Trump Prosecutor Faces Sudden Karma in Court as Her End is Near

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2:30Michael Popok:We got some missing grand jury transcripts for a good two hours of what happened in the room with Lindsay Halligan trying to indict James Comey. And Judge Curry during a hearing today is not happy about it. She's trying to get to the bottom of whether Pam Bondi's October 31st Halloween memo in which she tried to save and salvage Lindsay Halligan from getting fired as an improperly appointed U.S. attorney tried to save her by appointing her as a special attorney. the judge is not buying it, and especially since we're missing at least two hours of what transpired related to the Comey indictment.

3:15Michael Popok:That, and based on reporting that we've obtained from inside the courtroom, from Adam Klassfeld, from All Rise News, who works with us on Legal AF, and I'm going to show you a clip in a minute that in particular, the judge asked the lawyer for the Department of Justice when they were discussing whether Pam Bondi, the attorney general, had the power to appoint a special counsel as Lindsay Allegan to cover up the mess of her improper appointment if he agreed with Judge Cannon's decision in Mar-a-Lago to fire Jack Smith as special counsel and found that he was improperly appointed. In other words, if Judge Cannon believed that Jack Smith was improperly appointed because he was not confirmed by the Senate, how could Pam Bondi have appointed Lindsey Halligan as a special attorney if she wasn't confirmed by the Senate?

4:13Wait till

4:14Michael Popok:you hear the results here on Midas Touch and Legal AF. Big hearing today and breaking news. It's not looking good for the Department of Justice side or the Lindsey Halligan side. Hearing in Alexandria, Virginia today, Judge Curry sitting by designation. She normally is in South Carolina, but she came up for this particular hearing. This was brought by Letitia James. This was brought by James Comey to get Lindsey Halligan bounced as an improperly appointed U.S. attorney under Section 546 of the Vacancy Reform Act. Because there's one too many interim U.S. attorneys appointed by Donald Trump and Pam Bondi.

4:51Michael Popok:They already had one. They fired Eric Siebert because he refused to indict Comey and Letitia James. They then tried to put in the insta-prosecutor, Donald Trump's novice prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan. It's one too many. After you get rid of the first one, it then goes, according to argument, it then goes to the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia to pick the next until Donald Trump gets a properly confirmed U.S. attorney through the U.S. Senate. That's the way the Constitution works. So that's what Judge Curry was considering today. There were lawyers for both Letitia James and James Comey.

5:27Michael Popok:James Comey was in the room. Letitia James let her lawyers do the talking. Lawyers for the Letitia James and James Comey side went first. Then the government, Mr. Whitaker for the Department of Justice went second. And then the lawyers for the Comey, Letitia James side went last in rebuttal. Along the way, Judge Curry had a lot of problems with a number of things that happened in the courtroom related to or a number of the things that happened in the grand jury room in particular, that there were missing transcripts. Here's a clip of Adam Klassfeld reporting live today about that very issue. Let's play the clip.

6:04I'm going to start with the top line right up front. What the biggest headline that I'm seeing here today, aside from the fact that the Trump administration should be very nervous before Thanksgiving and that James Comey might have a very happy Thanksgiving, is that there is a missing portion of the grand jury transcript. By which I mean, Judge Curry, before today's hearing on whether Lindsay Halligan would be disqualified, demanded to see the grand jury records. And there was a dog that hasn't barked, to borrow the language of the Epstein emails. And that is that from 4.28 p.m. in the afternoon on, there was no court reporter present, the judge said.

6:52There was no grand jury materials that disclosed what happened in that grand jury room in the James Comey case from 428 in the afternoon to the return of the indictment in overtime, as was previously reported. So hours.

7:09Michael Popok:Two and a half. The true bill doubled. Well, a number of true bills were returned by about 657 p.m. So that's 28 until 657. There's no transcript. There is no record of what Lindsay Halligan told those grand jurors in the for those more than two hours where she just persuaded by a razor thin majority for them to return true bills on two of the three charges. Hey, everybody. Ben Mycelis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popak's new law firm. It's called the Popak Firm. Michael Popak's pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm, really based on the popular demand by all the Midas mighty and legal AF-ers who were approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us?

8:06And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popak firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popak's firm is free. Give him a call. See if you have a case. It's thepopakfirm.com, thepopakfirm.com, or you can call 877-POPAKAF, P-O-P-O-K-A-F. So 1-877-P-O-P-O-K-A-F. Give Michael Popak a call. And I'm really proud of you, Popak. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.

8:54Michael Popok:And that's not the only thing that got the judge upset. But what also got the judge upset was that the, this whole, there was a lot of time and energy spent about the last minute effort by Pam Bondi to save Lindsay Halligan by issuing on October the 31st and filing with the court a backdated memo to then bless her, Lindsay Halligan as a U.S. special attorney and ratify everything that she had done in the past. But the judge said to Whitaker for the Department of Justice, two questions. One, how can she ratify something if she doesn't know what happened in the room because there's no transcript for the last two hours from 4.30 to 6.30 or so related to James Comey?

9:41Michael Popok:How do you ratify what you don't know? So that's one. And secondly, then you get that pointed question about do you agree with Judge Cannon's decision? Judge Cannon's in the news a lot lately. Are you or do you agree with Judge Cannon's decision about Mar-a-Lago, about how special counsel need to be appointed and confirmed by the U.S. Senate? Because Lindsey Halligan wasn't confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Here's Adam Classfield reporting on that issue as well. Let's play the clip. There was a more telling colloquy that I'll point out where she and this was another mic drop moment in her colloquy with the government in particular.

10:16She asked the government, do you believe the United States versus Trump was wrongly decided by which she was referring to the classified documents case? Because remember exactly that Judge Cannon ruled that Jack Smith was improperly appointed. She put the government in a bind in that moment because, yeah, spell it out.

10:40Michael Popok:Let's roll it back for a minute for our audience to catch them up. The ratification issue is Bondi panicking at last minute and on Halloween with the document you described trying to backdate and ratify and call and say, Even if she's not a U.S. attorney interim, she's at least a special attorney that I have appointed with a footnote without Senate confirmation and without without without a confirmation process through the Senate. But so that makes it OK. So in in the Trump case, there's so many Trump U.S. cases that we could talk about. But in the one you're talking about, Judge Cannon in the Southern District of Florida ruled for the first time in 200 years, effectively, that a attorney general could not appoint a special attorney in that way.

11:34Michael Popok:It had to go through Senate confirmation, which, of course, Lindsey Halligan did not. Is that where they were going? That's where she was going. Absolutely. So when she put Assistant U.S. Attorney Whitaker on the spot there, Whitaker had to say that, well, it's certainly not controlling because, as you noted, Southern District of Florida, even if it went out on appeal, that wouldn't be her circuit. But it says, you know, I mean, imagine, imagine for a moment that Henry Whitaker responded, yes, Judge Cannon got it wrong. The case against Donald Trump should not have been dismissed. That would be the last moment for Whitaker in the Department of Justice, I assure you.

12:19Michael Popok:Absolutely. So he capably danced around that question, but it just showed the, she showed the contradiction there. So let's just say things did not go well. Comey did not speak, but he wrote notes to his lawyers. Lindsay Halligan was writing feverishly, but not doing much else in the room because the more she scribbled and scratched, the more she knew she was in a losing position. The judge said that by the end of November, sorry, before Thanksgiving, she will issue her ruling. What she's also focused on, I think it is a foregone conclusion now, after the briefing and this hearing, that she's going a rule that Lindsey Halligan under Section 546 was improperly appointed.

13:03However, you also have

13:05Michael Popok:the issue about what to do with the indictments. Do they also get kicked and dismissed with prejudice, which is what the lawyers are asking for, for Letitia James and James Comey? Now, that's what she's trying to get to the bottom of with the grand jury transcripts and the missing pieces. So if she finds that she's going to dismiss or disqualify Lindsay Halligan, but the indictments stay somehow, then it's going to turn to the regular judges that handle the case for Comey and for Letitia James. Nakmanoff, the federal judge for Comey. Walker, the federal judge for Letitia James, to decide on another set of motions argued next week, motions to dismiss for for vindictive prosecution.

13:51Michael Popok:And then the regular trial judge can kick those cases. This is all happening so quickly before Thanksgiving and arguments next week, because otherwise the trials of James Comey starts the first week in January and the trial of Letitia James starts the third week in January, in 2026. I mean, a couple of months. So that's why these things are so important and we're covering them here for you on Midas Touch and Legal AF. And we will report back on the result. We will report back on the hearings next week. Follow us on Legal AF YouTube. Hit the free subscribe button as we try our march to crash through the 1 million subscriber barrier with your help.

14:27Michael Popok:Come over to Legal AF Substack, where you can read about all of these things in real time, including the court filings, only on Legal AF Substack. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak.

14:46Michael Popok:filing or a oral argument. Come over to the Substack. 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.

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