Trump Prosecutor’s Entire Career Could Be Over After Fatal Motion

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2:13Michael Popok:We got some breaking news and a new filing by James Comey, the former FBI director, who's been framed on perjury charges by Donald Trump and his handpicked teacher's pet of a prosecutor, Lindsay Halligan. They're going right after Lindsay Halligan to cut her legs out from under her and to argue to the court ultimately, to a court ultimately, that she was illegally appointed as the interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia. because there already was an interim U.S. attorney for Virginia. And his name was Eric Seibert. And you only get one. You don't get two. And the reason the twisty part here, the procedural part here, which is very interesting, is that they've asked for another judge outside of the Eastern District of Virginia to hear the case because if they're right about what just went down and Halligan being illegally appointed, then the group of people that get to appoint the next Eastern District of Virginia prosecutor are the judges of the Eastern District of Virginia, putting them in conflict.

3:13Michael Popok:And to avoid that conflict, you send that motion out to another judge within the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, but in another state. We just saw the exact same thing happen with Alina Haba. The motion to disqualify her is illegally appointed, filed in New Jersey, assigned to the Middle District of Pennsylvania, which was also in the Third Circuit. Who does that assigning? Lean into this hot take. I'm Michael Popok, and we'll make it a teachable moment here on Midas Touch and Legal AF. Okay, he gets indicted. Two counts, perjury and obstruction related to some ridiculous statement he made that was true and couldn't possibly be the subject of perjury about who was responsible for a leak about Hillary Clinton in 2016 to the Washington Post.

4:01Michael Popok:Let's put that aside for a moment. The two major motions we've been waiting for, we now have noticed that one is coming in on the 20th of October. That's this one to go after Lindsey Halligan. The second one, which would probably be filed on the 20th of October as well, but can stay in front of Judge Nakmanoff, who's the judge, the Biden-appointed judge who's responsible for the case. He can keep the case about prosecutorial abuse and misconduct because he's the judge. So I think there's going to be two motions filed. One here, and he's giving Nachmanov time to send it to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals chief judge who sits over Virginia and let that judge decide who's going to be the ultimate judge within the Fourth Circuit, but not in Virginia.

4:55Michael Popok:So it could be like a North Carolina federal judge who would make this decision like that. So he's giving the judge enough time. But on the other motion that's coming, the motion for prosecutorial misconduct or abuse, vindictive and selective prosecution, that can stay right where it is in front of the pending judge. So this only takes this one motion away from Judge Nekmanov. That's it. The rest stay with him for the duration. Now, what's the argument? The argument is simple. There's only two ways to appoint a U.S. attorney when there's a vacancy. You either go the Vacancy Reform Act method, which is a statute, which is how they got Alina Habba in there.

5:42Michael Popok:And then she carries around the title of acting U.S. attorney. And then you put her in there. And that's how they did it there. Or there's another statute that says that you have 120 days to put in one, if you're the Department of Justice, one interim, not acting, interim U.S. attorney, while you work on your permanent candidate going through the Senate confirmation process, you know, the advice and consent of the Senate process. And so they haven't put up anybody for that position yet. There was a interim U.S. attorney under that statute already. His name is Eric Seibert. Eric Seibert was a conservative Republican who Bondi, Pam Bondi and Tom Blanche wanted to keep, but Donald Trump didn't.

6:33Michael Popok:So they fired him. They then were going to put in Meg Cleary, who was a friend of Pam Bondi's. She lasted all of 24 hours until Donald Trump sent that now famous direct message, not direct message, true social posting. Come on, Pam, hurry up. We're running out of time. Indite everybody. And Lindsey Halligan really likes you. She thinks you're nice or smarter, whatever he said in there, like a middle schooler. So after that happened, there goes Meg Cleary. She gets bumped down to number two in the office, although now she's been fired. And then you have Lindsey Halligan coming in as number one.

7:13Michael Popok:If she's coming in under that statute, though, Eric Seibert was already number one. That means you only get one. And how do I know you only get one? Because Sam Alito, now on the United States Supreme Court, back in 1986, wrote a memo when he was in the White House Counsel's Office for Ronald Reagan, in which he described that mechanism as only being one time. It's a single use. After that, the judges of the district court pick the U.S. attorney for the duration until the president gets to put in a permanently confirmed person. That's going to be their argument. It was a similar argument to Alina Haba.

7:54Michael Popok:It worked there with the Middle District of Pennsylvania judge. It's up on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals for Alina Haba. It's actually going to be heard next Wednesday in court. And now we're starting all over again with James Comey. I think it's a very, very good argument. We've seen people like Ed Whelan, who is a rock-rib-right, non-MAGA, federalist society conservative, wrote exactly that in the National Review about how Alina Haba was illegally appointed. And I think they're just going to, and Halligan too. And I think this is going to be the template that's going to be used by everybody that gets indicted.

8:31Michael Popok:We're still waiting for the other shoe to drop on the former National Security Advisor and UN Ambassador James Bolton. That's coming. I think the Israel real estate land deal masquerading as a peace deal kind of got in the way of all of that. But that's what's going to happen now. So the next steps here as you leave this hot take are for James Comey. We're going to see, I think, two filings on the 20th of October. One for prosecutorial abuse, to have the indictment dismissed. The other to get her out as illegally appointed. There's going to be a whole battle now. It'll probably make its way back to now Sam Alito as Justice Alito about whether district courts picking executive officers in the case of a U.S.

9:17Michael Popok:attorney. They're in the executive branch. Somehow infringes. And it's not what the founders and the framers wanted. I don't think so. And Alito is going to have to do a lot of backpedaling here in order to make this work. But this is going to go up to the U.S. Supreme Court about Donald Trump's attempts. He's had a lot of zero success in appointing appropriately and getting confirmed U.S. attorneys. He's only had one or two confirmed. The rest have all been rejected, bounced, fired by federal judges, and makes our justice system, of course, an embarrassment. We'll continue to follow it all. You're on the Midas Touch Network.

9:58Michael Popok:Slide over to Legal AF YouTube, which we're trying to get to that magic$1 million, or like you say, we say$1 billion, 1 million subscriber plateau over on the YouTube channel. We're close. We're going to hit 900 ,000 any minute now. And then Legal AF Substack, where if you really want to help everything that's going on in the Legal AF community, you'll go over to Legal AF Substack, where I will post this motion, this notice, so that you can read it along with everything else under Filings AF. So 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 Substack.

10:38Michael Popok:Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court 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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