mean, at least Judge Cooper didn't bury his wife on the 19th hole of a golf course. I mean, if you want to talk about how you treat your wives or vice versa. So this is how Judge Cooper enters his order with a little dig at Donald Trump and his administration at the very end in denying he's the first stop on the train. Can I get the district court judge to stay his own order so I can appeal? And he goes through it.

21:30Michael Popok:We'll post it up here on the screen. It says effectively that you haven't made out a reparable injury given that there'll be de minimis resources that would be required to restore the name if you in on appeal, and you've already taken substantial steps towards complying. He notes a June 4th memo, which you and I reported on, from the Kennedy Center's Office of General Counsel, directing everybody to comply with the permanent injunction on the renaming. This shows that you don't have irreparable harm. Then at the end, now this is a little bit gratuitous, although I'm glad he included it, a little bit of a dig at Trump, starts with what's more, last sentence, what's more, issuance of a state pending appeal would not be in the public interest, which is rarely served by the perpetuation of unlawful governmental action.

22:22Michael Popok:And then he cites a case. So Trump gets that from the judge. They run off to an appellate panel, and they pull a terrible panel for them randomly. They pull three judges led by Judge Millett. If that name sounds familiar, it's because she just presided over the ballroom hearing in which she asked that, you know, there was that SEAL Team 6 moment where instead of SEAL Team 6, can Trump use SEAL Team 6 to kill Biden, get away with it, as came up in the immunity appellate case. She asked, are you saying that if Donald Trump wanted to destroy and knock over the Statue of Liberty, nobody would have standing to come into court for the court to rule on that?

23:05Michael Popok:And the lawyer for the Department of Justice Yakov Roth said yes. So that Judge Millett, the judge that they spent a considerable amount of time saying that she doesn't have jurisdiction over anything related to the administration. They now want her and her and the rest of her group to issue an administrative stay on an emergency basis. The other judge is Judge Wilkins. Millett, Wilkins, and Pallard all came on with the same class. They're all classmates appointed by Obama in 2013. Wilkins and Millett have been on hundreds of appellate panels together. They work really well together. And then you have Judge Katzis, who's the Trumper.

23:48Michael Popok:Now, I would have thought the Trumper would have at least dropped a footnote when they denied the emergency motion for administrative stay and said, I would have ruled for the stay. Nope. He didn't even think an administrative of stay to stop the letters coming down was worth it right now. Instead, they're doing a full briefing schedule on the issue, which will happen throughout the month of June, and then they'll make their decision. But with Millett and Wilkins, I don't think Trump is going to be a winner, just my view, especially given the ballroom arguments that were made without real credibility by those advocates.

24:26Michael Popok:God forbid, Yakov Roth shows up again, which he could because they have a very thin bench here at the Department of Justice. Could be the same guy again. By fact, when you and I start talking about Judge Brinkema, there is an overlap of a lawyer in two cases a day apart, which did not serve him well. But that just shows you how brain-drained the Department of Justice is. They got to trot out these people. Look, sometimes, I'm sure, Ben, you've done it too, Sometimes, you know, advocates, you know, if I've argued a bunch of cases in a row or I'm not getting great results from a judge, I've been known if you're a mature lawyer and you're doing your client service, you'll say, I'm not resonating with this judge.

25:11Michael Popok:And you'll turn it over to an associate or another partner. I've done that. Or vice versa. It's like, I keep getting losses with this person. Can you go in and argue it? They don't have that option here because there's not that many people that still work for the Department of Justice. And we're starting to see how those chickens are coming home to roost.

25:28Ben Meiselas:Yeah, they also are so delusional that they keep, you know, or just are so arrogant and narcissistic or just so malicious. They really don't care. Like when we talk a little bit about the filings that are taking place in the Miami Federal Court regarding the collusive settlement between Trump and Trump, where in the$10 billion lawsuit, Trump's lawyers attacks the judge. Judge, you don't know what you're doing. Essentially, I'm simplifying it. You don't know what you're doing. You don't have jurisdiction. This was a real settlement. Stay the hell away from it. Not a great way to speak to a federal judge.

26:06Ben Meiselas:And this is how the Trump DOJ approaches it. That's why we'll talk a little bit later in the show as well about even Trump appointed judges saying the behavior borders on the surreal. And because there is no presumption of regularity anymore in the DOJ, we view things very differently. I'll talk about it on this episode as well very briefly. But the entire federal courthouse in Chicago right now is tainted by grand jury misconduct, quite literally, like almost every case. There's been voucher, let's talk about it right now, where the federal prosecutors have gone into the grand jury and committed misconduct.

26:43Ben Meiselas:the Broadview six case, right? The six individuals who were protesting peacefully outside of Broadview who were then arrested by the Trump regime. They were able to get the DOJ transcripts. And it turned out the prosecutor was basically saying, all right, I'm going to vouch, like literally said that I'm going to vouch right now. It's Friday. I only bring you good cases. I need you to get me an indictment here. I'm going to show you some other cases. I'm only going to bring you the good cases. Okay. And because of that, other cases said, whoa, whoa, whoa, you committed grand jury misconduct judge we want to see the grand jury transcript and now what's coming out is that the trump regime on a nationwide level has been engaged in grand jury misconduct and all these criminal defense lawyers are getting cases dismissed with very serious allegations on procedural grounds i mean people who are involved in heinous and horrible conduct they're presumed innocent until guilty they're getting off as well not just the high profile trump weaponized ones these other cases also so i covered it right there all right let's take our first quick break of the show a reminder um subscribe to our youtube channel but most importantly subscribe to michael popock's youtube channel subscribe to the legal af youtube channel subscribe to the legal af sub stack also if you or somebody who's been injured in a car accident auto accident if you've been injured by the negligence of a company or the negligence of a third party in some you know you know horrible situations popock represents people in if you know somebody who's been injured or sadly killed in an accident, reach out to the Popak Firm.

28:09Ben Meiselas:Don't be shy. 877-POPAK-AF is the phone number or visit thepopakfirm.com. They've got lawyers available 24-7. The consultation is free. Seriously, he's representing a lot of people who listen and watch this show. So really, don't be shy. Call him up. 877-POPAK-AF or visit thepopakfirm.com. All right, let's take our first quick break of the show.

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31:15Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors who make this show possible. Support our sponsors. They support our show. Let's get back into it. Michael Popak, just as the Trump regime quite literally covering up the removal of Donald Trump's name, vandalizing the Kennedy Center. They continue to cover up the Epstein files. It's one of the totality of circumstances that led to this unlawful and catastrophic war in Iran as we were all getting closer to finding out more and more and more what's really in the Epstein files. And of course, identifying this massive Trump regime cover up.

31:50Ben Meiselas:Lots of people believe, and I'm one of them, that one factor, there's a lot of factors, but one of those factors was the continued cover up of the Epstein files for this catastrophic war. Now the coverup obviously continues. Pam Bondi refused to go under oath as Howard Lutnick refused to go under oath. Both refused to be videotaped for their depositions. Bondi refused to answer questions that predate 2025. Questions 2025 on. She refused to answer any questions about communications with Trump or anybody in the executive branch. I mean, what else would you be asking her? What did you do on vacation in 2020?

32:27Ben Meiselas:What do you think you're going to be asking her. All the questions are going to be, what did you tell this person? What do you speak to that person? Sorry, I can't answer privilege. Privilege. It's not a valid privilege claim to cover up child sex trafficking, but that's what they're going with. Oh, and then if you ask Pam Bondi a question that was not who did you speak to or what did you say? Like, so did the DOJ, are you aware if the DOJ did search terms to try to find Trump and did the DOJ They try to, you know, delete or destroy files and photos and audio and things that have Trump's name on it or that involve Donald Trump.

33:00Ben Meiselas:I don't recall. You don't recall that. That's something you don't recall, really. Like that's not a significant import that you would delete documents and videos and photos of the president. You don't recall that. Well, now we're learning even more about this cover up. The cover up has been a major topic. And I think we all intuitively knew this was taking place, but a bombshell expose by the New York Times, Maggie Haberman, she put in a book out called Regime Change, where they talk about J.D. Vance leading multiple meetings in the situation room, in the situation room, where they would say things like, well, like there are emails where people allege that Donald Trump, you know, has these sick, disgusting nipple fetishes with these girls.

33:46Ben Meiselas:and, you know, should we release these emails? I mean, it's literally, I mean, these are discussions happening in the situation room. And then you would have like Bondi and Wiles, we can't release that email. And then J.D. Vance is like, but people know that he's got a sick, dark past. So let's just release it. I mean, that's how this was. And then Dan Bongino is always involved in like crying. Like the way Dan Bongino is always described the former FBI director, he always like is like crying and like running away. Like the job's like too much for him, you know, and he like breaks down. At least that's how it's being described.

34:24Ben Meiselas:So that was the bombshell reporting there. We'll get into more detail, of course. Then on Capitol Hill, they have Leslie Groff, Epstein's assistant, who appears in the files like 170 ,000 times. Again, the MAGAs refused to have her testify under oath or on video camera. Again, it's one of these informal interviews. It's like, come on. But we know that she did, Leslie Groff did say that she would, not infrequently, I mean, frequently, she would book meetings between Trump and Epstein. But guess what? She doesn't recall how many times, but she knew it was enough, but she doesn't recall how many times.

35:04Ben Meiselas:And so one of the things that Democrats have been saying also is, all right, look, let's get Attorney General or Acting Attorney General Todd Blanchett here right now, Donald Trump's former criminal defense attorney. I think I always got to mention that, that Trump's former criminal defense attorney in a case where Trump was found liable of dozens of felony counts is the acting attorney general. And boy, has he behaved like Donald Trump's criminal defense lawyer, if you know what I mean. That's how he's behaving. And anyway, so let's let's depose this guy under oath. Like, let's do a whole here.

35:36Ben Meiselas:Like, If we care about transparency, we shouldn't be you're a Democrat or a Republican or an independent, like, just like, like, let's let it out. I mean, just as an aside too, I did a video about it this morning, like Butler, Pennsylvania too. Like, you know, why are you redacting all of these files? Like, why aren't you turning over the files about what really happened in Butler, Pennsylvania? Just release them. And then, and then Trump's former like top legal advisor guy, even though the guy's not a lawyer, Tom Fitton had to do a FOIA request to get the Butler, Pennsylvania documents. And those files are being covered up.

36:07Ben Meiselas:All of those are redacted from July 2024. And now the Trump regime is like Tom Fitton is fake news clickbait. He's literally Trump's guy. You don't get much closer to Trump before this term than Tom Fitton when it comes to these types of things. And Fitton had to sue Trump. And then once he got the documents, it was all redacted. And then they called them clickbait for saying that there were communications in there between Thomas Crooks, the alleged shooter, and police before the incident took place. It's like, OK, then just release the files. You know, just release it. But you know what the Trump regime did on Friday?

36:42Ben Meiselas:They're like, OK, we've got more alien files for you, more UFOs. That's what you want, right, everybody? The UFO files. We got some orbs, northeastern orbs. It's like, OK, I mean, I don't not want that. But that's not what we're like. That's not what we're looking for. That's not what we're looking for right now. And then you have Tulsi Gabbard go. How about I'm releasing. This is her last act as the ODNI as the head of the ODNI director of national intelligence. She goes, I'm releasing all of this information about U.S. biolabs across the world. But basically, she only mentions Ukraine gain of function.

37:16Ben Meiselas:You know, one of the conspiracies is that biolab gain of function research out of Ukraine and elsewhere was one of the things that developed COVID. And this was used by Russia as a pretext when Russia invaded Ukraine, that we have to get rid of the biolabs with Ukraine and the U.S. To be clear, there's biological research that takes place across the country. But this idea of like a biolab that is developing these weapons of mass destruction. And that's why Russia invaded. That's what the head of ODNI did, which is just pure Russian propaganda on on Fridays. That's what they did release, what they didn't release.

37:51Ben Meiselas:Popak, I'm going to turn it over to you just to take the rest of the segment. But let me just show everybody what James Comer said about should we be deposing Blanche? Here's what he said. Let's play it. Frankie Humbero Garcia said he put in a formal request with you to have Todd Blanche subpoenaed. Are you going to act on that subpoena? Will Todd Blanche become? You know, Todd Blanche came to speak to us for a briefing and the Democrats got up and tiptoed out and ran to the press clutching their pearls in outrage. What a wasted opportunity. We had Todd Blanche and Pam Bondi in there. He's always wants Garcia.

38:24Ben Meiselas:Always wants more. Popak like you always want more. Popak, isn't that like the idea of like what you do in an investigation when you uncover a little? You're supposed to want more. And then you why are you asking for additional details? I don't know, because there's a lot of rent, like that's what you do. Make it make sense, Popak.

38:40Michael Popok:Yeah, make it make sense, Popak. Yeah, I'll try. So look, there's going to be impeachments and criminal investigations coming out of Maggie Haberman's reporting in the New York Times. She has one or more moles. This is the leakiest administration I've ever seen. Thank God for that. And she has copious notes. I mean, when you read that article, the freak out session in the Situation Room is a paraphrase of the title. Freak out referring to J.D. Vance sweatily freaking out because he was the only one in the room, including Susie Wiles, James Blair, Kash Patel, and Pam Bondi phoning in. hold that thought because I've got an idea about the leak.

39:29Michael Popok:Todd Blanche, Stan Woodward, Stephen Chung, and others in the room, all trying to conspire, like in the Ron Contra, on how to cover up a maybe criminal or statutory violations by the Trump administration about the Epstein files and the Epstein Transparency Act, and later adopted. And every one of those people who are quoted. That's why Maggie's reporting is so brilliant, because somebody is taking either copious notes and having turned them over to her, or they recorded what was going on in the Situation Room and those events. Now, you can't, it's hard to literally record with an electronic device in the sit room for obvious reasons.

40:17Michael Popok:But two people phoned in. And according to Maggie, that was Pam Bondi and Kash Patel. Now, does anyone put it past Kash Patel to have Dan Bongino in the room with him to talk about the Epstein files since they made their bones as podcasters promoting getting to the bottom of the Epstein? I mean, they also had conspiracy theories related to the Epstein files and the Democrats. But I mean, I definitely can picture Dan Bongino in the room. I can picture one or both of them recording it. Who would put it past the director of FBI hitting a record button? And Pam Bondi, I mean, the fact, even though Bondi and Patel were at each other's throats and blamed each other for undermining each other, they were also on mutual thin ice in the administration.

41:02Michael Popok:And that's the kind of person that takes notes and copious notes, you know. And there's other people that are trying to save their own hide, too. I mean, I wouldn't put it past somebody like Stephen Chung, even though he's disgusting, in confirming some reporting. Because he's also worried about, this is when you put crabs in a bucket. and they fight their way out, which is what we're watching. You know, it's every man for himself with a sinking administration. Her reporting was too crystal clear. It wasn't like, well, it wasn't like passive voice. Somebody may have said, this was quotes, quotes.

41:39Michael Popok:And so Robert Garcia, Representative Garcia, issues an immediate letter to Comer and says, this is a massive cover-up that has now been disclosed at the highest level of senior leadership of the Trump administration. The only person not in the room was Donald Trump, but he was in the room because Haberman reports that Trump made it clear he wanted nothing to do with the disclosure of the documents. He did not want them disclosed. At best, what they wanted was a gesture, listen to this term, Ben, a gesture of transparency. Not transparency, a gesture. Like you said, we need to distract our masses that follow us.

42:20Michael Popok:Release the JFK files again. Release the Martin Luther King file. Release the UFO files. How about release the Epstein files in full transparency? So Trump didn't want it. So that warped the decision-making of everybody in that room. And the best line, there's two great lines that come out of the reporting. One is Stephen Chung quoted as saying, giving a pardon to Ghislaine Maxwell, who's been convicted of girl child sex trafficking, would be a PR nightmare. That's an understatement. See, he always puts things, not in terms of morality, not in terms of doing what's right or what's lawful, a PR nightmare.

43:00Michael Popok:Yeah, I think it is a PR nightmare to pardon Ghislaine Maxwell. The second greatest lie was James Blair, who's also the young deputy chief of staff that is part of the gerrymandering, what we call the dummymandering plan. You know, James Blair said, somebody was pushing like J.D. Vance for a press conference. We need a press conference. We need a press conference. And James Blair looked around and said, with all due respect, people in this room and the communications plan they originally designed is what got us into this mess. And I don't think a plan coming out of this group is going to get us out of it, which I thought was a very telling comment about it.

43:40Michael Popok:And then Todd Blanche, who is going to be our attorney general unless the Senate grows a set of balls on the Republican side during confirmation hearings, he says we should use Tucker Carlson to do the interview of Ghislaine Maxwell. No, I'll do it. Okay. Part of the cover up. And that was a pretty weak tea for James Comer. Even for James Comer, that was pretty weak in terms of clutching pearls again. They had the guy before the story came out. Why didn't they ask the questions about the story that hadn't yet been released? What edible are you on? It's just so let Garcia and the Democrats and Jamie Raskin.

44:24Michael Popok:I was wondering why Trump freaked out about our friend Jamie Raskin the day before or right after Haberman's report came out. Because he knows that Raskin, who was his second impeachment manager and is a big, along with Garcia and others, is a big defender of the survivor's dignity. And going after Donald Trump for being, you know, and for the cover up around it, you know, he wanted to kind of undermine him in advance. You can always tell, Donald Trump's tell, his skin is so thin, you can see his beating heart when he stands in front of you, I mean, underneath the obesity. But in any event, this reporting will have the impact, if not now with oversight committee hearings, in January of 2028, after the midterms, when we have – no, 2027, after the midterms, when the Democrats hopefully get control of the House and the Senate, because they're going to open up impeachment investigations.

45:28Michael Popok:applications, forget oversight committee, into everybody in that room that is obstructing justice. I mean, that is a good argument. And try to lay the groundwork for it between now and then, getting them under oath in oversight committee hearings to testify. Todd Blanche coming back, whether it's to the oversight committee hearing. I mean, you can just ask the question in any hearing about it and see how Todd Blanche is going to respond to that. So I think this, you and I report a lot about the Epstein developments, but this one is pretty momentous because I think it lit the fuse for something that's going to blow up in Donald Trump's face in a very short term as soon as the Democrats get control and get the gavel in the House and the Senate.

46:11Yeah.

46:12Ben Meiselas:And Democrats get to set the rules of the time. So they want Blanche for 12 hours. Remember when Hillary Clinton testified about Benghazi for 12 hours? She did it willingly. She showed up. She spoke about it and she embarrassed the MAGA Republicans. I guess they were the Tea Party Republicans then in the House. I think you're going to be seeing, you know, at least not bland showing up, except ain't going to be, he's going to look real. He's going to be invoking privileges. I mean, when I read that transcript of Bondi and Lutnik, if that happened in public, I can't even, I mean, they are lucky and the DOJ knows it, that that stuff was in, that these were dense transcripts with lots of objections and it feels technical and there was no video camera.

47:05Ben Meiselas:I can tell you from reading it was bad, bad, bad. Also, I'll just leave us with this point before getting into some other topics, which, as you mentioned, impeachment. I reflect on the impeachment, the first impeachment against Donald Trump, not for trying to overthrow the government, but for trying to overthrow a different government in Ukraine. And it was really the quid pro quo javelins for you need to launch investigations. Basically, you know, it all goes full circle, especially with Hunter Biden in the room right now. You need to launch criminal investigations against Joe Biden and against my political enemies, Zelensky, right?

47:45Ben Meiselas:So this all goes full circle. And Trump was impeached over, you know, over these quid pro quo representations that violated a lot of our national security laws. And that, you know, was, was, it was literally a mobster style quid pro quo that, that occurred. Now, when I think about Trump's first impeachment regarding the threats he made to Zelensky, I'm like, oh my God, dude does that every day. Like that's the least bad thing he, I mean, he's a horrible things, but I'm like, you know, it, it, it is, it is shocking where we've come. It shocks the conscience that the Overton window has basically been shifted, that every single day in public, he probably does, in my opinion, 10 to 15 impeachable offenses that we can observe, things that he posts, things that he does, says on any given day, maybe on a slow day, right?

48:43Ben Meiselas:Maybe three to five on a day where he's out a lot. I mean, he may be doing 20 impeachable offenses a day. So the question also that I'm interested in is where are the Democrats going to focus on that? And I'll tell you a spot they're going to focus on too, one of the areas. And it's a nice segue to this next topic, which is Trump in his personal capacity, suing the government for$10 billion and then entering into a collusive settlement where he waives all of his tax liability for the past forever, basically, and then had this slush fund. And we'll talk about what went down before Judge Brinkema, what's going down before Judge Williams in Florida.

49:20Ben Meiselas:This is a big, big, big deal, folks. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump's going to be in a lot of trouble in that federal court in Southern Florida. This is going to be an issue that's going to linger. I'm going to that hearing. And we'll talk about what happens. Yeah, we'll talk about what happens in Virginia as well. A quick reminder, if you or somebody you know has been injured in a car accident, auto accident, trucking accident, if you've been hurt by the negligence of a company or somebody else, for example, if you're driving, someone hits you with their car or hits you with a truck and you're injured as a result, call Popak.

49:49Ben Meiselas:Or it doesn't have to be that. It could be any type of case where you suffered an injury as a result of a third party. But call 877-POPOC-AF or go to thepopocfirm.com, 877-POPOC-AF or visit thepopocfirm.com. Also, if you know somebody who's been injured, refer them. POPOC represents a lot of people who watch and listen to Legal AF. Also, make sure you subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel, the Legal AF Substack. Let's keep those at the top of the chart. subscribe to Legal AF on Substack and Legal AF on YouTube. We'll be right back after our last quick break of the show.

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53:00Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors who make this show possible. Support our sponsors. The discount codes for all of those sponsors are in the description below. Jordy and Popak, they spend a great deal of time working with those sponsors to bring you those discount codes. They actually negotiate real deals, not Trump fake deals. And they think you'll like the products and the services, so go and check it out. Popak, let's get into the topic that we were saying before we ended the last segment, this collusive settlement that Donald Trump individually sues the IRS and sues the Treasury Department for$10 billion.

53:39Ben Meiselas:Trump alleges that when he was president in 2019, Trump's IRS, through a contractor who was hired by Trump's IRS, leaked 450 ,000 people's returns. Trump was one of them. He said he suffered a great deal of emotional distress in 2026 while he's been president for a year and a half or so, and that he has to now sue himself, basically, not just in the current sense of suing the Trump government right now, but his government would have been responsible for the data leak because he was in charge in 2019. It was a contractor of his own IRS. So he's suing himself from 2019 and himself again in in 2026.

54:21Ben Meiselas:He filed a lawsuit in January. And basically, we, the people are the ones who have to pay it. It's our tax dollars. I mean, the fact that he was demanding that we pay$10 billion that he gets paid to himself. I mean, again, like not only is that like to me per se impeachable, I mean, it's like quite literally a racketeering criminal offense before our very, I mean, it's as heinous as he's stealing our money. Like, what are you doing, dude? I mean, it's horrific, but I'm doing it in plain view. No, you're still committing a freaking crime. We see what you're doing. I guess I'm giving you my legal opinion.

54:50Ben Meiselas:You're entitled to different legal opinions. Then he enters into, then he dismisses the case in Florida. He filed it in Florida, Miami federal court. He then dismisses it. Doesn't tell the judge that there's a settlement agreement. Then the Trump DOJ enters into the settlement agreement, which looks more like a decree. Like Trump doesn't, that's like an order where one party signs it, which is just weird too. And it's Todd Blanche, Trump's former criminal defense lawyer. And it's framed as like an order. And then it has an addendum. And then the order creates a January 6th slush fund for insurrectionists to get paid like$1.8 billion,$1.776 billion to be exact.

55:26Ben Meiselas:And then Trump settles, which Congress member Raskin refers to as a super pardon that basically says any of Trump's past tax evasion, past failure to pay taxes, all gets wiped away. He gets his total immunity. He doesn't have to pay his taxes. You know, and by the way, I believe that includes a lot of his quid pro quo deals with Middle East countries that have taken place recently where he would owe at least capital gains taxes and most, you know, regular income taxes. And so if he's earned$5 billion, people don't talk about this side of it from these quid pro quo deals with Middle East nations and all these grifts across the world, he could potentially be avoiding a billion dollars in personal taxes or more because he'll say, I've got free immunity from engaging in tax fraud and tax liability based on what was said here.

56:17Ben Meiselas:People have cited a hundred million because they said that was the number of like what the original IRS audit was that went back a decade or so. But I'm like, you're missing the bigger billion dollar pie right here, which he's just going to say, I don't have to pay any of my taxes right now. And all of these deals I just did where I owe between 25 % to 37 % taxes on it, depending on, you know, how it's, how it's ultimately characterized. So I don't think it's a big deal. So Popak, you know, I just wanted to give that framework just to remind people of like what we're talking about here. The Trump DOJ then said, we're not going through with the January 6th slush fund.

56:51Ben Meiselas:We're not, we're not doing it. They went silent about waiving all of the tax liability to Donald Trump. And we're not going to speak about that, but we're not doing the slush fund. Then MAGA Mike Johnson, the Trump MAGA people on the Hill goes, we're not doing the, you know, he's given us his word.

57:05Michael Popok:Yeah. Thanks, Ben. Look, as we said, or as I've been saying, Friday was a red letter day for the Trump administration when it came to that anti-weaponization fund. You had a little bit of a stutter step earlier, later in the week, before the 12th, when the same issue about whether the fund was going to be blocked by a federal judge was before two different federal judges. One, Judge Leon, the ballroom judge, as we like to call him now, in the District of Columbia in a suit brought by two Jan 6th officers by Public Integrity Project And Brendan Ballew, who I've had on Legal AF recently for an interview, they brought one from their vantage point of being at the Capitol on Jan 6th and not wanting to see insurrectionists get paid or insurrectionists get paid and have their debts relieved, a violation of the 14th Amendment.

57:55Michael Popok:At the same time, Judge Brinkema had a case brought by Democracy Forward, which is our collaborators also here on the Legal AF YouTube channel. In fact, I'm going to have Sky Perryman, who was in the courtroom during the hearing from Judge Brinkema on the show on Wednesday to talk about it. So you had two different cases. Same lawyer for the Department of Justice, a guy named Andrew Block, is arguing in both places. but from very different results before two different judges. And to answer the question that often comes up among our audience, why are there multiple cases and what happens when you have rulings that are inconsistent or even consistent?

58:38Michael Popok:You have multiple cases because different plaintiffs for different reasons file in different places or maybe even the same courthouse but with different judges. Those cases aren't generally consolidated. Judges then rule. They're not bound by whatever another judge even in their own courthouse says. they're bound by what their appellate court says above them. They're not bound by a colleague, even if it's right down the hallway. Although, you know, I've been known and it happened in this weaponization fund case as well. If I get a favorable result from somebody, I take the transcript and go, judge, I got a favorable result.

59:10Michael Popok:Although that backfired for the Trump administration in front of Judge Brinkema, which I'll talk about next. And the other thing that happened on the 12th is that Trump's private lawyer, a guy here in Florida named Alejandro Brito, without an affidavit, without sworn testimony, without support from the Department of Justice or testimony from Todd Blanch, tried to get out from under Judge Williams' order, really an order to show cause, order to show cause that he and the plaintiffs, along with the federal government, didn't commit fraud on the court, didn't deceive the court. Those are some pretty, pretty big charges.

59:48Michael Popok:Like you never, as a bar member like I am, want to be on the receiving end of an order to show cause where a federal judge wants to know why, wants to know whether you defrauded her or not. Like that's a bad thing. And as I reported, that, that issue came up because 35 former federal judges led by Judge Michael Luttig, who's a friend of the podcast, been on the show with me a number of times, they filed a unique motion under a certain rule of civil procedure, arguing that there was fraud on the court, but the parties are fraudsters on both sides. So we have to come into court to ask you to reopen the case and take a look.

1:00:29Michael Popok:Even if strangers to the case had not filed, the judge has inherent, every federal judge has inherent authority and power to punish bad conduct in their courtroom or in the court process, even if a case is dismissed. I mean, if a case is dismissed, but like right before it's dismissed, somebody dropped their pants and took a crap in the courtroom, there's repercussions. You can't say, well, judge, I dismissed the case. You don't have jurisdiction. I'm sorry. I just crapped all over your court, but there's nothing you can do about it. That's not right. It's not accurate. It's not right. Sort of what Trump's arguing.

1:01:09But we can take a crap on the court and you can't do a darn thing about it.

1:01:13Michael Popok:And filed that way. So, but let's start in chronological order. Judge Leon holds a hearing. He finds that he's not going to block the fund. He finds that it was enough that Todd Blanche, during a Q &A with a member of Congress, I think it was Grace Ming of New York, said, no, the weaponization fund is dead. He never talked about the next day when he alone, without anybody else participating, amended the settlement agreement to give what we now refer to, or Jamie Raskin coined, the super pardon to the Trump family against any criminal prosecution by any future Department of Justice, the current Department of Justice, for anything that Donald Trump labels lawfare or weaponization and also out from under tax and audit liability.

1:02:09Michael Popok:I mean, a golden get out of jail free card. It is the, you know, Blanche, Donald Trump's former criminal defense lawyer, now attorney general nominee, it did and filled in the hole that the United States Supreme Court, when they gave the immunity decision, Blanche gave a super pardon. Even the Supreme Court didn't give that one. And he never wants to talk about the next day settlement amendment that he did. And all, so Judge Leo was fine. Nah, he said it's not going to be, he's not going to go forward with it. Get out of my courtroom, effectively. So Andrew Block, the lawyer who argued it there, got all excited.

1:02:50Michael Popok:And he filed that transcript with Judge Brinkema. Now, she sits in the Eastern District of Virginia, not in DC. They're both senior status judges of about the same vintage. But actually, I don't know what her relationship is with Leon, Judge Leon. He was a Republican appointee. Brinkema was not. So she starts, she opens a hearing on Friday. And we had a man on the ground. We had a reporter in the room, Adam Klassfeld of All Rise News. She starts it, I mean, the very beginning. When you come, for those who have never been to a hearing, federal or state, you know, the ritual of it is pretty established.

1:03:29Michael Popok:The lawyers come into the room. They set up a respective council table, these wooden tables. They cross a wooden bar that's in the room that separates the public from the well of the court. That is the bar. When people say they are members of the bar, that means they have the ability, they have the right, the privilege to cross that wooden bar and interact with the court as an officer of the court. So you pass the wooden bar, you sit at your table, you set up your materials, there's courtroom staff in the room, and usually the judge is not in the room unless she's already, or he or she's already conducting hearings, then you all rise when the judge walks into the room, and then you start, you state your name, you make appearances, it's called.

1:04:13Michael Popok:Judge will call the case, case number, blah, blah, blah. You know, who's here for the government? And Andrew Block will stand up. Who's here for the four plaintiffs against the weaponization fund in her case, which is Andrew Floyd, a former assistant U.S. attorney, a city, New Haven, Connecticut, an abortion rights group, and common cause. Who's here for that? I'm blah, blah, blah, democracy forward on behalf of the plaintiff. Soon as Block stood up, having made all his filings, he said, Andrew Block for the United States of America. And Judge Brinkema said, you are a very brave man to come into my courtroom.

1:05:00Michael Popok:Now, when I've been on the other side of that, not getting that reception, but like watched one of my opponents that happened to, you just write to your colleague next to you, like, I'm not going to be saying much here. Don't snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. You know, just the discretion is the better part of valor. Just sit down. If the judge is doing your work for you, just take the win, as they say. And here's Adam Klassfeld, moments after he left the courtroom yesterday in the Eastern District of Virginia, reporting about what he saw. Let's Play the clip.

1:05:36Ben Meiselas:It was a brutal hearing for the government. Just to give you a picture, as soon as it began, the attorney for the Justice Department registered his appearance saying, Andrew Block for the government. Judge Brinkham's reply was, you're a brave man, Mr. Block. And then it went downhill from there because she took out the hearing, the transcript of that hearing that you mentioned.

1:06:00Michael Popok:Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold it. Hold it. Hold it. She actually said at the top of the hearing, for his appearance, you're a brave man. That's what she started with?

1:06:13Ben Meiselas:That's what she started with. And, Michael, it got worse from there because Block was the same attorney who had argued in front of Judge Leon in D.C. she took out the transcript from that hearing, where Judge Leon asked him multiple times, why not just rescind the legal paperwork behind this whole thing? And multiple times during that hearing, Block said, I don't know, that he hadn't spoken to Todd Bland. She just didn't have the information. So she put him on the spot, said, well, it's been two days. Do you know now? And And when he said he doesn't know, he doesn't have ready access to Todd Blanch, she said, I cannot believe, given the significance of this case, that you just simply do not know this.

1:07:04Ben Meiselas:You couldn't get the answer to that question.

1:07:07Michael Popok:Yeah, that was a little shaky cam. He was literally on the street. I feel like I was making a mumblecore movie. But that, you know, we bring it to you. You know, we got reporters in the courtroom or outside the courtroom because you can't do it from the courtroom, like Adam Klassfeld from All Rise News support all of his independent commentary and journalism when you can. So she then enters an order, and she effectively tells in the order, which we have up on Legal AF Substack, and look, I'm going to paraphrase the order. Judge Brinkham says, look, if you want this case to end and you want to get out from under my jurisdiction, it's very simple.

1:07:46Michael Popok:Todd Blanche, Stan Woodward, the number three, and Todd Besson, who runs the Internal Revenue Service as the Treasury Secretary. You each, there it is, you each file a sworn statement under oath called an affidavit, telling me that you are going to kill, put a stake through the heart of that fund. You won't create it, you won't fund it, you won't distribute from it. You do all of that and that you haven't already distributed or there's not already money in there. And if there is, you reverse it. You do that and you don't have to see Judge Brinkham ever again. If you don't want to do that by a date, she gave a date, then we're going to stay in this case till the very end.

1:08:29Michael Popok:And I'm going to enter a preliminary injunction, which she did from the bench and with the order that we just posted. In addition, she indefinitely, until further order of the court, she has now preliminarily blocked indefinitely the fund, its creation, its exercise, any kind of agency or commission that Todd Blanche was going to create around it and all aspects of the fund. Now, she doesn't address the settlement agreement, and that's troubling to me, but that brings us next to Miami. Because the settlement agreement and the amended settlement agreement is what I'm most concerned about because it's not just the money handed out to the Jan Sixers.

1:09:06Michael Popok:Believe me, the Department of Justice can find other money to do that. They have other funds to pay the Jan Sixers. And there are more than 600 claims against the government by Jan Six insurrectionists for cash, hundreds of millions of dollars. Proud Boys and Oath Keepers. They want to recapitalize their paramilitary and white supremacist, white Christian nationalist entities with our taxpayer dollars. So Brinkema issued that late yesterday. You heard Adam Glasfeld in the courtroom about it. And she turned, she flipped the script. She flipped the transcript because Andrew Block came in because he had won in front of Judge Leon.

1:09:49Michael Popok:He had filed the transcripts and said, judge, basically just follow what Judge Leon did. And she says, you know, I noticed something in the transcript. I noticed that you told Judge Leon that you had not talked to Todd Blanche and you didn't know what the government's position was because it was asked by Leon, why don't you just rescind the settlement documents? You know, there's this concept in the law of rescission or novation, or you just, but where you declare a legal document to be null and void. Why don't you just do that? Just do that. So we don't, and he said, well, I haven't spoken to Todd Blanch and I don't know, I don't know what the position is on that, blah, blah, blah.

1:10:29Michael Popok:All right, fast forward two days later, Judge Brinkham flips the script as you heard Glassfeld talk about and say, I can't believe you haven't spoken to him in all of this time. So I'll give you a choice, file the affidavits and you'll get rid of me. But if you don't, I'm going to continue to manage and monitor this fund. I've blocked it. I'm sure, and Sky Paramin will be on with me on Wednesday this week, I'm sure champagne corks were popping first in the brains and then in reality for Democracy Forward and the plaintiffs. Because it was a masterful job. Especially when you come off of, you know, I'm sure it was deflating a little bit when Judge Leon ruled against another set of lawyers on a similar issue.

1:11:10Michael Popok:Another reason you file in multiple places, like when attorneys general do it, is like a portfolio theory. You figure we'll file in three or four places, we'll see which judge we get, we'll see which ruling we get, and that's the one we'll work with. So that's often done as well. Now we'll fast forward to Miami. Because Miami was a different set of issues, but effectively would put a stake through the heart of the weaponization fund. It would sanction Donald Trump's lawyers and those in the Department of Justice as well. and it would get rid of, I believe, the superpartum attempt by Todd Blanche to amend the settlement to give the Trump family all of this immunity.

1:11:54Michael Popok:So Judge Williams took the overture, responded to the overture by 35 former federal judges, led by J. Michael Liddick, to reopen the case after the Trump administration had settled, rather than respond to her order a few weeks ago, that they tell her how she has jurisdiction. In other words, how is this a legitimate lawsuit where Trump is versus Trump, where Trump is versus his own Treasury Department and IRS? I don't get it. This doesn't look adversarial. This looks collusive. and you file, and everybody here file a document separately, Trump, IRS, and DOJ, about why I have jurisdiction, why this is a real lawsuit.

1:12:44Michael Popok:Because if it's not a real lawsuit, then it's not a legitimate settlement. And if it's not a legitimate settlement, then the Department of Justice doesn't have the power to settle a lawsuit that's phony, which they did, and that would unravel the whole ball of wax. And so the day before their papers were due, the Trump administration filed a notice of voluntary dismissal saying, good news, everybody. We got a settlement. We're not sharing it with you, judge, but we got a settlement. And they published the settlement. We all saw it on the Department of Justice website. And in the settlement, it said we had a lawsuit.

1:13:20Michael Popok:It was before Judge Williams. Here's the case number. Here's just recital after recital about the phony lawsuit, using it to give an imprimatur of legitimacy to do the settlement. They even went so far as to have the lawyer for Donald Trump say, I was even thinking about amending my lawsuit before Judge Williams to add a class action for all Jan Sixers. You were going to amend a lawsuit that the judge was about to throw out the window and had already said she didn't think she had jurisdiction over? That's a lie. And so she entered an order after these 35 judges asked her to. She didn't need to wait for them.

1:13:57Michael Popok:She could have done it on her inherent authority. And she said to the lawyers for the plaintiffs, which is the Trump side of the case, and we'll put the order up on the screen. Here's what she ordered on the 29th of May. She says on page three, the non-party movements, which are the judges, advance grievous allegations that plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss this litigation to avoid judicial scrutiny of a lawsuit that was collusive from the start. They point to the fact that the settlement in question includes a three-paragraph addendum that purports to forever bar and preclude the United States from pursuing claims against the defendants.

1:14:37Michael Popok:Accordingly, it is ordered and adjudged that plaintiffs file by yesterday a paper detailing their position on the matters set forth in the motion, including, one, the charges of collusion and whether the parties are truly adverse. Two, the assertion that the dismissal in this case was premised on deception by the parties, meaning the Trump parties and the IRS. And three, the question of whether the case should be reopened because the court was the victim of a fraud. Those are serious charges. Fraud, deception, victim of fraud. And I'm like, okay, they better come up with something good when they file, right?

1:15:22Michael Popok:So they file a 22-page response. They never mention, it's not broken down to actually respond to the judge's order. They skip deception outright. The D word doesn't appear anywhere in the 22 pages. On fraud, they just say that the judges, the 35 judges, didn't carry their burden to show there was fraud. The judge already said there's been charges against you of fraud. Answer for it. The answer can't be, I don't think they carried their burden. The burden is on you. You're an officer of the court. And then how they frame their entire filing, we have it up on Legal AF Substack, is to attack the judges.

1:16:06Michael Popok:Oh, the judges are political hacks. 35 former federal judges, including Michael Ludic, who should have been the Chief Justice of the United States instead of John Roberts. Really? Political hacks? Many of them were appointed by Republicans. And they don't know what they're talking about. They insult the rule of law. And basically, Judge, you too. You don't know what you're talking about either. And then they go off to say, Judge, you have no jurisdiction. Not that they didn't commit the fraud on the court because we dismissed. And so you can't, there's nothing you can do about it, judge. This is the, I crapped in your courtroom and you can't do anything about it theory.

1:16:44Michael Popok:Let me just put it this way. This is an intentional file. This is a filing that intentionally does not accurately or appropriately respond to a judge's order. If you were writing this, if I were on the receiving end of that, after I was done crapping my pants for having received it, I would have prepared my own affidavit, testimonial, under oath, that made the judge feel better that I didn't commit a fraud on the court. And I would have said, I am an officer of the court. I represented this. This is the reason the lawsuit is not collusive and wasn't a deception. This is why I didn't commit fraud on the court.

1:17:25Michael Popok:I did not commit fraud on the court. I never would commit fraud on the court. and I would get that together. I would get affidavits from people in the Department of Justice to talk about the settlement, like Todd Blanche. See, Todd Blanche never wants to be under oath. He'd rather lose a case than be under oath. I doubt he'll file an affidavit in Judge Brinkama's courtroom on the weaponization fund. He didn't file one here. He didn't file one in the Kilmer Abrego Garcia case in Tennessee to avoid a vindictive prosecution dismissal. he's not going to go under oath. That's not him. So that's what you would prepare.

1:18:02Michael Popok:That's the sheets of paper you would prepare to submit to a court to save your hide and your law license from a sanction by a judge. That's not what they did. And so now the judges, the 35 judges, get the last word. They file next Friday. And then the judge will decide whether she wants a hearing or not. If there is a hearing in front of Judge Williams, where she would throw the book at these lawyers, and I think she'll hold a hearing. I'll try to be there. If it's only Zoom or audio, I'll phone in. If it's something I can go to live, I'll get into the courtrooms. You know, I'm in Miami. That I assure you.

1:18:40But this just shows you the depravity and corruption of the

1:18:44Michael Popok:Department of Justice. I think that's a common theme here, a golden thread that we pulled through this entire episode. And it usually now starts and ends with Todd Blanche. But federal judges are fighting back. And how many times have we done a Legal AF episode where we said, this is an epic losing streak? Two weeks ago, we did a show where we said it was 0 and 5 in one week. We just had a similar 0 and 4 and things that we also touched on, like the entirety of the Chicago U.S. Attorney's Office up in flames and federal judges there of all stripes not believing a word that they say. This is what happens when you undermine the credibility, the legitimacy of the Department of Justice, and you make it a weapon for the executive branch that's not independent.

1:19:34Michael Popok:Then grand juries don't trust you, juries don't trust you, judges certainly don't trust you, and of course the public and the voters don't trust you. And that's what's happened with the worm turning against the Department of Justice and Donald Trump's command of it over the last 19 months, 20 months. If anybody were to say to me, what is the number one, besides the polling numbers, what's the number one thing that has changed radically since the start of the Trump administration? It's their now inability to get away with their attacks on the courts to their benefit, like benefiting from moving so fast and being so unlawful and getting a benefit from that.

1:20:24Michael Popok:Federal courts are now onto them. And it's the rejection of the Department of Justice by the American people and the very stakeholders in our institutions that matter to justice. grand juries, juries, and judges. That has now changed 180 degrees from the start of the Trump administration, reflecting how the American people now also see Trump as being completely corrupt and untrustworthy. And no amount of bombings in Iran, and unfortunately, Iran's not going to be the last Iran. First of all, I'm not even sure Iran is going to be the last Iran, because I'm not sure whatever they're going to announce on Donald Trump's birthday with some confetti cannon is really going to hold or last or be good for the American people.

1:21:12Michael Popok:But he's not the last one because every time Donald Trump falters in the polls in America, which is going to be a regular occurrence and a weekly occurrence, he's going to go run out and try to bomb somebody, you know, like he announced yesterday or today. We bombed the Trent de Aragua guy in Venezuela. Okay, you control the country. I'm not sure that's that surprising at this point. People don't lose sleep, you know, on the scale when they pull people. One of the things that keep you up at night, Trenda Aragua is doesn't make, you know, doesn't break the top 2000 of things that keep people up at night.

1:21:46Affordability, housing costs, health care, immigration, and Donald Trump's assault on immigration and immigrants.

1:21:54Michael Popok:Those are things that people are voting on. and it leads, it starts as it always has historically with the economy. And we'll continue to follow all of that. We're so glad you're here. You may notice I've been solo here for a bit, then had a little bit of a technical difficulty. Sometimes it happens, you know, when we do our taping and our live recording. But I'm glad you're here on Legal AF. As you know, we do the show twice a week on the Midas Touch Network, Wednesdays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. And then we have a new live version of Legal AF. It's called Monday Night Live. It's hosted by Dina Dahl and Lisa Graves, and it's on the Legal AF YouTube channel.

1:22:34Michael Popok:Another good reason to come over there and subscribe and help us with our ratings, our reviews, because that keeps us on the air. Over here, over my left shoulder, or yeah, my, yes, is the three Webby Awards. There they are. I know somebody said that they look like coils, but they're the Webby Awards that we won two of them for Legal AF and one for the Intersection podcast, my podcast on Tuesday night. So many ways to support what we do here. Keep the gas in the tank, keep the lights on. You're doing it by being here. Our audience is kind of rebuilt back to our four or 500 ,000 people watching our Legal AF episodes every week, which we appreciate.

1:23:13Michael Popok:Come over to Legal AF, the YouTube channel, which I curate. Get 12 fresh new videos a day. A great community over there in the live chats. You'll love Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us cross the 2 million subscriber barrier soon with your help. Then we have Substack. And if you don't know much about Substack, you're going to love it. Legal AF Substack, where all your interests and hobbies, political, social, sport, whatever, there's somebody writing something good over there, running a channel, and we do for law and politics with 10 pieces of content a day. I do a live report every day on there with about 1 ,000 people join me at around lunchtime, Eastern time.

1:23:58Michael Popok:So become a Substack member or a paid subscriber there as well. And then, of course, we've got our sponsors. We've had a couple of breaks for them today. What we love about the sponsors, some of them have been with us from the beginning over the last six years. Some of them are new. But what they have in common is that they know our point of view. they know that we are we don't blow smoke or sunshine in our commentary we tell it straight independently and they support it and they want to speak to our audience so look the economy is rough right now so we're not telling you to spend money you don't have but if you can if you think these products are interesting we certainly did and do and like them and you have a little extra money that's a way to support what we do so thanks for being here on legal af i'm going to shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

1:24:47Michael Popok:And we'll see you on Monday night for the live version on Legal AF YouTube, 5 p.m. Eastern time. And again, Wednesday at the midweek. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.