Trump Suffers Shock Loss Over $1.8 Billion Fund

0:00This is a Monday.com ad. TheSameMonday.com designed for every team. TheSameMonday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one. TheSameMonday.com with an easy and intuitive setup. Go to Monday.com and try it for free. I'm Jake Stouck, co-founder and CEO of Serval. We built Serval to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding, password resets, access to applications, my laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. IT desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Serval what you want to automate in plain English, and it's built.

0:40No drag-and-drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Serval, IT becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run IT. We guarantee you'll automate 50 % of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four-week pilot. Go to serval.com slash listen. That's S-E-R-V-A-L dot com slash listen.

1:33We'll be right back.

1:42PRA-terms. Visit lowes.com slash business credit.

1:45Michael Popok:Got some breaking news. Senior status. Federal Judge Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia has blocked the anti-weaponization fund, that phony slush fund created by Donald Trump from the embers of a phony lawsuit. Judge Brinkema has blocked the creation of the fund, the funding of the fund, the distribution of funds from the fund by Donald Trump, his Department of Justice, or anyone else, until she can get full briefing on the motion for preliminary injunction and temporary restraining order filed by our friends at Democracy Forward on behalf of a series of plaintiffs. The order just came out in the last few moments.

2:31Michael Popok:Let me read to you from the order, then I'll tell you how we got here. The order is a order on the plaintiff's motion for expedited briefing schedule. They filed a motion for temporary restraining order. They wanted the judge, in addition, to set a very fast briefing schedule. The judge wants to slow down the briefing schedule until the middle of June, but doesn't want funds distributed at all. So she has used her power to block it and retain the status quo. Here's what Judge Brinkama says. However, to ensure that no funds are irreversibly dispersed from the Anti-Weaponization Fund, while plaintiff's motion is pending, it is hereby ordered that defendants, and that's the Department of Justice and Donald Trump and the IRS, be and are enjoined from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the fund, the consideration of any claims submitted to the fund, and the dispersing of any funds from the fund.

3:37Michael Popok:She says in footnote one, it is important that the status quo be maintained until plaintiff's pending motion has been resolved, especially as plaintiffs allege in their expedited motion that defense counsel, that's the Department of Justice side, was unable to provide assurances of how long the status quo would last and decline plaintiff's request that the government commit to not transferring money to the fund or processing or paying claims until at least June 19 to allow for a less compressed briefing in this case. So Democracy Forward reached out to the lawyers for the Trump administration, and they would not commit to hold to put a pin in it to hold the ring until full briefing.

4:24Michael Popok:Hence, the judge saying, I'm going to block it.

4:31Michael Popok:And then she sets the following briefing schedule. She wants the government to file their opposition by next Friday, June 5th. She wants the plaintiffs to file their reply by Wednesday, June 10th. And then she wants a hearing. She set a hearing for the motion to be on Friday, June 12th. So two Fridays from now, we're going to have the hearing on the motion for temporary restraining order. Could the Trump administration try to take an appeal at this juncture? They could. I just don't see John Roberts granting an appeal and cutting the legs out as of yet from under Judge Brinkema as she set a reasonable briefing schedule.

5:14Michael Popok:Let's go back at how we got here. Trump has a lawsuit that he files in Miami as cover to set up a fund to pay Jan Sixers and others who he claims were abused by the Biden administration. That lawsuit was questioned by Judge Williams in the Miami federal court. She questioned whether there was a legitimate lawsuit pending at all. It was about to dismiss it, frankly, when Trump settled the case, then used the lawsuit as a ruse for the Department of Justice to dip into the judgment fund funded by Congress to pay victims from the fund. But in order to have a judgment fund claim, there has to be a legitimate suit that set up that aspect of the fund.

6:07Michael Popok:No legitimate suit, no good faith filing, then the attorney general is not empowered to settle anything. And that's where that particular issue is still being litigated in Miami, in the interim. Several lawsuits have been filed, this was the second, against the fund itself and its formation, claiming that it violated the First Amendment, the rights of people, because it's content-based discrimination. The Fifth Amendment, equal protection, the separation of powers, the Administrative Procedures Act. the 14th Amendment against paying the debts of insurrectionists. You name it, that's what's in the original complaint.

6:49Michael Popok:My cat Chanel, she runs the house. I just pay the mortgage and scoop litter. So when I found something that fixes that worst part of having a cat, I paid attention. This podcast is sponsored by Boxy. Boxy is the last cat litter you'll switch to. And their Boxy Pro Deep Clean, it's the best cat litter money can buy. The pro in Boxy Pro stands for probiotics. which Boxy puts right in the litter that gobble up odor-causing bacteria and keeps the box continuously odor-free. Yes, continuously, not for 10 days or 20 days, infinite days of continual odor-freeness. And your cat won't smell anything either, as in no fake scents, which gives him or her one less reason to avoid the box.

7:32Michael Popok:I've used Boxy Pro Deep Clean recently, and I can actually vouch that this works. Our place smells better. Scooping is easier and Chanel took to it right away. Plus with Boxy, you do not need to do full litter changes. You just scoop, top it off with fresh Boxy litter and that's it. If you're tired of switching litters, looking for the one, get 30 % off your Boxy order at BoxyCat.com backslash Legal AF and use code Legal AF. That's B-O-X-I-E-C-A-T.com slash Legal AF and make sure you use my code Legal AF so they know I sent you. Then after the lawyers for Democracy Forward, after filing the complaint, reached out to the government and said, listen, if you give us the time to brief it with Judge Brinkema and you agree not to distribute from the fund, because I think there's still gas in the tank, there's still money in the fund, we won't ask the judge for an immediate injunction.

8:32Michael Popok:And they said, no, we're not going to make that commitment. Hence, Judge Brinkema, based on two motions that were filed, one, a motion for temporary restraining order or for a preliminary injunction with expedited briefing, or for the expedited briefing issue, the judge says, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to put a pin in this. I'm going to hold the ring through the next two Fridays until we have a hearing. Now, there's been reporting, as we all know, that the Senate left and has not returned yet to take up the issue of whether they're going to fund the Judgment Fund. But the Judgment Fund already has money in it.

9:13Michael Popok:And that's the fear of the democracy forward plaintiffs, is that they are going to start distributing money, set up this fund, do a quick, you know, a new agency that they don't have the power to establish and do all of that so quickly that it will harm the plaintiffs. The biggest issue here has to do with standing. Who has standing to object to this weaponization fund? And that's going to be something for Judge Brinkema to decide whether the four different types of plaintiffs that are part of this case, Andrew Floyd, a former assistant U.S. attorney, a protester who was unlawfully prosecuted, an anti-abortion group, a city, the city of New Haven, Connecticut, and Common Cause, a leading vote protection entity, whether all or any of them have standing a particular type of injury to bring this case really on behalf of the American people.

10:11Michael Popok:I'm going to be interviewing the head of Democracy Forward over on the Legal AF YouTube channel, and that video will be going up sometime on Friday. But this is important. This is the first order blocking the anti-weaponization fund, even if it's just for the next two weeks. I'm sure the Department of Justice will be issuing some nasty comments along with Donald Trump about Judge Brinkham, a Clinton appointee senior status. And she's been up against the Trump administration before. She's tough. She's tough as nails. She's exactly the kind of judge I'm sure Democracy Forward wanted when they filed on the rocket docket of the Eastern District of Virginia.

10:49Michael Popok:There's another case that's pending in D.C. brought by two Jan 6th Capitol Police and Metro Police. There is another suit that was just filed by our friends at Mueller. She wrote Mueller. She wrote just filed a lawsuit in California over it. But this is the first one to block it. So we'll follow it closely. You know where to do that. Legal AF, the YouTube channel, which I curate for you, 12 fresh videos every day. And over on Legal AF Substack, I'll do updates on this. If there is an appeal, you'll know about it first on Legal AF. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak. Can't get your fill of Legal AF?

11:27Michael Popok:Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF Substack. 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.