Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Blanche Faces Pressure as DOJ Misses Deadline in Katie Phang’s Epstein Files Case and Faces Default Judgment

Starting point is 00:00:00 Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always $375. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Welcome to a special edition of Legal A-F. There are a number of cases that our audience is following, because Legal A-F is following it. And two in particular are being handled by the same public interest law firm. One, the Katie Fang case against Todd Blanche, related to the Epstein files, on behalf of herself as a journalism, on behalf of all Americans and all people interested in helping the survivors and the survivors own dignity.

Starting point is 00:00:45 That's a case in front of Judge Sullivan, and there's major developments that have happened in the last few days there, and more to come as a deadline is fast approaching for the government to respond. But the same public interest group, public integrity project, has also, is also behind the lawsuit about Donald Trump selling off America's insider information and trying to monetize it through Truth Social at $100,000 a clip. Hey, you want to know what the FBI is about to do or the Department of Transportation or anything in the Trump administration? You want to trade on that knowledge? You want to invest on it before everybody else can invest on it. you can give Donald Trump's company $100,000 a month, and you too will be given this insider information so that you can front run the market.

Starting point is 00:01:32 Does it sound illegal? Is that your noses all scrunch up? Well, it is illegal. And we're going to talk about that lawsuit, and we're going to bring it together under the banner of Brendan Ballou. Brendan, how are you? Hey, I'm good. How are you doing?

Starting point is 00:01:45 Thanks for having me. I wasn't shocked when I saw the truth API lawsuit that you folks were behind it. Why don't we kick off with that one? And then we'll talk about the FBI handwritten 302 notes involving Donald Trump that the Department of Justice is still playing hide the ball about. And what do you think is going to happen with that with Judge Sullivan? But the truth API thing was so audacious in its approach. A lot of us were like, like even me, and it's hard to get my jaw to drop.

Starting point is 00:02:15 But even I was like, are you effing kidding me? they're selling insider public information to anybody who will buy it so that truth social can shore up its business model. What is going on? And then we'll talk about your lawsuit. Yeah. So the basic scheme here is Donald Trump, you know, uses True Social, his social media platform that his company, that he is the largest shareholder created to post all sorts of official government announcements. So True Social is where Donald Trump starts wars. It's where he announces ceasefires. It's where he hires people. It's where he fires. It's where he fires people. It's where he Fires people, basically, if you want to know what the government's doing, you have to be on

Starting point is 00:02:53 True Social. Trump and his company are proposing and actually are now already doing selling early access to his posts on True Social, as well as the posts of the official White House account, the Vice President's account, the FBI Director's account, several cabinet numbers accounts, early access for anybody that's willing to pay $100,000 per month. True Social's parent company, Trump Media, has in fact described this information. And I'm quoting here as quote-unquote market-moving information. So the-Weave another word for that.

Starting point is 00:03:26 Yes. Insider trading, arguably. Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know, the concern here, obviously, is that people are going to use this information exactly as Trump media wants them to use it, which is to have an early financial advantage, trade on it. In fact, this is just the beginning.

Starting point is 00:03:44 You know, Trump media has said that they want to expand this. including into potential gambling operations. So soon enough, you might be able to subscribe to get a gambling advantage based on what the president is posting. It's incredible. Right. I mean, right, what's to stop me from taking that info and making a bet on Kalshi? Yeah, I mean, there's nothing stopping you.

Starting point is 00:04:06 In fact, that's the whole purpose of the scheme here. Explicit purpose. So, you know, it seems profoundly corrupt. It's a little cute to describe it this way, but we've always said that sort of Trump is like the Picasso of corruption and that he comes up with these schemes that I just don't think would occur to you or me or an ordinary person. Like, I just wouldn't think to sell official government information like that, but he's doing it. Right. And they try to characterize it as we're just monetizing data. It happens all the time in business, except your inventory is our information in the public. It's the people's information that because you use truth social as your official organ for everything,

Starting point is 00:04:48 as you so eloquently put, you're selling our information early to give people an advantage, which obviously you're already taking. They're just trying to normalize what Trump has already been doing, I'm sure, which is front running in his own way by investing with himself and his family in industries and then makes major announcements about the Iran War, about you should invest in Boeing and Howard Lutnik. You should invest in Intel and like all this other, which effectively, if the Securities and Exchange Commission

Starting point is 00:05:21 was doing their job, is it appropriate, illegal, and unethical. I saw a clip, I'm sure you did too. I saw a clip on CNBC Squawkbox of a guy that looked like another sort of remake of James Bond like villain type but apparently is Kevin McGern, who's some sort of acting interim CEO of Truth Social, and he's bragging about bringing on even more people who are willing to buy this information. Let's play that clip. The technology is a tried and true technology that's been in the social media system for quite

Starting point is 00:05:54 some time, more than a decade. So all of your big platforms run APIs into high-frequency trading platforms, news and information services, you know, prediction markets, you name it. So when I came into the role, I've been in the media business for almost 30 years. This was an obvious place to go. We have incredible data, we have incredible information, and it was in high demand. This was demand that came to us from the market. So we wanted to make sure that we satisfied that demand in the most brightly lit way.

Starting point is 00:06:26 For us, when you have scrapers coming after your data on an ongoing basis, against your terms of service, and you give them a product that they can pay, for and do it in a legal way, all of these customers came and signed up. Okay. So what do you do with this information when they hand you a gift, Brendan, what do you do with it? Well, they got to make it easy for us. I mean, this is a, you know, it's certainly illegal, perhaps criminal scheme that they are conducting absolutely out in the open. I think they think that the brazenness of it somehow insulates themselves from legal liability. I don't think

Starting point is 00:07:02 that's the case. You know, this is not just sort of corrupt in the potentially criminal sense, it's also just unconstitutional. So I think one thing that's important for your viewers to understand is this sort of scheme violates the First Amendment in particular, which is, the First Amendment protects not just your right to speak, to organize, and so forth, but your right to government information or equal access to that information. So once the government decides to share something, they have to do it on an equal basis. They can't discriminate based on a person, you know, what their beliefs are, who they

Starting point is 00:07:31 affiliate with, whether or not they contribute to the president's private company and so forth. And so, you know, the suit here, which we've been bringing along with crew, Altruler Burzon, the Yale Media Access Clinic and so forth, really great coalition, are using all this information, all these things that they are publicly saying about the scheme that they're putting together to bring this case and hopefully put an early stop to it before it can really get legs. Who's your judge? We got Judge Oaken in the Southern District of New York. So I think, you know, he's been, he's been very forward thinking on First Amendment issues in particular. So I think he's really going to understand the argument that we're making.

Starting point is 00:08:09 That's very interesting. Yeah, I practice in the Southern District of New York, too, and that's a good draw. So we'll wait on developments there in terms of injunctive relief or whatever else that you're seeking as the Trump side of the thing continues to hand you evidence and gifts to strengthen your hand. When I saw the Natalie Harp was sued, I was like, is Brendan Ballou breaking a story? I mean, we're doing a lot of Natalie Harp right now. You know, she was successful in bringing Melania out of hiding. Melania cracked a joke. I think it was a joke. It's hard to tell with her. I heard you missed me, but I'm back. Yeah, well, we heard you're back. But the reason you sued Natalie Harp and Dan Scavino is why.

Starting point is 00:08:53 Yeah. So, you know, part of the story here is that it's not just Donald Trump, but, you know, posting this stuff. He has a whole infrastructure that he uses that is part of the federal government to make these posts, to make these official government announcements. And again, just to emphasize here, it's not just that he's posting on true social first, it's that he's posting on true social only. So he actually has an exclusivity agreement that generally requires him to post only on true social as opposed to other social media platforms. To do that, public reporting shows that he relies on people like Natalie Harp, who's been referred

Starting point is 00:09:25 to as the human printer, to help type out and actually figure out what his posts are going to be. Dan Scavina, who's been handling his social media for years. So, you know, if we're going to seek injunctive relief, it's not just going to be against the president, but against the whole infrastructure that he uses to put this information on true social exclusively. Yeah, we've been telling our audience that when you hear that Donald Trump had a 1am meltdown and fired off 87 truth social posts,

Starting point is 00:09:55 that wasn't him, he's been asleep for a long, long time by that moment. But it's 35-year-old Natalie Harp, who we now know more about more than we ever wanted to, about her and her relationship with Donald Trump. She's the one that's, she's ghostwriting for Donald. She's impersonating Donald Trump. I mean, you know, if Trump gets away with changing Joe Biden's photo in the Rose Garden hallway to an auto pen, maybe the next president puts a picture of Natalie Harp up instead of Donald Trump. Well, you know, whatever, you know, and our,

Starting point is 00:10:29 lawsuit is completely independent of any of the sort of more salacious accusations about Donald Trump's personal life and stuff like that. The important thing from a legal perspective is that Natalie Harp and Dan Scamino are government employees. These are people that are getting paid by the public to post this official information on a private platform. And that's showing that the private platform, true social art, is fundamentally entwined with the operations, the government. And that's what makes the First Amendment apply here and what makes an injunction possible. Such a great argument. Speaking of great arguments and transitioning to Katie Fang's case, so I'm waiting around

Starting point is 00:11:06 like you are, maybe, I'm waiting for the court listener to update me about what's happening in the case. And I go on to see, you know, you and I, and you briefed our audience about a draft proposed order that the judge had asked you to draft about, ultimately about the redaction log and all that. I saw that. And then I see this very interesting notice of filing, or notice to the court. I'm like, okay, what's that over?

Starting point is 00:11:34 Well, apparently about the handwritten 302s, which are the FBI interview notes, which they are not disclosing without a fight, particularly four of them about a witness who claims that when she was 13, she was sexually abused by Donald Trump. she was credible enough that she was interviewed four separate times by the FBI. Now, they have produced the typewritten 302s, but we all know, and you did a good job of demonstrating it in your filing, but there's a lot of leakage between what somebody jots down in their handwritten notes as they're scribbling to try to keep up with the interview, and what, from an editorial standpoint, they decide or elect to put in the typewritten notes a lot. Things that were just, you know, maybe they were like, I'm not going to put that. And okay, so you need the handwritten notes. Now, Andrew Block, your side's opponent in court, was asked a direct question by Judge Sullivan about

Starting point is 00:12:36 that set of 302s. Have there ever been instances that you're aware of that when the handwritten 302s were produced in this matter about the EPSC File Transparency Act? And he said, about the 302s? I don't believe so. You guys must have been like feverishly scribbling in the courtroom because you knew that wasn't true. And so what did you guys do? What was the purpose of the notice to inform the court that there have been at least 100 examples of the FBI interview,

Starting point is 00:13:09 handwritten notes not involving Donald Trump being produced as he looks at it in camera? Yeah, we were pretty surprised that the government made that argument saying that, you know, to their knowledge, there hadn't been handwritten productions of the past because that was just straight up false. So, you know, as you said, we've got over 100 examples of handwritten notes being reviewed, being produced as part of the Epstein Files Transparency Act. You know, some or all of these, you know, eventually get converted into typewritten 302. So exactly the situation that the government was saying didn't happen. So it was just straight up false. I think it was helpful to inform the court that what the government was claiming was likely the case in the hearing just wasn't. And, you know,

Starting point is 00:13:52 Huge thanks to my colleague, Emily Gilman, for putting together the whole strategy on that. Also, just say, I mean, this has been, you know, that hearing has sort of been a rolling series of, you know, again, I want to be somewhat diplomatic here, but bluntly just errors on the part of the government. And both their factual assertions and then the procedural mistakes that they've been making. So, you know, very careful viewers may remember the government was supposed to file what's called an answer in the case. That's the basic thing that you do in a lawsuit admitting or denying the allegations. It appears they either forgot or, you know, either refused or, frankly, I think more likely forgot to do it. We've then been litigating about whether or not they have to file the answer. They then either refused or forgot to file a response in that litigation.

Starting point is 00:14:39 Wait, they haven't filed a response about the answer? No. I think they, I don't want to speculate too much, but I imagine they probably forgot or something like that. Needless to say they did not. So, you know, I think this is just like one more instance where the government is getting it wrong on the facts. The government is getting it wrong on the procedure. The government is getting it wrong on the law. And I think Judge Sullivan is tracking all this and is aware that the government just is not in compliance here.

Starting point is 00:15:07 Now having told our audience about that, don't you wish you had filed the motion for default, like I said? Because they would have missed it. They would have missed it. Yeah, yeah. I don't know if just DOJ doesn't have a calendaring system right now. I don't know what's going on here. Well, they're busy taking 1,000 people off the line and putting them into election monitoring rolls, standing 100 yards from voters. I mean, I really don't, 100 feet from voters.

Starting point is 00:15:31 So all of this information is sort of coming in. And you probably, I assume you like the fact that the judge, very pithy order, minute order, just said, yeah, I got the proposed order from. from the Public Integrity Project about the redaction log and the notice to the court. Why don't you comment on that by the 27th? So you can see, he's like ready to blow. People think, well, he's pretty plain vanilla. No. I think if the government makes its deadline this week, that'll be interesting.

Starting point is 00:16:08 And then the judge is going to, what do you hope the judge does? Well, it'll be just grants the order. And the order here is directing the government to explain exactly what they're going to do about the redaction log. And so that way we have some clarity about what they're planning to produce or what they're not planning to produce. Just to remind your audience here, you know, what needs to happen under the law is the government needs to actually explain each one of the redactions that it's made. The same way that you do in FOIA cases, you know, Freedom Information Act cases. The government obviously failed to do that in the initial production. It seems like it is fighting tooth and nail not to do that now.

Starting point is 00:16:48 And so we need to really pin the government down on what exactly it proposes to produce here. And then Judge Sullivan's going to be able to decide whether or not that complies with the law. And the reason why I think that this is so helpful is that that short-circuits a lot of argument that we could have where we just wait for them to produce something and then it's completely non-compliant. and then we have to have all this follow-on litigation. Here we can just figure out, okay, what are they going to do and can we address it now? So I think that this is going to be something that speeds up the process a bit. Yeah, and then ultimately for the merits of the case, which are beneath it all,

Starting point is 00:17:23 the millions of Epstein files that have not been reviewed or produced, the oversight over the original process, you know, I know your argument is that the Department of Justice has forfeited their right to do this process themselves. and that there should be a officer of the court in a form of a special master that needs to be appointed. And all, I've got to believe that all of these missteps and erroneous assertions, you know, not telling the judge the truth, what he should have said is, I don't know and I'll look into it, I'll get back to you, but he didn't. All of this stuff kind of goes into the milieu, right, the stew of the judge's decision-making

Starting point is 00:18:02 about what to do ultimately in this case. Yeah, I think, you know, and, you know, ultimately, thus far, we've only been fighting over the preliminary injunction, just the really early stages here of just trying to get a small sliver of the documents that they're supposed to produce to actually produce it. As you said, we need to get to the merits of the case and ultimately get the kind of relief where you get some adult supervision of the Department of Justice. I think, you know, Judge Sullivan, I have seen people reach out to me and talk about why is this not moving faster. Why are we not getting, you know, sort of more forceful orders and things like that? I think you understand better than

Starting point is 00:18:35 just about everybody. You know, a district court judge like Judge Sullivan really needs to do everything he can to try to get the government to comply with the law before taking more coercive measures here because he wants to insulate any sort of action he takes from getting overturned on appeal. So I think all of these sort of interim steps are ultimately helpful from getting a ultimate resolution here that's going to stand up to scrutiny by the DC Circuit and beyond. No, I've addressed your audience directly when I've had live podcasting or Substack Live and people have said, just not moving fast enough. And I've said, I've used the the Kennedy Center and the ballroom as examples, two different judges about it. And, and, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:15 one going already up on appeal and now up to the United States Supreme Court on the ballroom is that you've got to make sure that every eye is dotted, every T is crossed, and that, like you said, you are insulating or making it, you know, coating it with Teflon as best you can. Now, if the Supreme Court, when it finally gets it, wants to throw away the record, the facts, and throw away the law, which is there seems to be one of their instincts, there's nothing you can do about it, but you at least want to get your issue, your decision affirmed at the next level of appeal, for sure. Absolutely.

Starting point is 00:19:52 And I don't think, you know, if we can make sure that this is airtight, I just don't think it's going to look particularly good for anybody to overturn a decision like this willy-nilly if it's going to be perceived as, frankly, shielding abusers, which I don't think is going be a good look for anybody. Absolutely. Well, I'm so glad that Public Integrity Project and your team, you, Brendan, are on this case. And when I saw the filing in the thing we covered, the case we covered at the top of the video about Truth API, I was not shocked. You gave us your talk, just ended this way. Talk about what public integrity project, why it was created, what is its, what is its decision-making for taking on, because you don't take on hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of cases.

Starting point is 00:20:38 What is your decision making about like that is a public integrity project case? Well, you're very sweet. And, you know, we are very small. We're just a handful of lawyers that we started at the beginning of the year. The goal here is to raise the legal and reputational consequences of corruption. And so we find cases that are going to hit both of those. I mean, ultimately what we want to do is we want to make it. So if somebody inside of government or outside of government is going to engage in a corrupt act, you know, getting bribed, seeking to getting bribed, you know, extorting people, extracting money from the government. Our goal is to build an organization that's strong enough that they know they will get sued

Starting point is 00:21:18 if they do that. And so those are the kinds of cases that we try to take on. As people know, the American Civil Liberties Union is a collaborator with us, and they sent me as a little bit of swag. Not that I'm campaigning for swag, but you could send it. So, And you know the ACLU's motto. We'll flip it around. See you in court. I love it. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:21:36 Well, and that's just a motivation for us to get our act together and actually get some swag. You'll be the first to get it, okay? Okay. Brendan Ballou, Public Integrity Project, notes in the link. We'll put the link in the notes below for people who want to continue to help and support Public Integrity Project. And we thank you for the generosity of your time for coming on regularly to update on these important cases.

Starting point is 00:21:57 And the next great important case that I'm sure you'll be filing. before the summer is over, if not before the midterms. I'm Michael Popok. You're on Legal A-F, and take a moment, hit the free subscribe button as we continue to grow our pro-democracy channel. Brendan, thank you very much. Thank you. Can't get your fill of Legal A-F.

Starting point is 00:22:16 Me neither. That's why we form the Legal A-F substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or an 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 A.F. What else? All the other contributors from LegalAF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hot takes where legal A-F on substack. Come over now to free subscribe.

Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Blanche Faces Pressure as DOJ Misses Deadline in Katie Phang’s Epstein Files Case and Faces Default Judgment

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