Trump Blindsided by Judge Over Ballroom from Hell

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2:30Michael Popok:Yes, a federal judge looks like he's about to hit the stop work order button about the golden ballroom Donald Trump is building without taxpayer funds, without congressional oversight, and trying to figure out a way to get out from under federal judge oversight. I don't think it's working. but what really came out of the story is something that seems to have gotten missed in the media reports. He's rebuilding a secret bunker under the East Wing now ballroom. Yep, you heard me right. And he might be using a secret slush fund that he created in order to avoid judicial oversight. A bunker? Money laundering?

3:10Michael Popok:And I just thought we were going to talk about the ballroom. I'm Michael Popok. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. Yeah, big hearing in front of Judge Leon, a federal judge appointed by Bush, who pulled everybody together to consider a preliminary injunction to stop continued construction of the ballroom until Donald Trump gets congressional approval. The National Trust, on behalf of the American people and the People's House, brought the case. Now, about a month and a half ago, on a temporary restraining order, the judge says, no, I'm not going to stop up a low ground construction.

3:45Michael Popok:But the vertical construction built in the building, the 90 ,000 square foot monstrosity now pushing 400 to 500 million dollars, which is going to dwarf the 55 ,000 square foot White House next door that it's attached to. That's a different story. And he said, you better get the approvals. You better go through all of your different agencies and committees and commissions and get back to Congress. Well, the Trump administration doesn't want to do that. So they created what I'm going to call a secret slush fund that we now know about. See, the money was with the Park Service, which was under the jurisdiction of courts and ultimately of Congress.

4:24Michael Popok:But Donald Trump had the money transferred from the Park Service to a secret fund in the White House you and I probably never heard of before called the Executive Residence Office and Executive Residence Bank Account. Yes, Donald Trump opened up a bank account, funded it with our money out of the Park Service. It was originally from donors that went to the Park Service, Park Service into the executive residence office. You see the money laundering, and then he has what he thinks is complete control. Now, it got questioned in court by the judge and by the lawyers for the National Trust. Why is the executive residence staff handling being the general contractor for this major Washington, D.C.

5:08Michael Popok:project at the People's House? How are they qualified to do that? And by the way, Donald Trump is not a builder. Donald Trump is, he erects things. He erects his name on top of buildings built by other people. He does a lot of licensing agreements. He rarely builds buildings. He renovates buildings. I think the last major building he built was like 25 years ago. Okay. Other people build the building. He's not the general contractor. And so when you're not the general contractor, you just put your name on things. You don't really know how to build a ballroom with a secured bunker underneath. Now, that came up as well.

5:44Michael Popok:As Judge Leon told the lawyer for the Department of Justice and stopped him in his tracks when he said, this is just like when Gerald Ford, the president in 1977, put in a pool, Your Honor. He's like, stop, stop. He said, you're comparing the Gerald Ford pool, swimming pool, or the Melania Trump tennis court to what you're doing in demolishing the East Wing and building a 90 ,000 square foot addition with a bunker underneath it, that those two things are equivalent to you? Ridiculous. He basically said ridiculous. He said, you need to go to Congress. And the judge questioned, why are we even, why is there even a delay?

6:21Michael Popok:He said, the president's got both the House and the Senate. Go to Congress. They said, well, then we'll have to use public money. That's not true. You can go get oversight without having to take public money. they could say the fund is whatever the fund is you got from your secret not so secret donors so so it looks to me based on the arguments that were raised that the judge is not going to allow vertical construction any longer and he's going to force trump to go back to congress now he might have the votes you know you see all these things that are being shoved down our throats by this congress um but uh just just to remind you of these ridiculous comparisons let's talk about the secret bunker underneath.

7:02Michael Popok:Now, there was a bunker already, apparently, under the White House. There has been since 1941 with Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who, of course, understandably freaked out after Pearl Harbor and said, we need a hardened bunker underneath the White House. It's like a submarine built in the 1940s. I'm not sure it would survive many of the new munitions, but it has been under there. It has been known. It's the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. the PEOC. So they're building a new PEOC. All right. Good for them. All right. And yeah, I don't want to know the details of it because I don't want the details out to our enemies, even with this president in the office.

7:42Michael Popok:But that is not an excuse. If he had come to the American people and said, listen, I need a better hardened bunker for command and control underneath the White House. And I got to tear down the old East Wing to do it. Oh, and by the way, I'm going to top it with a ballroom. That might have gone off a little bit better. But we need a golden ballroom because women are getting their feet stuck in the mud, walking out to the tents that were out there before for balls and dinners. That didn't really fly with the American people. In fact, here's Donald Trump talking about his ballroom and drones and all sorts of other things without getting into the secret bunker.

8:18Michael Popok:Play the clip. I'm doing a magnificent, big, beautiful ballroom that the country has wanted, the White House has wanted for 150 years. it's a massive job and it's a tiny fraction of that number and we're under budget and ahead of schedule now it's it's bigger than i told you i it's uh you know after realizing we're going to do the inauguration in that building it's got all bulletproof glass it's got all drone they call it drone free roof the drones won't touch it it's a big uh it's a big beautiful safe building but It's a big budget for a tiny fraction that were under budget and ahead of schedule.

9:03And they wanted it for 150 years.

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10:36Michael Popok:So build the secret bunker. The National Trust even said, we're not going to stop you from doing that. Of course, I question, what's the bunker for? Is that where Donald Trump goes when he doesn't want to leave office a la Civil War, the movie? I don't know. I'll have to find out. But, you know, so again, I don't challenge the need for an updated modern command and control center hardened facility. You know, we've got a few of them in mountainsides around the country that are reasonably well known. But, you know, the president's not going to have a lot of time to get to one of those if the White House is under attack, so to speak.

11:14Michael Popok:So I get that. I just don't get the use of secret slush funds, why the executive office residence is the office that's doing the general contracting. And neither is Judge Leon. Of course, they're doing it to hide it from the American people. Now, the lawyer for the Department of Justice told the judge it's because President Trump is very, very interested and takes a personal interest in this project. And so he really wants it all overseen. You know, he's a detailed person. I'm just like, yeah, I'm not buying that. Let's turn it over to the Park Service and the architects for the Washington, D.C.

11:49Michael Popok:that kind of know what they're doing, you know, instead. So here's what is likely to happen based on my take on the hearing. this judge in the next week or two is going to issue a preliminary injunction to stop the vertical construction going up, not stop the bunker, the top secret bunker, but stop the vertical construction until Donald Trump goes back to Congress. Then they can go fight it out. They can go take an appeal to the D.C. Court of Appeals. They can go to the Supreme Court. But I think their argument, which is we get to use money. There's a statute that says presidents get to use money for the upkeep of the White House, that's not going to fly.

12:30Michael Popok:Upkeep is not bunker reconstruction, is not ballroom building, is not demolition, as the judge said, of the East Wing. That you have to go over to Congress. Or as it came up in the courthouse, in the courtroom, the lawyer for the National Trust, the plaintiffs here said, Trump's not the owner, landlord of the White House, although he acts like he is. He's a temporary tenant with really just three years left on his lease. And the judge said, right, he's just a steward of the people's money in the people's house temporarily, right? So we'll follow the next steps here. Secret bunker, money laundering accounts, judge oversight, stop work order, and what Congress does next, and the appeal related to it here on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal AF.

13:19Michael Popok:I'm glad you're here, come over to Legal AF and hit the free subscribe button there as well. And our Legal AF sub stack where you can get 10, 12 pieces of law and politics information every day. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF sub stack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the sub stack. 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.

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