Legal AF 8/15/26

25:15The United States Secret Service as an agency of the United States government is not authorized

25:20Ben Meiselas:to accept service of these subpoenas for these individuals, nor can we opine on how you all may best facilitate service of these subpoenas. So you're just going to block them from being served. Then what to what end? The end is BBC goes to federal court, calls them out. We now know what a, we always know, but just further shows how pathetic they are that they're hiding. They're going to get served eventually. You're not going to hide forever. What's the game plan? You're just going to drag it out and drag it out and drag it out. But the BBC is fighting back. But you see in this one case alone, right?

25:57It follows the Trump pattern,

26:00Ben Meiselas:$10 billion lawsuit, epic fury, right? The headline. And then he'll send the emails. look what I did. I went after them. Look how tough I am. Then sometimes you'll have a Venezuela situation, right? Where someone will just give up. I don't want to deal with this crap. I'll deal with it. But you're never going to actually get Trump away. He's a predator. He will take, like he does in Venezuela, 13, 15,$20 billion. He doesn't care. And they will just continue to harass you over and over again. It's what Delcey's going to see. It's what they're all going to see. and everybody loses and you're in this world of hell.

26:37On the other hand, you have BBC fights back and it looks a lot like other situations where people have fought back against Trump. You see it. And then Trump flails. A judge, I wanna do an amended complaint. Then he attacks the judge. He won't attack this judge because it's a judge he appointed, but one of his tactics is he attacks the judge. He says the judge needs to be removed. It's a liberal, it's an Obama. This fault, that fault, it's everybody's fault. Amended complaint. And then eventually he just dismisses the case. If I was the BBC, the only thing maybe I would do differently is the moment you get sued by the guy, just serve him with a deposition.

27:14Just have him show up. Just regardless. You don't need. I understand why you'd want the documents before his deposition, but he's never showing up for a deposition ever. He's terrified. The few times he did one of them, he pled the fifth. You know, this guy doesn't show up for depositions. All right, sit there. Let me ask you questions. Shut up. Seven hours. Shut up. And then ask him questions for seven hours. BBC's building to that. But, you know, I think they're I think they're torturing him a little bit with the kids and with the financial records. I think they're having a little fun with it, too.

27:49And for them, BBC, you know, they're British. It's a British broadcasting network. Right. So they're out there saying we could get a lot of information for our reporting as well. So anyway, great work, BBC. When we come back, I want to talk about the great work from Katie Fang. Let's take our first quick break of the show. We will be right back after this quick break. Oh, reminder, subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel, the Legal AF Substack, and also make sure you subscribe to this YouTube channel as well. Get a copy of WTF America. Pre-order it now. It's the book I wrote with my brothers.

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31:18Please support our show and tell them that our show sent you. Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of those incredible sponsors. They support our show, support our sponsors. Let's talk about Katie Fang's lawsuit against the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche under the Epstein Transparency Act.

31:38Ben Meiselas:There was a major hearing this week. Katie Fang attended the hearing. We got to hear from Katie Fang as well about what went down. And this case is before a federal judge named Judge Sullivan, a no-nonsense federal judge who began the hearing by saying, I'm calling all of the parties in here because I'm not happy right now with how the DOJ is handling my orders. I've ordered certain things be produced after Katie Fang filed this lawsuit. Katie Fang won a preliminary injunction and I expected certain things to be delivered to me and they have not been delivered to me and they have not been done pursuant to my court orders.

32:23Ben Meiselas:I am not afraid to issue a contempt ruling against the DOJ and hold you in civil contempt or even additional contempt hearings. The judge said, go look at my history. I've held other DOJ officials in contempt in the past. He was referring to a criminal case involving the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who was prosecuted by the DOJ around 2008 or so. He was convicted. The case was overturned after serious DOJ misconduct was uncovered, and Judge Sullivan held the DOJ lawyers in contempt for their conduct. One of those DOJ lawyers at that time also died by suicide and unclear if it was linked later to the fact that the person's career was ruined after the contempt order or other circumstances.

33:25Ben Meiselas:I don't pretend to know anyone's specific situation, so I want to be very sensitive, especially about a topic like that. But Judge Sullivan was a judge who was not afraid to hold the DOJ in contempt. He brought up the story generally, not the story about the individual per se and what happened thereafter, but how he held lawyers in contempt before. Now, Todd Blanche did not show up to this hearing, although one would have expected that since he's signing the documents, that he'd show up to this hearing. He's the one who's signing lots of these documents. and he's the name defendant. But of course he didn't.

34:07Ben Meiselas:Are you sensing a theme here about how the Trumps hide? We'll get to the bunker in a little bit as well in his petition to the Supreme Court, how he was so desperately wants to hide in the bunker. But Todd Blanche didn't show up. Instead, Todd Blanche sent a young, like an AUSA who used to work for Customs and Border Patrol, who is now an AUSA because so many of the top talent in the DOJ has quit or resigned or been forced out or been fired or whatever. So they sent this young guy, Andrew Block, on behalf of the Department of Justice. Seemed that this guy did not know what he was doing. He didn't know much about the Epstein files.

34:47And he was there basically to kind of be the fall guy from what I've heard from everybody

34:52Ben Meiselas:in the courtroom. So when Judge Sullivan would ask questions, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I'll have to look into that, Judge. I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, which infuriated Judge Sullivan. But it actually created an opportunity because Blanche was scared and the other senior lawyers didn't want to be anywhere near this thing. The opportunity was, is that the judge and Katie Fang's lawyer with Block kind of being like, what can I do, Judge? What can I do? Block's the young DOJ lawyer. There were actual action items that took place that are very important under the Epstein Transparency Act.

35:31Ben Meiselas:Now, as you know, Katie Fang's lawsuit says, produce all the Epstein files that need to be produced. But her preliminary injunction was surgical. It said that there are a group of people who appear to be co-conspirators, who appear to be the perpetrators, the bad guys, the cabal. but their names appear to be redacted. And what it seems is happening is that they're claiming to be victims and that they're hiding under victim protections while the real victims and the real survivors have been treated so horribly by the DOJ and their personal information has been revealed. So the bad guys were being treated as the victims and the victims were being treated horribly by the DOJ.

36:17So Katie Fang said, we need to understand why are you redacting these names?

36:22Ben Meiselas:So that was kind of part one. Part two, the FBI 302 report. And there's one FBI 302 report that deals with allegations of an underage girl against Donald Trump. Trump denies the allegations, but it's in an FBI 302 report. And there should be notes that accompany the FBI 302 report. Well, the Trump regime has covered up those notes. So Katie Fang is like, okay, I hear you. You're denying the allegations. Okay. But you have to produce the notes. Okay. Let us determine what's going on here. And the DOJ is like, nah, the notes are just, they're similar to the 302. So we're not going to produce the notes.

37:00Ben Meiselas:There's some exception that I'm unaware of regarding no notes. No, the notes are part of the files. Turn over the notes. So there's that category. There's a foreign language category, produce foreign language documents. The Trump regime, eh, if it's in foreign languages, we're not going to translate it or we're just not even going to produce the foreign language. Why? You're not going to produce, that's not in the Epstein Transparency Act. We could translate. If you're too lazy to translate it, we'll translate it. Turn over the foreign documents. And then there's the privilege log, the redaction log.

37:33Ben Meiselas:And that is the log of all of the documents that are being withheld. And line by line, the DOJ is required to say why they're withholding a specific document. Now, we know separately this week, one of Todd Blanche's first action items was to issue a memo claiming that executive privilege to shield communications by Donald Trump and people within the White House. That executive privilege applies to anyone Donald Trump deems a private advisor or any of Trump's advisors' communications with outside people who Trump deems private advisors. The DOJ and Trump are going to say, we don't have to produce any of those records if Democrats take control of the House of Representatives.

38:24Ben Meiselas:We'll claim all communications between Donald Trump and anybody outside that Trump or anybody inside the White House with communications outside deems to be an advisor will be privileged. We'll be subject to confidential privilege and we're not going to produce it. You want it, go ahead and sue us for it. Go ahead and file a lawsuit against us if ultimately you want to get those documents. And then the Trump regime's like, we're going to drag it out. So why am I bringing this up here? Because that's not an accurate way to assert a privilege. And so there are probably millions and millions of documents that the Trump regime has not produced by claiming an improper privilege.

39:06Ben Meiselas:Executive privilege, deliberative process privilege, attorney-client privilege, all of these things to withhold the most damaging documents about Donald Trump that need to be produced. So the redaction log has to go through each document, the millions of documents, line by line and explain why every document's not being produced. So that was what the preliminary injunction was about. And the federal judge basically said, I'm granting the preliminary injunction and we'll create a kind of step-by-step process for all of this to be turned over at the time. And the judge kind of started with baby steps.

39:45Ben Meiselas:Turn over this to Chambers so I can see to the judge in camera. So I'll look at it privately first to see what the issues are so we could protect people's privacy. And then the DOJ didn't comply. So that's why you have this hearing because the judge is like, what the hell? I issued an order. What are you doing? I want to get to the bottom of this. It's literally when the judge started the hearing, the judge says people want answers. People want to know what the hell is going on with these files. And that's why I called the public hearing, because I want the public to see this. So no blanche, none of the people who are signing these ridiculous filings before the DOJ, before the court, they sent this Andrew Block kid.

40:28Ben Meiselas:And it did not go well for Andrew Block. As I noted, the judge, the big headline was that the judge was saying, I may hold you in contempt. I'm not, they're going to send you. I'm not afraid to hold DOJ officials in contempt. The judge said, I don't plan to go there right away. That's not, I don't start with the idea of that. My goal is to get these files out to the public and to bring transparency to these files. That's my role right now. But I'm not afraid to hold you in contempt. And then the judge went through each of those aspects of Katie Fang's preliminary injunction request that the court previously granted.

41:10Okay, DOJ, I want you to turn over everything that justifies your claim that these people who appear to be co-conspirators are victims.

41:20Ben Meiselas:They don't seem to be. Show it to me. Give me the binder. And Andrew Block's like, here. and the court's like, I will look at that and I will now make the call. Enough is enough on that. If I don't believe they're victims, I'm going to order their names be unredacted and that their names be shown. What are we doing with these notes? I want a proposed order that the 302 notes about the allegations against Trump, that those get produced. Katie Fang's lawyer, will you do a proposed order? Yes, yes. Okay, great. Foreign language documents, I want a proposed order talking about when those get produced.

41:54Okay, great. Redaction log. I want a proposed order about when that gets produced. When are we going to produce the redaction log?

42:02Ben Meiselas:Give me a timeframe, Katie Fang's lawyer, meet with this Andrew Block kid and get me a proposed order about when all of that's going to be produced. Everybody understand the court's order. Everybody understand, got it, good. And so that's where we're at now. The big headline was the judge threatens the other side with contempt because contempt is such a big word, right? But let's talk. The other aspects are to me, the more meaningful thing because what this is going to do, and this is why Katie Fang's lawsuit from a legal perspective, I think was so well done. Surgical. It was surgical. She was highlighting that if the Trump regime is covering up these categories, then they've covered up the 5 million.

42:50Ben Meiselas:And if they covered up the 5 million, they may be covering up the 20 million documents, right? So this opens up the Pandora's box for all of this stuff to be released. So what do we expect to happen? I expect that we'll get an order from the court in the next few days about the co-conspirators and having their names unredacted. I think we'll get that. Regarding the notes, I think we'll get the notes in the next two or three weeks. the notes regarding the 302s with the allegations against Trump, which he denies, but I think we'll get the notes. The redaction log, you know the Trump regime DOJ has not even started drafting a redaction log, regardless of what they say.

43:32Ben Meiselas:And they're going to have to go through all the 5 million documents, 6 million documents they withheld, and they're going to have to go line by line, why are you withholding this document? And so I think they're going to probably ask for a date. We need until 2027 to do this now. And the court will be like, I'll give you 90 days. I'm guessing here, but this is what. And so I think we'll probably get some order saying in 90 days, I want to see the redaction log. That's more than enough. You put your resources on it. This should have been done nine months ago or more. It wasn't. Do it right now.

44:09I'll give you 90 days. So that's what's going on there. And I do think that this judge will not hesitate to hold these lawyers in contempt. This raises another important point that I want to talk about, which is lots of people, when Katie Fang filed this lawsuit, some in the legal community, some outside, said, ah, this lawsuit isn't going anywhere. Why would you even file this? It's a waste of time. No, it isn't. It is how we as independent news should be behaving.

44:45Ben Meiselas:It's what we should be doing. Look, to me, talking the talk is very important. Okay, nobody would say, hey, Fox News, which I call state regime media, all they do is talk the talk. Pathetic. No, you would say Fox for right-wing propaganda and their repeated lies has a very profoundly bad impact. No one goes, oh, all they do is talk. So I do think it's important we talk the talk loudly, not with propaganda, with the truth about the facts, about the law, about things. It's an important role. We need to not respond to their narratives and their ecosystems. We need to be reporting on what's really happening.

45:35And we need to make sure that that becomes the ecosystem of what's actually being reported on. That's why I give a hat tip to people like Aaron Parnas, affiliated with the Midas Touch Network, for bringing light to the conditions. And there's other great reporters too. Military Times, Stars and Stripes at MSNOW too. there's a really the problem sometimes with corporate news is they'll cover the story and then they'll move on to the next story and the next trump distraction and the next trump distraction and what we try to do here is i don't want to ignore the other things that are happening but i want to just flood the zone with all of the midas touch ecosystem all the independent reporters out there whether they're directly affiliated indirectly affiliated and you know So right now, collectively, we get way more views than the right wing.

46:26And so we push it out. We have our framework of the truth. And we make sure that what's being reported every day are the horrible conditions aboard the Abraham Lincoln, the horrible conditions aboard the USS George H.W. Bush, and the other ships as well, channeling what the family members are saying to us, what they're telling Aaron, what they're telling others, and to make it and will that as the main story and continue every single day, sometimes repetitive, but every damn day to control the narrative and not what they want to talk about on the right wing WNBA and bathrooms and all this stuff.

47:09And I want to talk about the facts. Talking the talk's important. Walking the walk, though, is important also. And there are things that independent journalists can do. Katie Fang filing the lawsuit, Alison Gill and her FOIA requests that she's been doing, also getting information about Epstein and other critical information as well. There's so many other independent reporters doing a great job as well. And then I got to give a hat tip to the lawsuit that was filed by The Intercept and that was filed by another group called the Freedom of the Press Association against Donald Trump's social media platform.

47:46Trump has his true social platform and Trump is selling access to Wall Street firms,$100 ,000 a month for early access to his social media posts. And we all go, wait a minute, that sounds like insider trading and market manipulation. But Trump's saying it in plain view. And Trump's whole thing is, I'm going to do it. What are you going to do about it? And then he's going to try to do what we've talked about in the first segment. squirm out of it and hide and duck and dodge if you actually fight back. And he's going to hope you don't fight back. But this lawsuit by The Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Association says under the First Amendment and Fifth Amendment, we have constitutional rights.

48:27First Amendment, freedom of speech, freedom of the press. You can't control statements from the presidency and only show it to people first who pay$100 ,000 a month. That would be like selling access to the Oval Office and say the only people who can show up at the White House or who can show up at an Oval Office presser are people who pay$100 ,000 a month. It's no different that you're doing it on your social media platform. And here are all the examples every day where you post things that manipulate the markets, that move the markets. You make all of your announcements on your social media platform.

49:04By the way, Truth Social lost$270 million or$250 to$270. Lost a lot of money. Somewhere in that range of$250,$270 million. In Q2, in the second quarter alone, it lost that much money. And so they're trying to find ways to make money because Trump can't run things. He runs things into the ground. That's been his whole career, bankrupting casinos, bankrupting this business, bankrupting that. He's a loser. He's a loser. I mean, by the way, If you bankrupt something once, that's not a loser. I mean, people go through things. I want to be very clear about that.

49:42Ben Meiselas:I don't want to be insensitive to the idea. But the way he does it and promises this and I'm going to be a billion, that's the loser quality. And then he does it over and over again. I just want to be very clear about that. It's not merely making a mistake or whatever or learning from it. It's an intentional, in my view, fraud. But then we have, okay, Truth Social losing whatever it was,$250 million. last quarter alone. So now they're selling$100 ,000 a month access. And these organizations say, you can't do that. First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, under the Fifth Amendment, they say, you can't make pecuniary gain for the speech of government.

50:25You can't sell it off like that, which is interesting as you go into certain areas of jurisprudence that even as a law professor, I was like, well, that's a true, interesting angle that's never really been used before because we've never had someone engage in that behavior. But then the most obvious one is the First Amendment, which is you're preventing our ability to report timely by selling access to public information to Wall Street firms and gatekeeping it as the President of the United States. That's deeply problematic. And so they filed this lawsuit in the Southern District of New York. It's in a Manhattan courthouse.

51:05It's a strong lawsuit. I don't know what Truth Social's defense is going to be. They can try to argue, well, this isn't government speech. This is a private business, and this is Trump's personal account. No, it's not, number one. And number two, if you argue that, you'll lose no matter what by even making the argument,

51:28Ben Meiselas:and you're going to waive than any claim he has in the future to absolute immunity that sadly our right-wing fascist Supreme Court gave Donald Trump a few years back. If you say it's all personal conduct and it has nothing to do with the presidency, great. Well, then all that behavior, the things about all of his war crimes, everything that he's ordering on Truth Social will then be viewed as not subject to any absolute immunity, right? That would follow if that's going to be your defense against this First Amendment lawsuit, arguing your gatekeeping public government speech for$100 ,000 a month.

52:07So it really puts Truth Social in a bind and Trump Media, the parent company, about what they're going to argue. And if you block this$100 ,000 per month's payments, pay for play scheme, or pay for presidential speech scheme, Truth Social has no way of making money yet. This is their last gasp of breath of how to make money at this point because they failed. They tried to do crypto schemes. They tried this and that, and they've screwed up everything they've touched. That's why they're losing$250 million a quarter, the last quarter. So this is another example, and I wanted to talk about this in the Katie Fang segment because it's another example about how journalists can use the tools, not just in terms of the reporting, but use the tools in order to fight back.

53:01And you may be saying, but why wouldn't they just sue on the basis of insider trading? Well, the people who have standing to do that

53:09Ben Meiselas:would likely be the shareholders of Trump media. And who are they at this point? who they're either an ultra MAGA lunatic who loves losing their money. I'm giving you my opinion, of course, of who I think they are. Or there's some institutional entity that has to buy the entire market. And so there's fractional shares of truth based on its tiny portion because it buys an entire market. Or it's some institutional investor that tried to curry favor with Trump and may have lost money but was happy to ride the didn't they wrote off the loss and they've accepted the paper loss and they're just not dealing with it but they don't want to harm their other business lines out of a fear of suing Trump so to me who would have the issue always becomes article three standing because that's always an argument that Trump makes you don't have the right to sue here it was one of the claims that they tried to make against Katie Fang you don't have the right to sue.

54:05Well, she does as a journalist, she has the right to this. Similarly, the way this lawsuit against Trump media was crafted, as journalists, they have the right to access this information. You see? And we all have the access to it. So they have standing. So again, follow that lawsuit. That's why I wanted to bring these two things in the same segment. All right. Make sure you subscribe to Popak's YouTube channel, Legal AF, his sub stack, Legal AF. If you or somebody you know has been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, reach out to Popak's firm. Popak takes free consultations. So see if you have a case.

54:46We'll put in the link below Popak's law firm. But seriously, if you think you've been injured, if someone hits your car, if a truck hits your car, you've been injured by like a company and you're looking to sue and you're thinking, should I, do I have a case? Popak does catastrophic injury cases, death cases. If you know someone who's sadly been killed in an accident, reach out to Popak's firm. I'll put the graphic up here and then I'll put a link in the description below. Also, get your copy of WTF America. That's the book I wrote with my brothers. Pre-order it now. All right, we'll come back.

55:20We'll talk about Trump's emergency petition to the Supreme Court. and we'll talk about his emergency petition to the DC Circuit Court. Lots of emergency petitions. I will take a quick break. You know what I love? Finding something that brings back those Saturday morning cereal memories without the sugar crash. That's why I've been into Magic Spoon. It's a high protein, zero sugar cereal that tastes like the classics I grew up with and every serving packs 12 to 14 grams of protein and just zero to two grams of sugar. It's also certified gluten-free, so it's a really fueling option, whether it's breakfast, a late-night snack, or after a workout.

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59:01Treat yourself to the most advanced bras and shapewear on the market. Use our exclusive link to save 20 % off Honey Love at honeylove.com slash legal AF. That's honeylove.com slash legal AF. And after you check out, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them Legal AF sent you. Experience the new standard and comfort and support with Honey Love. Welcome back to Legal AF. Thank you to all of our sponsors. They support our show, support our sponsors. Make sure you also subscribe to this YouTube channel, subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube channel as well. This segment, I want to talk about Donald Trump filing an emergency petition to the United States Supreme Court regarding his golden bunker, his golden ballroom, saying that it is a military complex and I need it, Supreme Court.

59:52Please help me out after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against him and said that you can't do your golden ballroom, Donald. You need Congress approval if you want to do your ballroom. That's the way it's got to be done. You can still do if you want to do security stuff underneath, that's fine. But your golden ballroom isn't your shield. OK, relax. And then also Donald Trump filed an emergency appeal to the 11th Circuit. So you understand the way this works. I don't want to confuse you, but there are district courts in the various states. That's like the trial court. All judges, federal judges are appointed, have lifetime appointments.

1:00:28They have to be appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. right and so you have district court judges in all of the different states and some states have multiple different like district courts like in california we have the central district southern district the san diego central district is la eastern district is like bakersfield and fresno northern district is like san francisco right like new york has southern district which is like manhattan and eastern district which is like the brooklyn area some smaller states just have one district court, the district court of New Jersey, and then the states, then all the different district courts in different states in certain regions, then all have like certain circuit courts that supervise them.

1:01:12And then the circuit court reviews the appeals of what happens in the lower courts. So in Florida, it's the 11th circuit. In New York, in that area and the surrounding states. I mean, it's like Florida, Georgia, other states, the 11th Circuit, like New York and New Jersey. And some of these other states, you have like the Second Circuit Court of Appeal. In California, you have California and certain Western states. It's like the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, Fifth Circuit Court of Appeal here, there. So anyway, I just don't want to confuse you when we're talking about. So in the Florida case, where Donald Trump lost, whether the federal judge ruled that Donald Trump's settlement agreement with the IRS and the Treasury Department was collusive, and the judge referred Trump's lawyer to the Bar Association.

1:02:06Trump filed an emergency appeal to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. That's the appeals court for that Florida region. So I just want to hopefully situate it. It could be a little bit confusing, especially for international viewers. Like, wait, the court of appeal, what are we even talking about? District courts, different circuit courts of appeal, and at the very top of the pyramid is the Supreme Court, okay? Supreme Court, circuit courts, and then lots of district courts throughout the country. And different district courts have different circuit courts, okay? So let's talk about Supreme Court, all the way at the top.

1:02:41And why Supreme Court? Well, because it went first to a DC district court, then a DC circuit court, then it goes up to the Supreme Court, right? The same way this IRS treasury case could go federal court in Florida, 11th Circuit Court of Appeal, United States Supreme Court after, but we're only at the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal there. So I just want to situate you in some of the language that we're using. And if you knew that already, I apologize. Okay. So let's talk about what happened in the Supreme Court. So federal judge in DC rules against Donald Trump, blocks the ballroom, stays the order, meaning pauses the order, pending a ruling by the DC Circuit Court of Appeal.

1:03:34The DC Circuit Court of Appeal takes some time to make its ruling, eventually makes its ruling a two-to-one decision. There's three judges who sit on these circuit panel cases and rules against Donald Trump, but gives Donald Trump 14 days to file an appeal. Donald Trump files an emergency appeal to the United States Supreme Court. And Donald Trump argues, look, the ballroom is an integrated military complex. I view the White House as a military facility. I need this for my national security. Trump says, in upholding the federal court order and blocking the construction of the ballroom, the DC circuit majority, the court of appeal majority, wrongly viewed the president as a mere tenant of the White House, with the district judge as his de facto landlord.

1:04:30The president of the United States is not a tenant. The D.C. Circuit never said that the district court is Donald Trump's landlord. What it did say is Donald Trump is a tenant. All presidents are tenants, meaning they're temporary stewards. They are temporary visitors at the White House. They don't own it. Who owns it? You do if you are in the United States of America, if you're a citizen. I own it. We all own it. The taxpayers own it. We the people, it belongs to us. And we act through our representatives, are members of Congress, are representatives there, and are senators. And they pass laws.

1:05:08And then the president faithfully executes those laws. That's what our system is. You live in our house. You are a tenant. And Trump hates that line. He's a tenant. I don't know if the federal judges threw that in there on purpose, but Trump hates that line. And it just also goes and tells you his psyche. You are a tenant. You're supposed to be a public servant. You're a servant. You serve us. We, the people, the taxpayers. That's what you should be focused on, not doing 21 ,000 stock trades, not enriching yourself and your family, not golden ballrooms. You should be focused on the people who are struggling, the people who can't afford things, the people who can't afford gas, the people who can't afford groceries, the people who can't buy a home or can't pay their rent, who can't make their credit card payments, who can't afford healthcare, who are having healthcare ripped away.

1:05:56That's who's your boss. And we should be electing people who help us, who work for us, not the other way around. That's something I always talk about here as well. We got to remember that first and foremost. So here is part of Donald Trump's emergency, emergency petition to the Supreme Court. Trump has been the target of a growing number of recent assassination attempts, including a heavily armed assassin who breached the security perimeter of the White House Correspondents Dinner, a gunman who opened fire at the West entrance of the White House complex. A conspiracy to deploy drones armed with explosives at the UFC Freedom 250 event.

1:06:36The threat of a missile attack against Air Force One on July 8th. That's where Donald Trump went on the catering container with Natalie Harp that we've all learned about. A sniper caught in the act by the Secret Service at Trump International Golf Club, Palm Beach, Florida. And a sniper's bullet that struck the president's ear in Butler, Pennsylvania. Ah, yes, we all know about the AR-15 bullet that hit somebody's face and just leaves a little tiny scratch. Right. The guy who went fight, fight, fight is the guy who did hide, hide, hide aboard old Air Force One. Yeah, that's the way they're really going with that the AR-15 bullet hit his face, but his face was steel and it blocked the AR-15 bullet.

1:07:19Dude, just release your Butler medical reports. Release the med, you're hiding the Butler, Pennsylvania medical reports. You're hiding the Butler, Pennsylvania documents behind redactions as well. And by the way, you even had Trump's own kind of former legal crew. That guy, Tom Fitton, remember Judicial Watch was his group. Even he sued Trump, Tom Fitton sued Trump and said, show us the Butler, Pennsylvania assassination records. and then Trump heavily redacted it. The part that you got to see about those records talked about how the assassin was apparently in communication with the police before the incident, according to Fitton, that is.

1:08:03And then the Trump regime's like, Fitton's a liar. He's a propagandist. Do not believe him. Those were actually communications between the assassin and the teachers of the assassin, not the FBI agents. Don't believe Fitton. It's like, dude, Fitton was your guy. I don't know. It's all redacted. It's hard to see what the hell's even going on. You're not releasing your medical records and your own top guy, Fitton, is the one out there saying that now the assassin spoke with the FBI before the incident. So you tell me, you tell me. Okay. So that's the main argument is Trump gets attempted assassinations all the time.

1:08:45So the ballroom is his shield. I mean, just take a look at this motion right here. It says, let's just take a look at this. This case involves an extraordinary and unlawful injunction that will halt the ongoing construction of the integrated military complex, including a totally secure ballroom space at the East wing of the White House, which is vitally required to the national security. Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton states, the project is critical for ensuring that the White House can serve as a secure locations for the gathering of the president. Then they go on and cite like, Rubio says this, and this person says this.

1:09:26If allowed to go into effect, the injunction would wrongfully install a single district judge as sole arbiter of what further construction is strictly necessary to protect the safety of the president, his family, his staff, and visitors. No other former president said, you know what? we need to turn the White House into a military complex. You also realize by turning it into a military complex, you turn it into a military target. Why would we want the White House to be a military target? The whole part about the White House is yes, the United States has strength. We project our strength in ways that used to be described as we would carry a big stick, but we would talk soft.

1:10:10We wouldn't have to be like, oh, look at all of our power. I mean, while you're unable to even feed our service members aboard our supercarriers, and while the Gerald Ford supercarrier almost burned down due to a laundromat fire, while you've had to abandon all of the bases in the Middle East because you've run out of interceptors, and now you got a base in Diego Garcia. You know what? You know, you're the White House needs to be a military complex. Why the why is the white and otherwise Trump fears for his safety and his life, they argue over here. And then Trump also says, and it's 65 % done or it's 67 % done.

1:10:55So it's too late, too late to stop it because now if we have to rip it down, that will cause more harm. So because Trump violated the law and committed 67 % additional crime, now you can't stop the crime. That's what, you know who argues that? Criminals, predators, like Donald Trump. You know, again, Trump's a felon. He's been found criminally liable for felonies. He's been found civilly liable for sexual assault. He bankrupts things. He's bankrupted his casinos. go read the truth social investor statement that Trump had to fill out where you have to list your bankruptcies. Don't trust me, look at all of his bankruptcies.

1:11:41It's just an objective damn fact that dude goes bankrupt all the time. And he's bankrupted our military, our strategic petroleum reserves of it tank bottom. He's destroyed critical agencies in the government, destroyed the department of justice. and now this is his emergency, emergency petition. Then he filed another emergency petition. He loves filing emergency petitions. Another one, 1.38 a.m., middle of the week, time-sensitive motion for stay of sanctions order and fee proceeding by Donald Trump. This is in connection with the Trump$10 billion lawsuit against the IRS and the Treasury Department.

1:12:29Where when Trump, again, Trump was the president during his first term. Does he realize that? So he's saying, the government screwed me when all of these tax returns of rich people were leaked, including Donald Trump's. You were the one in charge. The contractor who was criminally prosecuted under the Biden administration worked for you, your administration. So, okay, like wasn't, can't even blame this one on Biden like you want to blame everything on Biden. Biden prosecuted the bad guy successfully, but there were 400 other thousand people who this affected. They didn't sue for$10 billion. The cap on damages, the maximum damages by law that one could have received is$1 ,000.

1:13:10But Trump waived the statute of limitations years ago. The statute of limitations is the time within which you're allowed to file a claim. It has a time limit. So Trump blew that time limit a while ago. Why? That thing happened in 2019. He filed the lawsuit in 2026. It's well past, seven years is well past. I think it's a two year, max three year statute of limitation. So there was no valid claim. In any normal situation, the Department of Justice, who was sued for a claim like this, would be representing the IRS and the Treasury Department. And not only would you file a motion to dismiss, you'd file something called Rule 11 sanctions, and you would win the sanctions also because it's so patently frivolous.

1:13:54But Trump sued for 10 billion and then entered into a billion dollar slush fund settlement for the J6ers. But what he really cared about, as you know, and I won't belabor the point because we talk about it so damn much, is he built tax immunity for himself and his family members by saying he doesn't have to pay taxes because he can't be criminally investigated for not paying taxes from the date of the settlement agreement, May 19th, going back in time, which would also incorporate the April tax returns of this past year, which involves all those quid pro quo deals he made to the tune of four, five, six billion dollars.

1:14:28So it's actually a billion dollar tax giveaway to Donald Trump in addition to all the past taxes that he has been audited for and investigated for, that he's dragged out. Remember the first segment where I talk about Trump dragging these things out? Trump's been audited by the IRS because he doesn't really pay his taxes and he's been dragging them out for years and years and years and years. And then he does this. So 1.38 AM. Okay. So he files the case in federal court. It gets assigned to judge Kathleen Williams. That's a federal judge in the Southern district of Florida. She sees this case. Trump dismisses the case, but then he enters into the settlement agreement with himself, with the IRS and treasury department.

1:15:13And then he cites this case and cites the judge in the settlement agreement as though this was part of the settlement of this case. The judge reopens the case after dozens of judges write a motion to the court saying, judge, this is clearly unlawful. Retired federal judges filed this petition. You could reopen this case and you need to independently look at it because you can't have your court be viewed, be used as a tool of fraud. The court reopened it. Judge Kathleen Williams evaluated what took place. She said the settlement was filled with collusion and fraud. And then she referred the lawyers of Donald Trump to the state bar.

1:15:53And she said, this is an invalid settlement agreement. Any reference to the settlement agreement taking place in this court is hereby invalid. So with Donald Trump's emergency 1.38 AM, why are you filing things at 1.38 AM? Like, just think about it, like 1.30, file it the next day at like, you know, 9.30 or 10. So when I say like, this guy's up there, like panicking and crazy, why are you filing documents at 1.38 a.m.? And so here's what it says. It says, this is what he files to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeal. This appeal arises from the district court's extraordinary abuse of its sanctions power.

1:16:32In this action, Donald Trump, Don Jr., Eric Trump, the Trump Organization, sued the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Treasury pursuant to a congressionally authorized remedy over the undeniably unauthorized and illegal disclosure of their confidential tax return information to the press. Pause there. Trump was in office when it was disclosed the first time. It's his government at the time. Two, the congressionally authorized remedy is$1 ,000, max,$1 ,000. Three, statute of limitations passed. That should be mentioned. There's nothing you have. Even this document to the 11th Circuit violates the duty of candor to the court, because as a lawyer, you're obligated to disclose these things the same way like a doctor has certain disclosure obligations like you would have you have to disclose these things.

1:17:25You can't just make statements like this to federal courts or to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. And it says, after reaching a settlement with the IRS and Treasury, plaintiffs voluntarily dismiss the action which the court so ordered. After 35 former judges moved under Rule 60 to improperly reopen the case, falsely alleging fraud on the court, the court wrongly decided that the president cannot sue the federal government in his personal capacity and that this prohibition somehow extended to his sons, who are private citizens, and his business, which he is no longer running. The court did not cite any law supporting this extraordinary and unjust ruling.

1:18:05Pause there. The court cited lots of law. It was a very detailed opinion. What are you talking about?

1:18:11Ben Meiselas:And the court didn't rule that presidents can't sue the government, although no former president has sued the government while being the president because it's quite pathetic. But I suppose if you were to, I don't know, have like a trip. And I'm just trying to think of even when a president would sue their own government while they're in office. It's the most pathetic loser thing imaginable. It takes being like a litigious psycho to the next level. But in any event, that's not what the court ruling was. The court said the totality of circumstances here, in this case, with these facts, where you waive the statute of limitations, where the remedy, even if you didn't waive the statute of limitations, is$1 ,000 max, where you were in office the first time when this incident happened.

1:18:59So you're essentially blaming yourself where you didn't disclose the settlement agreement to the court upon the dismissal, where there was no motion practices filed before this court that would normally take place if there's not collusion or fraud, where the way the settlement agreement was structured evinces fraud and conclusion, where you take all of these factors together, you look at the totality and the court said, I'm making this finding based on this. And then Trump's lying and saying, no, you're saying Donald Trump can't sue the government. By the way, if the court said that, I would agree with that.

1:19:35We shouldn't have presidents of the United States suing the government while they're presidents of the United States. If you're whining that you want absolute immunity because you need to be so focused on the presidency, which you're actually not, you just want it to hide your crimes, Shouldn't it also follow that you shouldn't be spending your time suing your own government? So I think there should absolutely be a law that says the president can't sue. I would never even think that we would need such a thing because the mere act is so goddamn pathetic. Excuse me. It's just the most pathetic thing imaginable.

1:20:09The hell are you talking about? Suing the government as the president of the United States. It would be like me suing my homeowners, which you can't do. Like me suing my homeowner's insurance for slipping in my own house or like me suing my wife because I tripped and fell in my house. Like it'd be the most pathetic thing imaginable. Like what the hell did you just sue me for tripping and falling in your house? Okay. Yeah. You're a loser. Like I'm not going to be with you. I'm just trying to think of examples of what this is like, dude. You're the president of the United States. Yes, you should be banned from suing the government while you're in.

1:20:48But that's not what the judge even said. The judge said, okay, I suppose there's weird instances where that could happen, but I'm viewing the facts here. But Donald Trump continues to say the court wrongfully then imposed punishment that no party requested through a sanctions proceeding that was never lawfully commenced. Yet no party commenced it because it's collusion, because Trump is the plaintiff and Trump is the defendant. That's why. And the court has inherent authority to issue sanctions. the court can observe the behavior. Yes, the issue is, is that the parties didn't, that the whole point is that the parties didn't request it.

1:21:28And if this was a true adversarial proceeding, the parties would not be like, oh, you want to sue me for 10 billion? Okay. Yeah. I'm just going to look the other way that you don't have any claims. Oh, you want me to do a settlement? Sure, Donald. Oh yes. That's what I want you to do. The court saying the very dynamic

1:21:46Ben Meiselas:is the problem based on the totality of circumstances. And then the court goes on and says that Donald Trump's first amendment rights have been violated and the lawyer's reputations have been harmed for Donald Trump. Trump needs to go out there, this is what it says, and say that he has a settlement agreement with the government. He needs it. Why does he need it? Because he doesn't want to pay his taxes, in my opinion. That's why he wants to say that he has as a settlement, but Trump's like, my rights have been violated. Think about this stuff. My rights have been violated because I need to call this a settlement.

1:22:25And I, on an emergency basis, 11th Circuit, allow me to call what Trump did with the Treasury and the IRS a settlement agreement. Help me, help me. And the lawyers, our reputation has been harmed because the judge has referred us to the state bar. Okay, that's life. It's life. The judge assessed what's happening, made a referral because the judge said any lawyer who would engage in this behavior should be investigated by the state bar. That was the court's opinion. Okay. Argue to the state bar that you shouldn't, I suppose. Okay. I'm sure it's corrupt as well. I don't know what this, you know, in Florida, but argue to the state bar that this was a normal dynamic and this is the way lawsuits should be.

1:23:09And then Trump's First amendment, my first amendment rights, I want to call it a settlement agreement. Okay, well then why didn't you disclose the settlement agreement to the judge? Why didn't you go through the proper channels? And by the way, doesn't this all just show you that what this is all about is that, you know, and all these MAGA Republican senators who were like, well, we made sure that Todd Blanche issued an order and that the order said that he won't do the January 6th slush fund. Okay, Todd Blanche did not rescind the settlement agreement. Okay.

1:23:45Ben Meiselas:He rescinded an order, which was temporary. He could always reinstitute the order regarding the slush fund. Blanche did nothing about the Trump tax immunity. If anything, Blanche affirmed the tax immunity. And now Donald Trump is working with the DOJ and working with the IRS and his people. he's working with himself to now argue to the 11th circuit that not only is the settlement agreement valid, but restricting Donald Trump's first amendment, he says, first amendment right to call it a settlement violates Donald Trump's rights so badly that Trump needs emergency relief. This is an emergency that he had to file at 1.30 a.m.

1:24:26Just think about this psycho. He's there in the White House raging at 1.38 a.m. in the morning. Sick. And this is what they file. And as this title of legal I have talked about, this is a guy running scared. His family, because think about what we talked about. His family members are hiding from subpoenas. They're hiding from depositions. Trump is hiding from depositions. Trump wants to hide in a bunker and files an emergency petition to the Supreme Court while he's screaming at 1.38 a.m. My First Amendment rights have been violated. My First Amendment rights have been violated. while they cover up the Epstein files and where Trump's top DOJ people don't even show up in court and send some young lawyer who didn't know what the hell he was even talking about to get threatened by contempt from a federal judge.

1:25:20You don't think that foreign countries and adversaries, allies alike are looking at this and going, this is a, this guy's, this guy's weak sauce. Setting aside, he's corrupt. He's criminal. He's a felon. He's a predator, all that. But they look at this and they go, this guy is loser. This guy's a weak loser. That's how they see him because he is this behavior. He shouldn't be a Democrat or Republican or individual. It's not a political thing. Dude's a fricking loser. there.

1:26:20next week. Thanks everybody for watching. We appreciate you. Shout out Might is Mighty. Shout out Legal Affairs.