Trump's Bluff is Called and Runs Away

Summary

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Legal AF by MeidasTouch

Episode: Trump's Bluff is Called and Runs Away
Date: June 20, 2026
Host: Michael Popok (MeidasTouch Network), with Legal Analyst and various clips

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Episode Overview

In this special breaking news episode, Michael Popok dives deeply into the Department of Justice's latest legal standoffs related to Trump-era initiatives—specifically the refusal to submit sworn statements under oath about the controversial "Anti-Weaponization Fund." The episode contextualizes this maneuver within ongoing scrutiny of DOJ conduct in federal courts and explores what these high-stakes legal games mean for political accountability, the courts, and soon-to-be-confirmed Attorney General Todd Blanche.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

DOJ Refuses Sworn Affidavits on Anti-Weaponization Fund

[02:27]–[07:32]

• Breaking News: The DOJ, represented by Stan Woodward and others, refused to comply with Judge Brinkama’s explicit order to file sworn affidavits confirming the death of the “Anti-Weaponization Fund.”
• Instead, DOJ argued that prior public statements from Attorney General Todd Blanche and attached congressional hearing transcripts should suffice for the court.
• Judge Brinkama demanded affidavits to ensure the matter is legally moot; DOJ objected, citing separation of powers and undue judicial overreach.
• This action is seen as a defensive posture to shield senior officials, especially Todd Blanche, from possible perjury.

Quote – Michael Popok:
"They are not going to file affidavits, sworn statements, sworn testimony under oath… Go pound sand, Judge. Those are my words." — [03:03]

Quote – Sky Perryman (Democracy Forward):
"It just seems like every day there's a new way in which this Department of Justice is trying to pull one over on the federal courts, and Judge Brinkama wasn't having it." — [07:15]

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Congressional Testimony Is Not Enough

[08:27]–[09:36]

• Clip of Todd Blanche testifying before Congress, stating “we are not moving forward with the fund, period."
• However, in the courtroom, Judge Brinkama made clear only sworn testimony within her court would resolve the matter.
• DOJ’s reluctance suggests deep concern about exposure to perjury or further sanctions.

Quote – Todd Blanche:
"We are not moving forward with the fund, period… To the extent there was a fund…there was no claim made yet. So, yes, we're not moving forward with the fund." — [08:45–09:25]

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Pattern of DOJ Avoidance & Judicial Frustration

[12:18]–[15:55]

• Popok highlights how DOJ, especially under Todd Blanche, consistently chooses to lose winnable cases rather than subject officials to sworn testimony.
• Mentions prior cases in Tennessee and Chicago where the DOJ dropped prosecutions or failed to act rather than comply with judicial transparency.
• Anticipates further fallout: Judge Brinkama likely to issue a new scheduling order, and Judge Williams in Miami is weighing “fraud on the court” claims involving 35 former federal judges.

Quote – Michael Popok:
"They are willing, as a Department of Justice, to lose cases…rather than put Todd Blanche under oath. What does that tell you? Tells you everything you need to know about the Department of Justice and the feckless spirit of Todd Blanche." — [15:32]

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Broader Implications: DOJ, Contempt, and Special Prosecutors

[15:55]–[18:24]

• Explains the increasing willingness of federal judges to consider appointing special prosecutors to probe DOJ and administration conduct—due to what’s perceived as rampant obstruction and disrespect for court authority.
• Notes that the Department’s reputation is so tarnished judges no longer give them “the benefit of the doubt.”
• Suggests this pattern will haunt Todd Blanche’s imminent confirmation hearings and might impact DOJ operations going forward.

Quote – Legal Analyst:
"What they forget is that grand jury misconduct, if it was performed, is complete when the grand jury misconducts and it's an offense against the court that supervises the grand jury." — [17:25]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “Go pound sand, Judge.” — Michael Popok, summarizing DOJ’s response to Judge Brinkama [03:10]
• “Every day there's a new way in which this Department of Justice is trying to pull one over on the federal courts…” — Sky Perryman [07:15]
• “They are willing…to lose cases rather than put Todd Blanche under oath.” — Michael Popok [15:32]
• “Judges are simply not giving them the benefit of the doubt about misconduct.” — Legal Analyst [18:00]

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Important Timestamps

• [02:27]: DOJ files brief refusing sworn affidavits in Virginia “Anti-Weaponization Fund” case
• [07:15]: Analysis by Sky Perryman: DOJ’s unprecedented courtroom tactics
• [08:27]: Todd Blanche’s Congressional testimony clip
• [12:18]: Popok details judge’s incredulous response to DOJ lawyer Andrew Block
• [15:32]: Popok: DOJ willing to lose cases to protect Blanche from testifying
• [17:25]: Legal analyst elaborates on grand jury misconduct and implication for DOJ

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Tone & Closing Thoughts

The episode’s tone is urgent, frustrated and pointedly critical of DOJ tactics as interpreted by host Popok and contributing analysts. The language is direct and sometimes sarcastic, particularly in reference to Todd Blanche’s avoidance of sworn testimony. The hosts implore listeners to recognize the stakes for judicial integrity and forthcoming confirmation hearings, arguing that these repeated DOJ tactics undermine both the letter and spirit of the law.

For further details, court filings, and bonus analysis, listeners are encouraged to subscribe to the Legal AF Substack.

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Transcript

[Michael Popak]

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[Legal Analyst]

I know.

[Narrator/Host]

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[Michael Popak]

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[Michael Popak]

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Legal Analyst]

I know.

[Narrator/Host]

Have you heard about Phil Weisener in Colorado though?

[Michael Popak]

No. Is he different?

[Narrator/Host]

Yeah. A.G. weiser sued the Trump administration 65 times. He's beating Trump in court again and again. Things like protecting Obamacare against Trump's illegal tariffs and he even won against Ticketmaster.

[Michael Popak]

So he actually gets results exactly as

[Narrator/Host]

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[Michael Popak]

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[Narrator/Host]

In breaking news, the Department of Justice and its third highest ranking official, Stan Woodward, have filed a piece of paper with Judge Brinkama in the Eastern District of Virginia and told her to go pound sand. They are not going to file affidavits, sworn statements, sworn testimony under oath by Todd Blanch or Scott Bessant or Stan Woodward himself to declare for her to her satisfaction as the fact finder that the Anti Weaponization fund has truly, truly been put out of its misery, that it's truly been killed by the Department of Justice. Judge Brinkama last week ruled in a case brought by Democracy Forward, our friends, that if the federal government wants to get out from under this jurisdiction of the court and prove to her that it is moot, they need to file affidavits by Friday. And instead of filing an affidavit, it's attesting under oath to have Todd Blanche swear under oath that he really is walking away from the Anti Weaponization Fund while Judge Williams in Miami considers later this same day the reply brief of 35 sitting federal judges about whether she should find fraud in the court, fraud on the court and deception, and strike the settlement agreement down and the resulting weaponization fund for a whole different set of reasons. As I predicted and as I discussed with Sky Perryman, who's on Democracy Forward, the leader of Democracy Forward and led the charge in this case, there was no way that Todd Blanche was going to file under penalty of perjury any statement because a federal judge told him to. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal af. I'm Michael Popak with the breaking news. Let's go over and let me read to you for a moment in the filing that was just that we just obtained and I'll post the Legal AF substack. Here's what Stan Woodward has filed on behalf of himself and presumably the others in the in the case, page two. The court stated that it will dismiss this case as moot only if the acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, Associate Attorney General Stan Woodward and Secretary of the Treasury Scott Besant file all caps and a declaration under penalty of perjury that they will not seek to take any action to create or operate the fund and that the fund will not proceed in any manner. And if it's not filed by June 19, Juneteenth the court will issue a scheduling order requiring a responsive pleading by July 17. They say such declarations are unnecessary and the compelled testimony of senior officials implicates serious separation of Paris. So go pound sand, Judge. Those are my words. They say the top Blanche already testified before Congress that the fund is not going anywhere, period. I mean, and so that should be enough for the judge. Look, the judge made clear in that courtroom that this is a courtroom of law and facts and evidence have to be adduced within its four walls, not some. Some random statement made by Todd Blanche. In fact, here's Sky Perryman, who was in the room trying to during the hearing and how she evaluated Judge Brinkham as position. Play the clip. There's a comment about Blanche and. And Todd. And Todd Blanche. So why won't he just provide a document of rescission or novation or whatever it's going to be to just put this. Put this out of its misery? Well, I was hoping to Todd Blanche lately. Yeah, you said that to Judge Leon, but it's been a couple of days now. Very important case. The eyes of the nation are on you. Are you telling me you haven't spoken to Todd Bl.

[Michael Popak]

Here?

[Narrator/Host]

We have yet another example, and this is my own speculation. Todd Blanche is not filing an affidavit. This is yet another example of Todd Blanche not willing to give sworn testimony in a courtroom, even if it means the Department of Justice loses.

[Commercial Voice]

Well, it's quite remarkable, actually, that you have a Department of justice that is willing to make statements to a court in their briefing that they're not willing at this point to swear to. I mean, maybe they will come back and surprise us. But I'm with you. I don't know that they're going to be filing an affidavit. And the government's attorney, Bul Block, at the hearing went into an entire soliloquy about how he's made these representations as an officer of the court. Well, if you've made. That's kind of the point. If you're making these representations as an officer of the court, then why is it too much to ask that you make them under penalty of perjury? And this is something the Department of Justice has not been willing to do. And so I think it really highlights a theme you and I have been talking about for these last 18 months, which is actually the overall way that the Department of Justice is operating before the federal courts. It's unlike anything any of us as lawyers have ever really seen. I mean, this is quite remarkable behavior. And it shouldn't. It should not, of course, be normalized, which is something that we're trying to emphasize to people. It just seems like every day there's a new way in which this Department of Justice is trying to pull one over on the federal courts, and Judge Brinkama wasn't having it.

[Narrator/Host]

So they go on to say that a federal court does not have jurisdiction because they're citing to a case by Judge Leon in the District of Columbia, Eastern District of Virginia is not the District of Columbia in which he agreed that the case was moot, although he did warn the Department of Justice. Judge Leon did the ballroom Judge, that if he sees the fund come back, there will be serious penalties to be paid. They go on on page three to say, nor is there any basis for the court to compel testimony from the associate attorney general and two cabinet members saying that there's an Article 3 limitation on such judicial review. Accordingly, the court's demands are unnecessary. The transcript of the testimony is attached and that should be enough for the court. Let me play the clip that they're referring to of Todd Blanche. Play the clip.

[Michael Popak]

Mr. Attorney General, I wanted to ask a few questions about the anti weaponization fund. We know that the department has agreed to pause this effort until at least June 12th. I wanted to ask what your plans were for the fund after June 12th.

[Todd Blanche]

So thank you. So look, we're not moving forward with the fund. You're right that there's a date that in the case in the east of Virginia in June, but we are not moving forward with the fund, period. The reasons for the fund is something that President Trump talked about for a long time, which is the fact that there were a lot of people in this country who had their government weaponized against them. The reasons for the fund, I think, remain as important as they were before. But we are not moving forward with the fund.

[Michael Popak]

Not moving forward ever, Correct? Oh, there's no more fund then?

[Todd Blanche]

Well, to the extent there was a fund, and remember, the fund wasn't set up yet. There were no commissioners named, there was no claimants brought anything in front of. There was no claims made yet. So, yes, we're not moving forward with the fundamentals.

[Michael Popak]

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[Narrator/Host]

Now I think it's ironic that the person who signed this. Let's go to page four here. Put it up on the screen. Andrew Block is the same Andrew Block who opened up the hearing last week and had Judge Brinkoma say out loud, you are a very brave man, Mr. Block. And it went downhill from there. As she said to him effectively, I don't believe you. Have you spoken to the Attorney General in this case, Todd Blanche, about his view? He said he had not. The judge responded by saying, I find it inconceivable that given so much attention to this case that you have not spoken to Todd Blanche and now they're telling the court screw it. Where you're never going to hear from Todd Blanche ever in this case under penalty of perjury and you should just live with whatever he says out in the real world as opposed to in your courtroom. That's not going to be good enough. If I know Judge Brinkama, she's going to be pissed off by this filing. She's going to enter the scheduling order requiring a responsive pleading by the 17th of July, which they've effectively baited her to do. And at the same time, you've got what's going on in Miami, which I'm waiting to report on as well. Judge Williams gave the 35 former federal judges until. Until Friday as well, to tell her why she should find fraud on the court against Donald Trump, his lawyers, and presumably the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice didn't file an affidavit under penalty of perjury in that case either. They didn't file testimony of Todd Blanche. We will never hear testimony of Todd Blanche except when he's in the confirmation hearing, because he'll never testify in a court of law. They are willing, as a Department of justice, to lose cases. To lose cases rather than put Todd Blanche under oath. What does that tell you? Tells you everything you need to know about the Department of Justice and the feckless spirit of Todd Blanche. They lost a case in the east, in the northern, sorry, the middle district of Tennessee, involving Kilmer, Abrego, Garcia. They were willing to have a court find that the Department of Justice had vindictively prosecuted somebody rather than have Todd Blanche testify in order to satisfy the judge and their burden, Period. So does this shock me or surprise me that we're watching the Department of Justice once again refuse to bring Todd Blanche before a court? He's a coward. He'll do anything to get this job as the Attorney General. And everything that he's doing is a disqualifying event. Look, in the last 48 hours, I've reported on alone, two federal judges in Chicago, Judge Coleman, Judge Perry, both looking at whether they should appoint special prosecutors to look at whether there's been an obstruction of justice and a violation of court orders for contempt in two different cases, criminal cases in Chicago, and whether it goes up to the highest levels, including Todd Blanche and maybe the White House. That's just going on now. Same thing's gonna happen. I'm sure that Judge Williams is either gonna rule on the papers in Miami against the Department of Justice against Donald Trump, find there was fraud and deceit on the court, or she's gonna appoint another special counsel. So if you thought the days under the current administration of talking about a special counsel are over before, you know, because they need to get out of the DOJ for that to happen. Forget it. Judges have the ability under federal rule of Criminal Procedure 42 to appoint special counsels under these unique circumstances, period. It's just remarkable to me that they are playing with dynamite. They have no the Department of Justice. Todd Blanche has no respect for the federal courts, no respect for federal judges, no respect for federal juries, no respect for federal grand juries, no respect for the, for the American people. And he. And that any one of those things, and there are a dozen of them are, are going to be used against Todd Blanche in his confirmation hearing sometime around the 15th of July. In fact, it sounds like they're going to have to file a piece of paper to Judge Brincama in this case I'm describing right around the same time. He's going to have a lot of explaining to do, if you know what I mean. And he's going to have a lot of answering. He's going to have to do to people like Sheldon Whitehouse, who I recently interviewed about how they're going to take on Todd Blanche about things like not testifying and not supporting their cases or admitting to bad faith practice. Here's a clip of Senator Whitehouse and me and the last couple of days on this issue. Andrew Boutros has his office dismissed with prejudice an $800 million COVID testing fraud scheme rather than turn over the emails and everything else about the misconduct in the grand jury. Although Judge Coldman is holding a hearing today about that. They'd rather let two people go and give them a get out of jail free card than to have somebody from the Department of Justice testify or turn over their documents.

[Legal Analyst]

And what they forget is that grand jury misconduct, if it was performed, is complete when the grand jury misconducts and it's an offense against the court that supervises the grand jury. Fraud upon the court is complete when the fraud upon the court is performed. It's not like you get to get rid of the case and have those questions go away. And I think the record of the department is such that judges are simply not giving them the benefit of the doubt about misconduct. They're going to want real answers about complete contempt, completed misconduct, completed fraud upon the court and dumping cases. Just it, it doesn't really help. What it does is it shuts up a plaintiff who could have done a lot of digging, I'm sorry, a defendant who could have done a lot of digging into the misconduct as part of their defense. But if the court's willing to step in. It's still going to be the subject of inquiry and deservedly so.

[Narrator/Host]

I'm glad you're here. You can find the filing that I just read from on Legal AF substack for for paid members. Until my next report, a traveling Michael Popak for the Midas Dutch Network and Legal af. 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 in the oral argument there, including a daily roundup that I do called wait for it Morning af. What else? All the other contributors from Legal AOFF are there as well. We got some new reporting, we got interviews, we got ad free versions of the podcast and hot takes where Legal AF on substack come over now to free subscribe.