Transcription
Donald Trump considers the full release of the Epstein files to be a hostile act, and he's threatening and going after three MAGA Republican women representatives: Boowbert, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and Nancy Mace, who have not only opposed Donald Trump but have also demanded the full release of the Epstein files.
I mean, you saw Marjorie Taylor Greene up trying to steal the thunder of the victims and survivors of the Epstein scandal, uh, at the White House, the, at the uh, Capitol Hill the other day. But they are, they have signed the discharge petition. Yes, the discharge petition. And they may hold the key to whether that bill requiring the um, Epstein files be released, whether it sees the light of day in a vote of the House, because they are, they have already signed the discharge petition. We're only two away from the 218 signatures necessary to get the bill, which where it is now, which is stuck in committee, and get it to the to the House floor, where Mike Johnson doesn't want it, where Donald Trump certainly doesn't want it. And they've threatened these three representatives. But they have, but what they're learning is there are some issues, especially to women in the MAGA party, that transcend Donald Trump's cult following and his fiats and commands, and this sexual abuse is one of them.
I'm Michael Popach. You're on the Midas Touch Network and Legal AF. You've got so much right now in the, in the um, ecosystem about Epstein, the scandal, and the links to Donald Trump, right? We just got through the oversight committee in Congress from the Epstein estate that leather-bound birthday book, which has a page in it that was, I mean, according to the Wall Street Journal and my own eyeballs, something that was either prepared at the request of Donald Trump and then signed by him or authorized by him. What's he claiming? That they, they, that 25 years ago, they forged a signature in a book knowing they would bring down his presidency? Now, that they, that that's ludicrous. But he has been blocking and considering it a hostile act and has been calling all of his accomplices and all the people in the House to convince them not to release the uh, Epstein files. While he tells the public he's for transparency. "Oh, I'm going for the grand jury, uh, reports. Oh, 30,000 pages just came out." He's for the opposite. He wants the Epstein files buried. And anybody that sides with their full release and transparency, he has declared it to be a hostile act. That is a direct quote from people in his administration.
Now, how do we, how did we get here? Let's start with Nancy Mace, who met with the survivors of the Epstein child sex trafficking ring on Monday or Tuesday behind closed doors. And she was caught by reporters, we have a photo, red-faced and crying after meeting with those survivors. Why? Because her own personal story, which she told on the floor of the House, is that she was molested and raped multiple times in her life. She tells this, I mean, I don't like anything else about Nancy Mace, and she seems to have no empathy for anybody when it comes to sexuality or gender identity, having attacked mercilessly the only transgender member of the House. But I don't, I don't deny her personal story where she said she was molested at 14 in a pool and she was raped at 16 and talked about it on the House floor. That's her personal story. Raised by a single mother, living with boyfriends, that kind of thing. So, am I surprised that she came out crying and balling her eyes out after meeting with the Epstein victims and their survivors? No.
Only Donald Trump would attack the victims and attack the survivors moments after they gave their uh press conference on the Capitol steps that was attended by Marjorie Taylor Greene, as Donald Trump tries to uh intimidate them by doing a military flyover at the moment of the press conference. Nothing says transparency, uh, like I'm attacking the victims again. So that's Nancy Mace. Looks to me like a hard yes on the signature for the 218s necessary to get that Epstein full disclosure vote to the House floor. Lauren Boowbert, Colorado, always attention seeking. Same thing. Marjorie Taylor Greene. While those two other women have not spoken about their own personal stories, they have been very vocal about Donald Trump's failures in releasing the files to the American people and trying to minimize as a hoax the attacks on these women, then girls. To these three, there's not a hoax. It's an actual sexual assault, part of a child's sex trafficking ring, which they oppose.
Now, let's talk about the 218 votes. Now that we know that this block has to stay together to give us those votes. 212 Democrats at present in the House. There's six short to get that bill out of the oversight committee and get it to the House floor for a majority vote, where they will win. Where do we get the six from? Well, Representative Massie, Republican, who's sponsoring the discharge petition, gets us to two 213. Now we're five short. Add Boowbert, Mace, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, and we're two short. Now, we could have been one short, but there's reporting that the Trump administration is also had attacked and warned Representative Luna from Florida, Anna Luna from Florida, that it, it would be a great political cost to her if she sided with the discharge petition. So, we're two short. But there's special election Democrats that should be coming in this month. That'll put it right at 218.
So, for the first time in my life, I actually have to encourage the conduct of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Boowbert, and Nancy Mace. I mean, these three are not the three that I'd want on a dinner party or on a desert island alone, okay? In my, in my fantasy dinner and desert island adventure, they're not there. But look, the enemy of the enemy is my, is my friend. And if they have stood up to Donald Trump, at least on this one particular single issue, I'll take it. I, I got, I got no, I mean, I need a body with a signature at this point. And so we're going to have to watch closely as the Trump administration does what we call in the business a freakout over Epstein. I mean, there, there Donald Trump is like that boy at the dyke, and all of the, all the holes are springing water, and he only has so many fingers to stick in the dyke. Every day is a bad news cycle for Donald Trump when it comes to Jeffrey Epstein.
You know, if the best they can do is to tell the American people, who can see it with their own eyes, that the birthday card created 30 years ago is not his signature when you can see with your own eyes that it is, which is exactly what a jury would do at a trial. If that's the best they can do and tell warning the Wall Street Journal, which is one of a million papers that ran the story, remember the book got obtained by the oversight committee, not the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal just ran it as news and analyzed it the way the New York Times did and everybody else did. What are you supposed to ignore it? Donald Trump will have his day in court if he thinks he can prove that 30 years ago somebody forged his signature almost to a, almost identically to a tea, glued it into a book, made it, made it lewd and pornographic and x-rated, made references to a secret life, double life being led by a, now that we know, a child sex predator. If he wants to say somebody did it to tear him down in 2025, knowing he would be president. This is like the argument that Trump used to make about Barack Obama being born in, uh, overseas. He's a, that he, he couldn't have been born. And when he, when we showed him that in 1963, the Honolulu local paper ran a birth announcement for Barack Obama, Barack Hussein Obama in the hospital. Well, what was it? They went back and forged that back in 1963 because mama knew he was going to be president one day.
Thankfully, I have a lot of confidence in juries. And I'm sure that when the Wall Street Journal, if they ever get that far in that case in Miami between, uh, between Donald Trump and Wall Street Journal over defamation, and I think that defamation case is now over, stick a fork in it. But if they ever get so far as do a jury trial, wait till they put all these documents in front of the jury, um, and all the signatures and the language and the analysis. I mean, they're not only going to win that case. They should be counter-suing Donald Trump for malicious prosecution and other, and other, uh, provisions. We'll continue to follow it all right here. You're on the Midas Touch Network. Come over to Legal AF. Two places to enjoy Legal AF: the Substack, where I'm doing two lives a day, including with other people like Katie Fang, um, and, um, occasionally Michael Cohen, and things, uh, at the intersection of law and politics, along with a lot of writing, a lot of commentary. You're going to love Legal AF Substack. Help by becoming a paid member there. And then Legal AF, the YouTube channel. We're going to hit 800,000 before our one-year birthday on September 17th, and that's all because of you. Nothing says you support us like 255 million views of our work on Legal AF YouTube channel since September of last year. Until my next report, I'm Michael Popach. 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 hottake, whether it's a court filing or an 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 other contributors from Legal AF are there as well. We got some new reporting. We got interviews. We got ad-free versions of the podcast and hottakes where Legal AF on Substack. Come over now to free subscribe. [Music]