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- [00:00]
Michael Popak
As each day goes by, there's no doubt that the Trump administration has no clue where the enriched uranium stockpile is for Iran. It can't possibly be at Fordo, the place where they just dropped a dozen bunker buster bombs on to destroy the nuclear capacity of Iran. How do you destroy the nuclear capacity of Iran and believe that they're still storing the uranium there? And Donald Trump wants to distract from all the fact that the intelligence community, his own intelligence community, can't make a proper assessment of whether there has been a setback or not. So instead he's going after the New York Times and CNN because they reported about an intelligence report from his own administration answering to Tulsi Gabbard who said that at best, at best, at least preliminarily, the nuclear program for Iran was set back just a few months. Pete Hegseth takes to the podium at a presser where he goes after the New York Times and cnn. But even he doesn't properly provide any details, nor does General Kaine about the assessment of the damage at the sites. Is that what this is all about? Sure. It's interesting to hear the TikTok of exactly what happened in the 37 hour mission of the two B2 bombers. I get it. But we want to know about what happened and where it is the uranium and why finally didn't they hit the fourth site at Pickaxe Mountain. Yeah, Pickaxe Mountain. That's likely where the nuclear or the uranium enriched is right now because there were trucks that were cited by satellites leaving the 4Doe location before the bombing. But Donald Trump doesn't care about that. He just hires a guy in Coral Gables, Florida named Alejandro Brito who brings another nasty letter against CNN and new this is the lawyer they've used before to go after ABC and Stephanopoulos to go after Michael Cohen. You know, he's just another tool in the tool bag of Donald Trump. And now he's sent nasty letters to New York Times and David McCaw, the general counsel for the New York Times, who I've had interaction with in the past, a positive interaction with and as a first rate first amendment lawyer, he fired back at the top on behalf of the New York Times and said we stand by our story, we got a copy of the of the assessment and we reported on it and we'll continue to report the truth. So will we. Here on the Midas Dutch network and on Legal af, I'm Michael Popak. Let's get to it. We're now just about a week after the bombing, you know Saturday night will be a week. And we still don't know the assessment because the intelligence community doesn't know the assessment. The intelligence community that Donald Trump undermines on an hourly and daily basis in America. He doesn't trust his own intelligence director, Tulsi Gappard, who has 14 different intelligence agencies reporting to her, including the one that generated this report, doesn't barely trust the CIA, but not really with John Ratcliffe. So there's no, and this is not a pun, there's no intelligence in the planning, operation or in the execution or in the postscript for Donald Trump's military plans. None. None. And so what is he busy doing? Busy up there saying that the media, who has a job to do, whether Donald Trump likes it or not, as, as, as allowed by our founding fathers and framers, has a job to do to bring tyrants to bear, to bring them to their knees, to properly report, to give the American people and voter true information and investigative reporting. They have a job to do. Trump has a job to do. Let's stop attacking, attacking the media over their job. And they sent that nasty letter. You're on. I love these comments from the letter. You're unpatriotic, you're false, you're defamatory. They're none of those things. Here's what David McCaw, top flight First Amendment lawyer, general counsel within the office of the General Counsel for the New York Times. Here's what he wrote back. First, Brito Alejandro Brito, who I don't know, but I practice in the same neighborhood. He described the attack on Iran as historic and a resounding military success that unequivocally eliminated Iran's nuclear capabilities and brought peace to the region. Who believes that they unequivocally eliminated. Even General Kaine doesn't say that. Nobody says that. In fact, at the press conference, and I'll show you a clip from it in a minute. The best that even Hegseth can do, and he's political hack of the first order for Donald Trump and a bootlicker of the first order. The best he can come up with is I'll leave that to the intelligence community to assess. Right. So why is this lawyer in a small office in Coral Gables, Florida, making reference to our resounding success of the military opera who wrote this for him? He said the New York Times article about the preliminary intelligence assessment, which was a top secret report that the Times got their hands on, undermined the credibility and integrity of the president in the eyes of the public and the professional community. I don't even know what that means. He's been defamed. I don't think you can defame the President by accurately reporting the leak of a top secret classified document. Here's what McCaw wrote. The Times Lawyer The US intelligence services issued a preliminary assessment concluding that the attacks delayed Iran's nuclear program only by a few months. This is what we reported. While the Trump administration protests that the assessments were only preliminary, which, by the way, was the second word of our article. I love McCall and that letter, assessments. And that later assessments may come to different conclusions, no one in the administration disputes that the first assessments said exactly what the article said they did. The destruction caused by the raid was not as significant as the president's remarks suggested.
- [05:48]
Ben Meisellis
Hey, everybody, Ben Meisellis here from the Midas Touch Network. I wanted to let you know about my podcast partner, Michael Popox new law firm. It's called the Popak Firm. Michael Popox pursuing his dream of starting his own law firm. Really based on the popular demand by all the Midas mighty and legal A effers who are approaching Michael Popak with their cases and saying, can you help us? And at that time, Popak was not able to. So he went out on his own. He started the Popoc firm where he is now handling catastrophic injury cases like car accident cases, trucking cases, malpractice cases, big negligence cases, wrongful death cases. So if you or someone you know have a case like this, the consultation with Popox firm is free. Give him a call. See if you have a case. It's the Popoc firm.com thepopoc firm.com or you can call 877-popak-af- P O P O K A F. So 1-877-p-o P O K A F give Michael Popak a call. And I'm really proud of you, Popak. Thanks for all the hard work you're putting in.
- [07:03]
Michael Popak
Brito, I told you filed ABC. They got a $15 million settlement because George Stepan Steppenware Stephanopoulos had a slip of the tongue and he said rape instead of sexual abuse. When it comes to E. Jean Carroll's case against Donald Trump, he also sued Michael Cohen. That defamation case was dismissed in 2023. You know, so you see where this is coming from. And I love McCaw basically saying we will stand by our reporting and we will not back down. As reported by the New York Times, he said no retraction is needed, no apologies will be forthcoming. We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to Do. CNN said the same thing. Hegseth at his report on his, on his press conference basically goes after. Is this an appropriate place for appropriate time and place and position for the Department of Defense Secretary to go after the news media for reporting something that landed in there? What would they expect him to do? It lands in their lap. It says preliminary report. They report it as a preliminary report. They say what? It says that's not news, that's not newsworthy. How is that not newsworthy? Now you might have a different argument. You can make the argument if you're the Trump administration, that that's preliminary. We haven't gotten to the bottom of it. But there's a bigger problem here that even the New York Post, run by Rupert Murdoch is reporting on, which is there is a fourth facility at Pickaxe Mountain, that's what we call it, which is a hardened facility that Iran has had that's been building since 2020, 2021. That is double the depth of the Fordo location that we just dropped 12 bunker buster bombs on. It's 660ft, potentially below ground. That's about a 40 to 50 story building turned upside down. We would never be able to hit that. And that begs the question, why didn't we hit Pickaxe? And then you've got this miscommunication. They can't get their story straight about the missing uranium. We have the uranium that's enriched between 60% and 90%, which is the entire stockpile for Iran. That's, that's what this whole shooting match is about. It's about 418kg. You can put it in about 16 containers that look like, you know, about the size of a hot water heater. A full size hot water heater. There were trucks with photos outside of Fordo before the bombing. Marco Rubio, the Secretary of State said, I would have thought Israel would have bombed everything. Yeah, but they didn't pre bomb. They bombed. And before they bombed, their truck was at Fordo. It's Easy to load 16 hot water heaters containing effectively uranium into a truck and take it somewhere else. And I don't even understand the argument by the Trump administration. The uranium that is, that is the rubber meets the road moment for the Iranian nuclear program is still at Fordo. The thing you just destroyed with 12 bombs dropped from 50,000ft in the air by B2 bombers that you just bragged about at your press conference. Let's play a clip from the press conference.
- [10:06]
Unnamed Press Secretary
Sir, like I said, we don't do bda.
- [10:08]
Michael Popak
I'll refer that to the intelligence community. And I mean, what changed in the past three days and make you so.
- [10:15]
Unnamed Press Secretary
You know, sir, I think I. I mean, I think I explained what changed. There was a great deal of irresponsible reporting based on leaks, preliminary information in low confidence. Again, when someone leaks something, they do it with an agenda. And when you leak a portion of an intelligence assessment, but just a little portion, just the little portion that makes it seem like maybe the strike wasn't effective, then you start a news cycle, whether it's the Washington Post or Fox News or CNN or msnbc, you start a news cycle that starts to call into question the ethics. That's why. So you bring the chairman here, who's not involved in politics. He didn't do politics. That's my lane to understand and translate and talk about those types of things. So I can use the word obliterated. He could use defeat, destroy, assess, all of those things. But ultimately we're here to clarify what these weapons are capable of, which anyone with two eyes, some ears and a brain can recognize. That kind of firepower with that specificity at that location and others is going to have a devastating effect. So we all recognize there will be days and weeks ahead. That's why yesterday I said, if you want to know what's going on at.
- [11:23]
Unnamed Journalist
Fordeaux, it's about highly enriched uranium. Do you have certainty that all the highly enriched uranium was inside the 4do Mountain, or some of it? Because there were satellite photos that showed more than a dozen trucks there two days in advance. Are you certain none of that highly enriched uranium was moved?
- [11:41]
Unnamed Press Secretary
Of course. We're watching every single aspect. But, Jennifer, you've been about the worst, the one who misrepresents the most intentionally, what the President says.
- [11:53]
Unnamed Journalist
I'm familiar about the ventilation shafts on Saturday night. And in fact, I was the first to describe the B2 bombers, the refueling, the entire mission with great accuracy. So I take issue with that.
- [12:06]
Unnamed Press Secretary
I appreciate you acknowledging that this was the first opera, the most successful mission based on operational security that this department has done since you've been here. And I appreciate that.
- [12:17]
Michael Popak
So I don't even understand this story. The plutonium, the uranium is still at Fordo. That's now been destroyed. Or is it in trucks and at Pickaxe Mountain, which you didn't hit? Yeah, I agree that from the reporting so far that the centrifuges which spin the uranium at a very high rate, that are necessary to enrich. I agree that there is a whole level of them that a whole tranche of them that have been destroyed that were at Fordo. But they're not the only ones. If you could get the 418kg out with a bunch of high, you know, advanced centrifuges, you're back in business. And that's likely what's happening. Even Donald Trump now is trying to negotiate his way out of this message by offering to pay for or invest $30 billion into re developing the civilian nuclear program for Iran as a, as a big carrot to get them to settle. So we're going to continue to follow this all. We Speak Truth right here on the Midas Dutch network and on Legal af. I'm Michael Popo, take a minute, come over to the YouTube channel for Legal af. Hit the subscribe button there as well. And we post a lot of these things and anything I get my hands on on the Legal AF sub stack. So until my next report, I'm Michael Popak. 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 contributors from Legal AO for 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.