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- [00:01]
Chioma Chukwu
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- [00:29]
Michael Popak
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Chioma Chukwu
Mmm.
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Michael Popak
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Chioma Chukwu
Amazing.
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Michael Popak
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- [01:30]
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- [01:59]
Michael Popak
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- [04:26]
Chioma Chukwu
Hi, Michael.
- [04:27]
Michael Popak
Glad to have you here. So we've got American Oversight versus US Department of Justice. Here's what you. Here's what your team wrote in their complaint as an introduction. American Oversight brings this action following President Donald Trump's nomination of Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to be the next Attorney General. He served as his personal criminal defense attorney in two federal felony cases brought by Jack Smith and goes and recounts his body of work working for Donald Trump before entering the Department of Justice. You then turn in your complaint to the Epstein files and Pam Bondi testifying to a House Oversight Committee. Wasn't me. Todd Blanche was in charge of everything when it came to the Epstein files. So right on cue, your organization filed a complaint. Started as two Freedom of Information act requests back in June of 2026 in which you're seeking everything, emails and communication involving lots of connectivity to Todd Blanch. Why don't you take it from there and we can update everybody on the particular case.
- [05:36]
Chioma Chukwu
Yeah, well, no, thanks for that, for that setup. I think you framed it exactly right. You know, we filed our Freedom of Information act request on the heels of President Trump's announcement that he planned to nominate attorney, well, the Acting Attorney General Blanche to be the permanent Attorney General, and that is the chief law enforcement officer role, the highest one in the Department of Justice and one that should not be taken lightly. So we knew that in order for the Senate to conduct their constitutional duty to have all the questions and the information and the factual record in front of them, that information needed to be before them. We know that Attorney General Bondi had testified before the House Oversight Committee in a closed door deposition, but Todd Blanche has yet to testify before the House Oversight Committee. And from the looks of it, it's unlikely that he will before his Senate confirmation hearing. So we requested, on an expedited basis, the FOIAs be processed and the information be produced so that we can turn over the records that are necessary to understand Todd Blanche's role in the Epstein file review, as well as in the Jack Smith Special Counsel report, particularly the classified documents matter, the public needs to understand the extent to which he has been involved in those matters. It has compromised his ability to be independent of the President. And when we sent our FOIAs, the Department of justice rejected our request for expedited processing, meaning they will put our FOIA request on the back of the line. So it could take months or years for them to process and produce the records or never. Or never, as we see with this administration. So this case is about a race to get the information to the Senate, to the American people, so that we have a full factual record before there's any decision about whether or not Attorney General Todd Blanch is. Is fit to be the next Attorney General.
- [07:43]
Michael Popak
Yeah. And before I go over, certain requests which I think will be eye popping for our audience, although a lot of them will be saying, touche, that's just where you need to be. Give, give our audience a little bit about your background. You and I talked a little bit before we got on the air together for the House Oversight Committee, right?
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Chioma Chukwu
I did, yeah.
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Michael Popak
What did you do for them?
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Chioma Chukwu
So I started under the late, great Elijah Cummings when, when. When Mr. Cummings had just taken over the majority and believed in conducting legitimate oversight. And we were a very robust committee at the time. Mr. Cummings understood that, you know, his job was to conduct legitimate oversight and get answers that the American people deserved in order for the government to function the way it's supposed. Supposed to. Thereafter, when the House flipped, I worked under Jamie Raskin in the minority, where we were also continuing to push for legitimate oversight in any way that we can. At the time, the Oversight Committee was very focused on matters that had nothing to do with the betterment of the lives of the American people. And Mr. Raskin's job was to ensure that people stayed focused on what matters. The Congress stayed focused on what matters to the American people. And so that is ultimately the background that led me to American oversight.
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Michael Popak
Yeah, that's great. Let me read. The fact that you have that kind of background and experience on the Hill is invaluable here, especially when you're dealing with the Trump administration. Let me go over just some. And we'll post this on Legal AF substack for those who want to see the actual complaint that's been filed. One of them is all email communications sent or received by Todd Blanche and then a series of of keywords. Jack Smith, special counsel mishandling Cannon, Judge Cannon publish release mal from Mar A Lago, all going to the Mar A Lago espionage and obstruction of justice criminal investigation and indictment that Jack Smith led against against Donald Trump when Todd Blanch was one of his several criminal defense lawyers. So, and volume two and all that. Let's get all of that. And then I went to a lot of things like anything sent or received by Todd Blanche involving the name Cannon. I mean, you know, we've always had some, some thoughts about, I wonder how they're communicating about Aileen Cannon, their favorite, what appears to be their favorite judge down in the Southern District of Florida. And so you've gone after that as well. And then you also go after, appropriately, the Epstein connection between Todd Blanche Epstein, including certain victims, Doe 174, for instance, whose names were redacted Bureau of Prisons. I'm sure it relates to Ghislaine Maxwell and why she was given a cushy transfer after she gave testimony and limited immunity and things related to Ghislaine and so on. What are you trying to get? What is the core mother load of documents and information and why do you think that's important for the American people and for the senators considering his nomination to know.
- [11:05]
Chioma Chukwu
Well, first I want to just give a little bit of background and why we're focused on Jack Smith Special counsel report. American Oversight has been litigating in the Southern District of Florida since February 2025. When we sent FOIA requests for the release of the second, second part of the report that was not released by Judge Cannon, we knew that the underlying investigation had concluded. We understood that the co conspirators essentially had all charges against them dismissed. So there shouldn't have been any live action or controversy that would bar the release of the report. But even there, when we requested through FOIA the release of that report, we were denied. And then it became this rigmarole between American Oversight and Judge Cannon, who would not allow us to enter an appearance in the case, to make the case as to why the public deserved access to the Special Counsel Report. And we have been embroiled in that litigation since last year. It is currently pending before the 11th Circuit. So we already understood and had our mistake, misgivings about what was going on in the Southern District of Florida with Judge Eileen Cannon. Judge Cannon essentially created a roadmap for the DOJ for President Trump, for the co conspirators to request that the second volume of the Special Counsel Report be permanently barred, which is unprecedented. So we already were interested in understanding what Todd Blanche's role was as it related to any interactions with Eileen Cannon. To the extent those communications exist, we don't know and that's why we are trying to find out. And with respect to Epstein, I think it's lost on nobody that, you know, there's been so much public interest in what the DOJ has been doing with respect to them. I would just say mishandling. We don't even need to call it handling the mishandling of the Epstein files. We always understood that Attorney General Bondi was the person who was responsible for and involved in the review. But during that closed door deposition, she pointed all fingers to Todd Blanche, saying that he was involved in overseeing the review, the redactions and the release of the files. And we all know there were a myriad of errors when it came to the actual redactions of those files. And then there was recent reporting about the extent of Todd Blanche's role not only in the legal review, but also his role in the political posturing and how to stem the political fall for President Trump.
- [13:47]
Michael Popak
You're talking about the New York Times, Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan article.
- [13:50]
Chioma Chukwu
That's exactly right. All of these things are reason for grave concerns about Todd Blanche's ability to be independent. He is not as the Attorney General, he should not be serving the President's personal interests. He should be serving the interests of the American people. But all of the signs that we have seen is that he has been so inextricably linked with the personal endeavors of the President as well as the agency's positioning, which is not. Those things should not be conflated. And one thing that was really striking for American oversight was the testimony that Mr. Blanch gave during his Senate confirmation hearing to become the Deputy Attorney General. He was asked by many senators whether or not he would support the release of the Jack Smith Special Counsel Report. And Mr. Blanch said, no, he would not. This is before he even stepped into the Department of Justice. This is Shortly after he concluded his representation of President Trump in his personal capacity as his personal criminal defense lawyer. All of these things are so concerning. So when we sent our FOIAs, we're trying to understand the extent to which Mr. Blanche was involved in these matters that really conflate what he would have been doing in his personal capacity with what he would be doing in serving the interests of the American public. All of those things go to whether or not he is fit to serve as the Attorney General.
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Michael Popak
I got another one for American Oversight. Maybe it's already in the works. He keeps talking, Blanche keeps talking about. He's been counseled about his ethics, and he makes decisions based on the ethics counsel on a case by. Really, I'd like to know more about how many times he's got to whom he went, how many times he's been counseled about what issue was it in writing? Was it a meeting? How did he decide he can even make these decisions or be involved in these cases? Is that out there?
- [15:43]
Chioma Chukwu
It's not out there. And I will note that the Senate has asked him those exact questions and not received responses. So that is exactly the kind of information that is right for a Senate confirmation hearing and that he should be forced to answer. But I agree with you, that is the kind of information that public records requests are designed to unearth. To the extent that Mr. Blanche decides that he's not going to answer those questions during his Senate confirmation hearing, yeah, absolutely.
- [16:10]
Michael Popak
And you're. As you. As you outlined your organization's lawsuit, the relief that's been requested, and now we can talk, we can move it forward to the judge. It's been assigned. And a briefing schedule that's now been ordered. It's to order. You want the judge, which is Dabney Friedrich, who was appointed in the first term by Trump, you want her to order Defendant to grant the request for expedited. All you want is expedited processing, right? At this point, is it expedited processing? And you can't say, you can't object. If the documents exist, you must also produce them, or is it still processed? But they could have an answer that's short of producing documents?
- [16:55]
Chioma Chukwu
Well, we are asking the court not only to force the DOJ to process on an expedited basis the records, but also to produce the records on a timeline I have identified by the court. Otherwise, they would do exactly what you just suggested, which is to raise belated objections, which would just further delay the production of the records.
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Michael Popak
Now, understandably, American Oversight ran into court, filed their case on June 23, knowing that Todd Blanche's confirmation hearing, because you had to wait to see who, who Trump was finally going to nominate. Was it going to be Lee Zeldin, was it going to be Aileen Cannon, was it going to be, you know, Jeanine Pirro? Like, who is it going to be? And then when they finally happen, you're like, okay, now we got a confirmation hearing on the 15th of July, hopefully over to the 16th. You fly into court, you got the judge and you've got an update about the briefing schedule and when that could time out to a decision, right?
- [17:53]
Chioma Chukwu
That's exactly right. So we, we had a court hearing this morning. You know, it's still unclear exactly when the court will rule, but we should have a good sense about whether or not our expedited processing request will be issued, ordered by the court by July 10th. So that's the date that we are, we are currently looking toward. And it might be that we have a decision on that date, but hopefully not long thereafter.
- [18:18]
Michael Popak
Yeah, that's great. And this is also a good opportunity, I think, Chioma, to educate our audience about American oversight because kind of get a handle on who you are, what you do, the types of cases you're currently litigating against the Trump administration and perhaps others, and what is the DNA for American oversight?
- [18:40]
Chioma Chukwu
So we are fundamentally a nonpartisan watchdog organization that uses public records and other open source intelligence tools to shake loose information that the government would rather the American people not know about. And this is so important, transparency. As a general matter. The government is supposed to work for the people, not the other way around, but the way things have been working under this administration. It is incredibly difficult to know how some of the highest level of decisions in the government are being made, but those are decisions that are impacting our everyday lives. And so we have been litigating to get information into the hands of the American people because they are entitled to it, particularly under the Freedom of Information act, those records belong to the American people. So we're not asking for any information that we are not entitled to that the American public is not entitled to. We have been in court since the beginning of last year trying to ensure that the government lives up to its promise. President Trump in particular, who purported to be the most transparent president and have the most transparent administration of all time, that has just not really been consistent with reality. What we are seeing is an administration that is saying one thing and doing something completely different. So we have, for example, think about last March. There was the interesting scandal that occurred when there was a signal messaging group and there were a bunch of senior level officials, including folks from the White House, who were communicating about imminent war plans in an insecure messaging app. And those messages were set to auto delete things that should not be happening when it comes to government records.
- [20:29]
Michael Popak
Right. Your group jumped in on that. Right. The only way we know about it is because one of them, Mike Waltz, fat fingered and added Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, the editor in chief, to the signal chat. Otherwise you would not have even have known about it in order to issue a Freedom of Information act request. Right.
- [20:53]
Chioma Chukwu
That is 100% accurate. And it also should be alarming to every American that the highest, senior, most officials in the federal government are engaged in such irresponsible behavior, such as to be communicating about classified war plans in a signal messaging app, which by the way, is not as secure as people think. And we had evidence that at least one person was abroad when they were communicating in this chat. So that's just one example of how when the administration acts and they don't tell us the truth about what they're doing, it is incumbent upon watchdogs like American Oversight to move quickly to go into these cases. And we sued to preserve the evidence. We didn't want the administration to destroy evidence that they were cavalierly talking about these sensitive war plans. In this chat, we often are suing the administration for them not to delete records. I mean, that is actually against federal law. I will give you another example. On April 1, we thought it was an April Fool's joke. The administration, their doj, the Office of Legal Counsel, issued a decision that said the Presidential Records act is unconstitutional. Since when? That completely defies more than 50 years of precedent, which, by the way, this is a law that was created following the scandal in the Nixon administration. Right. So it was a law that was designed to protect exactly what we are seeing this President do, which is delete, destroy records, treat them as his personal property. It's the same thing he was accused of when it came to the classified documents case. We are seeing efforts to continue engaging in that kind of behavior. And so we moved quickly to prevent the administration from deleting, destroying and failing to preserve records or treating them like they are their own property. And that litigation remains ongoing and is so critical because this administration just continues to thumb its nose at the rule of law. And so it requires watchdog organizations to move and honestly to perform the duties that quite frankly, Congress should be performing. But there is no check left on this administration. So there needs to be, you know, the inspector generals were fired. We're just seeing all the watchdog and all the guardrails completely collapse. And so it's up to watchdog organizations like American Oversight to continue to serve as a check on this administration.
- [23:15]
Michael Popak
Yeah, it's really American Oversight and the brave whistleblowers and leak and leakers within. Within the organization. I mean, this, fortunately, this is one of the leakiest administrations that we've ever seen. I mean, Maggie Haberman, in the article that you and I just talked about, I'm sure she took special delight in putting the footnote or not even a disclaimer, just about where her reporting and Jonathan Swan's reporting came from. She's. And I also think it was a warning to the Trump administration who have so far have left her alone and not and not try to bring her before a grand jury. It said, I have a thousand cooperating witness, you know, corroborating sources, including inside the government. And I have recordings because she was doing direct quotes from inside the Sit Room. Inside the Sit Room. And then I don't know if you read the article, it wasn't that hard to figure out who I think, you know, everybody was in the Sit Room and together, except for Pam Bondi and Cash Patel who phoned it in, which is sort of like a weird thing you're not supposed to do with the Situation Room, which is to have two people phoning it in. But that's the type of thing that you'll go after, right, with American Oversight, give us all the notes and information about the Situation Room about the Epstein cover up, right?
- [24:34]
Chioma Chukwu
That's right. To the extent that it is information that wouldn't otherwise be exempted under federal law, we would want that information. And again, there's no reason why Todd Blanche should have been in the Situation Room with officials from the White House. And there's no amount of lie detector tests or intimidation that is going to stop people from leaking information and sharing the truth about what's happening behind closed doors.
- [24:55]
Michael Popak
Yeah, we're so glad that your organization is on the case. And as I joke with another public interest group that does work with us from Acorns of foia's mighty oak. Lawsuits grow and you guys handle it. All right. You don't just do the Freedom of Information act. If it turns into an injunction hearing or a case, your team handles that as well, right?
- [25:14]
Chioma Chukwu
That's exactly right. We do. We do different litigation ourselves, but we also work with partners who we also are well suited to take the information we produce even further.
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Michael Popak
And if people want to know more about American Oversight or support your mission, how can they do that?
- [25:29]
Chioma Chukwu
Please Visit our website, www.americanoversight.org. there is no shortage of work to do and no time to do it. But we're going to continue to fight for the public. We're going to continue to get information to the people to whom it belongs. And we always appreciate the work that you all are doing and the others who are trying to uplift the work that those of us in the field are working on.
- [25:52]
Michael Popak
Yeah, we appreciate you very much. So we have Chioma Chukwu, the executive director of American Oversight, an organization. If you didn't know much about our reporting here on Legal A, you need to know about them. And if you're looking for a way to sort of counter program and whatever's happening, that thing that's happening in Washington Right now, Freedom250 has hijacked America250. Think about counter programming by getting involved with organizations like American Oversight and following closely their website for update on all of their cases. But we'd love to have you back as this case progresses or any anything else that keeps you up at night that you think our audience needs to know about. We'd love to have you back on.
- [26:29]
Chioma Chukwu
Thank you so much.
- [26:31]
Michael Popak
Yeah, and I'm Michael Popak. You're on legal AF YouTube channel. Take a minute and hit the free subscribe button for this pro democracy channel. Until our next report, this is Michael. Can't get your fill of Legal af. Me neither. That's why we formed the Legal AF substack. Every time we mention something in a hot take, whether it's a court filing or a oral argument, come over to the substack. You'll find the court filing and the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called Wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal A are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on substack. Come over now to free subscribe.