Trump AG Busted as Grand Jury Secrets Leak

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1:31Michael Popok:Can Todd Blanche's nomination to be the attorney general survive a series of unethical missteps led by his Department of Justice, including just moments after Donald Trump revealed he was nominating him for the permanent position? We got breaking news. It involves the Southern Poverty Law Center, the leading anti-hate group in America that monitors the actions of 4000 hate groups. Yes, they were criminally indicted by Donald Trump going after what he believes are left wing organizations trying to undermine his presidency in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder. But the real issue is, why has the grand jury secrecy, the sacrosanct rules around grand jury secrecy, why have they been violated, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center's own new filing in Alabama?

2:23Michael Popok:why was a draft of the superseding indictment in word for anybody to edit with that was unsealed, circulated before the grand jury had an opportunity to consider the second indictment? That's not just a no, no, that's an ethical breach of epic proportion and shows you it's endemic. It's emblematic of everything that is depraved and that is corrupt and that is rotten within the Department of Justice. this now presumably going to be led by Todd Blanche, but not so fast. These are the hard questions that are going to be asked of him during a bruising confirmation hearing. Why did he bring the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment when Pam Bondi apparently refused to do so?

3:07Michael Popok:Why did he bring the indictment against James Comey, former FBI director, for a bunch of seashells on the beach? I'm not making that up. Why did he come into the Senate and try to get a$2 billion weaponization fund for Jan Sixers, who beat up police approved as the chief law enforcement officer. And why is there have there been just in the last 10 days, a series of not only losses of black eyes for the Department of Justice, five last week, oh, and five last week alone. But think about what these cases were about. Prosecutorial misconduct, grand jury abuse, so bad that even prosecutors have had to dismiss their own cases or have the cases dismissed against them.

3:54Michael Popok:Grand jury and the grand jury process is being corrupted and polluted by the Department of Justice. It's being called out by filings like this one by the Southern Poverty Law Center in their own in their own case. And heads are going to roll. And if Todd Blanche thought he had a rough day at the office in the last week or so when he was being accused of being nothing more than Donald Trump's private personal lawyer, wait till he sits in the confirmation seat and has to answer for all of these unethical charges. Let's turn to the Southern Poverty Law Center and its brand new filing in Alabama in its criminal case.

4:29Michael Popok:I'm Michael Popak. You're on Legal AF and on Midas Touch. No, I'm not in a new set, but I am traveling, as people may know. I'm going to be for the rest of the weekend here at the Netroots Nation 2026 conference in Philadelphia for independent journalists. I'll be getting some amazing interviews and bringing them back to our Legal AF and Midas Touch audience. OK, Southern Poverty Law Center, founded in 1971, the leading anti-hate group in America, publishes the Hate Index, a map to show you where these extremist groups are, both left and right and center. You know, they don't they don't choose sides.

5:08It just so happens that most hate groups are are on the right wing, on the right side, you know.

5:15Michael Popok:And so they've been following them. Donald Trump doesn't like it because in their year in hate book they put out every year, there's a fair number of groups that Donald Trump likes, like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers and other paramilitary and white nationalist organizations. Yeah, this was they've been trying to root out hate, trying to dismantle groups like the KKK and and other groups from the almost from their founding. But they don't like the fact that they've been raising money from donors and using it to infiltrate these organizations by paying people within the organizations to rat out the and provide information that the SPLC then provides the law enforcement.

5:55Michael Popok:That had been working perfectly for years until Kash Patel got in office and he threw up his hands and says, we're not going to work with the Anti-Defamation League. We're not going to work with the Southern Poverty Law Center any longer. And then they turned the tables and said, oh, you're paying these informants. You're keeping these hate groups alive. You're actually the fireman arsonist. You know, you're setting the fire and then you're coming to the rescue. I mean, it's totally asinine of an argument to go after the Southern Poverty Law Center. But the new issue is, based on the filing, is you're allowed as a prosecutor to get a superseding indictment.

6:33Michael Popok:That's an amended indictment that you get returned from the grand jury. Here's the process. We'll do a teachable moment on criminal law. You can start a criminal case in the federal process if you're a prosecutor with a simple criminal complaint that you swear out. That'll get you an arrest warrant and maybe even search warrants. You eventually have to get an indictment returned by a grand jury, usually about 25 people, and you need a majority to agree on the charges. No one else is in that grand jury room. It's shrouded in secrecy under the federal rules and our constitutional law. And the only one in there is the prosecutor, no defense team, his evidence, his or her evidence and his or her witnesses.

7:15Michael Popok:That's it. And then you get the indictment. Now, there is a transcript that's prepared by a court reporter, but the judge doesn't see it and the defense lawyers don't see it and the public doesn't see it unless there's something that goes wrong in there. And there is a good faith argument that the defense needs to see the grand jury transcript. With this Department of Justice, it would be professional malpractice for a defense lawyer not to ask to see the grand jury transcript because there's more than likely a chance that there's been prosecutorial abuse or misconduct inside that room. saying things you're not supposed to say, violating the Fifth Amendment, the Sixth Amendment, talking to jurors outside of the room, you know, bolstering evidence, bolstering witnesses, vouching for evidence, all sorts of things you can't do.

8:01Michael Popok:It just shows you how little faith the Department of Justice has in its own ability to obtain indictments, prosecute and convict based on the rules, following the rules. No, they have to break the rules because their cases are crappy because they don't have the evidence. And the other thing that this new filing, which I'm going to read to you from now, demonstrates is how the hand is strengthened for the defense team to argue vindictive prosecution is at play in their case because it's being directed by Washington. Local prosecutors don't even know what's going on in their own cases. And that was revealed in the new filing.

8:45Michael Popok:Let's get to it. And we'll posted on Legal AF Substack for paid members to read. Now, as they note in their filing, it is one thing for zealous prosecutors to strike hard blows, but they can't be foul. You can't hit below the belt. OK, it's not about making the prosecutor pull its punches. It's about making sure the punches are legal and clean. Right. You're not hitting the boxer behind his head or after the bell. So it says, quoting from the judge, the United States attorney's interest in a criminal prosecution is not that it shall win a case, but that justice shall be done. He may prosecute with earnestness and vigor.

9:30Michael Popok:Indeed, he should do so. But while he may strike hard blows, he's not at liberty to strike foul ones. That comes from Berger versus the United States, a Supreme Court case from 1935. Problem is you don't release a superseding indictment in draft form unsigned to the media before you turn it over to defense counsel or before the grand jury has an opportunity to vote on it. That undermines the anonymity of the grand jury, the independence of the grand jury. Anybody gets their hands on it in the media these days through AI and otherwise can make edits to it and changes to it. It is not a no-no. It is a violation of a sacrosanct rule of our grand jury.

10:15Michael Popok:And as Supreme Court justices in the past have said, the only thing that stands between us, an innocent person, and an out-of-control prosecutor is the grand jury. And so for them to pollute it and distort it under Todd Blanche's watch, And all of this got filed and all of this got done in the moments in the after Donald Trump announced that he was going to nominate Todd Blanche to be attorney general. These are the issues that are going to come up in his confirmation hearing. Summer is here. One of the best upgrades I've made at home recently is installing a tushy bidet. It took about 10 minutes to set up, attaches right to your existing toilet, and honestly, just makes you feel cleaner and more comfortable than using toilet paper alone.

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11:45Michael Popok:This is what they continue with. putting media strategy before the sacrosanct rules of grand jury secrecy. At around 6.30 p.m. yesterday, a Department of Justice's public affairs office director emailed an unsigned, unstamped Microsoft Word document titled superseding indictment, which it wasn't, to a number of media members with the subject line flagging superseding indictment returned by grand jury today. It had not been returned by the grand jury today, and it went out it went out without it. There was no four-person signature, no government attorney signature. It was a draft that still had metadata in it that told you who was editing it and who drafted it.

12:30Michael Popok:And there were changes when you compare the final superseding indictment that was really returned by the grand jury and this thing that went out beforehand to the media. There are edits and changes in it as well. And here's my favorite part that undermines Todd Blanchett. This is on page three. Defense counsel for the SPLC quickly contacted the U.S. Attorney's Office and asked for an explanation of what was going on. Not even the prosecutor in charge of the case at Alabama could explain it, replying to defense counsel, I need to gather some more information regarding that this morning. At 1130 last night, two media outlets had issued stories discussing the contents, but doing a caveat that it seemed not to have ended up on the docket yet.

13:19Michael Popok:I mean, this is horrendous. And Todd Blanche knows better. He already got caught lying about the SPLC in the media, and it ended up being part of a motion to gag the Department of Justice before this judge play the clip of Todd Blanche. According to the charges in the indictment, the SPLC is a nonprofit entity that purports to fight white supremacy and racial hatred by reporting on extremist groups and conducting research to inform law enforcement groups with the goal of dismantling these groups. As the indictment describes, the SPLC was not dismantling these groups. It was instead manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources to stoke racial hatred.

14:09Michael Popok:Now, Todd Blanche is going to have to answer for all of this. So far in the last week, in the last week, okay, we've got a dismissal of the indictment against Kilmer Abrego Garcia for a finding of vindictive prosecution by the Department of Justice based on Todd Blanche's own words. That led to Todd Blanche getting a bar complaint against his license in New York. Right. That's one. Northern District of Illinois. U.S. Attorney Boutros had to dismiss an indictment against the Broadview Six a week before trial. Those First Amendment protesters in Chicago because of prosecutorial misconduct that was so blatant and so offensive that the judge said it was the worst thing she'd ever seen in a grand jury in her federal court career.

14:59Michael Popok:And so the attorney general or the U.S. attorney in Illinois had to dismiss it because even that prosecutorial misconduct was so great he couldn't ignore it. Then you've got a judge who not only blocked the weaponization fund, but you have another judge in Miami that's questioning whether Donald Trump, Todd Blanche, the Department of Justice and the FBI committed a fraud on the court, a fraud on the court and deceit on the court in setting up the weaponization fund and the settlement. This is all in the last week, folks. Forget losing on the Kennedy Center name and having funding blocked here and there.

15:43Michael Popok:We're talking about fundamental ethical violations of the highest order that if any of these people were currently in private practice, they would already be disbarred. And this is what Todd Blanchnow is going to go in, into the hot seat of a confirmation hearing. The guy that blows kisses to Donald Trump, play the clip. If he chooses to nominate somebody else and asks me to go do something else, I will say thank you very much. I love you, sir. In his first press conference as acting attorney general, President Trump's former criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanch, displayed his loyalty and willing to serve his boss.

16:19I did not ask for this job. And if President Trump chooses to keep me as acting, that's an honor.

16:27Michael Popok:And if Todd Blanche thinks that that something so emblematic of the corruption and the rottenness of his Department of Justice isn't going to come into the confirmation hearing room. Come on. Seriously, this grand jury secrecy violation was was within moments of Donald Trump announcing that he's probably going to be nominating Todd Blanche to be the attorney general. Who can forget Todd Blanche in his performance when he, you know, just a day at the office when he had a fight with Senator Van Hollen, talking about thin skinned over the allegation that he's continuing to operate as Donald Trump's personal personal criminal defense lawyer instead of being the people's attorney general.

17:11Michael Popok:Play the clip. Will you agree that before you proceed with this fund, a federal judge will sign off and approve it? You agree to that? Federal judge. Any independent authority? What does that mean, an independent authority? It means not somebody who's getting to pick five of the members who is the president's former personal attorney. That would be somebody who would be independent. I'm the acting attorney general, okay? The fact that I used to be President Trump's lawyer is just a fact, but I'm the acting attorney general. So don't say the president's former personal lawyer will do something.

17:41The acting attorney general will do something. Mr. Attorney General, you are acting today like the president's personal attorney, and that's the whole problem. You've got his whole, you have a whole banner of his face hanging over the Department of Justice and you and everybody else walks under it. And you are acting like you're his current personal attorney. Chairman, I have no further questions.

18:01Michael Popok:So I want to tie all that together here. Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center makes a very compelling argument in their motion. And the judge should sanction all of the lawyers involved. But when you look at it, it also shows you the corruption of the Department of Justice. The fact that the local prosecutor did not know about the leak from Washington. This will also strengthen the hand of the Southern Poverty Law Center's motion to dismiss for vindictive prosecution. Because it'll show that the vindictiveness emanates from Washington. Doesn't have to be the local prosecutor. That's a puppet. That's a crash test dummy.

18:40Michael Popok:These decisions are being made by Todd Blanche, and the proof of the pudding is in that motion. I'm going to continue to follow it. You're on Legal AF, and I'm Midas Dutch. I'm Michael Popok, traveling at Netroots in Philadelphia, but doing my reporting as always. So until my next report, take a minute, come over to Legal AF YouTube channel, and hit the free subscribe button. Until my next report, this is Michael. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the Substack.

19:17Michael Popok:You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do call, wait for it, Morning AF. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes. Where? Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe.