Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Appeals Judge Blocks Release of Biden Recordings to Trump

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

Popok reports on breaking news, as the DC Court of Appeals BLOCKS for 10 days the release of 70 hours of audio recordings between Joe Biden and his biographer, which the Heritage Foundation and one of its leaders Mike Lowell want to use to slice and dice (and perhaps feed through AI!?!) to embarrass not jut Biden but the Democratic Party and its icons. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast Cult Conversations: The Influence Continuum with Dr. Steve Hassan: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg. We got some breaking news. It's about Joe Biden's 70 hours of audio recordings of his musings, an interview with his ghostwriter and whether those are public documents that should come out through the Heritage Foundation in Donald Trump's back pocket or vice versa, or they should forever be Joe Biden's personal musings. Joe Biden doesn't want them released because he had let his guard

down when he talked to his biographer and he doesn't need 70 hours of them sliced and diced by the Heritage Foundation, whose goal is not just to undermine the legacy of Joe Biden, but is to crap all over the entire Democratic Party and undermine their legacy, their icons, and the rest. Heritage Foundation isn't doing it out of the public interest. They're doing it because they want to embarrass the opponents of Donald Trump. A three-judge panel, including a Trump-appointed Judge, Judge Katzis, has ruled for now that they're going to grant a block in administrative stay until midnight on Monday, July 20th. Sunday, July 20th is when they have given themselves that amount of time to decide on the merits

whether the emergency motion for injunction filed by Joe Biden will be granted or not. And of course, they don't want the audio recordings out there in the meantime, which would be the irreparable harm that Joe Biden has talked about. I'm Michael Popak. Let's get to the bottom of this story, a story that I'm sure Joe Biden and the Democrats would like to go away. And thankfully, we've got a federal court, appellate court that, for now, at least, is doing the right thing to block their release until they can get their minds around the ultimate decision. You're on Legal A-F. It is Friday. Hit the free subscribe button and vote for this kind of

content. Three judges have been assigned to three-judge panel. Judge Shrnavasen, Judge Katsis, and Judge Pan. Shrinivason, I believe, is Obama. Pan is Biden, Katsis is Trump. But there was no dissent. This was a per curiam decision, meaning all three judges agreed to this stay. It's an 11-day stay until Monday the 20th. Here's what it reads, and then we'll talk about how we got here. Ordered on the court's own motion that an administrative injunction be entered

and the Department of Justice being joined from releasing the contested Zwanitzer materials to the heritage. Foundation and Mike Howell, so Monday at 1159 p.m. The purpose of this administrative injunction is to give the court sufficient opportunity to consider the emergency motion that was filed by Joe Biden for an injunction pending appeal. It should not be construed as something on the merits. So it's not on the merits, but it is a solid decision. Pan, Katzis, and the lead judge here, Shrinivasan. the chief judge, actually, of that circuit.

Shrnavassen often considered to be along with Judge Pan, two people who would be elevated to the Supreme Court when the Democrats or if the Democrats take power again in 2028 and there is an opening. Administrative stays last for a finite amount of time. They are not on the merits. It's not exactly a tip of the hand, but it is an important part of this process. So what are we talking about when we talk about the Zwanitzer. tapes. It sounds like we're talking about the Zabruder films of the grassy knoll and JFK's assassination. Now, we have another guy named Z. Zwanitzer. He was the biographer for Joe Biden, and he recorded

70 hours of interviews that went into a book that Joe Biden published. The question for the special counsel, Robert Herr, when he found out that the 70 hours existed, is that he wanted to review them to see if there were any classified information that were revealed. There weren't any. No one has come forward and says, from the government standpoint, that these things are classified. They just want to embarrass Joe Biden with failing memory. This was done right after his son, Bo Biden, died from brain cancer, you know, who was the shining light in his life. He thought he'd be president one day. It derailed Joe Biden running for president in 2016, you know, instead of Hillary Clinton. That's what he really wanted to run when he was probably at the height of his powers. And so, you know, suffering from grief and things that go along with that, I'm sure there's parts of the 70 hours where Joe Biden is rambling or sounds maybe incoherent if taken out of context or maybe there's some word salad issues in there. And what they don't want is bad guys like the Heritage Foundation doing the bidding of Joe Biden, of Donald Trump to release the audio tapes, chop them up, slice and dice them. Because once they're out there, there's no control over what you can do with them. You could feed him through AI and make Joe Biden seem even more ridiculous or more incoherent at any given moment.

And that's what they're afraid of. Now, they fought this out. Joe Biden did in front of two judges, Judge Chutkin, where he brought his case. And the ultimate case of the Freedom of Information Act, a suit brought by the Heritage Foundation of the guy named Mike Howell. He's also a bad guy. Here's Mike Howell talking about crazy things that the Heritage Foundation likes like Project 2025. Play the clip. Mike Howell, Mike, what are you expecting to expose? Well, there is certainly a long track record already in the Biden administration of absolute destruction and damage to this country.

We have a year of abject failure across many policy lines, domestic and foreign. So what we're aiming to do is our policymakers and the public at all different levels, with the information and evidence and body of investigative research, they need to actually enforce accountability moving forward. And so that's what we're going to do. We're running up hills, we're charging up them. We're going to be issuing foias. We're going to be suing. We're going to be conducting investigations.

We're going to get the information that is needed to tell the true story of all the damage inflicted. And I'll tell you what. I think a lot of it was on purpose, full willing no, the consequences that would happen if they went down these radical lines, but they did it anyways. And those people need to be held responsible. So that guy. So they bring their Freedom of Information Act.

They want to get their hands. And the only way they can get it is to argue that it's a possible. public record or a public document. Now, they argue that it converted into a public document because Robert Hur, the special prosecutor, got a hold of it. And in his 330 pages tearing apart Joe Biden and wrecking and basically ending his candidacy by calling him a well-meaning but dottering old man who has failed memory, which is why he's not going to indict him. I'm like, what? Anyway, that use of the review, their arguing, converted them into a public record. Joe Biden's arguing, it's not a public record, it's private musings. It's like the Clinton tapes. When Clinton took recordings for a

biography he was going to do, and another group aligned with Donald Trump wanted to go after those tapes, the Supreme Court said, no, those are, we used to call them the socks tapes, not because his cat was named socks, but Clinton kept him in a sock drawer. Similar analysis here, except it's sort of baked into Robert Herr's special counsel report. Let me play you a clip from Robert Hur when he testified. Remember when special counsels were allowed to deliver their findings and actually testified to Congress? You probably don't remember that because Jack Smith was bound and gagged by this Trump captured Department of Justice. But here's Robert Her back in the days when we had adults running the Department of Justice. Play the clip.

My task was to determine whether the president retained or disclosed national. defense information willfully. That means knowingly and with the intent to do something the law forbids. I could not make that determination without assessing the president's state of mind. For that reason, I had to consider the president's memory, an overall mental state, and how a jury likely would perceive his memory and mental state in a criminal trial. These are the types of issues that prosecutors analyze every day. My assessment and the report about the relevance of the president's memory was necessary and accurate and fair. Most importantly, what I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows and what I expect jurors would

perceive and believe. I did not sanitize my explanation, nor did I disparage the president unfairly. I explained to the attorney general my decision and the reasons for it. That's what I was required to do. All right. So we're going to keep a close eye on this. The full brief thing, I believe, is in. The three-judge panel is just giving themselves extra time to read the briefs, do their own research. Judges often do their own research with their law clerks, and then render an opinion. Could be one page, could be 100 pages. I don't know. But they're giving themselves some time at least until, you know, which looks like another 10 days before they're going to issue the ruling. The parties don't have to do anything else. It's, it is, it is, um, it is, um,

when the ruling is going to be issued. Now, there is an interesting element about Mark Zwanitzer, who is the biographer who recorded Joe Biden. He didn't want to release the tapes. And when Robert Hur's people came a calling, he tried to erase them. There's no way around it. He did. I don't think Joe Biden told him to. I think he did it on his own. He panicked and he didn't want to turn him over. He felt like they were privileged and confidential with his client, his subject, and he got caught. You know, it's not hard to figure out when somebody tries to erase tapes. And he was threatened with indictment himself. And he cooperated with Robert Herr, avoided indictment. You know, they published that book ultimately. But you sort of got that extra salacious aspect of these tapes and

those and those items. But we'll follow it, if not here, on Legal AF Substack. Come over to Legal AF Substack. You can read the order. As I get more information, I may They do it on a live right over on LegalAF Substack. Now is a great time. We're running a sale. 52% off our annual membership for our listeners, LegalAF Substack. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popok. Popak here.

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