Jack Smith Surfaces in Surprise Lawsuit to Block Trump

Summary

Legal AF – “Jack Smith Surfaces in Surprise Lawsuit to Block Trump”

Date: April 9, 2026
Hosts: Ben Meiselas, Michael Popok, Karen Friedman Agnifilo
Key Guests/Interview: Rep. Jamie Raskin

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Episode Overview

This episode zooms in on a breaking lawsuit filed by the American Historical Association—teamed with American Oversight—targeting Donald Trump and his camp’s attempt to bypass or undermine federal law regarding presidential records. Central to the episode is the revelation of a 50-page Office of Legal Counsel memo crafted for Trump, arguing (again) that the president can ignore statutory record-keeping requirements—rebuffing precedents set after Nixon. Revelations connect the suit and recent legal maneuvers directly to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s criminal investigation and the question of whether Trump kept classified documents for potential profit or leverage.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Breaking Lawsuit: American Historical Association vs. Trump

• [01:04–01:54] Michael Popok: Announces fresh federal litigation challenging Trump’s attempts to destroy or conceal presidential records, echoing legal fights post-Nixon.
• The Office of Legal Counsel’s memo is dissected: It claims, contrary to controlling precedent, that Congress cannot force the president to turn over records—a view rejected by the Supreme Court’s Nixon v. GSA (1978) decision.
  • Quote: “They just said that they... The Nixon decision by the Supreme Court... to tell the President to deposit all of your millions of pages... is not a violation of the separation of powers... Yet Trump’s making the same argument all again. Congress can’t tell me what to do.” – Michael Popok ([01:17])

2. Historical and Legal Parallels with Nixon

• [02:04–02:55] Michael Popok: Draws vivid comparisons to Nixon, pointing out how the 1970s revelations about secret tapes led to legal requirements for preserving presidential materials.
  • Quote: “You're only the temporary occupant of the Article 2 office. You're only the temporary occupant of the White House. I mean, he acts like he’s going to be there forever, like knocking over the ballroom...” – Michael Popok ([01:30])
• Recounts how Nixon tried to retain personal control over White House tapes—mirrored by Trump’s recent legal gambits.

3. Details of the Complaint

• [03:17–04:48] Michael Popok: The lawsuit specifies that Trump not only withheld but may have destroyed or plans to destroy presidential records, violating both the Presidential Records Act and the Administrative Procedures Act.
• The complaint flags the volume and nature of records, including those seized at Mar-a-Lago, and Trump’s baseless claim that they’re “personal” even if marked classified.

4. Jack Smith’s Role and New Revelations

• [04:53–05:35] Michael Popok: The lawsuit references Jack Smith's ongoing criminal investigation, suggesting an overlap or at least legal context, since classified records central to Smith’s case show up here.
• New details emerge from a DOJ memo: Some classified documents that Trump retained were of such sensitivity that only six people in the government could access them—a fact now public due to an accidental DOJ disclosure.

5. Profit Motive: The Raskin Interview

• [07:15–08:57] Interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin: Raskin explains why investigators believe Trump may have retained documents for private, potentially profitable, purposes—not just for ego or political utility.
  • Quote: “The reason we think there's a profit motive, business motive... was that Pam Bondi's DOJ sent to us information that included a progress report from one of Jack Smith's lawyers saying there was a clear business motive... including one that was so top secret only six people... could see it.” – Jamie Raskin ([08:03])
  • Quote: “Waving around these documents on an airplane, obviously engaging in completely cavalier and promiscuous use of these documents that he kept in the bathrooms and ballrooms and under the pool tables and ping pong tables at Mar-a-Lago.” – Jamie Raskin ([08:44])
  • Raskin’s frustration: The White House attempts to discredit him, but the revealed documents came directly from the DOJ.
  • Quote: “All I did was release the document they sent us by accident, right? So, I don't need much credibility to say, here's what the Department of Justice just sent us.” – Jamie Raskin ([08:57])

6. Legal and Historical Stakes

• [10:41–12:15] Michael Popok: Emphasizes why this lawsuit matters—if Trump wins under this new OLC doctrine, every future president could claim the right to destroy records, unraveling post-Watergate transparency reforms.
  • Quote: “Leave it to Donald Trump, sticky fingers Trump to have his office write up a get out of jail free card, a permission slip for him to destroy the people’s papers.” – Michael Popok ([11:52])
  • Shout-out to the American Historical Association and American Oversight for rapid legal action.

7. Next Steps & Ongoing Coverage

• The case is moving fast. Popok promises ongoing deep-dive coverage on Legal AF’s platforms, including YouTube and Substack.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “You’re only the temporary occupant of the Article 2 office... He acts like he’s going to be there forever, like knocking over the ballroom...”
  – Michael Popok ([01:30])
• “There was a clear business motive, that’s what they thought was behind his pilfering of all these documents, including the one so top secret only six people... could see it...”
  – Rep. Jamie Raskin ([08:03])
• “Waving around these documents on an airplane, obviously engaging in completely cavalier and promiscuous use...”
  – Rep. Jamie Raskin ([08:44])
• “Leave it to Donald Trump, sticky fingers Trump, to have his office write up a get out of jail free card, a permission slip for him to destroy the people’s papers.”
  – Michael Popok ([11:52])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:04] Start of key legal discussion; breaking lawsuit announced.
• [02:05] Nixon connections and why the precedent matters.
• [03:17] Specific claims against Trump, record volumes.
• [04:53] Jack Smith’s investigation and its overlap.
• [07:15] Raskin interview: insight into the profit motive and DOJ leak.
• [10:41] Broader implications for U.S. legal/presidential history.
• [11:52] Sharp critique of Trump’s legal strategy and OLC memo.

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Final Thoughts

This episode delivers an urgent, detailed analysis of a fast-unfolding legal drama with deep echoes from the Nixon era—underscored by vivid, often scathing commentary from the hosts and Rep. Raskin. The tone is sharp, sometimes sardonic, but always rooted in legal expertise and an acute sense of history's stakes.

For listeners following Trump’s legal challenges, presidential records law, or the intersection of politics and the rule of law, this episode is essential.

Transcript

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[Michael Popo]

Lib S Y N and the historians shall lead us. Oh yes. The American Historical association has just filed in breaking news a new lawsuit I

[Legal AF Host]

knew one would be coming to challenge

[Michael Popo]

Donald Trump's attempt to rip up, destroy and purloin top secret classified documents all over again. Oh yes, the President who was was indicted for espionage and obstruction of justice for his failure to turn over the people's papers and keep top secret classified documents, including ones that had to do with war plans. That's the same President that had his Office of Legal Counsel put together a 50 page memo that declared a United States supreme court precedent from 1978 about Richard Nixon and documents to be wrong, just wrong. It's just there's no other way to put it. They just said that they. The Nixon decision by the Supreme Court which declared that Congress has the power without violating the separation of powers, to direct the presidency to have a certain unit of the executive branch that has some longevity, some legacy like the National Archive. To tell the President to deposit all of your millions of pages of documents with an executive branch office like the National Archive is not a violation of the separation of powers. It's executive to executive. Yet Trump's making the same argument all again. Congress can't tell me what to do. Article 1 Congress can't tell Article 2 presidency what to do. That's not what the United States Supreme Court said. You're only the temporary occupant of the Article 2 office. You're only the temporary occupant of the White House. I mean, he acts like he's going to be there forever, like knocking over the ballroom without permission or approval, but he's only temporary. May not be short enough for the rest of us, but he, but he's temporary. And to have his Office of Legal Counsel and this deputy, whoever write this thing that has to acknowledge the existence of the 1978 law, Nixon versus the General Services Administration, about his millions of documents and his, his hours and hours and hours of secretly recorded video audio tapes, to just have him declare that it's just. The Supreme Court's just wrong. Well, then go to court and have it declared wrong. Not with an Office of Legal Counsel memo. And just to remind everybody what Nixon was trying to hide is that he had a secret taping system. Oh, yeah. That got disclosed during the Watergate investigation where he was taping allies and enemies and staffers alike and was just held them for extortive purposes or otherwise. And it got found out, like, what do you mean there's a tape recorder in the White House? Like that. And then there was an erasure of certain aspects of the tape recording that made Nixon look bad, which all came out during the Watergate investigation. Oh, remember when we had a Department of justice we could count on after Nixon? Well, the, the American Historical association, which was incorporated by Congress in the late 1800s, was the first one, along with American Oversight, to file their lawsuit. It's in the D.C. federal court and it claims that Trump has, he himself has violated separation of powers, the Presidential Records act, because he's threatening to destroy everything, if he hasn't already, the Administrative Procedures act and other law, and seeks an emergency injunction. What I love about the case is how they brought up Jack Smith and Mar? A Lago. Of course, you have to acknowledge that we're talking about a president who, in his first term in office, speaking, stole things, sticky fingered Trump, you know, taken top secret, classified military documents, war plans, maps, other things, things that were so bad as they, as they repeat in their filing. This is on page one, this is on page 29, paragraphs 102 to 106 in the. I mean, if Trump's not going to acknowledge that he's a criminal, they're going to, they're going to paint him that way. Uh, 102. Upon leaving office, Trump kept significant numbers of official records rather than transferring them to the National Archives. The national archives ultimately collected 15 boxes containing thousands of documents from President Trump's personal residence at Mar A Lago. The Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a search identifying more documents and and 100 more marked classified because he didn't turn them all over. President Trump later claimed paragraph 104 that he was authorized to retain sole possession to the exclusion of the government. He maintained his documents were personal and despite the fact that hundreds of them were marked classified, about his clemency power, immigration policies and intelligence matters. And here's the part I love besides mentioning Jack Smith, at least alluding to him. A memorandum from Federal prosecutors in 2023 reportedly stated that the FBI had found that certain classified documents President Trump had retained would be pertinent to certain business interests, which may have been a motive for retaining them. Yes, it may have been Pam Bondi's final shiv into the side of Donald Trump because her Department of Justice produced to the House Judiciary Committee where the ranking member is Jamie Raskin of the Democrats, a memo from Jack Smith's team in which they speculated that the reason Donald Trump kept it as he never thought he'd run for president again, he had a business motive to keep these documents and to use them for extortive purposes. In fact, I have. I had Jamie Raskin, who wrote a demand letter to Pam Bondi a few days before she was canned demanding information about it, who talked about that particular memo. Here's my interview with, with Representative Raskin. Play it. Senator Raskin, why don't we kick off with the letter you wrote on 24

[Interviewer]

March to Pam Bondi, the current Attorney

[Michael Popo]

General, about whether she did it on purpose or not. It looks like a mistake where she

[Interviewer]

sent over to the committees a memo which outlined all of the things, including a, a top secret document that only six years human beings in the United States have, have classification or have the security clearance to review that were retained by Donald Trump and maybe and war map shown to Susie Wiles when she was the CEO of his political action committee. We knew about some of these things, but now we're trying to get to the bottom through you of them is was there a prop, a profit motive to keep these documents? Tell us, tell our audience, briefer audience about what's happening with that letter and any response?

[Jamie Raskin]

Well, the reason we think there's a profit motive, business motive, as they put it, was that Pam Bondi's DOJ sent to us information that included a progress report from one of Jack Smith's lawyers saying that there was a clear business motive, that that's what they thought was behind his pilfering of all these documents, including the one that was so top secret only six people in the entire government could see it, one of them being the President of the United States. And then the that he's brandishing and waving around these documents on an airplane, obviously engaging in completely cavalier and promiscuous use of these documents that he kept in the bathrooms and ballrooms and under the pool tables and ping pong tables at Mar a Lago. So in response, the White House has been dragging my name in the mud all weekend, saying Raskin has zero credibility.

[Michael Popo]

No credibility.

[Jamie Raskin]

All I did was release the document they sent us by accident, right? So I don't need much credibility to say, here's what the Department of Justice just sent us.

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[Michael Popo]

And then they continue on. Paragraph 106. At no point, as President Trump stated or otherwise accepted that he was required under the Public Records act to turn over custody and in control of his documents to the National Archives. So we're doing it all over again. That's the fear of this association of historians who are normally running around with dusty manuscripts. But now they've got to run into court, led by groups like American Oversight in order to try to prevent the entirety of the administration from acting on this ultravare is illegal, unconstitutionally interpreted Office of Legal Counsel memo which gives Donald Trump permission to destroy everything. That's why they got to run to court so quickly. Now this, this is a fast moving story. We'll cover it here. We'll cover it on Legal AF YouTube. Take a minute and hit the free subscribe Button on Legal AF YouTube channel as well. And I'll be doing kind of real time updates on Legal AF substack, where I do two lives a day as well. But this is an important story. When I read the 50 pages of the Office of Legal Counsel memo a

[Legal AF Host]

couple of days ago, I was like,

[Michael Popo]

oh, here we go. Leave it to Donald Trump, sticky fingers Trump to have his office write up a get out of jail free card, a permission slip for him to destroy the people's papers. He did it all over again. But shout out to the American Historical association for running so quickly into court with American Oversight. I'm going to reach out to both of those groups and see if I

[Legal AF Host]

can get them on Legal AF to

[Michael Popo]

brief our audience further on the lawsuit. In the meantime, I'm Michael Popo. Until my next report, want to stay plugged in?

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