Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Rogue GOP Prosecutor Commits Major Violation to Help Trump

Episode Date: February 12, 2024

Attorney General Merrick Garland misapplied the Special Counsel laws and never should have released the Hur Report including the gratuitous attacks on President Biden. Michael Popok of Legal AF explains how Garland should have at least edited out the offending portions of the report but now has to be prepared to testify to the MAGA house along with Hur about the report that should have never been. Thanks to Miracle Made! Go to TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your free 3 piece towel set and save over 40% off. 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 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen 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 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson 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

So Michael Popak, legal AF, Attorney General, Merrick Garland did not have to release the Robert Her special counsel report in any form or format, including his gratuitous attacks on Joe Biden, his mental capacities and otherwise. That's another mistake by Merrick Garland. Look, I've been very supportive of Merrick Garland overall and his appointment of the special counsel, Jack Smith. I thought it came too late in the game. Should have been six months earlier, but at the end I thought it was a proper exercise of his discretion.

I think Merrick Garland overall is making sober decisions, but I think he screwed up here. Let me just call it for what it is. Merrick Garland under the special counsel rules and the Department of Justice guidelines did not have to release the her report to the public, especially since Robert Her concluded that there be no charges brought against Joe Biden. There's 345 pages of detail in there. And under the prevailing statute that regulates the special counsel position, his appointment, his jurisdiction,

and the report that he gets to issue, nowhere in there is there an obligation for the Attorney General to turn any aspect of that report over to the public or to the House Oversight Committee or Judiciary Committee. It's all a confidential report to the Attorney General who makes a decision which part of it, if any, gets released. Not only Merrick Garland make an error in judgment once he saw the report to release it to the public and ultimately to the Mag Extreme on the House, but he didn't do his job, I'm sorry, I'm calling it for what it is,

in editing out aspects of the report that had no place in the report once the prosecutor concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to support a conviction beyond the reasonable doubt of the criminal statutes related to the handling of classified material. There's no other way to put this. The takeaway when you're hearing some of this in the news, which is why I wanted to bring

it to our audience here on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF, right to them. By listening to all the talking heads and everybody out there, you might think a couple of things which are wrong because of the way it's being presented. One, there is no requirement at all in the prevailing statutes and the Code of Federal Regulation, which governs here, that requires the release unedited or otherwise, or in any format, of the special counsel report, no matter who it is, and on what subject matter. That is a decision that's made by the Attorney General. Somebody, one of the commentators that used to be a senior official at the Department of Justice,

trying to defend Robert Heer, came out and said, he had to do a detailed report. He had no choice about justifying his decision to decline, declination of prosecution. That may be true, but Merrick Garland should have only gotten that confidential report under the Code of Federal Regulation. And having seen it in draft, because he could have asked for it in draft, he could have taken his red pen or whatever color pen and edited out those things that are a violation

of Department of Justice guidelines and a longstanding tradition not to insert itself in politics. Look, Robert Herr, after he concluded, this should have been a five-page report, not a 345-page report, after he made the decision that based on the weight of the evidence, that was evaluated. All of the extenuating factors, all of the cooperation by the Biden administration, by Joe Biden himself in interviews, all the people around him. The fact that Joe Biden didn't try to stop any of his aides,

or people in the executive branch, didn't try to assert executive privilege, didn't try to stop in a lawsuit or otherwise. The investigation turned over all of his documents, turned over audio tapes of his interviews with a ghost writer that he was using for two memoirs, turned over all the notebooks and diaries that he kept for his time as vice president. This level of cooperation and the fact of how some of this material that turned out to be confidential was stored indicated to any thinking prosecutor that there was no crime here that was committed. Sure, Joe Biden wanted to keep some of his diaries and some of his

notebooks in order to assist them in some of his chapters of his memoirs. Ronald Reagan did the exact same thing. And ever since then, and most presidents too, taking home copious notes and diaries, nobody's ever been prosecuted for it. That's not why Donald Trump is being prosecuted, nobody's ever been prosecuted for it. That's not why Donald Trump is being prosecuted. He's not being prosecuted because he took home his personal notes. He's being prosecuted for obstructing justice and not cooperating appropriately with any level of government or any branch. From the National Archive to the Department of Justice to the FBI, to magistrate judges, to federal judges, to the grand jury, or any of it. And he

lied to his own lawyers and lied to his staff and hid documents and boxes of documents from every level of government to which he was required to respond. That's Donald Trump. My beef is with Merrick Garland. Now look, as I've said, I've defended Merrick Garland at length on legal AF. I think at balance, having somebody that's mature and apolitical or tries to be at the helm is better for our country. But let's, you know, enough is enough. He appointed a Republican, a Supreme Court, sorry, a Republican former Department of Justice member who'd been a U.S. attorney in Maryland. Robert Heer, sure his credentials were solid, but I don't think he had a bend over backwards. Republican former Department of Justice member who'd been a US attorney in Maryland, Robert

Her, sure his credentials were solid, but I don't think he had a bend over backwards. First of all, I questioned the premise of him even Merrick Garland appointing a special counsel. I'm going to read the rules in a minute to you. He did not have to appoint that special counsel. He certainly didn't have to appoint a special counsel from the other party. He didn't have to appoint the special counsel from the other party. He didn't have to appoint the special counsel from the other party and then do a very light review

or supervision of his work. He didn't have to allow that 345 pages to be produced without his input or editing or comments to it. And he didn't have to produce the whole 345 pages at all to the public and let it be publicly presented. So it's not just one misstep. It's a series of missteps by Merrick Garland that has now put us in this current position. Now I'm not trying to cover for Joe Biden.

I think that these comments and statements in there were mean spirited. They were sarcastic. They were patronizing. I mean, he was interviewing the president of the United States in the middle of effectively a war, at least a proxy war, going on in the Middle East, days into it about events that happened five, 10, and 15 years ago. I mean, I defy Robert He, who has been a U.S. attorney and a person

in private practice. If I were to grill him on how he handled a piece of paper within a file of one of his clients 10 years ago, you know, that he handled for a period of time, I defy him to tell me with, with acute accuracy, everything that happened to every scrap of paper related to that file. He might point to staff and say, I had a paralegal. I had an assistant. I had a secretary. I had a law clerk. I had an associate. I had a partner and we should talk to all of them. But for him to come in here thinking that the president of the United States, about a period of time

when a son died and the mausoleum that that created emotionally and otherwise, which often has impact on memory as we know, and start grilling him about pieces and scraps of paper from 5, 10, and 15 years ago, and then declare that he is mentally feeble or has mental capacity problems and recall problems, you know, is is beyond the pale. And Merrick Garland should have put him on his carpet in his office and challenged those insertions into the brief, those intentional inclusions, and called them out for what they were. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on brief, those intentional inclusions, and called them out for what they were. temperature regulating bedding so you can sleep at the perfect temperature all night long. Using silver-infused fabrics originally inspired by NASA, Miracle-Made sheets are thermoregulating and designed to keep you at the perfect temperature all night long so you get better sleep every night.

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report. He knows that Robert Mueller didn't go far enough in his reporting and the impact that that had and he knows that FBI director Comey stood in front of a microphone in October or early, late October, before the Clinton Trump campaign was over and basically indicted Hillary Clinton about her email to the American public right before they were about to vote. So the reporting is that Robert Her expected his close confidence. I'd say he expected blowback. Well, right. And if you know, you know, if we take it, the thought experiment that Merrick Garland told Robert Her at the beginning of his process, I'm going to release your entire report. I have the right not to do it. I have the right to keep it confidential,

but I'm going to release the entire report. Then you have an obligation to be more responsible with your words. Now you have MAGA running away with the story and claiming that the 25th Amendment should be invoked by Merrick Garland, who's the attorney general and a cabinet member to seek the removal of Joe Biden because he's a mental incompetent. That's how far, I mean, what did Robert Her and Merrick Garland think was going to happen? And this story is not over. And I don't mean it from a political sense for the campaign of Joe Biden. I mean, it's not over because now the oversight and judiciary committee, judiciary committee,

particularly led by a non-lawyer effectively, Jim Jordan is going to call Robert Her and Merrick Garland onto their carpet in front of a bank of microphones and start grilling them about the details of a 345 page report that never should have been released, not in the format that it was. Look, I've spoken to people at the highest levels of power who used to be either in the Department of Justice or federal judges, and they've all come away with the same conclusion. It should have been a five page report that stopped, stopped making any observations after they concluded

that there was no evidence to bring criminal charges against Joe Biden for his handling of the classified documents, full stop. It should not have been a soap opera with multiple chapters talking about, well, let's let's segregate this box of documents. Let's talk about this. This is why it went 315 pages. It went 315 pages because he had to do a chapter for like every box that he found that had a classified document in it from 10 or 15 years ago. And then he had to get into, you know, the trauma of Beau Biden dying,

who, you know, who Joe Biden was probably his favorite child, I'll say it, he won't. And the impact on Joe Biden's mental health or his memory at that moment, that's unfair. And it's unfair to comment about Joe Biden, who's a little bit distracted, Mr. Herr, as a proxy war is going on in the Middle East, as you do an interview about a document from 15 years ago. But again, I'm laying the blame at Merrick Garland's fate. You might, too, after you hear some of the Code of Federal Regulations I'm going to read to you that were in play, and you'll be scratching your head and going, why, oh, why did Merrick Garland bend over backwards to help the opposition? Let me put it this way. The Republicans never would have done this.

Donald Trump would have burned the Department of Justice to the ground before that report got out. He would have fired every, every member of the Department of Justice, and he would have appointed, you know, multiple attorney generals, acting attorney generals to avoid it. So let me just give you what I'm talking about. The Code of Federal Regulation particularly talks about the appointment of the special counsel. And it says it should only be appointed under certain circumstances. And I would argue that there weren't these circumstances present. Is that the attorney general has to deem

that it would be appropriate because it would be appropriate to appoint a special counsel because of the extraordinary circumstances and the appearance of a conflict. I don't see either here. Other than Merrick Garland had just appointed one for Jack Smith being appointed for Donald Trump. Other than that, unless you wanna just kind of

have like a makeup call and say, well, all right, I'll do one for Biden too. Special counsels, independent counsels are supposed to be an extraordinary appointment. We're not supposed to have one to a year and for every circumstance. The Department of Justice is more than capable of doing its own investigation concerning this matter

and concluding that there was nothing there. And they're doing so without generating a 345 page report that's now put itself smack dab in the middle of the political maestrum of whether Joe Biden should be president or not. That was the purpose of his, of the report. So I have a lot of, I have a lot of feelings here about the regulations that were, I think, misapplied by the attorney general. And again, the Code of Federal Regulation that deals with this section, which is Title

28, Part 600, you can look it up, says that a confidential report goes from the special counsel at the conclusion of his work to the attorney general. It says nothing and does not require the public publishing of this document. So again, Merrick Garland, I didn't agree with you on the appointment of Mr. Herr. I think you picked the wrong person for the job. You, you, I think you abdicated your responsibility to review his report for the good or the republic and to make sure it didn't violate Department of Justice guidelines and and precedent about things that should be included in such a report and Robert Her you violated your oath because you knew this report was going to be public and that Merrick Garland

Apparently had said he's going to publish everything and you threw in the kitchen sink and more about Joe Biden, including things that have no place in a prosecutorial memo, and especially a memo that's going to be one of declination, declining to prosecute. All right. And if Merrick Garland read it, which he's supposed to read the report before it's published, and he found exception and took exception to any aspect of it, including the sections calling the president of the United States is having, you know, mental capacity problems and memory problems that he should have called it out and objected to it, which he has the power to do under the special counsel law. You know, it's chappin' my backside that people are not looking at the special

counsel law and properly mapping it on to the facts here. And Merrick Garland has no one to blame, but Merrick Garland. He should never have turned this over to a special counsel. He should never have picked one that was from the opposite party, right? He was bent and over backwards to be, I guess, nonpartisan. But now where are you? This exact opposite has happened. You should have done your job, Merrick Garland. You should have reviewed at least the report and had edits to it before it was published. And who told you to publish the whole thing? That is not the, that's not the good of the Republic, especially in the format that the report was delivered by Robert Hehr in his office.

So now we're going to have to continue to talk about this on hot takes like this one on legal AF on the Midas Touch Network, because this story's got legs. It's not done. The next thing is Robert Hehr in the month of the remainder of February or March is going to be called before the House Judiciary Committee because Donald Trump wants that to happen, of course. And then you're going to have the, you know, the Elise Stefanics and people on the committee and everybody attacking Joe Biden asking, get ready.

I want to prepare my audience and our audience for this. Get ready for the questions and the news cycle about whether the 25th amendment to remove an incapacitated president should be exercised. And Merrick Garland as a cabinet member should have invoked it in order to remove Joe Biden based on the representations in the her report. It's coming. And Merrick Garland, I'm speaking to him now, meet me a camera too. I only have one camera. You better be prepared and better prepared than you were for how you handle this process with how you're going to handle the congressional questions because you're now on the hot seat with the American public to justify it. I assume you're

not going to say that you think the 25th amendment should have been invoked. I assume you're not going to agree with Mr. Her having interacted with the president. I'm sure you're not going to agree that your boss is a mental incompetent or has memory problems that would make him unfit for office. I assume that's the case. We'll get ready for the questions that are going to be generated by your series of decisions that led to the publishing of this report.

And we're going to hold you accountable here on legal AF. And on the Midas Touch Network. Follow me on Legal AF every Wednesday and Saturday at 8 p.m. Eastern time for our long format podcast, the intersection of law, politics, and justice. The title means exactly what you think. And if you like what I'm doing here, you'll love our podcast. And then you can pick it up on audio podcast platforms of your choice. So give me a thumbs up if you enjoy this commentary and you can comment with me and put something in the chats and all. I've been known to reach back out and we can have a dialogue, which is what this network is all about.

We don't blow smoke or sunshine, obviously. Until my next legal AF, until my next hot take, this is Michael Popak reporting.