Trump AG Faces Reckoning From Fed Up Judge

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1:00Michael Popok:Leave it to Todd Blanche to continue to skate on thin ice. He can't even get the 12 or 11 votes he needs to get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and be confirmed as the Attorney General. And he's still picking fights with federal judges after U.S. attorneys are being wrongly fired under the Federal Vacancy Reform Act. You'd think he'd pick his battles, right? Well, he's not completely in charge of the Department of Justice, and we know that, right? Which explains why he's fighting with Judge Bastian. Judge Bastian is the chief judge of the Eastern District, but came in to cover a case in the Western District involving Roger Rogoff, who is the appointed U.S.

1:41Michael Popok:attorney appointed by the district court judges of the Western District of Washington, because there was a vacancy, because Donald Trump's person that he picked couldn't get confirmed and 120 days expired. And under the Federal Vacancy Reform Act, it's up to the district court judges to pick the sitting U.S. attorney until the president gets around and getting somebody confirmed to the Senate. You see how hard it is for Donald Trump to get anybody confirmed by the Judiciary Committee, right? And so instead of just giving up, the original judge in the case recused himself, disqualified himself, you know, said, I'm not going to do this case.

2:20Michael Popok:I'm in the Eastern, I'm sorry, I've been the Western District of the court. I voted to place Mr. Rogoff in his position. I don't feel right about it. So he made a recommendation that it go to a judge from the Eastern District of Washington, who sits occasionally in the Western District and years' cases, but did not vote, did not vote on Rogoff, a guy named Judge Bastian, who was appointed by Barack Obama. And the head of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting in San Francisco, approved of it. And that's all recited in the motion filed by the government. So the government files a motion saying, no, no, Judge Bastian should not have picked, and the prior judge should not have been involved with picking his replacement.

3:11Michael Popok:That's improper. That's against Ninth Circuit principles. That's wrong. We want to get rid of Judge Bastian. They don't want an Obama-appointed judge making the decision about Rogoff. They just won't say that out loud. And now we've got the new order from Judge Bastian just less than 24 hours after the motion to have him disqualified and removed was filed. No, I'm not removing myself. See, that motion goes to Judge Bastian. If they don't like it, they can take the appeal to the Ninth Circuit, but I don't touch in Legal AF. Take a minute, hit the free subscribe button. As you can tell from the dogs in the background, I'm on holiday, but law and politics don't take a break, so I can't either.

3:53Let's go to the actual filings so I can bring you up to date about what this is all about.

3:59Michael Popok:See, Roger Rogoff brought a motion for preliminary injunction to block the fact that he was being fired. He got fired moments, minutes after the district court judges had appointed him. Now, this happened before in New Jersey, and almost identically, within 48 hours after the pick, Donald Trump fired that pick by the district court judge and shoved in Alina Habba, which led to Alina Habba eventually resigning in disgrace. So that didn't go over well. Let me read to you from the two documents, two pieces of paper, which are really important here. The first one is the original motion, and then I'll read to you from the order of Judge Bastion in the case.

4:49Michael Popok:So this was the original filing by the government, by the Department of Justice. Donald Trump and Blanche file defendant's suggestion of reassignment by Ninth Circuit order in the alternative of recusal. They say that when the judge assigned to the case disqualified himself, he needs to simply step aside and not be involved in the process of picking his replacement. Now, the reason that the person stepped aside, the judge, is because he voted for Rogoff. And so he didn't think it was right to continue to adjudicate whether Rogoff was properly fired or not. Doesn't mean that he couldn't have under Ninth Circuit precedent, he couldn't have a role in the replacement.

5:34Michael Popok:it. So on July 21, Rogoff filed a complaint in the court. They say in their filing on page three, it was an emotion for preliminary assignment. It was assigned to the Honorable Ricardo Martinez, who entered a minute order that said he recuses himself and is hereby transferring it to a judge from outside the district consistent with the Ninth Circuit's December 10th, 2025 memo of the Ninth Circuit judge. He then made a designation of the chief judge of the Eastern District of Washington, same state but different district, of Stanley Bastian, who regularly serves as an as-needed basis as a district judge, but did not vote for Rogoff.

6:26Michael Popok:And that designation, even conceded by the Trump administration on page four, was signed by Judge Merguia of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who's the guy who's responsible for appointing the new person. So like, what is the beef? The Ninth Circuit chief judge approved of the assignment, implicitly approving that this was proper procedure under Ninth Circuit law. But oh, no, they want a new judge picked. What they won't say out loud is the reason they want the new judge picked is because Bastian is a Democrat, Obama-appointed judge, plain and simple. I was a senior executive in my career.

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8:35Michael Popok:That's ironwall.com slash legal AF. stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Check for the link in the show notes below. So Judge Bastion, within hours, entered the following order. Order, and we're going to put all this up on Legal AF Substack for you to read. Order denying the motion for reassignment or recusal. And here's what it says. This case was filed on July 21 in the Western District of Washington and was assigned to Ricardo Martinez. He recused himself and the case was reassigned to this court by minute order. Defendant takes issue with the reassignment, asserting that allowing Judge Martinez to recuse himself and reassign the case was somehow improper.

9:21Michael Popok:Although other districts may have chosen to handle the reassignment in a different manner, there is no binding precedent or rule that states that reassignment must follow a certain procedure, and having the assigned judge enter the reassignment order is consistent with Western District of Washington practices. Next, the defendant suggests this court should recuse itself based on its pre-existing and continuing service in the Western District of Washington as a regular visiting judge. Defendants provide no binding authority that would require recusal, and the court is aware of no such authority.

9:55Michael Popok:In the absence of a legitimate reason to recuse oneself, a judge should participate in cases assigned. That is from United States v. Holland, a United States Supreme Court case from 2008. Therefore, he continues,

10:39Michael Popok:is denied. It is so ordered and Stanley Bastion. Now what's going to happen next? What should happen next is Todd Blanche takes a loss for an answer and leaves this one alone. But you know what's going to happen? They're going to try to file something with the Ninth Circuit, even though the chief judge of the Ninth Circuit already approved of Bastion being appointed. Talk about not leaving well enough alone or hitting rock bottom and continuing to dig as we're watching with Todd Blanche. By the way, Todd, this is one of many reasons that people oppose you to be Attorney General, because of the ridiculousness and superciliousness of the positions that you take in bad faith in front of federal judges.

11:22Michael Popok:Like, knock it off. It's not helping. You're not winning. You're losing. And the more that you're seen as a loser, the more your patron, Donald Trump is going to walk away from you. And, you know, I joked in a recent hot take about, you know, it's starting to sound a lot like when an owner of a sports team, you know, gives like damning faint praise about a coach. Well, we're not going to make a big change during the year. We think coach is doing a pretty good job and I'm not inclined to make a move. And, you know, two days later, the coach takes to the podium and says, you need to spend more time with his family.

11:59Michael Popok:Oh, family man. I think we're starting. I think Todd Blanche might be holding I'm a family man press conference sooner than he might have thought. I'm Michael Popak. You're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF. Take a moment, hit that free subscribe button. Help us to continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Till my next report, this is Michael. In collaboration with the Midas Touch Network, we just launched the Legal AF YouTube channel. Help us build this pro-democracy channel where I'll be curating the top stories the intersection of law and politics. Go to YouTube now and free subscribe at Legal AFMTN.

12:35Michael Popok:That's at Legal AFMTN.

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