This week on the show: Jury selection for Sean Combs' eight-week RICO trial, which is moving along very quickly for for a complex federal criminal case.Plus: a ruling in the Alien Enemies Act cases, a ruling that gets at the heart of the policy question: whether there is an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” that triggers presidential powers under the law in the first place. It's a strange one.Another long-running case where ICE contends it doesn’t matter that it violated a court order about how to remove a person due for deportation, since he’d still be removable even if they did everything right.Long-Suffering Federal Judge Beryl Howell takes a shot at the many firms that chose to settle with the Trump administration instead of fighting. Meanwhile, the firms that settled have been insisting that they agreed to very little, and we may be about to get some information about how true that is.Visit serioustrouble.show to sign up for our newsletter and find a transcript of this episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.serioustrouble.show/subscribe
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47:19
Please Forget My Oopsie
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showWe've got a lot for paid subscribers this week: Updates on several removal cases, a look at the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, our first look at the litigation over Trump's tariffs, a cautionary tale about what happens when you accidentally file your internal deliberations about the weakness of your case on the public court docket, some forecasts for George Santos's time in federal prison, a discussion of why Sarah Palin lost (again) in her case against The New York Times, and more. If you want to upgrade to hear all of that, go to https://www.serioustrouble.show.
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28:39
The Emerging Presumption of Irregularity
This week, Ken and I have a discussion of Harvard’s lawsuit fighting the Trump Administration’s effort to punish the university for failing to submit to what amounted to a demand to place the university in a kind of federal receivership. We look at the Supreme Court's middle-of-the-night, weekend rebuke to the Trump administration, ordering a halt to Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas. The subtext of this order is that four of the court’s conservatives have noticed the administration’s nose-thumbing over the orders in the Abrego Garcia case and aren’t pleased about it. In other cases, Trump is trying to use his position as president to get out of paying the larger of the two judgments E. Jean Carroll won against him. The AP is learning that the relief it obtained in theory from Trump’s retribution means little in practice. And Nadine Menendez will soon be relieved of the need to take her Mercedes C-Class to the dealership for servicing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.serioustrouble.show/subscribe
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43:20
Please Explain What You Mean By 'Effectuate'
The Supreme Court is getting increasingly involved in the sprawling litigation over Donald Trump’s many aggressive executive orders. In J.G.G. vs. Trump — the case seeking to prevent removals under the Alien Enemies Act — the high court issued an emergency ruling saying detainees are entitled to due process but they must seek it through petitions for habeas corpus in the jurisdictions where they are actually being held. Is this a rebuke to the administration, relief, or neither?We also discuss the Abrego Garcia case, the ACLU trying for a national injunction against AEA removals under a habeas approach, and a Trump-appointed judge prohibiting removals from his South Texas district under the AEA, for now. Plus: in the Mahmoud Khalil case, the federal government is broadly asserting its power to revoke green cards because it doesn’t like their holders’ speech — setting up a likely Supreme Court confrontation over the extent of non-citizens’ First Amendment rights.Sign up for our newsletter at serioustrouble.show This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.serioustrouble.show/subscribe
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40:51
Venue and Jurisdiction
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThere has been a cat-and-mouse game about venue in several of the cases brought by people protesting the Trump administration’s efforts to remove their visas and remove them from the country. For example: if you thought your client was in New York when you filed your lawsuit, but he was really in New Jersey, and now he’s in Louisiana, should the case be transferred to New Jersey, or to Louisiana? It sounds technical but the stakes are substantial. That conversation is for all listeners this week.For paying subscribers: an update on the Trump administration’s war on law firms, the firms that are fighting instead of holding, how much it matters to a fancy law firm if its junior attorneys are unhappy, and whether their businesses are likely to survive the president’s assault. Plus: an analysis from law professor Steve Vladeck, who’s looked at the unusually large number of temporary restraining orders entered against the Trump Administration’s executive actions.If you want to hear all of that, go to www.serioustrouble.show to upgrade! Unlike Paul Weiss, we don’t cost $2,000 an hour, and we promise that we will never enter into a letter agreement with the Trump administration that contradicts our principles.
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