Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Legal AF 9/17/2026

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

Popok joined by guest host Adam Klasfeld of All Rise News, break down all the breaking law and politics news in the last 36 hours including bombshell developments in the Katie Phang Epstein Files case; the Kennedy Center Trump Naming and Closing case; the Grand Conspiracy investigation against Democratic icons; and Trump’s attempts to revive the James Comey and Lettia James indictments, and so much more at the intersection of law and politics. Dose Daily: Save 35% on your first month of subscription by going to https://dosedaily.co/LEGALAF or entering LEGALAF at checkout. Magic Spoon: Save $5 OFF your next order when you go to http://magicspoon.com/LEGALAF Smart Credit: Head to https://smartcredit.com/legalaf and start your 7-day trial for just $1. Select Quote: Get the right life insurance for you for less at https://SelectQuote.com/legalaf today! 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 Sidebar with Katie Phang: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sidebar-with-katie-phang/id1886801652 The Parnas Perspective: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-parnas-perspective/id1869165949 The Intersection with Michael Popok: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-intersection-with-michael-popok/id1818863274 MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Ken Harbaugh Show: https://meidasnews.com/tag/the-ken-harbaugh-show The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats 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 Five Minute News: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/five-minute-news/id1471715443 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMP operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Welcome to Legal A-F at the Midweek, and I'm so pleased to be joined for our guest host, Adam Klasfeld, of All Rise News, sitting in for a traveling. Karen Freeman McNifalo, and Adam, you and I are both covering some very interesting stories in the last 24 hours, things that happened even as we got on the air tonight here on Legal A-F. It's just an unbroken string, right? Adam, of wins for Katie Fang in her case. The case that nobody thought she could win, the case that nobody thought she should bring, all she's doing is winning. She must be getting tired of winning because she just won with two big orders that came out today by Judge Sullivan.

September 24th, circle it on your calendar. It's a big D-Day. And we're going to make a little bit of a plot boiler here. little bit of a cliffhanger. We'll tell you why in a minute. But she's just winning, winning, not only getting the documents for herself, but in honor of the Epstein survivors and the rest. Lots of interesting things have happened that are positive around the Epstein survivors and the Epstein files. Leon Black gets a contempt finding by Congress and a referral to the Department of Justice. Leon Black not only took dating advice, apparently, from Jeffrey.

Epstein, but he also was a major funder. Billions of dollars of money went to from Leon Black, financier in New York, to Jeffrey Epstein, which helped fund and fuel wittingly or unwittingly, his international child sex trafficking ring. And now the Department of Justice is on the horns of a dilemma. Are they going to follow their big boss and not follow these leads and go after people who may be sexual predators? Or are they going to ignore the referring? from the bipartisan oversight committee, 410, whatever it was. Or are they going to investigate? And I want to get your opinion about that, Adam, as well.

Good development there. Cash Patel, speaking of the Epstein files, got roasted to within an inch of his life. People think he survived that. I don't think so. I think he's dead man walking. And I'll give you my opinion, and we'll get it from Adam as well. And he certainly didn't cover himself in any glory. about how he answered or didn't answer about the Epstein files and what he's doing about it.

I just interviewed Danny Bensky today up on Legal AF YouTube channel, one of the Epstein survivors. She testified against Todd Blanche and his confirmation hearing. She was in the room for the hearing. And I asked her, has anyone from the FBI reached out to you or any of the other survivor leaders or survivors following Todd Blanche's confirmation? And she said, no, none have. None are going to, especially when Cash Patel is there in charge. So we'll follow up with that.

I also want to pick Adam Classfeld's brain about the grand conspiracy. Did it just immolate because of the departure of Joe DeGeneva? I mean, there's no greater grand conspiracy theorists that was in the Trump administration than Joe DeGeneva. He noisily departed. What does that mean for people like John O'Brien and the CIA director? Barack Obama, the Clintons, is that still alive? The embers of it's still there ready to be flamed by the Trump administration.

And then, you know, we got Lindsay Halligan back in the news. I thought she'd stay under that rock. She crawled under in disgrace. I love that picture of her. It's always the same picture, fixing her earpiece. I thought she crawled back under that rock when a federal judge fired her in disgrace from being the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. But no, no, they're trying to get.

her back in along with John Sarkoni. This is now the chickens coming home to roost about all those U.S. attorney acting interim U.S. attorney deputy, you're your own deputy U.S. attorney thing. So Donald Trump avoids having them confirmed by the Senate. And now they're all up at a various levels of appeal. So I want to cover that as well. Okay, that's my breathless introduction. Hi, Adam Klassfeld all rise news. How are you? Doing well. How are you doing, Popak? I'm doing great. What have you been? You've got an amazing one-man band apparatus called All Rise News that puts you in courtrooms, breathlessly reporting like I do, from inside courtrooms, outside courtrooms, and the rest. What are you following these days? Because I want to get people over to All Rise News as well.

Thank you very much. I hope I keep my breath while I'm reporting. Just now, I just finished a conversation with one of the co-founders of Hands Off the Arts about the latest in the Kennedy Center litigation. We're going to talk about that today. of course, there has been a call for an emergency hearing about the unlawful closure, as Representative Joyce Beatty puts it. But there's also in the worlds of the courts, all that's happening, and also the world of civic engagement. On Friday, there's going to be a protest around the Kennedy Center building. It's called Hands Around the Kennedy Center, giving it a proverbial hug. So talking to an activist on the ground about the litigation, about her time inside the Kennedy Center, that's one of the things that I was just doing. Of course, I've been covering all of Trump's defeats in the lead-up to the election.

His defeat overwhelmingly by the Supreme Court in the mail-in-voting litigation. And, you know, Popak, we cover many of the same topics, but we, we, give our analysis as we see it. Oh, absolutely. I mean, no, no, there's together. If you, if you get, this is like, you know, a well-balanced diet. It would be legal A.F. And Adam Kassfeld.

And then when you're done with that day, you got it, man. You've got all with all without blowing smoke or sunshine, all of the truth serum that you need about what's going on at the intersection of law and policy. in the courtrooms. That's why I love working with you. That's why we, you know, we kind of vibe on the same, we vibrate on the same frequency. And you take it from your angle, a longtime legal commentator, I take it from my angle, you know, 35 years in courtrooms. We kind of put it together. We ying and yank it, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I enjoy our conversation. We yin and yang. We have, we trade jokes. There's plenty of opportunity for jokes when it happens.

We're going to talk about that one, beastiality. I never thought in my, if you would have told me at the start of my legal career that at some point I'd be talking about beastiality and obviously somebody in Cash Patel who doesn't know what that word means or that concept means at a Senate oversight committee hearing, I'll be like, what are you, what edible are you eating? What are you talking about that will never in a mill, so if you had beastiality on your bingo card and Cash Patel's hearing, you won. Why don't we kick it off with all jocularity aside?

Why don't we kick it off with something serious, which is, are they about to demolish the Kennedy Center? And what's Judge Chris Cooper going to do about it? You got one trustee who is out there. Talk about quixotic. Talk about tilting at windmills, tilting at performing art centers. You got Representative Joyce Beattie by yourself among 30, different members of the board of trustees for the Kennedy center fighting this out in court i'm always struck by when i when i pull up documents in the case like today it's representative choice be

versus the Kennedy center where are the rest of them why i mean i have it's an honest question like there's other democrats that are on there where are they i don't know why she's taking the beating no pun intended by herself um but she's the one it's dragging this thing into court why don't you update everybody about what like what just happened in the last 24 hours and including a new ruling by Judge Cooper just yesterday and a new filing today by a representative Joyce Beatties people. Well, you had mentioned Don Quixote. Unlike Mr. Quixote, the congresswoman keeps winning.

She has won two separate rulings against, you know, Trump's scheme to get his name on the Kennedy Center. Judge Cooper has blocked that gambit twice. And the second time he blocked that gambit, immediately after the board, which is all Trump-installed people pretty much right now, votes to shut the whole thing down. And it happened within hours, perhaps even minutes. It's hard to say. And so what happened today is that the Congresswoman's lawyers rushed into court. They filed an emergency motion, said that the closure is unlawful because it is. I mean, I'm going to read from their motion, because they quote the judge's order, and it doesn't get any more clear than this.

They say, this court's order and joined the board from effectuating its shutdown resolutions, quote, until the board approves any closure consistent with the court's memorandum opinion and the court issues a further order dissolving or modifying the preliminary injunction. Then earlier this week, Cooper in court, the judge, went and put the government on the spot, up and said this. Were there any doubt this court made clear at yesterday's hearing that if defendants intended to close the center, they could and must move to lift the preliminary injunction. The board has voted to close the center, but the court has not dissolved or modified its order. It seems defendants may be violating the clear and unambiguous order of the court. So they want this

emergency hearing, and they have called for, quote, a high-level decision-maker to attend that hearing. And so that is the state of play. Judge Cooper is taking this very seriously. He's ordered the government to respond to the motion tomorrow morning, Thursday morning at 10 a.m. And we'll see if we have an emergency hearing before the end of the week. Yeah, one of my favorite parts of the filings was they sent in a staff member for the law firm representing representative beady this bridget kennedy baleigh who went over there just kept for two hours just got people inside the kennedy center to say we're closed which they're not supposed to be uh we're doing construction not supposed to be we're doing demolition maybe uh we're putting up gates everywhere we're delivering

more gates they were actually putting up gates as she was walking out the front door as if they were speeding up their gate, their gating of the Kennedy Center. And look, what we're watching is Donald Trump trying to choke out the Kennedy Center unless he gets his name on the door. I mean, as Norm Eisen put it, this is, we're watching a kidnapping. And this is the ransom note. And the ransom note is put my name on the building. He said it. I'm not making this up. Donald Trump said in a social media posting, I have no incentive effectively to do anything and lift a finger to help the Kennedy Center, which has been crumbling. I love to social media post today from one of the people at Kennedy Center. Decades of neglect. I don't know. Are they skipping over the

four years that Donald Trump was president before when he didn't do a thing towards the Kennedy Center? Who are we blaming? Barack Obama? George Washington. Who came after John F. Kennedy? Lyndon Baines Johnson? So the I won't lift a finger and I have 17 million dollars that I've collected, which is a pittance, and I may or may not turn it over. Here's the question. for you, Adam, where is the $250 million that the Congress has allocated for this year for the repair and maintenance of the physical plan of the Kennedy Center? Where is it? You know, it seems that $250-plus million would be enough to patch that leaky roof they keep pointing to. And by the way, that roof, that leaked, that would, that happened the day after a major storm.

and that's not new for the Kennedy Center. There was an article in the Washington Post in 1977 about the plaster falling from the roof, and the show went on, and they fixed the roof later. President Carter at the time didn't decide to take the Kennedy Center hostage by replacing the board with his loyalists and decide to essentially extort the courts to allow them to glorify himself on the building

because President Carter had ethics. President Carter had dignity, and President Carter didn't do this. What happened to the money? I think we should ask Congress that because they were the ones who allocated this taxpayer money, all $250 million of it, that was set aside specifically for this renovation

that they claim has been. dire urgency that it needs to happen now, we need to close it in order for it to happen. There has never been any accounting of it. Trump created this supposed fund, the Trump Kennedy Center Fund, even though there is no Trump Kennedy Center. Even the name might be a violation of the judge's ruling, but we'll set that aside. He's admitted in court through his attorneys that it hasn't raised a dime. So there's plenty of money for this renovation.

It doesn't require Trump to go to corporate America for bribes for his private projects, for them to patch a leaky roof. They're just not doing it. Yeah. And the judge's order a couple days ago, which he found them in violation of his permanent injunctions about the naming. And now he's pulling everybody back together again. I'm just waiting. And I've been actually advocating for Norm Isson and the rest of the people to file motions

to find that the board has breached its fiduciary duty in the public trust and has therefore forfeited their right to be trusted with this asset. If a board of a public company or a board of trustees of a public memorial wasn't doing their job and was letting it fall into disrepair, judges have inherent authority. based on motion practice to replace the board or at least put a monitor in that reports to the judge and and does an honest accounting of what's happening there i don't know what has i actually just joked in a in a video of mine if i've practiced in miami as well we would have already brought this motion in Miami we'd already be in front of a federal judge saying that board has abdicated its

responsibility we should have a hearing and have an entry hearing about the breaches of fiduciary duty the the duty of loyalty and prudence. And, Judge, you should put a receiver or a monitor in place right now, because if it's as dire as they are saying, they are responsible for it. Right. And they are incompetent. And where does it say in any act of Congress that a president gets to pick and choose from his own money and funds,

which memorials and monuments and public's property get attention and which don't? You know, I joked, but only half joked with, you know, We got a president that tore down a third of the White House, you know, well, I don't like the Washington Monuments. It's too poignant. I don't like obelisks. I don't like the color. I'm going to stop paying for the maintenance of it. Is that where we're at now?

He gets to pick and choose which memorials and monuments and public property he's going to maintain and which ones he doesn't. Now, that is not the law. Right. And the sooner that Judge Cooper, I know what he's doing. He's building the trap. He's setting the trap and he's baiting it. and then Donald Trump's going to put his big fat foot in the bear trap, and it's going to snap.

Maybe not fast enough for a lot of our audience, but that's what's going to happen. What do you think Chris Cooper does next? You know, I wonder when his patience is going to run out because the last order was to enforce his original order. He found them effectively in violation of his original order. And I just read the text of the order that says very clearly, you come to me and get permission before you close the Kennedy Center. And they didn't wait, you know, a day. They didn't wait six hours to flout that by having the board take this vote,

and they immediately shuttered the institution. So I wonder whether the words contempt come up at the next hearing. You know, I wonder there has been some reporting. You mentioned the possibility of a receivership. There has been some reporting indicating that the topic was broached. I don't know whether directly or indirectly, but there's some reporting by lawfare to that effect. I wonder when he starts taking the gloves off because reporter Roger Parloff said, and I think that this is correct because I've seen him in court.

He has the patience of Job. And Roger Parloff of lawfare said he didn't mean that as a compliment. Yeah, I mean, and I know our audience is getting frantic a bit. You know, another patient guy is Emmett Sullivan with Katie Fang. And I want to take a quick first break. And I want to celebrate a number of things before we do. This is starting tomorrow is the two-year birthday of Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We launched it on Constitution Day.

two years ago, Constitution Day is also tomorrow. And in two years, we now, with Adam Classfeld's help and other major contributors, we are now at 1.24 million, 1,240,000 subscribers strong, over 820 million views of our videos, of our content, of our work, such an amazing audience. And now it would be such a memorable time for you to take a moment, come over to a legal AF YouTube channel where I do most of my work and hit that free subscribe button. You're supporting independent journalism and commentary. You're supporting what we do here on the Midas Touch Network. You're supporting the work of people like Adam Classfeld who does his video work over on

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along with our guest host, Adam Klassfeld, of All Rise News. Adam, you and I've been following closely what that intrepid reporter and good friend of ours Katie Fang has done. It's a lawsuit that people said, literally told her, you're not going to win. Don't file it. It's ridiculous. You don't have injury. You don't have standing. Who are you to go after the Epstein files when others have failed? And she said, yeah, I'm going to file the lawsuit. And so she filed the lawsuit and it's been an uninterrupted string of victories, including today, more than once in front of Judge Sullivan. Why don't you give your overview of what happened today and what has been ordered, and I'll kind of do some color kippetsing behind the scenes.

Well, right now, Judge Sullivan has rejected the Trump DOJ's claims that they shouldn't be forced to hand over the FBI interviews. The FBI interviews, of course, of the woman who was then a teenager accusing Trump of sexual assault. Judge Sullivan will inspect those FBI interviews known as 302s privately after rejecting the Trump DOJs claims that they couldn't share them because they were, quote, duplicative. He said there was no reason at all. I'm going to read from the ruling right now. The court rejects defendant's assertion that the underlying handwritten FBI notes that form the basis for certain FD 302 reports were properly withheld because they are substantial. similar to and therefore duplicative of type written reports.

The review protocol contains no directive requiring the withholding of substantially similar and duplicative documents. And he went on later to say, these aren't duplicative. There's evidence that shows that they have identified nearly 100 additional examples of handwritten interview notes produced by defendant. Also, there's the judge ordered the disclosure of foreign language documents, and who knows how large a trance that is. Remember, this was a global sex trafficking ring.

It operated in France. It operated in Eastern Europe. And one of the, and there was a very stinging rebuke of the rationale to withhold those documents that Judge Sullivan said that it was without. merit. They cited no authority for administrative inconvenience. Basically, the Trump DOJ was saying, we don't have the manpower to translate these documents, and therefore there's, you know, the risk that victims' identities can be exposed. I said administrative inconvenience is no excuse, and Judge Sullivan ordered the release of those. He's ordered a list of the administrative record. I mean, it's a sweeping

win, Popak. And as you said, this litigation has been an uninterrupted string of victories from Katie Fang. And I think that most of the folks thought the key hurdle to this lawsuit was one that she vaulted months ago. It was standing. And as soon as Judge Sullivan accepted that a reporter suffers informational injury when the government doesn't release documents that were mandated, released by Congress, that was when she won. And ever since that moment, I mean, the law was clear. All of these excuses, we can't hand over these Trump-related interview notes because they're duplicates of the typewritten reports. That was easily rejected and was rejected by Judge Sullivan today. And the last time I remember us speaking about this case, you know,

It seems like a couple of months ago when Judge Sullivan read the Riot Act to the Trump Justice Department where he's reminding them that he's the only federal judge in that circuit that has found the government in civil contempt. So, you know, this is her latest victory, but I don't think it's going to be her last one. No, first of all, as you said, on September 24th, the judge is going to get in his private review, the dozens and dozens of pages of handwritten notes of the victim who says she was sexually abused at 13 by Donald Trump, handwritten notes. Judges already said these are not duplicates, these are separate documents, and I want to review them. Review them on the way to producing them. He's going to release them eventually. We're dacted to protect dignity and the privacy of the victim to the public as well and to Katie Fang.

That's happening. And so, you know, that if you're, you know, having been a lawyer, having to report occasional bad news to a client, the phone call from Todd Blanche to Donald Trump was, a boss, you know, those 30 or 40 handwritten pages of interview notes with a woman who said you sexually abused her at 13. Yeah, they're going to the judge and they're going to be produced to the public eventually. What? So that was not a good phone call from Blanche.

And I also like the fact that on the administrative record. The reason that is important is because the secret sauce for Katie was not only proving informational standing, but also that this was an administrative procedures act case, that they had made, that the agency was the Department of Justice, that they had made a final agency action by announcing in two pages that now infamous two-page memo, unsigned, undated. Nobody took, nothing says transparency like nobody wants to put their name on. on it that came out and said, we're FBI DOJ, we're done. The investigation is over. There is no list. We're not prosecuting anybody. And oh, by the way, Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide. We're done here? That was final agency action for an agency called the Department of Justice

and the FBI. Therefore, they are also entitled to the administrative record about that decision making and about the decision making about we're done producing. Once they announce we're done, producing documents. We're done. Three million. That's it. That was final agency action. So they're going to get now the administrative record about the decision making, about that decision, what went into the box, what didn't go into the box, how it was filtered, how was redacted, that should all be there. And you know it's not going to be. So there's going to be a fight over the administrative record that the judge is now ordered, you know what? In October, I want to see the list of the documents.

And in the middle of October, I want to see the actual documents for the administrative record. This is the tip of the iceberg, literally. The preliminary injunction that Katie brought with her lawyers, Brendan Ballou, of Public Integrity, is just about five subcategories of documents. The underlying case is about all of the production, the missing millions of pages, and whether a federal monitor should be put in place, like a former federal judge,

to both look back and look forward, look back on what they did and look at what they didn't do, and make recommendations and make a report to the judge. That's what the underlying case is all about. This is all a fight mostly about the five categories subject to the preliminary injunction. So we got FBI and we've got you got to start with the foreign language documents and you got to review and produce them. You don't have to translate them, but inevitably they have to translate them because you can't produce things you don't know what they say because you might get in trouble that way.

So he's got that up and running. And then I love the point, Adam, when the judge said, since he did the reporting, and I did the reporting about in the courtroom, when they said, when Andrew Block's for the Department of Justice said, well, if you could just issue an order, he says, you mean another order, an order that says, I mean it this time? So now he said, if you think what I've just written is not clear and unambiguous, let me know that by the 21st of September, and I will clear it up for you. Because they don't want any more, this is the trap being laid, right?

They don't want any more. Well, we couldn't really figure it out in our good faith interpretation. No, F that. Tell me if you can't figure it out. I'll set you straight right now. And then on the answer side, he also found waiver. He said, you're going to have to answer the suit now. You have to file an answer, join the case so they can move for summary judgment.

And no, you don't get to have another motion practice. You don't get to move to dismiss or complain again because you missed all the deadlines. And so no, you know, talk about being at Witt's end. You can see he's at his last raw nerve with the Department of Justice. And he's giving them these tripwires of September 24th and October. And then I think it's just a major explosion. and get his cart row where he lowers, boom, and he lowers the boom.

What do you think? Right, right. No, I think that's exactly right. And if listeners are thinking that, you know, they find it frustrating by all of this process and all of these dates and all of the, you know, putting the ducks in a row, just remember what we've seen throughout Trump's second term.

We were talking about the Kennedy Center earlier. During the last order blocking Trump's name on the building again, Judge Cooper made a point. about the Trump DOJ's verbal, I think it was linguistic gymnastics. And that's what they do. They try to find an escape clause. And that's what happened in the fight over the turning away of the planes from El Salvador and the defiance of the judge's orders to bring the planes back.

The government tried to come up with some sort of excuse of, oh, that was your version. order in the court, but you issued a written order later. And two judges on the D.C. Circuit accepted it. So I think that all of the judges, and certainly Judge Sullivan here in the Epstein case, are wise to the Trump Justice Department's game. They're preemptively taking away any excuse that can lead to even more of a logjam on appeal before lowering the boom. And, you know, we talked earlier about the kind of slow, deliberate method that Judge Cooper was setting up. I think it's double as much for Judge Sullivan, because with Judge Sullivan, he's already tipped his hand that contempt is in the picture here.

He's warned them. I've done it before. I'm the only one in this circuit who's done it before. So don't test me. And that's why I definitely agree with you, Michael. He means business. Yeah. And, you know, this is the, you know, I think this is a lesson or has set a blueprint,

so proud of what Katie Fang has done. And I think she won't be the last, this won't be the last we've heard of Katie Fang suing. It won't be the last Katie Fang lawsuit. And hopefully other independent media also says, you know what? We have standing. We have informational standing under the Fang doctrine, you know, right, which I think will be, like, taught law school now there wasn't many cases that were cited to support that that was a new finding by a judge about you know the analysis of informational injury and i think it should open the door

to other cases i mean listen frankly we've thought about it i've thought about it you know we've maybe we should bring that case you know maybe we should bring the foia freedom of information act that or maybe we should do it and uh you know for me it's always been i sort of want to be on this side of the glass. But, but when you sit around long enough and justice isn't being done, and mainstream media is reticent and won't do it, and others won't step forward, like the survivors weren't going to do it. Why, why put them, why is it required that they have to sue to get justice in that way? You know, it was a perfect opening for somebody like Katie to step forward. So I'm so proud of what she's done. And imagine the kind of alternate reality where it was the survivors that

brought this case. The entire Trump DOJ defense has been, they've been claiming to withhold all these documents for the survivors and kind of set it aside for a moment the fact that they released private information of these survivors and had to be, you know, who had to go and take these files off the internet. Some of them photographs, I mean, horrible stuff. Imagine if the survivors actually brought this lawsuit and they were

saying, we can't release these documents for the plaintiff who was seeking this. But, you know, Katie Fang was the one who did it. Katie Fang is the one who established this precedent. This is something that, you know, this

is happening in the district of D.C. And so it's a new host of documents that every DC reporter can access. And it'll probably be used as, you know, it'll be cited in other courts around the country, maybe not binding there. But DC is big. DC is a news center of the United States. It's a significant win not only for the release of the Epstein files, but also for freedom of information.

more broadly. You don't need to resort only to FOIA. If the government has a legal duty to release documents and they're not doing it, then you are injured as a journalist and you can sue. Yeah, absolutely. And a good week for Epstein survivors overall. You've got Leon Black, financier, friend of Jeffrey Epstein, took dating advice, got fixed up with women, apparently through him, also funded Jeffrey Epstein's empire, you know, a billion dollars given to Jeffrey Epstein at a time when he was, you know, spending money on thousands and thousands of flights to fly, you know, on Air Epstein, all sorts of a shady network to bring women from dozens of countries to meet with powerful men and himself to be preyed upon. And so he didn't want to answer questions that

were posed to him by the bipartisan House Oversight Committee, led by MAGA, led by by Chairman Comer. And now he's got a finding of contempt against him. And now a referral over to the Department of Justice. You know, when Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro didn't want to respond to the Jan 6th committee, there was a referral of contempt to the Department of Justice, and they were prosecuted and put in jail. But what is this Department of Justice going to do next?

What do you think is going to happen? You know, we will see. We know that the operation. and the order of the day for the Trump Department of Justice is reward friends or protect friends and clobber enemies. And so I do not think that a referral from Congress means much unless the administration really wants to do it. About Leon Black, he was also the subject of a probe by Senator Ron Wyden, who's the top Democrat on the Finance Committee. and of the kind of follow the money investigation.

And you had mentioned that this was an overwhelming bipartisan vote for the referral for Leon Black. But Senator Wyden, when pulling the money trail and writing the report, you know, I mean, Leon Black was a main character of it. And he had no help from Republicans there. They wouldn't join him and give him subpoena power to look under the hood there. So with the, I wanted to make that point because with, the upcoming elections, so the midterms coming up, Senator Wyden can have subpoena power. Leon Black, as Senator Wyden's report found, was Epstein's single largest funder for a certain

period of his life, that that money that was paid to Epstein purportedly for tax and estate services, which the senator is very skeptical of, was used in furtherance of Epstein's sex trafficking scheme, according to this report. And that's how Epstein used the money that he got this way. So it really shows the stakes of the election coming up that if there, you know, I doubt that if Senator Wyden has subpoena power, that he's going to let this go just because the final report is out. And sometimes, you know, it's great.

when there's bipartisan cooperation as there was in the House Oversight Committee. But there isn't that in the Senate right now. Yeah. And then finally, absolutely. You got Cash Patel. You know, while Todd Blanche was busy, this is like, this is not getting enough press. Todd Blanche thought it was appropriate to fill in as the press secretary for a day. I mean, to be the political propagandist for the administration while he's that.

the head of the Department of Justice and he thought nothing of it. Like this is some sort of talk show where they had a rotating guest host to try to pick the winner. You know, taking questions both as the Department of Justice head and as the mouthpiece and spokesperson for the Department of Justice. I mean, it is the levels of immorality and lack of ethics of this of Todd Blanche, the Department of Justice just as just boundless, just absolutely boundless. And while that was going on, that shit show circus was going on, you got Cash Patel in that circuit, that dumpster clown fire,

whatever that's supposed to be in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And he was asked in dozens and dozens of questions about what he was doing about the Epstein files. How did you read his performance? And then we'll tie it to the Epstein scandal. Well, the FBI 302s we were talking about earlier in connection with Katie Fang's litigation, he claimed not to know about them. And that just doesn't pass a laugh test.

I mean, this has been a topic of national conversation. They were withheld. You know, there's a reason they are being withheld. And he just claimed entirely not to know about them. We had this kind of ongoing pattern where he insults the people who, the senators, who question him vigorously. And he suddenly, you know, that you had mentioned that bestiality sidebar earlier. And, you know, it's interesting that anyone thought he did so well with his performance when those are the headlines.

That's the headline. How many headlines ran that day about Cash Patel defending, lowering the standards to allow applicants who have engaged in beastiality? And that was the question that had caused Senator Kennedy of Louisiana to, you know, be aghast. And, you know, even he was giving tough questions to Cash Patel at one point about that. But that was what jumped out at me, his denial of any knowledge of these 302s in response to questions by Senator Whitehouse. I spoke to Senator Whitehouse recently on Legal AF and All Rise News, on this. subject about his attempt to get the information through Congress. It's not only going through the courts, it's the courts and Congress searching for information

about these FBI interviews. So that was the biggest moment for me. What was it for you when in terms of Cash Patel's performance talking about the Epstein Files? Yeah, for me, it was just this complete inability to end up. answer straight questions with the truth posed to him by people like Senator White House. He said there's no open files. They're not going after any predators. There's nothing to see here. It's all a lie. When you talk to survivors as you and I have like Danny Benske, she said point

blank that none of the survivors that she knows of have been interviewed or even been tapped on the shoulder by the FBI. They're actually unwilling to go and pick up the phone call themselves because they don't think there's a receptive audience in the FBI to do it. They'd rather cooperate with state authorities like New Mexico and maybe New York, get out from under the federal prosecutors who they don't believe have any incentive or any interest in good faith to pursue their leads. Danny Benson knows of at least five predators that have not been brought to justice, and you can multiply that by the other members of the survivor community that have come forward. And yet he sits there with his shit-eaten grin, making it all about him, oh, you're attacking my girlfriend,

And my loved one, my how dare you? It's like, you know what? That got old really quick, Cash. And your burned book going after, you know, thick, what do I say against Dick Durbin? You know, this Pam Bondi school of, you know, trying to run out the clock and make it all about you. It's not all about you. It's about our national security. It's about if we're ready for the next 9-11.

It's if it had to prevent it. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, don't, I don't, I don't think so. And, and, and I think they have, and, and I think they have underestimated, talk about the political side of law and politics. I think they have, I think the, the Trump administration has underestimated the public disgust and ire with how they have mistreated the Epstein survivors and how they have allowed clownish figures like Cash Patel to have his hands on the levers of power when it comes to our national security. I think people have had it.

I think it's not just the people, the tens of millions of people have taken to the streets. I think there's a pent-up demand to vote and to take them out. And I think they have underestimated it, hoping that nobody, the news story will somehow shift, and the winds of fortune will shift in the next 48 days in their favor. And from what I'm seeing, what I'm hearing, and the polling that I'm reviewing, this is going to be a bloodbath, rightly so, for the Republican Party. Right. I mean, because Republicans themselves, and in particular, the MAGA coalition do not like what the Trump administration, is doing with the Epstein files and the Iran War. Those are two of the most unpopular actions of the many unpopular actions of this administration. You had mentioned public safety, national security, where that actually kind of collides with the Epstein story is a story that I talked very recently

with Senator White House about. There was a Washington Post investigation that the Trump Department of Justice isn't cooperating with international. probes on this. So this has to do with one, our mutual legal assistance treaties with other countries. The government of Poland wants to look into Epstein's possible ties to the Russian government. Why are we stonewalling that investigation? Right. It would be one thing if we don't want to do it, but right, why are we blocked? Well, why are we blocking for years the investigation into the Tate Brothers? Why was the Trump administration and those around him interfering with the Romanian investigation of the Tate brothers?

Another, how many international child sex trafficking rings and one president do I have to talk about? Or you and I have to do commentary on. I mean, one is too many. Two is obscene. Absolutely. Absolutely. And now the Tate brothers, their arguments failed in court. They're going to have to stay in jail on route to their prosecution if they are extradited.

But they didn't get to get bailed out by saying we were lying about our ostentatious wealth. The court didn't buy it. But you're right. Once too many, two is obscene. Absolutely. As you and I have said, and I do believe this in my heart of hearts. If the Epstein scandal wasn't on the radar and the stench of it all over Donald Trump, I am quite confident that if it was just the Tate brothers,

then Donald Trump would have been intervening a lot on their behalf. You know, Baron Trump's buddies, he would have intervened on their behalf, but he couldn't do it politically. Even Donald Trump couldn't do it politically, given the ire over and the public outrage over how he's mishandled and insulted the Epstein survivors. Right, right. And about that, Poland investigation. I just want to put a fine point on it. We're talking about this during a week

when we find out Don Jr. had a Russian oligarch bankroll his wedding festivities. And why are we stonewalling the Polish government's quest to get information about what possible ties to the Russian government Jeffrey Epstein had. That's what we're dealing. How about the standard, the new standard that Todd Blanche came up with when he was questioned about, are you going to investigate Umar Kremlev and the Putin, obviously the Putin connected money, money laundered through the international boxing commission, uh, through Dubai into Don Jr. and Bettina's wedding account. Are you going to investigate that? Here's the new standard. I don't know if you caught it, um, uh, Adam. The department.

of Justice won't investigate if Todd Blanche has never heard of the person. Right. Or if he's heard that he's a good friend of somebody. He actually said in response, I don't know, the president doesn't know who it is. I don't really know who it is. It's the Don, the president's son has said he's a friend of his. So what would I be investigating? I don't know.

Why don't you investigate and find out who he is? This is easy, Todd. Umar Kumlev, Kremlev. doesn't spend a dime of IBC money without Putin's approval. That money didn't come as a wedding gift, you know, with a check or a savings bond from Umar Kremlin to the happy bride and groom. It came through a series of accounts. We call that, what's the word for it again?

Money laundering into, and no, it's not a defense. Here's the other thing. I don't know if you've heard of, Adam, and I definitely fell asleep during law school during this, if you are the recipient of money laundered funds, but you put in all caps in your social media that there's no conspiracy, that is automatic defense to a criminal case. Did you ever hear that? Also, if you call it a hoax all the time, and if you repeat the name of the country with which you have a troubling relationship, say three times.

You know, that is also ironclad in court. Or we're not being fair. You and I as independent commentators because Umar Kremlev and Putin didn't pay for the way. He paid for the after-party. See, it's the after-party defense. Right, right. Well, you know, just a couple of days of festivities

on a private Bahamanian island. What's that between friends? Especially when the benefactor was involved in an organization that is sanctioned by the Ukrainian government for abducting kids. I absolutely. I had to rub my eyes when I saw the name. I was like, is this a long-lost episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle? Is this Boris and Natasha?

The guy's name is Umar Kremlev? Is that, is that, I mean, seriously, you have like a black hat and a black trench coat. We've seen the photos, basically. So when we come back, We go into the home stretch of legal A.F. at the midweek, I'm here with our good friend Adam Classfeld of all rise news. We're going to talk about the grand conspiracy. Did it collapse? Did it not collapse? What started as a silent resignation became a noisy resignation for the head conspiracy theorist in the Trump administration, a top prosecutor. They name a Joe DeGeneva,

but there's more in that story. And I want to get, I want to break it down with you with Adam. And why do I have to talk about Lindsay Halligan again? And why are they fighting to bring her back? She should be happy that she got fired from the job she was incompetent to perform when she went after James Comey and Letitia James and others as an insta prosecutor. And now, no, they're fighting to bring her back, fighting for the president to be able to appoint anybody with any title and make them into the U.S. attorney at will. No, there's a thing called the Appointments Clause. And you and I will cover all that when we come back. Legal AF, the YouTube channel, which is, you know, the, we stand on the shoulders of the podcast with the YouTube channel.

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midweek with Michael Popock and our honored, well, we're honored to have him as our guest host in Adam Glassfeld, all rise news sitting in for Karen Freeman, McNifalo. Adam, want you to take the lead on the grand conspiracy and Joe DeGeneva and what we've learned directly from lawyers for like John O'Brien, the former CIA director, who's fighting it out in Judge Gia Cobb's courtroom, even before he's indicted. He actually rushed into court, filed his own motions, setting up his future motion for vindictive prosecution dismissal. Why don't you catch us all up on the, what's going on with that grand conspiracy in front of, speaking of grand conspiracy in front of Judge Aileen Cannon up in Florida? Well, take it from there. Sure, thanks, Spopach.

You know, one thing I'll just say off the bat, I was not expecting Joe de Genova, of all people, to make a noisy exit because Joe DeGeneva, after having been a Reagan era prosecutor, became a reliable Maga stalwart and the type of person who showed up on cable for nearly the better part of a decade saying that Brennan is a traitor and arguing about the deep state. And he's the one, one might say as a result, who was packed, who was picked, handpicked to lead the grand conspiracy investigation. And now he's out. John Brennan, one of his main arguments in filing this lawsuit to just make the government preserve its evidence so that he could fight it with vindictive prosecution motions and things of that nature. one of the things that he pointed out is that Joe DeGeneva was out to get him.

And all of a sudden, Joe DeGeneva turns around and says, it makes a noisy exit and says, essentially, he's been pressured to move too fast, that he wanted to run a proper investigation into an absurd conspiracy investigation. Let's suggest we should remind listeners what this grand conspiracy investigation is. it's every sort of MAGA podcast bleeding that you've heard about the Deep State wrapped into a criminal investigation. It is the theory that every investigation that annoyed Trump from Crossfire Hurricane to his criminal indictments was in fact a criminal conspiracy by the Deep State and all the people he doesn't

like from John Brennan on outward. dozens of enemies on the list that he's checking off the box. Now, Joe DeGeneva is out, saying that he wanted to run it right, but the, but main justice wants to move too quickly. You know, it sounds a bit like a frustrated chef saying, you know, I didn't have the organic ingredients for my turd sandwich. It's, it's absolutely ludicrous. But he's out, but the investigation is ongoing. They're still going to pursue this theory that an investigation that ran more than a decade ago

is somehow going to vault the statute of limitations and they're going to connect them all to an elaborate plot against Trump. Even though the investigations that they claim are a criminal conspiracy led to indictments, in many cases, criminal conviction, and in other cases would likely have led to criminal convictions had they gone to trial. So Joe DeGeneva, the standard bearer for this investigation, the lead grand conspiracy theorist,

is exiting noisily, but the farcical probe continues. Yeah, they've got people inside the administration who are also conspiracy theorists, who are now, I guess, trying to replace Joe DeGeneva. But they got a major problem that nobody ever talks about. You can't do a grand conspiracy theory, prosecution, and investigation in one location, unless that one location is the situs for the crimes. And the Supreme Court made that ruling earlier this year about criminal cases, about venue. And everybody was like, oh, that's why Jack Smith did it at Mar-a-Lago and did it with,

Instead of doing it in D.C. Because he knew that decision was going to come down. No one talks about that decision. I think that's why people come to legal IF. You can't, whatever Barack Obama didn't do, or John O'Bredden didn't do, or James Comey didn't do it in Florida. Right. And so Miami or Fort Pierce, Southern District of Florida, is not the proper venue.

If they did anything, they did it in D.C. And so you'd have to be having a, You'd have to have, wait for it, everybody, Chief Judge Jeb Bosberg, presiding over grand juries in the District of Columbia, who is on the enemy's list for Donald Trump because of his, we haven't updated that on that recently, we'll do it soon, about his criminal contempt proceedings in Donald Trump's use of the Alien Enemies Act to remove people without due process. And so they've gone after Jeb Bosberg, so they try to get far away from him as possible. The problem is you can't just rant. Like some people may be thinking, well, why can't, why don't they just go to North Dakota?

What do they just go to that one judge in Abilene, Texas, or, you know, Judge Casmeric, right? Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, if you could run a grand conspiracy anywhere, but the issue is you can't. So there's a fundamental flaw. There's a fundamental fly in the ointment when it comes to this grand conspiracy is it's that you can't cite it in Florida. and that will be the subject of future motion practice whenever they get any indictment off the ground. But I do appreciate the aggressive approach and posture to John Brennan.

I'm watching it like, is this going to work? It's like genius if it works, where you sue first in D.C. in a friendly territory about your future potential indictment. Even Gia Cobb, who was presiding over the case recently, was like, wait a minute, you're not indicted yet, but you want me to order something about them preserving documents because you think they're going to, just the fact they're having the hearing, John Brennan is won. The fact that there's even a hearing about it, whether he wins or loses, he's already won. So you and I are going to be reporting on this grand conspiracy, but I want people to put this episode at a time capsule.

Popak says this will ultimately fail because you can't run it through a Florida venue just because you want to get Aileen Cannon to preside over it because she's the most malleable of federal judges for Donald Trump. Right. And it's very transparent why they put it in Fort Pierce, Florida, because it goes to her. It's a very small courtroom. She's the only game in town. And I think you're right, Popak. It's a transparent venue gambit that is eventually going to explode in their faces.

But then again, it's... It's the old expression, you can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride. They just want to drag out the investigation. They want to get this if they can to indictments. And they don't care what happens after them. Absolutely. It's a version of, you'll appreciate this because if you're what you do in courtrooms, it's a version of a perp walk.

It's just a perp walk of Obama and Brennan and Comey in the form of continued publicity about an indictment that will all. ultimately fall flat on its face, but not after a year goes by and terrible headlines go up and have to be refuted by these people, much like Kilmer-Abrego-Garcia. Most people probably think Kilmer-Abriego-Garcia did something wrong and it deserves to be out of the country just because, and the end of the story where he gets his indictment dismissed for vindictive prosecution and gets a judge to release him from jail. And he's still in the United States, his last I looked.

That sort of is at the bottom of the bird cage. Right. And they're still trying to get him dumped in any country in Africa or any country that he does not have a connection to, has no link or desire to go to. They want to send him there just to send a message. They're still fighting him. And it goes to that expression. You can beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride. And they recognize that.

Yeah. So let's end our show with what's give an update about the Trump. administration trying to bring and revive and resuscitate and it's like a seance bring back from the dead Lindsey Halligan as a prosecutor and John Zarko who just got bounced now there's a series in fact they've lost every case that the Trump administration has taken up on appeal about these issues below the Supreme Court they've lost right the the Nevada U.S. attorney bounced they're still fighting The central district of Los of California in L.A., bounced. Sarkony, Northern District, New York, bounced.

Hylensie Halligan, fired. Lina Haba, bounced. So they're over, I don't know, six, eight, ten. And yet they, and yet, you know, you've got to give them credit. It's like dumb and dumber, even when they have no chance. What's, you know, not in a million years, they don't even have the million years. and they're still bringing these appeals. To update our audience about what's happening with these.

Well, earlier this week, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was hearing an appeal to resuscitate the Comey, effectively, to resuscitate the Comey and Letitia James cases by reversing the ruling about Lindsay Halligan's appointment. Now, it appears, based on what I heard of that hearing, that Comey and Letitia James are going to be fine. If I were to guess and predictions are always murky on these things, I would guess that it's a two-to-one decision. It's astonishing that there is

one judge that is taking the theory of the legitimacy of Lindsay Halligan's appointment seriously, but it appears that one judge is doing so based on what I heard. That said, what we have been reporting here on Legal A.F. and All Rise News all this time has been that the Appointments Clause challenge makes sure that the representatives of the people, which is to say the Senate, Congress, the Senate advice and consent process is followed. And what happens time and again, and it happened with Sarkone, it happened with Halligan, neither of these people have any qualifications and could be appointed through that process. So they tried to cut corners. And as you said Popak, every judge who has heard these cases challenging the appointments under the Appointments Clause of the Constitution,

under the Federal Vacancies Reform Act, has ruled against the Trump administration. I don't think that's going to change. Sarkone, it should be noted, he was trying to pursue a second investigation into Letitia James, and that collapsed when a judge found his appointment trajectory was so off that he couldn't even pursue a subpoena, an investigatory subpoena of the New York Attorney General's office. Pure payback from Trump because Tish James successfully brought the business fraud lawsuit against his business empire, the civil fraud case. And both of those cases collapsed because serious prosecutors won't do it. It's why Trump is working so hard to get these former lawyers, personal attorneys for him,

to stack the deck and to pursue cases that no serious prosecutor would do. Yeah, I think that's such a great summary. If you like great summaries and analysis about the intersection of law and politics, Think about Adam Classfeld, all rise news on Substack, his video work over on LegalAF YouTube channel. We're on our two-year birthday. Adam's been there almost from the very beginning. I don't know if it was the first month, but you were there for the, I think we had like 25,000 subscribers.

We now are 1.24 million strong and growing 815 million views, including a lot of Adam Klaasfeld's work. Now is a great time. It would be a memorable time, a personal favor to me, to become a subscriber for Legal A-F, the YouTube channel, and help us get to $1.5 million by the time the midterms roll around, and then we're moving. Our goal is $2 million before the 2028 election. At the rate, we're going with the generosity of our audience, it will happen. Substack for Legal AF and for All Rise News, sometimes we join forces in a live report that I do on LegalAF YouTube

channel. Top 20 in U.S. news, all these are not just stats, these are people. These are our audience and their devotion to what we do and commitment to what we do. And we are honored by it. We're motivated by it to bring the heat, to bring the truth. I joked yesterday during my intersection podcast that my new, I think I'm going to make it my ringtone when Chuck Grassley yelled out at Senator Cory Booker, will you just shut up? It was like a Ted Stevens moment. Will you just shut? No, no. The anti-Trumpers are not going to shut up. We are actually going to put that energy to good use come the midterms and beyond. And I think being here with this community is one way to do it.

Adam, you're all-rise news on Substack, right? That's right. All-rise news on Sub-Sach. That's where you want to find everybody. And of course, shout out to our pro-democracy sponsors, who have been with, some of them from the very beginning of the show, six years ago, some from who just came on, but they're all curated through. Jordy, Myceles and me here on Legal AF. Adam, thanks for pitching in.

And always love having you here and over on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. Always a pleasure, Michael. We'll do it again sometime soon. Yeah, thanks for being here. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal AFers.