Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF - 7/11/2026

Episode Date: July 12, 2026

The only reliable “rapid response” at the intersection of law and politics? The award-winning Legal AF Podcast, helmed by Ben Meiselas and Popok.  On this episode, the hosts cover breaki...ng events in real time  about the Trump Regime from: the Supreme Court, Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Southern District of New York, DC, Arizona, and the Senate Hearing Room, and so much more. Support our Sponsors: Qualia: Go to QualiaLife.com/legalaf for up to 50% OFF! Quo: Try QUO for free PLUS get 20% off your first 6 months when you go to https://Quo.com/legalaf Leesa Mattress: Go to https://Leesa.com for 30% off select mattresses PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code LEGALAF, exclusive for my listeners. NOBL: Don’t miss NOBL’s biggest Sale of the Year! Head to https://NOBLTravel.com for up to 62% off your entire order! #NOBL #ad Become a member of Legal AF YouTube community: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJgZJZZbnLFPr5GJdCuIwpA/join Learn more about the Popok Firm: https://thepopokfirm.com Subscribe to Legal AF Substack: https://michaelpopok.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=c0fc8f5c 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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Starting point is 00:02:20 Start your free trial at Shopify.com. We've got a lot to discuss on this episode of LegalAF, Donald Trump flailing after a district court judge, the Second Circuit Court of Appeal, once again rejected whatever the heck he's even trying to do in the E. Jean Carroll case where he was previously found civilly liable for sexual assault, where he previously appealed and saw it stays multiple times. The Supreme Court denied his petition to even hear the case at the Supreme Court level, to which Donald Trump refused to accept that as a no, and he continued to say, well, can you give me a due over. I want a mulligan Supreme Court. That doesn't exist. Then he tried to use the mulligan to
Starting point is 00:03:06 further delay having to pay Eugen Carroll and says, hey, district court, hey, second circuit court of appeals. I'm doing a mulligan with the Supreme Court. Yes, they rejected me, but I'm asking them. I need a solid. I need a favor out of you, Supreme Court, to which the district court and the Second Circuit says that's not what happens in our court system in the United States of America, Donald. We will cover what went down there. We should also talk about Trump's Department of Justice in a despicable, despicable fashion, as always, covering up more about Donald Trump's dark pass, more about the Epstein files. As we've been reporting on legal a.F on the Midas Touch Network as well, the New Mexico State Attorney General has launched an investigation into the Zorro Ranch, which was Epstein's property in New Mexico, which the Department of Justice previously covered up. and stopped all investigations into that location,
Starting point is 00:04:03 which is perhaps where most of the sexual assault and abuse and perhaps even other things were going down there in New Mexico. And the New Mexico AG, as directed as well by the state legislature, has been doing an investigation. And so they need the cooperation of Trump's DOJ to get certain types of documents to do a thorough investigation. Trump's DOJ, refusing. to do anything. And they kind of lead the New Mexico Attorney General along, string them along.
Starting point is 00:04:36 We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. We'll get back to you. Oh, yeah, let's do another call in a month. Let's do it. And then finally, this past week, the AG of New Mexico is like, enough is enough. And when public with what's been going on behind the scenes, we'll talk about that. Also, what's been going on in front of the scenes, Trump's FBI director, Cash Patel, like everybody in this despicable regime, is out there flaunting taking our taxpayer dollars to fly around in private jets and to ride around in luxury vehicles and to treat our taxpayer dollars, which with respect to the FBI, should go to protecting people and doing the work of the FBI and keeping the homeland actually secure and not killing people
Starting point is 00:05:22 here and not harming people. But no, that's not how Cash Patel sees it. So Cash Patel was heading to see his girlfriend perform in a parking lot in Chicago because she ain't all that good of a singer. She's like performing at some parking lot there. And so he was flying out. And apparently he was summoned back as Donald Trump's been ranting and raving in the White House, kind of barricading himself there, that Iran's going to kill him. And he thinks everybody's going to kill him. And he's put out instructions that if he gets killed by Iran, he's got a thousand missiles locked and loaded. And he will blow up the entire civilization of Iran. And he's, He's like, my FBI director, you can't be listening to your girlfriend singing the parking lot.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Iran's trying to kill me. Iran's trying to kill me. And then there's, you know, other reporting as well in Cash Patel that we'll get into. It should also be noted that Donald Trump, not only kind of pardoning proud boys or commuting the sentence of the proud boys, his DOJ sought to dismiss all charges to basically expunge the record of the proud boys convicted of seditious conspiracy in the most serious January 6th insurrection charges. They demanded that a federal judge agree, not just to, you know, the pardon, which is automatic, but also to say, look, we're exercising our discretion in the executive branch. These proud boys are still appealing their conviction to the United States Supreme Court. We think that it is that we should not have prosecuted, that Biden's DOJ should
Starting point is 00:06:49 prosecute him, and dismiss them. And the federal judge said, I don't have discretion. If they say dismiss it, I'm forced to dismiss it, as least we. What this federal judge said, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about a lot of other things as well. Let's bring in Michael Popak from LegalAF. Popak, good to see. We're going to talk about all of those things. And at the top of the show, we should talk about what's going on with, you know,
Starting point is 00:07:11 the reporting about Trump not flying on the Qatari jet and needing the old Air Force one, leaving Turkey, given its proximity to Iran. And as we've always been saying, the Qatari jets not equipped to properly defend. And then kind of like what Trump did with. the reflecting pool where he scapegoated David Hearn and said that, oh, the vandals are ripping it up in a two-time Olympic canoeists. Let's prosecute people because we all said there would be algae because the source is the Potomac Basin and its basic science and it was a shoddy job that was done by Donald Trump's contractor. He prosecutes people. Now he's going after the reporters
Starting point is 00:07:46 and issuing subpoenas, FBI agents knocking on people's doors, Popak, at their home, issuing criminal subpoenas. Let's talk about it all, man. I'm not a hydrologist, but I know if you paint, paint or line a long, several football field length reflecting pool and change the color of it from dark gray, which was done on purpose, to some last minute cut corner, no bid, pool liner, truck liner company, American Blue, and add the beating down of the D. Anybody been to D.C. in the summer. The T.C. is a sweltering, it's like a warm, it's like a hot blanket that just envelops you for the entire summer. Beating down on that, you're going to make algae, okay? They've now drained the pool bend three times, including in the last 24 hours, and it's still coming up green, right? I thought
Starting point is 00:08:42 Donald Trump was supposed to drain the swamp, not create one, but it's all about his cost cutting, right it's all about his cut in corners all these no-bid contracts no-bid contract to redo the kennedy center well you know a buddy wants to pray with him and give him money oh you get an eight million dollar contract he's like oh brod you get an eight million dollar contract all no bid with which means there's not there's no proper analysis there's no proper consultation with experts multiple experts who know what they're doing and then you have the same thing going on with the katarie air force one plane When you and I first reported on this, the 14-year-old Boeing plane being gifted to Donald Trump, I mean the Department of Defense for, it's only a rental, by the way,
Starting point is 00:09:29 because Trump thinks he's going to fly it and shove it into the Miami library of his. Of course, the House Republicans, sorry, the House Democrats, maybe Republicans, and senators have something to say about that as terms of a gift. Because just to remind everybody, there are two Air Force Ones being built right now to be delivered by McDonnell Douglas, combination Boeing and McDonald-Douglas for a $5 billion contract. They're not done yet. Trump should have just been normal and not insane and just used the old Air Force One that it's apparently safer than this new thing for that durational period for another year and a half.
Starting point is 00:10:11 No, he needed to have gold toilet bowls and leather seats. and Rich Corinthian, who knows what. The problem is, when you and I said it would take over a year to retrofit that, to make it missile proof, to make it a flying situation room or command and control structure, we know of what we were speaking because experts were saying to take that Katari plane and to make it a flying White House with a president inside is going to take a billion dollars and over a year of time, came in and under a billion dollars in like six or eight months. We're like, how did they do that?
Starting point is 00:10:50 Well, now we know how they did it. They left out all command and control structures. So it can't be a situation room. It's like having a Ferrari, if you're lucky enough to have a Ferrari in your driveway, but it has no engine. You just have to look at it or sit in it. So he's off bragging about it. But when the credible threats to take out Donald Trump by the,
Starting point is 00:11:13 the Iranians reach the level of not our intelligence community because Donald Trump doesn't trust it, but the Israeli intelligence community said they're going to bomb you. They're going to kill you. Do you see the signs? By the way, very, very clear handwriting with the Iranians during their funeral celebrations. Trump, we are going to kill you. I mean, as clear as day, they're not, you know, like they're not, you don't have to guess what they, what they're thinking. And so, so that freaked out, apparently, the security forces and Secret Service and those around Donald Trump. And they said, you can't take the flying golden airplane. You got to go back to the old Air Force One because we've got laser beams that can blind missiles
Starting point is 00:12:00 and you can run the situation room from there. So Trump lied in a presser. And he said, oh, planes flying to the UK so that the troops can see it. Like it's some sort of USO show with Bob Hope. Oh, let's come see the new plane. And two major organizations reported on it besides Midas Dutch and Legal AF. One was MS now, and the other was in New York Times with Julian Barn and Eric Schmidt and a bunch of other people. And they said sources, because that's what reporters do, report that they effectively grounded Donald Trump from using the Qatari Air Force One to get them on a safe one that didn't have those defects to fly from Ankara, Turkey, to.
Starting point is 00:12:43 the UK at the end of NATO and then hopefully I believe home. So Trump didn't like it. So they're going after the New York Times. I don't know about MS now at the moment. And they're saying, we want to get to the bottom of who are your confidential sources. Remember, the day that the MS now published it first, Stephen Chung, the press secretary, who, the communications director, you always know when he's lying because his lips move when he talks. He said, she's a liar, the reporter. She said, know what she's talking about. She's not a journalist. Well, if she's not a journalist and it's not true, then why are they going after the sources
Starting point is 00:13:18 that supported the story? That the story's not true, then why? I don't understand. But in any event, they issued subpoenas through their favorite prosecutor's, second favorite prosecutor's office, the one in New York, the Southern District of New York, while Jay Clayton's still hanging around as the prosecutor. And the New York Times, of course, are going to do with the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post and the New York Times have done before them.
Starting point is 00:13:40 Move immediately to quash those subpoenas. I think they're going to be super successful with a district court judge in New York, in the Southern District of New York. And then, but I want to point out one thing to you then and to our audience. The Situation Room was somehow breached by firsthand witnesses who cooperated with two other reporters in the New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, as part of an article, as part of a book, the article, to freak out the situation. room. It was just two weeks ago. And the freak out in the situation room had detailed quotations,
Starting point is 00:14:19 quotes, like a transcript, like a recording of Todd Blanche and Susie Wiles and J.D. Vance and others. Okay. The difference is they have not gone after Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan because they put up a warning label on their article. They said we have 1,000 cooperating sources inside and outside the government and we have recordings. So that asymmetrical information, in other words, Trump doesn't know what Maggie has on him or Jonathan. So they have, even though there was an entire front page, splashy articles, situation room, freak out, you know, we have recordings, no attempt to indict or prosecute Maggie Hammond, nor should there be, or to try to subpoena her or search warrant her house. Very, very smartly
Starting point is 00:15:06 played by Maggie and Jonathan Swan to put up a warning label that said, coming after me? There's more where that came from. You know, one of the things also, and I'm going to toss it over you to give us the update on E. Jean Carroll, that's just worth reflecting on. As I was hearing you say that as well, you know, a thousand sources, Maggie Haberman, Jonathan Swan, you know, as you mentioned, Midas Touch reported right away what the situation was like within, but before the New York Times report in Washington Post, and a Midas Touch reported on it. And we didn't have sources on that. And it just made me reflect Popak that we're also in a moment where I think we need, obviously,
Starting point is 00:15:47 very well-sourced journalism and reporting and all of that still plays an important role. But also, there's so many things that are happening right in plain view, right before our eyes, and there are lots of people who are very hesitant just to describe what is happening. I mean, we saw Donald Trump at the NATO summit. But we heard the things that he said. It's not just a breach of protocol on everything. I mean, in addition to just, you know, calling Iran, the Islamic Republic of Japan and calling the JCPO, the JCP, or whatever he was saying, in addition to calling Zelensky, Putin,
Starting point is 00:16:22 and then saying, ask me questions, I'll pretend to be Putin. I mean, there's all of the stuff that obviously demonstrates cognitive and physical decline. But just think about him spewing out things that used to actually be state secrets and things that were guarded. where you would need to rely on lots of heavily sourced reporting to say, oh, you know, to identify the corruption, the criminality, the national security breaches, Popak, he's out there every day just to say it. He does it. He does it. And so much, I think, of the smoke and mirrors is kind of a refusal to open up our eyes, not us here at the but the refusal more broadly to just call out what it is we're seeing because sometimes it's so obvious
Starting point is 00:17:10 and it's so conscious shocking that people veer into these areas. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's criminality. That's corruption. That's deranged. Call it out. Anyway, I know that's a little bit of a tangent, but I think it's important to note that as well. Popat. Talk to us about E. Gene Carroll. What's the latest there? Absolutely. So, so proud. of everything about E. Jean Carroll, not letting being an Epstein survivor to find her life, but making sure that Donald Trump pays what's approaching close to $100 million that he owes her and more for having sexually abused her in that department store dressing room in 1996. And that's not our commentary. That is a jury finding that 9-0 in New York, having heard all
Starting point is 00:18:03 of the evidence. Two separate trials. The one we'll focus more on here is the one that went to trial first, which happened, a little bit out of sequence, had to do with what Donald Trump not only did in that dressing room, proved, but what he said about her in defamatory way while he was no longer president in between his two presidencies. So after he was president at the first time, and the punitive damages that went along with that. A jury came back. That was the trial, that some people may remember, that was Joe Takapina, a lawyer now lost the trash bin of history who represented Donald Trump before Todd Blanche
Starting point is 00:18:41 and Abelvovove, and Alina Hava. And Trump did not, he famously or infamously refused to testify because he's a coward in that case. And the jury came back with a $5 million judgment. With interest that has been running since three years ago, almost, it's up to $5.8 million. Now, fortunately, in order to, to appeal, if you want to take any appeal,
Starting point is 00:19:06 and you don't want to pay your judgment, you gotta post a bond. It's called the supersedious bond. He posted the bond and cash, Trump did, with the court clerk system. And that's been running, he's been upping the interest in it because he's been required to. So she has been, she's had security
Starting point is 00:19:23 for ultimately getting paid once all of his appellate process, his appeals are exhausted. And Trump has taken several appeals. You know, that's why it's taken over two and a half half years you know second circuit court of appeals he loses second circuit court of appeals i want the entire second circuit court of appeals not just three judges they rejected he throws in and lobs a petition to the united states supreme court now this is only about the only aspect that i think is interesting of the appeal says nothing to do with immunity some people may be thinking oh it's about the immunity
Starting point is 00:19:55 it's not it's about what categories of evidence about prior bad sexual misconduct Donald Trump committed in the past that were let into the trial by Judge Kaplan. And you're allowed to do that under the federal rules of evidence when you're dealing with a sex abuse, sexual misconduct type case. It is one of those exceptions to the general rule that prior bad acts don't come in, but they do come in when you're dealing with somebody who has sexually assaulted or abused somebody. So he let in, the judge. Other tests, testimony from two other women, a People Magazine reporter who said she was, testified to the jury that she was sexually attacked by Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago when she was there doing a puff
Starting point is 00:20:45 piece for People Magazine about Trump's new marriage to somebody named Melania Trump. And as soon as Melania left the room, according to her testimony, she was attacked. And another woman, Jessica Leeds, who had the misfortune of being upgraded to first class on an airplane, first time she's at her life, and sat next to somebody she found out was Donald Trump who sexually molested her or assaulted her on that plane. He also led in the Access Hollywood tape of Donald Trump bragging with Billy Bush about being able to grab women by their genitalia and get away with it because he's a celebrity and just start kissing them. All that came in, along with lots of other evidence, including E. Gene Carroll's own testimony about what happened.
Starting point is 00:21:26 And Trump says, no, no, none of that should have come in. Judge was wrong. Okay, Supreme Court, you and I reported on this two weeks ago, Supreme Court looked at his petition for writ of certiorari, filed by the law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which is where Jay Clayton, who's now going to be the Director of National Intelligence, came from, where the current, the new U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald, comes from. Anything involving E. Jean Carroll, Sullivan Cromwell,
Starting point is 00:21:57 has now been on the scene filing petitions and motions. 13 times the United States Supreme Court in conference considered that petition. 13 from February. And each time they couldn't get four votes. You need four to grant your appeal. You need five to win. So just four. He controls six on the U.S. Supreme Court.
Starting point is 00:22:21 Two of them have their own sex abuse allegation problems. Kavanaugh and Thomas. Can't even get those guys every week. rejected, reject it, or not granted, I guess is the better way to put it, until finally they had five votes or more, I think more, to reject the petition outright. The reason I say more is no one dissented. You'd think at least Alito and Thomas or Kavanaugh would throw him a bone and say, I would have granted the petition, knowing that they were going to lose anyway. You know, no skin off their apple. No, no dissent whatsoever. So the next day,
Starting point is 00:22:59 Or hours later, Robbie Kaplan, the lawyer for E. Jean Carroll, files a motion for the judge to issue an order directly to the clerk of the court to give her the money, all the principal and all the interest that she's owed. Trump, this is all last week, Trump lobs at an hour later an opposition paper. And her main objection is he'll be irreparably harmed because she, including on with me in an interview, said that she was going to give away the money, that she's 83 years old, She told me in my interview that that's not what defines me in life. Money does not drive me.
Starting point is 00:23:35 It was never the reason I brought the lawsuit, and it's not what I'm going to do with the money. I've set up a foundation through a law firm in New York, and I'm going to fund it with the money as soon as I get it to help other women who have been similarly harmed as me. She said, I'd rather take a long walk with my dogs and a great play to Fetuccini than spend that money. And he cited not my interview, but he said, she's going to give away the money. And if she gives away the money, how am I going to get it back? Yeah, it's time for it to be on her side of the ledger after waiting two and a half years. And if he somehow miraculously, and he has zero chance of accomplishing this, getting the Supreme Court to reconsider something they just did a week ago without dissent,
Starting point is 00:24:18 which has never, I've talked to Supreme Court historians, never happened before, never in the history of the Supreme Court. Have they reversed their own decision because the president asked them to? So that's not going to happen. In the meantime, the order said as soon as he's done with his original petition for rid of certiorari, having been rejected, she gets paid. Not that he gets to file ad infinitum, you know, ad nauseum, more and more motions, you know, to be heard. And if that happens, he somehow reverses it, go F, then you get the money from her. But she's getting the money today.
Starting point is 00:24:51 In fact, Judge Kaplan, in his order, he filed a memorandum opinion with it. He said, equity now a man, now demands after she's been, you've been stalling and she's been injured waiting. It's time for the money to be paid. And that was it. And as far as I know, and I've reached out to Robbie Kaplan, I believe she's been paid. I believe the money has already been released because Donald Trump tried a law the last minute motion for stay, emergency motion for stay to the second circuit court of appeals, which sits over, Judge Kaplan. And there, that three-judge panel for the Second Circuit was like, yeah, we're not. And one of them is a Trump-appointed judge.
Starting point is 00:25:38 And they were like, yeah, we're not going to issue this day. We don't see irreparable harm. You know, if somehow you reverse it, we'll deal with it later, but we're going to, we're not going to block it. We're just not going to block it. There it is right there. Actually, I'm sorry, there wasn't, it's a three-judge panel, but the clerk issued it. And so that one is the operative one. And as far as this reporting, he has not obtained or sought yet a stay and the money's been paid out.
Starting point is 00:26:09 So that then leaves us with the $90 million with interest that she's owed on the other case where he testified and did testify with Alina Habba there again. and I think Tom Blanche playing more of a role. And the jury came back with a much larger verdict about defamation when he was president and other punitive damages. This is the one where he stood up famously and infamously and walked out on Robbie Kaplan in a huff while she was doing closing argument,
Starting point is 00:26:38 which is a really bad look in front of a jury, especially when you're there in a sex abuse case and there's allegations that you hate women. That was a bad move to like walk out again on that. So that judgment is still hanging around. It's been exhausted through all the appeals besides the Supreme Court. But Sullivan and Cromwell, that firm has filed another petition for writ of cert. And that has an immunity aspect to it about whether Donald Trump had immunity, any kind of immunity,
Starting point is 00:27:10 as an employee or otherwise, to defame E. Jean Carroll and say, she's not my type. I never were to it. I wouldn't sexually assault her because she's not good looking or she's always. or whatever F, he said in the Rose Garden, whether that gives him some sort of immunity. Second Circuit has already ruled that Alina Haba waived immunity because she didn't raise it at any time during the trial until like almost the appeal. And so, you know, we're going to have to see what the, what do you think on that one? What do you think the Supreme Court's going to do with the larger judgment with this kind of immunity, but civil, civil sex abuse case immunity.
Starting point is 00:27:53 They are not touching Trump personal cases. They're not. I agree with it. They're just, you know, as horrible as I think the Supreme Court is, one of the things that they've shown is to be very also self-interested. They create exceptions where none exist and they destroy precedent, mostly talking about the right-wing Supreme Court justices. I mean, you know, they'll create a precedent that says agencies aren't independent anymore.
Starting point is 00:28:23 And then what does Donald Trump do? He goes and he destroys the, basically the federal elections committee. It just fires everybody. Go like, fire everybody. Then the Supreme Court, you can do that and destroy the lives of Americans, you know, on mostly every issue. Okay. But when it comes to the Federal Reserve, we're going to create this new Supreme Court exception because, you know, we all got money in the stock market, Donald, and don't be all crazy over there.
Starting point is 00:28:51 You want to be crazy when it comes to the environment. You want to be, obviously, it's going to impact them too, but they don't see that. Future generations will die of cancer and things like that. We got to focus on our money right now. But when it comes to, you know, energy and EPA and elections, go go have fun. Go wild, Donald, not when it comes to the Federal Reserve. You know, I think in this context here, they don't want to personally touch a case involving sex assault and sex abuse and Donald Trump. They just want to stay away.
Starting point is 00:29:27 But it's out of a personal protection of themselves versus actually, you know, and anything else there. So that's my view. They ain't touching it. I think that, you know, we'll talk about that story, I'm sure, in, you know, several months or a year. you know, where Trump will have to pay her the remaining, what with interest, probably close to $100 million or more at this point. Let's take our first quick break of the show. I want to remind everybody that if you or anybody who knows been injured an auto accident,
Starting point is 00:29:57 car accident, trucking accident, negligence of a company negligence of others, reach out to Michael Popock's law firm, lots of legal AF listeners and viewers are calling and represented by Popoc 877 Popoc AF or visit thepopfirm.com. call 877 Popok AF or visit thepopok firm.com. Also, make sure you subscribe to the LegalAF YouTube channel, subscribe to the LegalAF substack. And we've got a lot more show, though, so hang in there, stay in there. We've got a lot to discuss when we come back after our first quick break.
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Starting point is 00:32:52 They'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. Welcome back to Legal IF. Thank you to all of our sponsors for making this show possible. Support our sponsors. They support this show, Mike. Michael Popak. Let's get into talking about the Trump regime's continued cover-up of a child sex trafficking ring. Hard to believe that here we are, 2026, that that's a sentence that has to be
Starting point is 00:33:19 uttered repeatedly over and over and over again. But that's exactly what the Trump regime has been doing based on the conduct we described about Donald Trump in the first segment being found civilly liable in a sexual assault case, where there's lots of other victims who have come forward in that case alone. Not entirely shocking that despicable regime with despicable people would do despicable things, but here we are. And now we're, last week, I was talking about Midas Touch hosts, courageous Katie Fang, pushing forward with her lawsuit regarding the Epstein Transparency Act,
Starting point is 00:34:01 to get the files. The Trump regime is trying to say, oh, we don't have to show cause. We don't need to produce the records. We've already produced a privilege log or redaction log by like, I don't know, like writing a paragraph that they don't have to produce things. That's not what a privilege log or a redaction log is. You and I, Popak, have made such logs before. They are long. They could be thousands of pages. They could be tens of thousands of pages. Heck, they could be hundreds of thousands. We got to log every document that you're not producing and explain why on a document by document basis. I would have loved when I was an associate doing privilege logs if I could have said, you know what? A lot of privileges, Judge. A lot of privileges. Trust me, bro. I'm not going to
Starting point is 00:34:44 produce them. That's not what you have to do. And it's not what the Epstein Transparency Act said they could do. You got to follow the law. So we talked about that last week obstruction there. And they said, oh, Katie Fang, go do FOIA. And then FOIA requests people would say, They would say, the Trump regime would say, ah, we can't do your FOIA. It's the Epstein Transparency Act. That's how you have to enforce it. But there's no cause of action for people. So nothing we can do here.
Starting point is 00:35:12 We're just going to cover up millions of documents. And yeah, whatever. Good luck trying to find. So that's where we are over there. Then separately, Popak here, this is the New Mexico Attorney General, the New Mexico State Legislature, which has lots of Democrats. But it was bipartisan. Everybody voted for it.
Starting point is 00:35:34 Open up an investigation into Epstein's property, Zorro Ranch, which he had, I think, since 1993. It was purchased under mysterious circumstances. By the way, the estate of Epstein sold it under mysterious circumstances to a Trump MAGA guy, you know, another kind of trust fund family where the son now works for the Trump regime. And that MAGA family that bought the Zorro Ranch, like, we're going to turn it into a Christian retreat and start demolishing it. It's like, okay, lots of red flags there and not sure that that should be turned into a children's Christian retreat given what happened on that property. But in any event, New Mexico
Starting point is 00:36:12 State Legislature, New Mexico AG, inspired by the Epstein Transparency Act and what was in the files, of course, launch an investigation. But Popak, it requires cooperation with the Department of Justice because the DOJ holds the master files, the lists, the certain location. So there is work that the New Mexico AG can do truly independently and they can do it. But there's always cooperation with the feds and things like this. And here that would be needed, especially given a lot of the documents that have not been turned over in the Epstein Transparency Act, which probably inform also why there was a massive cover up in New Mexico, right? So the New Mexico AG previously sent this letter that was now made public, but the letter was
Starting point is 00:37:01 We now learned about a week and a half ago or so. And they lay out, hey, look, and the New Mexico AG says, DOJ, February 13th, we reached out to you, written correspondence, informal, you ignored us. March 13th, we had to go formal letter to Attorney General Bondi at that time. April 1, you were ignoring us. We did a telephone conference saying, what's going on here? May 3rd, 2026, we had to now issue like a formal towey letter that was submitted. In May 29, 2026, written follow-up with Blanche,
Starting point is 00:37:33 and associate deputy AG Pestana, you said you'd get back to us. June 4th to 5th, meeting requests directed to your office and in person during Attorney General Torres's visit. That's the Attorney General for New Mexico. And basically what they say is that, you know, you're stringing us along. You keep saying you'll get, you want to help, you want to do it, sure, give us a month, give us a month, give us a week,
Starting point is 00:37:57 give us two weeks, we'll get back to you. But here we are. And so the New Mexico AG went public at the end of this week. And so Popak, you know, this is the, you know, this, this reminds me of them. I'm not sure, you know, we have some more heinous version. But this is what this is Trump's two week cycle that I call it, right? He tries to trap you in the two week delay, two weeks, three weeks, two weeks, three weeks, five weeks, I'll get back to you.
Starting point is 00:38:23 Then he likes to run out the clock. And then he hopes that naturally you'll either stop chasing it or someone else. you'll get a new job. You know, and Trump's, you know, born with a golden spoon in his mouth or whatever. And he's just like, I could wait you out. I don't care. I don't care about anything, you know, and I'll wait you out. And that's his plan.
Starting point is 00:38:41 I just remember even, you know, during his first campaign, when people had lots of questions about Melania's immigration status. And he said, I'm going to hold a press conference and I'll get into it. I'll explain how she got that Einstein. We'll get it. Two weeks, two weeks, two weeks, two weeks. And here you are, Popak. No one really, we talk about it on the Midas Touch Network, but no one really talks about it anymore.
Starting point is 00:39:03 And that's the strategy here, but it involves covering up child sex trafficking that we also know they're covering up Trump's name in certain files as well. You know, so Popak, what do you make of it all? America is united against child sex trafficking and any connectivity between Donald Trump's administration and Epstein. I mean, that's the one thing that Donald Trump has done is the great unifier, is he's. he's unified MAGA, alt-right conspiracy theorists, dark web, progressives, Democratic Socialists, independence. We all find his continued lack of transparency, opakness, giving orders to his people around him, led by now Todd Blanche to cover up and cover up the cover up to be something we're not willing to swallow and won't, won't forget.
Starting point is 00:40:00 Donald Trump believes that this is a normal news cycle, as you said, the two-week news cycle. It's not. And it's been frustrating him because he thought this would just go away by now. That was the reporting that came out of Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's Situation Room Freak Out article is that Trump doesn't want transparency. He wanted gestures to act like it was transparent about the Epstein files, but not true transparency. And that Todd Blanche has been leading the charge. I mean, you reported and says that I, we've had Katie on both shows, about Katie Fang's lawsuit.
Starting point is 00:40:34 And, you know, Todd Blanche has a lot of explaining to do. Next week, we're going to have the live stream on the confirmation hearing up on Legal I off YouTube. I'll be doing the pregame show for it. And one of the many scandals that are at the feet of Todd Blanche that he has to answer for is, why did he just tell Judge Sullivan, Katie Fang's judge, the judge in her case, to go pound sand and he wasn't going to produce any more documents and basically confess that they never created the redaction law that you talked about at all. Katie Fang's lawyer, a Brendan Ballou joined me for
Starting point is 00:41:13 an interview. He said, I'm, he told me, he told our audience, I'm pretty sure they never did it. I'm pretty sure despite statutory requirement in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, the Epstein Act. I'm pretty sure they never did it. And he basically confessed that he never did. He says, well, we provided a partial sort of a list about redactions, but I wouldn't call it a redaction list or a log. You didn't produce a log of 200,000 pages of redacted thing. As to translate the foreign language documents, nah, too hard. Nah, we don't pass as if he can pass on a federal judge's order, and that will be sufficient. And the other documents, and, you know, something you and I have been reporting on, which is, why is Leslie Groff, who gave some sort of testimony that you and I
Starting point is 00:42:01 picked apart, who was the 18-year executive assistant for Jeffrey Epstein, why was she listed as a potential, as a co-conspirator in a draft indictment? And now the Epstein survivors are all coming out and saying she lied. She lied about not knowing how old the people that she hired. And she hired. to give him massages, which turned out to be sexual abuse. She knew the ages. She knew many of those girls went to high school, high school. One thing about, and I used to live 15 blocks away from Jeffrey Epstein on the upper east side of New York, tons of private girls' schools in those neighborhoods.
Starting point is 00:42:42 It's up by the Metropolitan Museum of Art. People know the area. And, you know, during school year, it's just lots, mainly. I mean, there's some boys schools, but mainly girls' schools. And she was recruiting from there. She paid them. And now the girls, now women and survivors are saying, she lied, which would be normally cue the Department of Justice to start a prosecution, right, at an investigation. No, no, no, because this Department of Justice only does one thing, goes after and weaponizes the Department of Justice and or at Civil Rights Division to go against Donald Trump's political enemies or those he
Starting point is 00:43:20 he thinks have slighted him some way in the past. That's their full-time job, or as I've joked only half jokingly, they are a wholly Department of Justice as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump organization. That's it. That's it, as is the Commerce Department, as is the Treasury Department. So you've got all the documents still being hidden away much to the chagrin of the survivors. So New Mexico, the letter that you wrote, raised a couple of interesting issues. One, it reminds us that Marine Comey, James Comey's daughter, was the head of the division that was prosecuting Epstein and Galane Maxwell, and that she was given back in the 2018-2020 period all of New Mexico's then files that they had already started accumulating about that ranch.
Starting point is 00:44:10 But there was no reciprocity, even though Comey was going to do it. Yet another reason why Maureen Comey was fired. One, so they could curry favor with Calane Maxwell through Todd Blanche and not have Maureen Comey in the room who knew the truth about the evidence. Silence her by firing her and also silence her potentially on the New Mexico investigation of the ranch. You and I don't know whether there are survivors bodies buried on the ranch, but that's the point. Neither does the Department of Justice nor the FBI nor New Mexico's Department of Justice. And that's what we're trying to get to the bottom of, whether there was torture, sex going on there,
Starting point is 00:44:55 and people buried there at that ranch. And we still, to this moment, don't know the answer to that. So kudos to the New Mexico Department of Justice and its Attorney General for also saying, we've got a case, but our case is being eroded by your failure, to provide and do lip service for all those categories of things that we've asked for. And the thing that didn't get enough attention except on Midas and on legal AF was James Comey, which is now reflected back in this letter, admitting that in 2019, when the Justice Department was run by Donald Trump and his Attorney General Bill Barr, they put the kiboshed
Starting point is 00:45:38 and quashed the investigation by New Mexico in 2019 into the ranch. Why? It wasn't like like they were doing their own investigation, and so they didn't want New Mexico to go first. They just wanted to end the investigation. And Comey says it on Jesse Waters. And it's repeated here about, you know, if anybody thought that wasn't true, it says here the, on page two of the letter, the New Mexico Department of Justice's investigation was effectively suspended by federal request in 2019. Its file released to federal authorities, that would be Comey, and its survivors left without an accounting of what occurred in New Mexico. The USDAJ now holds in its possession the very records that would allow the New Mexico Department of Justice to resume what federal
Starting point is 00:46:33 intervention disrupted, interrupted. I mean, there are so many things that Todd Blanche is going have to answer for. Many of them are connected to the Epstein scandal. The Situation Room comments, the Galane Maxwell being benefited by being sent to a low security prison where she has a dog, apparently, and has access to books and doesn't sit in a jail cell after she gave testimony that Donald Trump obviously thought was helpful. We're not even talking about the Jan 6 weaponization fund. We're just talking about Epstein and his refusal to acknowledge that. that within the three million documents produced, and maybe the three million that haven't been produced,
Starting point is 00:47:17 there is actionable intelligence to investigate and or prosecute the predators of the 1400 to 1,400 or 500 survivors. He refute that alone. Any one of these things that you and I have talked about about Todd Blanche would be a disqualifier in any other universe. And the question for our audience, and the word of you and I are going to follow closely, you about next week is whether this is a this is an
Starting point is 00:47:45 almost an equally divided Senate Judiciary Committee there's there's there's 13 Republicans and 12 Democrats 25 you need majority you need you need you need all 13 if a guy like Tom Tillis comes over or somebody else they they can't afford to lose one vote or or Blanche's nomination is done now the question is is how do we count? And is there one that is willing to go against Trump, a weakened President Trump now, and vote against Todd Blanche? And another thing, they're going to need more than one day. I know the Republicans and Senate Majority Leader Thune wants to try to minimize the risk and only have Todd Blanche there for five or six hours. It ain't going to be enough. And the Democrats better
Starting point is 00:48:35 figure out a way procedurally to continue to expand that hearing because you couldn't do one of these scandals, let alone more than a dozen that top plan is responsible for in one day. You raise a great point, though, which is the most important thing for me is, well, I care about outcomes, obviously, right? And I want there to be good outcomes. But to get good outcomes, there has to be a good process. And I know process could be boring and process can sound bureaucratic and delegation of time and rules and all of the. of these things, you know, start to sound like, oh, come on, man, let's just do it. Let's just do it. But, you know, that reality TV show, let's just do it. And, you know, let's just see drama.
Starting point is 00:49:24 I think that's one of the reasons that we kind of got here. There's a lot of other reasons as well. But there is this kind of instant gratification, this desire to abhor process and rules and doing, who does that? Why are you talking about that, man? Let's just wing it. Let's just wing it. Donald Trump just shows up in NATO and just wings it. Yeah, but that's very dangerous. Okay.
Starting point is 00:49:48 And when we talk about the hearing of Todd Blanche, the most important thing for me is that every senator should be taking their responsibility seriously and should be spending, you know, each senator to me should have about at least an hour to 90 minutes each. to ask real serious questions of Todd Blanche. And to me, there should be a multiple day session.
Starting point is 00:50:18 And it should be structured in a way that focuses on perhaps different themes of the conduct, whether it's Ice Border Patrol, Gestapo, deporting people to Seacott, the conflicts of interest, Epstein, you know, the other cases involving Trump suing the government settling with Trump in the $10 billion case, the J6 fund. You know, I could easily do personally a three to four day deposition of Todd Blanche, seven hours each day. And I would still have a lot of questions that I'd probably need to ask
Starting point is 00:51:01 them after 25 hours of cross-examination, which Popak, you and I as litigators have done with witnesses in big, important cases, you know, you've done that. And so, to me, fundamentally what these MAGAs have done is they've destroyed process, and they've rigged the outcomes by killing the process, by shortening people's ability to, you know, to ask questions and to investigate so that the outcomes basically are predetermined. And that's one of the reasons that Donald Trump hates the court system. because the court system involves process and rules.
Starting point is 00:51:42 And if you violate rules, there are consequences. Jurors, jurors are selected independent. Those are all of the things that he hates. And, you know, this vignette that I just want to share to me is kind of symptomatic of this Trump regime. You know, you may have seen in South Carolina on July 4th, there was this event where these Apache helicopters flew no less than 10 to 15 feet. above the ocean right there and it was went viral that these apaches were flying so low like it almost felt like the people in the beach water you know if if you were seven feet tall you were almost close to touching it it was a very dangerous it was a very dangerous thing the national guard saw this and they
Starting point is 00:52:27 suspended eight of the crew members for for doing this and they disciplined them and they were in the process of disciplining them then all of maga went crazy like no man this is this is This is patriotism. This is America. America, everybody. This is what we do. We fly Apaches really low. And then this became some culture war issue where Pete Hegseth was like, don't worry, I got your back. And then carry on patriots. We've got your back. And then they start posting this photo as though it is a, you know, so this is a rallying call. This is what America is all about. Let me be very clear. Do I think it's cool? Like, do I think it's cool that you have the way it looks and Apache helicopters flying low? You know, and for someone who's never flown an Apache, you know, do I think that's cool?
Starting point is 00:53:21 You know, yeah, it looks cool, okay? Like that, but you look how close it is to the people. And the reason you don't fly that low is that there's a margin of error that increases the lower you fly like that. And let's just say something happened and all of those people. down there were killed, those pilots that were in there and the patchy crew, you know, would be in jail for the rest of their lives and people like Hegsith would be throwing them under the bus and saying, how do they do that? How do they do that? How do they do that? You know, and now what we're applauding, you know, is rule breaking and we're, we're up as a society. I know, we're not,
Starting point is 00:54:00 but creating situations where error and dangerous things can, you know, can continue to occur. When you gut and you get rid of members in the intelligence community, career people, when you get rid of top federal prosecutors, the career prosecutors at the DOJ, when you get rid of actual people at the FBI with experience and replace them with Cash Patel's, put Bill Pulte as the director of national intelligence. You know, when you basically, I'm doing a video today on Trump throwing the CIA under the bus. When you remove intelligence officials, and I'm not suggesting that the CIA has this exalted history and everything they do is right. And it's great. Let's become CIA fanboys or whatever. But when you get rid of your intelligence community and people
Starting point is 00:54:47 who are giving you assessments and you replace it with yourself winging it, the same kind of mentality that tells you going back to the show, I'm just going to paint the reflecting pool blue and the algae will go away. The consequences there are embarrassing and humiliating algae-filled cesspool than with the fireworks, there's ash over. It gets more serious when you start to prosecute people criminally to blame them to scapegoat them. So it gets serious, not to suggest it's not a serious thing. But then when you apply that lack of science, it's not just cutting corners Popak, as you said before, it's cutting facts. And when you push all of that aside facts, intelligence, science, cut corners. And then you do that with national security, intelligence,
Starting point is 00:55:34 and everything like that, you then have a dangerous dystopian, fascist country where you have error, you have malice, and that's a very dangerous agreement, you know, very dangerous things to see. So I want to talk about that when we get back, FBI director Cash Patel. I want to talk about Lorenzo Arojo being murdered by ICE and Border Patrol. That's still happening on our streets. Talk about more. Let's take our last quick break of the show. reminder, if you or somebody knows been injured in an auto accident, trucking accident, if you've been
Starting point is 00:56:07 injured by the negligence of a company or if you know somebody who has, Popak's firm deals with catastrophic injury cases. He represents a lot of people who watch and listen to Legal A.F. So give a call. The consultation is free no matter where you are in the United States. 877 Popok A.F or visit the Popok Firm.com. Call 877 Popak Firm.com. Also, make sure you subscribe. Legal AF on YouTube and subscribe to LegalAF on Substack. We'll come back. Home stretch of Legal AF coming right up. Let's hear from our sponsors.
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Starting point is 00:59:16 The sponsors support us. Support our sponsors if you can. Discount codes are in the description below. Michael Popak, the reporting from MS Now and others. And you can see it by the travel logs as well was Cash Patel was getting ready to go to Chicago to see his girlfriend perform in the parking lot. And he was pulled back to the White House. And he was told, where are you going, man, where you going?
Starting point is 00:59:43 And there's been a lot of stories about Cash Patel. And, you know, it's an interesting one. you know, he continues to embarrass a regime that's deeply an embarrassing regime from the outset. So there's already a humiliation ritual going place. You know, he checks the corruption box that the Trump regime likes. He checks the incompetence box that the Trump regime likes. The only thing that may be working against him is that when he's flying around in the jets and with the girlfriend and doing all that stuff, that may make Trump a little bit kind of jealous of it,
Starting point is 01:00:18 but he's like, you know, you're, you know, you got to be here suffering with me over here in the White House while I think Iran's trying to kill me, you know. And so Popak, as my dogs are barking like crazy, what do you make him at all? Well, you know, Cash Patel has a habit. You said that Donald Trump was born with a golden foot in his mouth or whatever it is. Cash Patel also has a complete tin ear when it comes to things that he can say out loud, forgetting that he's no longer a right-wing podcaster. shilling products with cash k a dollar sign h on them but it's supposed to be one of the leaders of our intelligence community and the head of the federal bureau of investigation he's not supposed to be trying to get laid we're trying to curry favor with his girlfriend or show like you said travel
Starting point is 01:01:08 around the country instead of doing his job domestically and otherwise and going to sporting events and and purchasing, having a fleet of BMWs purchased for him and using the company jet, which is the, which is the jets related to the administration for his personal use. And he's now lost, the shoes that are dropping now include Chuck Grassley, who was one of his biggest defenders in the Senate.
Starting point is 01:01:43 But now he's opened up an investigation, demanding to know how Cash Patel is spending taxpayer dollars on trips, on travel, on sporting events, BMWs, planes, and the like. You know, when you take an administration plane, it's hundreds of thousands of dollars an hour to fly, you know, and the response from Cash Patel's offices, he's reimbursed it. I doubt he's reimbursed it to the liking of Grassley. And when you get grounded, personally grounded by the White House and by the people within the White House. And I can only think of a couple, Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller. When they say insiders within the White House have required him, demanded his appearance at the White House.
Starting point is 01:02:29 It's Susie Wiles and likely Stephen Miller. He's being called on the carpet here. And it didn't help that in response to reporting about him having a golden jet ski, his defense to that, was that he posted on social media, it's a gold-plated jet ski, you dumbass. That is, while the American people are suffering under the Trump economy and are trying to figure out how to make ends meet or to even have ends to meet,
Starting point is 01:03:01 to have FBI directors say, come on, man, come on, brough. It's gold-plated. Like, this is not, this is back to the 10-year moment. And the question is, you know, when I was a kid, there um you probably played it too it's a very analog game it was a series of small plastic ice cubes that were in a rack and you had a little baby mallet a little hammer and there was a thing on top and you just would you would have to knock one of those cubes down and hope the whole thing wouldn't collapse and after a while you'd be the one or somebody your friend would be the one to hit that last
Starting point is 01:03:40 cube and the entire ice flow would collapse right because you're on thin ice. How many cubes have to fall under Cash Patel for him finally to get fired? Christy Nome should have been the wake-up call for Cash Patel and her embarrassment that came to town. And she was
Starting point is 01:03:58 doing very similar things, right? She was playing, according to reporting, she was playing footsie with Corey Lewandowski on Homeland Security, Gulf streams that were outfitted, including one compartment of it, which is supposed to be the kind of the private living quarters was like a master bedroom that Corey and Christy would disappear into.
Starting point is 01:04:20 And those, the drumbeat of those stories, even before Christy Nob's husband had some sort of weird fetish that ended up leading to divorce, Cash Patel has got the same problem. And using the FBI to go after members of the media who leak about him and his drinking, for instance in public intoxication or leak about his using the company dime, you know, our money to support him squiring around with his girlfriend. And then going after the press and opening up investigations about it has been a very, very bad look even for the Trump administration. And I think the point you were making is that what's okay for Trump is not okay for people that are not named Donald Trump. There's things that sometimes there's this conflation. I've seen it in organizations
Starting point is 01:05:15 where people who work for the top apex predator that runs the company suddenly believe they are the apex predator. And they find out very, very quickly that there's only one top dog and there's only one person. So I've been in organizations, which I will not name, where people have suddenly thought they are the Donald Trump of that. the organization and started acting and mimicking their spending or their attack on the media or the press or their social media posting. And that wears out your welcome pretty quickly, even though we're 18, 19 months in this administration with somebody like Donald Trump and his ego.
Starting point is 01:05:59 So him getting reined in, even Pam Bondi didn't get called on the carpet. I'll tell you who did. Tulsi Gabbard got called on the carpet. last September about her, sorry, last February 28th was the bombing, Iran was, yes, last September after the bombs on the nuclear capacity of Iran, the first time, when she was busy talking about how bombing is a terrible thing and can allude to nuclear holocaust,
Starting point is 01:06:29 she got called on the carpet and Tulsi Gabbard is no longer with us. Christine Ome got called to the White House after things went really awry with her testimony before the House and the Senate on back-to-back days about no-bid contracts for her $250 million ad campaign. Much of the money went to friends of hers, and she got fired. So the ones that get called into the White House normally have a very short half-life. If I were to guess, Cash Patel does not make it, we just passed Fourth of July, does not make it to Labor Day. I'm not even sure he makes it. I want to hear your opinion on this. I'm not even sure he makes it in like through the month of July on that particular because there's nothing he can do to fix it.
Starting point is 01:07:17 Like being told to shut the fuck up, sorry, is one thing. And you know, some people were able to accomplish that. Like we hear a lot less from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. He's still doing terrible things to Americans public health, but we hear about it less. You know, Mark Wayne Mullen, you know, other than his senator, his Senate opinion, or his House appearances, We're not seeing him out the way that Christie Nob did. Do you think he's going to be able to survive like RFK Jr? Or do you think he's going out the door like Tulsi Gabbard? No, he's going to survive because he's a man and Trump fires women.
Starting point is 01:07:55 And he can tolerate the corruption in the men. And I, you know, I believe it's as simple as that. Christy Gnome, Bondi, Shabez-Durimur, right? The big high-profile firings, but don't get me wrong. They are very bad, awful people. Are they worse than Lutnik, Cash Patel, RFK, Besant, Hegzathe. Hey, I mean, Hegst, I mean, come on. You know, the reality is, is Bondi, frankly, makes
Starting point is 01:08:34 Blanche, I mean, you know, Blanche makes Bondi look, you know, somewhat ethical, right? And that's, it's a horrible thing to say because she was horrific. But Bondi, but, but Blanche is a severely worse version of Bondi in terms of corruption and incompetence, all kind of, you know, you know, built into one. And so the reality is, is that, you know, Patel, oh, the other reason, too, is Patel's seeing the Epstein files. And you can arguably say that, you know, Bondi has also, and so will Bondi, you know, whatever. But I think that Trump fears that someone like a Patel will go out and say what he saw in the files more than a Bondi. And I think he thinks he can control. So that's my overall view of that. And I'll give you, I'll give you, I'll give you,
Starting point is 01:09:29 I'll give you a data point as well. You know, the White House, Stephen Chung and other have come out and said, nah, you know, I mean, I think Cash Patel posted something, you know, really kind of heinous and absurd, which what else is new? Where he, oh, yeah, in response to the MS Now article saying Cash Patel can't count on Trump's protection forever. And Cash Patel goes, nah, nah, nah, bra, my jet ski is gold-plated, dumbass. Your job is to lie. Mine's to protect the American people.
Starting point is 01:10:01 and business is good. I mean, this is the FBI director saying that, but then the White House account, fake news at its finest, nobody was frustrated. In fact, we'll start boosting and promoting his earlier tweet more. Congrats MS now.
Starting point is 01:10:18 You all just played yourself, dumbasses. And again, this is the White House. This is the White House. This isn't Love Island. It's not a frat house. This isn't frat house. This isn't Love Island. This isn't, you know, Apprentice meets Kardashian, you know, whatever.
Starting point is 01:10:37 This is the why, you know, and again, you know, my dogs were barking earlier because my wife just got home with my mother-in-law and our little baby, you know. And I mean, this is, this is, you know, I, this isn't me speaking as Democrat, independent, political guy, like, come on, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? And what I loved about the law, what I loved about practicing law, what I loved about being in courts and in depositions, you know, was I viewed it as an honorable profession.
Starting point is 01:11:08 And don't get me wrong, there's a lot of lawyers who don't behave honorably, but this is how I viewed it, where I could pursue truth and fight for things that I believe were justice and play by rules and fairly and ethically and morally. And those are the things that were more important. And so when I see, you know, Cash Patel going, dumbass, my FBI director, my jet ski is gold-plated, bro.
Starting point is 01:11:37 What do you, what are you doing? What is that? Why is it the FBI director? And then the White House goes, yeah, dumbasses. We're going to retweet that shit more. I'm like, okay. I'm like, come on, you know. And then you wonder why we get involved into catastrophic wars.
Starting point is 01:11:54 There's other reasons, too. And then have no plan and lose. lose and then keep their negotiating, this negotiation will keep bombing, but they're desperately want to deal. I want to ask them, Ben, on that note, when our adversaries who keep an eye on our intelligence community, they don't need to. They see the unintelligence right there. That's my point.
Starting point is 01:12:14 How do you think Putin is read in on this by his people about weekly reports about Cash Patel? When his presidential briefing book comes in, do you think they reproduce all of rapid response 47 and all the bras and gold-bladed and dumbasses? Yeah, you know, and I think it is that. But then it's also, here's what we know. We know that this individual is a malignant narcissist who's literally, I mean, the Iranian negotiating team diagnosed Donald Trump as being clinically mentally ill and that they're
Starting point is 01:12:46 negotiating with actually somebody who should be in a, you know, who should be institutionalized under a 5150 hold. Like that's how they viewed it. So it's how do you deal with somebody, you know, like that and how do you, how do you address? So the question then really becomes is, you know, how do you deal with it and how do you address it? And I do think that there is a lot of criticism that should be directed at Mark Routte, the Secretary General of NATO. Because every time I watch him and he does the over-the-top praise of Donald Trump when like Donald's like, I hate NATO. And they'll be like, hey, Rutei, he just says he hated it.
Starting point is 01:13:28 Oh, but he loves it. He says hate, but he means love. And he does it in this like over the top way that almost appears, you know, you're watching, you know, some some like a parody movie. Like I'm trying to think of any movie that, you know, like Austin Powers or something. You know, so. But I think the diagnose, you know, I think it's a version. of what Putin does. And it's a version of how they diagnosed him.
Starting point is 01:14:01 And then, you know, when Mark Rute goes, Donald, everybody loves you. Can I show you the chart that I made for you, Donald? Here in NATO, we call it the Trump trillions, because trillions of dollars and we love you. And then Donald Trump would be like, I like this guy. You know who I don't like? I don't like Spain. I don't like Spain. They're mean to me.
Starting point is 01:14:24 They're mean to me. I mean, so, I mean, you see how Mark Rote deals with it. And I bet you behind the scenes, Mark Rute's, yeah, the guy's a psycho, the guy's a psychopath. But look, all I need to do is go to him, you're brilliant, Donald. And look what happened to NATO. I mean, say what you want. And I don't like Mark Rutei, but Zelensky got the Patriot Interceptor license that he needed in order to defend keep. So I'm sure if you privately asked Mark Rote, why do you behave like that, dude?
Starting point is 01:14:49 And by the way, there was that question from that Denmark reporter, you know, who said, you know, when you sit up there and Trump's threatening to invade Denmark and you're saying that helps the NATO alliance, like, do you have no self-respect? And Mark Routis, like, I think we've never been stronger coming out of this. I bet you, Mark Rute, at least behind the scene says, look, we've diagnosed him as this. This is what we're learning. You have to say this. It's terrible that this is the way it is. The United States, whether you like it or not, still has the largest military, this, that, and the other. And so we have to, in order to get the interceptor license to Zelensky,
Starting point is 01:15:24 I have to go and be, I mean, I, so Popak, the short of it is, that shouldn't be the way people behave, but I think that everybody has to, you know, but my own view of it personally, if you want to know my own view, I think you just have to be, I think when you do that, Trump sees that as weakness. So he keeps on testing you over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over. And I think the only way to do it, you know, and one of the reasons that this is dragged on so long as I think right away Trump does it. Then get the hell out of NATO. Then get the hell out.
Starting point is 01:15:54 We don't want you. See you later. Bye. Goodbye. We don't want you. F you. You know, okay, you want to do that. Sue me.
Starting point is 01:16:01 I'll sue you. You sue me. I'll take your deposition. Let's, I think that's the better approach. Well, and on your social media point, I'm not sure that, I'm not sure rapid response 47. And anything that Natalia harp posts, the human printer, matters to whether Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller,
Starting point is 01:16:21 want to ax FBI director Cash Patel and replace them with somebody who will quiet, lower the volume about all the things the FBI is doing without all the grandstanding and personal self-dealing that is on full display with Cash Patel because there was reporting, you and I did it a few weeks ago that they interviewed or they got a quote from Harp about all her, you know, if everybody thinks,
Starting point is 01:16:47 when you and I report on 271 or whatever it is, social media posed by Donald Trump in a 24-hour period. And the meltdowns, most of those are not Donald Trump. Most of those are an insomniac named Natalie Harp, who writes all this stuff for Donald Trump. She has complete controlling keys over all of his social media and his truth social account. And she's admitted that she does not clear any of what she writes
Starting point is 01:17:15 with Susie Wiles or anybody in the White House. She says she works for one person. His name is Donald Trump. So Trump is usually out in front of his own enablers, his own handlers. And so if HARP isn't under the control or regulation of the White House, rapid response 47 certainly is not either. So I would take that with a grain of salt if I were Cash Patel, whatever Stephen Chung had a rapid response 47 say today. But I don't disagree with you that it does appear that the unsinkable people in the administration seem to be the men, especially men who Donald Trump is in business with, like Howard Lutnik and Scott Bessett literally in business with, and not the women who are as incompetent as the men or maybe more so. But they're the ones that seem to get fired first.
Starting point is 01:18:10 I mean, you know, there's others that could go. But, you know, as you and I have said, if Pete Higginseth should have been long gone, RFK Jr. should be long gone. We should be talking about a whole other group of cabinet members. But yet we're not. And Cash Patel seems to have this ability of like a cockroach to survive. But, you know, you and I will be the first ones to say we were wrong, and Cash Patel was fired today.
Starting point is 01:18:34 Yeah, well, I'll give you an example, too. I mean, Christy Noam, right after the murders of multiple people, come out and, you know, and have you even heard Mark Wayne Mullen come out and address Lorenzo Selgato at Rojo's cold-blooded murder? You know, and it's, look, Mark Wayne Mullen's behavior in enabling what took place in Houston. Can you say it is any degree not as bad as Christy Gnome? It's just, to me, it's like, no, it, there is a level of, well, she's a woman and da-da-da-da-da-da, and she's horrible and she deserved to leave and was the worst person ever.
Starting point is 01:19:17 But so is he, you know? It's his ICE Border Patrol, Gestapo. It's his ICE Gestapo who killed in cold blood, who then covered it up and who did the exact same things we saw in Minnesota. And they tried to, you know, blame Lorenzo Slagato Oroho for his death. Then when there were people in the van with Lorenzo Oroho who said, no, you killed him in cold blood. They then tried to deport the witnesses, including his brother.
Starting point is 01:19:42 and the workers. We then learn about Lorenzo Sagato Oroho that he was, he's been in the country for 35 years. He has three children who are American citizens. He's a model person in the United States, although he wasn't fully lawfully here yet at this point, although he was always working towards that. He ran a business. He employed people, pay taxes. You know, like he ran a construction company. He was working that day. The Trump regime officials said that they were hunting Guatemalans, like as though that makes it better they were hunting Guatemalans who they said were criminals and then they saw a brown guy and they said oh well he must be Guatemalan and he's Mexican that you know it's a terrific racial profiling from the outset with all of this and then they
Starting point is 01:20:29 ram him they pull him out and they kill him he bleeds out on the street they take away his personal belong and they then engage in a massive cover-up they bring him they take away his personal belonging so the family can't even find his body. They don't even release the family to the body right away. And fortunately, the family got good legal support Lulac, other groups, the community rally, good investigative journalism, figured out what was happening or some of what was happening. And the Trump regime, you know, had people out today this morning with their talking points. Yeah, but we need to focus more on the criminal illegal immigrants. I wish people would care more about the holding the criminals accountable versus, you know, things like this. And it's like, I mean,
Starting point is 01:21:12 there were lots of magas out there who were, you know, who were saying this. And then, you know, I'll leave with this, you know, with with this one, Pope, if you want anything, but we're hitting that, we're hitting that moment on the show, which is there was also a bi-the same way Donald Trump wouldn't sign the housing affordability bill. Fortunately, it passed on its own because the deadline expired for him to veto it, but he said, I'm protesting it, right? A bipartisan housing affordability bill. You know, he was the one who killed the bipartisan immigration bill, which would have had strong borders. It would have expedited asylum claims to make sure that there was a judicial process quickly. habeas corpus would be given compassionate, a compassionate view towards immigrants, criminals, of course,
Starting point is 01:21:56 deported right away, strengthening the borders, paying border patrol more, actually solving the problem. bipartisan the same way you know the housing bill had kind of far right wing left wing joining bipartisan immigration bill left wing right wing Biden did it Trump said kill it let's cause the problems and then let's you know and then let's make this all one big game while the american people suffer and then we'll go hunting and we'll go torturing and terrorizing because that's our way of you know implementing our fascist project 2025 agenda and for me i say by bipartisan, you know, that was a solution to a difficult problem. And whether it's the memorandum of understanding with Iran, whether it's a housing affordability, whether it's the JCPOA, whether it is a
Starting point is 01:22:45 bipartisan immigration, whether it's his businesses. The guy is a destroyer Trump. He rips, he shreds. He doesn't build. He doesn't do deals. He's not a dealmaker. Deal makers don't go, I do deals, deal, deal, deal. You know who say that frauds say that. Deal makers don't go around saying I'm the strong people. Don't go on you see how strong I am. I'm a strong guy. I'm strong everybody. That's not the way people behave who are actually competent in doing the thing. So I leave with that, Popak, anything you want to say before we go.
Starting point is 01:23:14 No, absolutely. I think we've done a good rap at the intersection of law and politics today. Appreciate everybody. Appreciate so much my friendship with you, my friend. You do. Thanks, everybody. We'll see you next time on legal a half. Remember, if you or somebody who knows has been injured in a car accident,
Starting point is 01:23:29 an auto accident, a trucking accident, any type of negligence. caused by somebody else, a company that caused an injury, catastrophic injuries. Don't be shy. Call Popok 877 Popak AF or visit the Popok firm.com. Consultation is free. Reach out. See if you have a case. Also, make sure you subscribe on YouTube to LegalAF and Substack to LegalAF.
Starting point is 01:23:53 Thanks everybody for watching. We'll see you next time on LegalAF. Have a great one, everybody. Shout out Midas Mighty.

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