Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump DOJ Just Let Secret Plan Slip

Starting point is 00:00:00 Todd Blanche, the newly confirmed Attorney General, has a tell. When he tells you he's not going to make a comment about ongoing litigation, even if it's about the Jan 6th insurrectionists and their cases under the Federal Tort Claims Act to get hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government, when he tells you I'm not going to answer those questions, and everybody has the right to file a lawsuit against the Department of Justice, you can just instantly translate that into the Department of Justice is going to pay the Jan 6th insurrectionists for having attacked the capital and the cradle of our democracy. I'm Michael Popock, you're on the Midas Touch Network and on Legal A.F.

Starting point is 00:00:44 That's what I caught when I watched Todd Blanche being grilled, being cross-examined to within an inch of his life by Kristen Welker on the Sunday morning talk shows. when she turned to him and said, will you make a commitment to the American people that even if there's no Jan 6th anti-weaponization fund, you say it's dead and you say it's buried, will you guarantee to the American people that you won't out of the Department of Justice's other funds pay them for having attacked law enforcement and our capital?

Starting point is 00:01:19 Watch what he has to say here, and then I'll translate it for you. Play the clip. If the president asks you to revive the president, fund will you tell him no well the president has said it's dead as well so you can and as the president has said that he very strongly believes that those that were that had this department of justice weaponized against them should be compensated that he's going to continue to say that he said it's up to you he was just asked about it he said effectively it's up to you what to do about this and i've said repeatedly it's dead and he has also said it's dead he said it in the cabinet meeting with the press

Starting point is 00:01:51 there and so i think there's this it's it might be enjoyable for the media to continue ask me about whether the fund is really dead. And there will, there is no fund. No money went from the Treasury to any account. There were no commissioners established. And so there is no fund. There will be no fund. I've said it repeatedly. And the different angles coming, almost every time I speak with the media, someone says, well, wait, is it really dead? And I say, yes, it is. And then the next interview I give, somebody will say to me, is it really dead? And I promise you, I will say, yes, it is dead. So you're saying you rule out ever reviving it, but just to be very clear, can you guarantee that under your Department of Justice, anyone who attacked the Capitol on January 6th will not receive one dime of taxpayer money if they file a claim against the federal government?

Starting point is 00:02:42 Well, anybody can file a claim against the federal government, not just anybody associated with January 6th. I'm not going to sit here and say on a news program whether a litigation that may or may not happen will result in money. I can't do that. So what I will say is that there's a process in place for decades or somebody that believes they've been wronged or a tort's been committed against them by the federal government can seek redress. And beyond that, I'm not going to comment about hypotheticals

Starting point is 00:03:07 of what will happen in any of those cases. So potentially they could get paid under another stream of government funding, but not the anti-procation fund. Okay. Let's do a quick tutorial, shall we, on the Federal Tort Claims Act. It is true that if you believe, you've been aggrieved by the federal government, your rights have been violated, constitutional, common law, or statutory. You can try to sue the federal government, but you can't do it without

Starting point is 00:03:34 their initial permission. You have to go through a process. It's called the Federal Tort Claims Act. I'm currently representing Midas Touch and legal AF community members in unrelated Federal Tort Claims Act cases. As people know, I represent through the Popak firm, the family, the family, family of flight attendant who died on the American Airlines, Black Hawk helicopter tragedy that happened within days of Donald Trump returning to power. You go through the Federal Tort Claims Act. You present your case of why you have been injured or damaged by the government and how much you're looking for. The government has six months to review it, and if they reject it, you can file it in court. And then you expect the government to defend itself, ultimately.

Starting point is 00:04:22 and maybe enter into settlement discussions. That's how it normally works. But when you're talking about the Jan Sixers, nothing is normal, nothing is regular, nothing can be presumed to be regular. Instead, what we're watching is an elaborate choreography where the Department of Justice is likely to bend over and fold, so there's no real adversarial party here,

Starting point is 00:04:47 when the Jan Sixers file their lawsuits, which they are doing now, to get hundreds of millions of dollars of our taxpayer dollars to pay them for having run rampant and wild like a pack of animals and try to burn down our capital and assassinate elected officials. And I guess to get paid for a day's work by the federal government for doing so. Now when you watch Todd Blanche and he says out loud, well, I'm not going to comment, anybody can sue the government. Forget all of that.

Starting point is 00:05:17 Just think of exactly what Todd Blanche did. We'll use it as a blueprint in the Miami. case of Trump versus the Internal Revenue Service, because that's exactly what a version of what's going on here. In Trump versus the IRS, Judge Williams concluded that Trump effectively controlled all the pieces on the chessboard. All the pieces on the chessboard. So there was no adversarial process, which is the foundation of our jurisprudence of our system of justice. In other countries, in Europe, for instance, in South America, Central America, the judges play a more prosecutorial role of doing inquiry and fact development. We don't do that here. We have two parties at each other's throats, they should be, adversaries in a case. And through

Starting point is 00:06:04 the adversarial process, we believe justice will be done, facts will be developed. And the trier of fact, which is either a judge or a jury depending upon the nature of the case or the type of contract that's involved or the matter, will make the ultimate conclusions of who's telling the truth and sort through the different factual submissions we call evidence. That's in the normal case when you have adversaries, but we don't have adversaries here. Because the other side, the Jan Sixers, the Department of Justice willingly wants to settle with them, just like we saw in the Ashley Babbitt case. Remember Ashley Babbitt tried to run down the Speaker's Hall hallway to get to elected officials who had not yet been cleared from

Starting point is 00:06:49 that chamber on Jan 6. She had a backpack in her front. She's a former military person. She had other people behind her. And if she'd gotten down the Speaker's Bureau hallway into the chamber, bad things would have happened. We'd be reporting Jan 6th insurrection differently with dead, dead elected officials and staff.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Security officer stopped her with a bullet. He was cleared because he did the right thing, the courageous thing, thing he's supposed to do to protect the human beings inside. and what did the Department of Justice do under Pam bonding? They settled with Ashley Babett's family after Ashley Babett's family had filed a lawsuit and paid them $5 million. Similarly, Trump versus IRS in front of Judge Williams. Blanche authorizes it to be brought.

Starting point is 00:07:38 The IRS folds, right? It's like a boxing match. They hit the canvas. They decide that they're not going to fight. They tank the case. And therefore, there's no adversarial process. And then they went into phony settlement discussions because you've got to have adversaries to do a settlement. Otherwise, you're on the same side of the V.

Starting point is 00:08:01 You're just a collusive conspiracy. And now we've got these cases. Who's bringing these cases, first of all? We've got about 700 of the Jan Sixers being represented by Mark McCluskey. Who's Mark McCluskey? Right. He was the guy along with his wife who held an AR-F. He was a bar member in St. Louis during Black Lives Matter in a menacing fashion, ended up losing his

Starting point is 00:08:27 weapons, getting disbarred, eventually got reinstated. And now he represents about 700 Jan Sixers in their federal tort claim cases. Who else is representing the Jan Sixers and some of the most heinous ones like the proud boys, the oathkeepers? Well, that would be Peter Tickettin. That's Donald Trump's former. military academy high school roommate in his 80s and he writes some crazy crackpot shit in him sorry in his lawsuits about um you know election denying and conspiracy theories long debunked are at the heart of his

Starting point is 00:09:07 case because he doesn't care what he see the point is they don't care what they write they just need to go through a process which will give the imprimatur of legitimacy and then the department of justice will fold will not defend the case, that's what's coming, folks, and settle out the back door using Department of Justice funds allocated by the MAGA Congress, and therefore you don't need the anti-weaponization fund. That, according to reporting, was the came out of the fevered imagination of Mark McCluskey, that lawyer that I told you about during the Black Lives Matter movement representing about 700 Jan Sixers. He came up with the fund issue. You've got weight loss goals, and this summer, it's time to actually hit them.

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Starting point is 00:11:22 But that was all a red herring. That was all a diversionary tactic by Todd Blanche and his client, Donald Trump. They never cared about the fund because they were going to get the Jan Sixers. As you heard, Todd Blanche effectively admit at the top of my hot deck, they were going to use other methods to pay them out through the federal tort claim act process with a willing Department of Justice folding, settling the cases using money appropriated to the Department of Justice in other ways, just like they did, Ashley Babbitt. They will not litigate these cases. They will not defend these cases.

Starting point is 00:12:01 You know it now. You know it now. So the money will come out the back door to the Jan Sixers with some sort of announced settlement. And that's why Todd Blanche wouldn't answer Kristen Welker straight because he's about a straight. as a corkscrew these days about will you guarantee that they will not be paid? No. Just like he fought her about the pardon issue. Like how can you square your telling law enforcement that you will always prosecute to the highest extent of the law? People who attack the police and then watch idly by as Donald Trump empties

Starting point is 00:12:39 the jails of those that attack the police? Well, that has to do with president's ability to pardon. I'm not going to comment on that play the clip. Attorney General on President Trump's first day in office, as you know, he pardoned everyone who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, including 172 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers. How is that consistent with your pledge to always protect law enforcement? There's nothing inconsistent about that. The president's pardon powers, any president's pardon powers, are not limited. So when I say, and what's Department of Justice says, and when the FBI says, like we're saying, then every U.S. Attorney,

Starting point is 00:13:16 is saying that if you assault law enforcement, we will prosecute you to the fullest extent of the law. That is absolutely what President Trump expects, absolutely what I expect of our prosecutors, and that that's completely separate from any president's ability to pardon. But he did the opposite of that effectively. I mean, on January 6th, police officers were beaten with baseball bats and flag polls? Do you believe it was wrong to pardon the people who assaulted police officers on January 6th, given that you have vowed to protect law enforcement? Every attorney general vows to protect law enforcement, including me.

Starting point is 00:13:49 And so, no, I'm not opining or in any way saying what President Trump did is wrong. Absolutely not. By the way. Isn't it inconsistent with what you said, though? Absolutely not. There's a difference. No, there's a difference between saying we will prosecute anybody. If later a president chooses to pardon that individual, that is the president's right under our Constitution.

Starting point is 00:14:08 Do not forget that a few days before, President Trump pardoned the individuals associated and who have pled guilty to the conduct on January 6th. President Biden pardon hundreds and hundreds of criminals, many of whom were quite violent. So that's his right to do that, just like it's President Trump's right to do that. But what message does it send to police officers that people who assaulted them were pardoned? The message to police officers is consistent and saying every single day, which is that we will protect you. And by the way, that's a little bit, that's a little bit interesting coming from a place where we see violent protests breaking out all over the country in New Jersey, Minneapolis, in Seattle and California, and instead of there being a full-throated defense by leadership on the Democrat side, on the Republican side, what you have is it's as if we're doing

Starting point is 00:14:57 something wrong by saying we will protect law enforcement and we will prosecute those who assault law enforcement. We're not. But I wanted to focus your attention because this is sort of like a magic trick, right? You know the magic trick where, you know, they do a close handwork or they do some sort of diversion over here so that you momentarily look. look over here while they do the trick over here and they saw the lady in half or they make the telephone end up inside of the bottle or whatever it is. And I wanted you to know what this trick is. Todd Blanche willingly put out of its misery and chloroformed the anti-weaponization fund. For two reasons. They always had a plan to pay it through the Federal Tort Claim Act. One,

Starting point is 00:15:42 by taking a powder and not defending the cases. And two, what they only cared about was the immunity next day creation of an immunity deal by Todd Blanche with a one paragraph release granted to Donald Trump, his family, his family of companies, to basically let them get away with tax evasion hundreds of millions of dollars worth for the last decade, all wrapped into one paragraph as an order of the Department of Justice, which is resting on a foundation of lies and illegitimacy and bad faith, and is now in the courtroom, that particular issue is in the courtroom of Judge Brinkema about whether that is going to survive or not. In fact, I interviewed Sky Perryman about that very case, and here's what she had to say about that

Starting point is 00:16:43 Those to our brave clients that have been, you know, in this case from the beginning, the Floyd case, we have amended the complaint and we've continued to add allegations about the slush fund because, as we know, every time Donald Trump opens his mouth, he talks more about how the slush fund needs to exist. And so we are still challenging the slush fund. But we also added new brave plaintiffs, the National Employees Treasury Union or the National Treasury Employees Union, NTEU, which has employees as members who work at the IRS. And those employees are essentially alleging that what this agreement that Blanche and Trump and the Trump organization are engaged in

Starting point is 00:17:25 to provide Donald Trump and his associates, his family, his organization, IRS immunity, conscripts them into the violation of law and is unlawful and is an unconstitutional emolument. It's giving the president a gift that, you know, that it's an unconstitutional emolument. So those are the claims with respect to the IRS immunity provision that the amended complaint, if you, I know your listeners always go to our actual court documents. You guys love to feature the actual court documents. There is tremendous great history in there about why there are provisions of our tax code that prevent exactly what

Starting point is 00:18:02 this agreement did, including, by the way, in a circumstance where in the Watergate era, in the Nixon era, he was seeking to weaponize the IRS. against people and to use also the IRS to favor his friends. And Congress took action there to add additional protections, which is one of the many legal bases for our... So that whole issue of whether the fund is legitimate or not, before Judge Williams, before Judge Brinkema, the issue of whether the immunity deal that Todd Blanche unilaterally

Starting point is 00:18:36 granted Donald Trump in order to get the nomination for Attorney General, just hours separating them, right that that issue is in front of judge a brink come up and the issue of whether jans sixers are going to get paid through another process notice the four federal tort claim act with a willing conspiratorial department of justice on the other side that's going to be handled case by case by the federal judges but frankly they're going to try to do the same thing to those federal judges that they did to judge williams which is to not let the federal judge have any supervisory oversight power whatsoever. They're going to settle those.

Starting point is 00:19:15 They're going to answer those suits. They're going to settle those cases or they're not going to answer those suits. They're going to settle those cases. They're not going to have the federal judge involved at all. And each one of those cases, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, is going to lead to payments just like Ashley Babett's family and others received. That's it, folks. I wanted you to focus on it because there's so many moving parts here.

Starting point is 00:19:38 So many spinning plates. It's a three-card Monty, but I wanted you to know under what cup the ball is. Here on Midas Touch and on LegalAF. I'm Michael Popok. Take a minute. Come over to LegalAF, the YouTube channel. We're trying to get to 1.3 million subscribers before August is over. With your help, we will.

Starting point is 00:19:57 Until my next report, this is Michael. Can't get your fill of Legal AF. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal A.F. Substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court file, or a oral argument. Come over to the substack.

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Legal AF by MeidasTouch - Trump DOJ Just Let Secret Plan Slip

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