Why the DOJ is Targeting Trump Accuser E. Jean Carroll w/ Michael Popok

And that's the music for your own.

“We've got a very special guest with you with us today, but first I want to give you some background”

to what happened overnight. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch has been very busy auditioning for the role of Attorney General. Last night, CNN broke major news out of the Justice Department. They're reporting that President Trump's DOJ has opened a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll. So for you, those of you who haven't been following her story, E. Jean Carroll is the advice columnist to accuse President Trump and her memoir of raping her.

“In a dressing room at the Bergdorf Goodman store in 1996, she went before two federal juries and proved that President Trump sexually assaulted her and then defamed her.”

Two juries, one jury for sexual abuse and the other for defamation, they decided he owes her in total, nearly $90 million in damages.

Now, I'm being very precise about the terminology because as we all know, President Trump's food, ABC News anchor, George Stephanopoulis for $15 million for not being entirely precise about what the jury decided ABC paid out. So President Trump has not paid her yet and he has appealed it and he's called it a hoax and a false accusation. And this all happened when he was not in power, which brings us to today because he's president now. And he is using that power back in office with a full force of the Justice Department to prosecute a private citizen claiming that she lied under oath during the civil lawsuits that she brought against him.

Now, the theory of the case hinges on a 2022 deposition statement that says that she received, but she said she received no outside funding for her lawsuit, although it was later revealed that billionaire founder of a LinkedIn read Hoffman who's also a democratic donor paid for her legal fees and expenses to the tune of $7 million.

He wasn't the only one, but he was a major contributor.

This already came up in trial, so we're going to get to that as well, but get this. So Todd Lynch was Trump's personal attorney at the time, so he had to accuse himself in this case, but he did send it over to a US attorney in Chicago. Who is embroiled in his own scandal for tricking a grand jury into prosecuting six progressive politicians for protesting outside of an ice facility. This is now known as the broad view six.

“So I guess what we're all wondering right now is will E. Jean Carroll even get a fair trial?”

Ever seen a president use the justice department like this for his personal vendetta. I mean, we've seen him go after political rivals, but this feels even more extreme extreme. So I'm bringing on renowned trial lawyer and host of the legal AF podcast Michael pop up. He's here to help us parse through this investigation. Talk about how unprecedented this is all is. So Michael, thank you so much for joining the show. There are thanks for inviting me. I'm glad that we were here. We're going to try to get this up on our sub stack as well.

Yeah, I'm pretty close to the story. We've had E. Jean Carroll on before I've had Robbie Kaplan on or lawyer a number of times, and I know exactly what went down in that deposition. And it's really just what we're watching, we keep calling it the weaponization of the Department of Justice, the new vigilanteism on behalf of Donald Trump. The Todd Blanch is doing things as a, as a, as a, a little bit of a pret, a context here for what we're talking about. He's doing things that would make Pam bondy blush. I mean, there's just certain things she would not even stoop down to do.

You know, the C shell indictment against James Komi, the Southern Poverty Law Center indictment against our leading anti hate group. The creation of a weaponization fund to pay people who beat up the police. This is as you said earlier, this is Todd Blanch trying to get the top job, and he is adding velocity to going after Donald Trump's perceived political enemies.

And he was a nine zero six men and three women in a jury that she was sexually abused by Donald Trump in that dressing room in Bergdorf to goodman's department store. And with all due respect, the only reason that he wasn't found a judge to be a rapist is because of the law that was on the books at the time, which said that if she could not testify that he put his penis inside of her during that attack, it couldn't have been raped. Leaving the jury no choice but to a judge him a sexual abuser. If that trial went forward today, based on a more recent event, it would be exactly what Judge Kaplan said in subsequent orders, which is he is technically a rapist.

And that's where we are with the jury with the first jury.

Also awarded her $83 and a half million dollars in punitive damages for defamation related to his denials of what happened in that dressing room.

Those two judgments which now with interest or approaching a hundred million dollars are in her back pocket.

“The only thing that has stopped her from being able to collect on the bonds that Donald Trump has had to post because, you know, we don't trust him to pay these off.”

And he has two bonds that are posted is we're waiting for the United States Supreme Court to do the right thing and to finally deny Donald Trump's appeal. Where he's arguing that he has immunity and immunity that the second circuit court of appeals already determined was waived by that same Alina Haba because she failed to raise it. He's not arguing that he did do it. He's arguing that he has some sort of immunity. Now 12 times Tara, including Wednesday last week, the Supreme Court has kicked the can down the road.

And then we're not going to hear the Trump immunity E.G. and Carol Matter 12 times. It's almost unprecedented. We've been talking to you have immunity when the alleged crime happened while he was president, right? At least part of it when he was not president and even the defamation case, like that happened when he wasn't president.

“Well, this, well, the second, well, there's two defamation cases that there were two trials.”

We call it E.G. and Carol one and E.G. and Carol two. E.G. and Carol one was things that he said after he was president, which means he was outside of any kind of immunity argument. The other then he kept bashing her again and again and again.

So the second trial, which was about when he was president and things that he said right up until that moment.

And he testified in that particular case and one of his lawyers was Todd Blanch. So I'm not buying and you can ask your audience about what they think. That Todd Blanch has suddenly grown ethics and has decided he's going to be recused from this case because he used to be on the other side of it. And he sent it off to Chicago. I'm not buying that. I'm not buying anything that Todd Blanch is trying to sell right now.

He's got a lot to answer to under oath when he went in about a week or two when he gets back in front of the Senate for another hearing. You know, really kind of scares me about this when I read about it late last night. And I'm about to go to bed. I just keep thinking there are no guardrails. Like any of us can be anyone can really be targeted by President Trump and his department of justice.

It just feels like, and that's a thing. Like whether you win or lose, it's so expensive to mount a legal case.

We're all exposed just by existing in this country by the most powerful person in the land who has most powerful just as

“Department of the world. Like how is that? You know, how can not every person feel like they could be exposed or targeted?”

Yeah, I mean, this is the byproduct of sending a fellow in chief to the White House. I mean, it wasn't just, hey, wouldn't it be fun to see what he does in a second term? It goes beyond that because the reason he ran and the only reason he ran. If he wasn't staring down the barrel of several criminal convictions and time in jail, he would be another retiree in Florida, making as much money as he possibly could.

The reason he ran is obvious. He wanted to run away from the criminal cases, get his hands on the Department of Justice and use it to kill off all of his cases. And then do something that even he didn't think to do in the first term, which is to make as much money for himself and his family as humanly possible. And that's, it's going to, but when the total tally is, we put the line under it after the administration is over, it's going to be hundreds of billions of dollars for the Trump for Trump and the Trump family.

And to your, and to your point, yeah, if we're going to put somebody who should have been disqualified from serving an office. We're going to put them back in office and give them the reins of the Department of Justice and the FBI. You know, no one is immune from being prosecuted by Donald Trump. If he's, if you are a perceived enemy.

That's something could be anybody could be like the kids who like kicked him at school and he was, you know, who knows.

Well, he really easy to find a reason to prosecute someone. And he announced to the world that he considered himself to be the chief legal officer, not he didn't pay him body standing right next to him. That not the department, not the attorney general that he alone was the head of the executive branch and all of its agencies. That he did not believe in the independence of the Department of Justice for the FBI.

And he wasn't going to operate that way. Now, nobody voted for that. You know, I love when it's press secretary say this was the mandate that he ran on he did not run on.

Corrupting and capturing the Department of Justice in the FBI and using it against, you know, people, you know, go dating back to Barack Obama and afford that. We didn't, nobody, I mean, I didn't vote for him, but nobody voted for that, even if they. They didn't vote for that, but I do think he didn't make that very clear. He ran on and then that that, I mean, and his, his messaging was I'm coming between I'm protecting you from them because if they're going after me, they're going to go out for you next essentially with this very ironic because we're seeing, you know,

“exact thing happened, but yeah, no, he did run on the vendetta, but I think supporters and the people who voted for him thought that was secondary and hope that that wasn't going to become his fixation.”

They were, you know, focus on immigration, the economy, et cetera, but he's no one voted for him because it is personal and that is. No, but you're right, he did say I will be your vengeance at that point in one of the speeches. You know, I think, look, there's there's a lot of healing of our democracy that has to happen after the mid for the midterms on a lot of, but much the way the last criminal presidency Nixon. led to a series of changes in the relationship between the Department of Justice and the FBI because the people demanded it.

We got a lot of fixing to do in terms of new guardrails and strengthened guardrails, you know, midterms and beyond. Because if you have people don't like what they're watching, you know, there's only so many things we can do with the existing laws to stop it. You know, we may have to have a constitutional convention to change the constitution in place to the Department of Justice into an independent silo away from the control of the presidency because you see what happens. What a president just wants to manipulate the Department of Justice and FBI.

“Yeah, have you ever seen a case like this based on the arguments that President Trump is making?”

No, no, and to the for those that are joining the story late. Robbie Kaplan has a law firm. This is how it starts again. I'm a practicing lawyer. And in order to do contingency fee cases, which is when you take a percentage of the recovery, if you're going to do it that way as opposed to a pro bono case, you do for free. And there are costs that are a part of any case. You'll invest maybe millions of hours of time, but there's real hard costs. You got to lay out for experts. You got to lay out for court reporters. You got to lay out for copy charges and electronic databases and all sorts of things.

You could run you a million bucks and and Robby's firm, which I know pretty well in her former partner, you know, they did a fair amount of corporate litigation and representing companies.

And they also did a fair amount of public interest work like taken on the case for E. Jean Carroll. Now, as part of that read Hoffman wanted to help Robby's firm not like go upside down they're small firm not going to the red out of their pocket for all these cases. So he contributed to her a fund that she used for her many cases, including E. Jean Carroll. I'm not sure the report is right that he paid the fees because Robby's getting a percentage of the fees. There were costs I know that came out of the red Hoffman fund, not just E. Jean Carroll's case, other cases that Robby had in her office.

When E. Jean Carroll was deposed under oath in a sort of a gacha moment by Alina Haba, Alina started asking her about who's funding your lawsuit.

“She said nobody, which was in her mind true because she's got to deal with Robby that Robby takes a percentage. Now, Robby had told her that there was a funder and I think she also told her it was read Hoffman for to defray costs.”

But that's not something that would have stuck in the mind of any client, let alone two years later, you know, at 80 years old, which he's being asked about the economics around her deal and who cares about the economics around her deal doesn't change what happened to her in that dressing room. When she testified, Robby heard it and said, well, E. Jean didn't get it quite right on that, so she sent the letter to the judge on the public document and informed the judge that her client had gotten it quite right, that there was a fund that was used to defray costs that read Hoffman.

Okay, so just to be clear, I'm reading this from Influence Watch, the financial support was funneled through a nonprofit organization, which paid Carol's legal team roughly 1 million to 2 million initial support with records from groups linked to Hoffman showing a total contribution to the law firm of around 7 million.

“But think about what I just said earlier. Yeah, costs not fees. There's a different in my room between cost and fees. The fund was used for multiple cases that that Robby had in her office, including E. Jean's.”

So when Robby had a fee, I have an expert that needs to testify about E. Jean Carol's mental state or about her economics, that that expert gets paid, let's say it's 150,000 Robby goes to the read Hoffman fund. Stokes the check for 150,000 and that yes, it adeners to the benefit of the client, but the client's not really going to be aware every time a cost gets paid out of fund. So when Robby's team heard her say that, they wanted it before trial to alert the judge that that was a miststatement. There's a couple of ways to do that in a deposition. We have what's called an erotic sheet, which is a sheet where you've made an error. You've missed spoken. You said the light was green when it was read and so you write in an erotic sheet.

Here the lawyers went to the judge on the docket and said, let me clear up something. My client's not going to be able to clear up.

Here's the read Hoffman situation two weeks before trial. The judge said, I'm going to give a second deposition of E. Jean Carol on this issue go. They went and did the second deposition.

We've never seen that transcript. They said that to the judge, the judge looked at it and said, there's nothing here. She's not lying about not knowing about the mechanics of cost reimbursement and it's not coming into the courtroom because it doesn't go to her credibility. We've been up to the second circuit court of appeals that ruling by Judge Kaplan, who also ruled that nothing that she said.

“That issue was not reversible error and at most she just couldn't remember something that her lawyer told her two years earlier. She did not purposely lie about having some of her cost paid for by read Hoffman and it's a not issue for the trial.”

The first stop, essentially. The lawyers did certainly. Well, yeah, because she didn't know she got it wrong. Right, but like the point is they tried to correct it. It wasn't like the Trump team put pressure on them right. Oh, yeah. And it was all pre trial. Was it after the trial? It was before the trial. The judge gave tried to come up.

He said, all right, you know, you raised an issue. Don't do another deposition and they did another deposition and the second circuit.

I have the, I won't read it all out, but the second circuit in one of the many appeals that went up on this case said, there's no harm, no foul here. She didn't do anything wrong. Now, your, your first question was, have you ever seen this in your life? No, in no hands and no fingers has the criminal department of justice ever gone after somebody from mistating something about their cost relationship in a civil case zero. And, and the fact that they're trying to make this perjury or civil rights violation for Donald Trump just shows you how low a Todd Blanch and Trump have sunk.

Okay, so Chris McKinney has a good point. He's joining us from sub-stack.

As bad as this has been the only good thing about it has been him exposing all of the weaknesses and flaws in our system.

“I mean, I guess that's a bright spot in all of this. If it can be corrected, can it be corrected?”

Yeah, I mean, listen, I, from our, and welcome to my audience too. I think the legal AF sub-stack audiences joined as well. Thanks for being here with Tara and me. Yeah, I mean, these are all, if Todd Blanch and others in the Department of Justice think they're going to come out of this unscathed. I mean, this administration. I mean, I don't know what, I mean, you know, history is prologue. Think of all the prior Trump lawyers inside and outside of the government that lost their bar licenses were indicted.

Did or otherwise, and Tom Blanch is going to suffer that same result because of what he's doing. If he's impeachment is probably going to start. If Blanch is still around come, you know, one of the one of the good things of the Democrats getting the gavel come January of 2028 is that not only are they're going to start passing laws that will help the American people in terms of affordability. But they're going to do oversight, real oversight when they have the gavel, not just nasty letters and attempted subpoenas. But, you know, when Jamie Raskett is the chair of the committee, right, or Cory Booker or this or that, we're going to see real oversight and real impeachment proceedings.

Right, but what does that even mean anymore? Because it feels like impeachment is like a trial that leads to nowhere, because you need two thirds majority in the Senate. It's not like they're going to be able to remove Todd Blanch. Well, let's do the math. If if the Senate goes the Democrats way and the Republicans that have been made into anti-Trumpers because they've been opposed to the primary and are only going to be there through the through that and we're still hanging around. You need the enough votes to come across either way. You can't not impeach him just because you don't think you're going to convict and remove them. You have to do you have to do that part for whether, you know, whether it's oversight or history, just can't give him a pass because who cares.

Saying that I just think we need to talk about the political reality and impeachment. I think people are a little exhausted by it. They want more. They wish it had more teeth.

“Well, I mean, more teeth is then give the then give the Senate to the Democrats in a large enough number to have the conviction stick. That's the result. That's what the founders wanted.”

Well, that's the argument that the Democrats are going to have to make, but I don't think they really want to run on impeachment. That's something I'm hearing from them. I've heard that, but the Democrats can walk and shoot them at the same time. You can you can both through over something about that.

I can't even put out an autopsy report.

Well, that was ridiculous report. That should lead to the end of the head of the DNC, but but on the in terms of being it, you can do both. I mean, the contract with America that they're going to have to close on is affordability. I mean, this is a do nothing Congress we have right now. It's the lowest amount of laws that have ever been passed and most of them are to benefit Donald Trump, but you have to have to deal with affordability. And then you have to do anti corruption and oversight. And if you got to run on both people are pissed off at both, but affordability, a low will get will get Democrats elected.

“Penny Thorpe says we need non-corporate dams. Probably true. I think God, you know, what's the word happens?”

And decades, the Cuba capsule machine in Dina Chibofiale and of Chibode.

But there is a lot of scandal around Andrew Bootros, who's the US attorney in Chicago and a simply leading this case. As I mentioned earlier in the show for those of you who are joining live on the legal AS subject channel and the red letter, he is embroiled in a scandal right now. So Todd Lange had to accuse himself because he was Trump's personal attorney at the time, but Andrew Bootros, he basically led a grand jury into inviting these, they're called the broad views six, these six progressive politicians who are protesting outside of an ice facility.

“And I just want to read exactly what a judge decided, okay, okay, I just want to read this really quick.”

The charges were dismissed after it came to life that the prosecutors in the case had predicted and removed pages from grand jury transcripts and failed to disclose interactions with grand jurors at the fence attorney say amounted to an intentional cover up of prosecutorial misconduct. District Judge April Perry said last week the actions from prosecutors in the case could lead to sanctions from his conduct and ethical violations and she said she has never seen types of prosecutorial behavior before grand jury that I saw in those transcripts.

So this is a highly corrupt US attorney that is about to take on this case, how was it possible that each and Carol will get a fair trial. I'm not going to defend Bootros. He wasn't the one that did it in the grand jury. It was another person, another prosecutor who just got fired from her job to be Dick Durbin's legal counsel. She was going to work for the Dems, but she did violate every edict and every principle of federal prosecutors in the grand jury. She spoke to the grand, she spoke to grand jurors outside the presence of other grand gurus. She eliminated grand jurors between sessions that she thought were not helpful to her cause. She vouched for evidence, which is a big no notes.

It's where a prosecutor looks a jury in the eye and says, "Come on, I've been doing this a long time. This evidence is great. I wouldn't bring this case of the evidence wasn't so great. You can't vouch for a witness. You can't vouch for the evidence." She did that as well. And the part that got Judge Perry up in arms and led Bootros to have to come in and dismiss the indictment on his own after seeing it after he discovered it is that the prosecutor then tried to cover up what she did by overredacting the transcript, including her bad acts and sent that into the judge.

And here you have an example where the U.S. attorney had no choice but to dismiss its own indictment for prosecutorial abuse.

“I mean, this is not, in my 35 years of doing federal practice, for me to say that the department of justice is in grand jury rooms, violating civil liberties and civil rights in the Constitution is just gobsmackingly unheard of.”

Yeah, I mean, so you don't blame Bootros, even though he's the boss, you just think he had a bad, he had a bad egg. No, no, but you said he didn't, he didn't do it. Well, I mean, I meant like it's under his office, it's his office. Yeah, it's his office, but that particular prosecutor had been in the office for 15 years, so he had heard he had inherited her, but the tone is set from the top. I mean, the, the, how she got corrupted to feel that what, maybe, maybe she's done it before, Bootros has said she's, oh, he's opening up an investigation to go look at her other grand jury interactions to see if there's any problems there.

But the fact that she thought she could get away with it is just because the department of justice is no, no longer has the halo. It's just not a respected institution, grand jury's don't respect the department of justice. It's own employees apparently don't respect the, the principles of federal prosecution and the DOJ manual.

“I mean, all the prosecutors I've ever known, they sleep, they sleep with the DOJ manual. I don't even think these prosecutors know where the DOJ manual is.”

Wow. And they're supposed to be working for us, by the way, they are taxpayer funded.

And they're essentially texting our justice and feels like it's, they're basically just personal attorneys, why choose Chicago.

Because read Hoffman's charities based there. Oh, okay, God, I thought that, but you could choose a member of places, right, to do it. Yeah, I mean, I could, I think he lives in California, but I think they, well, they, they think they like this, particularly like you said, they like this particular guy.

“I guess they think they could, and then that's, that's why on this particular point.”

That's why these motions for dismissal for vindictive prosecution are going to be so frequent. You and I are going to be talking about vindictive prosecution motions being filed from, they'll be dozens of them.

The first successful one, it was Kilmera Brago Garcia in Tennessee. In fact, I have the lawyers coming out with me tomorrow for work with Sean Hecker who handled that case.

But that's not the only one. The Monica McGuy for the representative in New Jersey has a pending motion for vindictive prosecution. James Komi has said he's going to be bringing one and has asked for an extension of time granted for his trial to get that there. A filed one when Lindsey Halligan was the prosecutor of Latisha James and James Komi. And the reason why it's, it has the chance of being so successful is because of how Donald Trump has captured and flattened the Department of Justice in its hierarchy.

It's so flat now that the senior leadership in Washington, what we call main justice is calling all of the shots at the local prosecutor level in a way that's unheard of.

I've never been involved in a case like I've had cases where main justice was my prosecutors or the local U.S. Attorney's Office was my prosecutors.

Sometimes they collaborate, but I've never had a case where main justice was telling the prosecutor locally what to do. And when you have that and then you have Donald Trump on top of it all, you have the recipe for vindictive prosecution being the shots being called by Trump to his DOJ from Blanche and his right hand. Occashing to the local prosecutor hand picked to then to do to do the prosecution. You normally don't have that diagram. But because of the capture of the DOJ by Trump and the flattening of the organization, you have very good merit based arguments that you're being vindictively prosecuted by this by this DOJ.

And we see this in corruption scandals, frankly, like the Epstein scandal where actually DOJ got involved with the U.S. Attorney's Office. I mean, it went all the way up to the top when they came up with this sweetheart deal in 2005 for him. Oh, oh, yeah. I mean, listen, a cost to Alex to cost to blew up his entire career. I lived down in Miami and we know Alex, we knew Alex well, and when he cut that deal to have to have Epstein plea guilty, the child prostitution charge. And, you know, according to we know I've had, I'm sure you've had to. I've had Epstein survivors. I just had Danny Benzky with me on my podcast.

And, and Danny said, I was abused while he was out with an ankle bracelet for that charge. If he had been properly put away in 08 and 09 and taken off the street, hundreds of victims would not have been victimized by Epstein.

Because they would because the justice department and the deal.

But, if they had only 18, then they would.

“I know I have done a lot of reporting from the state level to the U.S. attorney to the attorney general on that case, and like the, you know, the saying is you couldn't die at a ham sandwich, right?”

The state attorney, very Christian, I guess an infatuation with Alan Dershoids, who was, you know, Jeffrey Epstein's attorney at the time, and Jeffrey Epstein, which is higher lawyers, who could charm, whichever prosecutor he was dealing with. So in the case of Barry, Christian, he looked up to Alan Dershoids, right? Because he was a democratic lawyer at the time who's steamed Harvard, et cetera. And the, his, his deputy Lena, Lena Blabon, Blababic, I don't know if you know her, you might actually know her from Palm Beach County.

She literally said to the grand jury, there are no victims here when talking about these teenage survivors and show them a bunch of my space pages of them with their boyfriend having, you know, drinking or smoking pot, which is something that most teams do anyway, right? But, you know, that was how she was able to close the case, and then the, the local police kicked it to the U.S. attorney. So, and then Maria Fanya, who was a prosecutor there, she worked very hard on the case, suggested 81 counts.

And then Acosta talks to the attorney general and decides, let's kick it back to the state and give him a sweetheart deal. I mean, the level of corruption is insane, and it feels like those sorts of deals could be happening all the time right now when you have it.

It ultimately, U.S. justice, the department of justice is deciding all of this.

You don't know what's going on, right? Yeah, absolutely. And Alixacosta got rewarded. It became the labor secretary for Donald Trump in the first administration until the stench of the scandal brought him down.

“There are, I believe, is working for George Bush at the time.”

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's, um, yeah, you know, listen up, I, I like to leave our audience as optimistic about our job. Sorry, yeah, don't mean to go down the rabbit hall, but in this world right now, where Donald Trump is in control of his own department of justice and FBI, only bad and terrible things are happening. Fortunately, federal judges are seeing through it. Um, you know, with a grand, you know, you have a number of firewalls to protect democracy, right?

You got grand jurors who are rejecting the department of justice at record, at record speed in a way I've never seen before.

They're having difficulty getting indictments. That's one. Then you've got defense lawyers who now are regularly asking for something they never got in the past, which is the grand jury transcript, which has always been cloaked in secrecy unless you can prove that there's some sort of misbehavior. Now, the very nature of the department of justice gives enough evidence, enough private phase of evidence to ask for the grand jury transcript. When you have, um, uh, Lindsey Halligan violating the fifth and sixth amendment according to a magistrate judge in her presentation in the case concerning Komi,

when you have which has happened in Illinois, you know, now defense lawyers are, you know, don, I was just thought with Don Lemonless night.

“Don Lemonless lawyers are trying to get the grand jury transcript because they're like, how are these indictments really happening?”

And then if even if they're getting indicted, then you've got to rely on federal judges to grant motions to dismiss indictments on the vindictive prosecution grounds. And then failing that, hope that jury's do the right thing, um, if it gets that far when they hear the evidence and a good defense team on the other side. This is all really exhausting. Could you imagine being on the other side of this? No, no, no. Everybody hates going to court, right?

Yeah.

I don't know. I don't know. When it hates going to court, accept you by the way. I love me. Even the jurors hate it.

“I don't know anyone who likes being a juror, do you?”

I've had some people that found it a rewarding experience from if you do it like once or twice in your life. It's like a lot of trial and it's something that the whole world is paying attention to. Yeah, I'm not sure you want to be on that one. Oh, really? No.

Maybe. Maybe. Truth to power asks, why can't we the people object to abuse of the DOJ?

The problem is the way that our founding fathers and framers put this whole Shabang together is that they put the DOJ into the executive branch.

Many countries that follow you and me, they're always like, why isn't that with the judiciary department? Why isn't that in that branch? Why is it over here? Well, we wanted to separate the judges and the prosecutors. And instead of having a fourth branch of government, we're an independent judiciary that was isolated.

We're going to be stuck at the executive branch. When you combine that with this United States Supreme Court, who believes in the unitary executive model, which is there's only one person in charge of the entirety of the executive branch from the White House down to every agency, including the DOJ and FBI. When you have that, the mag is six on the Supreme Court who believe in that. You put those two things together and you have a captured and corrupted DOJ and FBI.

In a way that a, you know, a Biden or a Democrat would never have thought to do because we have respect for the rule of law.

And even if technically Obama could have done it, we just didn't do it, especially after the Nixon era. How could you do it? Like, could you do that by executive order? I'm detaching that you? What did you turn into?

You could. Yeah, well, that's what Trump did. I mean, Trump issued an executive order that all legal interpretations that are held by anybody in the entire government. Are going to be consistent with my interpretations. He said that.

He said he's didn't lead. He said he's the chief legal officer, while Bondi was standing next to him. And that's, that is an actual, like, executive order that is. Oh, there's a series of executive orders that put Donald Trump at the end. That, that put the DOJ, not in an independent posture, I guess that's different.

Who will ever still hear something? Jill Biden, the wife of obviously Joe Biden first lady.

“She's got a book coming out, and in the book, she says she's very angry at Merrick Garland for prosecuting Hunter Biden, her steps on for the gun charges, right?”

So she's got some anger at the former attorney general for his decision to prosecute a family member. Why would a Democrat reverse president Trump's executive orders? I mean, a lot of these people that go into the campaign saying, all reverse everything that the last guy did to make himself more powerful. It's executive and them and they actually get there. They don't do it because they find it's actually not great.

Well, no, I mean, there, there would be by and large Biden overturn most of the executive orders that Trump in his first term, it put in place. There were a few that he agreed with, a couple of them on immigration, a couple of them on other things. But this fundamental issue of whether the Department of Justice and FBI should be independent from the executive branch the way it was before Trump decided that there's nothing in the country. And if there's nothing in the Constitution nor on the Supreme Court that requires me to do that, and I'm not going to do that.

And I'm going to have meetings with my attorney general at the White House on a regular basis of that.

Merrick Garland never went to the White House.

Nor did any of his predecessors really, you know, FBI other other than Hoover, nobody went Christopher Ray, Colmey, you know, they didn't go to the White House and have coffee and shit chat with the president ever post Nixon. But Trump raised him for around a table or praise him for our new power that the New York Times. We're talking about it. I love you.

Yeah, we're top-lance that I love you. I thought I was watching Marilyn Monroe with Madison Square Garden. I love you, Mr. President. So in order to get back to that, we either have to have a president who's going to respect and not challenge. Let's say congressional oversight in this area or we're going to have to change the Constitution and do a constitutional amendment about the separation of the Department of Justice into a separate silo that's independent. But to answer your, your somebody's list or question.

“If we're not going to trust the person in the office, which I think we've learned we can't to do it.”

And then we're going to have to establish a guardrail by way of a constitutional amendment period. Yeah. Wow, constitutional amendments again, very hard to make happen, kind of like impeachment and actual removal from office.

State constitutions get amended thousands and thousands and thousands of times in the last 30 or 40 years.

And the US Constitution not once since whatever, you know, we can't even get the ERA amendment passed. So, but, but when they put that in there about amendment, they thought we would have constitutional conventions and/or amendments on a more regular basis if the power of the people rose up and wanted it. You just see it, like you said, there's like fatigue and it's very hard and what do I do and, you know, we got it like somebody's got a campaign on we got a chain.

“You don't like the the DOJ and the FBI or the thumb of a president that you need to change the Constitution, so then you got to be campaigning on that though.”

Well, right, but they campaign on everything else, let's make, you know, you the campaign on cannabis campaign on something that matters to our our democracy. Yeah, democracy didn't work in the 2024 election, at least that's what the autopsy report for the DNC said, so I could see why they're worried about campaigning on perhaps. You know, vague as a terror type ideas that matter but what do you think? Well, I think they're going to have to do a two part contract with America, I think it's got to be affordability and root out corruption, like those are your two.

Yeah, I mean, you're right, you just have to frame it as corruption, that is how you frame it. Yeah, you know, you're not going to run for general election, I'm not suggesting that you run on. But if, if that is what matters to people, if that is what keeps you up at night, that is the solution, that is the antidote. And, but let's get, let's get, you know, sober human beings who are adults back into power for oversight give the Democrats, the House and the Senate so that at least we have oversight over this out of control president and restore that part of the democracy and from there we move forward.

Twenty twenty eight is important, it's a, you know, but it's not just the midterm, midterms will render Donald Trump basically powerless except for social media tweeting. If, if they get the House in the Senate. Well, he'll have executive orders still. Right, which can be overcome by actual laws in the Congress.

But we'll never sign them, like he'll have to be out of office. They'll all be vetoed.

“Well, depends on who's got the numbers. I mean, right now, there is a group of people that are Republican that are opposed to Donald Trump.”

Right, but they've all had to, they're all, they've all lost their primaries pretty much. Well, they're going to be gone. Right. Well, it depends on when we're past, when these laws are going to be brought up, you know, I don't, I don't want to be, I'm not as doubting you about we don't have the numbers is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, I don't know if we don't have the numbers. I don't think so, not yet in the Senate.

I don't know if you know, there's a few, they run that race yet that I missed the election. I didn't see the election yet. Let's see. Let's see what happens. Maybe, maybe it's not just enough to win the majority. Maybe it's more. Maybe it's 56 or 57, and then you only need three people to caucus with you. Yeah. You don't know.

Maybe someone at some centers in their yellow face.

There's a lot of voter anger against the Trump administration and Donald Trump. How would express is itself? Well, I have to see at the midterms and then in the general election, but there is a pent up demand of vote in this country.

“If there was a vote right now, do you think the, there was a vote of confidence, like in parliamentary countries, you think Donald Trump's government would survive?”

No, I don't. Right. Because his numbers are way too low. Right. And they're not going to get any better.

I sometimes wish that we were a part of a parliamentary system. I feel like it keeps the leaders on their toes in a way that ours doesn't. Because they're making more responsive. Although they can last for about, you know, ahead of lettuce, like Liz trust, which can be kind of chaotic when you keep cycling through leaders. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's an instability problem. It does keep you very, very attuned to the will of the people.

Yeah. They usually have monarchies, too, which is the thing that kind of keeps them afloat. I don't think I'd be into a monarch. Yeah. I agree with that. I'm a jersey girl on our thing.

Yeah. I'm a jersey. Originally, I'm from North Jersey. Yeah. I'm from outside of Asbury Park.

Cool. So you're kind of more like a jersey sure guy. Yeah. That's a jersey sure guy. Yeah.

I'm more like an outside New York City girl. Except, except when that show was on MTV. And I didn't want to be associated with it. People would ask for more. Yeah.

People would ask me where I'm from. And I said, all of them from a coastal community in New Jersey. And they go, you mean the jersey sure? Yeah. So it didn't work.

Well, at least you're not Italian American. It was real hard on me. That's true. They didn't even film that.

And I know. I can say that. I'm like, they're not from New Jersey. No, you're not. You're not Italian.

It was leaving me alone. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on. Yeah. No.

I love the name of your show, too. Legal AF. It's old. You're a wealth of knowledge. I love to have you back on.

I have to absolutely have a feeling that this won't be our last time. No. No. When you think we're going to see any progress in the aging Carol cases, there are any chance that the judge just throws it out before it even goes to trial.

“You tell about the criminal, the criminal prosecution part?”

Yeah. I mean, look, Trump's already got what he wanted. He wants to tarnish her and be smursher reputation by saying that they're. This is what all you ever wants. You know, criminal investigation probe opened up against Adam Schiff.

Probe opened up against, let's issue James. The where they go, he gets bored. He doesn't even care where they go.

He was her 90 million dollars.

It's going to be close to a hundred. Yeah. And the Supreme Court on Wednesday, I think it's, they're, they're connected. Supreme Court last Wednesday said, nah. Pass.

We're not going to take up the case. 12th time. Tara, they passed on that case to give him immunity. So it looks like he's about and whatever he's about to lose. You know, he goes nuts.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one.

He's going to be a good one. He's going to be a good one. Yeah, I mean, I like E.G. and I've met her before. She's pretty ballsy. I respect a woman who's a writer, you know, she's a columnist. What are the comments she made on Rachel Maddo?

When Rachel said, "We're going to do all that money." And she was like, "I want to go shopping."

I do hope that if she wins and gets that money finally,

if that ever happens. I hope she does donate it to a cause that helps others who are being targeted. Well, I think she was trying to be funny on my show. Yeah, I think she was trying to be funny on my show too. I said the opposite.

My show, she said, "She's going to donate all of the money." And I said to her, "Well, Ben, my podcast partner said,

“"You should save a little for yourself."”

And she says, "I don't really need any money." And then she says, "I'd rather have a great play to fetch any Alfredo." And go for a walk in the fall and central park than have any money. Yeah, so that was a whole different. For those interested, that video is a legal layout of YouTube.

Yeah, maybe that was she was being funny. I was like, "Oh, that kind of sucks. Is that really what she's going to do?" Yeah, I thought what she told us. In fact, I was encouraging her to spend some of the money. But I think sure, especially for the emotional abuse she had to deal with,

"Go buy yourself a bag, right?" She was married. She's not married. She's 82 years old. She doesn't have children. I think she's going to donate the lion share of that money. What she couldn't, I mean, she could spend it. But she's not going to spend it. That's not the kind of person she is.

She's also sadly at the towards the end of her life. I hope she gets it. Right. I mean, if she gets it at 84, God lover take a world cruise and don't even rest. Yeah, you know?

You're right. I mean, you could never spend that much money.

Sure. Anyway. Right. Well, thank you so much for joining the show and everyone tuned in. Sorry about the technical difficulties.

“Oh, I'm going to put the show out on YouTube.”

And then I'll put the link for the full YouTube in an email with you on it. If you also want to send it out. And at least part of this show is on sub-saccharate now, so I'll try to post it. But thank you everyone for joining and for supporting both of us. Of course, this is independent.

Journalism, independent commentary, and you can support us by subscribing. Um, becoming Kates subscribers is great too. Um, and I will see you again soon. Yeah, Tara will have you over. I'll leave a link up as well. Hi. I'm Tampson Fidel. Journalist and author of How to Manipause and Host of the Tampson Show. A weekly podcast with your roadmap to midlife and beyond.

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