Dear listeners,
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
