Trump Moves to Block Blanche’s Testimony in Epstein Files Case?

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0:30Michael Popok:Well, this just in, the two-page, you heard me right, two-page response by the Department of Justice and Todd Blanche against Katie Fang's demands for justice, for contempt charges, for a$1 ,000 a day fine against Todd Blanche for his refusal to comply not only with the Epstein File Transparency Act, but with a federal judge's orders. And if Judge Sullivan wasn't happy with the government's responses in the past, he is going to be livid when he reads the two-page typo-riddled response of Todd Blanche's right-hand man, Stan Woodward. Stan Woodward, you may remember, was Donald Trump's co-defendant's lawyer in the Mar-a-Lago obstruction espionage case representing Donald Trump's body man and butler, Walt Nauta.

1:23Michael Popok:He's now the number two in the Department of Justice, just one heartbeat away from the top job. But he can't spell. He can't write. He can't think his way out of a paper bag. And I'm going to go over it with you right here on Legal AF. Welcome to Tuesday. That's what we call it around here. We kick off cases and analysis. It's just another day of the week. It's just baking the donuts. It's now Tuesday. I was it takes a lot to shock me. It really does. After more than 35 years in law and working on Wall Street and doing the Legal AF podcast and YouTube for the last six years, takes a lot. I have like a rhinoceros hide.

2:04Michael Popok:Oh, no. I was shocked. So Katie Fang's lawyers, Brendan Ballew, who you know well, Public Integrity Project, been on with me before, including recently about their filing, said, you know, we've had enough. The judge ordered, ordered, not aspirational goal like, wouldn't it be nice, pretty please if we could meet for high tea at four o 'clock and you bring documents with you? No, it was an order. Guy in a black robe, Article III judge, lifetime appointed, ordered that five categories of documents be produced or to show cause why they couldn't be. Show cause is a term of art in my profession that signals, I better get my ducks in a row.

2:47Michael Popok:I better get my affidavits, my sworn testimony. I better show the court why I'm producing it now or why I can't produce it and establish a firm foundation of good faith to avoid contempt charges. Did they do that? Absolutely not. Five categories. Tell us, you first got to translate all the foreign language documents you refuse to translate in an international child sex trafficking ring, which Donald Trump continues to cover up because it was led by two friends of his. That's one. Two, you redacted, blacked out, covered up 200 ,000 pages of the documents. You know, that's a good, a little bit less than 10%.

3:28Michael Popok:Where's the redaction log listing each of the documents by number and the reason you're redacting it so it can be challenged in a court of law? Required by the Epstein File Transparency Act. required by Judge Sullivan's own order. Where's that? Where is the unredacted version of the

3:53torture video exchange between Epstein and somebody else?

3:59Michael Popok:Unredact that. That's not a victim. That's a predator. They need to be disclosed to the public transparently. Where are the handwritten FBI notes from the interview with the woman who claimed she was a victim as a 13-year-old girl of Donald Trump sexual abuse? Where are the 302 handwritten notes? So what did the government have to do? The government had to respond and say, we're producing it, we're translating it, we're underdacting it, we're making the log, or show cause why you can't. Again, good faith basis based on facts, usually supported by affidavits and sworn testimony. But this Department of Justice led by Todd Blanche, they're allergic to evidence.

4:45Michael Popok:They're allergic to sworn statements under oath by Todd Blanche. He's never done it and he doesn't want to do it. Oh, no. They'd rather bash the judge in the social media world, right, as cowards than actually do any of their proper lawyering in the courtroom. So the judge gave Katie Fang an opportunity to respond. And she did. She did a response to the order to show cause. She called it out. She said, they're cowards. They're not producing the documents. They're not providing good faith bases in the order to show cause. They haven't complied with the order to show cause. They should be fined$1 ,000 a day until they comply.

5:26Michael Popok:And they should be found in contempt. In fact, she says, Katie Fang's filing says the following about their cowardice in his opposition to plaintiff's motion for preliminary injunction. That's how we started this with Katie. The attorney general never once argued that any of the specific documents that were requested by the plaintiff would reveal victim information. Hours after the court granted the motion, the government issued a public statement attacking the court. Judge Sullivan's perverse interpretation appears to be focused on driving misleading headlines. This judge is suggesting DOJ violate the law by unredacting victims' names, who, as the department has explained, sadly became co-conspirators, now blaming the victims.

6:11Michael Popok:It does a disservice to this court and to the victims in this matter by making this argument in the press and not briefing it until the attorney general lost. And again, it's missing from the two pages that were just filed. Before I get to the two pages, because it won't take me long, let me play you a clip of my interview with Brendan Ballew anticipating exactly this. Let's play the clip. You put on the bottom of page one, notably in his response, the attorney general, it's always about Todd Blanche, makes clear that whatever the federal statute required him to do, he will not comply. He refuses to review foreign language documents.

6:45Michael Popok:He refuses to produce an explanation for his redactions. And there's more than 200 ,000, I think, pages of redactions. and he refuses to produce documents he concedes contain no victim information. Stated differently, the attorney general refuses to provide the transparency that the Epstein Act demands. Because of the brazenness of defendant's repeated violations and because his brazenness fits a pattern of dishonesty, delay and obfuscation in this matter, this court should fine the attorney general$1 ,000 a day until he complies with the order, order an expedited production of the administrative record and direct an in-camera review of those documents.

7:23Michael Popok:Defendant claims contains victim information. Now, Brendan, I don't know if you're going to get all of that. I hope that you do. But the judge is going to do something. The judge is, this is a judge that figured out, because you told him, that they missed the deadline in the case. He gave them a deadline. They missed the deadline. And within hours, He dropped like a 50 page opinion. He is not going to be happy with this. He may he may not go the thousand dollars or he may he may up it to ten thousand dollars. I don't know. Yeah, you know, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, I think in a different era in litigation against the government, you sort of want to look like the the not just the reasonable one, but that you're sort of bending over backwards to try to accommodate the government.

8:10I think that the time for that posture has ended. By the way, the quote that you just read, I think Katie wrote most of that. So this is another one of the benefits of having a lawyer as a client here. She's really good at this stuff. Good. I'm going to have her on soon. Okay, good. Yeah. You know, I think that like, you know, at this point, there is no point in giving the government the benefit of the doubt or asking for anything less than maximal sanctions for their failure to follow the law. I think in an era where the Department of Justice had a presumption of good faith, you know, judges, I think, would be much more skeptical of these sorts of requests, given just the unending delay and obstruction that the administrations had around the Epstein file, specifically the reporting.

8:57This is all, you know, the strategy is being set at the absolute highest levels of government in literally the White House situation room. I don't think now is the time for us to be hedging our requests. And so that's why we've been making these asks.

9:10Michael Popok:Now let's get to the two pages. Again, riddled with typos. Here we go. First of all, they characterize the judge's order by fiat to do something as a offer, which I think is going to piss the judge off. On the bottom of page two over to three, they say, yet the Privacy Act carries both civil remedies for those people whose rights are violated and a criminal penalty for those who willfully violate it. And far from declaring that the department will not abide by a court order, the department has accepted the court's offer to show cause on why certain redactions should not be removed. I wouldn't characterize the judge's order as an offer.

9:54Michael Popok:They then say that their rational and Katie Fang's side is hyperbolic rhetoric. They also say they've been committed to transparency and complying with statutory obligations. Here's Todd Blanche being grilled on exactly that point during his confirmation hearing. Did your interview with Ms. Maxwell lead to a single additional person being charged, yes or no? No. Did it lead to a single new investigation, yes or no?

10:27I can't talk about whether there's any investigation. I'm not asking you about an ongoing or closed investigation. I'm just asking you about this. I can't answer your question, yes or no. Did you or anyone else from the DOJ or associated with the president discuss a presidential pardon with Ghislaine Maxwell or her attorneys? No. Did you discuss clemency, yes or no?

10:50Michael Popok:No. Did you discuss? She was convicted. What do you mean clemency? Did you discuss her transfer to another institution, yes or no? No. Well, just one week after your meeting, Ms. Maxwell was transferred from a low-security federal institution to a minimum-security prison camp. Were you involved with that transfer? When, as I've talked about before, in the time leading up to me going down to meet with her, we learned that she was receiving threats. I'm going to interrupt you for a matter of time. Okay, well, it's not a question I can answer, apparently, in the time you're giving me. I'm going to tell you this because I deal with issues of criminal justice.

11:31When people are under threats in a Bureau of Prison facility, they're put into solitary confinement or protected. They're not moved to a camp. That's not always true. It is. What is true is someone that is accused of child sex trafficking under the Bureau of Prison's own policies is not put in a facility like this that seems clearly like a reward.

11:55Michael Popok:Now remember all of these filings by Stan Woodward for the page and a half, or two pages that he files, against the backdrop of the Block Blanch movement to stop him from being confirmed as attorney general. I mean, he was he was forced by or it was a coordinated orchestrated event to meet with the survivors on the second day of the confirmation hearing. And that went terribly awry as this survivor reported to the press about the meeting. Play the clip. It wasn't substantive. It was not productive. It very much felt like we were just taking the box off of the meeting. I didn't expect to walk out of the meeting feeling the way that we feel right now.

12:44It was demoralizing, to say the very least. His attempt at empathy and compassion really came off as patronizing and condescending. It was very clear he was taking the meeting because he wants this promotion.

13:03Michael Popok:So I don't think that Judge Sullivan, let me read to you as they end this, page three, again, it's two and a half pages.

13:33Michael Popok:stay the effective date to allow the government to appeal. Let's talk about that for a minute. They should have appealed already. I had this very exchange with Katie Fang's lawyer, Brendan Ballew, about why haven't they appealed? They should have appealed. There's nothing stopping them from appealing. The reason they're not appealing is because they know they're going to lose and they want to stretch out so they have political talking points, especially while Todd Blanche is being confirmed or the vote is happening. They don't want a loss on the Epstein files at the appellate court. So they're saying, judge, there's still more steps before we get, before we can take an appeal, please allow us.

14:13Michael Popok:They don't want to appeal because they know they're going to lose. They're in violation of the Epstein Transparency Act and of the Administrative Procedures Act. Here's my exchange with Brendan Ballew, Katie Feng's lawyers about that point. I was sort of surprised that they didn't appeal this right away. And weirdly, I mean, it gets a little in the weeds and I'm a little baffled why the Department of Justice said this. They even said that they couldn't appeal this particular order, which I found very strange. So I think that their strategy at some level is not to win in court, but just simply to delay the court proceedings for as long as possible.

14:54So let's continue in the district court for as long as we can. We're going to lose there. Then we're going to appeal. We're going to take as long as we absolutely can there and see if we can just ride this out for another three years.

15:03Michael Popok:You're totally right. So we're going to continue to follow this story. My gut is now that all the briefing is in, Emmett Sullivan is not going to be happy to judge. He's going to sanction the Department of Justice. He may give them one last chance or drag them in to a hearing to take testimony, or he's just going to sanction people. But he's not going to do nothing. As I said to the Katie Fangs lawyers, it's not like he's going to go, well, they tried, you know, Boy Scout try. Yeah, no, not happening. We'll follow it. Follow us here on Legal AF YouTube channel. Hit that subscribe button. Voting is open.

15:38Michael Popok:We're trying to get to 2 million subscribers by the midterm. Come over to Legal AF Substack and for paid members, you'll be able to read all of the Katie Fang filings. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. Popak here. When life changes in an instant because of an injury or the bad acts of another, you need fighters in your corner. The Popak firm is dedicated to helping the injured and their families get justice and the money they deserve. And we don't back down. Contact us today and let's start your fight for justice together.

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