Legal AF - 8/01/2026

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28:33Ben Meiselas:Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. We are so grateful for them. They make this show possible. Support our sponsors. So, look, I'm sure you may have seen this morning. If not, Donald Trump out there attacking Janine Pirro right now. Donald Trump posting, I disagree 100 % with Janine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, on the reflecting pool. I don't know what she was thinking. To me, it was a pure case of vandalism. That included the grass, which had a big 86-47 emblazoned in giant letters on it and other elements of the surrounding area. There may have been some contractor difficulty, but the major damage was caused by vandals.

29:19Ben Meiselas:D-J-T. No, it's not. And now you're further defaming David Earn. And then Donald Trump starts posting more photos and videos of the reflecting pool. I mean, we have to understand folks, he's a criminal. Okay. I mean, let's just pull back for a second. He's a bad human being. Okay. Would we want felons to be, you know, who are serious felons to be running your organization? I know I believe in rehabilitation. Let me be clear. Trump's clearly not subject to rehabilitation. I believe in rehabilitation. I believe in second chances, maybe not third chance. I believe in second chances. Um, and so I believe that someone could be a felon and come back and show remorse for what they did.

30:06Ben Meiselas:Right. I believe in that, but certainly not Trump. And I don't, still don't think that that then you should be the president of the United States or maybe a leader of an organization, especially if your felony was for like financial stuff and documents and things that are of, of, of important. And then also, look, he's a sexual predator. He's a sexual predator, right? I mean, he was found civilly liable for sexual assault, not just allegations. He was found liable by a federal jury who heard the case where Trump presented evidence, E. Jean Carroll presented evidence. And by the way, we've heard Trump on tape.

30:42Ben Meiselas:He talks about that he grabs women. He sexually assaults them. He grabs them by the genitals because he's rich and you get away with it. He talks about going in and looking at girls naked in beauty pageants because he says, you're the host. You get to do that. You get to inspect them naked. I mean, this is a bad guy. So with a sexual predator, does it shock you that the sexual predator who's friends with Epstein is going to cover up the Epstein files? No, that's what they do. That's what they do. They're bad people. What do you think they're going to do? He's a horrible human, horrible human scum, human, the worst of the worst type of human.

31:17Ben Meiselas:I mean, a felon. He's a felon. the felon, you're going to do great work. He's going to be on it. No, I mean, what do you think you happen if you put a criminal in charge of things? It'd be like a criminal. And as former President Obama said, the presidency brings out your qualities. If you're empathetic, it'll be more empathetic. If you do this, it brings it out more. So if you're a criminal, a crook, and a sexual predator, the presidency brings that. It makes all of the qualities more pronounced. And that's also what we're seeing. And it's not good. It's why I focus so much on moral character and all of these things that I know corporate news wants to gloss over and be like, oh, well, that's just Donald being Donald.

31:57Ben Meiselas:No, let's be honest. These are bad humans. This is a bad, this is one of the most vile scumbag humans in world history. And so you're seeing even after her his own DOJ. Janine Pirro's his lady. You picked her. You could be, she's saying, she said those things that there's no case at all, that it's not vandals. And so then Trump goes to, I'm showing photos of the grass and the this or the that. And you know, I think Popak will talk in a little bit as well. It's like, even after the Supreme Court says you lose, you're a sexual abuser basically, because they didn't take up his appeal. He's been found liable for sexual abuse in the E.

32:36Ben Meiselas:Jean Carroll case. He appealed to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court said, we don't even want to hear it. We don't want to even hear it. It's not a case that we hear. What do you do? Then Trump asks for a petition for rehearing, petition for rehearing on it, and then says, oh, E. Jean Carroll should not be allowed to take the money that was awarded to her. And she should not be allowed to put it in the S &P 500 because the S &P 500 could crash. Yeah, we know it could crash because of you, But who are you to tell your sexual assault victim where she can put the money that she was awarded by a jury?

33:11Ben Meiselas:He wrote a motion. He wrote a motion to the appeals court saying that it's unfair that she invested her$5 million in the S &P 500. I mean, that's a, this guy's psycho. And then he has a bunch of lawyers who go and fight for this stuff, who fight to destroy the law. So that was Donald Trump's post. And when you talk about his lawyers, at the top right there, you've got Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche is responsible for this entire criminal cartel that's become the DOJ. Don't just call him the DOJ. Call him the criminal cartel that they are. So this is a supercut that we, they are a racketeering enterprise for real.

33:53Ben Meiselas:They're a criminal enterprise carrying out Donald Trump's criminal orders, his quid pro quos, right? The bribes that lead to pardons. They're covering up the Epstein files. They are a criminal racketeering cartel. Here's the supercut we made that's gone viral at the Midas Touch Network about all these different Trump regime officials. And here's what they've been saying about the reflecting pool and the vandals from Caroline, all these scum, Caroline Levitt, all these freaking scum here. It's right. It's just the worst, just the worst. You just got to call these people out scum, right? What's, you know, just freaking awful people.

34:37Ben Meiselas:Not even, not in a political way, man. These are horrible people. Here play this clip. The vandalism is very real, despite what Tim Walls wants to say. It's an imaginary problem. No, it is not. It's a very real problem. Reflecting pool is so beautiful. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it. The contractors who did the initial work with the reflecting pool, are they to blame for the current condition? No, no, we had vandalism. But it peeled off. Why did that happen? It didn't peel off. There was vandalism. There was box cutters. There have been seven arrests.

35:13There was people literally trying to destroy part of a monument. The reflecting pool is not just a pool on the wall. It is part of the Lincoln Memorial. And if anybody says that they're going to go and vandalize that, it's no different than if someone was throwing paint on Lincoln's self. 100 % sure that what happened with the liner was vandalism. You can prove it. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as we drain it, we've got all the photographs we can see. I mean, there's no possible way. Photographs of a person or people cutting a 300 or 350 foot gash in the bottom of the reflecting pool. Dana, I'm not sure why you and others in the media think that you want to keep trying to question whether or not.

35:51Ben Meiselas:And then let me show you why I think state regime media fox is going to get sued by David Hearn. This is just one of them. Jesse Waters is probably going to get sued. Remember, Janine, in a defamation case against, if a public figure is bringing a defamation case, you have to show that there's a case called New York Times v. Sullivan. It's called the New York Times v. Sullivan standard. You have to show that the party that defamed you acted with actual malice. Either they intended to do it or they acted in like a reckless disregard. That's the standard. Because we want people to do coverage on public figures, right?

36:33Ben Meiselas:David Hearn, I'm not sure if he's a public figure. There's something called a limited public figure, like a public figure for a specific thing. So like during the Olympics, maybe he's a limited public figure because there's attention to him during that period of time as a canoeist. But being a two-time Olympic canoeist, I don't think anybody, no offense, David Hearn, knew David Hearn before this, remembered him. I mean, maybe you did. I don't think you did. It was great that he represented our country in two Olympics, but I don't think he was a public figure that people would talk about him like that.

37:07Ben Meiselas:So I think David Hearn would say, I'm not a public figure. So I don't have to prove actual malice. If I'm suing Fox, I could just show negligence because if you're not a public figure, you could just show negligence and proceed on a defamation case that someone acted unreasonably in defaming you. Right. And I believe that regardless though, whether David Hearn has a negligence standard or the actual malice standard in suing Fox and Jesse Waters, I think you check the box. Let's just use the actual malice standard because if you can meet that threshold, you can meet the negligence threshold, right?

37:45Ben Meiselas:So you have Janine Pirro from formerly of state regime media, who is very close with Jesse Waters. She shows up, she picks the Waters show because of her relationship. She used to be on the panel with him, the five. They're as close as can be. She was picked because she was a Fox host. She goes on and they're all chummy with each other, right? And she's like, great to see you. I miss you. All of that. Check the box, check the box. Actual malice, actual malice, because this thing's contrived, it's set up. You see the conspiracy taking place before your eyes, using Fox for this purpose. And then she goes in and just does the lie.

38:27Ben Meiselas:Let me show you what happens here. Play this clip. I miss you more. You gotta keep Jessica in line. Yeah. Can you come back for a day? Listen, your show's still great. I love it. Thank you so much. A lot of people, when this first happened with the pool, didn't believe the president that there was vandalism. That's not the case. Yeah, it's not the case at all. In fact, I was at the reflecting pool yesterday. There not only is a vandalism that is reflected in today's indictment, but there is a cutting of the liner of the pool at the base of the pool for several yards across the pool. And someone was intent on doing incredible damage to the pool.

39:08But what we've seen after are other people who want to do continuing damage. And one of the biggest problems and one of the ugliest things that I think is is out there are people trying to destroy monuments and statues. You know, part of our history. And for some reason, they think they have the right to destroy things when the truth is these are national monuments or sacred monuments. And so we're going to make sure that the law is followed and the people recognize that D.C. is not the place to come and commit your crime. The president has repaired 50 parks and, you know, 48, I think it's 22 fountains and 48 monuments.

39:48The fountains look beautiful by the train station. They are gorgeous. That used to be dilapidated. Terrible. D.C. is safe and beautiful. And that's what the president's doing. And when these anarchists come and we have witnesses, they're like, oh, he didn't do anything. Not only that, there are people working in the National Park Service who come here, they volunteer to work in D.C. and to get berated by these people as though they have the right to destroy a monument. No, you don't. We saw a lot of this start around the BLM riots.

40:20Ben Meiselas:Now, here's a montage of Donald Trump constantly lying about this. Here's the CNN montage of Trump saying it's vandals, vandals, vandals. Here, play this clip. We have vandalism. No, vandals. You know, we have a hundred and we have a, I think, two hundred and ninety, three hundred foot slit right through it. Probably a box cutter or a knife of some kind. Somebody went in with a knife and cut it. They cut it up good. And then they cut a two hundred, three hundred and fifty foot slip in the form of lots of little slips. A real horrible stuff. They took razors and they started cutting this very expensive stuff.

40:59We caught some people vandalizing our beautiful reflecting pool. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it.

41:08Ben Meiselas:And then again, all these social media posts of Donald Trump saying it's vandals, it's vandals, it's vandals. But let's remember, as our editor-in-chief, Ron Filipkowski says, Trump has been falsely accusing people of crimes for decades. Remember the Central Park Five? This is what Trump does. He accuses people of crime. He's a defamer. He is a blamer. He is a destroyer. He brings frivolous cases. And now he's used the DOJ to bring these frivolous cases. And because of his own incompetence in this reflecting pool, painting it blue thing he wanted to do, and he kept on talking about it, David Hearn, an innocent man, was criminally prosecuted.

41:50Ben Meiselas:Fabricated evidence was brought before a grand jury. And it was all false. It was all false. Pirro needs to be disbarred. State regime media should be sued. This is an impeachable offense for Donald Trump. He's behind it. He's showing he's, he's posting and saying that he's behind it, but then it goes to Todd Blanche. So let's talk about Todd Blanche. Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing has been moved to Tuesday. Um, now Todd Blanche should not be confirmed, period. He's not qualified for this position at all. He is Donald Trump's, his qualification is he's Trump's criminal defense lawyer who lost the criminal case.

42:27Ben Meiselas:And Trump was convicted of multiple felonies. Let's remember that. Blanche wasn't a good lawyer. I mean, his cross-examination was horrible, really bad. He's not a good lawyer. He wasn't good on his feet. He's a very bad lawyer. But in any event, he's corrupt as hell. He was a former federal prosecutor. So lots of feds were like, man, this guy is like just destroying the DOJ from within because he's so craven and cares so much about power. Sick. What a sicko. And then Blanche has been responsible for covering up the Epstein files. He re-traumatized the victims. Notice that Tillis of North Carolina and Cornyn of Texas, like they're as long, this is why they're horrible people too, like horrible people.

43:10Ben Meiselas:As long as Blanche met with the survivors, regardless of what happened, that checked that box for Blanche and Tillis. Did he meet with the survivors? Yeah. Okay, well, what happened at the meeting? When he met with the survivors, he re-traumatized them. He crossed his arm. I'm going to make this short. Don't expect anything from me. Who wants it? He re-traumatized sex assault victims who were raped as children. He re-traumatized women who were raped when they were little girls. He re-traumatized. He was abhorrent the way he treated them. That interaction should be disqualifying. And of course, covering up the child sex trafficking.

43:54Ben Meiselas:But just like they claim with the reflecting pool, trust me, just trust me. I alone, literally, Trump who's bankrupted everything, who's bankrupting our country right now, who lies about literally every word out of every sound syllable all lie lie lie lie i'm the only one who tells i'm the only one who tells the truth really so trust me on this one just trust me so you had donald trump post this morning this was his latest post on this if senators cornyn and tillis both upset because i wouldn't endorse them they lost and quit respectively aren't going to approve todd blanch one of the most respected professionals according to everybody in the country to be the united states Attorney General, then I will keep Todd as the acting Attorney General and push hard to get the anti-weaponization bill, which takes care of those who have been so badly treated by the crooked Joe Biden and Obama administration.

44:46Ben Meiselas:I get nothing, although I was treated horribly past. Todd Blanche was a voice of reason. I will immediately be back on the table and I will get it done. Thank you for your attention to this matter. It's not on the table. No one wants to pass an anti-weaponization bill, even the Republicans in the Senate that gives money to the January 6th insurrectionists and which waives any liability that you have for not paying your taxes. That gives you a get out of jail free for, you don't have to pay your taxes card. Okay. Republicans don't want to pass that bill right now. That bill is not going to pass at all.

45:18Ben Meiselas:Not going to pass the Senate, not going to pass that, you know, probably not going to pass the house. Okay. So what are you talking about? And the only thing, I mean, this is why I'm not like saying, yay, Tillis, yay, Cornyn. They said, Blanche, we'll confirm you. Just put in writing that the anti-weaponization fund, which isn't that at all, and giving Trump immunity from not paying taxes, okay? Just say that that's gone. You've made an oral representation of that, but just sit, just put it in writing, put it in writing. Because there's also a red flag that on Friday, you know what else happened as well?

45:54Ben Meiselas:Donald Trump filed an appeal in the Southern District of Florida in the case where the anti-weaponization fund and the deal that he doesn't have to pay his taxes or he won't be investigated or audited for not paying his taxes. That federal judge, Kathleen Williams, voided the settlement, said it was collusive and issued sanctions against Trump and Trump's lawyer and everybody, right? So what did Trump do? Filed an appeal. They filed a notice of appeal, Donald Trump, regarding the ruling of Kathleen Williams. And let me just read it for you what they say here. This is they say the ruling by Judge Williams voiding the settlement agreement rests on the grievous legal error that because Trump supervises the executive branch, he and the United States necessarily possess the same legal interests and cannot be adverse to each other.

46:57Ben Meiselas:That is wrong. Trump asserted a personal claim arising from the theft of his own tax information. The IRS and U.S. Department of Treasury represented the sovereign interest in public funds and federal law. Donald Trump, Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization asserted their own independent claims. Presidential supervision did not erase those rights or merge those interests. The sanctions order nevertheless erroneously treated its novel theory of adversity as the starting point and then refracted the facts through the mistaken lens. Refracted, you know, when that lawyer was writing that, ooh, refracted the facts.

47:39Ben Meiselas:I would have liked that play of words. No, we don't like that play of words. You're an idiot. We don't like that play of words because we know that Donald Trump did a collusive settlement. We know he settled with himself so that he and Eric and Don Jr. and the Trump Organization could avoid paying taxes and could avoid the ramifications of their horrible behavior. What are you talking about? The sanctions order, an erroneously refracting facts. Settlement became proof of the collusion. even though there was none. Potential weak defenses became proof that the claims were fictitious, which they were not.

48:16Ben Meiselas:And ordinary professional relationships became proof of coordination. Oh, this was just ordinary professional relationships. The United States president in his personal capacity suing the United States government for a frivolous case that was six years past the statute of limitation where Donald Trump was the president when the underlying conduct took place many, many, many years ago and where the Justice Department does not issue the most basic motion to dismiss, but instead enters into a settlement waiving the taxes for the current president. This is ordinary professional relationship. So I just want to read that to you because that's what they're filing in court because they're appealing it.

49:01Ben Meiselas:The same way with like E. Jean Carroll, they lose, they lose, they lose, and they try to appeal forever. Frankly, the same way that Donald Trump's been audited for 20 years because he just never stops the kind of constant barrage and flooding the zone with lies and litigation and lawsuits for the past taxes that he hasn't paid. This is what he's going to do here while not paying his taxes, in my opinion. That's the game plan behind all of this. And so Donald Trump, in the post that I I just read his position is the following. His position is, well, now that Cornyn and Tillis don't want to approve Blanche, well, that makes me want the anti-weaponization fund even more.

49:44Ben Meiselas:I was even thinking about maybe not wanting it. But now, because of Cornyn and Tillis, now I want it. And he's like, I get nothing. No, you get everything. What are you talking about? You get everything. You get a waiver of all of your tax liability. That is a significant, significant thing. Let me be very, let me be very, I mean, that could be billions of dollars, as I said before. You know, and there are some people who are like, well, would David Hearn qualify for the anti-weaponization fund? Let me be clear. There's a process. If you believe that you are unfairly treated by the federal government and you have a claim, You don't go to weaponization funds.

50:29Ben Meiselas:You know what you do? You file a lawsuit. First, you have to file what's called a federal government tort claim, where you have to assert, give notice, and then you can file a lawsuit against the government, where there's a judge, a jury. There's rules of evidence. There are witnesses. There's rules like you can't have hearsay, or you can't just, or Trump can't pick the board that awards the money, right? It's a jury. There's a reason why Donald Trump has lost almost all of his cases that go before a jury. Trump hates going before juries. Trump loves filing lawsuits and then threatening and intimidating people and then hoping he can just flood the zone with paperwork and all of this distraction and delay to tie you up and make you spend a lot of money.

51:18Ben Meiselas:That's what Trump did. That's his MO. He hates when he goes before the juries, he loses. when you have real rules of evidence and good, accurate information and jurors assessing the behavior without the propaganda. He, oh, in my opinion, he's almost always lost and has the biggest losses there. And he does, that's why he's afraid of deposition. He doesn't want to do that. He didn't want to do any of that. That's why he wants to have his board. So what David Hearn can do is what the January 6th insurrectionists could do, except David Hearn has a case and they don't. You know why they don't? Because they were convicted.

51:51Ben Meiselas:They either pled guilty, they pled guilty, or jurors convicted them. Every jury convicted every one of those J6 insurrections and for very serious crimes, a lot of them as well. They had their day in court. The way Trump had his day in court for E. Jean Carroll and Trump lost. A jury found him liable for sexual assault and defamation. That's the way our systems work. You can no longer say, oh, well, those are just allegations. No, no. So she went in court. A jury found him liable, civilly liable. The end. That's the way our system works. And so that's Cornyn and Tillis' view that he needs to sign this, that there's a written document.

52:34Ben Meiselas:Trump doesn't want a written document. I pointed out why before as well. The agreement between Trump and the federal government says that the only way to void the agreement is with a written document. so Trump's whole scam is like well we'll make an oral representation that it'll be overturned but I don't want to put it in writing because if I put it in writing then it actually gets overturned and Trump wants to keep the argument that since there's no writing voiding the agreement he doesn't have to pay his uh you know he could have he could potentially avoid paying his taxes And one of the biggest fake outs, the smokescreen, are the January 6th insurrectionists.

53:15Ben Meiselas:Just like on J6, they were his pawns when he said, I'm going to go march with you. No, he didn't. There is pawns here also. Get people outraged about that, which we should be. But focus less on the pardon that Donald Trump is giving himself, the tax, the super pardon as it's being called, where he doesn't have to pay tax immunity, where he doesn't have to pay taxes. And he gets all of audits waived. That's what he wants you not to talk about. But that is what he really cares about the most. That could be, again, not just hundreds of millions, but billions of dollars in value that he's trying to extract from himself after he's made billions of dollars on these quid pro quo deals right here.

53:53Ben Meiselas:And so you've got responses from Tillis saying, despite comments as late as yesterday that the fund is dead, Trump clearly intends to resurrect the payout pot for punks, either by inappropriately establishing another bogus fund or pushing Congress to vote for a bill that the majority of Republicans would be against. It's unfortunate that Blanche, who I consider qualified for the job, would not be confirmed because this reversal. Hopefully we could resolve this by Tuesday. What do you mean he's qualified for the job? What are you talking about? This is the guy. I mean, how could you post that on the very same day?

54:28Ben Meiselas:That's why you can't give Tillis or Cornyn really that much credit. You give him a scintillative credit, but on the same day, the reflecting pool case, which Blanche oversees Pirro, right? The reflecting pool case gets dismissed. Egregious. This guy's qualified. Just, you know, put this in writing. Look, this should be in writing, but the guy's not qualified. Okay. Anyway, I'm going to pass it over to Michael Popak right now to finish up the show. Hit subscribe here. Oh, did you get your copy of WTF America? Have you got your copy of WTF America? The book I wrote with my brothers, I think there's a link in the description below.

55:07Ben Meiselas:Order it, pre-order it now. The book comes out in October, but what our publisher says, these pre-orders are really important to determine what kind of promotion is needed. It's really helpful that you do the pre-order. Put in the comments if you've done the pre-order. Again, we're grateful for you. We're grateful for you. If you or somebody you know has been injured in an auto accident, car accident, trucking accident, if you've been injured by the negligence of a third party, reach out to the Popak firm. We'll put the Popak Firm number, call or text, or visit the Popak Firm's website. And we'll also put a link in the description.

55:40Ben Meiselas:Don't be shy. Reach out to Popak. Consultation is free, okay? Also, subscribe to Legal AF YouTube and subscribe to Legal AF Substack. All right. We'll come right back. I'm going to pass this over to Michael Popak.

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58:20Michael Popok:Get 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash Legal AF. That's 60 % off your first order plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com slash Legal AF. Thanks, Ben, and welcome back to Legal AF. Well, this is exactly what it looks like when you have the two founders of Legal AF, Ben and Michael, taking some needed time off with their families, nine hours apart, but both being dedicated to bringing you the content that you deserve. The rule of law and the intersection of law and politics doesn't take a holiday, so we can't either.

59:04Michael Popok:Glad you're back. Let me pick up a little bit where Ben left off, And I'll cover a couple of other topics. I want to talk about the Katie Fang versus Todd Blanche impact with new documents being finally provided to Judge Sullivan and what it means for his confirmation process. I also want to talk about E. Jean Carroll and that case now taking a different turn as it relates to the$91 million she's owed for being the first and only person in America who's ever had a jury find that Donald Trump is a sex abuser. Then I want to talk about Kash Patel and defamation a couple of ways. Let me tie most of this together with Todd Blanche, because Todd Blanche is ultimately Kash Patel's boss.

59:53Michael Popok:And Todd Blanche also is connected, of course, to the defendant in the Katie Fang lawsuit, in which he obtained a preliminary injunction in order to get Judge Sullivan to order the five categories of information and documents he finally provided to the American people. and that Todd Blanchby found in contempt. This is not about trying to, you know, throw a monkey wrench into his confirmation process. I think he's doing a pretty good job of doing that all by himself. I mean, as Ben touched on, and I'll follow up here, I don't think he's got the votes. We'll find out more as the week progresses, whether Cornyn and Tillis will come around and give him the votes, but it is a spectacularly amazing thing and a defeat so far for Donald Trump that on a Senate Judiciary Committee that he controls the votes on, he can't rustle up 11 out of 12 votes to get this guy confirmed already.

1:00:56Michael Popok:And it's talking about Todd Blanch like he's some football coach that's about to get axed in social media posts. I mean, the damning faint praise of Todd Blanch by Donald Trump. Well, we'll just try it again in six or eight months. It's like a football owner, team owner saying out loud, well, I don't think we're going to get rid of coach in the middle of the season. He's doing a pretty good job. And the next day, the guy has a press conference and says he wants to spend more time with his family. I think that's where Todd Blanch is right now. And he's getting undermined, his legs cut out from under him by Donald Trump, who's busy telling the world that he does not want to get rid of the Jan 6 fund, but more particularly does not want to get rid of the one paragraph amendment to the Jan 6 fund settlement entered into by Todd Blanch.

1:01:48Michael Popok:That obviously was the quid pro quo for Todd Blanch to get the job. He got passed over four times. This is what it took for him to get the nomination in Donald Trump's eyes, because I thinks he's also thought he's a little bit of a loser. He got passed over the first time when Aileen Cannon was touted to be the attorney general. Yeah, the Mar-a-Lago judge. He got passed over again when Matt Gaetz was the nominee. Didn't even make it to the committee, that one. It's pretty tough sledding when you're getting passed over for somebody who's been accused of child sex trafficking. And then, all right, well, you know, top line, she's like, okay, now my turn.

1:02:31Michael Popok:Nope, nope. Pam Bondi, Pam Bondi, come on down. You're the next attorney general. And then even when she gets canned, he doesn't immediately turn to number two in the office, Todd Blanche. He starts holding a Hunger Games-style tryout. Maybe Janine Pirro, maybe Harmeet Dillon, maybe Lee Zeldin, the EPA director. Let's see how low Todd Blanche will go for me. Oh, he'll give me the immunity and the release for my family and me of hundreds of billions of dollars of tax liability and criminal liability? Todd, where have you been all my life? That's what we just watched. And now, whenever Trump gets that whiff of somebody's a loser, whether it's Alina Habba or Lindsey Allegan or Tulsi Gabbard or Kristi Noem, you know, their shelf life is not that long.

1:03:26Michael Popok:I think Blanche is starting to fall into that category. And he and it's not helping him that as he's telling the people that he needs the votes from Senator Tillerson Cornyn that he's killing the Jan 6 fund. He's got Donald Trump out there saying, I want the Jan 6 fund. And he's got Donald Trump's lawyers, obviously, with Todd Blanche's approval, filing notices of appeal to keep the Jan 6 fund alive in Judge Williams' Miami case. like either Todd Blanche knew about it and has effectively lied to Cornyn and Tellis about the filing keeping the Jan 6 fund alive when he's telling them it's dead, or he didn't know about it.

1:04:07Michael Popok:And I don't know which is worse. And he's, of course, connected back to Katie Fang, the intrepid reporter, friend of mine here on the Midas Touch Network, who has a successful case. She's won several times in front of Judge Sullivan, including a preliminary injunction that requires the Department of Justice to comply with an act of Congress, a law, the Epstein File Transparency Act. And in order to do that, he had to produce just five categories of documents. Documents in and around a sex torture video, documents around an international child sex trafficking ring that were in a foreign language, like translate them, will you?

1:04:52Michael Popok:documents about handwritten 302 FBI interview notes about a woman who says that when she was a teenager, barely 13, she was sexually abused by Donald Trump. And the redaction log that's supposed to list why 200 ,000 pages, 200 ,000 pages of the Epstein files representing a little bit less than 10 % have not been produced at all. Why have they been blacked out? And they didn't do any of those things. They didn't translate the documents, which the judge told them to. They refused to produce the documents. They refused to produce the privilege log, because I don't think they ever did it, the redaction log.

1:05:32Michael Popok:And they're still fighting over which and then they hide behind the victims. Well, we don't want to produce these because the victims were complicit in some of the activities. I'm like, what are you even talking about. So finally, Todd Blanche, or his number two, Stan Woodward, submitted with about 32 minutes to spare on a deadline set by Judge Sullivan, categories of documents for in-camera, meaning only the judge looks at, review. I've looked at the emails. They have to do with some of them are about the sex torture video. Some of them involved Epstein and victims when he had those victims under psychological, monetary, financial, emotional pressure and his thumb.

1:06:24Michael Popok:And so some of those young girls were doing things that in retrospect were him manipulating them to help bring new girls into the child sex trafficking ring. But they can't be blamed. They were psychologically tortured by Epstein, who had their passports in one hand and their visas in another and their finances in a third and squeezed. And so if you see an email out of context like, oh, look, she was participating in it. No, she wasn't participating in it. She was being coerced into doing it by a master manipulator and predator. In fact, one of the survivors out of the 1400 came forward and filed a motion to intervene to convince Judge Sullivan to keep her name out of it, to keep her name redacted.

1:07:14Michael Popok:Because she was manipulated by him and she would be embarrassed and re-traumatized if they were released. But the fact that they even submitted more documents to the judge, but I don't think this digs them out of their hole. because the judge didn't ask for more information about their failure to comply with his order to translate documents. They got the last word. It was a one and a half pages of gobbledygook, of ridiculousness. And that's one. And two, he didn't ask for more documents about, you know, why they didn't prepare the redaction log. So it's obvious what he's going to do. He's going to make a ruling early this week.

1:07:59Michael Popok:We'll follow it on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network about the documents that were submitted. He'll make some hard calls about this document and that document. And then he's going to lower the boom. So they shouldn't be surprised. He gave them the last word, but that he's going to lower the boom on them. And I think in contempt for Todd Blanche, just in time for his confirmation vote. I think that confirmation vote they're announcing, it might be Tuesday, could be Wednesday. stay close to me stay close to our sub stack on legal af because i will keep you posted and we will put up live on the legal af youtube channel a um a uh a live stream which i'll host of the vote of the confirmation vote i mean i just had you know cory booker on uh about the upcoming vote and the importance of it and here's what senator booker had to say yeah this is really one of those times where you have to fight every battle, you're going to lose a lot, but you're going to win some.

1:08:59And the strength that any individual senator has is magnified and multiplied when people express the same outrage at extraordinary numbers. And I've seen a backlash of people change his tariff policy, change when he was making cuts to Medicaid. He has been stopped or at least delayed in a lot of the awful things he wants to do by extraordinary people. In his first term, remember, he wanted to get rid of the Affordable Care Act. And I've never seen this place, even now, 13 years here, I've never seen as many people descend on Washington, D.C., little kids in wheelchairs, they call themselves the little lobbyists, rolling up to senators and pleading with them not to take away their health care.

1:09:47And it worked. It changed the mind of three of my colleagues, and that was stopped. And so that's why I want everybody who's listening, the thing they want you to do is to underestimate your power, the power of your voice when you stand up, when you speak up. It makes a difference. And on this issue, with the highest law enforcement office in the land, a person that is incredibly responsible for our public safety, our national security, we cannot let somebody as dangerous as Todd Blanche get there.

1:10:19Michael Popok:So this is all going to time out in and around the, and I think a contempt order, in and around the vote. And he's going to have to answer ultimately for, as Ben pointed out earlier, why are they appealing the ruling by Judge Williams, which called the Jan 6th settlement process, tainted with fraud and at least bad faith, and announced that it couldn't be used as a justification for the settlement at all. Like, why is he continuing to defend that while he's telling Cornyn and Tillis that he's going to kill it? Makes absolutely no sense. But that's the world that we are in. Let me now move to E.

1:11:05Michael Popok:Jean Carroll, who was that Elle magazine editor who bumped into Donald Trump in 1996 at the revolving door of the Bergdorf Goodman department store, caddy-corner to Trump Tower, and had the misfortune of having that interaction turn terribly dark and violent. She was sexually abused in a dressing room by Donald Trump and a jury of nine, nine zero, after several weeks of testimony, not just E. Jean Carroll. So it wasn't just he said, she said. It was several witnesses who she confided in at the time as outcry witnesses that she was sexually abused. Really, as the judge pointed out, technically raped by Donald Trump.

1:11:52Michael Popok:And that accumulation of evidence and other evidence about Donald Trump's past bad acts and past sexual misconduct convinced a jury she's the only person to ever have Donald Trump branded a sex abuser and predator. And she had two judgments that she obtained from two separate juries. She went 18 and 0 in federal court, in two separate federal juries a couple of months apart. She got her$5.8 million, which was about the$5 million which ran with interest about a week or so ago. And that has to do with Donald Trump sexually abusing her, the punitive damages he owes her, and defaming her after he was president.

1:12:35Michael Popok:He then continued to defame her. And there was a second trial, including about when he was president the first time, and he testified in that case, and the jury hated him, and ultimately, and believed fully E. Jean Carroll and awarded her$83.5 million, which is now about$91 million running with interest. So he lost at the United States Supreme Court level on the first case, arguing that evidence shouldn't have been brought in about him being a previous predator. That was really the argument. And even the MAGA six on the Supreme Court were like, pass. None of them helped him. None of them wrote a dissent.

1:13:19Michael Popok:No, they just said, denied, we're not granting that petition. Now, the second, he just filed a new petition for writ of certiorari, which is the way you take an appeal or request an appeal at the Supreme Court. And there he's arguing immunity. surprise that he had immunity when he was president he could defame anybody effectively um and so that this is now going to tie into the criminal immunity even though this is a civil case and also another form of immunity that all federal workers no matter if you're badge number one the president of united states all the way down to you know the the other person it's called west fall immunity it has to do with the name of a case years ago and west fall immunity is enjoyed by all federal workers, and you can't sue them, the federal government can intervene on their behalf and toss them.

1:14:08Michael Popok:And therefore, they enjoy immunity, if it is within the course and scope of their duties. So the question is, is defaming E. Jean Carroll about her appearance, her being too ugly to have been sexually abused, I mean, that's effectively what he's saying. Is that going to be within the scope of his authority or duties to give him Westfall immunity. And he also waived it. He raised these things 15 months basically after the judgment. I mean, after the verdict, the judgment, everything. They were like, oh yeah, I was president. It's a little late. We have a concept of the law called latches or immunity and waiver.

1:14:47Michael Popok:So there's a waiver argument. So I'm not sure he's got five votes to get the petition for writ of certiorari granted on that particular one. But if it's going to happen, it's going to happen in about two weeks. There's a conference on August 17th. We'll see if they take it up then. If they do, pardon the lighting out here. If they do, it'll be heard in the fall, early winter, with a decision in spring or summer of next year, which means this 83-year-old victim is going to have to continue to wait for her money. And they could always kick the can down the road. I mean, in the first case, they kicked the can in 13 separate conferences between February and June before they voted against it.

1:15:30Michael Popok:They could do it here, too. They could just not hear it and then deny it at the end. That may happen here as well. But we want E.G. and Carroll to get the money. Justice demands it. We certainly call for it here on Illegal AF, the podcast. Let me end with Cash Patel. Remember him? FBI director. Yeah, so he's in the news for a couple of defamation cases. First, in probably one of the funniest laugh out loud cases I've heard of, he went after Jim Stewardson. Jim Stewardson, if you don't know him, is a disinformation researcher who believes in defending democracy through sarcasm and parody. You know, his profile picture is South Park, somebody from there or him as South Park.

1:16:22Michael Popok:And he wrote a couple of things about Kash Patel that got him sued for defamation, calling him a googly-eyed Kremlin asset. In fact, he's now switched it to googly-eyed Kremlin, sorry, pardon me, it's late at night, bitch. Googly-eyed Kremlin bitch, suggesting that Kash Patel, in his opinion, based on his performance, takes his talking points from Vladimir Putin. Look, for years, people thought, including in the FBI, Donald Trump was a Russian asset. So commenting on it is not really defamatory. He also made some other comments about him. But mainly the googly-eyed Kremlin bitch is the one that Kash Patel didn't like.

1:17:04Michael Popok:So he sued him. Now, Patel, which I had forgotten, I guess lives in Nevada, Las Vegas. Should have been suspicious already. a Las Vegas gambler as our FBI director. So he sues him in his home state in Nevada, and he actually gets a default judgment against Jim Stewardson. But finally, Jim gets a lawyer, and the lawyer files a motion to dismiss and vacate the default judgment, because the default judgment, meaning Jim didn't answer the lawsuit. And he said, there's no personal jurisdiction over Mr. Stewardson. He has no connectivity to Nevada. This isn't a Nevada issue. Nevadans don't care. This is about Cash Mattel.

1:17:44Michael Popok:And there's no Nevada, you know, stake in this. And finally, the judge in the case, Judge Gordon, vacated the default judgment and dismissed the defamation case. It can be refiled. They can start over again somewhere where Jim Stoartson lives, but they can't sue in Nevada. Now, one of the funniest things I saw was Jim's response to this, which is not actually legally right, but did make me laugh out loud, so I wanted to share it with you. It's not legally right because he didn't get a ruling in his favor on the substance of what he wrote, that that's not defamatory. It's like that it's protected opinion or sarcasm or parody, although I think that's where that would have went.

1:18:30Michael Popok:But he did post on his, we'll put it up on the screen. He did post on his screen. Now that my case is settled, I think he means dismissed, you are free to refer to at FBI Director Cash as a googly eyed Kremlin bitch and a traitor without fear of legal repercussions. That's not exactly true, Jim, although it is hilarious and very, very funny. In fact, Jim has put up his own version of the analysis. If you go to his X account, he also just posted, I wrote about the reaction to Kash Patel getting his frivolous lawsuit thrown out after I called him a, this is like a drinking game, a googly-eyed Kremlin bitch.

1:19:30Michael Popok:When people try to take away your freedom, mockery is a powerful tool. You really cannot do it enough. Please subscribe. You know, I give the guy a lot of credit on that. Now, Kash Patel has his own case also against the Atlantic Magazine and Sarah Fitzpatrick for having done a whole article about his drinking problem because she says she had sourced at least 20 different people inside and outside of the FBI that said he has an excessive drinking problem. He drinks to excess. He thought he was fired when he forgot his password into the FBI account and had a freak out, a lot of freak outs going on in the White House.

1:20:08Michael Popok:In addition to that, according to her reporting, he had to be woken up. They almost battered down the door with a battering ram because he was going to miss meetings. He's been known to be publicly intoxicated in Nevada, Las Vegas, nightclubs and lounges. And he didn't like that. He didn't like the questions about him squiring his girlfriend around town and on the people's jet with taxpayer dollars. So he sued the Atlantic. Now, the Atlantic filed their motion to dismiss. Good thing. It's appropriate thing because she has good reporting and she shouldn't be sued. He tried to dox her by posting her address when he made his filings, and that got caught by the judge and by The Atlantic and sealed.

1:20:57And this is what they said. This is the quote from the editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, of The Atlantic magazine.

1:21:10Michael Popok:If Director Patel did not want to face this process, he should not have filed the suit. These legal filings are consistent with the promise I made to our staff and to our readers in May. We will defend The Atlantic and its staff vigorously. We will not be intimidated by acts of politically motivated retaliation. We will continue to cover the FBI professionally, fairly and thoroughly, and we will continue to practice journalism in the public interest. They're also seeking a stay of discovery until their motion to dismiss is granted or denied, which I think is appropriate in this case as well. That case is just a way for Kash Patel to try to run interference, to do a cover-up for what could be the public intoxication problem he has.

1:21:57Michael Popok:I mean, he's been challenged by Sheldon Whitehouse and others to take a, and Jamie Raskin, to take a lie detector test, take an intoxication test to find out if he has a substance abuse problem. And he denies all of it. He refuses to do it. And yet he's got people in the Whitehouse to continue to protect him. Kash Patel's FBI director makes this less secure as a nation. And he needs to go. and his attempts to use Donald Trump's own defamation playbook to intimidate the press or people who parody him must be ground to a halt and come to an end. And so we wanted to cover these things today. Ben had some opportunity to do his part, turned it over to me with a toss over to take advantage of us, both trying to spend a little time with our family, but more importantly, keeping legal AF alive.

1:22:53Michael Popok:And that is so important right now. And I'm glad that you're here. So many different ways to support what we do. As we touched on earlier, hit the subscribe button for Legal AF. We're at 1 ,180 ,000 subscribers. We're going to hit about 1.5 million before the midterms, maybe even 2 million with your help. It's all free. It really costs you nothing but means the world to us. It is very important to us to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. I also curate the Legal AF sub-stack, and we're in the top 30 of all U.S. news and politics sub-stacks. Eight or 10 new pieces of content every day, including a live report that I do every day to catch you up on the news, sometimes with guests.

1:23:41Michael Popok:Sometimes I ride solo. And then, of course, we've got a new relaunch of our old X account, this time rebranded as Legal AF Clips, which is the best of all interview and other video clips that you can watch on X. Just go to at Legal AF MTN, Legal AF MTN. And we're trying to grow that audience as well for Legal AF Clips. and so I'm so glad you're going to be seeing me in this, either in this location or another one for the next couple of weeks but I wouldn't let you down by not doing my work and not doing what I need to do to keep you uplifted and get you the information you need without smoke or sunshine.

1:24:28Michael Popok:So until my next report, this is Michael Popok and for Ben Mysalas for Legal AF, the podcast. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers. Thank you.