James Comey has been charged with federal crimes again, sort of. Federal prosecutors filed an information that purports to charge Comey with having illegally leaked national defense information almost exactly 10 years ago — just under the wire on the statute of limitations. But the law setting the 10-year deadline calls for an indictment, which prosecutors haven’t gotten. Prosecutors say that by filing an information — a statement of allegations not reviewed by a court or a grand jury — they have tolled the statute of limitations and preserved the option to pursue an indictment later. Comey’s lawyers say that’s nonsense and they want the case dismissed as untimely. Prosecutors retort that there’s nothing to dismiss, since Comey hasn’t been indicted. 🙃.

This is one of several cases in which the Trump DOJ is even sloppier than it has been, in an apparent rush to get charges out before the midterm elections, for some reason. (Does Trump know he’ll still control the DOJ even if Republicans lose next week?) For example, we cover weird shenanigans in a false statements case against two former FBI investigators that have angered Magistrate Judge Zia Faruqui, and a no-bill for proposed charges against former Trump staffer Cassidy Hutchinson (not Jeanine Pirro’s fault, for once!). And we discuss another Comey — James’s daughter Maurene — who won her wrongful termination case against the Trump DOJ.

That’s for all listeners. Paying subscribers also get our civil docket, which this week includes:

• Hasan Piker’s actually-pretty-plausible defamation lawsuit against Scott Jennings, who falsely implied that Piker advocated for black Americans to be lynched. (Jennings may be saved by the actual malice standard, especially if he’s willing to let his lawyers argue that he’s kind of dumb.)

• A partial victory for Candace Owens in Delaware, where the Macrons are suing her for defamation.

• Long-suffering federal judge Judge Ana Reyes’ admission that maybe she is the Lorax, as she acts with a preliminary injunction to protect the trees of East Potomac Park.

• A tactical trap for Max Miller, who may come to regret throwing his staff under the bus in his legal fight with his ex-wife.

• And a comeuppance for Matt Taibbi, who is likely to have to pay substantial legal fees to Eoin Higgins — indeed, you might say Taibbi has been owned.

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We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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This week, we got our hands on the actual lawsuit Eric Deters has filed against Kimberly Guilfoyle and her attorneys. Remember, this is the guy who says Guilfoyle asked him to pay a $100,000 Amex bill; she told the Wall Street Journal he made up fake text messages from her, has a reputation for blackmail, and owed her $100,000 anyway; he says all that’s false and he’s suing her for defamation. The lawsuit is amateurish in certain ways — despite his middle name literally being “Esquire” — but Ken says the core defamation claims sound plausible enough to have legs.

This week, Ken and I discuss that case, plus the investigation of Ilhan Omar — her attorneys say the government failed to follow restrictions a magistrate judge imposed on their search — and developments in the East Potomac Park case, where Judge Ana Reyes remains very displeased with the government’s conduct, and we also look at the indictment of Virginia State Senator Louise Lucas for running a marijuana dispensary.

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

• An interesting RICO trend: civil RICO suits against personal injury law firms for allegedly cooking up fraudulent cases. Uber and FedEx have filed these in various places, as has the City of New York, which alleges that the firm Asher & Associates has, for example, prodded a man who’d been hit with a lead pipe in a fight on Thanksgiving to falsely claim that he’d hurt himself tripping on a city sidewalk. Civil RICO is very hard to plead, but in some places, courts are going for it.

• Three stories about court officers who aren’t all there: A New Mexico prosecutor who may be disbarred for, among other things, accusing a defendant of witchcraft; a federal judge in Texas who appears to be having a mental health episode; and an alcoholic judge Ken helped nudge off the bench when he was a young law clerk.

• And our take on “You Can See Everything” — the (fantastic) documentary on Elizabeth Holmes raises some interesting questions about what it’s like to be a prominent federal prisoner, including whether you might get in trouble for participating in a movie project from prison, and whether you can launch a new blood startup from a halfway house.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Remember Katie Zacharia? She was White House press secretary for a few days last week and was fired while we were recording this episode. One of her big offenses was claiming to be a lawyer, despite never passing the bar. But what is a lawyer anyway? Is a lawyer different from an attorney? Will people ever realize our fallen society cannot be fixed through professional discipline actions by the California Bar? We discuss.

Also this week: The raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home. We discuss what documents are likely to come to light in the coming days, what criminal and civil actions the Trump administration might have in mind for her, and whether she’s likely to have a claim against the government for violating her rights. We also look at the White House’s effort to use antitrust as a new tool against the press. And we have updates regarding East Potomac Park and the Cornell Seven.

That’s for all listeners. For premium subscribers this week:

• JPMorgan plaintiff Chirayu Rana has irreconcilable differences with another set of lawyers.

• A teenager who was arrested for riding an unlicensed e-bike (and then released without charge) sues CBS News for implying he vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

• A Haverford College religion professor is charged with cyberstalking a Jewish colleague by harassing him with anti-Semitic sock puppet accounts.

• D.J. Byrnes is guilty (and fined $200) in the Shrek’s penis case.

• Kimberly Guilfoyle faces a bizarre defamation lawsuit.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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President Trump said he’d stop using taxpayer money to air what certainly look like campaign ads, but then he kept doing it. So now, the Democratic National Committee is suing. An ongoing theme in cases about “can the president spend tax money on this” is the difficulty of establishing standing, but the DNC has a better argument than other plaintiffs we’ve seen.

Also this week: a Minnesota teenager arranged to buy an assault rifle to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on the Mall of America — of course, it turned out the seller of the rifle was an undercover FBI agent, and the teen was arrested. Also in Minnesota, the government is mad at Patrick Schlitz and other federal judges for their public remarks criticizing the government’s disregard for their orders.

That’s for all listeners this week. Paying subscribers also hear about some particularly weird cases:

• A manslaughter case in Arizona where the victim was allowed to give an impact statement despite being dead — his sister wrote a script for an AI-generated avatar to read in court. An appeals court didn’t like this at all, and said the defendant must be resentenced — by the same judge who handed down the first sentence, lol.

• An IRS whistleblower who says the IRS maliciously leaked the fact that he paid his taxes late once, and an FBI whistleblower who says the government opened an unconstitutional investigation into anti-ICE protestors because the president saw a TikTok he didn’t like.

• The UK’s explanation of why it wants the Tate brothers extradited, which includes allegations of lots of gross conduct, most of which occurred 10 or more years ago.

• A fight over Dolly Parton’s estate, and

• The “Shrek’s penis” trial.

If you want to hear all of that and aren’t yet a paying subscriber, hit the button below.

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We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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There’s a lot of outrage over a gang-rape allegation at Cornell University. A former student has filed a Jane Doe lawsuit accusing seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of sexual misconduct, including rape, in an incident that occurred in October 2024. She previously went to campus police, but local prosecutors did not bring charges, and district attorney Matthew Van Houten issued a surprisingly detailed statement explaining why: in 2024, he received a sworn statement from the accuser that differed in material aspects from the allegations in her civil lawsuit and which, he says, did not actually allege a crime under New York’s rape statute, which takes a narrower view of when intoxication negates consent than is the case in some other states.

There’s controversy over how Van Houten reached his conclusion about whether any crime was alleged, and whether the Cornell police withheld material information that might have led him to act differently. But there’s also a separate question of whether Van Houten should have released his statement (and proceeded to talk about it on CNN) even if his 2024 analysis was right — especially given that he also announced he was reopening the investigation to take it to a grand jury, and the statement is likely to (intentionally?) complicate any new effort to bring charges. Perhaps this is why Governor Kathy Hochul has removed him from the case and appointed Attorney General Letitia James as a special prosecutor.

On this week’s show, Ken and I look at that case. We also look at the continued unraveling of President Trump’s pet “grand conspiracy” investigation in south Florida, which might not ever even make it to Judge Aileen Cannon’s desk. We look also at Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s lawsuit over the review of her phone records, and at a lawyer who came at Andrew Weissmann and missed.

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

• The very unfair judge who is thwarting President Trump’s heroic efforts to prosecute that Olympic canoeist who wantonly destroyed the lining of his favorite reflecting pool. (Sad!)

• Sheri Mecklenburg’s self-serving, but also partially convincing, resignation letter, saying she’s been made into the fall-woman for failures by US Attorney Andrew Boutros in Chicago in the botched “Broadview Six” prosecution related to anti-ICE protests.

• A DC Circuit loss for Anthropic.

• A new defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens.

• A bribery mistrial for DC Councilman Trayon White, and

• An update in the Kyrsten Sinema alienation-of-affection case.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Donald Trump tried to ban CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House and, as Trump himself predicted, he was almost immediately ordered by a federal court to let those outlets back in. This area of law is well trod by now: The president has no obligation to give special access like a one-on-one interview to any media outlet, but he can’t revoke otherwise-broadly offered access because he doesn’t like an outlet’s reporting. He also needs to give some kind of due process when revoking a pass. These outlets are back inside the press room for now and likely for good.

Judge Timothy Kelly was unimpressed with the government’s claims that the outlets were ejected on national security grounds, partly because that contradicts the president’s own public statements. But it’s an argument he loves to make in court — he says his planned triumphal arch near Arlington Cemetery serves a national security purpose, as does his ballroom and his efforts to block wind turbine projects. Courts traditionally give the president a wide berth on national security, but these increasingly implausible claims are leading courts to impose more scrutiny.

Those conversations (plus a look at how aesthetic standing may matter again in litigation over that arch) are for all listeners. Paying subscribers also get our conversations about:

• That ProPublica story about a federal investigation that looked at Susan Collins but did not lead to indictments of her or anyone in her direct orbit.

• A prosecution for online threats against ICE in Tennessee.

• Elizabeth Holmes’ impending move to a halfway house.

• Clavicular’s indictment for rape in Massachusetts.

• And an ignominious end to Matt Kalil’s lawsuit against his ex-wife, who wantonly told the whole world about his enormous penis.

If you’re not a paying subscriber and you want to hear about all that, click the button below.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

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Remember Joseph DiGenova? He was a Trump defender from the first administration brought back to help with the investigation into the investigators that DOJ is running down in south Florida. Well, he’s gone again. He seems to have had some disputes with the Attorney General about the conduct of that investigation — “if you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,” he told the New York Post. Meanwhile, former CIA director John Brennan’s lawyer filed a declaration making clear that he’s been told there are multiple investigations involving him, including one in which he’s a target. Trump’s DOJ clearly continues to push toward indictments in this investigation, but they’ll be doing it without DiGenova’s help.

That’s the first topic on this week’s show. We also discuss how Donald Trump continues to be stymied in his efforts to rename the Kennedy Center after himself — his latest threat is that he’ll tear down the building if he doesn’t get his way, what a child. We look at former immigration judge Chloe Dillon’s lawsuit over her firing and Mahmoud Khalil’s latest lawsuit, this time against Columbia University. We look at injunctions against ICE and legal victories for people who were fired for saying not-nice things about Charlie Kirk. We consider a lawsuit against Lufthansa, whose employee outed a gay couple in Saudi Arabia — does that create a claim in the United States, where they were flying to? And we look at bizarrely relaxed hiring metrics at the FBI and a right-wing media figure who resolved defamation litigation with an apology for lying about Kash Patel’s girlfriend.

We hope you enjoy the episode,

Josh

Click here for a transcript of this episode.

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.

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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.

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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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