Legal AF by MeidasTouch - AG Blanche Squeals as Federal Judge Opens Investigation Into DOJ Grand Jury Misconduct

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Starting point is 00:01:13 Every $20 ticket could win you $3,000 a month for life and supports life-saving cancer research at the Princess Margaret. Feel free to buy your payday for life ticket today. Raffle number RAF-157-3916. Please play responsibly. Welcome to a special edition of Legal A.F. meets the Florida law man. When there's criminal cases out there, I put up my bat signal and in comes Dave Arrenberg, who used to be a prosecutor and is now an all-around great litigator. We got a new case that we've got to break down some developments in a case. We've got to break down. And I wanted to bring in Dave Aaronberg to do it. Dave, we got the Broadview Six case, which has more, which has had more activity in the last about, 48 hours that it had for the entire year proceeding as the Department of Justice tries to figure out a way to shove one of their former prosecutors, Sherry Mecklenburg, firmly under a bus

Starting point is 00:02:10 to have her take full responsibility for all of the bad things that happened, prosecutorial abuse that happened in front of a grand jury that led to a false indictment against six protesters, including mainly on the left, on the left wing and some podcasters in Sharpton. Chicago. They're known as the Broadview Six. The main guy is, no, this is not a novel. This is a real guy's name Michael Rabbit. And there's a case of U.S. versus Michael Rabbit and a judge, Judge Perry, who is strongly considering, based on the defense's urging, to appoint a special prosecutor to look at what happened here as the Department of Justice tries to avoid that by doing its own internal investigation with its Office of Professional Responsibility. Lots of weird filings in the last 48 hours. What do you make of it? Who framed Michael Rabbit? That's my first question. All right, we're done.

Starting point is 00:03:04 Good night, everybody. You and I are old enough to remember that movie. I would assume the audience would remember that movie, right? That's like when you have the cartoon in with live action. Okay. Yeah, I was a big Jessica Rabbit fan. I agree. You know, this does remind me of when federal agents were wearing masks up in Minnesota.

Starting point is 00:03:25 This is like the equivalent. But this is where the DOJ is trying to conceal the identity of their prosecutors. And Judge Perry is having none of it. In fact, she noted about the fact that she reviewed thousands of pages of grand jury transcripts in her career and rarely have ever seen behavior like this. So why would she keep secret the names of the participants in this effort? We know Sherry Mecklenburg, but what about the others? And if you want transparency and a real investigation, you don't try to suppress the names of the people you're investigating here.

Starting point is 00:04:05 This is not a criminal trial, a pending criminal trial. And even at a criminal trial, you wouldn't suppress the names of the defendant. You only suppress the names of the victims if it's involving a sex assault case. So this thing just looks so bad. They managed to take a situation with a Broadview Six that was bad enough and made it even worse here. Yeah, we have a, we have a U.S. attorney in Chicago. who may be on the receiving end of sanctions by a federal judge.

Starting point is 00:04:32 The defense is not satisfied with just having their indictment against their clients dismissed, which is what happened. Yet another example of the Department of Justice coming into a courtroom and telling a judge that they have to dismiss an indictment that they've already received. How many indictments have been dismissed under this Department of Justice voluntarily or involuntarily? But if they thought the defense, you know, listen, I practiced in Chicago.

Starting point is 00:04:58 I've tried cases in Chicago. If they thought the Chicago defense lawyers, you know, this is Al Capone style here. They thought they were going to go away. They're not going away. And they want the judge to conduct a full hearing about why Sherry Mecklenburg, who is now resigned or been fired, why she went into a grand jury and told the grand jury that they could trust her,

Starting point is 00:05:23 that they've been, this is a grand jury that was in place, Dave. for months, six months. And, you know, a grand jury's not just impaneled usually for one thing. They're, they're indicting or reviewing lots of evidence and lots of different cases. So she felt like she had a relationship with them. And she said, guys, guys, you know I wouldn't bring you a case unless it was a good one. This is a really good case to which some of the grand jurors who also had familiarity with her said, are you bringing back the same piece of shit case you brought to us before. She then tried to remove the grand jurors from consideration, had contact with them outside the presence of the court reporter about the case. This is all, this all came out in the record already.

Starting point is 00:06:08 And of course, she violated, you know, one of the worst things you can do is either vouch for the case or bolster the evidence of a case. Those are cardinal sentence for a prosecutor. She did it all. But she blames her boss at the U.S. Attorney's Office and back in Washington for pressuring her to bring this indictment. And then we've got the series of orders that were really, the motions were confusing by the government about the Office of Professional Responsibility, opening up an investigation, and then, of course, the orders that followed. You've been a prosecutor.

Starting point is 00:06:42 What do you make of this Department of Justice and it lying and cheating and stealing its way to indictments? Yeah, it is unusual for prosecutors going and saying, say, yeah, we made a mistake. Let's undo this. They did that with the David Hearn case in D.C. Now we're seeing it here. Broadview Six. Broadview Six was a Ballyhooed indictment. Hey, we got these guys. This is during the whole ICE raids. And then it fell apart. And then after it fell apart, you have the defendants saying, no, no, we're not done with this yet. Just like David Hearn and D.C. saying we're not done yet. And now Sherry Mecklenberg, who was the lead prosecutor,

Starting point is 00:07:20 who was there before the grand jury, she said, you know what? I'm going to resign because I need to defend myself and I can't trust the boss is here to defend me. So I'm going to resign and I'm ready to spill the beans. And so then the question is, who else was involved in this? And that's why I was mentioning earlier that the DOJ could try to address this head on and make it more transparent or they could do what they did, which is try to keep the names of the prosecutors involved secret. That doesn't help anyone. You know, they're claiming the secrecy is necessary to protect internal deliberations to shield the government attorneys from harassment and manage grand jury secrecy rules.

Starting point is 00:08:01 But Judge Perry said, no, no, no, unredact the documents because we need to show the world if there was blatant prosecutorial misconduct. Yeah, the weirdest thing is they came in in the last day or so, the Department of Justice, and they said, we want to redact our motion referencing the Office of Professional Responsing, the Office of Professional Responsive. responsibilities investigation. And we want permission to turn over to Mecklenburg and another young prosecutor, the grand jury transcripts because they're trying to defend themselves. And the judge said, first of all, I'm not redacting because there's a presumption, there's a presumption that the public is entitled to all information in a case. This is all, we don't do star chambers in the United States. Things may be sealed, but temporarily, maybe grand jury proceeding sealed, but temporarily eventually it all comes out in the wash.

Starting point is 00:08:53 And that's because we do things in public. There is a presumption that court records, and these are all court records, will be part of the public docket. And so judges often will, you and I have been involved with this before and certainly in our civil practice, recoil at any suggestion that a document

Starting point is 00:09:10 would be sealed away from the eyes of the public. So she said, I don't even understand, she was nice about it, but she said April Perry in her order today, that I don't even understand your motion. The grand jury transcripts that you want to turn over to Ms. Mecklenburg and the other party, they're already in the public domain. I've already put them on the docket.

Starting point is 00:09:30 So why are you asking me for permission to give them to you and know the sections of your brief where you reference an ongoing office of professional responsibility investigation is you put it in your brief. It's part of a court document. I'm not going to seal it or redact it. And what's the purpose of the redactions? It's not to protect a source. That would be okay, right? If you want to protect a sensitive, confidential source, there's a good use of redactions.

Starting point is 00:10:00 But the DOJ wasn't using redactions to protect the source. They were using redactions to protect themselves. So they wanted the secrecy to act as a shield so that their tactist would never see the light of day. And Judge Perry's order essentially says that government lawyers don't get to hide behind institutional anonymity when they allegedly break rules to secure an indictment. Yeah, and that U.S. attorney in that Chicago office has a big problem because the earlier reporting about this case is that he went down when Mecklenburg couldn't get the indictment despite being pressured by Washington and this U.S. attorney. She came back. She said, listen, I'm a 12-year prosecutor. I tried. This is my regular grand jury. I put on the evidence he gave me. They're not indicting. I got a no true bill returned. He said, tried again. So she came back in. He said, I'm going to go down there with you because now he's been appointed. So he goes down there. And according to the sources and the other filings by the defense team, he spoke to the grand jury. And it's not on a transcript, which is really, which means he either told the court reporter to turn off her equipment or something else weird happened. But there was conversation where he made some sort of whole wrapped himself in a flag

Starting point is 00:11:21 and made some sort of pressuring, again, vouching kind of testimony or advocacy in front of the grand jury to get them to finally indict. And somehow, boom, you know, after all of these manipulations of the grand jury process, lo and behold, an indictment comes out. It's only because the defense suspected rightly so that there was something that had gone on terribly wrong. And prosecutorial abuse had happened in the grand jury process that they got the transcripts. And if you remember, Dave, even when the prosecutor's office turned over at court order the transcripts to the judge, they tried to redact all the bad things that they did from the judge.

Starting point is 00:12:03 Well, that was it. That was the whole theme of my introduction here was that the anonymity. the redactions were not used to protect a source or it's used to protect themselves and that just compounds the problem here they they had a problem they just made it worse it's like when you dig a hole the first rule is to stop digging instead they buy a bigger shovel that's what's been going on here and as far as the u.s attorney goes his name is abutros it's extraordinary that he went into the grand jury room himself the day of the indictment and he went there to apparently remind jurors of their obligations and then they got the indictment and that's bad now that's unusual but not illegal or improper

Starting point is 00:12:42 but what really smells bad is when it's not in the transcript it's not in the notes why how did he sneak in he was stealth or he was there and he ordered people not to record it right that's really bad um that's really unusual you know i was state attorney for 12 years and i never got involved in a substantive grand jury hearing what i would ask you you ran the you ran the office you were the equivalent of the u.s attorney in a state practice in florida and pond beach county do you ever did you ever put on a case to a grand jury i haven't i have specialized prosecutors i had who were the ones who were there for the entire six-month term of the grand jury they were there the whole thing they're the they're the experts for me the only role that i had was that i would go in every six months and

Starting point is 00:13:34 welcome the new grand jury thank you for your service You know, we're going to do justice and do the right thing and you should be lucky because anyone can get jury duty, but you got grand jury duty, which no one gets to see the inside of this room. I had to get elected state attorney to see the inside of this room. Lawyers, only like 0.01% of lawyers ever get to step foot in here. So consider yourself lucky. I've never been inside of a grand jury room and I've been practicing law for 35 years. That's what I got to do. I got to run for your old job or the one the one in my end. I mean, but I wanted people to understand because, you know, all of our great commentators here,

Starting point is 00:14:11 and I want to talk about your channel here right now, you know, come to, come to this law and commentary, law and politics commentary on legal a affid on your own channel, Florida lawman, you know, we all walked in our own shoes. We all have our own life experience. I've never been a prosecutor. I've only been against the Department of Justice and State prosecutors as a defense lawyer. I've done a fair amount of plaintiffs work as well. You, on the other hand, for a lot of.

Starting point is 00:14:36 of your career you were you were representing the top prosecutor for your your governmental unit and so you you take it like karen freeman ignifalo does you kind of take it from a little bit from that perspective which is a very unique perspective for people that are like who's this guy hopefully you're not saying this after so many years with legal a app but dave arrenberg has a he's a contributor and a collaborator i might as touch an illegal a f on a regular basis he also has his own channel which is called florida lawman or dave arrenberg We're going to put the links below so people can find their way there. It's now powered by legal AF, which means we're big supporters of it.

Starting point is 00:15:14 We want to see him grow right now. If you haven't already, hit the subscribe button for Dave Aaron Berg's Florida Lawman channel on YouTube. He does live hot videos every day at that same intersection of law and politics, but from his unique perspective. When you founded Florida Lawman and you kind of set up from an editorial statement, standpoint, what you're sort of what you wanted to accomplish. What do you want to accomplish on your channel? Well, I also like to me at the intersection of law and politics. I do it a little different way than you, Pope, no one can replicate you. But I was a state senator before I was the state attorney. And so I think I have a unique perspective into law and politics. And I just,

Starting point is 00:15:58 I try to respect the intelligence of our audience by not giving, you know, spin. I go after the facts. And when I say, hey, this is unusual. This is a U.S. attorney stepping foot in a quorum. That's not hyperbole. That is unusual. Because everything, remember when CNN used to have breaking news for every story, well, if everything is breaking, then nothing is breaking. And I sort of want people to focus on, so the real big legal stories,

Starting point is 00:16:24 but also one, the angles that people may not have seen elsewhere. For example, I focus a lot on the Tate Brothers and their attempts to fight extradition and their attempts to get bail. And I try to present in a way that a lot of other commentators don't, and also angles based on my own experience. And, you know, I come at it also with a similar ideology as you. You and I have probably think alike in politics, but our life experiences are a little different. So, listen, I think that it's an important voice that needs to be heard. You know, in cases that are often at the intersection, as opposed to true crime, that are at the intersection of law and politics,

Starting point is 00:17:01 is the tape brothers and their connectivity to the Trump administration and people that Donald Trump's life like Paolo Zampoly, who just got a civil rape case filed against him. He's very close to Donald Trump. He's in the administration as a special envoy. He is very close to the Tate Brothers. He was partying with the Tate brothers the day that they got picked up on an extradition arrest warrant. Cornell, I mean, you've got Donald Trump has made it political. I don't know what happened to Jane Doe, but nobody knows at this moment what happened to Jane Doe. But Donald Trump has made it political because of it's a tax on the special prosecutor that's been appointed, Letitia James. So those are the kind of cases I think we need to look to you to help us sort out, right?

Starting point is 00:17:43 Right. And, you know, sometimes my take may challenge your assumptions. Like I did a video with Adam Classfeld, another great legal AF collaborator. And we had a video where we dissected the attempts of Congress to try to force the courts to get the DOJ. to release all the Epstein documents. Remember the members of Congress, Roe Kana, Tom Massey, they went to the judge and they said, force the DOJ to turn it over. And we analyze it and said, you know,

Starting point is 00:18:14 this is not the right avenue. This is not the right vehicle. They're going to lose this one. And I know people may not have liked that, but then we were right, right? People are like, and the judge ruled exactly how we suggest it. So I think it gives us more credibility when we say this motion by Trump's DOJ is a loser. You can take it to the bank that it's a loser.

Starting point is 00:18:32 Yeah, I agree. Dave Aaronberg, Florida law man, powered by Legal A-F. We're going to be doing regular collaborations during the week. I'm a little under the weather and traveling today, but, of course, I couldn't miss my appointed moment to be with and do podcasting with Dave Aramberg. And if you are interested in his work, hit that free subscribe button below. Dave, thanks for joining us here on LegalAF.

Starting point is 00:18:56 Thanks, Pope. Let's keep it going. Let's keep it going. I'm Michael Popak. And early elections have started. Vote for us. Hit the free subscribe button here on LegalAF YouTube channel. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popok.

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Legal AF by MeidasTouch - AG Blanche Squeals as Federal Judge Opens Investigation Into DOJ Grand Jury Misconduct

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