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Now.
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style, every home 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 fifteen dollar 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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of $45 for three months, $90 for six months or $180 for a 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and feeds extra initial plan term only greater than 50gb. Me slow.
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You better sit down for this one. We now have the last minute response by the Department of Justice most senior leadership in the case involving Katie Fang journalist versus Todd Blanche, the Department of justice in which Judge Sullivan granted a preliminary injunction and required either that more Epstein files be produced including a redacted draft complaint listing of co conspirators and information about a torture video and other information or else, or else they needed to show cause why they couldn't provide it. And Stan Woodward who used to be the co conspirator with Donald Trump's defense counsel in the Mar? A Lago case, now effectively the number two in the Department of Justice has wrote in to file his response. And sort of buried in it at the end is a number of very very unscrupulous underhanded comments and arguments that attack victims but in one person in particular has a big problem and that is Leslie Groff, the 18 year executive assistant for Jeffrey Epstein who claims he was the best boss in the world and he did. She did not know what he was doing behind closed doors. She according to this new filing was on a draft complaint as a coconspirator her name having now been unredacted by the Katie Fang filing. And I think she better get herself a lawyer. I'm Michael Popak, you're here on Legal af. Let's talk about these these develops developments of the Epstein files. Judge Sullivan issued a 48 page opinion a couple of days ago, a big win for transparency and democracy, ordering that five separate categories of information be provided to the American people or that the government show cause why they can't or comply with it or can't produce it. And after going through in about eight or nine pages of all sorts of excuses as to well we didn't really concede and we don't think you have jurisdiction and you know a lot of makeweight arguments they finally get down to brass tacks around page 10 and let me read to you from the parts that are the most troubling for me and we'll put this up in Legal AF substack for you to read as well. First place my eyes started to pop out and my temperature went up is when I got to the first attack on victims. This is before Leslie Grof is outed as a potential co conspirator. It says that on page 10 talking about certain emails that were required to be produced or show cause why they couldn't be. Stan Woodward says In his filing for the first six or eight emails, the redacted sender and or recipient's names are the names of victims. One of the complicating aspects of administering the Epstein File Transparency act is that many communications written by victims without context can appear disturbing on their face. Here we go. Blame the victims for being victimized and sexually abused in an international child sex trafficking ring run by a couple of friends of Donald Trump. That's already starting off on the wrong foot, don't you think? That's on page 10. Then I said, well, that's interesting. What is he talking about? Well, let's get to it. They continue by saying, consistent with the statutory authority, the Department of Justice has sought to prevent victim personal identifying information from becoming public, even in instances where the victims eventually become complicit or engaged in reprehensible activity or communications. Again, again, children and young women who are. Who are somehow complicit in their own sexual abuse. That's what he's saying on the top of page 11. And then my eyes go down to Leslie Grof. Now, we've spoken about Leslie Grof before. Back on 9 June, she gave 250 pages of testimony behind closed doors. We have the transcript about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, where she was the executive assistant for 19 years. Now I know what executive assistants do. I had one when I worked in Manhattan, when I worked at Canter Fitzgerald. My wife was an exec, not mine, but my wife was an executive assistant. I know what they do in New York. It is inconceivable that Leslie Groff did not know what was going on behind closed doors, that she was only scheduling the massages, but didn't understand that the women coming for the massages were sometimes girls and that he had certain likes and dislikes that she needed to regulate and legislate. She's been to the island, she's been on the plane. She basically operated out of the townhouse where he abused women. She's been to all the places, she's seen all the things. And yet she says he was the best boss. I had no idea that he was a pervert. She said, I have no. I had no idea that he was manipulating and deceiving. I never would have. I never would have participated in that. Well, let's get to Leslie Groff. In the new filing by the Department of Justice, it says, number two, page 12. The court has ordered the department to either produce to the public the DOJ documents with a certain serial number with potential co conspirator names unredacted or show cause why those names can't be unredacted. And here's where they say on page 12 three of the four names listed under the coconspirator heading belong to individuals who are in fact victims. So now he's got this is how the Department of Justice operates. Victims are now coconspirators with their abuser. The redactions applied to the name of Leslie Groff have been removed since she has not asserted victim sex status. And then they have they cite to a letter letter by USA as to Ghislaine Maxwell that was filed in a one of the New York court cases. Leslie Groff, I know you have a lawyer. You better get a lawyer. Leslie Grof, let me read to you from some of the emails exchanged that are in the Epstein files. She is in The Epstein files 160,000 times. Her name appears in just the 3 million documents that were produced. There's millions more where I'm sure she's also mentioned because she ran his life. It is inconceivable to me that she ran his life and did not know or did not suspect or did not have kind of imputed knowledge we call it in the law, you knew or should have known what was happening or you buried your head in the sand because you were making 150,000 or 200,000 plus bonuses plus travel year in, year out. You didn't want to rock the boat. That's what real Isn't that what really happened? Here's some of the emails about it. Grof's tab this is according to Politico, Grof's task was to ensure that Epstein's life ran according to his precise preference. Well, we now know what his precise preference was. Young girls Jeffrey has requested she wrote in an email that he please not be disturbed while in gym working out even if a guest is is here waiting. When Jeffrey is waiting for something and you know the urgency with a package, you should give it to him right away if at all possible. She wrote about a two hour delay in the livery of some pastries. He called me asking where his cannolis are. On any given day she would move from having a towel rail fixed to working working how to respond to Epstein's allergic reaction or to ensure that Steve Bannon, Donald Trump's buddy, had received Epstein's gift of an apple watch. She was good at her job. She also got puck perks. In the New York Times interview he revealed that when Grof announced she was pregnant in 2004 because this is Epstein being interviewed by the New York Times. He offered to pay for a nanny and border a car. There's no way I could lose Leslie to motherhood. She doubled her salary in one year. She often was offered Florida holiday five star hotels. Groff's husband Ike forwarded the email to someone else and said, seriously, the best boss ever. On Valentine's Day 2018, he bought her glam squad appointments with stylists. Too sweet, she wrote. She got to tour his private plane, ride on his helicopter, take a boat to his private island, Little St. James Island. We now call it Peto Island. Leslie, you didn't see all the young girls around. You didn't question why everybody seemed to be like 17. That was, that was giving massages. You didn't question why there was a massage table in the middle of his dining room in the townhouse that you frequently worked out of. Come on. Apparently the FBI and the Department of Justice didn't believe it either and had her as a potential co conspirator. And then they talk about a torture video that needed to be released or the email about it. And they said, well, we don't have to. On page 11 they say, well, we don't have to release it because Congressman Massie has already outed that person, so we don't have to do it any longer. Look, their biggest problem that Stan Woodward has in making these files is that they're blaming the victim. You know, the. On page 13 they talk about a draft indictment. And in the draft indictment they say that they have an unredacted version, but that the victims names are redacted. It's almost suggesting that the victims are somehow participating again in their own conspiracy. They spent a considerable amount of time in this piece saying that you don't need to make this decision, Judge, because the Freedom of Information act is all Katie Fang ever needed. Except the lawyers for Katie Fang told the judge that the Freedom of Information act is exactly what they told when they, when people applied to get Epstein documents, the government would respond. We don't have to respond to a Freedom of Information act request because we're, we're producing it pursuant to the Epstein Transparency Act. That led the judge to immediately make his ruling. Let's play a clip of me interviewing Brendan Ballou, Katie Fang's lawyer, about that very point. Play the clip.
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They are ordered to either produce those documents that we've demanded or explain why they can't produce them. They are supposed they are directed to actually produce the privilege law. That explains all the redactions we'll find out if such a log even exists. It doesn't seem like the administration was particularly careful about trying to comply with the law here. Clearly, this is now a priority for the administration because Stanley Woodward, who, depending on how you count, is either the number three or number two official at the Department of Justice, just entered a notice of appearance immediately after the preliminary injunction was ordered. So I assume this is one of those things where conversations are happening at very high levels in the government right now. I think at this, you know, we, it would have made sense for them to try to make an emergency appeal to the D.C. circuit. I shouldn't say it would have made sense. It would have been unsurprising for them to do that. I think the ships left the station on that one and now they more or less have to respond substantively to the PI order tomorrow. So we'll find out.
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Yeah. And they. He didn't Judge Sullivan deny any request for a stay?
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Yeah, yeah. And that's the kind of thing where I feel like the, the Department of Justice, because it really had not established any credibility in this case with, you know, saying contradictory things, not complying with court orders and so forth. You know, this is the result of what happens when, when you do those sorts of things is a judge is not going to be sympathetic to arguments that you need a lot of lead time to generate, you know, new defenses.
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All right. Brendan Ballou and Katie Fang are not happy about this. I'm sure they're gonna be filing their response in the next few days. The Department of Justice has asked for a 60 day stay of being ordered to do any more things to give their Solicitor general, Donald Trump's also former criminal defense lawyer John Sauer, time to evaluate something on appeal or at least seven days so they can take an emergency appeal. Fast moving story through this holiday weekend. Right. I think there's gonna be more fireworks come Monday. Tuesday coming out of K. Fang's lawyer's computer and filings. Don't you hit the free subscribe button. Let's get as big as we can this particular weekend. Until my next report, this is Michael Popak here. When life changes in an instant because of an injury or the bad acts of another, you need fighters in your corner. The Popoc firm is dedicated to helping the injured and their families get justice and the money they deserve. And we don't back down. Contact us today and let's start your fight for justice together.