Trump Sweats as Epstein Survivors Confront Kash Patel at Senate Hearing and Demand Justice!!!

0:00Michael Popok:Welcome to a special edition of Legal AF. There is so much to catch our audience up about in the world of the Epstein survivors and their attempt to get justice and our support for them getting justice. When Kash Patel, the FBI director, the beleaguered, scandal-scarred FBI director, goes in before the Senate Judiciary Committee, of course, a major issue is why has he not lifted a finger to help the Epstein survivors? What has he done with the 3 million or more documents? Why hasn't he mined it for predators who are identified in there? And why aren't they opening any investigations or meeting with any of the Epstein survivors, even though Todd Blanche, to get confirmed, said, my door is open.

0:45Michael Popok:Call me. Talk to the FBI. So that whole backdrop of Kash Patel yesterday. And then right on cue, you've got the House, Oversight Committee, who has found in contempt Leon Black, who funded, there's no other way to put this, funded Epstein's criminal enterprise with billions of dollars that have been unexplained, which helped Epstein perpetuate his international crime ring, sexual predator, children predator crime ring for years. He refused to answer questions, and now he's been found in contempt. Then we had the Dallas event. I won't call it. I don't even know what that was. So what losing party throws a party for themselves?

1:31Michael Popok:I mean, it makes us watch it. So there's the Dallas Midterm Convention, whatever that was, and Epstein survivors and others that were in and around Dallas calling for justice. We had the Bookmobile and the Epstein Library that made an appearance in Dallas as it should. We all love the fact that if you plugged in for a website that looked to be for the midterm convention, it automatically diverted to the Epstein Library and information about that. And when I'm piecing all this together for our audience, I wanted to bring in Danny Bensky, Epstein Survivor Shore, a leader of the survivor movement and an all around amazing human being.

2:18Michael Popok:So let's bring in Danny Bensky. Hi, Danny. Hi. Thank you for having me. Thank you for your generosity of time to brief our audience about what you observed. You were in the room for Kash Patel's confirmation. Sorry, his oversight. I don't know. You were there for that too, probably. But certainly were there for yesterday's shit show. And just, you know, I made a joke on one of my hot takes about this. I said, I didn't know what roasted Kash Patel would taste like, but it is delicious. It is delicious to watch, you know, just to watch the senior senator from New Jersey, Cory Booker, go after him and Adam Schiff and Senator Whitehouse.

3:03Michael Popok:In fact, before you tell us what you picked up from being in the room and why you're in the room, let's just remind everybody and orient them. Let's play a couple of clips from the cross-examination of Kash Patel, one by Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and then we'll play one from Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana, who's supposed to be MAGA. Let's play Whitehouse first. Let's try something else then. Let's try the remaining pages of the FBI documents that have not yet been provided pursuant to the Epstein disclosure law. As you'll recall, the travel of this was that a woman testified to FBI agents that she had been both sexually and physically assaulted by Donald Trump around the ages of 14 to 15.

3:52Michael Popok:there were FBI 302s that resulted from those investigations, from those interviews. In the first cull, the only 302s that were released were the ones that did not mention Donald Trump. When the department was caught having held back the other ones, I think because bait stamps revealed their existence, the department then coughed up the 302s that did mention Donald Trump, but we still have 37 undisclosed pages that seem to be the contemporaneous FBI notes that would have formed the basis for the 302 summaries. Am I accurate in suggesting that those 37 pages likely include the FBI contemporaneous notes from that interview, from those interviews?

4:54Michael Popok:We have complied with the statute and the court orders and produced three and a half million pages of documents for the first time ever. Investigators looked at the information in real time in the prior administration and made the determinations on referrals for prosecution and not. We've also repeatedly stated if there's new information, we want everyone to come forward so that we can analyze that information as to what is and isn't remaining. So what are those 37 pages? I don't know what you're referencing. We've produced three and a half million pages and we will continue to comply with it.

5:26Michael Popok:Yeah, but not these 37. You say there's 37 pages. Thank you, Chairman. These are all hard questions that Kash Patel cannot answer. And then, of course, I never thought in my entire life, I thought I could go an entire lifetime without having to use the word bestiality at an FBI director at a Senate hearing. But no, no, because there is reporting, and he's admitted it, that the FBI has lowered its standards for hiring people to replace the 5 ,000 FBI agents with more than 20 years of experience who have left, and now he's replacing them with people that apparently it's not a disqualifier any long if you engaged in prostitution, if you stole from your last employer or any employer, and if you were involved in bestiality.

6:12And then he, Cash Patel, showed that he doesn't understand

6:20Michael Popok:what the word bestiality means as he was given a softball that bounced off his forehead by Senator Kennedy. Play the clip. Tell me what it said before. It automatically disqualified any individual who participated on either side of it. Obviously, we are never going to hire the criminal. This side of what? The bestiality? Yes. So you disqualified the animal? Well, I don't think we have great canines, but we're not going to disqualify. I understand. I'm trying to understand why you did this. You changed the qualifications and mentioned bestiality. If Joe participated in bestiality, not as the animal but as the human, don't you think he ought to be disqualified?

7:09Michael Popok:If he voluntarily did it, sure, but if he was trafficked into it… Okay, how do you involuntarily do it? In a lot of these cases, when human traffickers, who are some of the worst individuals on planet Earth, they don't just traffic you for prostitution. Should they traffic you for degrading acts of all kind and they force you into that type of conduct? The victims of bestiality. The victims of bestiality. I joked with you before we joined. I didn't realize he thought Sheep Detectives was a documentary. Just completely whacked. Why were you in the room? Why was it important for the survivors to be there?

7:46Michael Popok:What did you try to accomplish and what did you pick up from being in the room in Kash Patel's testimony? We have so many unanswered questions about how this process rolled out from the FBI. You know, DOJ has been saying that the redactions had happened in the FBI. And that's why when congressional reps are going and trying to see the original files, that they're still redacted in some places. And so there are a lot of questions there. You know, there was this whole thing about that the birthday book, the Donald Trump signature was not his actual signature. Right. So, like, are they investigating that?

8:22There's so many questions. We just have tons and tons of questions. So I was just really hoping that we could sit there and get something from Patel. But they talked a lot about the freedom of the press and how he's subpoenaed reporters' mothers, that he didn't like the article that came out. Everything was basically about... He turned everything into a personal attack and really didn't answer that much of anything, which is incredibly frustrating.

8:52Michael Popok:Well, you, for those that are joining the story a little bit late, you testified against Todd Blanche in his confirmation hearing. You met along with others with Todd Blanche when Tom Tillis made that a requirement for his vote for that hour, an hour and a half. You were kind enough to come on and talk about it here on Legal AF. And since that time, where I believe you, to paraphrase, you believe you were abused again by, right, and dishonored again by Todd Blanche. From then till now, has the FBI reached out to any survivor that you know about in order to initiate an investigation? No, not that I know of.

9:39And that's, you know, it can be infuriating when we're sitting there in these spaces. Like it's laughable, right? It feels like a circus. We're talking about bestiality. We're talking about and he's literally saying like people who are victimized by bestiality. Like, what does that even mean? My like my brain actually can't comprehend what he's talking about in that moment. Right. But we're talking about all of these things, but we're not talking about the core issue, which is, you know, there are so many core issues that you can pick. But for us, it's the Epstein topic. Right. So I just feel like it's another tactic and another display to divert the focus.

10:10But weirdly, it became sort of nonpartisan because you saw Kennedy really question him. I mean, the questioning was good questioning. Right. And it's all about like, why was the FBI gutted from these really amazing agents? Right. And what's happening to the department? And he really didn't have much of an answer. He kept saying that people had retired, that people, you know, just left on their own accord, which we know that is probably not true. You know, so just to sit in there and experience that type of circus and know that it's all that I always say that incompetence is the strategy. Like that's really what we're seeing.

10:50Right. Because we're not getting to the core issues because it's so ridiculous. We're just living in this world of ridiculousness. Yeah.

10:57Michael Popok:And to prove your point that Kash Patel is lying, 1 ,200 FBI agents with 22 years of average experience have resigned already in 2026, 5 ,000 overall since he started to, quote unquote, clean house. He didn't like the clean house questions, started packing up his mead three ring binder trapper like he was going off to his eighth grade homeroom class to get away from Adam Schiff, Senator Schiff, who's going to be on with me tomorrow for an exclusive interview, along with Cory Booker, who's coming back on my show. The person's questioning was some, that was honestly like the highlight of my whole day.

11:38It was, and it was a crazy day on the Hill. There was a lot going on. And like Booker literally, he said, you know, you wouldn't even be able to pledge for fraternity.

11:47Michael Popok:Actually, we have that clip. We have, he's the kid that couldn't get accepted by the frat, right? Exactly. Actually, we'll play the clip. We'll play the clip, play the clip. My concluding remark is we don't have an FBI director. We have a lackey here. Okay. And frankly, he's not even a good lackey. He's an incompetent lackey. He's like an 18-year-old kid who wants to join a fraternity that he could never be a member of. Doing keg stands and chugging with friends. He's an embarrassment to the agency and wouldn't qualify even to be an FBI agent, sir. He won't answer questions for a committee. Amazing.

12:21Michael Popok:Yeah, yeah. Cory Booker, Senator Booker from New Jersey, is really fantastic. He's the one that told Kash Patel a couple of oversight hearings ago, I don't think you're going to be here for the next oversight hearing. You're not qualified. I don't think I'm going to be seeing you again. So let me get something off my chest. Now, Trump keeps him because, let's be honest, you have to be, I don't know what you have to be. You have to commit murder in the Rose Garden. He's lacky. You don't want to get fired. Yeah. I mean, I really think that, like, Kash Patel is a lackey, 1 ,000%. And I feel like that's just what he needs there, right, at the FBI.

13:02Michael Popok:He doesn't want an FBI. Yeah, Trump doesn't want an FBI director. Trump doesn't want a CIA director. Trump doesn't want a Secretary of State. He doesn't really want a Department of Justice head because he wants to run all of these himself. I mean, we just saw yesterday, I don't know if you caught it, who thought it was appropriate and what voter thinks it's appropriate that the chief law enforcement officer, the head of the Department of Justice, took a turn being press secretary. Yeah. Literally. I was also looking up all the credentials. Last night, yesterday, as I'm sitting in the hearing, I was like, what are Kash Patel's credentials?

13:38And I was actually looking, I was like, oh, he has none. He has none.

13:42Michael Popok:He's obscenely unqualified for any of the roles, which is what Donald Trump wants. So you can confirm for the audience, at least, that you, who is a known leader of the survivor movement who testified against Todd Blanchett, you have not been contacted by the FBI. No, no. And have you thought about contacting them yourself? I thought about it, but I feel like we've always had such pushback from them. And I think we really are trying to move through the state levels a bit more. So I had that really long interview. We had talked about it with the AGs of New Mexico's office. And so I feel like that's kind of where we're expending our energy because it takes a lot to go back through and sit there for these like two, three hour interviews to talk about every detail of your abuse and every detail of what you remember.

14:35And so it's sort of like, why am I going to go and work for the FBI when they've never really worked with us? Totally understandable.

14:42Michael Popok:Yeah, it's an emotional drain. It just shows so much strength of character and courage that you're willing to do it. Because, look, we've talked about it. there are 1 ,400 or more survivors. There's 25 or so that are publicly out. I understand why others aren't. It's a heavy lift. It's a lot on your slender shoulders, and yet you're out there. So it wasn't just Capitol Hill. You also were in Dallas. Talk about going to the midterm convention, what you wanted to accomplish there and what you observed. Yeah. So we went with the redacted reading room. And I will say, you know, there's a weirdly hopeful thing that's happening for survivors.

15:27And we are out there. We are all, you know, at different stops on the bookmobile, different stops on the reading room, you know, on the hill. And we're talking as much as we can. But there's something that going into this week I didn't expect. And it was to walk into a space like the redacted reading room. If you have the opportunity to go, I highly suggest that you do.

15:49Michael Popok:Can I have you pause right there? Because some people are joining the story in progress. What is the bookmobile? What is the redacted reading room? Yeah. So the Institute of Primary Facts has worked on creating all these bound books. And they are the Epstein files. And so they're the real files. They're in, you know, you'll see all of the copies. So 3.5 million files that line the walls. But more than that, it's a space that has, you'll see the timeline of Jeffrey Epstein, the timeline of Donald Trump, and how the two have intersected for so many years. And then as you continue to walk through, there's this beautiful tribute to survivors where you see 1 ,400 candles that represent each individual's life.

16:37and the lives that have also been lost to this. We've lost a lot of survivors to suicide or to other mental health conditions. Like there've been a lot of, there's been a lot for survivors and as they've kind of worked through their own issues. So you see this representation in these candles and you really can't help but to feel the magnitude of it. And then as you continue through, there's a space that's my personal favorite space where there's a wall of reflection where people leave cards for survivors and just their frustration about this administration. And you have the opportunity to call the DOJ and leave a message asking for the release of the files, asking for Virginia's law to help you pass.

17:21Like you can literally call and say anything you want. But to sit in that room and really hear some of the calls that people are making were incredible. And you finish the experience by walking through Maria Farmer's art, which is so visceral. And so this space really became a space. Originally, it was all about obscene survivors, but it's a space where survivors as a whole can come and just experience loss and experience. I just noticed people coming in to this main space where we can gather and there's projection of our journeys and the candles. And then on the other side, there's a stage where we do whole panel discussions and people would just sit on the stage and watch the projection and just sob.

18:07And I would talk to a few of them. And so many of them have their own survivor stories. And they're like, you know, I never told anybody. And now this is all coming out and would tell us and confide in us for the very first time. So it's a wild experience where you're really seeing people's humanity. And I didn't expect that. I expected to feel so angry as I was walking through. It was like all these files, nothing has been done. No investigations. How angry do you feel? And instead, it was like this really bonding, beautiful experience and just so full of hope. I had met one woman who had been to 42 Trump rallies.

18:47She went to all the book signings. She lobbied on the Hill for Trump. She has her whole church group that lobbied for Trump. She's MAGA. She was like, she's very well known in the community. And she said that when Trump had said, are we still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? That something in her like switched, like the flip switched. And she, or the switch flipped rather, I can't find words. But she was one of those that just said, like, I am now, I can't support him. I can't support MAGA. I can't, like you guys are the thing that I want to support. We got into this whole conversation later I with another woman who was also a survivor about QAnon, actually.

19:29And in QAnon, the whole deal was save the children. And so this woman said to me, I was QAnon. And now I've like defected. And I'm all about like saving the survivors because you were the children, like you're the children that we should be saved. So you're seeing this like real flip. And like, you know, you're seeing it in real time. And you're hearing it on the phones. You know, somebody was calling the DOJ and she's screaming, I was a 50 year Republican and you should be ashamed of yourself and you should be disgraced. And now I am voting democratic because this is ridiculous. You know, so wild to be up across, you know, very close to RNC that was pretty empty.

20:08And we had 1500 people come through at the redacted reading room. So I walked out of there feeling exhausted, but totally like, you know, we're seeing people at a human level and that's what we, That's what this is going to take.

20:22Michael Popok:Yeah, that's that's such a great overview of that connectivity over this particular issue. On Legal AF and Midas Touch, we strongly believe that the Trump administration, Trump and Blanche, have underestimated the public ire and disgust about how they've mishandled the Epstein survivors. and this continued link and linkage between Donald Trump that's unexplained and the child sex trafficking ring run by people that were two of his best friends at the time and Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein. I mean, you see his, it's weird because you see the Department of Justice on one hand, you know, immediately within days transfer her to some low security camp so she can have a puppy, Ghislaine Maxwell.

21:11Michael Popok:But at the same time, her Department of Justice fights tooth and nail about letting her out of jail. You know, they file briefs to oppose her last ditched attempt on a writ of habeas corpus to be taken out of jail. And then they were like, no. And then they recited all the terrible things she was convicted of and said the solemn verdict of the jury should be respected. So, you know, they are, it's, they're playing the political thing. They're playing the, we got to keep Trump happy thing, but then we got to file this in court thing. And at the end, there is unanimity in the fact that people of good values and morals don't support Donald Trump on this and some people are using it to vote against him and the MAGA party about how the survivors have been treated.

22:00Michael Popok:And so the fact that you came away from the convention, you know, and the side events uplifted, I think is... It's so fascinating to see. I agree that people have underestimated this experience and this, the weight of the files, both figuratively and literally, right? When you see them, they're hard to look away from. And so, you know, I think even about what happened yesterday in the House. What a wild day it was. I was at the Cash Patel hearing in the morning. And then I ran over to the House where the House oversight decided that they would hold Leon Black in contempt, right? Or that they voted.

22:45And so now that referral goes to, it should go to the DOJ. It'll go to the whole House. And hopefully the whole House will unanimously agree that Leon Black does need to be held in contempt. And then it's up to the DOJ again. So that's going to be a really fascinating display. If you have bipartisan support to hold him in contempt and our DOJ says, no, I don't know how that's going to play out. But just to come off of that experience in Dallas that felt very hopeful. And then to have that day yesterday where you did have Kennedy. And of course, you had Booker on either side talking to Patel and really going after Patel.

23:21It felt like a cross-examination, right, in some ways. And then And you had later on in the House this unanimous vote to hold Leon Black in contempt. And I talked to Comer after. And I mean, Chairman Comer really has been great with us. He's been like really thoughtful. And I just, you know, wanted to thank him. But he said he's, you know, he's been walking through fire to make this happen. And so and of course, like, you know, I was shaking hands with the Dems, but also like with the Republicans, like there are so many Republicans that are out there saying, you You know, you girls are out there doing God's work and all of this.

23:55Right. So it's like they are we are united until we get to the DOJ. Right.