As you’ve seen on the news, the Lindsay Clancy murder trial jury hung 11-1, with some jurors telling the press the lone holdout juror wanted to convict. Ken and I discuss how judges press juries to agree, and why they maybe shouldn’t — a judge that urges more deliberation and gets a conviction is likely to create issues for appeal, although that doesn’t matter so much if the jury is leaning toward acquittal.

Meanwhile, the Tate brothers — one of whom has possessed a fake Mexican passport in the name of “Vladimir Scorpius” — unsurprisingly failed to convince a judge to give them bail pending extradition (even after they embarrassingly admitted that many of their displays of extreme wealth are fake). And UEFA, the European soccer body, is seeking help from American courts with a criminal investigation of FIFA’s effort to sell an equity stake in world soccer to a group led by Jared Kushner’s brother, Josh Kushner.

Free listeners get our discussion of those cases. For paying subscribers:

• Indiana prosecutors have decided the woman who falsely accused Pete Buttigieg of being a risk to his children is too insane to face criminal charges.

• Former ICE agent Christian Castro wasn’t extradited to face criminal charges in Minnesota, but somewhat surprisingly, he’s now under a federal indictment.

• Trump won’t get to revive his birthright citizenship restrictions, but he can proceed with building his ballroom, as Ken and I discuss who has the least plausible theory of aesthetic standing.

• Marco Rubio faces a blow to his efforts to deport non-citizen left-wing student activists.

• The alienation of affection lawsuit against former senator Kyrsten Sinema will proceed in a North Carolina federal court, to the apparent annoyance of the judge who will have to preside over it, and

• Lebohang Morake, the guy who wrote and performed the Zulu chant at the start of The Lion King, owes legal fees because of a dumb lawsuit he filed against a comedian who offered an incorrect story of what the lyrics mean. Don’t sue over jokes, people.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Most federal prosecutors win almost all the time. That’s partly because they’re careful about what cases they bring, and partly because they’re good at their jobs. Lately, Jeanine Pirro’s US Attorney’s office in Washington D.C. has only been winning about half the time. This week, Ken and I discuss what’s likely driving the substantial number of acquittals and mistrials. We also look at Ghislaine Maxwell’s unsuccessful pro se appeal, and about whether it matters that Michael Cohen recanted (sort of) his testimony that helped convict Donald Trump in the Manhattan DA’s falsification of business records case.

That’s for all listeners this week. Paying subscribers also hear about:

• A partial victory for Alex Jones on appeal of the defamation judgment against him in Texas (though Jones remains insolvent nonetheless).

• A win on appeal for James O’Keefe that causes us to revisit the Food Lion case.

• A defamation loss for The New York Times.

• A terse Supreme Court order on the White House ballroom, with more likely to come, and

• Trump’s latest Kennedy Center litigation gambit: Threatening to tear down the building.

If you’re not a paying subscriber, click below to get the whole thing.

Subscribe now

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Like some of the big law firms, Disney hoped to buy peace with the Trump administration through a bogus settlement. It didn’t work. Disney is now suing the FCC, saying the commission’s move to review its broadcast licenses early is unconstitutional retaliation for its speech — namely, ABC broadcasts the president doesn’t like. Disney has good arguments, and some of those arguments could upend not just the FCC’s actions under Brendan Carr but its licensing regime more broadly.

Our discussion of the ABC litigation is for all listeners this week.

For paying subscribers, Ken and I look at Luigi Mangione’s choice to plead guilty in federal court with no plea deal. Mangione is likely to get something close to life imprisonment on the federal charges, but pleading in the federal court might get him out of being tried in state court, due to New York’s unusually strong protections against double jeopardy. But one part of Mangione’s argument — that federal and state prosecutors colluded to order their prosecutions in a way that disfavored his interests — may face a factual problem, since these federal and state prosecutors have demonstrated surprisingly little ability to work collaboratively.

We also discuss, behind the paywall:

• Another federal appeals court that has rejected another Trump administration gambit to install US attorneys without the Senate’s approval.

• A victory for Harvard in litigation with the Trump administration.

• Expert witness AI shenanigans, plus a prompt injection that couldn’t work because the document wasn’t even going to be shown to an AI, and

• The mailbox-rifling congressman.

To hear all that, subscribe below.

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We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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The Tate brothers want bail pending their extradition proceedings to the United Kingdom. Unfortunately for them, it’s very hard to get bail when you’re pending extradition, and also their social media is full of statements about how they are flight risks. “You can’t ban me from driving, I have nine drivers licenses. You can’t freeze my passport, I have four.” Yeah… they’re not going to be getting out anytime soon.

On this week’s show, we look at their troubles and also trouble for Rep. Max Miller, whose wife accuses him of having recklessly published a naked photo of their young daughter as part of a document dossier that was intended to rebut her allegations that he had been abusive. We also talk about US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s new special grand jury and what she might use it for. We look at opposition to President Trump’s new effort to restrict birthright citizenship, and at the latest action in the litigation over the White House ballroom!

That’s for all listeners. Paying subscribers also hear about:

• Trump’s new effort to fire Federal Reserve Board member Lisa Cook.

• Long-suffering federal Judge Emmett Sullivan’s ongoing dissatisfaction with Todd Blanche’s handling of Epstein file redaction, including Blanche’s claim they can’t redact handwritten documents.

• More legal trouble for the SPLC: the indictment of its former CFO and a failed motion to dismiss charges on the grounds of vindictive prosecution.

• Trump’s ongoing effort to avoid disclosing financial information in his defamation case against the BBC, and

• A new and unwise Afroman lawsuit against one of the cops who raided his home. You gotta quit while you’re ahead, Afroman.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Jeanine Pirro would like everyone to know this is all Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s fault. The wine-soaked US Attorney for the District of Columbia enthusiastically brought criminal cases related to the underperforming Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool — pursuing the president’s theory that the problems plaguing the shallow pool of standing water in full D.C. sun are the work of vandals — but then she issued a remarkable filing seeking to dismiss charges against former Olympian David Hearn. In the filing, Pirro wrote she’d been badly misled by the Department of the Interior, which was blaming vandals to cover up its and its contractors’ mismanagement of the project. It’s very embarrassing all around — DOI should have known better, but then, so should have Pirro — and it wasn’t even necessary for Pirro to offer really any explanation of her desire to dismiss the case. So why did she do it this way? We’re a little puzzled, but it seems that she’s kept her job, for now, after an Oval Office showdown with Burgum.

Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci refused to testify before a Senate hearing, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. The situation raises a couple of interesting issues: can you take the Fifth when you’ve been pardoned? Can you take the Fifth when questioned if you start the hearing by offering an opening statement? Republicans say he’s in contempt of Congress and want DOJ to prosecute him, as happened in recent years when Steve Bannon and Peter Navarro ignored subpoenas. But Fauci has some arguments to which a judge is likely to be sympathetic — including that Trump has claimed the Fauci pardon is not actually in effect.

Those discussions are for all listeners, along with a look at what Todd Blanche’s letters to the Senate say and don’t say. Paying subscribers also hear about:

• A lesson from Rep. Chuck Edwards, on how being creepy can constitute sexual harassment even if you never explicitly ask for sex.

• Paramount’s litigation strategy choices.

• Capital One’s arguments that it didn’t violate the president’s civil rights.

• Judge Amit Mehta reluctantly vacating the case against Stewart Rhodes.

• More problems with posting through it at DOJ.

• And Kash Patel being deprived of a default judgment in a bullshit defamation case for the court’s lack of personal jurisdiction over the defaulted defendant.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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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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