Trump Orders DOJ to Attack Epstein Victims

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2:04Michael Popok:You better sit down for this one. We now have the last minute response by the Department of Justice, most senior leadership in the case involving Katie Fang, journalist versus Todd Blanche, the Department of Justice, in which Judge Sullivan granted a preliminary injunction and required either that more Epstein files be produced, including a redacted draft complaint listing co-conspirators and information about a torture video and other information or else, or else they needed to show cause why they couldn't provide it. And Stan Woodward, who used to be the co-conspirator with Donald Trump's defense counsel in the Mar-a-Lago case, now effectively the number two in the Department of Justice has wrote in to file his response.

2:54Michael Popok:And sort of buried in it at the end is a number of very, very unscrupulous, underhanded comments and arguments that attack victims, but in one person in particular, has a big problem. And that is Leslie Groff, the 18-year executive assistant for Jeffrey Epstein, who claims he was the best boss in the world. And she did not know what he was doing behind closed doors. She, according to this new filing, was on a draft complaint as a co-conspirator, her name having now been unredacted by the Katie Fang filing. And I think she better get herself a lawyer. I'm Michael Popok. You're here on Legal AF.

3:42Michael Popok:Let's talk about these developments in the Epstein files. Judge Sullivan issued a 48-page opinion a couple of days ago, a big win for transparency and democracy, ordering that five separate categories of information be provided to the American people or that the government show cause why they can't comply with it or can't produce it. And after going through in about eight or nine pages of all sorts of excuses as to, well, we didn't really concede and we don't think you have jurisdiction and, you know, a lot of make-weight arguments, they finally get down to brass tacks around page 10. And let me read to you from the parts that are the most troubling for me, and we'll put this up in Legal AF Substack for you to read as well.

4:30Michael Popok:First place my eyes started to pop out and my temperature went up is when I got to the first attack on victims. This is before Leslie Groff is outed as a potential co-conspirator. It says that on page 10, talking about certain emails that were required to be produced or show cause why they couldn't be, Stan Woodward says in his filing, for the first six or eight emails, the redacted sender and or recipient's names are the names of victims. One of the complicating aspects of administering the Epstein File Transparency Act is that many communications written by victims without context can appear disturbing on their face.

5:17Michael Popok:Here we go. Blame the victims for being victimized and sexually abused in an international child sex trafficking ring run by a couple of friends of Donald Trump. That's already starting off on the wrong foot. Don't you think that's on page 10? Then I said, well, that's interesting. What is he talking about? Well, let's get to it. They continue by saying, consistent with the statutory authority, the Department of Justice has sought to prevent victim personal identifying information from becoming public, even in instances where the victims eventually become complicit or engaged in reprehensible activity or communications.

5:59Michael Popok:Again, children and young women who are somehow complicit in their own sexual abuse. That's what he's saying on the top of page 11. And then my eyes go down to Leslie Groff. Now, we've spoken about Leslie Groff before. back on the 9th of June. She gave 250 pages of testimony behind closed doors. We have the transcript about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, where she was the executive assistant for 19 years. Now, I know what executive assistants do. I had one when I worked in Manhattan, when I worked at Cantor Fitzgerald. My wife was an executive, not mine, but my wife was an executive assistant.

6:43Michael Popok:I know what they do in New York. It is inconceivable that Leslie Groff did not know what was going on behind closed doors, that she was only scheduling the massages, but didn't understand that the women coming for the massages were sometimes girls, and that he had certain likes and dislikes that she needed to regulate and legislate. She's been to the island. She's been on the plane. She basically operated out of the townhouse where he abused women. She's been to all the places. She's seen all the things. And yet she says he was the best boss. I had no idea that he was a pervert. She said, I had no idea that he was manipulating and deceiving.

7:24Michael Popok:I never would have participated in that. Well, let's get to Leslie Groff in the new filing by the Department of Justice. It says, number two, page 12, The court has ordered the department to either produce to the public the DOJ documents with a certain serial number with potential co-conspirator names unredacted or show cause why those names can't be unredacted. And here's where they say on page 12, three of the four names listed under the co-conspirator heading belong to individuals who are, in fact, victims. So now he's got this is how the Department of Justice operates. Victims are now co-conspirators with their abuser?

8:09Michael Popok:The redactions applied to the name of Leslie Groff have been removed since she has not asserted victim status. And then they cite to a letter by USA as to Ghislaine Maxwell that was filed in one of the New York court cases. Leslie Groff, I know you have a lawyer. You better get a lawyer. Leslie Groff, let me read to you from some of the emails exchanged that are in the Epstein files. She is in the Epstein files 160 ,000 times, her name appears, in just the 3 million documents that were produced. There's millions more where I'm sure she's also mentioned because she ran his life. It is inconceivable to me that she ran his life and did not know or did not suspect or did not have kind of imputed knowledge, we call it in the law.

9:07Michael Popok:You knew or should have known what was happening or you buried your head in the sand because you were making$150 ,000 or$200 ,000 plus bonuses, plus travel year in, year out. You didn't want to rock the boat. Isn't that what really happened? Here's some of the emails about it. Groff's task, this is according to Politico, Groff's task was to ensure that Epstein's life ran according to his precise preference. Well, we now know what his precise preference was. Young girls. Jeffrey has requested, she wrote in an email, that he please not be disturbed while in gym working out, even if a guest is here waiting.

9:46Michael Popok:When Jeffrey is waiting for something and you know the urgency with a package, You should give it to him right away if at all possible. She wrote about a two-hour delay in the livery of some pastries. He called me asking where his cannolis are. On any given day, she would move from having a towel rail fixed to working how to respond to Epstein's allergic reaction or to ensure that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's buddy, had received Epstein's gift of an Apple Watch. She was good at her job. She also got perks. In the New York Times interview, he revealed that when Groff announced she was pregnant in 2004, because this is Epstein being interviewed by the New York Times, he offered to pay for a nanny and board her a car.

10:32Michael Popok:There's no way I could lose Leslie to motherhood. She doubled her salary in one year. She often was offered Florida holiday, five-star hotels. Groff's husband, Ike, forwarded the email to someone else and said, seriously, the best boss ever. on Valentine's Day 2018. He bought her glam squad appointments with stylists. Too sweet, she wrote. She got to tour his private plane, ride on his helicopter, take a boat to his private island, Little St. James Island. We now call it Pedo Island. Leslie, you didn't see all the young girls around. You didn't question why everybody seemed to be like 17. That was giving massages.

11:18Michael Popok:You didn't question why there was a massage table in the middle of his dining room in the townhouse that you frequently worked out of? Come on. Apparently the FBI and the Department of Justice didn't believe it either and had her as a potential co-conspirator. and then they talk about a torture video that needed to be released or the email about it and they said well we don't have to on page 11 they said well we don't have to release it because congressman massey has already outed that person so we don't have to do it any longer look their biggest problem that stan woodward has in making these files is that they're blaming the victim.

12:03Michael Popok:On page 13, they talk about a draft indictment. And in the draft indictment, they say that they have an unredacted version, but that the victim's names are redacted. It's almost suggesting that the victims are somehow participating again in their own conspiracy. They spent a considerable amount of time in this piece saying that you don't need to make this decision, judge, because the Freedom of Information Act is all Katie Fang ever needed. Except the lawyers for Katie Fang told the judge that the Freedom of Information Act is exactly what they told when people applied to get Epstein documents, the government would respond.

12:47Michael Popok:We don't have to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request because we're producing it pursuant to the Epstein Transparency Act. That led the judge to immediately make his ruling. Let's play a clip of me interviewing Brendan Ballew, Katie Fang's lawyer, about that very point. Play the clip. They are ordered to either produce those documents that we've demanded or explain why they can't produce them. They are directed to actually produce the privilege logs that explains all the redactions. We'll find out if such a law even exists. It doesn't seem like the administration was particularly careful about trying to comply with the law here.

13:23Clearly, this is now a priority for the administration because Stanley Woodward, who, depending on how you count, is either a number three or number two official at the Department of Justice, just entered a notice of appearance immediately after the preliminary injunction was ordered. So I assume, you know, this is one of those things where conversations are happening at very high levels in the government right now. I think it would have made sense for them to try to make an emergency appeal to the DC circuit. I shouldn't say it would have made sense. It would have been unsurprising for them to do that.

13:57I think the ships left the station on that one, and now they more or less have to respond substantively to the PI order tomorrow. So we'll find out.

14:05Michael Popok:Yeah. And he didn't Judge Sullivan deny any request for a stay? Yeah. And that's the kind of thing where I feel like the Department of Justice, because it really had not established any credibility in this case with saying contradictory things, not complying with court orders and so forth. This is the result of what happens when you do those sorts of things is a judge is not going to be sympathetic to arguments that you need a lot of lead time to generate new defenses. All right. Brendan Ballou and Katie Fang are not happy about this. I'm sure they're going to be filing their response in the next few days.

14:45Michael Popok:The Department of Justice has asked for a 60 day stay of being ordered to do any more things to give their solicitor general, Donald Trump's also former criminal defense lawyer, John Sauer, time to evaluate something on appeal or at least seven days so they can take an emergency appeal. Fast-moving story through this holiday weekend, right? I think there's going to be more fireworks come Monday, Tuesday, coming out of Katie Fang's lawyer's computer and filings, don't you? Hit the free subscribe button. Let's get as big as we can this particular weekend. Until my next report, this is Michael. Popok here.

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