Trump's Bluff is Called and Runs Away

0:00Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado, though? No. Is he different? Yeah. A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. And he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent Anna Noskezi. Ray-Ban Meta lets you explore the world without a screen getting in the way. So you can stay present in the moment.

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1:01Michael Popok:This episode is brought to you by Fox One. Watch all 104 matches of the FIFA World Cup live in 4K for just$19.99 a month with three days free. Build your own multi-view, choose up to three streams, and follow player spotlights. Stay on top of every moment with live stats, highlights, and instant replays. The FIFA World Cup, streaming live on Fox One. Offers a subject to change. See fox.com for complete terms and conditions. This summer, FanDuel is the best place to bet on goals. Including equalizers? Uh-huh. Balls? Yep. Headers? Every goal is worth more on FanDuel. So, let there be goals. New customers get$350 in bonus bets guaranteed when you bet$5 for seven days.

1:4321 plus in present and select states. First online real money wager only. Minimum$5 wager required for seven consecutive days. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets, which expires seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See full terms at fanduel.com slash sportsbook. Gambling problem? call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET. Seriously, why aren't Democrats in Washington doing more to stop Trump? I know. Have you heard about Phil Weiser in Colorado, though? No. Is he different? Yeah. A.G. Weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again.

2:15Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs. And he even won against Ticketmaster. So he actually gets results. Exactly. As governor, Phil will fight for Colorado. Paid for by Phil Weiser for Colorado Registered Agent Nanna Nuskazi.

2:30Michael Popok:In breaking news, the Department of Justice and its third highest ranking official, Stan Woodward, have filed a piece of paper with Judge Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia and told her to go pound sand. They are not going to file affidavits, sworn statements, sworn testimony under oath by Todd Blanche or Scott Bessent or Stan Woodward himself to declare for her, to her satisfaction as the fact finder, that the Anti-Weaponization Fund has truly, truly been put out of its misery, that it's truly been killed by the Department of Justice. Judge Brinkema last week ruled in a case brought by Democracy Forward, our friends, that if the federal government wants to get out from under this jurisdiction of the court and prove to her that it is moot.

3:19Michael Popok:They need to file affidavits by Friday. And instead of filing an affidavit, it's attesting under oath to have Todd Blanche swear under oath that he really is walking away from the anti-weaponization fund. While Judge Williams in Miami considers later this same day the reply brief of 35 sitting federal judges about whether she should find fraud in the court, fraud on the court and deception and strike the settlement agreement down and the resulting weaponization fund for a whole different set of reasons. As I predicted and as I discussed with Sky Perryman, who's on Democracy Forward, the leader of Democracy Forward and led the charge in this case, there was no way that Todd Blanche was going to file under penalty of perjury any statement because a federal judge told him to.

4:11Michael Popok:You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. I'm Michael Popok with the breaking news. Let's go over and let me read to you for a moment. In the filing that we just obtained, and I'll post the Legal AF substack, here's what Stan Woodward has filed on behalf of himself and presumably the others in the case. Page two, the court stated that it will dismiss this case as moot only if the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward, and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent file, all caps, a declaration under penalty of perjury that they will not seek to take any action to create or operate the fund and that the fund will not proceed in any manner.

4:58Michael Popok:And if it's not filed by June 19th, Juneteenth, the court will issue a scheduling order requiring a responsive pleading by July 17th. They say such declarations are unnecessary and the compelled testimony of senior officials implicates serious separation of power. So go pound sand judge. Those are my words. They say that Todd Blanchard already testified before Congress that the fund is not going anywhere, period. I mean, so that should be enough for the judge. Look, the judge made clear in that courtroom that this is a courtroom of law and facts and evidence have to be adduced within its four walls, not some random statement made by Todd Blanche.

5:42Michael Popok:In fact, here's Skye Perryman, who was in the room during the hearing and how she evaluated Judge Brinkham's position. Play the clip. There's a comment about Blanche and Todd Blanche. So why won't he just provide a document of rescission or novation or whatever it's going to be to just put this out of its misery? Well, I haven't spoken to Todd Blanche lately. Yeah, you said that to Judge Leon, but it's been a couple of days now. Very important case. The eyes of the nation are on you. Are you telling me you haven't spoken to Todd Blanche? Talk about that, because here we have yet another example.

6:19Michael Popok:And this is my own speculation. Todd Blanche is not filing an affidavit. This is yet another example of Todd Blanche not willing to give sworn testimony in a courtroom, even if it means the Department of Justice loses. Well, it's quite remarkable, actually, that you have a Department of Justice that is willing to make statements to a court in their briefing that they're not willing to at this point to swear to. I mean, maybe they will come back and surprise us, but I'm with you. I don't know that they're going to be filing an affidavit. And the government's attorney block at the hearing went into an entire soliloquy about how he's made these representations as an officer of the court.

6:56Well, if you've made that's kind of the point. If you're making these representations as an officer of the court, then why is it too much to ask that you make them under penalty of perjury? And this is something the Department of Justice has not been willing to do. And so I think it really highlights a theme you and I've been talking about for these last 18 months, which is actually the overall way that the Department of Justice is operating before the federal courts. It's unlike anything any of us as lawyers have ever really seen. I mean, this is quite remarkable behavior. And it shouldn't it should not, of course, be normalized, which is something that we're trying to emphasize to people.

7:27It just seems like every day there's a new way in which this Department of Justice is trying to pull one over on the federal courts. And Judge Brinkham wasn't having it.

7:35Michael Popok:So they go on to say that a federal court does not have jurisdiction because they're citing to a case by Judge Leon in the District of Columbia. Eastern District of Virginia is not the District of Columbia, in which he agreed that the case was moot. Although he did warn the Department of Justice, Judge Leon did, the ballroom judge, that if he sees the fund come back, there will be serious penalties to be paid. they go on on page three to say nor is there any basis for the court to compel testimony from the associate attorney general and two cabinet members saying that there's an article three limitation on such judicial review accordingly the court's demands are unnecessary the transcript of the testimony is attached and that should be enough for the court let me play the clip that they're referring to of todd blanche play the clip mr attorney general i wanted to ask a few questions about the Anti-Weaponization Fund.

8:36We know that the department has agreed to pause this effort until at least June 12th. I wanted to ask what your plans were for the fund after June 12th. So thank you. So look, we're not moving forward with the fund. You're right that there's a date that in the case in the East District of Virginia in June, but we are not moving forward with the fund, period. The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, remain as important as they were before, but we are not moving forward with the fund.

9:20Not moving forward ever? Correct. Oh, there's no more fund then? Well, to the extent there was a fund. And remember, the fund wasn't set up yet. There were no commissioners named. There was no claimants brought anything in front of. There was no claims made yet. So yes, we're not moving forward with the fund. All right, let's be real. Who likes wearing a bra? Nobody, especially when you're working out, right? Sports bras are terrible to wear most of the time. And whether it's that they dig into your shoulders on the straps or the band rolls up and feels too tight around your rib cage or, you know, whatever it is.

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12:21Michael Popok:Now, I think it's ironic that the person who signed this, let's go to page four here, put it up on the screen. Andrew Block is the same Andrew Block who opened up the hearing last week and had Judge Brinkham say out loud, you are a very brave man, Mr. Block. And it went downhill from there. as she said to him, effectively, I don't believe you. Have you spoken to the attorney general, in this case, Todd Blanche, about his view? He said he had not. The judge responded by saying, I find it inconceivable that given so much attention to this case that you have not spoken to Todd Blanche. And now they're telling the court, screw it, where you're never gonna hear from Todd Blanche ever in this case under penalty of perjury.

13:10Michael Popok:and you should just live with whatever he says out in the real world, as opposed to in your courtroom. That's not going to be good enough. If I know Judge Brinkema, she's going to be pissed off by this filing. She's going to enter the scheduling order requiring a responsive pleading by the 17th of July, which they've effectively baited her to do. And at the same time, you've got what's going on in Miami, which I'm waiting to report on as well. Judge Williams gave the 35 former federal judges until Friday as well to tell her why she should find fraud on the court against Donald Trump, his lawyers, and presumably the Department of Justice.

13:47Michael Popok:The Department of Justice didn't file an affidavit under penalty of perjury in that case either. They didn't file testimony of Todd Blanche. We will never hear testimony of Todd Blanche except when he's in the confirmation hearing, because he'll never testify in a court of law. They are willing as a Department of Justice to lose cases, to lose cases rather than put Todd Blanche under oath. What does that tell you? It tells you everything you need to know about the Department of Justice and the feckless spirit of Todd Blanche. They lost a case in the Middle District of Tennessee involving Kilmer Abrego Garcia.

14:24Michael Popok:They were willing to have a court find that the Department of Justice had vindictively prosecuted somebody rather than have Todd Blanche testify in order to satisfy the judge and their burden, period. So does this shock me or surprise me that we're watching the Department of Justice once again refuse to bring Todd Blanche before a court? He's a coward. He'll do anything to get this job as the attorney general, and everything that he's doing is a disqualifying event. Look, Look, in the last 48 hours, I've reported on alone two federal judges in Chicago, Judge Coleman, Judge Perry, both looking at whether they should appoint special prosecutors to look at whether there's been an obstruction of justice and a violation of court orders for contempt in two different cases, criminal cases in Chicago, and whether it goes up to the highest levels, including Todd Blanche and maybe the White House.

15:22Michael Popok:That's just going on now. Same thing's going to happen. I'm sure that Judge Williams is either going to rule on the papers in Miami against the Department of Justice, against Donald Trump, find there was fraud and deceit on the court, or she's going to appoint another special counsel. So if you thought the days under the current administration of talking about a special counsel are over because they need to get out of the DOJ for that to happen, forget it. judges have the ability under federal rule of criminal procedure 42 to appoint special counsels under these unique circumstances period it's just remarkable to me that they are playing with dynamite they have no the department of justice todd blanche has no respect for the federal courts no respect for federal judges no respect for federal juries no respect for federal grand people.

16:17Michael Popok:And any one of those things, and there are a dozen of them, are going to be used against Todd Blanche in his confirmation hearing sometime around the 15th of July. In fact, it sounds like they're going to have to file a piece of paper to Judge Brinkema, in this case I'm describing, right around the same time. He's going to have a lot of explaining to do, if you know what I mean. And he's going to have a lot of answering he's going to have to do to people like Sheldon Whitehouse, who I recently interviewed about how they're going to take on Todd Blanche about things like not testifying and not supporting their cases or admitting to bad faith practice.

16:55Michael Popok:Here's a clip of Senator Whitehouse and me in the last couple of days on this issue. Andrew Boutros has his office dismissed with prejudice an$800 million COVID testing fraud scheme rather than turn over the emails and everything else about the misconduct in the grand jury, although Judge Coleman is holding a hearing today about that. They'd rather let two people go and give them a get out of jail free card than to have somebody from the Department of Justice testify or turn over their documents. And what they forget is that grand jury misconduct, if it was performed, is complete when the grand jury misconduct is.

17:37And it's an offense against It's the court that supervises the grand jury. Fraud upon the court is complete when the fraud on the court is performed. It's not like you get to get rid of the case and have those questions go away. And I think the record of the department is such that judges are simply not giving them the benefit of the doubt about misconduct. They're going to want real answers about complete contempt, completed misconduct, completed fraud upon the court. and dumping cases just it doesn't really help. What it does is it shuts up a plaintiff who could have done a lot of digging. I'm sorry, a defendant who could have done a lot of digging into the misconduct as part of their defense.

18:22But if the court's willing to step in, it's still going to be the subject of inquiry and deservedly.

18:27Michael Popok:So I'm glad you're here. You can find the filing that I just read from on Legal AF Substack for paid members. Until my next report, a traveling Michael Popak for the Midas Dutch Network and Legal AF. Can't get your fill of Legal AF? 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.

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