Trump Throws Aide Under Bus to Block Incriminating Report

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1:30Michael Popok:I just caught Donald Trump using pardon power for his own benefit to manipulate the use of it in order to avoid the release of special counsel Jack Smith's volume two of his Mar-a-Lago report about the beyond a reasonable doubt proof that Donald Trump, Carlos de Oliveira and Waltie now to committed obstruction of justice and Espionage Act violations. By the way, Donald Trump refused, despite frequent requests, to turn over top secret documents. Not only refused to turn them over, as the indictment lays out, as Jack Smith has laid out in the past, willfully move these things around to avoid turning them over to Donald Trump's own lawyers, especially and certainly the FBI and the Department of Justice.

2:21Michael Popok:And now we've got a new order from Judge Cannon that takes the bait, the trap set by Donald Trump. I'd say it was a trap, but that would mean that the Judge Cannon wasn't willingly stepping into it. The new order, some reports have been, oh, Mar-a-Lago report's going to be released in February. Forget it. That's not what the order says. I'm going to go over it with you right here on the MyStutch Network and Legal AF. and particularly I'm going to focus on this pardon power. See, we all wondered why, hmm, it's weird. Donald Trump's pardoning people like the Honduran president who was a major coke trafficker and other financial fraudsters and people who did really, really bad things in considering pardoning convicted child sex predators like Ghislaine Maxwell.

3:09Michael Popok:And even he's thinking about things related to P. Diddy. Why hasn't he pardoned Walt Nauta and Carlos de Olviera, his co-conspirators in the Mar-a-Lago case, his butler body man and his tech guy? Why? They were represented, or at least Walt Nauta was represented by Stan Woodward, who's Donald Trump's number three in the Department of Justice. See, Donald Trump keeps his lawyers close and keeps his former criminal defense lawyers even closer by making you and I pay for them as taxpayer dollars to be in the Department of Justice doing his bidding. We were like, why did he pardon them? Now we know why.

3:47Michael Popok:Because then Carlos de Olviera and Nauda were able to argue with a conspiratorial Department of Justice because there's no adverse party here. There's just two people on the same side telling Judge Cannon not to release volume two. I mean, that's why we have the V in the middle of a case. That's why it's versus. United States of America versus Waltinauda and Carlos de Alvierre used to say Donald Trump too. But there's no versus. They're on the same side. It's as if the refs and the umpires joined the other team. Where is the opposing team here? Special counsel Jack Smith's not filing papers anymore in the case.

4:26Michael Popok:It's just the captured, corrupt Department of Justice telling Judge Cannon, we're fine. We're not going to prosecute them, but you shouldn't release volume two, even though American Oversight and other public interest groups have been seeking the release of volume two, which has been under lock and key with Judge Cannon for over a year. Pam Bondi never released volume two to the American people. Pam Bondi's not even releasing the Epstein files to the American people. She certainly wasn't going to release volume two. Volume one was released about the D.C. election interference and the beyond a reasonable doubt standard that the prosecutor, special counsel, thought he could meet.

5:06Michael Popok:That's out already. But this is volume two. Now, what happened is that got caught up in the whirlpool of events around Kamala Harris losing, Donald Trump winning, the new administration coming in, the old administration going out, Pam Bondi coming in, Merrick Garland going out. and special counsel Jack Smith in December around this time last year trying to finish his report. It's hard to believe it was just a year ago. And turn it over to Merrick Garland, who under DOJ policy, he's the one that should have released it. He had time to release it. Again, another criticism of Merrick Garland. He had time to release that to the American people, and he didn't.

5:43Michael Popok:He left it with a love note for Pam Bondi. Dear Pam, it's up to you now. You're the attorney general. Now, what did she do? She buried it. But a copy got filed in the courthouse. The 11th Circuit has already told Judge Cannon, make your ruling, right or wrong, and we'll take it from there. Of course, she found a way to make a ruling that, of course, gives time advantage to Donald Trump and invites him back into the case. Yes, invites him back into the case. Wait till I read you the order. Let me first show you, so just to remind you, two clips of Jack Smith, one in which he announced the Mar-a-Lago indictment.

6:20Michael Popok:And the other when he announced the the D.C. election interference case indictment. Let me play the Mar-a-Lago indictment clip first. Here you go.

6:32Ben Meiselas:Charging Donald J. Trump with felony violations of our national security laws, as well as participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice. This indictment was voted by a grand jury of citizens in the Southern District of Florida. and I invite everyone to read it in full, to understand the scope and the gravity of the crimes charged. The men and women of the United States Intelligence Community and our Armed Forces dedicate their lives to protecting our nation and its people. Our laws that protect national defense information are critical to the safety and security of the United States, and they must be enforced.

7:17Ben Meiselas:Violations of those laws put our country at risk. Adherence to the rule of law is a bedrock principle of the Department of Justice, and our nation's commitment to the rule of law sets an example for the world. We have one set of laws in this country, and they apply to everyone.

7:37Michael Popok:And he did the same thing, and this one's up on the Department of Justice website. Here's Jack Smith announcing the indictment of Donald Trump in the D.C. election interference case. Just to remind you who Jack Smith is. Let's go.

7:51Ben Meiselas:Today, an indictment was unsealed, charging Donald J. Trump with conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The indictment was issued by a grand jury of citizens here in the District of Columbia, and it sets forth the crimes charged in detail. I encourage everyone to read it in full. The attack on our nation's capital on January 6th, 2021, was an unprecedented assault on the seat of American democracy. As described in the indictment, it was fueled by lies. lies by the defendant targeted at obstructing a bedrock function of the U.S.

8:41Ben Meiselas:government, the nation's process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election. The men and women of law enforcement who defended the U.S. Capitol on January 6th are heroes. They are patriots and they are the very best of us. They did not just defend a building or the people sheltering in it. They put their lives on the line to defend who we are as a country and as a people. They defended the very institutions and principles that define the United States. Since the attack on our Capitol, the Department of Justice has remained committed to ensuring accountability for those criminally responsible for what happened that day.

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10:42Michael Popok:Now, I'd love to show you a clip of Jack Smith recently giving his testimony to the House Oversight Judiciary Committee, but I can't because even though there is a video, we know now, there's no video released to the public because the MAGA won't release it. And Jack Smith has demanded it be released. Still no release. We need to keep public pressure on that. But we know from his opening statement, he said beyond a reasonable doubt, he felt he could get a conviction of Donald Trump as a criminal, which now we turn to the order, which we'll put up on the screen and I have posted in Legal AF Substack.

11:17Michael Popok:It refers to a joint status report, but that's a misnomer, that was filed in March between the United States of America, meaning Donald Trump and his former co-conspirators. Again, no independent entity present in these discussions in which all of them say, judge, we're all in agreement. We're not going to release the file. You shouldn't release the file. Pam Bondi is not going to release the file. Well, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Olvera, they've got their own criminal rights. You know, we're not going to prosecute them, but maybe they could be prosecuted. And that's where the pardon weaponization comes in.

11:54Michael Popok:Now I understand why Donald Trump didn't pardon them so they could argue in this joint status report. Who knows? Someday in the future, somebody could prosecute them. They're still subject to prosecution because they don't have a pardon. If they were pardoned, then the argument would be they have nothing to fear. If that's their major argument that they're going to get re-prosecuted, They can't get reprosecuted. See where the weaponization of the pardon power just came in? Here's the joint status report, which I will post. The judge then got around a couple days before Christmas to issue this order.

12:29Michael Popok:the court's january 3rd 21st 2025 order granted an emergency request to preclude the dissemination of volume two outside the department of justice because of the then pending ongoing criminal proceedings against nauda and diolviera remember uh canon is the first judge in 200 years of jurisprudential history to rule that a special counsel independent counsel special prosecutor needs to be confirmed by the Senate. No, they don't. There's special attorneys under the Constitution that can be appointed by the Department of Justice's attorney general. They're trying to argue, oh, it's just like Lindsey Halligan and the other five corrupt, illegally appointed U.S.

13:13Michael Popok:attorneys that Donald Trump has. And if you're going to find them to be illegal and everything they do to be illegal, well, everything Jack Smith did is illegal. and his report is completely ultra varies, meaning outside the law, outside regularity, and should never see the light of day. That's the argument. The court said that the criminal appeal as to Nauta and D.L. Vieira has since been dismissed on a motion of the United States. They got rid of the case and hence the immediate basis appears no longer to apply. Nevertheless, Nauta and D.L. Vieira and President Trump by way of an amicus brief, meaning he intervened not in the case, but to file a front of the court brief and maintain the view that volume two should not be released because it constitutes the ultra-various investigatory work of a special counsel appointed in violation of the appointments and appropriations clause and contains other privileged material.

14:06Michael Popok:They also jointly oppose any order and ask for 60 days to allow the defendants to seek appropriate relief. And here comes Cannon's helpful order, helping Donald Trump. One, the restriction on the release of volume two outside the Department of Justice will automatically expire on February 24th, 2026 without further order of the court. And everybody in the media was like, hooray, it's coming out in February. No, it's not. Here's what she says in the next paragraph. Nothing in this order prohibits any former or current party to this action from moving for leave to intervene if warranted. Looking at you, Trump, come on in, come on back.

14:47Michael Popok:and from timely seeking appropriate relief before that deadline. So it's not even a dog whistle. She's saying it out loud. Trump, come back in and file, along with the other two guys, your co-conspirators, file a motion to block volume two, and I'll block it. That's what's going to happen. Now, we already had motion practice related to the blocking of volume two. Yeah? Those two same guys and Donald Trump have been hurt already. in the matter brought by American Oversight that was up on the 11th Circuit appeal to get volume two out of the chamber of canon and released to the public. We did the litigation already, but this is just about making a bad thing happen slowly to benefit Donald Trump.

15:35Michael Popok:So in February, they'll file a brief. Then we'll have to re-litigate the issue and people will have to intervene. And then it'll be May, June, July. And then it'll go up on appeal when she rules improperly. Now we're getting close to the election for midterms. This is just a gambit to get it over November's election cycle. That's all this is. She's never going to, unless the 11th Circuit of Court of Appeals makes Judge Cannon, she's never going to release volume two. But we're going to stay on the case here on Midas Touch and on Legal AF. Thank you very much for our early holiday gift. We got Legal AF YouTube channel with your fervent support to 1 million subscribers.

16:17Michael Popok:We're on our way to 2 million. I mean, we're a few past 1 million. Come join us. Hit the free subscribe button. There's a link below. And Legal AF Substack, our highest rank so far, number three most popular in politics and news on Substack, Legal AF. And I'm running a sale in honor of our number three status. 30 % off between now and the end of the year on annual membership, drops it to about$6 and change a month. Now's the time. Hit a link in the subscription below. Come over to Legal AF Substack as well. Till 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.

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