Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration, April 24

[Intro]

Benjamin Wittes: It is Friday, April 23rd, 2026. It is 4:00 PM in Washington, D.C., and in all hotel rooms in New York City. You are watching Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration. I'm Benjamin Wittes, editor-in-chief of Lawfare, and I am here with Lawfare Senior Editors Eric Columbus, Roger Parloff, and Anna Bower. And on his last day as a Lawfare Public Service Fellow, Troy Edwards, who is moving on to the next big thing starting next week.

Folks, we've got an agenda that is so packed that I am going to keep my witty banter at the beginning to an absolute minimum. And I'm also gonna ask all the panelists to be relatively brief in answers or we're just not gonna get through stuff. And I may or may not suspend questions for the week, depending on how we're doing on time at the end.

It's been a big week in the politicization of the Justice Department, and I wanna start with the indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center. LT, I gotta say, when I read that indictment, I was skeptical that it would survive a motion to dismiss for a number of technical reasons but I, my knowledge of fraud prosecutions is not super refined. Yours is better.

So, first of all, give us a little overview of this prosecution, and secondly, how cooked is the goose of the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Troy Edwards: Yeah. So you'd said there are a lot of indictments. I actually printed a ton of them, and I, this is not common. And all of these are indictments from this past week that we're gonna talk about. This first one, the Southern Poverty Law Center has raised a lot of questions. My experience has not typically been in the white collar space, but in reading through the charges, a couple things have stood out.

The background here is that the Southern Poverty Law Center, this civil rights institution, historically known for kind of its work against e entities like the Ku Klux Klan and other hate groups is alleged to have misled their donors by telling the donors in raising funds from them that they would engage in dismantling these hate groups. And then taking the money that they raised through those statements and using it to pay field agents—

What the indictment alleges are known as pseudonyms, like F-2, for example, these field agents that are parts of these hate groups or members of these hate groups and contributing to their work or their statements. And then there are a number of downstream fraud allegations, basically from that core set of acts that the Southern Poverty Law Center took money from people telling them they dismantle these groups, pay field agents, and then engaged in material false statements with banks or other financial institutions to store that money and then pay these field agents. And so that's the kind of the quick factual narrative.

The charges range from wire fraud charges stating essentially that, I'm just trying to put my best legal hat on for the DOJ here, that the material false statements of dismantling the members and then taking the money and paying these hate groups, that's the kind of allegation of the wire fraud.

And then there's false statements in loan or crediting institutions, which these, there's basically four or five bank accounts that some individual at the Southern Poverty Law Center opened. And the allegation is that when they opened them, they made some materially false statement—I believe this is the same charge that Letitia James was facing—And then there's a charge of conspiracy to do some kind of com concealment, money laundering, and that hooks onto the wire fraud.

In other words, if you acquire money illegally and then you engage in concealing that money that you've illegally acquired, it is a specified, an SUA, a specified unlawful act, and you conspire to do something with that unlawfully gained money, you can also be charged for that conspiracy. And those are the charges that they're facing in the indictment.

Benjamin Wittes: How confident are you positively or negatively that this indictment does or doesn't have potential legs? I mean, I look at it and I say, this look just looks defective to me. But what do you make of it?

Troy Edwards: Yeah, there's a reason you feel that way, and I think it's justified in looking at some of the law and fact and the indictment. Now, obviously, look, an indictment needs to meet some minimal thresholds under Rule Seven, so don't be surprised if there is some discretion to the government in meeting that threshold.

But the reason you feel that way, I think it's justified, in that when you look at the wire fraud charges, this allegation that SPLC saying that they would dismantle these hate groups to donors and then use that money and then pay some of these field agents to gain insight and intelligence from these hate groups, that that was, in some way, a materially false statement to the donors or some way some fraud or artifice to defraud these donors. I think that's a potentially, it's an arguably vague allegation that this was some affirmatively f false and material statement to the donors.

In other words, is the government gonna be able to put some donors up on the stand and say, yeah, I feel misled. I felt like I, there's no way I would've allowed this. And even that may be insufficient, but I'd be curious if they can get past that vagueness problem of these statements from SPLC. I will say I'm not as moved by some of the reactions I've seen saying, well this is what law enforcement does all the time, and so can the FBI really be, you know, alleged to be members of the KKK, 'cause they pay confidential sources.

I just, to me, I just see law enforcement entities as very, as separate and apart. Like there is not a, what about is there? But I will say the vagueness argument is a good one against these wire fraud charges.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah, I also think that there's a, I'm not sure the problem is limited to vagueness, so it seems to me that the problem is that how do you know you are not dismantling the organization by paying individuals for information about it?

That is, I don't see any inherent conflict, and I'm not defending the SCLC—SPLC, sorry. The, you know, there are legitimate controversies about it but. It seems to me it, the conduct is arguably a simply a tactical decision in support of the mission as articulated to donors. And they don't seem, especially at odds to me, much less misleading.

That is, if you had them up on the stand and you said what's the relationship between giving $100,000 dollars to a Grand Wizard? They'd say, well, he was giving us all the intel we wanted on the plans of the organization. That doesn't like, that doesn't sound inherently misleading to me.

It's not like, you know, I'm gonna build the wall, give me your money, and then I pocket your money and spend it on luxury items, right?

Troy Edwards: Yeah, that's really interesting you say that. 'cause one of the, in the indictment itself, they list out a number of the field agents as examples of this wire fraud and the way that the SPLC paid these members.

And in a couple of them, they do exactly that. They lay out almost what could be a defense for the SPLC, which is to say, one example was one of these field agents going in and secretly securing a number of the internal documents from this agency and then bringing it back and the SPLC, then using it to argue and write a number of debriefs on how this institution works and airing all of this, horrible nature of this organization to the public.

I suspect, given your argument, I think it's a good one, which is SPLC may say, yeah, that was dismantling, right, was airing, put shining light on some of how these organizations operate. And if that falls, then that's the underlying kind of predicate charge related to this separate money laundering charge later this concealment argument.

And if those fall, then it leaves what may be one of the stronger parts of the indictment, which is the false statements charged to this the crediting or loan institution. And even that faces some weakness. There was a recent Supreme Court opinion that clarified that it has to be false statements, it can't be misleading statements under this statute, Section 1014. And so the SPLC may point to that and say, look the forms that we submitted to the bank were not false, right? They may have been misleading. Maybe they co see that, maybe they don't, but they weren't false.

Eric Columbus: And also—

Troy Edwards: —That's a defense.

Eric Columbus: One, also in that same, in 1014 in that bank statute, it needs, the false statement needs to be submitted for the purpose of influencing the bank.

And is that met here? I'm not so sure.

Troy Edwards: Well, I'm not even sure it's alleged. I don't actually see an element, like part of an allegation in that charge. I was looking through it today to see like, is that even alleged to say, you know, what did they, what was the purpose of submitting that? What did they gain from the bank to do that?

I'm not sure it's even in the indictment.

Benjamin Wittes: Although that's presumably curable. But,

Troy Edwards: Right

Benjamin Wittes: —with a replay indictment. Alright. This is at the very worst, a petty conspiracy. Anna Bower, I wanna talk to you about a much grander conspiracy, one that can take us all the way from the 2016 election right up to the present.

We're talking and stop along the way for a false statement from John Brennan to Congress, talking of course about the Grand Conspiracy. It's been a big week for the Grand Conspiracy. We had witness subpoenas in the Brennan matter submitted, then withdrawn. We had the whole thing moved to Washington.

Nobody quite could figure out what it was doing in Florida. And then we have a new prosecutor who's been just as neutral and fair-minded on the subject of this as you could possibly want.

So bring us up to speed on the grandeur of the grand conspiracy.

Anna Bower: Yeah, there's a lot going on in Grand Conspiracy world, Ben, and I'm gonna go really quickly through this because we do have so much to get through, but I hope that we'll have more time to talk about it next week, hopefully.

And Molly and I have a forthcoming piece on it that people should read when that comes out. But so just to catch everyone up, because I do have a little bit of whiplash, there's been so many developments in the Grand Conspiracy case. Keep in mind this was the case that we were being told for months that there was reporting, you know, that this was being a grand jury was being operated out of the Southern District of Florida, specifically in Fort Pierce.

It, we learned first that there was a prosecutor, Maria Long, who's a career prosecutor who had been overseeing the Brennan aspect of this case that relates to alleged lying to Congress, over kind of having expressed some doubts about moving forward with the case, she was removed from the prosecution.

Then, you know, it, we have news that there are these subpoenas that go out over the weekend and it's kind of unclear exactly what these subpoenas mean because there are grand jury subpoenas to show for people who are alleged cooperating witnesses query what that means. But putting a pin in that for a minute it, there are these grand jury subpoenas to show up in Washington, D.C., whereas we'd heard before that, you know, this was all kind of coming out of Fort Pierce or Miami. So it seemed like there were some developments there.

Monday rolls around and Joe diGenova—or excuse me, diGenova, is that correct? DiGenova, the former U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. You know, 81 years old. Long, longtime proponent of the grand conspiracy theory, has for the better part of a decade been out there you know, promoting this conspiracy theory that he has now been appointed to prosecute.

And in the course of doing so, has also, you know, seemed to assume the guilt of the people that he's charged with investigating. He has you know, demonized and maligned them in a very personal terms that Brennan himself, he is called, you know, a lunatic, a madman, things of that nature, a traitor.

But he is then appointed to kind of oversee this prosecution, and as soon as he gets into his new position. There's news that those subpoenas that went out for people to appear before a grand jury in Washington, D.C., are withdrawn. So we don't really know what that means. Is it because diGenova, you know, is taking the reins now?

Or you know, is it just that they're rethinking their strategy here? They, there was some reporting that instead of putting people in front of a grand jury, they want the witnesses to just go ahead with some voluntary interviews first. So it all is unclear exactly what this mess means, Ben. But it, it does seem like, now that Mr. diGenova is in position as the prosecutor, things might move much more quickly than we previously expected.

Benjamin Wittes: And it's grand, right.

Anna Bower: It's grand, but also this part, what's—The Grand Conspiracy, it's unclear if different parts are going to move, like the Brennan part aspect of it might move more quickly than the grand broad conspiracy that they really envision this case ultimately becoming.

So this is maybe developments in just a portion of the Grand Conspiracy case. But ultimately they seem to be hoping that it will become as grand as they've imagined.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. Moving on to what's gonna become a new feature of Trials and Tribulations, which is gratuities for the undeserving.

This week's contestant is Carter Page. Now Carter Page is, I gotta say less undeserving than a lot of people who were getting gratuities from this Justice Department because he was the subject of a gross abuse of the FISA process, or at least a gross failure of the FISA process. That said I did not expect him to recover much less to recover at this magnitude.

Roger, tell us about the Carter page settlement.

Roger Parloff: Yeah, he's getting 1.25 million according to Politico. And maybe others, which is the exact same number that Mike Flynn got. And it—

Benjamin Wittes: Seems to be the going rate.

Roger Parloff: He was an—I think that's what we should take away from this. He was a campaign advisor back in 2016 and came under he did have these four FIA warrants that were issued.

And as you said the inspector general was very critical of the e errors involved inaccuracies in those warrant applications. He sued in 2020. He sued actually like eight defendants. A lot of individuals like Comey and McCabe but also sued the United States under the Federal Tort Claims Act and also under the Patriot Act.

And his claims were thrown out at the district court level by Dabney Friedrich, who is a Trump appointee for failure to state a claim. And then, and also time barred statute of limitations problem that was affirmed by the D.C. Circuit. And that was it. Two to one ruling. Although even the dissenter, Henderson, agreed that you would need to dismiss this case suit, she disagreed about somehow you got there.

But again, basically failure to state a claim and time barred, he appealed to the Supreme Court. And then just this week when the government filed its brief, it said, we've settled the claim for $1.25 million dollars, which is I think a pretty good result for him. And especially I don't really know the Patriot Act civil provisions the FDCA is pretty stingy.

You don't get punitive damages, you don't get any pretrial interest. I mean, prejudgment interest. So, $1.25 is pretty good under any circumstances. And when you've lost at both levels below, I think it's very good. So I think he was wise to take the offer.

Have we lost Ben? I think we have for the moment.

Let's see, well, maybe we'll plunge forward while he's trying to rejoin us. I think the next thing might be for me and oh no, is it yeah, I think we have what's going on in the January 6th cases on appeal. Anyone can stop me if you would like to, but otherwise, I'll plunge forward.

As you know, you must have heard, the government moved to vacate convictions in all of the remaining January 6th cases, the 12 seditious conspiracy cases left. Not all of those were convictions, I should say, but they were charged as seditious conspiracy. And, after it moved to dismiss, Jamie Raskin has filed a brief trying to, urging the D.C. Circuit, not to just automatically do it, but rather to appoint an amicus and think about this in an adversarial fashion.

And he's actually filed a couple briefs to explain that he's not, he doesn't want himself to be the amicus. He wants them to appoint an amicus who would understand the facts and be more independent. And it relies largely on precedents like United States versus Flynn and United States versus Mayor Adams, where you know where amici were appointed by the judge. Those were not exact identical situations. Those were 48(a) motions. Is that? Yeah. And here we're sort of, those are at when before a judgment of conviction. Now we're past the judgment of conviction.

The other the other case he cited was when I was unfamiliar with Young versus United States from 1942. It involves a doctor. It was a situation where he was convicted under a statute and for some reason the government changed its mind and decided that it, the way it had charged him was reversible error and it conceded error.

And basically the Supreme Court said well, we still have to go through some analysis ourselves. We can't just accept that and I think the language includes “the public interest that a result be reached, which promotes a well ordered society is foremost in every criminal proceeding.

That interest is entrusted to our consideration and protection, as well as that, of enforcing of the, as well as that of the enforcing officers. Furthermore, our judgment,” well, I think that's the key part. Since he filed that there has been some opposition from Joe Bigg's counsel, from Roberto Minuta’s counsel, Zach Rehl pro se. And so, we'll have to, we're waiting for the D.C. Circuit to decide now.

Troy Edwards: Yeah, I, Roger, I thought that was one of the strongest points that Raskin made, which was to say that these are different in posture because of the post-conviction, post sentencing realm.

I'd be curious if the D.C. Circuit, you know, takes that up and at least wants to hear, because in Adams, they had Paul Clement and they had Judge Gleason and Flint. So if they got a smart person to get in there and make this argument that these are just different than any other use of 48(a) or this motion to vacate, I'd be curious to see how it plays out.

And then if the D.C. Circuit doesn't, I'd be curious if Judge Mehta does or Judge Kelly does on their own when it gets to the 48(a) decision.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, Eric, talk about the Presidential Records Act. Thanks.

Eric Columbus: So under the Presidential Records Act, some presidential materials become subject to FOIA five years after the end of the president's term.

So two FOIA requesters submitted a request for records. All records recovered by the National Archives from Trump during his, between 2021 and 2024. And what they're trying to get basically is records seized during the Mar-a-Lago raid that had, were then given back to Trump. And that either he then gave back to them or that the FBI turned over to NARA.

Now what? Soon after they filed that, that request, OLC issued an opinion saying that the Presidential Records Act is unconstitutional in its entirety and the requesters, right around the time they filed suit because the FOIA request not being implied with FOIA, which it doesn't necessarily mean a skullduggery, but FOIA basically allows you to file suit very early on after filing a FOIA request if the request has not been fulfilled.

And the requester said, also said that in, in light of the OLC opinion, they might file a motion instructing the national archives to preserve all records including anything returned for Mar-a-Lago, which they say, even if it's not in your physical custody, it's in your legal custody.

So the judge, Judge Chuang in Maryland an Obama appointee, instructs NARA to say, to answer whether they or not they have any records that were return from Mar-a-Lago. And so NARA then says two things that are interesting response. One, they say they have no records from Mar-a-Lago, meaning perhaps not surprisingly, that Trump has, is still keeping for himself these records that belong to the National archives.

And then they say,

Benjamin Wittes: Well, you might say hoarding.

Eric Columbus: You might say hoarding. Then they say another thing which is kind of interesting, which is basically that they're still abiding by the Presidential Records Act in other respects in terms of processing, in terms of processing presidential records, which is a little bit odd giving that DOJ has said, just said that the Presidential Records Act is completely unconstitutional. So we may get more clarity.

Benjamin Wittes: Right? Should we read Nara, should we read NARA as saying we are behaving unconstitutionally under binding executive branch legal interpretation?

Eric Columbus: Are they acting uncon? Yeah, sure. You could say that because the what? The what? The only thing that empowers them to be disclosing these records for one thing is the Presidential Records Act.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. Meanwhile, one good piece of news in the Justice Department politicization department, which is that the Justice Department has capitulated and dropped the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell investigation. Roger, do we interpret this as that they woke up in the morning and said we repent, we see the error of our ways?

Or might this be an effort to get the Fed chairman nomination confirmed?

Roger Parloff: Yeah, I think the latter is a possibility. The context is this—the term, Powell's term as chair ends May 15th, so that's about three weeks. His term as a member of the board of governors alas, however, until January 31st, of 2028.

Most chairs don't stay on after their terms, but he can. And the way I understand it, and this is far from any, I have no expertise, but the, all of the governors have votes on the open markets committee, which is the committee that sets, that in effect sets interest rates. I think everyone concedes that the chair has more weight than anyone else for some reason. I don't understand. But anyway, he would still be on if he wants to be.

And so. Obviously Kevin Walsh had his confirmation hearing this week, but Thom Tillis has been saying that he will not let the nomination go forward unless the inquiry is dropped. I think John Thune was supporting Tillis on this.

And so in that context, Pirro gave sort of a complex statement today, which was I think first reported—Katherine Faulders broke this a few minutes before Pirro put out her own tweet this morning, the inspector general for the Federal Reserve has been asked to scrutinize the building cost overruns in the billions of dollars that have been born by taxpayers.

And I'll just note, Jerome Powell has been asking for the IG to investigate this, and the IG may have previous started, and I'm not sure about if he had started before. But anyway, he had asked for this. And then she continues, I expect a comprehensive report in short order, and I'm confident the outcome will assist in resolving once and for all the questions that led to led this office to issue subpoenas. Accordingly, I have directed my office to close the investigation note well, however, that I will not hesitate to restart a criminal investigation should the facts warrant doing so.

So, you know, I guess there is nothing literally to stop her after Tom Tillis lets the thing through to someday restart this if she wanted to.

I don't know where this leaves Powell in terms of whether he wants to quit or leave or whether he wants to stay on while they to see whether they're really gonna start investigating him again.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, finally in this area, before leaving this area, let's talk about one area where the Justice Department has behaved with admirable normality.

There's an indictment, Troy, of a soldier who was involved both in the Maduro capture and in some, you know, online betting. What do we know about this case? And, what do you make of it?

Troy Edwards: Yeah, so this is a pretty solid indictment. This strikes me as on, in one way a pretty normal abuse of someone's position of trust and confidential use of their information and insider betting.

So you look at that and you think that's a pretty normal charge. What makes this case, I think, really interesting is not for the sake that it's, you know, fact and law and seems like a pretty valid indictment, which is good, but also that it is around this kind of. This kind of Polymarket area or Kalshi area of betting, which is not run by the Securities Exchange Commission, but run by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

And that is about I think an eighth of the staff and budget of the SEC. Yet groups like Kalshi have sometimes $2 billion worth of wages in a week. And so there's a real divergent kind of e experience going on in this futures prediction market, but the low enforcement and regulatory agency focus. And I think that we're gonna slowly see a catch up here as Congress starts to realize the dangers and those dangers played out here, I think in the national security space.

So in this case, Gannon Ken Van Dyke was an Army Special Forces Sergeant who allegedly placed 13 bets in these binary event markets, which is the another way of saying, you know, these futures market betting areas they'll place a bet that says a ‘yes or no’ on something occurring by a certain date.

And in this case, it revolved around United States invading Venezuela and doing something with Maduro, or Maduro losing power by a certain date. I think it was January 31st, 2026. And the allegation here is that this army special forces sergeant was heavily involved in the planning and buildup to the United States activity in Venezuela on January 3rd and of this year. And that the 13 bets led all the way up to right on January 2nd when he placed another bet and made over $400,000 in profit on these bets with his inside information and classified access.

And now that what's remarkable is NPR reported on this by January 5th, they were reporting on this particular set of bets and experts were getting on and saying it was hard to know whether or not we'd be able to prove whether this is insider information looking backwards, what's remarkable about this case is not only is DOJ focused on enforcing against these bets and the use of inside information, but it also shows these, Polymarket and Kalshi may be storing the information and referring it to DOJ, taking the information they're seeing that creating some metric to determine whether or not someone's using insider information and referring to DOJ that ought to send a shockwave across users, right. And government actors.

And then I think to a bigger picture concern here is how are foreign governments using these markets to read what the U.S. may do, right? On one hand, foreign actors may be seeing this as prediction markets and if they assume government actors are placing bets, then can they use that for intelligence value if it's right. And if it's wrong, do they act in a way that then creates this self-serving prophecy and then we start to use it as intelligence?

I think it's wrought with national security concerns, especially if we can't get a clamp on people using their inside information to bet in this area.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah. Alright. Roger, yes or no and for how much money will the D.C. Circuit affirm Randy Moss?

Roger Parloff: Any sum of money you want to bet because it just came down.

Yes. But yes, it will. Although I mean if there's rehearing, I don't know. But this was an important case brought by the ACLU, our friend Lee Gelernt. This is Raices versus Mullin. It's called Refugee and Immigrant Center Group for Education Legal Services versus Mullin. It's, and it's an interesting set of facts that where Trump was really trying to, eliminate enormous sections of the asylum law, as it exists. So, and Moss enjoined or, most of it or enjoined—He did enjoin, but he also used that APA procedure called vacatur, where you vacate what the administrative agency has done.

So what Trump had done was this: You know, Congress has plenary power over immigration and it enacted this comprehensive scheme mainly in 1952, the Immigration Nationality Act. It's been, you know, obviously updated. It has two main ways of removing people. There's a regular way and there's an expedited removal procedure. Both to varying degrees protect the right to seek asylum, the right to seek withholding of removal because you fear persecution and the right to seek withholding of removal because of torture under the CAT provision, the CAT treaty, the Convention Against Torture.

So what Trump did on January on inauguration day was he, was sort of two parts. He widely suspended, entry into the country, which he did have authority to do. But then he said, anyone who violates my suspension will now be subject to new removal procedures that I invented in my proclamation. And he had two of those and which were exceedingly expedited and did not afford the same protections, especially as to asylum. I'm obviously, I'm trying to simplify, and I, and it's more than trying to simplify. It's a hundred and 21 pages, and I haven't slogged through it all. So I'm some, it's a, this is a sort of approximate.

But anyway Judge Moss enjoin this thing and at least and the D.C. Circuit, two to one. It's Judge Childs who wrote the 57 page opinion, joined by Pillard, I think, and then Walker wrote his own opinion 64 pages which concurs in part, dissents in part. I mean, there, there are parts of it that—and actually Judge Katsas at the preliminary stage had done the same thing.

They even, they also concede that to the extent that he tries to eliminate some of the mandatory protections even they say that it's illegal. The asylum the two Trump judges, Katsas earlier who's not on this panel, and Walker this time around, they take the position that asylum is discretionary and Trump can sort of wipe it out. But that is, the majority says he can't.

And it's pretty much a sweeping victory for the ACLU and I'm sure we will have a very prompt appeal. I don't know if it will go obviously to, if it'll be rehearing en banc or straight to the Supreme Court.

Benjamin Wittes: I think this is a straight to the Supreme Court situation. If you, if you're getting a partial concurrence from Walker, I don't think you have much chance at the en banc Supreme, at the en banc D.C. Circuit.

Eric Columbus: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Benjamin Wittes: Speaking of people who don't have an on a chance before the en banc D.C. Circuit, there is an ICE officer who is now a fugitive from because of this nationwide warrant that's been sent out for him.

And I wanna know, is he still doing his job as an ICE officer?

Roger Parloff: We, I don't know. He's now, you know, this warrant for his arrest went out eight days ago, and as far as I know, nothing has progressed. The warrant did list an address for him in Maryland, and it said it was a nationwide warrant—

I don't know what that means. Maybe Troy does. And but nothing has happened. So it's sort of, I don't know if the federal government is helping and if it is helping which side it's helping.

Benjamin Wittes: Right. So, I just wanna know, when you have a nationwide warrant for your arrest, for your behavior as an ICE officer, do you get suspended from ICE while they're sorting that out? Or do you kind of keep wandering around arresting people?

Roger Parloff: I, yeah, I don't know. And in fairness, I haven't asked our, the helpful DHS spokesperson. But I'll have to, I'll have to try that.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. Speaking of odd things that happened this week involving ICE, Anna, I have never really heard of the government saying to a judge, ‘please rule by this date. And if you don't, we're going to interpret that as you are denying our motion and we're gonna appeal.’ And then when the judge says, what planet are you on, actually going ahead and doing that.

But that's what the government has done in the Kilmar Abrego Garcia case. They gave her a deadline. Usually it's the other way around. The judge gives the litigant a deadline for filing something. But here they said file, you know, grant our motion to dissolve this so that we can in remove this guy to Liberia where he doesn't wanna go, instead of Costa Rica where he does wanna go and wants to have him.

Or else we're gonna treat—do it by April 17th, or we're gonna treat it as a denial and we're gonna take you up to the Fourth Circuit. And she responds I'm the judge here. I'll rule when I'm good and ready to rule. And now they have interpreted that as a denial and gone to the Fourth Circuit. So my question is that the way the system is supposed to work?

Anna Bower: I have never seen it work like that. I will add in addition to the explanation you just gave that makes it even stranger, is that there was a hearing set for April 28th, Ben, in which she was,

Benjamin Wittes: Oh, yeah, I forgot that part.

Anna Bower: So it was moving towards, you know, there was, there were things that were progressing in terms of the judge resolving the, some of these outstanding motions, including the motion to dissolve.

And they just went ahead and filed a notice of appeal. And saying that, you know, they've taken this non-answer from the judge as a constructive denial as a result of this. Keep in mind, one of the other outstanding issues in this case is that Abrego has a motion for discovery. That was ongoing.

So because they've now appealed the motion to dissolve the injunction that is prohibiting the government from removing Abrego from the country it, it typically would divest the court of jurisdiction, right? Like the district court, once there's notice of appeal kind of things you know, are out of their hands.

But the plaintiff, Abrego, his counsel, is now arguing that it was so frivolous, this notice of a construct notice of appeal for the constructive denial that the court can still enter an indicative ruling on this motion for discovery. So, you know, we'll see what happens—Oh, yes. What?

Benjamin Wittes: So you could have concurrent proceedings at the Fourth Circuit and at the district court, which is like really supposed to not happen.

Anna Bower: Yeah. But potentially, I, the judge, so what's happened now is that Judge Xinis has set a briefing schedule for a reply, or a response from the government about this motion for an indicative ruling on the discovery matter. And then she went ahead and set another hearing date. She pushed back this April 28th hearing date, and I believe it's May, something like May 11th.

So sometime in early May that she's going to hold a, or plans to hold a, you know, a hearing whether that is a hearing that was on the subjects of the original schedule or something else. It's not entirely clear. We'll see, but I've never seen anything like this. I'm curious, Roger, it, what you make of it, because my thinking is like, how does this potentially relate to the criminal case and happenings there?

Keep in mind that the judge in the criminal case, Judge Crenshaw is preparing to potentially issue a ruling on the selective or vindictive prosecution motion. Because we had that evidentiary hearing there, there have been briefs that have been filed on the matter. And so I'm kind of wondering, is it possible that there's this kind of rush to get things in the civil case sorted out so that they can potentially go ahead and remove him to Liberia?

I mean, if the criminal case goes out the window, I'm not really sure it's, this is maybe my grand conspiracy, but I'm curious, Roger, what your thoughts are on that.

Roger Parloff: Those are all good speculations as far as I'm concerned. It wasn't clear to me why there was this huge rush there, there was, there, they were already going to appeal an earlier ruling, and they said, well, I, they wanted to appeal both at the same time.

Well, you know, you, you could have waited and then moved to consolidate when the time came. So that doesn't really explain anything. And also, what's the big rush when you're—are you really gonna move him in sort of violation of Judge Crenshaw's expectations? There's a lot of factors, like you said, and I can't figure it out. I'm, I don't know what's what, why they're doing this.

Troy Edwards: I had no idea there was an unless otherwise ordered function for prosecutors. This is a new tool for me that I never gotta tell you this.

Benjamin Wittes: So, look, I think it's I actually think it's a windfall for defense lawyers.

'cause I think what you do is you file a motion to dismiss and then you say, and if you don't rule by such and such a date. We're skipping the trial and just going directly to the court of appeals, and then you file a notice of appeal and you know they gotta stop. Alright—

Roger Parloff: Another, well, just briefly, it didn't, you know, when they, they said this thing to her, she said, and she wrote it in her order too.

I mean, you guys have been stalling and stalling and stalling and suddenly you come in here and say, rule by April 17th are, were appealing. And they didn't push back. They, I thought it was a dead issue. And then, and she went ahead and put a hearing not too far ahead, like Monday and then boom, they appeal.

Anna Bower: It's very strange. And there was a whole hearing status conference that we had just recently where, you know, the government made clear they wanted to do everything, appeal everything at once. So it's all just very, it's weird. Yeah.

Benjamin Wittes: Eric, what is, California's No Vigilantes Act, it sounds like it's not much fun.

Eric Columbus: California passed a law saying that aimed basically at ICE saying that the federal law enforcement can't wear masks. And two things: One, you can't wear masks, and two, you gotta display your name or badge number.

Benjamin Wittes: Well, that sounds entirely reasonable, but I don't think they should be naming that, “No Vigilantes.” I think, you know, vigilantism has a place in life. Just not for ICE.

Eric Columbus: There's no—There was another, it had a second name also, but I'm blanking out on it now. But so at any rate the district court enjoined the mask, the no mask requirement as violation of the Supremacy Clause because it basically only applied to the feds. It did not apply to state law enforcement.

But it allowed the identification requirement to go through because the feds had not shown that. It, its own current policy was essential to federal law enforcement operations. So the feds appeal to the Ninth Circuit seeking an injunction pending appeal and they win.

And a panel of two Trump judges and one Obama judge. And the panel says that the Supremacy Clause means and as it does, that you can't discriminate against the federal government if you're a state, nor can you regulate the federal government directly, even if you're regulating states in the same manner.

And it doesn't matter whether the regulated activities are essential to the federal government or how much it the regulation interferes with federal operations or not. And they pointed out, and this is a, this is I think, a key distinction between efforts to basically to, to prosecute ICE officers in for state law violations.

They point out that this does not regulate conduct that any ordinary citizen could perform. Rather, it applies exclusively to law enforcement agencies and their officers. It's a regulation of what—It's not it's regulation of, you know, what cops have to do and therefore targets a federal it, it targets government officers and therefore it also targets federal government officers and thereby directly it, the act directly regulates, conducts reserved to sovereigns, and that's something that the state cannot do to the federal government.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. Roger, I remember the case of Mr. Ishihara who was held in contempt for an hour and a half or something, and then his fine was remitted and everything was fine. They went to the Eighth Circuit anyway. And I think on this very show, I made a snitty remark about how there was no way this appeal wouldn't be dismissed because, you know, there's no controversy between the parties anymore.

And it looks like I was wrong.

Roger Parloff: Yeah. This is the case that of Rigoberto Soto Jimenez. And we wrote about it in on Lawfare. This was when Judge Provinzino held Mr. Ishihara a special AUSA, he was a for coming over from being a JAG officer and in civil contempt because of a string of violations of orders.

All because they're overworked, nobody really contests that's the reason, but rather serious violations. And so she finally said I'm gonna fine you $250 civil contempt un unless you, unless mister, your client gets back his property, his identifications, passport and things like this, and from ICE. And they got it back by the necessary time, and she purged the contempt and he never had to pay a dime.

And like you said Dan Rosen, who had some time on his hands and decided to appeal and a pro bono, appellate lawyer Sean Marotta took Rigoberto Soto Jimenez's case he's with Hogan Lovells. And did make a very, what seemed to be very strong argument that there was no standing, or there was moot, that it was moot.

Anyway, there was no case or controversy, seemed to have a lot of precedence from the Eighth Circuit on point. U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen responded said, well, he has a reputational damage. And in a one sentence order, the Eighth Circuit denied the motion. They did take up Marotta on his backup proposal, which was to appoint counsel to oppose Rosen, Rosen's appeal because Soto Jimenez has no.

You know, he can't afford this. He does. He has no, he never even asked for the civil contempt. So, and so they did that and they appointed a sort of big deal Minnesota litigator Jeffrey Justman of Faegre Drinker. And so, it's going forward. I don't really get, and so he will brief, he will write an amicus brief.

I don't really get whether the mootness issue is or standing is still an issue or not. 'Cause it was just a one line order. So maybe I don't, it'll be,

Benjamin Wittes: I do not understand at all how that case cannot be moot. It's like a, it's like a law school definition in class of what mootness is. But okay.

Eric, I confess, this one took me by surprise. I saw it on the agenda and I really have no idea what it's a reference to, district court holding that Trump administration improperly coerced Facebook and Apple to remove ICE tracking apps in violation of the First Amendment.

What is this case? What district court are we talking about, and how did I miss this?

Eric Columbus: You're a very busy man, Ben. This is the Northern District of Illinois before Judge Jorge Alonso, who I believe is an Obama appointee. This was a big issue during the Biden administration when it was felt that the federal government, basically jawboning private entities, especially in the tech space, was the worst thing in the world.

Now, apparently the federal government is singing a bit of a different tune, or perhaps the same tune, but I should say the conservatives are singing a different tune. This, the plaintiffs, a woman who runs a Facebook group that called ICE Sightings Chicagoland and, which is basically a place for people to get on and say, Hey, I saw ICE conducting an operation at place in Chicago area.

And another plaintiff runs a phone app, on an Apple app called Eyes Up, which basically is the, kind of the same type of thing you can report ICE activity I think I believe also in the Chicago area. And DOJ, I think Laura Loomer of all people called the brought these things to the attention of DOJ and DHS and DOJ went to the, went to Facebook, went to Apple and said, Hey, you guys gotta take this stuff down. This is harming us.

And they did so, rather quickly, and the plaintiff sued and the judge enjoined defendants from DHS and DOJ, from doing it again basically should it, it come up again and said basically like, look, it's pretty clear what happened here and that there's evidence that first these apps, the Facebook group was created and the app when it was, went into the Apple's app store.

And the companies had no problems with that, even though they knew full well what was being done. But then DOJ and DHS complained and Facebook and Apple took them down very quickly, took down the app and the Facebook group very quickly. And then in case there's any doubt about the causation here Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem bragged about it and said, today, you know, we, at our demand, Facebook and Apple acted.

And basically this was a, in essence, a much tighter case than the case against the Biden administration that the Supreme Court decided a couple of terms ago the Murthy case because causation was really very easy to find. And, so it's, this does not get the apps back because there's the Facebook and, nor does it get back the Facebook group, 'cause those companies were not actual defendants in the suit.

But it certainly makes it more likely that they will in the future.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, Roger is the ballroom on or off this week?

Roger Parloff: We're on hold again. An administrative stay is in effect, pausing Judge Leon's injunction but, against construction. But it won't last very long. So the, when we last left you, the majority of the D.C. Circuit panel that's now got the case, Millett, Rao, and Garcia are the panel.

The majority wanted Judge Leon to clarify his injunction, what can go forward and what can't in terms of 'cause there he said basically you need to stop construction on the ballroom, but you can do things that are necessary for safety and security. And Trump was saying, okay, then we can do everything because it's one integrated hole and everything's absolutely essential to my security.

Benjamin Wittes: Right. And the ballroom is really just a, an entryway to a deep underground bunker, which is necessary for national security.

Roger Parloff: It helps provide the anti-drone apparatus,

Benjamin Wittes: Right.

Roger Parloff: And the anti-missile systems that protect the bunker beneath. And so, we are waiting now we, we have that new order, which is frankly none too clear where the, you know, where the line is drawn.

I mean, basically it's ground, it,

Benjamin Wittes: That's the ground.

Roger Parloff: Anything below ground you can do. Yeah, anything below ground and anything above you can't. It's a little more complicated than that. So, and now we'll go to, this will be, I guess the ruling on whether his injunction can stay in effect, or begin to come into effect, finally a pending appeal and we know that Rao is against it.

We, she has already said that she supports all of Trump's arguments that the plaintiff, that the petitioners have no standing, that Congress has approved this, which is a really a stretch, and that and there's enormous irreparable harm threatened from Trump, relating to Trump's security.

So, but we'll have to see what the other two do.

Benjamin Wittes: All right. Well, Naomi Rao is always a little bit shy about expressing her opinion. So, Eric, it's been a big week for Kash Patel in libel suits. I believe on the same day he lost one and filed another. Tell us about his suit against Frank Figliuzzi and his new suit against the Atlantic.

Eric Columbus: Yeah, we'll take those on. I think the order in which they occurred, I think that he sued the Atlantic. It might have been the same day, it might have been a day before, but it was definitely. At some moment before he lost suit against Frank Figliuzzi.

So the Atlantic, as I, I would assume most of our listeners know published an article about Kash Patel I guess at the beginning of this week it feels like ages ago led that reporting that he basically is not doing a great job, is sometimes had trouble being roused because he was, had a big night of partying the night before that he had locked himself out of his computer one day and assumed that he was being fired as a as a result, which is—

Benjamin Wittes: Who among us hasn't locked ourselves out of our computers and assumed it was some malevolent force that was after us?

Eric Columbus: Who among us.

Benjamin Wittes: I mean, I gotta say I'm sympathetic with Kash on very few things, but as somebody who spends most of my time locked out of one or more of my computers, unable to remember the last five passwords I've used. I gotta say this one hits close to home.

Troy Edwards: Yeah. Unfortunately that one is painful.

'cause most of 2025, if my PIV card didn't let me in a building, I figured it meant I had been fired by the administration. So.

Benjamin Wittes: Yeah, I gotta say like I Kash Patel’s a bad guy and everything. But that one, when the Atlantic reported that I was like, there before the grace of God go I. Sorry, Eric, we interrupted you.

Eric Columbus: No, not at all. Not at all. So, Kash Patel, as one does, when one doesn't like an article, he decides to file suit and I think it's fair to say that this lawsuit is not necessarily aimed at a court, but rather aimed at, one, discouraging future bad press, and two, showing to his boss that he fights and that he believes that all these charges are against nonsense.

In order to win a defamation suit, you need to show actual malice. Which is a term of art that is not mean, what those words mean in the normal English language, but rather means that you either had to have known that the article was false or to have acted with reckless disregard for the truth which means that you kind of suspect that the article was false or that you did not act in a way that a reasonably prudent sorry, that you must have in fact entertained serious doubts about the story before publishing it and rather Patel in his.

Says, well, you know, this these, the Atlantic should have known because they didn't give us enough time to respond. They didn't follow these leads and we're showing the articles false, blah, blah, blah. All the stuff that at most shows would show recklessness if true on the part of the Atlantic.

But that is not suffice to prove actual malice which is the standard in defamation suit brought by a public figure such as Patel.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, LT—

Eric Columbus: Well, no. Well, don't forget Frank Figliuzzi,

Benjamin Wittes: Oh, sorry, I forgot about Frank Figliuzzi.

Eric Columbus: So, you know, God opens the door and closes another Patel the same layer that day or maybe the next day. He lost. And earlier he lost that he had filed against Frank Figliuzzi, who was a former FBI assistant director, who is now a, among other things, I assume, he is a talking head on what was then known as MSNBC.

And he surpris, not surprisingly, or not involved the same topic. He said at some point last year on the Morning Joe Show, there was asked about Kash Patel, and he said, yeah, well, reportedly he's been visible at nightclubs far more than he has been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building. And Kash Patel sued him for that. And he's saying that line about being visible nightclubs far more than he's been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building is defamatory.

Figliuzzi, in response argued, and the district court agreed that this was a sarcastic and hyperbolic remark that is, cannot be defamatory. Apparently under this, the suit was filed in Texas and apparently under Texas law, that's a question for the court to determine whether something is rhetorical, hyperbole.

And the test is what a reasonable person would believe. It's a question of law for the courts to decide. And the court concluded that a person of ordinary intelligence would've concluded that Figliuzzi was being hyperbolic when he said that he's been visible at nightclubs far more than he's been on the seventh floor of the Hoover building.

So Patel loses.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. LT, would a reasonable person regard it as hyperbolic if I said that the Second Circuit had issued a damaging opinion in the counter-terrorism space that it would never have issued had the president of the United States not been Donald Trump? Would Texas law protect me and say that this is cannot be a defamatory statement?

Troy Edwards: No, because I don't want that to be hyperbolic.

Benjamin Wittes: Oh okay. They would say it's true and it's absolutely a protected statement because truth is a defense against libel. What did the Second Circuit do in this case?

Troy Edwards: Yeah, so. I'll stay somewhat short because I hope to have a piece come out on this because it warrants it the Second Circuit.

So, so let's go back to 2017. Akayed Ullah is a defendant individual in New York who left his apartment in Brooklyn after a long period of consuming ISIS videos and information and propaganda, and rode the train to Times Square Station, and detonated a pipe bomb that he had strapped to himself and attached shrapnel and injured a number of folks caused a lot of damage and ended up I, there was quite, quite a bit more, I don't wanna belittle here what the victims went through. There was a lot of cases of PTSD folks losing their jobs because they can't ride trains anymore after this incident. And it was quite horrible.

And the appeal argument happened in, I believe, 2022. After a trial, he had been convicted of a number of statutes, including one which is near and dear to our hearts at Lawfare, which is material support under 18 U.S.C. 2339(b). And the support was allegedly to ISIS. He was sentenced to life. And the Second Circuit, now this week issued an opinion that upholds the other convictions, affirms the sentence of life after those other convictions, but dismisses count one, the material support to foreign terrorist organization, that being ISIS.

And the analysis really revolves around one phrase that exists in 2339(b)(H), which separates out who can and cannot be convicted under this statute as providing personnel. And in layman's terms, it basically comes down to was he under the direction or control of a fair and terrorist organization?

The majority says no because he acted on his own and was not in direct communication with ISIS. The dissent, pretty fiery, says this is wrong and there is direction or control, and here was direction that ISIS put out videos saying, go do this thing, conduct these attacks. He did these things after consuming those videos and inscribing slogans on his items and then issuing a, an ISIS phrase in a social media post on the way to the attack.

And so the dissent says, of course, that's under the direction of ISIS. And just take a step back. Now, why does this matter? It matters in part because now if we have a lone wolf, so-called lone wolf attack, which I've always kind of, disagreed with a little bit because especially these ISIS attacks when they consume all of this information and then act on that direction—

But with these lone wolf attacks, it's not questionable if there's Second Circuit precedent sticks that says these attacks can't be charged as 2339(b) because they weren't, they couldn't possibly have been under the direction or control of ISIS. And so I think this, the government may petition for en banc.

I think under the local rules in Second Circuit, they have 45 days to do so. I'd be really curious to see what happens here.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. One last matter. Eric, we have suits by and against the Justice Department over its efforts to collect voter roll data, a new suit by the department in Michigan and an ACLU suit about the general practice.

We've talked about a bunch of these state-specific cases on past shows. What, if anything, is new about Michigan and what is the ACLU arguing?

Eric Columbus: So the Michigan one is retrospective. It's different from the state-by-state suits that we've talked about earlier. It is in fact more like the action in Fulton County where they seized ballots from the 2020, relating to the 2020 presidential election.

Benjamin Wittes: Ah, so it's not like the Rhode Island and Oregon and Massachusetts future, give us your voter rolls cases.

Eric Columbus: Correct. The ACLU suit is—

Benjamin Wittes: I see. Okay. Sorry, I misunderstood.

Eric Columbus: No, no worries. So, they—Again, it's not entirely clear what's going on here. I think it's all part of the general effort of the Department of Justice to delegitimize the electoral process and help deal with whatever demons the president has in his head.

They are seeking the ballots from 2024 in Wayne County, which I believe is basically Detroit. They point out evidence of various election fraud cases in recent years in Wayne County. And they point out that some, there's some civil lawsuit that was issued at the time that was filed against them at the time.

And they say, look, we're entitled to these things under Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960. And this is a similar lawsuit was filed against Fulton County last, I believe late last fall. It went nowhere. And I think it was still early, but I think it was destined to go nowhere for the reason that as Fulton County pointed out in a motion to dismiss the Civil Rights Act of 1960, allows the Department of Justice to gain access, in certain situations, to voter registration materials and other materials that are, quote, requisite to the act of voting. And it seems hard to see how ballots fall into that category. They're just a very different thing.

And so that is probably why the Department of Justice tried to get a search warrant and in Fulton County and eventually succeeded and obtained ballots from 2020 that way. It's really not at all clear why Wayne County is in the crosshairs right now of Department of Justice, besides the fact that they, it's very heavily democratic jurisdiction in a very important state.

Benjamin Wittes: Right.

Eric Columbus: And that's probably enough. So they sent a letter to, Wayne County I think Wayne County has already told them to give them the back of the hand.

And a laws, a civil lawsuit will probably follow.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright, let's—

Eric Columbus: Now the—

Benjamin Wittes: Quickly talk about the ACLU case before we go to audience questions.

Eric Columbus: Yeah. The, so the ACLU is suing to block basically all at once DOJ’s effort to collect and use state voter rolls. And this is kind of a they're basically saying that exceeds the power of DOJ to obtain such things, given that these is, the state voter rules are compiled and maintained and pruned at the state level. And they're saying, they're pointing out that another thing that has kind of come up in the state-by-state litigation, they're saying that it basically violates the privacy act the way that the states are.

DOJ is going about it. This is a little bit risky doing it this way because it, an adverse ruling would basically well, I shouldn't say that. An adverse ruling on certain grounds might lead to DOJ winning much more quickly than would otherwise these issues. But what it does attempting, it is attempting to do is defeat DOJ, even in the areas where other states have agreed—

Benjamin Wittes: —aren’t suing.

Eric Columbus: Right.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. We have only two audience questions today, and one of them is kind of a repeat from last week. First question on these settlements the, I assume this is in reference to Carter Page this week and General Flynn last week.

Does anyone have standing to intervene with the courts to argue against the settlement? And as we explained last week, I, the answer is almost certainly not. Generally, when two parties agree to settle a matter and drop a case, the courts regard that as a private matter between the two parties.

And anytime two parties don't want to litigate something, it's very unusual for the courts to force them to. The one exception to that is circumstances of class actions, where the courts do review the question of whether the settlement is in the public interest, 'cause it does purport to represent people who are not specifically parties.

There are a few other sometimes antitrust settlements of course, are reviewed. But generally speaking, if it's a matter, you know, Roger Parloff versus Ben Wittes and Roger's gonna accept a check to drop his case is very unusual for a court to get in the way of that. This next question is one that I, sorry, go ahead.

Roger Parloff: The proviso being that we may be getting into unprecedented situations like the IRS suit, the Trump IRS suit, where some, you know the size of the conflict and the size of the some could lead somebody to try to make some extraordinary intervention—

Benjamin Wittes: Or at least to ask some questions. Yeah.

Alright, this next question I will just say I don't know the answer to it. Is it likely that Hernandez, U.S. v. Hernandez in the Fourth Circuit a decision that ICE execution of an EOIR order does not constitute a pending proceeding is going to shut down other 18 U.S.C. 1505 cases, especially Judge Hannah Dugan's case?

So of course it won't directly affect Judge Dugan's case because she's in Wisconsin, which I believe is in the Seventh Circuit, not in the Fourth Circuit. So it doesn't control that. The question is, of course, whether the Fourth Circuit opinion will be influential on the Seventh Circuit, or whether you could imagine the Supreme Court affirming that.

And I just wanna say I have not read U.S. v. Hernandez and so I don't know how persuasive I find it, much less how persuasive anybody else is gonna find it. I don't know if either of, any of the three of you have further thoughts on the subject.

Roger Parloff: I haven't read it, but it sounds like I certainly should.

Eric Columbus: Yeah I have not read either. I'm just doing some quick Googling, I see that—I think just this week Judge Dugan filed a motion to reconsider relying on that very decision.

Benjamin Wittes: Alright. We are gonna leave it there, folks. Thanks to Eric Columbus, to Anna Bower, to Roger Parloff, and to LT Edwards, whom we send off officially. With this week's show Troy has promised to remain involved with Lawfare. And so, we're gonna keep the bitter tears light because we don't really acknowledge that anybody ever leaves. But he is starting a new job in which we, he, we wish him all the best folks.

This podcast is part of Lawfare’s livestream series, Lawfare Live: The Trials and Tribulations of the Trump Administration. You can subscribe to Lawfare’s YouTube page to receive an alert the next time we start trialing and tribulating. The Lawfare Podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute, and you can get ad-free versions of this and other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter.

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This podcast is edited by Goat Rodeo and our audio engineer this episode was Anna Hickey. Our theme music is of course performed by ALIBI Music. As always thanks for listening.

[Outro]

This podcast is part of Lawfare’s livestream series, Lawfare Live: The Trials of the Trump Administration. Subscribe to Lawfare’s YouTube channel to receive an alert the next time we go live.

The Lawfare Podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute. You can get ad-free versions of this and our other Lawfare podcasts by becoming a Lawfare material supporter at our website, lawfaremedia.org/support. You'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters.

The podcast is edited by Goat Rodeo and our audio engineer this episode was Anna Hickey of Lawfare. Our theme music is from ALIBI Music.

As always, thanks for listening.