Trump Screws Himself as Scheme Blows Up in His Face

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3:22Michael Popok:Why is it being leaked the same day that Donald Trump attacked the Chinese? Is there a link between John Bolton, the Chinese, and Donald Trump that needs to be further covered up? And there is. I'm going to uncover it all for you right here on the Midas such network in Legal AF. The new reporting has already been reported that John Bolton, former national security advisor, who's been the bane of Donald Trump's existence, even though he's a Republican, forever. It all stems from a 2020 book called In the Room Where It Happens, where John Bolton made certain claims against Donald Trump that got under his skin.

3:57Michael Popok:How do I know that this indictment is all about that? Because I have in my hands the unredacted or redacted version of the search warrant affidavit, which talks a lot about the 2020 book that Donald Trump tried to stop back in 2020 with a lawsuit and it failed to stop it from being published. Now, in the book, John Bolton talked a lot about the Chinese. In particular, he said that Donald Trump was trying to curry favor with Premier Xi, President Xi, at the G20 summit to try to convince him to help him get elected, get Trump elected by buying more American agricultural products. Won't you buy more soybeans so I get elected?

4:38Michael Popok:It'll make me look good. In the same breath, John Bolton said that in his interaction with Donald Trump, he was also in favor of internment camps. He was in favor of giving favors to dictators. And this always got under Donald Trump's skin. Now, in order, here's the Chinese connection. Today, we wake up to Donald Trump being pissed off about the Nobel Prize. So at the same time, he goes after all of a sudden out of nowhere and attacks the Chinese. He says there's going to be heavy tariffs because of their withholding of rare earth metals or putting control tariffs on those to try to flex their economic muscle to show that they control the tech supply chain.

5:16Michael Popok:So what's the connection between John Bolton and China? You're here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popak, I'm going to weave it all together now, as we like to say, to show you my working theory, which I think I'm right about. Now, the reporting is that in order for this indictment or what could be a criminal complaint against John Bolton for taking with him after 40 years of government service, some documents marked top secret or classified, you know, sort of like what happened to Donald Trump when he was indicted for espionage and obstruction of justice at Mar-a-Lago. Donald Trump now trying to show that other people did it, too.

5:54Michael Popok:Now, in order to to to get the the search warrant to even go into his house with FBI agents in September, they had to tell a federal judge something. So what they told the federal judge is that they determined that they had probable cause because they found John Bolton's AOL hacked emails on a foreign country's servers that they were surveilling secretly. So Donald Trump is willing to compromise active national security surveillance by telling the foreign country that they have been hacked by America in order to go after John Bolton. Now, who could that foreign country be? Well, the only country that's been in the paper, the only country that has had its agents indicted recently for something called Salt Typhoon are the Chinese.

6:50Michael Popok:We've been hearing things since the campaign about the Chinese actively hacking all Americans and government officials, emails and AOL accounts. And John Bolton just so happens on paragraph 36, the hack of Bolton's AOL account by a foreign entity. now foreign entity a foreign entity a foreign entity that john bolton said in his book that was uh donald trump was trying to collude with to try to get elected the chinese who does donald trump attack today the day the leak comes out about the indictment or the possible indictment of john bolton coming out of maryland the chinese all of a sudden we get this posting that says oh, I've told you that the Chinese have been laying in wait, that we're going to have to come after them with maximum tariffs, which tanked the stock market, lost a trillion dollars in value, because the Chinese reflects in their muscle in their negotiations to show America, and Donald Trump in particular, who's their daddy, who's Trump's daddy?

8:00Michael Popok:The Chinese. They wanted to show what the impact of the American economy could be. but Chinese hackers get indicted in New York. Salt Typhoon gets discovered and Donald Trump's Department of Justice and FBI have to reveal to a foreign entity that they've been peering in, hacking their systems and discovered John Bolton's emails. And now you've got the cover story. So let's start from the top. John Bolton, 40 years in service, U.N. ambassador for George Bush, national security advisor for Donald Trump. Ever since he left the office, the things that he saw, he wrote his book in 2020 or 2019. The Trump administration got a copy for preclearance and said, no, you can't use it because there's classified information in it.

8:52Michael Popok:The federal judge didn't believe that, dismissed the lawsuit. There was a grand jury that was impaneled even during the Biden administration about John Bolton, but that was disbanded and the thing was over. What Donald Trump doesn't like is all the bad things that John Bolton said about Donald Trump in his book. you know in particular John Bolton here's the 10 biggest claims the BBC said in John Bolton's book number one Trump wanted help from China forget Russia to win re-election that at the G20 meeting that Trump went up to Xi and according to Bolton stunningly turned the conversation to the coming presidential election in 2020, alluding to China's economic capability and pleading with Xi to ensure he'd win.

9:48Michael Popok:He stressed the importance of farmers and increased Chinese purchase of soybeans and wheat in the electoral outcome. Agriculture is one of the main industries in the Midwest that helped propel Trump to victory in 2016. He also said that China putting ethnic minorities like the Uyghurs in internment camps was the right thing to do. Donald Trump, the keeper of the freedom flame, wanting to see people in internment camps, that Trump offered personal favors to dictators like Erdogan in Turkey. Also, we know he's currently doing it. He's currying favor with Bolsonaro in Brazil by punishing Brazil. Bolton also thinks the Democrats should have gone further with their impeachment efforts.

10:37Michael Popok:He also said that Trump suggested he wanted to serve more than two terms. He thought that he didn't know that the UK had nuclear weapons, and he thought that Finland was a part of Russia. Donald Trump has hated the trolling of John Bolton for a long time. Now, if you go into Kelly O. Hayes, the U.S. attorney, and that's the only thing this indictment's got going for it if it eventually comes out. There is a legitimate prosecutor, I'll be frank, that's running the case in Maryland. Before she became the acting interim U.S. attorney. She was the head of the major crimes unit. She's a real career prosecutor, and she has told people in her office that she thinks she can get the indictment.

11:13Michael Popok:Now, the allegations about it starts on page 9, paragraph 30, all about the 2020 book. This is what the FBI agent says. According to government records, Bolton submitted a draft manuscript for his book, The Room Where It Happens, a White House memoir to the National Security Council for pre-publication review on December 30th, 2019. He was told on January 23rd, 2020, that the manuscript appeared to contain significant amounts of classified information, including top secret level. Another letter was sent to Bolton's attorney about the manuscript, about details of the manuscript. There was a request for a temporary restraining order, But Royce Lampert, a Republican judge in D.C., stated in the court's order that he would not grant the temporary restraining order, although he did state that Bolton gambled with national security and exposed his country to harm and himself to civil liability.

12:17Michael Popok:So, of course, they quote that. Then there is this interesting section that's completely redacted that John Bolton's AOL account was was hacked by a foreign entity. now let's tie it to the chinese there's only one foreign entity whether it's the salt typhoon group of hackers the 12 hackers that were just indicted by the trump administration that have been going after and successfully getting information and documents from government officials including donald trump including jd vance and now i assume including john bolton Now, here's the link. In order to bring this indictment, they had to have told the foreign entity China, in my theory, that they have been spying on China and found the Bolton emails.

13:08Michael Popok:Otherwise, it would come spilling out in the indictment. So they did that, showing that Donald Trump would do anything, including compromising our foreign national security to expose a hacking and surveillance operation in order to put a 79-year -old former national security advisor in jail or to at least indict him. This is how depraved and deranged Donald Trump is. Now, as a cover story for that, I'm going to continue here. Donald Trump today, the day of the leak indictment comes out, goes after hard China. China, you did me dirty. I'm going to have to raise tariffs on you. So Donald Trump was willing to tank the economy because the stock market dropped over two and a half percent just today because of the traders being upset with being blindsided with we're going to be raising tariffs on China because they're holding back on rare earth minerals.

14:03You know, copper and lead and other things that we need for magnets, for auto manufacturing, for chip manufacturing, for AI chip manufacturing as well.

14:17Michael Popok:Our entire tech economy is based on rare earth metals. Everything tanked today except the rare earth metal companies, including one that the Trump administration owns, that the government owns, that went up. Now, why would you fight with China now? Because they already told the Chinese in a weak moment that they caught them spying on John Bolton. What's been the delay? The delay, according to MSNBC, is that they had to tell the foreign entity that they've been spying on them before they found out about it in the indictment, which could come as early as Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. There's been a grand jury already in progress that Kelly O.

14:59Michael Popok:Hayes has been presenting evidence to. Now, the only question they have is should they do it as a criminal complaint, followed later by an indictment? Because they might be having trouble getting the, it's a complicated case, getting the indictment out of the grand jury. They can criminally charge him through a complaint. It has to be substituted with an indictment. It's what they did with Judge Hannah Dugan in Milwaukee. The first piece of paper that charged her was a criminal complaint prepared by a prosecutor. It was later substituted with a grand jury. But in terms of timing, now that we're back at economic war with the Chinese, don't be surprised if you see the criminal complaint come out first and then the grand jury indictment sometime thereafter.

15:43Michael Popok:I think this all goes down based on the reporting. early next week. James Comey, Letitia James, John Bolton, get ready. Adam Schiff, the senator, Lisa Cook, the on the board of governors. It doesn't matter whether there's a competent prosecutor like Kelly O 'Hays or an incompetent one like like Lindsay, Lindsay Halligan. Donald Trump is going to go down his checklist. He's checking all the boxes and they're just all the wrong boxes, demonstrating to the American people the tremendous amount of abuse that's going on here. If you thought I'm wrong about Donald Trump hating John Bolton, here's a clip of Donald Trump about John Bolton after the search warrant was executed, including lying about not knowing about the search warrant.

16:29Michael Popok:Let's play it. No, I don't know about it. I saw it on television this morning. I'm not a fan of John Bolton. He's a real sort of a lowlife. When I hired him, he served a good purpose because as you know he was one of the people that forced push to do the ridiculous bombings in the middle east the baltons he he he wants to always kill people and he's very bad at what he does but he worked out great for me because every time he doesn't talk he's like a very quiet person except on television if you could say something bad about trump i'll always do that but but he really doesn't talk he's quiet and i'd walk into a room with him with a foreign country and the foreign country would give me everything because they said, oh no, they're going to get blown up because John Bolton was there.

17:16He's not a smart guy, but he could be a very unpatriotic guy. I mean, we're going to find out. I know nothing about it. I just saw it this morning. They did a raid.

17:25Michael Popok:So we're going to continue to follow all of this story. The good news is you're going to be hearing a lot about a guy by the name of a lawyer, a lawyer by the name of Abby Lowell. He represents Letitia James. He represents John Bolton. He doesn't represent Comey. But I think he's also in the running or will represent Adam Schiff. So, you know, these are the lawyers that are stepping forward and running into the burning building to protect democracy. So are we here all together on Midas Touch. 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.

18:00Michael 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. You want to get your backyard summer ready, but you don't want to break the bank? Wayfair gets it. Planning on dining al fresco or relaxing poolside?

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