Legal AF 7/22/2026

19:54Popok:Because he's going to incriminate himself. Correct. And they should take the fifth.

19:59KFA:Correct. That's my, that's what came. That's a good theory. That's just a theory. That's immediately what came to mind when I read that.

20:07Popok:That's a strong theory. I like that theory. You're often right with your theories.

20:12KFA:Well, sometimes.

20:13Popok:Yeah, I know. I mean, often. On this show, anyway. A lot of times in court.

20:19KFA:And that was very interesting because what is the topic of the hearing? It's Jeffrey Epstein.

20:24Popok:Absolutely. And Donald Trump and relationships because Dershowitz was representing. Let's remember when in time Dershowitz was representing Jeffrey Epstein. He's the one that negotiated with the Alex Acosta, the then U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, 2018, 2019, to give him that sweetheart deal. Bad phrase. To give him that deal that kept him basically kept the child sex trafficking ring in action, being operated by Ghislaine Maxwell while he spent three or four months in a cushy Palm Beach County jail, copping a deal to one count of child, no, to. Prostitution, right? Child prostitution.

21:10Popok:Right. Exactly. Instead of all the federal counts that should have come that I've had survivors, including Danny Bensky, say if he was taken off the street appropriately and put away for life, I wouldn't have been abused. And so that was the era that Epstein represented this guy and Ghislaine Maxwell and advising during the trial, the lawyers for Ghislaine Maxwell, you know, and Dershowitz was also accused at one time, although before she committed suicide, she did recant her testimony about Virginia Joffrey, who said that she had been sexually abused by Dershowitz. But she later said that was false and they settled out of court.

21:48Popok:But the fact that he was even around Epstein, he's in the Epstein files as being a friend crossing that line. I mean, you don't have to answer this, but I've never been in a hot tub with one of my clients. That's not a thing, by the way, for those that follow the law. That's not a thing. OK, you know, the closeness of that relationship. So he's got I like your Fifth Amendment idea. We're going to see what happens. Comer's not happy. He's jumping up and down. And he said, I'm going to subpoena your ass, you know, words to that effect. And I think he should. And the more, we're not going to show it now, but the more you follow, just put in Alan Dershowitz and watch his recent clips in which he continues to go after the sex abuse victims of Jeffrey Epstein.

22:37Popok:What has to be going on in your mind that you think in this day and age, with 1 ,500 survivors and their truth, that you should abuse them continuously in your podcast appearances? And I'm so tired of him getting platformed on Fox and on Newsmax and all these right-wing media places. They never give the context. Next up, Alan Dershowitz, who represented Jeffrey Epstein during his child sex trafficking days and got him a sweetheart deal, also advising Ghislaine Maxwell and her counsel. Here now, no, it's always just this guy, this old guy, nobody knows really who he is, and who talks with some authority about it on issues and has some sort of currency about it.

23:25Popok:It's just disgusting to watch it. Comer sometimes surprises even me, and I'm not easily surprised. I want to talk about the E. Jean Carroll case, because that's taken a turn, and Katie Fang, because that's taken a turn for the better, I believe. I think we're going to be getting a contempt order soon in her case. The BBC Discovery issue and the Tate Brothers. But Karen, let's take a little bit of a timeout, a little bit of a breather. I can get a glass of water. So many different ways to support what we do here on Legal AF. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Subscribe. Come over to the Legal AF YouTube channel, and I want to thank our audience and their generosity.

24:07Popok:We just crossed 1 ,170 ,000 subscribers and over 700 million views. That's because of you and your generosity. And this will cost you nothing to subscribe. It'll mean the world to us, and it matters to us, but it'll mean it's absolutely free to you. hit that free subscribe button on Legal AF YouTube channel, 10 or 12 fresh videos every day. Then we've got a Substack for a whole different community that's not even on YouTube. So we try to put it under one pane of glass called Substack, the Legal AF one, 10 or 12 pieces of content every day, including our videos. I do a live report every day, sometimes with guests, sometimes on my own.

24:49Popok:I think you'll find it interesting. It's all about breaking news on our Substack. Keep us in the top 10. We're now in the top 30. Let's get to the top 10 of all U.S. news sub-stacks with your support. So we've got those two things, those three things. And then here, audio download. See that? See that? See that? Okay. Do that QR code. Download. Because even though we're huge on YouTube because of you, the audio downloads still matter. So even if you don't do audio anymore, that's okay. Just download it and become a subscriber. And that really helps us out as well. And then we've got these pro-democracy sponsors that Jordy and Karen and me and Ben, we all sort of curate for our audience.

25:37Popok:And if you can afford it, and these are products that you think would be interesting for you, we thought they were interesting and we liked them, then that's another way to support the show. So let's take our first quick break. Look, magnesium is something most of us aren't getting enough of. And if you're just grabbing the drugstore version, you may not be getting the full picture. Industrial farming, chronic stress, and everyday aging can all make it harder to get the magnesium your body needs. The thing is, magnesium comes in many forms, and each one supports your health in a different way.

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26:50Popok:Experience the most trusted magnesium for purity, potency, and performance. Plus it's non-GMO, vegan, and gluten-free, making it a choice you can feel good about. Go to qualialife.com slash legal AF for 50 % off. And here's a bonus. Use the code legal AF for an additional 15 % off your order. That's Q-U-A-L-I-A life.com slash Legal AF and use code Legal AF. Thanks to Qualia for sponsoring this episode. You know, as I've gotten older, I started paying a lot more attention to my skin care. I've tried plenty of products over the years. So I'm always a little skeptical when something starts, you know, blowing up online.

27:34Popok:But I recently got to check out GU spelled J-I-Y-U. and I can definitely see why so many people are talking about it. I've been using their Rejuvenation Toner Pads, and what I really like is how simple they are. It's basically an easy swipe that fits right into my routine, and my skin feels hydrated and refreshed. They also help target things like dark spots, uneven texture, fine lines, and other visible signs of aging. Plus, they're packed with clinically backed Korean skincare ingredients like niacinamide, peptides, hyaluronic acid, and snail mucin. So you're getting a lot of great skincare in one product.

28:15Popok:For a limited time, GU is having a crazy deal for our listeners. Not only is their glow-up bundle up to 45 % off right now, but our listeners can get an additional 20 % off plus free shipping with our code LEGALAF at J-I-Y-U-S-K-I-N.com. That's J-I-Y-U-S-K-I-N.com and use code LEGALAF for an additional 20 % off. Look, after you purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that our show sent you. Welcome back and thank you to our pro-democracy sponsors for supporting our show and you supporting them. Katie Fang on one side, E. Jean Carroll on the other.

29:01Popok:They have a lot in common, including being tenacious, courageous, dignified, and fighting for the rule of law. And in the case of E. Jean Carroll and Katie Fang, fighting for survivors. So let's start with E. Jean Carroll. So E. Jean Carroll, most people are like, I thought she got the money, Popak. Okay. She got the money on July 9th, the$5.8 million running with interest that Donald Trump owed her, came out of the court registry in the Southern District of New York by order of Judge Kappel. And Trump, we're running theories by each other tonight. Trump knows he's going to have to pay the money and probably pay, likely pay the other almost$91 million he owes her, but he wants her to die first.

29:46Popok:He wants E. Jean Carroll to die. she's 82, does not want her to get the money in her lifetime and wants to pay it to her estate. So he stretches everything out with ridiculous filings and bad faith filings that he knows he's going to lose running down every rabbit hole and dragging us along with it so that she's denied her money. E. Jean Carroll is the only person out of, what is it, 8 billion people on planet Earth that can say the following, I am a jury, a judged sex abuse victim of Donald Trump. Many women have come out and did interviews, some of them in courtrooms under oath, but the only person that's ever had a jury brand Donald Trump a sex abuser is E.G.

30:40girl.

30:40Popok:And for that, we owe her a debt of gratitude for the courage that required. And this is all about the case, the first case that went to trial, the case where she convinced 9-0, a jury in New York, that she had been sex abused by stunner, her own testimony, out of a couple of witnesses that she told contemporaneously about what had happened to her, about other witnesses that were let in under rules of evidence about sexual misconduct in the past by Donald Trump. And that's the issue. And this Supreme Court rejected that appeal of Donald Trump 13 times before they finally put the nail in the coffin.

31:19Popok:And Trump didn't like it. So he filed an appeal. He filed an appeal of the judge's order that he should pay immediately because he filed a last gas piece of paper, a motion for the Supreme Court to reconsider. It's the Supreme Court that voted effectively 9-0, just like a month ago. There's no new evidence. There's no misapprehension of the law. And the Second Circuit Court of Appeals said, no, we're not going to block Judge Kaplan's order to the clerk to pay the money. It's not irreparable harm. If the money's paid out and somehow miraculously snowball all meet hell, chance you win, you'll get the money back from her.

32:03Popok:Don't bother us. The money got paid out, but that didn't satisfy Donald Trump. Karen, take it from there. Yeah.

32:12KFA:So he's trying to get, he's now filing a motion to try to get her to give the money back and put it in escrow while he continues his frivolous appeals. I mean, it's as simple as that. I don't understand it. I don't, I've never seen anything like this. I don't know if he's going to get sanctioned for filing these frivolous motions. I don't know what he has up his sleeve. Part of me wondered, could this just be him? He has to fight. He just has to always fight, always fight, always fight. Because if you don't fight, it's almost like you're conceding that it was okay, that you agreed. Because I can't see any single theory or any legal theory, any factual allegation, nothing that would allow him to get this back.

32:58KFA:As you said, he has taken this up to the highest court, the United States Supreme Court. They have declined to hear this case. And I just don't, I don't, or maybe it's because he's got a second case pending that has a legal issue that they might consider, right? The second E.G. Carroll case, the one with the bigger judgment, that one does have an issue because, potential issue, because he was president when he defamed her. And he's going to say, well, of course, I'm president and I had to defend myself. I shouldn't just, I can't just sit here and take these allegations. I should be allowed to defend myself.

33:40KFA:And he's going to argue presidential immunity. That has a legal argument that I could see the Supreme Court wanting to address and to determine whether or not you have civil immunity now that they've given him criminal immunity. But this one doesn't have that issue. This doesn't have anything like that. So I don't know if maybe while he appeals that second judgment for$83 million, he wants to be able to have this open or not have given the money so he can somehow talk about it as if he hasn't paid any money. I just don't understand.

34:15Popok:You know, like my, he wants her to die theory.

34:17KFA:You know, you know, that could be it. I don't, I don't know. I don't understand why he is, I don't understand why the courts aren't sanctioning him at this point.

34:31Popok:Well, that's a very good point. You and I both know this law firm well, Sullivan and Cromwell. I mean, if you work in New York, Manhattan DA private practice I worked at a competitor firm you know Sullivan I've been against Sullivan maybe you have too beaten Sullivan before and they were the only firm that decided that Donald Trump wasn't radioactive and they wanted to represent him in all things including E. Jean Carroll which a lot of their partnerships said we don't want to be involved with the E. Jean Carroll case and they did it anyway and there's sanctions for bad faith filings in appellate court I think E.

35:08Popok:Jean Carroll's lawyers, Robbie Kaplan, who's really smart and knows this. I don't have to tell her. I'm really just saying it out loud for our audience. I think she should file a motion after she wins for sanctions for bad faith filing. There is no merit to their argument. She did a great job. We have it up on Legal AF sub stack for people to read it in her 23 page response. I'll just read just from one paragraph here. It's very simple. I also love the fact that she refuses to call him President Trump. She calls him once Donald Trump because that's his name, and then the rest of the 23 pages, Trump is either he or defendant, which is perfectly appropriate.

35:56Popok:Page 22. Defendant has lost before a jury, the district court, a unanimous Second Circuit panel, that's three judges, the full Second Circuit, which is 20 judges, on bunk, and the Supreme Court of the United States. He agreed, Trump, in a signed stipulation entered by the court that Carroll could collect her judgment once his certiorari petition, that's the petition for appeal, has been denied. That happened, period. Carol should not have to wait any longer. And then they also talk about the fact she's 82 years old and that the delay has been costly, especially with passage of time, especially when people may not live to see their judgment being paid.

36:50Popok:They say on page 20, while the award, let's see, Page 20. The delay has been costly. Injury to a plaintiff waiting to collect on a judgment increases in significance with the passage of time, citing the World Trade Center litigation case, particularly where the plaintiff is already of advanced age. While the award has accumulated post-judgment interest at the statutory rate, that is a poor substitute for Carol actually having the money the jury awarded her to invest. Defendant should not be permitted to run the clock out on Carroll's attempt to obtain compensation for a serious wrong. They also say that he comes to the court with unclean hands, which is a judicial concept, a term of art about coming to the hand, literally what it sounds like.

37:40Popok:You're coming to court with dirty hands. So because they're asking for equitable relief in injunction, if you don't have clean hands, you don't get equity. Defendant has continued, Robbie writes for E. Jean, even as recently as two weeks ago, to repeat his defamatory attacks against Carroll. As this court has held, the record supports the district court's determination that the degree of reprehensibility of Trump's conduct was remarkably high, perhaps unprecedented. Each such attack, they write, has a domino effect and subjects Carroll to ongoing and prolific harassment as a result of these statements, including a multitude of death threats and other threats of physical injury.

38:25Popok:Carol, you've been a sex abuse prosecutor, sex violence prosecutor. Talk about it from that perspective, because I don't want to lose sight of who E. Jean Carroll is as a survivor.

38:35KFA:I mean, I've had to say to sexual assault survivors who have to go through litigation and go through the process of litigation, which is hard. Every single time that something like that is said, every time they are, whether it's through cross-examination or they are told that they're lying, every single time it's like another violation. and I always say to them, don't let him violate you any more than he already has because it's insidious. It gets in your head. It's upsetting. For some people, it can reopen the wound of the sexual assault and I can't pretend to know what E. Jean Carroll's going through.

39:24KFA:She seems like a strong woman to me. That being said, this has got to be brutal. It's not because it's not just her attacker. It's not just her abuser. It's the president of the United States of America. It's the most powerful man in America. And as we all know, sexual assault is about power. It's about violence. And who has more power than him? And so, I can't imagine what that would be like. To me, it would be horrendous. And she has a lot of courage and a lot of strength, and I applaud her. And I don't know that a lot of women would have the mental ability, emotional ability, the strength to withstand this repeated violations and repeated abuse.

40:21KFA:And I think that's why her second verdict of$83 million was, it was punitive damages to punish him because he kept repeating over and over and over again the same lies and wouldn't stop and the same denials. And I think the jury heard that. And I think the jury recognized that every single time he does it, it's another violation. It's another attack. It's another assault.

40:51Popok:I mean, Robbie Kaplan, during her closing, said to the jury in the second jury, the second closing, as Donald Trump literally walked out on her during her closing, how much is it going to take, right, from his, and she had all the financial documents to show how many billions he had, is it going to take to stop him from continuing to abuse my client? You have the power, jury, in your punitive damage award. And that's when he got up, butted in his coat, walked out. Of course, that didn't help during the jury deliberation as he, in a misogynistic way, walked out on a female lawyer making an argument about a sex abuse victim and defamation.

41:32Popok:And that's now, Karen, did you know that's now up to$92 million with interest? Wow. Oh, yeah. That he's had to pay and post with his bond. So people are like, is she ever going to get that money? As long as the petition for writ of cert, the petition for appeal is finally denied by the Supreme Court, she'll get the money the way she got this money.

41:50KFA:So wait, he pays the interest? It doesn't, it's not put in a fund that earns interest?

41:58Popok:Well, a little bit of both. There's statutory interest, and so it's in an interest-bearing account. But if there's a delta between the amount the statute requires, if there is, and the amount that this thing's actually earning in whatever the clerk invests in. Let's say the clerk gets 4 % on her money. She puts it in treasury bills. I don't know what she puts it in. But the statute is, I don't even know what the current, I should know. The current statute is federal for New York or for federal. Let's say it's 9%. Well, then he's got to pay the 5 % difference to keep her even.

42:31KFA:So that is so telling that he doesn't want her to get the money so much that he's willing to pay more money to prevent her from getting that money, including legal fees. I'm sure Sullivan and Cromwell aren't working for free unless this is part of the pro bono legal services that law firms who settled with them are required to give. Who knows?

42:55Popok:No, they didn't settle. They didn't settle.

42:56KFA:So he's paying, so presumably he's paying their legal fees, he's paying interest. That's how much he doesn't want to pay this money. It's just, it's offensive. Yeah.

43:09Popok:The federal district court money judgment statute, according to my sources, is the weekly average one-year constant maturity U.S. Treasury yield, whatever that is, versus whatever the court is earning. You know, maybe it's more, maybe it's less. In fact,

43:33Popok:Robbie takes it on in a footnote. In footnote 9 of her recent filings, he says, for the last three years, the judgment has sat in the court system and collected post-judgment interest at the applicable rate of 4.72%. Okay, so it's getting interest. But she says, by contrast, if she had invested it in the standard and poor 500 index, she would have made 22.5%. So she's also losing money because the statutory interest rate is not matching what she could do with her own investment. Now, she's told me in an interview, and she can do whatever. Like I said, of course, she could do whatever she wants with it.

44:13Popok:She wants to take all the money and pour kerosene on it and set it aflame on Fifth Avenue. She's allowed in front of Trump Tower. She's allowed to do it. But I think she has said some of it's going to be for her retirement. She's 82 years old. She didn't make a lot of money in her life as an Elle magazine editor, I'm sure. And secondly, she wants to set up a fund, a charity to help other sex abuse survivors. Yeah. Good for her. Good for her. Exactly right. And as soon as the dust settles of both of those judgments, I'll be able, I think, to get E. Jean Carroll and Robbie Kaplan on the show. E.

44:48Popok:Jean would come. Robbie's like, not yet. I said, okay, I understand. As soon as that's all done, we'll have them back on the show. And maybe we'll bring them on midweek. Have you spoken with Robbie and you and I?

44:59KFA:Yeah, we had Robbie, not E.G.

45:01Popok:A million years ago when we were getting like 3 ,000 views an episode. And then E.G. and I've done separately. So we'll have them both on.

45:08KFA:I hope she takes a vacation with it.

45:10Popok:Oh, without a doubt. I love E.G. I remember when I interviewed her a year ago, she said, I don't need the money, Michael. I need a good plate of fettuccine Alfredo. Take my dogs for a walk. It's literally what she said. I mean, we are a better planet because E.G. and Carol is on it. I'll just tell you that. That's my heartfelt belief. Speaking of a better planet because people are on it, let's talk about Katie Fang, our colleague, our friend, Mike's Touch, independent journalist who works for a living and likes to cover the Epstein files and give dignity and transparency for the victims. So, listen to this, Karen.

45:50Popok:Judge Sullivan gives Todd Blanche the last word, seven days, to file the last word about why he shouldn't be found in contempt and why there shouldn't be a$1 ,000 fine per day for every day he's in contempt of failing to comply with the judge's order on five categories of Epstein files. the redaction log, translating the foreign language documents at an international child sex trafficking ring. Let's stop right there for a minute. Can you imagine as a prosecutor, there were a bunch of documents and you just didn't produce them pursuant to Brady or other things to the other side in a criminal matter because they were in a foreign language about a foreign language international conspiracy of some sort.

46:36Popok:I just can't figure it out. So I didn't Provided.

46:39KFA:By the way, you can upload it to like chat GPT and translate it for you or Google translate or whatever. I mean, yeah, it's not that hard anymore. You know, back in the day, it might have been, but not anymore.

46:52Popok:Even if it was, they needed to do it. That's two. Three, unmasking who was having a good old time emailing Jeffrey Epstein about a sex torture video. and documents related to Donald Trump and an accuser who says she was 13 and sexually abused by Donald Trump, handwritten FBI notes. The judge gives them one more chance. Stan Woodward took seven days to prepare a two-page response to that last word of Katie Fang's lawyers. Did you get a chance to look at that?

47:33KFA:I did. It was appalling. I mean, It lacked substance. First of all, these was all the things it didn't have. It didn't have an affidavit, a sworn affidavit from anyone in the Justice Department. So it should be Todd Blanche because the Epstein Files Transparency Act talks about the Attorney General, not the Department of Justice. The Attorney General must respond. So there was no affidavit from anyone, though, at the Department of Justice with it. it was, I thought it had all sorts of typos. It also, what was really upsetting about it is it had no substance. All it was, was basically this mansplaining, name calling, you know, basically saying, oh, she's being dramatic, you know, Katie's being dramatic.

48:26KFA:And, but it didn't, it didn't cite to, it just didn't give any substance. And if I were the judge in this case, To me, this is non-responsive.

48:38Popok:I agree. It's an insult to the court, to Katie, to the survivors. And I think he should lower the boom.

48:44KFA:It almost makes you wonder. Like, I had to go back and see what did the judge, like, what were they supposed to do? It almost makes you seem like he missed the memo. Like, he didn't understand what he was supposed to do. That's how thin it was and how non-substantive it was. So, I don't know. Maybe I'm just looking to give him the benefit of the doubt.

49:05Popok:Seven days, a page and a half?

49:07KFA:If it was intentional, if this was an intentional thing, then, yeah, the judge has to do something about it.

49:13Popok:Yeah, I interviewed Katie. Katie's like, I don't know, they missed deadlines before. Maybe they forgot about this. They cranked it out in an hour with the typos and all, but it was insulting. If you and I in our law firms were handed that document as a reply brief, which doesn't refer in any way to any of the arguments that were raised in the prior brief, doesn't cite them, doesn't have, this is an order to show cause. That is a signal to lawyers everywhere you need an affidavit. You need factual support as you outlined. If I got that from one of my associates, I'd fire them on the spot. You think this is a reply brief?

49:49Popok:You know, and yet Stan Woodward, the number two in the Department of Justice, dropped his pants and crapped all over the court system with that filing. And I think Judge Emmett Sullivan, who they are, who they virulently attack outside the courtroom because they're cowards, calling him driven by headlines and, you know, another Marxist, Leninist, fascist, whatever they call them, these judges. Of course, they don't have the balls to do that in a court filing or to his face. But judges read. Judges have clerks that go on social media. And I think he's going to lower the boom. There doesn't need to be an evidentiary hearing.

50:29Popok:Look at the track record of this Department of Justice. Judge Williams, two weeks ago in Miami, bad faith filings, inviting another motion for fraud on the court against Todd Blanche. You know, and now Judge Sullivan, who's I mean, I think it's going to be this week could be early next week. The last time they basically missed the deadline, the judge issued a 46 page opinion in favor of Katie Fang on every one of her points like an hour later. So he's ready. You know, you never F with with the with the person in the black robe, especially federal court. I always tell people that. You know, that's easy, easy way to stay on the straight and narrow, keep your nose clean.

51:13Popok:But you certainly don't F with Emmett Sullivan. I mean, if you were looking, if you just look him up, you know, what was the guy, Signetti, the guy that was the coach of Indiana for the national championship? And they asked him at his press conference when he was first hired, why do you think you're going to win and you're going to turn the program around? This is the year before he won the national championship. He said, Google me. Look me up. I win. Great line. Look up Emmett Sullivan. It's not hard. This is not the judge you want to F with. But we're going to see. And then we'll report on it at Legal AF and on Legal AF Substack and all of that.

51:51Popok:All of that good stuff. So, Karen, I want to take another quick break. And then we'll wrap up with the BBC and Discovery and other cigar exploding in Donald Trump's face with one of these crazy defamation cases. And then I want to talk about the Tate brothers. More importantly, their relationship to MAGA and Donald Trump and those in his inner circle, for those that weren't following the story that closely. But let's take a quick break. First, how do you support what we do? There's a QR code. Download this audio. That helps, you know. We're six years in the making, but we still need your help with the audio podcast and leaving five-star reviews and comments.

52:31Popok:That helps us as well. Everything I'm talking about here is like for free. Legal AF YouTube channel, which I curate, we get about a dozen videos a day. We're at 1.17 million subscribers, 700 million views. Compliment to our audience. We have a big audacious goal, but we'll get there with your support. 2 million subscribers by the midterms. We'll get there, I promise you. It's free to you. It means nothing to you in terms of subscribing, but it means the world to us. subscribe to Legal AF YouTube channel. And then if you're looking for a place to kind of have everything about Legal AF under one pane of glass, the videos, the filings, the orders, the essays, the writing, the live reports, all in one place, we have a name for it.

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56:13Popok:Save more than 50 % on term life insurance at selectquote.com slash legal AF. today to get started. That's selectquote.com slash legal AF. You're on the air with Michael Popok and Karen Freeman-Ignifolo. I love that old-timey sign behind your head there, Karen, in your new office. I love it. I'm going to have to steal that. I need something else in the office. I'm going to do that as well.

56:39KFA:I got this, by the way. This is a true story. The reason I got it was because my husband comes home. I used to podcast from home and he, I either, he doesn't know how to talk on his phone, not on speaker, or he just always talks on speaker. No, he just always talks on speaker. And so he would walk in the door talking on the phone on speaker when we'd be podcasting. And so I literally had to get a sign that said on air with the light and I would put it in front of the door so that we - It has a light? Yeah, it's a light. Yeah. I'll turn it on.

57:15Popok:Oh, that's cool. I'll turn it on.

57:16KFA:But yeah, that's okay.

57:18Popok:That's cool. All right. So let's speaking about the air, let's talk about the BBC, British Broadcasting Corporation. See, Donald Trump thought because when the BBC sort of figured they tried to get out from under his ire by apologizing to him, look, they ran a clip of his words under defamation law. This was him on the ellipse on Jan 6th, you know, saying, we're going to go down there and we're going to fight. All right. He said fight later on. And he said, we're going to go down and encourage the people about the Gen 6 certification. And we're going to fight. If we don't fight, we're going to lose our country.

57:54Popok:You know, a version of that. So they kind of clipped the middle and they used his words. But under defamation law, it's even a higher burden to prove that there's defamation when your own words are being used. You have to show that the gist, The sum and substance of what you meant has been distorted by the edit. Can't do that here. So I guess he thought because the BBC is in a very British way, apologized, credit to them, that they were going to be patsies and roll over. They're coming out with haymakers in their lawsuit in Florida. See, as I've said, you can pick your courthouse. You can sometimes pick your judge.

58:30Popok:Like if you file, Donald Trump always does up in Fort Pierce and get Judge Cannon. You can pick your defendant, you can pick your cause of action, but you can't pick your defense that the defendant's going to raise. So when he brought the$10 billion defamation case against the BBC because he didn't like how his words were edited, and the case is pending before Judge Roy Altman, there's a whole kind of fight right now about discovery. Sure, the BBC has a motion pending to dismiss the case because they said, this can't be in the United States. our streaming service that nobody watched with this documentary wasn't even shown in the United States.

59:10Popok:It had like no views. How are you suing us in Miami? While that's going on, the case has a discovery deadline. It ends in October and they got to get their shit done. So there's two ways to defend a defamation case. One is on the liability side, proving truth, life proving not false and some other elements of a person who's a public figure. And then you fight on damages. What are your actual damages? So on the damages side, they said, great. You said you lost$10 billion because we clipped that little part out of the speech. Prove it. Show us your bank accounts. Open up your kimono. Let's see everything in the Trump trust where you have all your assets.

59:57Popok:This is a guy who's made hundreds of billions of dollars in the last 500 days. I don't know how he's possibly going to show, but there was, I would have made even more. I would have stolen more had I not had that thing that nobody watched on a streaming service that didn't even hit the United States. But he's an idiot for opening the door, so they're doing that. And then they're going out with 100 subpoenas to Don Jr. and Roger Stone and Sidney Powell to prove that he's an insurrectionist. Because that's truth. If you're fighting words you don't think caused the insurrection, caused the attack on the Capitol, well, we're going to go out and subpoena and get all those files and find that out.

1:00:40Popok:So that all came to a head with a magistrate judge in a discovery hearing. Karen, what happened there? So essentially, as you were saying, first of all, you don't have to allege a dollar amount in a complaint, right?

1:00:52KFA:You can just say it's above the threshold,$75 ,000. But he wants the big headline, right? So he says$10 billion. And as you said, so they can kind of go in and poke around and get records to see, did you in fact, was there a loss of business that you lost$10 billion? Well, Donald Trump, not surprisingly, doesn't want to show his records, doesn't want to give over the actual books and records of his company. And so they try to then change their theory, right? They try to change their theory and say, you know what? We're actually not now alleging business damages. We're only seeking reputational damages.

1:01:40KFA:Therefore, my corporate financial records are irrelevant. And this request from BBC is a phishing expedition. But the judge, this magistrate judge, Judge Lett, rejected that argument and essentially held, look, your complaint itself, Donald Trump, alleges injury to your business interests and your brand. Therefore, these allegations make your financial information relevant to discovery, and you can't hide behind this new theory, and therefore, he ordered Donald Trump to produce financial information relating to his businesses, and also permitted the BBC to pursue these additional third-party discovery, including these subpoenas directed to the individuals you mentioned, and saying, look, these are all relevant to issues that you raised.

1:02:31KFA:in litigation. So bottom line is Trump lost and is going to have to turn this stuff over. I don't know how he gets out of this, right?

1:02:39Popok:Well, he'll try to appeal to the federal judge, Judge Altman, because that's a little bit of a mini appeal from the magistrate judge. But I don't think Judge Altman is going to support him either. You know, he didn't, this is like, as you said, there's a sticky little thing called the things you've alleged in your complaint. You, we have a concept, it's called door opening. You open the door, this is your case, and they get to defend it the way that they see fit, as long as it's consistent with the allegations of the complaint. But they should never have had a number in the complaint. They didn't need a number, but they like to chase headlines, put pressure on media companies so that Donald Trump can have a big check stroked to his Miami Presidential Library Hotel and Casino, whatever that's supposed to be.

1:03:27Popok:And, you know, they thought they pressured. Oh, the BBC apologized to me? Oh, they're weak. I'm going to go for big bucks. What they didn't anticipate is how aggressive the BBC has been in their discovery. And, you know, it's funny because in a lot of cases, companies are like, well, we have a pending motion to dismiss. Let's get that heard first and let's stay discovery. Sometimes judges do that. Sometimes they do. They don't. And here they're like, F it. While we're here, well, let's get all of your documents and those of your cronies.

1:04:04KFA:I think that's part of their pressure campaign to get him to drop the suit. I mean, they're litigating this, I think, very, very intelligently.

1:04:12Popok:Yeah. Wait till they ask for the deposition. That's the next step because Discovery cuts off in October. And no, Donald Trump doesn't get to say, I'm very busy right now. Midterms are coming and I don't have time for this. Sorry. you're a plaintiff, you know, the first president in history. I don't even think Jefferson sued over anything or George Washington while they were president. This is what you chose to do. And so judges aren't going to be listening to, if you're a defendant in a case and you didn't choose to get sued, then you can argue, I'm the president, I'm too busy. You got to wait till the end of my term.

1:04:43Popok:But not when you're the plaintiff. Does nobody have the balls on his legal team to tell him the truths like that? I guess not, right?

1:04:55KFA:I don't know if it's what you just said or if it's something else. I think they play the short game. I don't think Donald Trump knows how to play the long game. And that just seems to be the way it always is. It's just immediately go in, hit hard, and then deal with it, right? Whether it's the Iran war, whether it's the reflecting pool, whatever it is, it's, it's, let's not take the time to do this right. Let's just go in. He's the very definition of a bull in a China shop. And I think he thinks that's effective in some ways, but people who play the long game against him, I think typically prevail because he does not know how to play the long game.

1:05:40Popok:Yeah, I think that's a good analysis. Now let's switch gears here as we round out our Legal AF podcast to the Tate Brothers. You got two of them, Andrew and Tristan. They were masters of the bro podcasting, right? The manosphere. 10 million followers, lived a decadent lifestyle. As long as it's not criminal, I guess that's okay. But it became criminal because they thought that they were, probably because they had friends in high places, they thought they were immune from prosecution for sex abuse, sex trafficking, child pornography, and the rest. And so there's been a lot of reporting about the connectivity between the Tate brothers who got picked up in Miami on an order of extradition and a criminal complaint out of the UK, 59 counts against the two brothers, who probably did not see it coming given their close relationship with Trump universe and the Trump world.

1:06:43Popok:So the brother -

1:06:44KFA:You think they knew about this? And I just don't know the timeline. Did they know about the indictment before they came to the US?

1:06:50Popok:You know, I don't know. That's a good question. I don't think it was sealed. I don't think it was unsealed. I think they did not know about it. And they thought because they've been partying with Paolo Zampoli, who's Donald Trump's special envoy and one of his best friends who introduced Melania to Donald Trump in the 80s. When you're partying, you get a false sense of security, right? When you're partying with Donald Trump's buddy, when you've had the State Department intervene on your behalf to get you your passport out of Romania originally. When you have the White House and its liaison to the Homeland Security, Paula Gracia, who later becomes your lawyer, get you back your electronic devices after they get picked up by the Customs and Border Patrol, you have a false sense of security that you have some sort of Teflon.

1:07:36Popok:You have some sort of protection. When you're friends with Barron Trump and you have Zoom calls with him and you talk to him after the attempted Butler, Pennsylvania assassination, you probably think like, hey, we're we're never going to be brought to justice. Right.

1:07:51KFA:I think, you know, they probably thought that about ever being prosecuted here in the United States. You know, the allegations here are horrendous. This is a huge, huge case involving this sex trafficking ring, as you said. And they're pretty vicious, terrible allegations if they're proven to be true against these two brothers. And I think they probably thought exactly what you just said, that because of their connections, they're never going to be prosecuted, at least not right now, in the United States for anything. What I think they didn't bank on and count on is understanding these treaties and these diplomatic agreements that exist among countries.

1:08:40KFA:And there are many countries that we have extradition treaties with, meaning if we serve you with a valid indictment of involving certain charges of somebody and they come to your country, you will agree to extradite them to us. You will hold them for us and extradite them to us. And we'll do the same for you, vice versa. And so it's something that people try. There are people who are accused of things that purposely travel to places that don't have extradition treaties with the United States because they can safely travel there. That's why I asked the question, did they know about this indictment?

1:09:15KFA:Because if they knew about the indictment and came here, that would have been brazen because that would create such an international incident if they were refused, if the United States refused to extradite them to the United Kingdom. And it would have immense, immense repercussions if we then wanted to extradite someone from the UK here. So I think they miscalculated it politically and what that means on just sort of the global international extradition treaty scale. That's what I think.

1:09:50Popok:I think you're totally right about that. And I think they had this, again, this false sense of security and they miscalculated about how many child sex trafficking rings Donald Trump and his administration were willing to be associated with. I mean, my working theory is if there never was a Jeffrey Epstein, and that would be great if we had a time machine and we could have put him out of his misery and avoid thousands and thousands of victims. And if Donald Trump didn't have any involvement with two leaders of that, I'm not sure he wouldn't be standing up for the Tate brothers right now. I mean, he knew or should have known that the Tate brothers were on the loose, that they were having dinners hosted for them, including with the Romanian government, with Paolo, with Zampoli, who's best friends with Donald Trump.

1:10:40Popok:I mean, there's very few people you can say Donald Trump is best friends with, and he is one of them. He ran a modeling agency. You see where this is going. And so I just think at a certain point, somebody in the room, the situation room, said something, maybe it was James Blair, the deputy White House chief of staff, said a version of the following. How many international child sex trafficking rings does this administration need to be involved with? And you'd be surprised how adult some of the people have gotten in the room as Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan have reported. And I could see that kind of conversation, like Stephen Chung even saying, I can't PR my way out of this one.

1:11:28Popok:And then it comes down to Marco Rubio, because it's the Secretary of State. And he's got, of course, Florida connections got picked up in Miami. It's the Secretary of State that could wave the magic wand and not agree to extradite. And they decided, first of all, Marco Rubio doesn't want to touch a child sex trafficking ring with a 10-foot pole. I mean, he's probably watching Blanche get ripped to shreds over his handling, mishandling of the Epstein files. And he's like, oh, glad that's not a Secretary of State issue because this guy wants to run for president. So he doesn't want to be associated with it.

1:12:05Popok:So I think it starts with your original analysis, a miscalculation about prosecution here versus prosecution overseas with an extradition hook out. And then you have this weird thing. I don't know if you caught the lawyer for, who was a Jan Sixer, you know, defense lawyer. He comes out and says, I think it's political. Well, what's the politics? Politics is what? He was meeting with people in the Trump administration administration and oh, it has to do with Starmer in the UK. I'm like, this is like Trump continuing to blame Biden or Hillary Clinton or Obama for his cost of living and affordability problems.

1:12:49Popok:Starmer? That's the problem? No, I think it's the fact that your clients have been accused of 59 counts, including child sex trafficking and pornography. I think that's the problem. And the fact that that is even too radioactive for this administration to intercede on.

1:13:04KFA:Yeah, completely, especially now, right? Because the midterm's coming up.

1:13:08Popok:Just another one. So that's the reason I wanted to cover the Tate brothers. I wanted people to understand the close proximity of the Tate brothers to MAGA world and directly to Donald Trump. I mean, you know, the White House envoy, you know, Richard Grinnell, who's on the board of the Kennedy Center, doesn't go to the Munich Security Conference and meet with the foreign minister for Romania to get the passports back to the Tate brothers unless Donald Trump approves it. And he did exactly that. And nobody's denied that they've done exactly that. And that Barron worked to get the Tate brothers and their 10 million subscribers to support Donald Trump in the 2024 election.

1:13:54Popok:And so when it was convenient and Donald Trump was surfing the wave of the manosphere and the broadcasts and going on all the shows to get the votes, you know, because Trump's an opportunist. And now it's like, whoa. No, but they've always known of the allegations. There's been civil suits. There's been people who have testified about being choked to unconsciousness and then being raped by the Tate brothers. And that's the people in the civil suit. Lord knows what the UK prosecutors have in their case dating back to bad things that happened in the United Kingdom. Bad, got to get them off the street, right, Karen?

1:14:37Popok:Thank God for recognition laws.

1:14:38KFA:There's two facts that have come out tonight that are just so, like, I can't get past them. Number one, how do the Tate brothers have 10 million followers?

1:14:51Popok:Subscribers.

1:14:51KFA:subscribers. How is it that they, I mean, given who they are and the things that come out of their mouth and the things that they do, how do they have 10 million subscribers? That to me is just such a depressing, like, I don't know, horrible fact, number one. The second thing is what you keep mentioning about how many Epstein survivors there are, that there's over a thousand, and I've heard 1 ,500, that there's 1 ,000, more than 1 ,500 survivors, sexual assault survivors from Jeffrey Epstein. And it's not just Jeffrey Epstein, it's other perpetrators as well. And that there is not a single other prosecution that has come out of this, that Todd Blanche is giving lip service to these survivors, that they aren't doing, that we can see any legitimate big investigation.

1:15:42KFA:and that there's over 1 ,500 survivors. I mean, that is like, again, I don't know that I've dealt with 1 ,500 sexual assault survivors in my 30 years of being a prosecutor. And that's, we're talking hundreds and hundreds of defendants. This is one person, one person who ran, along with Ghislaine Maxwell, ran a sex trafficking ring with over 1 ,500 survivors And who knows how many other perpetrators, because this Department of Justice refuses to investigate this case properly. But I just can't get over those numbers. And so I just wanted to underscore them.

1:16:26Popok:Yeah. And, you know, Musk replatformed them when he took over X and reconnected them. Yeah, we live in a weird and depraved society where corporate America platforms people like the Tate brothers and all of that. But I'm glad we covered it. You know, we'll keep an eye on what happens. There's a big hearing in about five days before the magistrate judge. They are in pre-extradition detention in the Federal Detention Center in Miami. I know that Federal Detention Center for visiting clients there. In the past, it's not a great place. It's perfect for them. And then there will be a hearing and the magistrate judge will decide whether the extradition treaty will be abided by.

1:17:12Popok:The Department of Justice is taking the position that it should be. And I think these people are off to the UK where they were, where they came from to stand trial and face the charges of their heinous alleged crimes.

1:17:25KFA:Yeah, I think you're right.

1:17:27Popok:And hopefully never to be heard from again. we can only hope but we're glad we're glad everybody's here tonight on legal af an action-packed episode karen freeman igniflo and michael popock so many different ways to support what we do subscribe to the legal af youtube channel and get us to the two million subscribers before the midterms it's that important tomorrow on legal af youtube the number two video at 9 30 will be my interview with with reverend senator warnock of georgia about your vote and what he's doing, working hard to protect that vote. And he's announcing a new program that he's going to be launching.

1:18:05Popok:I think that's must watch TV. I'm interviewing Danny Benski later tonight. That'll be up on Midas tomorrow about the survivors movement to block Todd Blanche. Tomorrow night, Thursday night, I'm kicking off a live stream that we're doing along with a not above the law, Block Blanche with Senator Dick Durbin, LaMonica and MacGyver, Representative MacGyver of New Jersey, Representative Ro Khanna, and a host of other people. It's a one hour long. It will give you the tools you need to help with the Block Blanche movement. Really, really important. And if you want to get everything that we do on Legal AF under one pane of glass, there's a name for that.

1:18:48Popok:That's why God created Substack. Legal AF Substack, YouTube videos or the videos that we do, live reports that I do once a day, the filings, the memos, the orders that we use as source material for our reporting, commentary and essays, all under one pane of glass called Substack. Help us get to the top 10 of all U.S. news Substacks there. And then, of course, we've got our pro-democracy sponsors, and you've heard from them tonight. Karen, last word for tonight.

1:19:22KFA:I want us to get John Ossoff on our show. I am a huge fan and I think he's great. I think he's just what our country needs right now. I think he's an up and coming, one to watch future leader and I'd love to have him on and be able to interview him.

1:19:39Popok:So if anybody's watching, then I know you are.

1:19:41KFA:Exactly.

1:19:42Popok:Well, listen, that's how I got Senator Warnock on. I read a Sunday magazine, New York Times Magazine profile of him. I mean, I've been following his career from day one. And I was like, he's perfect. I really want to get him on. You know what? When I reached out to his comms director, he's like, we wanted to get him on with you. So yes, I think we'll put that out in the universe. We'll get some people working on that, Alan, and see if we can't get away to get John Ossoff to join us in the midweek edition of Legal AF. And with your help and the growth of our audience, we will make those kinds of dreams come true.

1:20:13Popok:Thanks for being here on Legal AF with Karen Freeman-Knifolo and Michael Popok Saturday with Ben Misalas and me and 10 or 12 new videos every day on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Until our next report, shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.

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1:21:35Popok:If you love this episode, make sure you're subscribed to the Intersection Audio Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. It's my solo ride, and we release new episodes daily, all completely free.