Did you miss James Comey? Well, he’s back: he’s filed a flurry of motions attacking his prosecution for seashell-related offenses: one to dismiss for selective and vindictive prosecution, another alleging legal insufficiency of the allegations against him, and two seeking information about potential government misconduct, including the possibility that the government lied about what it understood “86” to mean. Generally, you can’t dismiss a criminal case before trial for insufficient evidence — the grand and petit juries are supposed to be the arbiters of the sufficiency of evidence at various stages — but you might get a dismissal if the actions you’re alleged to have committed don’t constitute a crime, and that’s what Comey is hoping for here.

Meanwhile, Olympian James Hearn also wants to look into possible grand-jury shenanigans leading up to his indictment for damaging the liner of the reflecting pool, which he says was already in terrible shape before he touched it.

All listeners get our discussions of those cases. For premium subscribers, there’s also:

• Why the Trump administration has given up, for now, on its subpoenas to New York Times reporters.

• The administration admitting it canceled energy project grants based on whether they were in states that voted for Trump.

• Discovery trouble for Trump in his lawsuit against the BBC.

• More Epstein files shenanigans.

• Justin Baldoni — already not having a great couple of years — losing an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against his production company brought by The New York Times.

• Chriayu Rana suing JP Morgan again, this time in federal court, and…

• an exciting new business venture from Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl that is not (yet) the subject of a legal proceeding.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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What a reversal of fortune for Andrew and Tristan Tate! One minute you’re the toast of (certain quarters of) MAGA; the next minute federal agents are arresting you, intending to extradite you to face rape charges in the UK. This week, we talk about how extradition works — it’s simultaneously a legal and diplomatic process, and if the US decides it wants to send you away, you’re unlikely to be released before you leave the country. And while Trump could intervene at any time to stop the extradition, his spokeswoman says he won’t. Even the Trumpworld figures who once boosted the Tates have turned cold on them. Sad!

Also this week: Federal officials failed to preserve key evidence in the case of David Hearn, who is alleged to have damaged the reflecting pool liner — that is, the government threw away the liner. This may lead to a swift end for a stupid case. Meanwhile, the Trump DOJ is once again fighting with local district judges over who should serve as interim US Attorney, this time in the Western District of Washington. What’s new this time is that the fired interim appointee, Roger Rogoff, is suing to get his job back.

That’s for all listeners. Paying subscribers also get:

• A fairly silly defamation lawsuit from Madison Square Garden against Wired, and discovery trouble for President Trump in his “$10 billion” lawsuit against the BBC.

• Trump’s flailing effort to get the courts to order E. Jean Carroll to give him his $5.6 million back, and what he’d have to do in order to actually draw Rule 11 sanctions with this nonsense.

• A new court we’d never heard of, because it had never been used before this month: the Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

• A lawsuit that says Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins is proselytizing to her employees in violation of the First Amendment — and, yes, the Administrative Procedure Act.

• And a really weird AI misuse case from Brazilian labor courts.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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We start this week’s show by looking at Judge Kathleen Williams’ evisceration of President Trump’s attorneys for their sham lawsuit that was ultimately used as a pretext to create the “weaponization fund” settlement. Her order is bracing. But what are its practical effects? She makes bar referrals and she might award some attorneys’ fees. But the headline is that she says the settlement is void — meaning Trump can’t rely on it to protect him from future IRS audits. She says he can’t rely on it in other courts or proceedings. But… can she do that? We discuss how far her judicial authority can reach when she sees misconduct in her courtroom.

We also look at how E. Jean Carroll finally got the smaller of her two Trump judgments paid out. And we consider the very aggressive legal theory under which Mahmoud Khalil is suing the people who advocated for him to be deported. And the Trump administration’s effort to find out how The New York Times learned about security threats to the president’s new Qatari jet.

That’s this week’s free episode. For paying subscribers, we look at the Trump administration’s effort to get information about how Boris Epshteyn, its own representative, communicated with law firms that settled in the face of adverse executive orders. Those latter subpoenas may be part of a cockamamie plan to pressure the American Bar Association not to ask nosy questions (the ABA has issued its own subpoenas that the administration wants quashed) but whatever their purpose, they sure are awkward for the firms that settled.

Also for paying subscribers, we look at a defamation case that should worry New York City Councilwoman Vickie Paladino, at least as regards one of its claims, and we consider a bizarre episode that has Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl back in the news, pursuing their very own big-boy federal felonies. It involves a rapper named “Boosie Badazz,” whom they charged a large fee in exchange for assistance getting a pardon, and whom they did not in fact get pardoned.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Humphrey’s Executor, which has been obviously dead for some time, is now officially overturned. Except! The Federal Reserve is special and unique and in a historical tradition, and therefore its board members can be protected from firing except for cause. What is “cause”? That’s a good question; the court hasn’t needed to provide an answer yet, but if the president insists, Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh will make one up.

Also this week: John Bolton has pleaded guilty to mishandling national defense information and might even get jail time. The president certainly has it out for Bolton, but Bolton’s behavior was sufficiently egregious that he probably would have been prosecuted even if he weren’t a target for retribution. Don’t send highly classified notes to your Gmail!

Plus: In Florida, federal prosecutors mistakenly disclosed Jack Smith’s report on the documents investigation to Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, as part of their prosecution of Lineberger for stealing a copy of the report (which she labeled as a “bundt cake recipe,” oops). That still doesn’t mean we’ll get to see it — yet.

And, for paying subscribers: In Chicago, US Attorney Andrew Boutros is in more trouble. And in Minnesota, more subpoenas have been quashed as politically motivated. Alleged pipe bomber Brian Cole hasn’t been pardoned. Todd Blanche doesn’t want to release more Epstein documents. A prosecution relating to Trump’s reflecting pool is likely to face problems. Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act” has been thrown out. And the ACLU of Maine wants the Secret Service to let the “Cats on a Couch” lady troll JD Vance in person.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Ken is on vacation this week and next, braving the warmth of non-air conditioned England. Sitting in for Ken this week is David Lat, founder of the Above the Law blog and the man behind the Original Jurisdiction newsletter and podcast here on Substack.

David joins me for a conversation about the state of the legal industry under Donald Trump. Last year, when Trump declared war on the industry with his campaign of executive orders, there was a lot of speculation about the economic costs of fighting or folding: Would litigation clients decide firms that settled were too weak to fight for them? Would transactional clients decide they need a firm on Trump’s good side? As David notes, things have mostly worked out for firms that made either choice — the orders failed in court, it’s hard to identify that much lost business, and partners are making more money than ever.

Speaking of money: isn’t AI supposed to be upending the industry? Firms are eager to take up the new technology (and occasionally embarrassing themselves with hallucinations in briefs) but so far, it doesn’t appear to be causing declines in staffing, salaries, or billing rates. Instead, there are signs clients are finding more ways to use lawyers’ time — including responding to a growing raft of lawsuits that plaintiffs file pro se with the help of AI engines.

Plus: we look at the unusual breakdown in Thursday’s Supreme Court decision in the Monsanto case.

We hope you enjoy the episode and the holiday, and Ken and I will be back with more after July 4.

Best,

Josh

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago has dismissed another high-profile case — this one a COVID fraud case — that had been led by AUSA Sheri Mecklenburg. Similarly to the Broadview Six case, defense attorneys in the alleged that Mecklenburg engaged in various misconduct before the grand jury. (And after we recorded, we saw a motion in a third case where defense lawyers say Mecklenburg’s actions before the grand jury should entitle their clients to relief.) Meanwhile, the Broadview Six defendants themselves are pressing the government along several dimensions, even as DOJ tries to beat a strategic retreat.

As Ken and I discuss, there are a lot of very real COVID fraud cases available for federal prosecutors to pursue — this shouldn’t be like the Broadview Six situation, where political desperation leads prosecutors in the Trump DOJ to misbehave to get weak cases past the grand jury. So… why don’t they just follow the rules?

Meanwhile, in Minnesota, federal prosecutors have obtained a conspiracy indictment against self-proclaimed “Antifa” activists who sought to interfere with ICE operations in the Twin Cities. As Ken notes, direct actions like the ones at issue here are very likely to involve a variety of crimes. The key question at trial will be whether those crimes included violations of 18 USC 372, a statute that requires conspiring to impede the operations of federal officers in specific ways.

Also this week, the slush fund drama continues even as Todd Blanche seeks approval to become the for real-for real Attorney General. Judge James Boasberg refuses to moot his rulings blocking the Fed subpoenas. And soon-to-be-congressman Brad Lander is acquitted in his own misdemeanor case about ICE obstruction.

Plus, for paying subscribers:

• A look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s prison life, his aspirations to return to changing the world (something Judge Lewis Kaplan would really like him not to try to do again), and how Michael Avenatti thinks he’s too full of himself,

• A loss in Trump’s fight to eliminate “woke” signage from national parks,

• Tyra Banks’s stronger-than-expected defamation claim against Netflix, in which she is invoking the Earl Milford doctrine (with representation from Clare Locke!), and

• A look at some guys who are arguably even dumber than Jacob Wohl.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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On this week’s show, we delve into the grand jury transcripts from the Broadview Six case, which show an array of embarrassing misconduct by AUSAs from the office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. As Ken describes, these are things that AUSAs are very clearly taught not to do. And yet.

Also this week: a couple of new flavors of AI hallucination trouble in the courts. In one case, both sides used error-prone AI to write their motions, leading the judge to disqualify both sides’ attorneys from the case. In three other cases highlighted by Eugene Volokh, judges have admonished attorneys for failing to notice the opposing party’s AI hallucinations. As Ken notes, it is a lawyer’s job to check the other side’s work — and AI is making it easier to find errors at the same time that it’s making it easier to make errors.

Speaking of sloppy lawyering, Donald Trump’s legal team that’s suing the BBC for him isn’t doing such a good job. He’s having APA trouble with his effort to impose high fees on H-1B visas, and the Trump-Kennedy Center lost a lawsuit against a performer who canceled a scheduled performance (the performer had never signed a contract, oops). And Judge Richard! Leon! says there’s no Trump slush fund to enjoin, for now! But he will keep watching! So don’t try any funny business!

Also, Matt Taibbi filed another dumb lawsuit and lost.

Plus: Ken Paxton’s old lawyer endorses against him, and does so in a such a way that he’s careful to avoid breaching rules of professional responsibility — though another lawyer might decide it’s most prudent to keep negative opinions about ex-clients to himself. And we look at ways that being a mess can help you in court: Brallan Perez Alarcon successfully argued that he lacked the requisite intent to threaten ICE agents because he was too drunk. And George Santos is probably too silly to have his threats taken as true, either.

No paywall in this episode; it is available to all subscribers. We hope you enjoy it,

Josh

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

This week’s Serious Trouble comes to you live from a perch overlooking the soon-to-be-built Trump National Championship Golf Links at East Potomac Park by Donald J. Trump. Or, maybe — as I looked over the federally administered national parkland along the Potomac River, I was looking at a suite of projects where the president’s “just do things” approach has faced intermittent trouble in court.

For example: Trump’s name has been ordered down off the Kennedy Center, which is once again just the Kennedy Center. Trump’s closure of the center has also been enjoined, though he probably will ultimately be able to close and renovate it, though it would take an act of Congress to put his name on the building.

In less concrete terms, his “anti-weaponization fund” is also facing challenges — that motion from 35 retired federal judges is getting more traction than Ken expected; though it’s still unlikely to mean the fund will be blocked, though perhaps some attorneys involved in the Trump-IRS litigation that preceded it will be sanctioned. We also discuss the status of various lawsuits aimed at stopping the fund and the ripeness and standing challenges they face. And we look at the “you fucking dingus” doctrine — the extent to which Trump’s most cartoonish actions cause judges to hunt for ways to respond to them.

That’s for free subscribers. Paying subscribers also get:

• Alexis Wilkins vs. MS NOW, and the George Costanza theory of actual malice.

• The junior lawyer leading the James Comey seashell prosecution steps down (as lawyers flee the government more broadly) while a judge in another case rules that “8647” is not a true threat.

• Trump really doesn’t want to pay tariff refunds, and Ilya Somin argues the tariff cases show how CASA has created a mess.

• A CIA official gets indicted for lying on his resume, but really for stealing tens of millions of dollars worth of gold that he was somehow able to order to his office.

• George Santos appears to be under investigation for insider trading in a prediction market about George Santos. Remember, Santos wasn’t pardoned, his sentence was commuted, so he’s still a felon and should be careful about situations that might lead to him getting sentenced as a repeat offender.

• A gadfly blogger in Ohio is arrested for texting an image to a state senator that apparently depicts Shrek masturbating. Is that a crime? Ken assesses whether you have a First Amendment right to send Shrek smut to your lawmakers.

We hope you enjoy the show,

Josh

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The ‘Broadview Six’ case was one of the Trump administration’s prominent prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters, including politically prominent figures like Kat Abughazaleh. Federal prosecutors in Chicago brought felony charges to fanfare, then curiously dropped them, keeping only misdemeanor counts. Now we know why: They engaged in egregious misconduct to obtain the felony indictments, which they then sought to conceal from Judge April Perry, who is not amused.

Now, the charges are all dismissed with prejudice, Perry is considering sanctions, and US Attorney Andrew Boutros has issued a weird memo promising reform — his tone is less combative than usual for the Trump DOJ, and instead by turns conciliatory and self-congratulatory for having decided that misconduct is bad and must be stopped. Boutros, a former AUSA and white-collar criminal defense partner at Dechert, surely knew better than to handle this the way his office did. Alas. Oh, and Boutros is also in the news because his office is apparently running a criminal investigation into E. Jean Carroll, examining whether she lied in a deposition hundreds of miles from Chicago.

We discuss that for all subscribers. For paying subscribers this week, there’s also:

• Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s big and unusual win on vindictive prosecution, which is already inspiring the Southern Poverty Law Center.

• A sordid case involving an Eleventh Circuit judge whose sofa cushion required forensic testing after clerks asserted she was noisily carrying on an affair in chambers. Gross!

• A free speech win for West Point faculty.

• An interesting new insider trading case involving Polymarket.

• A probably-too-clever motion attacking the “anti-weaponization fund,” and

• More bad news for ex-JP Morgan banker Chirayu Rana.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Donald Trump has announced the creation of a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to be doled out as he sees fit to “victims” of the “weaponization” of the Justice Department. To be financed how, you might ask? From the Judgment Fund, a strange legal creature we’ve talked about a few times before — it’s a permanent, unlimited appropriation the federal government can use to pay judgments and settlements. But like… doesn’t that have to be for real lawsuits with plausible claims that could win in court? If the fund is a blank check like the president claims, is it even constitutional? We discuss. We also look at the troublesome issue of who would have standing to enforce the law against what the president is trying to do — probably not these guys, unfortunately.

Also this week: an ex-AUSA has been criminally charged for sending herself electronic copies of confidential reports about the findings from Jack Smith’s documents investigation into the president. She gave the files names like “bundt cake recipe,” which is a bad fact, indicating consciousness of guilt. But the statutes she’s been charged under were designed to deal with situations where employees steal physical, valuable things from the government and thus deprive the government of their use — it’s not clear they apply to emails of copies. Note, these documents were not classified.

That’s for free subscribers. Paying subscribers get our discussions about:

• An ICE agent facing state criminal charges in Minnesota.

• Elon Musk losing in his civil trial against Sam Altman, and the complex set of circumstances that led the presiding judge to seek an advisory verdict from the jury before disposing of the case herself.

• A counterclaim from Lorna Hajdini in the JP Morgan saga.

• Chud the Builder, unfortunately (in part because of his whiny lawyer).

• Trouble for timeshare billionaire Stephen Cloobeck — Eric Swalwell’s onetime benefactor — and Cloobeck’s ex-Penthouse Pet fiancée, Adva Lavie, a.k.a. “Mia Ventura.” Lavie faces criminal charges for stealing from rich, old men (not Cloobeck) (yet); she’s out on bail but wore her ankle monitor on a trip to the Israeli consulate to get a new passport, which is a no-no. Cloobeck’s been charged with trying to intimidate witnesses against Lavie and making “annoying” phone calls.

• Rep. Max Miller, who apparently has the worst luck with women, is suing his ex-wife for defamation, saying she’s making up lies about him being abusive, just like his ex-girlfriend before her, whom he also sued for defamation when she called him abusive.

• And Clavicular pleads no-contest to shooting a dead alligator, is sentenced to non-livestreamed community service — and gets brutally mogged by Judge Marcus Bach-Armas, a total chad who used to be in-house counsel for the Miami Dolphins.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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The lurid JP Morgan sex case has gotten more interesting: according to reports, the bank offered a $1 million settlement to Chirayu Rana, the banker who wanted an eight-figure settlement related to the lurid sex-harassment allegations he has made against a senior colleague. That’s more than you’d expect a firm to offer to settle a mere nuisance suit. Something is weird here, but as Ken notes, two things can be true at once: A plaintiff can be exaggerating and sort of nuts, and there can be some kind of underlying misconduct that motivates a defendant to settle.

The Justice Department wants to stand in as the defendant in the case where E. Jean Carroll won a large judgment for comments Donald Trump made about her during his first presidential term, which would defeat her claim, since the government cannot be liable for defamation. Trump and the government didn’t propose this in a timely manner, however, so we probably won’t get to develop more case law on whether “she’s not my type” can be work-related speech from the president. The DOJ is also suing the DC Bar, trying to stop professional discipline for Jeffrey ‘Oil Spill’ Clark. And Ken says, no, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro does not need to recuse herself from Cole Allen’s case merely because she was present at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, despite what some ex-AUSAs might say on television.

That’s for all listeners this week. Upgrade to paid to hear about much more:

• Another Trump tariff effort gets struck down because the Court of International Trade decided to actually form a view on what constitutes a balance-of-payments crisis.

• ABC fighting back against the Federal Communications Commission, urged on by the commission’s lone Democratic member (and Ken explains why they’re even bothering to fight at the agency level before going to court.)

• The fight over the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, or “more aesthetic standing bullshit,” as Ken’s notes describe it.

• Richard Murdaugh’s remarkable win in court (for now).

• A silly lawsuit against Matt Damon, and

• A misdo charge for Clav, who says he was merely following the guidance of a licensed airboat captain when he shot a (possibly already dead) alligator.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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We have a lot of really stupid litigation to cover this week, starting with the JP Morgan lawsuit so many of you asked us about. This is the case of Chirayu Rana, an ex-banker who has made salacious allegations against a former JP Morgan colleague, saying she forced him into a sexual relationship, spiked his drink with Viagra, threatened his career, and racially belittled his wife. It’s great tabloid fodder, but the emerging consensus is that Rana is making it up.

Among other blows to Rana’s credibility, the New York Post reports he obtained bereavement leave from JP Morgan for his father’s death, but the Post found his father in Virginia, very much alive and insisting that his son is a “good guy.” Also, Rana apparently discussed very similar allegations with a public online lawyer chatbot — and in the version he apparently gave the chatbot, the abuse happened when he worked at Morgan Stanley and the abuser was a man.

What can you do if you are a bank or a banker and someone makes preposterous allegations against you in a legal filing, which is privileged against defamation claims? Well, you could sue for malicious prosecution or abuse of process, but typically, the lunatic you’re up against isn’t a deep pocket, and your best course of action is to seek dismissal and draw as little attention as possible.

Speaking of dumb litigation, Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have settled, with no exchange of funds between the two sides. The Post cites “sources” who say legal bills for the two sides totaled $60 million — the sourcing on that number is a little thin, but Ken considers it a plausible magnitude for an 18-month litigation involving dozens of fancy lawyers.

Also this week:

• Matt Taibbi lost his dumb lawsuit against Eoin Higgins.

• A Michigan defendant who made way more threatening-sounding comments than James Comey ever did nonetheless enjoys First Amendment protection (but will have to seek relief in state court if prosecutors go after him again).

• Does Cole Allen belong on suicide watch?

• DOJ apologizes to a federal judge for not telling her a detained migrant in her court was wanted for murder (she released the migrant and then DHS attacked her for releasing an accused murderer).

• The FTC surrenders in its fight against Media Matters.

• The DOJ seeks to memory-hole the Jerome Powell subpoenas (which would perhaps make it easier to reissue them later).

• Gavin Newsom is getting further than we expected with a kinda dumb defamation lawsuit against Fox News.

• And preservationists try to stop Donald Trump from tearing up the East Potomac Park golf course to build a championship-style course.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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The president really wants James Comey on trial, and Todd Blanche really wants to be the official Attorney General, and so Comey has been indicted again — this time, purportedly for threatening the president with seashells. As with the last indictment, Comey will seek dismissal on the grounds of selective and vindictive prosecution. He may also be able to challenge the facial validity of the indictment — usually, there’s not much opportunity do to this in a criminal case, but Ken says the government got too specific in the indictment for its own good, giving a judge the opportunity to assess before trial whether the seashell statement at issue could plausibly amount to a threat. Indeed, even Jonathan Turley can’t bring himself to argue that this indictment makes sense.

Speaking of threats to the president, Cole Tomas Allen was tackled and arrested when he tried to charge the ballroom at the Washington Hilton with a shotgun. The criminal complaint is vague on whether Allen got a shot off or not, but it doesn’t really matter either way — bringing the gun to the ballroom is enough to count as an attempt at assassination, and Allen’s unnervingly-normie writings will undermine any attempt at an insanity defense.

Plus, we look at Maurene Comey’s lawsuit over her firing for being James Comey’s daughter.

That’s this week’s free show. Paying subscribers also get:

• Jeanine Pirro’s screw-up that has resulted in Trump getting less influence at the Federal Reserve than he’d probably have if she’d just played it cool.

• A wrench in Trump’s plan to have the IRS pay him a big settlement.

• Roy Moore and Diddy have something additional in common — they both are failures at defamation litigation.

• A well-deserved spanking for Sam Bankman-Fried.

• The SPLC, fighting back.

• An apology to Elon Musk from the busybodies at the California Coastal Commission, and

• An apology from Sullivan & Cromwell for AI hallucinations in a filing.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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The Atlantic has reported that Kash Patel is often drunk and derelict in his duties as FBI Director. But Patel says he’s only guilty of working really hard, and he’s suing the Atlantic. He’s got a theory he says is a “slam dunk” — The Atlantic defamed him with actual malice because he denied the accusations against him but they printed him anyway. That theory didn’t work for Trump against The Wall Street Journal and it didn’t work for Patel against Frank Figliuzzi Jr., who accused him of being a nightclub rat on Morning Joe, but maybe it will work this time? (It won’t).

Also, his lawyer did something incompetent — shocker.

And more formidably, former Capitol Police officer Shauni Kerkhoff is suing The Blaze and two of its “journalists” for accusing her of being the Capitol Hill pipe bomber, on the basis of a shoddy “gait analysis” alleging that her limp — due to a college soccer in jury — matched the way the bomber walked on surveillance video. Proving actual malice is hard — as a police officer, Kerkhoff is treated as a public figure in the coverage of her work — but the journalists’ persistence with their accusations even after Brian Cole was arrested for the bombings strengthens her case. She also has very real defamation lawyers: Clare Locke, the firm that got the huge settlement out of Fox for Dominion Voting Systems.

That defamation coverage is for all listeners this week. In the full premium episode, there’s also:

• Even more defamation coverage, with Laura Loomer losing at summary judgment in her lawsuit against Bill Maher, and Megan Thee Stallion failing to obtain a court order instructing Milagro Cooper to stop talking about her.

• A preliminary injunction telling Apple and Facebook to restore anti-ICE resources they took off the internet at the government’s behest.

• The SPLC indictment.

• A settlement for Carter Page.

• A Sam Bankman-Fried update.

• And a court ruling that says it’s legal to be a huge dick in Alabama.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Eric Swalwell’s campaign for California governor flamed out spectacularly over the weekend, and now prosecutors in Manhattan and Los Angeles are looking into sexual assault allegations against the now-former congressman. Meanwhile, US Attorney Jeanine Pirro — who oversees local felony prosecutions in the District of Columbia — has set up a hotline for victims who may have been assaulted by Swalwell there. And, a succession of lawyers for Swalwell have gone on the offensive, sending out cease-and-desist letters and attacking his accusers as politically motivated and dishonest.

Besides looking into Swalwell, Pirro sent a couple of her henchpersons to the under-construction Federal Reserve headquarters looking for … something. An “I personally ordered the cost overruns” note from Jay Powell? We’re not sure, and probably neither were they — going to the crime scene is not something AUSAs do, as Ken notes from his own rueful experience of being denied an all-expenses paid trip to the Inland Empire, and the stunt seems only to have strengthened the resolve of Sen. Thom Tillis to block any confirmations of Trump Fed nominees.

That’s on this week’s show plus, for paying subscribers:

• Trump moves to vacate convictions of Oath Keeper and Proud Boy January 6 defendants whose convictions he’d previously chosen not to pardon;

• A panel of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals again frustrates James Boasberg’s investigation into non-compliance with his orders about deportations;

• Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal is dismissed for failure to plead actual malice;

• The Pentagon continues to try to avoid complying with an order to reinstate reporters’ access;

• Bill Essayli loses yet another case against immigration protesters; and

• A lesson on aesthetic standing (and how not to use AI!) from the Tiger King.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Michael Avenatti, sentenced to over 11 years in prison for stealing money from his clients, has gotten out after a little over 4 years behind bars. He’s still not a free man — he’s living in a halfway house in the Los Angeles area, where he’ll be expected to find work, perhaps as a podcaster. And in part he owes thanks to his former nemesis, Donald Trump, for signing the First Step Act, which allows for earlier release of certain first-time offenders.

Meanwhile, Pam Bondi has been released from her own version of federal custody, and the Justice Department says this means she doesn’t have to comply with a subpoena to testify before congress about her handling of the release of the Epstein Files. Members of the House Oversight Committee, including some Republicans, are crying foul, saying their subpoena remains in force. Ken says, if Bondi were his client (lol), he’d advise her to comply. But if DOJ doesn’t care to make her talk, Congress will have limited ability in practice to force her to do so.

Meanwhile, Ed Martin wants his DC bar disciplinary proceedings removed to federal court. How can you remove something that’s not a lawsuit to federal court? That’s an excellent question, Ken says — one that Jeffrey Clark helped us find the answer to.

This week’s full show has all that plus:

• Trump’s emergency motion to lift the stay on construction of the “desperately needed” White House ballroom, and a discussion of why the plaintiffs’ claims to standing are stronger than we gave them credit for last week.

• A Clavicular-alligator update.

• If you’re going to talk about how you want to do terrorism, don’t do it in front of your dash cam.

• Long-suffering federal judge Lewis Liman’s 152-page order dismissing most, but not all, of Blake Lively’s claims against the producers of It Ends With Us (and their publicists), and Ken’s discussion of why you shouldn’t sexually harass your independent contractors, even if it might technically not be illegal.

• Elon Musk’s antitrust loss.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Last week, we talked about a court hearing that seemed to have gone well for Anthropic, and indeed, the hearing was swiftly followed by a preliminary injunction from Judge Rita Lin, barring various Pentagon actions against the AI company, including a supply-chain risk designation that threatened much of the company’s private business.

And there’s another big injunction, this one from Judge Richard Leon, who loves to use exclamation points in his orders! Judge Leon says Trump must stop work immediately on his ballroom! If he wants it built, Congress is going to have to pass a law authorizing it! But why does the National Trust for Historic Preservation even have standing to challenge the ballroom project? Their members don’t appear to suffer an especially particularized injury, beyond having to look at a building they think is ugly! Ken says standing is a doctrine judges just make up as they go along!

Plus, Donald Trump’s executive order defunding PBS and NPR is blocked, but since Congress subsequently acted to rescind their funding, the effect of enjoining the order is limited.

Free subscribers hear about those cases. For paying subscribers, there’s much more! Including:

• Covington & Burling warned its client, ActBlue, that some statements ActBlue made in a 2023 letter to congressional leaders may have been misleading, and that ActBlue’s CEO probably needs her own lawyer to deal with her legal exposure around that fact. ActBlue responded by firing Covington & Burling. It’s a big old mess, and Ken describes how this kind of thing can happen when you represent an entity, and the entity’s legal needs don’t always line up with the legal needs of its executives.

• A Colorado appeals court threw out Tina Peters’ nine-year sentence for voting machine tampering, saying the judge raised her sentence in response to her constitutionally-protected speech.

• After his car accident, Tiger Woods issued a statement saying he will step away and “seek treatment.” It’s an implicit admission of DUI, but as Ken notes, he’s very unlikely to beat the rap on DUI anyway, and this is a situation where his PR need to speak up and take responsibility may actually outweigh his legal prerogative to shut up.

• FBI agents are suing Kash Patel for wrongful termination, and taking the opportunity to tell embarrassing stories about Patel that may not be strictly germane to their litigation.

• Some people who went to the Capitol for January 6 have filed a new class action lawsuit, apparently hoping to join in on the Trump settlement gravy train.

• Be careful what buttons you click on LinkedIn.

• And, by popular demand, Ken analyzes Clavicular’s predicaments.

We hope you enjoy this episode,

Josh

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Judge Lewis Kaplan is losing some patience with Sam Bankman-Fried, and not just because Bankman-Fried’s mom tried to communicate with him ex parte. SBF has been making purportedly pro se filings, at least one of which appears to have been dictated to and FedExed by his mother, and he simultaneously has an appeal proceeding in the appeals court with real lawyers. Kaplan says he has to choose — are you pro se or not? And he wants to know — have any lawyers besides mom been helping with these filings he’s supposedly personally responsible for?

Meanwhile, the “Department of War” has been having a rough time in court. The Pentagon’s anti-reporting press policy has been thrown out as a First Amendment violation, so now the Pentagon says no reporters at all can work out of the Pentagon press room. Meanwhile, Anthropic won a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon’s declaration that the company is a “Supply Chain Risk.” (The Anthropic order came down after we taped — we’ll have a further update on next week’s show.)

That’s for all listeners. For paying subscribers, we also cover:

• DOJ’s admission that it had no evidence of a crime related to Jay Powell’s testimony about Federal Reserve headquarters renovation cost overruns (and the surprisingly low bar for issuing a subpoena that the government nevertheless failed to clear).

• A surprisingly practical choice by DOJ in New Jersey.

• Minnesota’s effort to force the federal government to disclose investigative material related to the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good.

• Mike Lindell in contempt of court.

• Mike Flynn getting a settlement from Trump for his alleged persecution by Trump’s own DOJ.

• No protective order for those DOGE henchman depositions.

• And the Oklahoma Supreme Court telling attorneys to go ahead and use AI, if they dare.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Afroman has won his legal battle with the sheriff’s deputies who raided his house in 2022 and then became unwitting stars of his music videos mocking them. Several of the deputies, including “Officer Poundcake,” sued for misappropriation of their likenesses, defamation, and other torts. But a jury sided with Afroman, agreeing that his songs about the officers were social commentary and that his statements about them, however juvenile, were insults rather than literal factual claims of having, for example, slept with one of their wives.

This week, for all listeners, we recap the Afroman trial and also look at a rough hearing for AUSAs in New Jersey, as the Trump administration decides it will hire candidates straight out of law school to work in US Attorneys’ offices.

For paying subscribers, there’s much more:

• Judge James Boasberg’s order quashing subpoenas to the Federal Reserve, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s choice to appeal that order, and Boasberg’s other order requiring the disclosure of grand jury no-bills.

• Capitol pipe bomber defendant Brian Cole, who has made his anticipated claim that the president’s pardon of January 6 rioters also applies to him (even though this seems to go against the plain language of the pardon, which applies only to those “convicted” of offenses related to January 6.)

• Sam Bankman-Fried’s mom, who got slapped down for trying to have ex-parte communications with the judge overseeing his case; Judge Lewis Kaplan reminded Prof. Barbara Fried that she might be a lawyer, but she’s not her son’s lawyer, at least not in this case.

• Defendants convicted of terrorism-related offenses in Texas over an anti-ICE action where they set off fireworks and one defendant shot a law enforcement officer in the neck; as Ken notes, despite the rhetoric on both sides, this trial was never really about whether ‘Antifa’ constitutes a terror organization.

• More hot hot administrative procedure action, with Judge Brian Murphy issuing a preliminary injunction against the new, laxer child vaccination guidelines from Robert F. Kennedy Jr’.s Department of Health and Human Services.

• And dog-fashion magazine Dogue, which is being sued by Condé Nast for infringing the Vogue trademark.

If you want to get all that, go ahead and hit the button below:

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We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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As we discussed last week, Judge Richard Eaton of the U.S. Court of International Trade rather impatiently told the Trump Administration to stop charging IEEPA tariffs already, since the Supreme Court has deemed them illegal. The Customs Service responded, claiming that’s literally impossible — too many importers have already made estimated tariff payments, and their computers aren’t programmed to separate out IEEPA from non-IEEPA tariffs when finalizing the bills due. Give us 45 days to reprogram our computers, they ask, and then we’ll refund all the money. As Ken notes, you might want to lead with “we can fix this in seven weeks” rather than sticking it at the end of your brief explaining why you won’t do what a judge has already ordered you to do.

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Free subscribers this week get our conversation about that, plus more situations where courts are telling the Trump Administration it can’t just ignore the need to get officials confirmed by the Senate — including at Voice of America, where Kari Lake has now been robbed not just of two statewide offices but also her role as CEO.

For paying subscribers, we cover a number of additional lawsuits, including some especially weird ones:

• Voting machine maker Smartmatic’s parent company under indictment over bribes its former executives are alleged to have paid in the Philippines, alleges that it is being selectively and vindictively prosecuted.

• Anthropic is suing over the Pentagon’s “supply chain risk” designation that threatens the company’s business. The company makes First Amendment claims, but Ken thinks its less glamorous arguments — like that the designation violated everyone’s favorite law, the Administrative Procedure Act — are more persuasive.

• Nippon Life Insurance Company of America is suing OpenAI, the makers of the ChatGPT AI engine. Nippon says it has been dogged by a vexatious litigant — she decided she didn’t like the settlement she’d signed with the company, and when her human lawyer advised her that settlements are a no-backsies kind of situation, she fired him in favor of the AI engine that gave her the advice she wanted to hear: sue, sue, sue. Nippon says this is tortious interference with the valid settlement contract they’d entered with their aggrieved former policyholder. Because tortious interference requires knowledge of the contract you’re interfering with, this lawsuit turns an interesting philosophical question into an interesting legal one — did OpenAI “know” that Nippon had a settlement, simply because their former policyholder told ChatGPT about it?

• And Ed Martin appears to be the Justice Department official with some especially stupid bar trouble.

This is an especially meaty show (oh, and we also look at another decision about ICE) so we hope you all get the full thing so you can hear all of it. If you’re not a subscriber and you want to be, hit the button below.

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We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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