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- [00:00]
Ben Meiselas
I wrote a little song to remind you. Choice hotels get you more of the experiences you value. The Cambria Hotel's got it all. A rooftop bar.
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Michael Popak
Have a ball.
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Ben Meiselas
Cocktails up here. Feel just right. Ms. Cambria. Amazing. All right, bring a date, your teen,
- [00:23]
Michael Popak
or even your mom.
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Ben Meiselas
Book direct@ChoiceHotels.com See you on the roof.
- [00:30]
Michael Popak
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment
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Narrator/Announcer
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- [01:30]
Interviewer/Moderator
queen
- [01:30]
Michael Popak
Carvania stood haloed by the morning sun. An army hung on her every word.
- [01:37]
Ben Meiselas
My champions, I have sold my chariot on Carvana. Twas a lovely suv, an inexplicably queenly offer. They're even coming to the castle to collect it.
- [01:50]
Michael Popak
Tonight we feast.
- [01:54]
Narrator/Announcer
An offer you can feast on. Sell your car today on Carvana.
- [01:57]
Ben Meiselas
Pickup fees may apply.
- [02:00]
Michael Popak
Your team just added its 67th AI tool and also your 67th security blind spot. The good news? The Vanta agent works like a GRC engineer in the background, finding every app your team uses, scoring the risk, and drafting fixes for you. Vanta is the platform used by over 16,000 fast moving companies like Ramp, Cursor and Harvey who are shaping the future with AI and staying ahead of AI risk. Get started@vanta.com welcome to Legal AF. We have a lot to discuss. A busy week indeed. You have Donald Trump's deranged national address where he was saying that the 2020 election was interfered with. Then he proceeded to declassify documents which were actually incredibly bad for Donald Trump and they had all of these redactions. So then it made people say, so are you just doing another like Epstein file redaction thing? What about those documents that say that China was going to le about. Redacted, redacted, redacted. Donald Trump redacted, redacted, redacted. We'll talk about that. We'll talk about the Todd Blanche confirmation hearing and also what went down after where one of the Republican senators Tillis said, I'm not going to confirm you unless you meet with the Epstein survivors. So then Todd Blanche is like, okay, I got to check a box. Then Todd Blanche just to show you what an evil and horrible person he is and how he should not be given this job. He then proceeds to like to torment and treat the Epstein survivors horribly. Midas Touch actually got the exclusive right after the meeting between Blanche and the Epstein survivors. They've now since been on other networks, but they said how awful he was treating them and he was dismissed. He said the most disgusting things to them and they like re traumatized them like, you couldn't have handled it any worse. We'll talk about that. And also we'll talk about what's called a spoliation motion, an emergency motion for discovery in, in some of these cases where Donald Trump's like destroying all of these things in Washington D.C. and then blaming it on vandals and then he's criminally prosecuting people like the Reflecting Pool. And then there are civil cases and there are criminal prosecutions. What an absolute mess from this Trump regime. But Trump then like destroys the evidence. And so we're seeing lawsuits and emergency motions like in a preservation case against what Trump's already done with the Reflecting Pool saying, all right, we're seeing these photos. Since you've drained it again, there's no like gash 350 yards or whatever you're saying, like you're making all of this stuff up. And so we want discovery right now about what the hell is going on. And that's also while there is a criminal case taking place where Trump is criminally proxy prosecuting a two time Olympic canoeist. I will talk talk about this and more. Let's bring in Popak. Popak, how are you?
- [05:00]
Ben Meiselas
What was that that happened on Thursday night? I mean, look, this came out of the fevered imagination of not only Donald Trump who's decided that the number one issue that American voters care about is the 2020 election. There's only that was a, that was made for an audience of one and that is Donald Trump and all of his sycophants and election deniers that he brought into the White House with him, like Kurt Olson, who is his new election integrity special employee, who's been running down these dark conspiracy theories for the last six years. All, all adults, all independent minded people know that 2020 election was lost by Donald Trump and won by Joe Biden. Seventy different lawsuits in federal court prove it. Multiple audits prove it. There's always fraud in an election. But we always have had a very good symmetrical approach to dealing with a minor problem which is not outcome determinative, which is usually somewhere in the neighborhood of.01% of the total vote. And what do we do? We have people sign penalties of perjury when they vote and, and understand that it's a crime if they vote when they're not allowed to. And then we have prosecutors go after them. That has worked for over a hundred years. What you don't do when you have a small leak in your bathroom, what you do do is you replace a washer. What you don't do is tear down the house looking for the pipes. But Donald Trump won't ever admit that he lost the 2020 election. So he has to continue to litigate it. And, and, and the stuff that he quote, unquote dumped out, this never seen before. It's all been seen before. It's all been floating around the dark web for the last six years and been rejected and renounced by everybody. And the part he couldn't get right because it, it undermined his own narrative. Again, a narrative in this vomitous speech that only one person cared about is that he couldn't mention the Russia interference or influence campaign. He had a focus on China. And the problem with that is you and I have seen, and I have it posted up on, on our, our substack for legal af. Everybody has seen the declassified National Intelligence Council report by the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security that had five key findings, one of which was that the Chinese sat out the 2020 election. They didn't like either Biden nor Trump. They didn't want to bet on either horse. They couldn't figure out which of them would be better or worse for them. So they just said, and this was a high degree of confidence level collective intelligence community report. The Chinese said, we're just going to do it with lobbying and with economic policy and we're going to set out the election. Now. The Russians had an influence campaign according to this IC report. Influence meaning social media trolls, a little bit of rudimentary AI to try to get Trump elected and undermine Joe Biden. Fortunately, the Iranians were trying to get Joe Biden elected, so it sort of was awash. The Russians were trying to get Trump elected by undermining Joe Biden and the Iranians were trying to get Biden elected to undermine Donald Trump. But it was all through influence campaigns. There is absolutely. And I want people to take this as a palm card note for them as they're in our audience, as they're debating these issues in the public square with their friends and family and social media. There is no evidence whatsoever because it didn't happen of actual hacking of either voter registration rolls or the votes themselves or the tabulation process that converted Trump votes into Biden votes or added votes for Joe Biden. It didn't happen. The 2020 election, as Chris Krebs, the head of the cybersecurity infrastructure unit that Trump created, declared to the world, was the safest and most secure election in history. It doesn't mean fraud didn't happen, but it happens in such small amounts like a couple of thousand phony ballots or people that voted when they shouldn't have that it is not outcome determinative. But Trump doesn't want that. He wants the great distractor before the midterms. And so the biggest indication for me was that the very next day after this speech, I know you know this, Ben, but our audience, Fox and friends spent three hours completely ignoring the speech. They didn't mention the speech once. Thune, the Senate Majority Leader never mentioned it. Mike Johnson never mentioned it. No public statements. The only one were like elected officials and Senator Mike Lee of Utah, you know, all the people who were trying to support this dead on arrival save act, which is, I'll make a prediction, is never going to pass the Senate because the Senate doesn't want to touch this policy with a ten foot pole. And lastly, polling came out around the same time that reinforced the complete abandonment of the MAGA Trump led party by the American voter. Over 60% of Americans say that Donald Trump is misguided in terms of his priorities. The top three priorities for Americans are jobs in the economy and inflation and prices and health care. You know what's not on that list? The 2020 election.
- [10:33]
Michael Popak
You know, and while he's doing that, escalating the war in Iran, we learned tragically this morning, multiple US service members were killed in Iranian strikes. The Iranian strike strikes, of course, in response to Donald Trump escalating and Trump pulling out of the mou. And the war is only escalating from, from here on out, Donald Trump spending Saturday golfing like a freaking pathetic fool that he is as our service members are getting killed. And he's out there holding national addresses, whining about the 2020 election while he's getting our service members killed. And based on the escalatory trap that he has put the United States in, sadly, this seems like just the tip of the iceberg of what's gonna happen. We've been warning about this on the Midas Touch Network, and our hearts go out to all of the families of those service members who were killed. I know there are some who are still missing. And I just want to say that at the outset as well, let's talk about the Trump regime's re traumatization. Michael Popak of the Epstein survivors. I want to get into Todd Blanche's hearing. We've covered that in detail. I want to take a technical legal approach to really diving into Blanche's hearing, know as, as we are uniquely capable of doing here on Legal AF and you know, specifically focusing on these senators who were top lawyers before becoming senators and how they utilize their kind of questioning. But I want to toss it to you for this segment, Popak, about what Todd Blanch did after his confirmation hearing. So you had maga, Republican or no, he acts like he's a centrist Republican Senator Thom Tillis over in North Carolina, who Trump worked to basically get Tillis to resign. And it's kind of shocking to me when you see someone who like Donald Trump, literally, you know, Tillis climbed the ranks in North Carolina politics. You know, he was, you know, before becoming a senator, Trump destroyed this guy's career. And it's like, you're even with all of this, like, you know, you still do this performative resistance crap where he's like, I will only confirm Blanche if he meets with the survivors. And then. So Blanche met with the survivors, but treated it with a smugness and arrogance hate with all of this. And the survivors left and they were like, that was one of the most horrific meetings, you know, we ever had. I mean, Todd Blanche opened up the meeting, arms crossed, basically saying like, I just want to begin this by saying there's like, nothing really I can do for you. I'm not really sure what you expect that I'm going to be able to do. I've got people here, but I'm here. So let's just start with that as a, as an initial matter, you know, and then people would ask him questions. He would downplay, from what I heard in the room, the severity of sexual assault, the severity of what witnesses and survivors say, you know, happened. Midas touched. You know, Aaron Parnas has been getting lots of these scoops and the exclusives directly from the survivors. As soon as, you know, news breaks. Popak, I know on the Legal AF YouTube channel you've been covering it. I want to start there because, you know, the guy. The guy. First off, you should authentically, when you meet with the survivors, fight for them. But the guy. This is such. What was the term? Banality of evil, but it's the evil of evil. It's the. They relish the cruelty. And when you heard what Blanche did to these survivors, when you were there, the guy didn't even try to pretend that he cared. He didn't even stay. Hey, I just want to let you know, I can't even imagine what you've been through. You know, I understand that, you know, a lot of this falls on the Department of Justice. Let's figure out a way that I can. No, no, no, no. He started off by attacking them. Popak, what are you hearing?
- [14:38]
Ben Meiselas
Well, absolutely. First of all, Danny Bensky, who gave that impassioned speech, is a national hero representing the Epstein survivors. You know, there's 1600 or so Epstein survivors. Only 25 have actually come out. It's their choice. I mean, whether they want to come out and be re. And be re. Traumatized. And you see what happens to them when they do. But. But 25 have come out. They can tell part of the story. They can tell their own personal story. And Danny Bensky certainly is a tremendous asset and leader for particular group. She'll be on with me on Wednesday. Coming up on Legal af. I've had her on before. The. The. What we're watching is an example of what my mother used to call the definition of character. Character is not what you do when everybody's watching and we're all watching the. The confirmation hearing and to see if. If Todd Blanche gonna get through it. The character is what you do when nobody's watching. And when he was behind closed doors, meeting begrudgingly. Begrudgingly as if he had a stone in his shoe, as if he was a schoolboy being grabbed by the ear and dragged to the principal's office when he met with them, without a generous heart or spirit, without any real intention to hear them out, to give them the dignity and the justice that they deserve. Not only did they deserve that, the American people are also demanding on their behalf. I mean, this. This administration has so lost sight of how they are perceived by the American people such and including maga.
- [16:11]
Senator Adam Schiff
There's.
- [16:12]
Ben Meiselas
If there's anything that unites this country, it is that we do not believe that a child sex trafficking ring and its connectivity to a president who was friends with the leaders of it should be protected and covered up. That is something that, if you did a poll, it would uniformly come out Democrat, Republican, maga, Independent, Democratic, Socialist and the like, all agreeing that the Epstein scandal and the COVID up of the COVID up led by people like Todd Blanche is insufferable and not American. And that is what Epps. That is what sometimes I call Trump Epstein. That is what Todd Blanche walked into. Now, what he could have done, but it's. But he could not do it because it is not in his nature, in his character, which is really a. He's really a. What we're watching is a captured puppet who has sacrificed whatever ethics he ever once had in this 25 year career to become the Attorney General of the United States. It's like, it's like the golem in Lord of the Rings trying to get my precious, my pretty. I mean, he's given up. He is the incarnation of evil, as you said. So rather than go in there and say, listen, as I have said out there publicly, door is always open. We will investigate. If you have new evidence and new narrative and you want to be interviewed, raise your hand and let's make that happen starting tomorrow. Here is my head of human sex trafficking. Here is my. Whatever. I will be personally in charge. Here is my email. Here is. Here is my cell phone. No, he doesn't do that. Instead he says, I don't. Well, first of all, I'm not in charge of investigations. Sorry, the FBI is. And I'm not the head of the FBI. Fuck off. First of all, the Department of Justice runs the FBI, okay? It ultimately reports to the Department of Justice. Yes, it has its own head, but. But ultimately they both report to Donald Trump. So any investigation can be opened by the Department of Justice, by a line prosecutor or the Attorney General of the United States directing the investigation. Happen. What he should have said is, I will, I will meet. I'll have the next meeting with Cash Patel and his number two with you. And we'll schedule time for each of you to come for multiple 302 interviews where, where you can tell your story. Not on just on Midas touch or on Legal AF or with Aaron Parnas, but you tell it to an FBI agent agent. And we will then follow up and follow through and keep you and your Lawyers in the loop. That's all he needed to say. I'm sorry, this is how I got here. But I'm here now. I, I hear you, I see you. I feel your pain. But he can't say that because he was the leader of the COVID up. We know from Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's reporting in the Situation Room freakout that, that Todd Blanche was a major leader of pulling the levers to cover up the Epstein documents and to cover up the COVID up from the American people. Feed them just enough BS for them to believe that there's transparency while at the same time burying everything. He was the leader of the Maxwell child sex trafficker interview in which following that, she got a puppy and a better prison environment as a reward. And he had to answer for that. So when this guy who's been bullshitting the American people, who has been crapping all over. I'm cursing a lot today, crapping all over the Epstein survivors every day of their existence. That's the guy that enters the room after being. I don't know whether it was forced or it was a pitch and a catch between Thom Tillis because I had Senator Cory Booker on the, after the night of day one of the confirmation hearing. And Corey told our audience that he, he caught the, the eyesight between Blanche entering the room and Thom Tillis and they both smiled at each other and he said, the fix is in. This is before Tillis came out with, ah, you need to meet with the Epstein survivors or you're not going to get my vote. I don't know about all that. I think, as you said, it was a performative piece that Tillis was like, you know, with the Trump people working him, what's it going to take? He's going to have to meet with them, but you got to meet with them with open heart and open mind, not just meet with them in an insulting way, in a degrading way, in a way that made them feel worse going into the room than better. That's what all the clips that we've been, all the interviews we've been doing have been saying. So this, if Trump, if Trump and Blanche thought they just needed to tick the box set up by Thom Tillis and that was going to be sufficient. They just gave new momentum and new gasoline onto the Block Blanche movement. Let me talk about that just for one second to answer questions that have come up along the way, including tonight. Lindsey Graham's seat will be filled in time next week for the vote. I'm talking about his seat on the Judiciary Committee, it's not going to be a sister, it's going to be somebody else. Trump trusts to vote yes on Blanche, and that will overcome. Even if Tillis, Even if Tillis. One vote goes awry, they'll have enough votes. Unless they lose Cornyn and Tillis. If they lose Cornyn and Tullis, then Blanche is dead. I don't see that happening to be. Let's. We don't blow smoke or sunshine here. I think he gets out of committee and then there's going to be this Senate floor vote fight and the groups are arrayed against Todd, Blanche and missteps. Like what happened with the Epstein survivors may ultimately be his undoing. To peel away. We need three or four senators to peel off. I'm looking at you, Lisa Murkowski. I hate to say this, because Susan Collins never does anything, right. Susan Collins, a few other of the more centrist Republicans who, who, who want to be states people again and don't want to be under the thumb of Donald Trump and have that as their, have that as their reputation. If they, if we can aim for those three or four. It's tight, man. It's tight to thread this needle, but it's not impossible.
- [22:37]
Michael Popak
You know, when I think about somebody like a Thom Tillis, I think about what's the purpose of what you're doing. A lot of these survivors were actually Trump supporters. That's the thing, too. These were actually people and, you know, who believed him. Because one of the things that he's able to do is identify people who are very vulnerable and prey on it and make promises and then shatter it and then further exploit those people, you know, and so, you know, this isn't a partisan issue. It's just a very bizarre thing. Bland shows up, basically causes further PTSD to the Epstein survivors. And then you're like, great job.
- [23:25]
Interviewer/Moderator
That's.
- [23:25]
Todd Blanche
You did it.
- [23:26]
Michael Popak
You did what nobody else is willing to do. I guess. I mean, further traumatized the Epstein survivors to their faces. Is, you know, is, is, is saying something, you know, and then I don't know how anybody could watch the hearing that unfolded and say, yeah, that's the guy who should be leading the Department of Justice. That's the guy who should be doing it. It was the most obvious example of, of someone who didn't know what the hell he was doing. Outright talking about ethical breaches, you know, criminality. I mean, it was, it was a horrifying thing to observe, you know, and, you know, while at this point, I guess it's a Very sad thing to recognize that, you know, that the MAGA Republicans in the Senate and the MAGA Republicans in the House shouldn't be viewed as a political party but as a racketeering enterprise to further covering up child sex trafficking rings the America. We need to understand that and we need to stop, to, you know, borrow from you, Popak, the cursing in this episode. We need to stop the bullshit and we need to, and we need to just call this out. And, you know, you could be like, well, okay, well, what is calling out do? What is calling out do? At some point, the power is with us, the people. Okay, if they're willing to do like 90 days in a row of protests in Albania because Jared Kushner and Ivanka want to take over one of their islands and turn it into some Trumpenstein oligarch retreat. And they're out there every damn day. At some point, what the hell are we doing while our fascist authoritarian regime is doing never ending wars, getting our soldiers killed, killing innocent civilians abroad, destroying the world and making the American people suffering, covering up child sex trafficking. Enough. When we get back, I want to show a little bit from the hearing of Blanche, but then I want to get into, you know, the Trump doc dump of declassified information which looks like stuff from the Epstein file. It's like, and the Chinese said that if the election goes a certain way, they may say redacted, redacted, redacted about Trump. And that Trump did. Redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted. I'm like, what is this document? I'd like to know what's underneath those redactions. Let's take our first quick break of the show. A reminder. If you or someone you know has been injured in a car accident, trucking accident, injured by the negligence of a company or by somebody else, particularly catastrophic injury cases called the Popoc Firm, Michael Popak has people across the country answering these calls. And Michael Popak will take your case if it's a case. That's one of the cases that, you know, that, that, that meets the criteria. Call 877- POPOC or visit the popoc firm.com 877- POPOC AF or visit the popoc firm.Com don't be shy. Seriously, reach out. The worst they'll say is there's not a case. And he represents a lot of people who are Legal AF listeners and viewers also subscribe to the Legal AF YouTube and the Legal AF substack. Thanks, everybody. We'll be right back after our first quick break of the show.
- [26:41]
Ben Meiselas
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- [29:14]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to legal af. Thank you to all of our sponsors. They make the show possible. They support our show. Support our sponsors if you can. Oh, and by the way, new book out WTF America pre order it right now. It comes out in October. I wrote it with my brothers. It's inspired by you, the Legal AF community. I have some chapters talking about my litigation background, the litigation approach to thinking about this Trump regime. It's called WTF America? Because I wake up and I go, what the F. I'm sure that's how lots of us feel in this moment right now. Speaking of wtf, that Todd Blanche confirmation hearing. I don't need to restate everything that happened. You are aware what a disaster it was. But I want to take a more technical legal approach and show you some of the questioning by former top federal prosecutors, even a Republican, former top federal prosecutor, state prosecutor rather, and Supreme Court justice. People don't know this about John Cornyn, who also Trump destroyed his career as well. I'm no John Cornyn fan, so don't be like, why are you sliding John Cornyn? I'm just telling you, he was a former Texas Supreme Court justice. He was a former Texas attorney general. He was a former Texas state court. They called a district court judge over there. And so he was, he was a top lawyer, you know, in Texas. Probably one of the reasons why Trump hated him, amongst others, despite the guy being also a MAGA sycophant. Although I think that's how he thought he had to stay in power. But that's what happens when you are part of the MAGA cult. You know, Trump just throws you under the bus for Ken Paxton, the guy who violates the law and engages versus the guy who was the Texas Supreme Court justice. Anyway. Then you have Senator Schiff was a former top federal prosecutor. I thought they're questioning. There was other great questions. Popak and I talked about this before Senator Booker. Other people did good. But to me, and you could push back on a Popak in a little bit. But to me, those were good questions. Those are political questions. It's good political analysis. It's good to expose the corruption of Blanche. I think we all know that this guy is a scumbag. He shouldn't be anywhere near this position. In my, my opinion, he aids and abets Trump's criminality. He's not a criminal defense lawyer in the sense of defending criminals. I think he is a criminal defense law. He's, I think he's in, he's helping Donald Trump and sharing with you my opinion as protected by the First Amendments. You could disagree or agree with my First Amendment opinion right there. But let me just get into and show you a few of these moments and I may cut the clips off a little earlier, assuming you get the point of him, but let me show you first, Senator, Senator Schiff asking Blanche, did you write the, did you write the agreement that settled the $10 billion lawsuit that Trump, in his individual capacity filed against the Treasury Department and IRS for $10 billion where Trump gave himself a super pardon preventing all audits or any tax evasion charges or anything regarding his taxes from the date the settlement is signed going back. So we know how Donald Trump made billions and billions and billions of dollars in quid pro quo deals, screwing over our country and doing all these deals with like Middle east countries, which is like the Middle east on fire. I just so freaking angry. I'm so angry at this despicable piece of shit right now. I'm just so, you know, when I think about what he's done to our troops and what he's done to this country, sometimes it's, you know, I lose the legal commentator part and just get so damn angry sometimes. But I'll try to keep it together, especially on a day like today where we're learning about all these casualties and it's only getting worse and he's, and he's escalating. But I digress. Let me just show you the clip of Todd. Blanche, right here, Senator Schiff is, you know, is, is asking about, you know, okay, this super pardon, this agreement. You signed the agreement, right? So did you write it? You signed it. Did you write it? Here, play this clip.
- [33:03]
Senator Adam Schiff
Well, it's in the plain language of your agreement. Did you write this language?
- [33:08]
Todd Blanche
You have to use the facts, though. Did you? He hasn't filed taxes yet. So when he filed files, taxes. There's no protection based upon this agreement.
- [33:15]
Senator Adam Schiff
Did, did you write this language?
- [33:17]
Todd Blanche
Did I write the, Did I type it up myself?
- [33:19]
Senator Adam Schiff
Do you write this language?
- [33:21]
Todd Blanche
No.
- [33:22]
Senator Adam Schiff
Well, you put your name to it.
- [33:23]
Todd Blanche
I did.
- [33:24]
Senator Adam Schiff
So who wrote this?
- [33:27]
Todd Blanche
Some, I don't know the person that actually typed it. I don't know who it is.
- [33:31]
Senator Adam Schiff
Was it one of the president's lawyers or was it someone from the just department or irs?
- [33:35]
Todd Blanche
This document would have been somebody within the department, Department of Justice.
- [33:38]
Senator Adam Schiff
So you have no idea who that is?
- [33:40]
Todd Blanche
I don't know the name of the
- [33:41]
Senator Adam Schiff
person that ended up. Did you debate with them the statute of limitations which clearly would preclude the president's claim this 10 billion dollar lawsuit.
- [33:51]
Todd Blanche
We had extensive discussions internally about the underlying litigation.
- [33:55]
Senator Adam Schiff
And you. Did you reject the statute of limitations defense?
- [33:59]
Todd Blanche
I, I'm not a judge. I don't reject.
- [34:01]
Senator Adam Schiff
But you signed an agreement for the US Discussion around you sign an agreement for the US Basically indicating that the Justice Department's position that the statute of limitations applies doesn't matter.
- [34:15]
Todd Blanche
I did. That's not what I.
- [34:17]
Michael Popak
Okay, there's that. I want to show you this next one. It's a few other ones. I'm going to skip a few where Shiv said, so if Trump files tax returns this year for money he earned last year that his sons earned and they defrauded taxpayers on it, doesn't he face no liability right now, does it? Haven't you waived all life? When we hear that Trump, at least on publicly reported that he made what, $3 billion or so for. It's probably way more than that. Okay. That's what was disclosed. Okay. There's probably a lot more for him. We don't know what his kids did or, or, or what may be being kept in other vehicles that don't vest yet and may vest later that could be being concealed. So there's other ways that he may be hiding it. But let's take a look at when Shiv said, you know, so one of my thoughts is, you know, the whole January 6th insurrectionist fund, that's the, that's the smoke screen. That's the smoke and mirrors. He doesn't want to pay taxes on the billions of dollars that he grifted and that he looted while he's been in that. That's what this is really about. And this. And so some people are saying, well, it waives $100 million of tax liability because that's what the IRS had been looking at previously with all of those audits that Trump was involved in that Trump's been fighting. I said, no, no, no, no. It's not the 100 million, the hundred millions, that's peanuts. He doesn't want to pay taxes on the billions. And he's using this waiver, which in California we call a 1542 waiver, a waiver of all known and unknown claims to say, I can't be taxed on this stuff that happened before the settlement agreement. That's what this was about to me. So watch as Schiff questions him on that. Let's play it.
- [35:58]
Senator Adam Schiff
Let me ask you this. Does this tax agreement, this addendum you signed, also hold him harmless from any audit or tax liability with respect to the billions in crypto money he made
- [36:11]
Todd Blanche
in his first year as president, it's not forward looking. So to the extent there are taxes filed by the President or his sons or the Trump Organization after the date of that agreement, there's no protection.
- [36:22]
Senator Adam Schiff
Well, but before, before that agreement. So any filed taxes yet for money
- [36:26]
Todd Blanche
he made last year? Right.
- [36:27]
Senator Adam Schiff
So yes. So if he, if he filed tax returns this year for money he earned last year, that his sons earned, that his world, Liberty Financial, all those people earned and defrauded taxpayers on it, he faces no liability under this.
- [36:44]
Todd Blanche
No sign, no evidence taxpayers were defrauded
- [36:46]
Senator Adam Schiff
and he there's hedgehog evidence disagreement.
- [36:50]
Michael Popak
Popak, I can go on and show you more about there's no evidence that he would defraud that there's no evidence of that. And so you have Trump's criminal defense lawyer in a case where Trump was found guilty of dozens of felonies
- [37:06]
Todd Blanche
for
- [37:07]
Michael Popak
criminal misrepresentations, you know, or for, in the business record case, rather saying there's no, there's no, I mean just watching that unfold, you go, holy shit. And I don't mean to just plug the. But this is why I wrote wt.
- [37:24]
Interviewer/Moderator
What?
- [37:25]
Michael Popak
What? That's why I say it. I go, what? Wtf? What? What the hell is this? And, and as you know, someone who's been practicing law, you know, you know, if anybody said this, you know, it'd be like admitting, you know, it'd be like showing up like that act right there. Popak would be like showing up to your local police department and saying I killed somebody. I was like, okay, so we're going to arrest you. No, but I didn't. What's wrong with that? You said you killed like me. He's just saying this stuff, Popeye.
- [37:56]
Ben Meiselas
By the way, I know who's going to be on my legal AF Book of the Month club interview in October. You and your brothers. Let's get to the, let's just get to the release for a minute because there's a history about the release that's also demonstrates the disingenuous of the responses that Blanche gave to Adam Schiff. The only thing I credit Todd Blanche for is that was if that was Pam Bondi, she would never have answered any of those questions. She would never admitted to the murder. She would have said, you shifty shift with your, with your own mortgage fraud problem. At least he give the guy credit because he's got such a 10 year. He doesn't realize, you know, they've been, they've been sucking off this noxious gas of the Trump hermetically sealed environment for so long that they don't understand that what to the, to the normal person, they sound insane and criminal. Here's, here's what happened on the 18th of May. The thing that everybody followed and ran away and ran stories on was the settlement agreement of what has now been declared by Judge Williams in Miami to be a phony bad faith settlement and not a settlement at all of an illegitimate lawsuit brought by Trump against his own captured Internal Revenue Service that should never have been brought and the settlement agreement could never have been produced from it. It's like fruit of the poisonous tree. She's not only said, you can't call it a settlement and it undermines your ability, Todd Blanche, to use the Judgment act statute to settle a lawsuit, because this was never a lawsuit. And then she also, in that order, invited future fraud on the court motions to be filed. I'll follow up with that in a minute. That was what everybody covered. But the next day on the 19th, and we'll put it up in a moment on the 19th, by himself, without any other parties participating in it, demonstrating that Donald Trump controlled this whole thing from the very beginning is the thing that the Trump family and Donald Trump always wanted. Exoneration, super pardon and immunity from criminal and tax audit and liability exposure now and in the future, signed by him on the 19th. Now, you see, he, see, he got really ridiculous with Schiff when he said, did I personally type it? Do I know who typed it? Now, we don't give a shit who typed it. The question was, did you participate? I'm a lawyer. Did, did I draft the language? Did I approve of the language that was used? Did that language come from Trump private lawyers? You functioning as Trump's private lawyer or someone in the Department of Justice? Do I type it? No. So he's always trying to. They're always trying to confuse the audience, but we're never confused. Certainly our audience isn't confused. This is what the May 19 document says. We'll put it up on the board. The United States releases, waves, acquits and discharges each of the plaintiffs. That's the whole Trump family organization. Affiliates from and, and forever bar and preclude the the US from prosecuting or pursuing any claim whatsoever known or unknown as of the effective date of the settlement agreement, which is 18 may have been or could have been asserted by defendants. That's the Internal Revenue Service and the US Government, by extension, against any of the plaintiffs or related affiliates with respect to or in connection with or arise out of. Listen to this broad definition of things not defined. Any matters that were or could have been raised in the lawsuit that Trump trumped up. Lawfare and or weaponization, undefined terms, whatever that means, or any matters currently pending or that could be pending before defendants or any other agencies or departments. So that is a waiver not just as you said, of the $100 million penalty that's been in dispute after Donald Trump took a 70 million. Sorry, 70. Yeah, $70 million tax write off to try to refund for himself all the taxes he had paid during his highest tax years when he was on the Celebrity Apprentice. Not that it's the dozens of years since then. And he's audited every year with thousands of pages of thousands of organizations that he controls. That was the super pardon that he always wanted. That is the thing that Donald Trump cares about. The COVID story was, oh yeah, I'm throwing $1.776 billion to these guys over here that beat up the cops. But what I really want is this thing over here. And that's why for weeks you and I were like, why is nobody talking about the super pardon? Why is nobody talking about Blanche unilaterally giving his client is part is of part boss. This thing that even the Supreme Court did not give him. Why is nobody talking about that? And of course it got talked about, as we just saw, not just by Adam Schiff, by, by the other nine cross examining Senate Democrats as well. So you've got all of that right? And the release over it. And for me, he, even though he was for him sort of calm and cool and collected because he's been assured that they think they got the votes. So he just has to sit in that chair for 10 minutes per Senate Democrat get through it. There's only one day. And for people that are upset, this is what happens when the Democrats don't have the gavel. They don't have the gavel. Everybody gets 10 minutes. They don't really coordinate that well either, by the way. Like if I, if I were the king of the Senate, I would take 100 questions and divide them up among the 10 Democrats, you know, with room to move around as necessary to get. But instead everybody does their own Epstein. Everybody does their own Jan6 fund, everybody does their own release, which is fine. You get these amazing moments done by former, mainly by the former lawyers. Cory Booker, Yale Law School former lawyer, you know, Senator Whitehouse, former U.S. attorney, Rhode Island Senator, court, Senator Corden on the Republican side, Supreme, you know, A judge and on the, and a prosecutor in the past and of course chef, a prosecutor. So, so they know what they're doing. There's a reason that they're on these committees. But for those that were frustrated, why didn't this go on for more days? You know this on this important decision. And you could see there is almost this, there's almost this air of inevitability that Todd Blanche, which is, which is what he dragged into the Epstein victims meeting as well. I'm going to get the job so I don't really have to do this. And so he walks around like he's got a stone in his shoe. But for the American people and to peel away some votes for the confirmation process, this is important that this gets platformed and how he's, how he's reacted to it. But I agree with you. The sheer, not only the criminality of what he's done, but his failure to recognize that he is saying things that in any other era, any one of these black marks. The handling of the Epstein files. Let's just go through it. I mean just for a little bit of a census for our audience. A Department of justice that has had to dismiss indictments for false testimony and forged and false documents being submitted to federal courts on more than one occasion. A a Department of justice led by Todd Blanche that has had a declaration of vindictive prosecution by a federal judge. Another federal judge saying there's been what amounts to bad faith and fraud on the court perpetrated by Todd Blanche. Grand jury misconduct. Judges who have declared that the presumption of regularity, the presumption of good faith in anything that comes out of the Department of Justice mouth is now over. Grand juries who, who return no bills of indictment because they won't indict whatever they want. The going after the political enemies or the target list for Donald Trump from James Comey to Letitia James to Adam Schiff to, to others, all the Epstein files scandal cover up and cover up of the COVID up Ghislaine Maxwell getting a puppy instead of being sent into solitary confinement for being a five time convicted sex trafficker. I mean at one time Cory Booker said, let me get this straight. You're more concerned with Ghislaine Maxwell safety and security. Okay. And what you can report on than you are any of the 10 Epstein survivors representing the other 1400 that are in this room. How upside down and perverse are you? And this was important because a, I want to see the block Blanche movement and you and I'll Be doing a lot of coverage concerning it. I got a whole livestream coming on soon on Legal AF about it led by Dick Durbin. But I want to see that it get real momentum and it can. Just because some of those people are going to vote for him in to get out of the committee doesn't mean we can't still work Tillis and Cornyn for the main vote. They could flip. They're not bound by the vote they did in the conference. Some people are like, you know what, I'll get him out of committee. But the vote is still up for grabs. I'm not sure Thom Tillis is completely in the bag for the final vote or Cornyn, but you and I and Legal AF's community, the Midas Touch community, have to work overtime in banging away at our senators and joining these organizations. A raid against Todd Blanche to do everything so that if he gets confirmed, we say we did, we left it on the field. We did everything in our power to oppose the the most. I never thought I'd say this. The most corrupt attorney general that that's ever been in history and that's ever been under Donald Trump. And that is saying a lot given the rogues gallery of, of attorneys general under, under Donald Trump.
- [48:19]
Michael Popak
I want to take our last quick break of the show. When we come back, I want to share with you one more portion from that. But then I want to get into this spoliation motion that's been filed and I want to also talk about how this Trump document dump backfired. We'll talk about the Trump document because to me it's very similar to kind of the way these documents look with all of the redactions with Trump's name on it may go, okay, maybe you want to un, redact that. Then you're like, there's nothing to see here. Nothing to see here at all. Just, you know, just, just, just trust us, trust us. We're not going to actually prove the evidence. We're not. We'll lose all of the court cases. But you know, we'll just try to, we'll just try to have state, regime, media, Fox it, oh wait, Fox isn't even going to cover it anymore. All right, we'll just say that, you know, we'll just say there's a massive deep state cover up. Murdoch's involved, everybody's involved. The only person who knows the super secrets are Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and Blanche and those people. Let's take our last quick break of the show. A quick reminder. If you or somebody knows been injured in a car accident trucking accident the negligence injured because of the negligence of a company. Popox firm handles catastrophic injury cases so and wrongful death cases and sexual assault and harassment cases. See if you have a case. Reach out to Popox law firm. The consultation is free. Call 877popocaf or visit thepopocfirm.com also go check out popox YouTube legal af pop substack legal af on substack legal af on YouTube let's get that YouTube 2 million subscribers everybody. All right, last quick break of the show. We'll be right back.
- [50:00]
Ben Meiselas
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- [52:38]
Michael Popak
Welcome back to Legal af. Thank you to our sponsors, our sponsors support our show. Support our sponsors. Discount code is in the description below. I just wanted to briefly show Senator Cornyn's examination of Todd Blanche, just briefly. We don't need to belabor the point, but the point I just want to show you is how Cornyn, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who, by the way, I don't like him. I think he's a MAGA bootlicker. I think he got the karma he deserves. Although having Ken Paxton now as the Republican nominee with Paxton's, you know, releasing a child sex abuser, Paxton's, you know, own rampant corruption and being impeached and his own criminal charges brought against, I mean, this is, that's maga. I mean, there's, I mean, Trump and Paxton, you know, there's a reason. Trump, Paxton, Epstein, I mean, this is the crew. These are, this is, this is, this is their crew. This is who they hang out with. But in this examination of Blanche Cornyn, who was a former Texas Supreme Court justice, he knew the scam that Trump and Blanche were putting by doing a poison pill in the agreement, the settlement agreement that gave Trump the super pardon for no tax audits and any of that, that basically said the only way the agreement can be modified is with writing. If there's a writing by Blanche or a writing by the doj, that then invalidates it. So what Blanche and Trump were trying to do is say orally represent that the thing doesn't exist anymore. And we don't worry about it. It's not real. We're not going to fund it, but never put it in writing to then allow Donald Trump to argue, oh, the oral representation doesn't void the contract. The contract still exists and it can only be voided by a written instrument. There's no written instrument. Therefore, you can't audit me, my companies and my kids. That's the scam. That's the scheme. And, and Cornyn, I'm not going to show you the full clip, but that's what Cornyn gets to the bottom of. And you can see Blanche is an idiot. Like, Blanche also isn't a smart guy. He's just purely evil. And when Blanche is actually asked questions by Lawyers. He kind of walks into the. He kind of walks into the traps, which is why it would have been better to have more than just, you know, ten minutes of questioning. But just watch this for a moment.
- [54:56]
Narrator/Announcer
Let's play it.
- [54:57]
Interviewer/Moderator
Let's talk a little bit about the set. About the settlement agreement in the release. First of all, I believe you have said that the weaponization fund is a moot issue. Is that your position?
- [55:10]
Todd Blanche
Yes, it is a moot issue. Meaning there is no weaponization fund. The weapon fund is dead. It's not moving forward.
- [55:18]
Interviewer/Moderator
Well, I would refer you to the settlement agreement. Do you happen to have a copy of that in front of you?
- [55:24]
Todd Blanche
I do not.
- [55:25]
Interviewer/Moderator
Okay, well, you probably know what's.
- [55:27]
Senator Adam Schiff
What's.
- [55:27]
Interviewer/Moderator
What's in it.
- [55:27]
Todd Blanche
I'm familiar with it.
- [55:28]
Interviewer/Moderator
Yes, I'm sure you are. On page four. This settlement agreement can be modifier, may be modified only upon the written agreement of the parties. Has there been a written agreement of the parties to modify the settlement fund?
- [55:41]
Todd Blanche
No. The settlement fund is just not moving forward. There's not. There's no modification. It's just. It never started. No money went from the treasury to any other account. There's no commissioners. It's not moving forward.
- [55:53]
Interviewer/Moderator
Well, so the settlement agreement remains as it was originally, but I hear what you're saying is it is a settlement agreement enforceable as a contract by the parties.
- [56:07]
Todd Blanche
Well, yes, it's an enforceable document. So I suppose if President Trump's counsel sought to enforce it, they potentially could,
- [56:17]
Interviewer/Moderator
including the weaponization fund.
- [56:19]
Michael Popak
Exactly, exactly. And you're his counsel. You're his.
- [56:24]
Todd Blanche
You're.
- [56:24]
Michael Popak
You're his lawyer pretending not to be his lawyer. And although he let it slip when he was got the easiest cross then across got the easiest softballs by Senator Kennedy of Louisiana was like, are you. Are you friends? Are you friends? And then Blanche is like, well, I'm his lawyer. I mean. I mean, was his lawyer. Oh, okay. Anyway, that's all I wanted to show you there about. Cornyn, let me bring up right now just this, the issue of the documents. So we know Trump did this deranged press conference. He barely could speak in sentences. Kelsey, do we have the video just of Trump at this bizarre national address where, like, he's like, couldn't read the teleprompter. I think his old teleprompter guy was being now being investigated because he would bet on Kalshee, what Trump would say and on the insider information. Even the teleprompter guys involved in. Involved in the grip. But let's Just play this quick clip of Trump.
- [57:25]
Interviewer/Moderator
My first administration in our 2020 campaign.
- [57:29]
Ben Meiselas
They did not, not want, and they just didn't want it. They fought like hell not to have it. Donald Trump to win.
- [57:37]
Michael Popak
The hell is going on there. And then he, then when you actually, you know, something about Venezuela and China, even though he posts like, love photos of himself and Xi Jinping, but. And he doesn't sanction China and he says how much he loves Xi Jinping, but somehow Xi Jinping was involved. Well, I looked at the documents, Michael Pop. When I look at the documents, you know, that are redacted as it relates to China, I think we have that. And the documents that relate to Russia as well. I mean, these are heavily redacted documents. And when you look at them, you know, it's like China says that if the election goes a certain way and they get worried they may leak. Redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted about Trump, including redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted, redacted. And then they talk. There are the documents that mention Russia and say, you know, when Russia really wants Trump to win and that they're going to come up with, you know, the burisma stuff and work with Trump, you know, and basically work with Trump aides to frame Biden and Hunter Biden, it's like a total vindication of Hunter Biden as well in some of these documents, because it's like saying, you know, we're, we're plotting basically all the burisma stuff in order to try to influence the election. But of course, Trump doesn't bring that up. And then also, and I'll toss it to you, this current CIA director is John Ratcliffe. John Radcliffe, during Trump's first term was the dni, the Director of National Intelligence. So when Trump says, my intelligence community there, they need to be investigated. Your current CIA director was the guy who you would basically say knew all of this stuff in real time. So that's the guy. Your current CIA directors that you know that that's who it is. Or do we lift off John Ratcliffe's mask and it turns out Scooby Doo style, it's Hunter Biden or it's Obama or something stupid. Pop, break that down and then you could jump into the reflecting pool.
- [59:32]
Ben Meiselas
Okay, yeah. Let's get down to this Vomitus press conference, or as Gavin Newsom called it or refer to it, or I'll, I'll paraphrase exhibit A of the tryout for Donald Trump to be removed under the 25th Amendment as being incapacitated. There's even new reporting, Ben, that Donald Trump is now wistfully thinking back on the Carter administration when it relates to the Iran war and suddenly is giving him a pass as to how hard it is to, to be at war with Iran. Yeah, there's a reason why nobody went to war with Iran, including Ronald Reagan, nor over the Strait of Hormuz. And now Donald Trump is learning the hard lesson. Now, unfortunately, it's at great expense of treasure and blood of America, including the American military, as we learned as we came on the air. The problem with his speech is that it was reversed engineered. They wanted to be with the failing poll numbers with 29, or let's call it an even 25%, with the plus or minus margin of error of Americans believing this is a failed administration that has completely lost its way, never to be recovered. Especially by the time of the midterms, just several months away when you have American voters rejecting and they'll look at the bloodbath that would be the midterm elections and Donald Trump's inability and incapacity to turn this ship around. You can't turn the Titanic around. The Titanic sank. And this is all we're watching is just rearranging of the deck chairs. Now it's the moment, I guess, for them to spring on the American people. All of the crazies that are inside the White House like Kurt Olson. Kurt Olson, a failed lawyer sanctioned twice by the Arizona courts for, for bringing up false information to the courts related to, to Carrie Lake's attempted bid for the governorship. He was so nuts that even Team Crazy, which was the, the name for Judy Giuliani's group during the first Trump administration, wouldn't have Kurt Olson around. Now Kurt Olson is inside the government as the director or the lawyer responsible for election integrity of all things, working with people like Cleta Mitchell, who's another right wing conspiracy theorist who has this whole network of election integrity network lawyers all around. They're the ones the reason when you heard that Puerto Rico's voting equipment was seized or Georgia's Fulton county voting equipment was seized, that was Kurt Olsen working with the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabard at the time, which explained her appearance in Fulton county to seize it. And then when they went in, they couldn't even find anything that indicated any kind of insecurity or more importantly, that any hacking had ever happened of the voting machines to make the election results insecure. Nothing. But this is a Kurt Olson special. And so he combined with, I don't know, Stephen Miller, write up a speech. Now, the problem they have, which they want to ignore, but we'll put up in legalaf substack for our viewers is what you just referred to. This was declassified March 15th of 2021. This is a March 10th, 2021 intelligence community assessment. See all those logos at the top? We'll put it up on the screen. That just happens to be the Department of Homeland Security, National Security Agency, the Department of State, the CIA and the rest. And here's the problem with Donald Trump in his speech because he wants to sow fear and he wants to sow people having some sort of insecurity about their vote. Maybe by depressing the vote, they won't vote because they won't think it matters. See the, the Republicans have to put a boogeyman under your bed in order for them to try to win an election that they have to create discontent. They have to see doubt. They have to put each Americans at each other's throat, much like the Russians, the Iranians, the North Korean and the Chinese. That's why they may not be colluding in the traditional sense, but they're rowing in the same direction because they can't win with a aspirational, mature debate in the, in the, in the public square about ideas. So they got to put a boogeyman under your bed. Could be a murderous knife wielding, transgender migrant to pass all their policies or the Chinese are trying to steal your vote. Here's the problem with it. The focus of the intelligence community report was really on Russia and Iranian interference through social media and other influencer campaigns. Again, no evidence that there was any hacking to make your vote insecure or to flip votes from one candidate to another. But they had five key findings. I just want to go through a couple of key findings, key judgments of Donald Trump's then intelligence community. Key judgment number one, we have no indications that any foreign actor attempted to alter any technical aspect of, of the voting process in the 2020 US election, including voter registration, casting ballots, vote tabulation or reporting results. So no equipment or software was hacked. That's the second page of the report. Key judgment number two, we assess that the Russian President Putin authorized and a range of Russian government organizations conducted influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party to support Trump. Okay, but they, they did not see cyber efforts by Russians to gain access to election infrastructure. So Russia was using influence campaigns in order to undermine Biden and support Trump. But at the Same time, key judgment number three, the Iranians were carrying out their own influence campaign to undercut Trump and to promote Biden. Again, no hacking, just not just, but influence campaigns. And their Last judgment number five was that China sat out the 2020 election. We assessed that China did not deploy interference efforts and considered but did not deploy influence efforts intended to change the outcome of the U.S. presidential election. And they had a high degree of confidence in this. They viewed the election outcome for them as they couldn't figure out who would have benefited them. So they didn't want to be caught meddling. So they said, we'll just do lobbying and we'll just do targeted economic measures. So for Donald Trump to stand up with all these ridiculous redactions and say that China stole 278,000 voter registration rolls, what does it have to do with voting? Anybody? You and I can buy voter registration rolls from states, by the way. So the fact that 278,000 of them ended up with the Chinese doesn't matter. A wit. Again, not one piece of evidence in that 30 minute, whatever that was that there's actually been hacking and changing of votes. And I thought that was what the concern was all about. And the redactions that Ben outlined, it would be the equivalent of saying, I get a memo about Donald Trump burying Ivana Trump on the 19th hole at Bedminster Golf Course and it says, I decided to bury Ivana in the Bedminster golf course because. And then next to her in her coffin was blank. And then stand up and go, oh, something really terrible. We could all say, yes, yes, the Mar a Lago documents are buried with ivana at the 19th hole. It is such a, it's such an insult to the intelligence of the American voter that this is the reason that, get this, Fox and Friends the next day, a three hour show did not mention the speech once. I don't mean, I don't mean like they barely mentioned it. I mean, they didn't mention it at all. Neither did Senator Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, neither did the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson at all. This is not a speech that anybody in the Republican leadership or strategist wanted Donald Trump to give. Because on the list of things that the American voter gives a shit about in terms of their next vote being cast, the 2020 election is not even on the list. And yet Donald Trump wanted to give a speech he wanted to get. And the reason apparently is he's still pushing to get the SAVE act to have you have to require you to bring citizenship papers and Your, your driver's license, your voter ID in order to vote. We don't need that. We have penalty of perjury signatures and prosecutions of the infinitesimal times that voter fraud occurs. He said Homeland Security found 200,000 votes on voter rolls. Yeah, it represents, you know, of, of unqualified or non citizens. Okay. I assume they would have got caught before they actually voted. They were just registered. Registration doesn't mean votes. Registration means you're registered. You still got to show up, sign in. And there's still a lot of barriers before you actually cast a vote, including criminal prosecution. And even if that number were true, and there's no, nobody has any idea where they got the number from or how they, how they figured out who's not properly an American citizen. It represents like 0.001% of that state's votes. Again, not outcome determinative. No vote. No election has ever been that close. Even, even Bush v. Gore was not that close. So we didn't cover it. Mainstream media didn't cover it. Fox and Friends, Fox News treated it like they had to do it on tape delay in order to figure out what crazy shit he was going to say out loud that they were going to have to counter because they've been on the receiving end of almost $1 billion defamation case for airing the election lies the first time around. So they weren't going to go there again and risk their assets. So the only people that seem to be happier is like, Kurt Olson, Cleta Mitchell, Mike Lee of Utah, and a couple of other people who want to sow doubt and so discontent among American voters. But it's not going to work because every time we do a story here on Midas Touch or on Legal, I have, we hope we're creating a new member of the army to defeat Donald Trump at the midterms. He's not making any new voters. He's only shedding voters. But the Democrats, the independents, liberals, Democratic socialists, the rest are all banding together, a band of brothers, of sisters, of soldiers to defeat Donald Trump. And that is our trump card. That is our competitive advantage come the midterms. Now, some people might be wondering when I'm going to turn it over to Ben. Ben had a runoff to a family engagement. I told him I'd finish the show for us. So there's a reason why we're alone. But put your, put your questions in comments. We'll try to get to them at least one way or the other tonight as well. Okay. That was the speech. Let me, Let Me touch briefly on the reflecting pool because it's also indicative, it's also emblematic of the, of the, of the disgusting, rotting failure of the Trump administration. How they handled the reflecting pool. Brand new motion filed to stop Trump and those around him, the National Park Service, from destroying evidence. The fact that you have to file in a court a motion to avoid the destruction of evidence about the pool should tell you everything you need to know about this administration. In fact, there's a, I have a, if you want to get more in the weeds here, I got a YouTube video up on this very issue on Legal AF YouTube today. So take a minute and go over there and you can, you can grab it while you're subscribing. Here's, here's it. In short, the lawsuit that's being presided over by a federal judge in D.C. is about whether Donald Trump illegally, in violation of rules and regulations, drain that reflecting pond and had had a sealant epoxy system blown on it. A dark blue in, in that created algae bloom and whole sheets of it. Floating liner floating in the reflecting pool. Trump wants to continue to use his Department of Justice to blame people like former Olympic canoeist Davey Hearn for touching a floating liner. Oh, he, he's the one. Trump wants everybody to believe that somebody poured chemicals into the reflecting pool. Zero evidence, not in Davey Hearn's indictment and not in any affidavits filed by the Trump administration in the case from the National Park Service. So take off the board. Chemical vandalism never happened. And that's not the reason that it's, it's peeling off. He wants to argue with the American people that somebody with a box cutter ripped 375 foot gash or 200 foot gash and that's the reason that there's pool liner floating and there's an algae bloom. Take that off the board. That is not the reason. First of all, there's absolutely no evidence. It's not in the indictment. There's no box cutter video because nobody did it that way. It must have been done by a contractor when they were ripping sheets in order to install this two layer system that was untested, unproven by unqualified contractors. Not just one, three of them. Related to that. You had a contractor out of Virginia who was given without any competitive bidding or any oversight, a $1.7 million contract. You know what this company does for a living? They blow sealant and they blow a chemical into truck beds as a liner and pools. What could go wrong? That's one they then hire another company to use an untested product on a seven acre site. This is a seven acre, think about the football fields site of the reflecting pool. They hire another company to use a, to use a product called Rhino. So it was a two layer system. First they blew a, a, a sealant on the bottom and then, then they blew sort of a polyurethane, a polyurethane top coat in a different, in the color that we call American blue. But they did it in sections, big rectangular sections. And now reporting by the Washington Post is between the seams of those sections because they were so rushed to do the installation, to get it done in record time that there's been delamination. In other words the sections have come apart and now we have floating liner. It's poor installation that created the liner floating problem, not Davey Hearn reaching down and ripping up a piece of the liner in a seven acre site. A seven acre site. How does that explain the middle of the pool? Floating pieces of liner, bad installation from a number of contractors who didn't know what they were doing. The algae bloom, that's not chemicals. That's a company that Donald Trump hired called Greenwater Technologies run by a Trump donor who's a two time convicted felon. Oh yes. Who had another failed technology system of water, water filtration at the Tijuana river which dumps into the Pacific. And Greenwater Technologies, it's big claim to fame on their website is we pump ozone and the ozone will be a natural way to filtrate. Now didn't work in Tijuana river, not working here. Within one day of the ozone stopped being pumped into the system algae bloom happened. And so what's the lawsuit and the motion about? They drain the pool for the third time down to the bottom where it was revealed that there are tire tracks from Donald Trump in his own the Beast SUV riding along the surface of the newly installed but probably not ready for prime time application of the, of the sealant. So that probably that probably wasn't a good thing. And now the, the group that's suing Trump wants to take pictures. I would suggest they do some testing while the pool is drained and they're afraid that when the pool is is re replenished that they'll, there'll be evidence that will be destroyed that they need to prove their case. How do I know also that there's no chemicals that cause the bloom is because they, well they either drain the pool not looking for chemicals. They haven't tested to find any chemicals. Or they just destroyed evidence related to chemicals. Chemicals. Either way, this is a story that needs to be continued, to be followed, because it matters to Trump. He keeps wasting taxpayer dollars wrecking a national monument, which is the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. And kudos to the organization that brought the suit, that's brought the case now to stop the destruction of evidence, to allow them to prove that Donald Trump is, has, has in his own way, destroyed, partially, at least, a national monument. Well, this is the kind of things we gotta follow together on Legal af. So many different ways to support what we do on the Legal AF podcast. Right? One is support the work that I do. And I have a dozen other contributors on the Legal AF YouTube channel. Our goal is to get to 2 million subscribers by the midterms. And at the rate we're going, we will get there. It's a free subscription. And with that size where we are now, that's how we're able to get to come on the show. Senators like Booker and Blumenthal and White House and governors like Shapiro and the attorneys General for the 24 different democratic attorneys general and their organization, or how we're able to get. I have Senator Warnock coming on next week. I've got Epstein survivors and leaders like Danny Bensky. I know. And people want to be on the show because they want to speak to our audience. And you are the reason for that. Come on, hit that free subscribe button. Separately, we've got a substack that's an amazing community, which we're up to about 150,000 subscribers, which puts us in the top 10 of all US news substack, certainly the top of law and politics ones. I do a live report every day at the midday along with sometimes with guests. And all of our contributors are there. And by building these two audiences, then we get the collaborators that you want to hear from, like the American Civil Liberties Union, who's with us there on Legal AF, the YouTube channel. The NAACP is joining us for collaboration. We have a big live feed going up on Monday on the Legal AF YouTube channel with the NAACP Democracy Forward Court Accountability Action, Court of History with Sidney Blumenthal and Sean Wallentz and their guest list, you know, Adam Klassfeld and All Rise News, you know, just a tremendous set of contributors under one pane of glass at that intersection of law and politics. All. All because of you. And I formed, as people know, a law firm. I've been doing this for 35 years, but I formed a law firm dedicated to our Midas touch and Legal AF audience. It's called the POPOC Firm and you can use the QR code or hit the 800 number or visit us at our brand new website, ThePopoc firm.com brand new website, same tireless fighters. If you've been injured or somebody you love or worse, by the negligence of others, by an accident, medical malpractice, civil rights violation, you name it. Let us evaluate whether you have a case. I've got an amazing group of lawyers who have recovered billions of dollars for people in all 50 states and that's at the POPOC Firm programming note. We got a tremendous group of 12 different videos every day this weekend up on the Legal AF YouTube channel on Tuesday night. Join me for my Webby Award winning show called the Intersection on Tuesday night on Midas touch network at 8:00pm Eastern Time where Mark Elias from Democracy Docket and the Mark Elias Law Firm will be joining me to unpack everything that's going on to protect our right to vote. Tuesday night on the Intersection. And then we're back at it every day on Legal AF and on the Midas Touch Network covering the stories that you want to hear. I'm glad everybody's here. What a tremendous audience we had. Shout out to the Midas Mighty and the Legal af'.
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Senator Adam Schiff
Ers.
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Ben Meiselas
I'm Michael Popak for Ben Meiselas.