Lawfare Daily: The Trials of the Trump Administration,  June 12

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And get the best outcomes. Transform the everyday with Siemens. Hello, it's Lawfare Live, the trial of the Trump trials of the Trump administration. And I'm Eric Columbus, Lawfare Senior Editor, sitting in for Benjamin Netanyahu Wittes, who is out today. It is 4 p.m. Eastern on June 12th. And I am here with my estimable colleagues, estimable colleagues, Lawfare Senior Editors, Roger Parloff, and Anna Bauer. It is the NBA finals, and to make sure everyone's represented, we have Anna in New York, and we have Roger in France. And I am going to lead off.

I'm going to kind of like, you know, be the host and also one of the panelists. I think that's maybe the equivalent of a lawyer proceeding pro se, which they tell you is something that is to be avoided at all costs. They say that a lawyer who, any lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client. So I am going to see whether any, any host

who appears on as any panelist who tries to host has a fool for a, well, it breaks down after a while, which maybe is a reason why people don't do it. But anyway, I'm going to start right in with DOJ politicization and the slush fund.

There have been two not one, but two court hearings in the slush fund cases, which loyal readers may know that Anna Bauer and I have written not one but two pieces about the slush funds. And since then, there have been, there are now five challenges in court and two judges, Judge Leon in D.C. and Judge Brinkma in the Eastern District of Virginia have held hearings on TRO slash preliminary injunction requests. And I attended both of those hearings, so I will try to explain what happened. So at Judge Leon's hearing, he held that there was no, he rolled from the bench and declared that the case was moot. because there had not, because the Todd Blanche had represented both to Congress

and in briefs to the court that it was not going to go forward. And this was over the objections of counsel for plaintiffs, for which are this crew, citizens for responsibility and ethics in Washington, saying that, the slush fund could be revived at any time. And they pointed out that as Anna and I had noted in our story, the settlement agreement between the parties, meaning Trump and DOJ, had required that the Attorney General create this fund, sorry, between Trump and the Treasury Department and the IRS, not DOJ. So, but anyway, he said the government is represent, Judge Leon, ruling from the bench, the government has represented that the challenge fund is, quote, not moving forward, and I'm entitled to credit the government's representations,

particularly when they've been orally repeated in court hearings, stated in formal court filings announced by senior officials. He said he would rule on the request for the preliminary injunction soon. Then he added at the end, he said, I give the Justice Department, however, a fair warning. Don't play possum with this court. And it was oral, so there were none of his trademark exclamation points, which I think it's more effective, actually, when you say something like that calmly without exclamation

point, kind of like in Clint Eastwood is dirty Harry, when he says, go ahead, make my day. It's just a period, no exclamation point, all of them are effective. Who knows? But at any rate, Judge Brinkaba, then two days later, across the river, had a very different view. She began by asking the government attorney, Andrew Block, who was a political, as we've seen in some of these cases, they send up a political appointee up there by himself. and there was no one sitting with him at council's table. And Judge Rinkma said, you're a brave man, Mr. Block, all up there by yourself.

And which kind of echoes what Judge Leon had said. He said to Block, he said, well, it looks like you drew the short straw. So the judge is finally kind of amusing. And that Block was the only person there at Counsel's Table and was also the only name on the brief, although the only name of the brief plus the associate attorney general himself, the number three official in the Justice Department. And she asked him a question that Judge Leon also asked, which was why is the attorney general just not rescind his order?

And he told Judge Leon he didn't know the answer to that. And Judge Brinkman said, well, you've had a couple days to think about it and talk to your client. Why not? And he still had no answer for that. And so Judge Brinkham said, look, this is not moot. Voluntary cessation is not enough. She said, look, I've had nothing sworn from the attorney general and multiple contrary statements from the president. And she noted, she quoted the president referring to her, actually, saying a, quote, a radical left judge ruled against it and we'll see how that all works out. It was kind of slyly doing that. And one thing that I found notable, actually, is that she relied on the fact that judge, she noted that judge, as had actually Judge Leon earlier, she noted that Judge, rather that Todd Blanche's testimony before the House was where he first said it's not going forward. she noted that that testimony was not under oath. And this was something that Anna and I had discussed while we were writing our piece. And I said, I don't think it was that the Democrats had noted it.

And I said, well, you know, I don't think we need to include this in our piece because it's something that always gets, you know, the party that doesn't like the witness always says, oh, they're not under oath. And it never really matters much because you're always, it's a crime to lie to Congress whether or not you're under oath. But Judge Brinkman made an interesting point. She said, look, as an evidentiary matter, I cannot consider this because it's not under oath. Or at least I cannot give it the same weight.

And I need that in order to conclude that this is the fun, that there's enough evidence that the not going to go forward. And then she kind of yada yada over much of the rest. She said, I'm satisfied that at least someone has standing. and but she did not say, specify which of the various plaintiffs in this case did have standing. And then she also just kind of assumed, I'm sure she had answered the question in her own mind and analyzed it that the plaintiffs were going to succeed in the merits,

but they've got various claims and she didn't address which one. And she read actually at the end some language from an an amicus brief by Senators Cory Booker and Bill Cassidy about how this is basically a slush fund designed to benefit January 6ers who did really bad things. I don't know the language in front of me. It was more eloquent than that. That was her reasoning for why it's in the public interest to enjoin the fund. And she asked the government lawyer what irreparable injury the defendants

faced if the preliminary injunction was granted. And all he could say was that it's presumptively harmful for the government to be enjoined. So she granted the preliminary injunction. She's give the government a week to get a sworn declaration signed by Todd Blanche and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. And that may or may not suffice in order to moot the case. The plaintiffs did not concede that it would. They said they wanted to confer with their client and among themselves as to whether the declaration would suffice, because as they noted, and as Anna and I noted in our piece, the settlement agreement is still in effect, which, and that settlement agreement then require the Attorney General's order. So that's my dispatch from DC in Alexandria. And Roger and Anna,

if you have any further thoughts to add or about that or questions about it. In that case, we are going to head over to Anna with another DOJ politicization item in New York City. Yeah. So this is the case of Brad Lander, the city controller. And it relates to an incident at one federal plaza in which a number of local elected officials in New York. were going to inspect the facility. They ended up sitting in front of a bank of elevators enchanted, and subsequently were charged with a petty offense of obstruction

related to charges that they were obstructing the elevator. Some of those elected officials took plea deals. Brad Lander, however, went ahead to trial. There was a one-day trial. I actually did not get a chance to attend the trial, but shout out to people like Molly Crane Newman at New York Daily News who covered it. And so I've read a bunch of the coverage of what happened.

And it's a loss for DOJ in that the magistrate judge Judge Ricardo found Brad Lander not guilty of willful obstruction. Among other things based on the reporting that I've read, one of the things is that, you know, prosecutors had raised the fact that Brad Lander and the elected officials chanted a song that had the lyrics, We Will Not Move. Brad Lander himself testified, though, during this one day trial and explained that what they meant by that was, you know, we will not move in terms of our position on civil rights and the rule of law. And the judge found that to be self-serving but credible. And the judge also noted that Brad Lander throughout the, you know, ordeal did not seem to be motivated. motivated by obstructing the elevators but was kind of resigned to the whole situation because they were there to try to inspect the facility and that kind of thing. So it's just an interesting thing to note that it's yet another among a string of losses here for DOJ in the politicization category.

This is yet another one that I think is notable. Anna, do you know what the statute is? I don't know this. I would have to look up the, I'd have to look back at it. I can tell you in a few minutes, Roger. Is it a federal statute or a? I believe that it's a fact. Yeah, I believe so.

But it's a, but it's a, it's a misdemeanor. It's not, it wasn't a felony charge. Okay. Let me tell you. Hold on. I wonder if there's an elevator-specific statute. That would be really cool.

Come back to me. Sorry, I'm going to have to find it, but come back to me in a few minutes. You will. I will have it for you. Okay. We will now move over. and is our tour of the great cities of America over to Chicago, where we have some developments in the Broadview Six case where we discussed earlier a few weeks ago where six folks protesting

against ICE were indicted for conspiracy to impede police officer. And the case was eventually was whittled down and eventually dropped when some evidence of misconduct before a grand jury emerged. I wrote a whole story about that a few weeks ago. And the latest development is that some grand jury transcripts were released. And they show, as promised, various types of misconduct by the government. And it kind of falls into three. They're not really anything that dramatically new. from what I was described, but it's kind of interesting to see it just kind of in the flesh how the sausage gets made and the mistakes made by some prosecutors. And one of the things that had been reported was that the prosecutor engaged in improper vouching,

which is where a prosecutor says, look, you know, trust me, you know, I wouldn't bring a case if I didn't believe in it. I know that these witnesses are telling the truth and that there's probable cause here. And that is viewed as improper because it's kind of telling jurors not, or rather to give up, to elevate the evidence because it's me, the specific prosecutor presenting it to you. And that's not something that's allowed. And the, she did it an interesting way, this prosecutor. She said, I want to go before this grand jury, the Thursday grand jury, because I know you and I trust you and you know me and you trust me. And I would never ask you to charge somebody if I didn't think there was probable

cause. And you know, you've asked me before, well, what about this person? And I said, I don't charge people unless I'm absolutely sure. And that's kind of a no-no the way she did it. One kind of amusing thing on this case is that she, you know, maybe had some bit of a guilty conscience because right before that, right before that, she said, this is a very interesting case. It's a little different. I purposely asked if I could wait for the Thursday grand jury. Matt, Matt is the other lawyer there, her colleague. She said, Matt will vouch for me. And so she used the word vouch. And right before she started vouching. And this was the word vouch and like used in a completely,

benign way, but it's still weird, like that she, it's kind of bizarre that that that word was in her head right before she went out to vouch in the bad way. It's almost like, you know, looking for something to compare it to. It's like if like, you know, a comedian is about to go on stage and for some reason he like, this is a bit weird, but like if for some reason, I don't know why, he like strangles a kitten. And then he goes out and does his show. And then afterwards, you know, going out and telling friends and says, hey, I killed it tonight. And he can be talking about the show, but maybe in his guilty conscience, he's talking about the kitten. So what I think that shows is I need to come up with better analogies when I am discussing cases.

But the lawyer should not have done that. And then there's another point where she tells jurors that she wants, she needs them to be sure they're looking at the case with an open mind. And if they don't, if they can't do that, then they should leave. and that they have to leave. They can't do that. One says, I can't do that. I can't. My mind is basically made up.

And she was really kind of like targeting that juror that she noticed kind of weakness in that juror or qualms about the case in that juror. And so she kind of made those points. And there doesn't seem to me anything that in the rules allow the lawyer to excuse me. a grandeur to tell them to leave. And the court can do that, but I don't think the prostitutes can do that. And in some sense, it doesn't matter because under the rules, you need to have

at least 16 grand jurors, 16 to 23. But no matter how many grand jurors you have, the numbers you need for an indictment is always at least 12. So if you're excusing people, it doesn't really matter in some sense, but where it does matter, I think, is that, you know, the grand jurors can talk among themselves before voting. And so it seemed like the prosecutor didn't want to have this grand juror poison the other ones, if you will. And so that, to me, seems improper. I don't know.

Roger or Anna, if you have ever encountered anything like this done by a prosecutor, if there's anything that they could appoint to as saying that they're allowed to dismiss a grand juror. I'm not an expert. I had thought it was just the judge that would do that. But Anna, do you know? No, no, I am not aware of what authority the prosecutor would have to do that. But I have not looked at it. It matter deeply.

So I'm not sure. One thing I think we should say is that this was the woman that was doing most of the previous of the issues was not a young person and was not a political appointee. It was like a 20-year veteran. And so it's disturbing in a different way than something we can.

keep on the political climate here. So that's an interesting point, and that's, is there going to be a nice segue to another aspect of what's going on in Chicago. I mean, Roger is right, as usual, that this is a longstanding career prosecutor, and someone who actually then, a couple months later went on to survey a detail, meaning a, which is like a job transfer to Senator Dick Durbin's office in Washington, which occasionally happens.

They send prosecutors or other lawyers from DOJ to work in Congress for a set period of time. And so if she were like a hardcore MAGA person, she probably would not have wanted to do that. Now, I think it doesn't totally resolve the question because it's possible that she felt heavy pressure from her boss, the U.S. attorney, to bring a politicized case. So even if it's often, or it can be the case that a career official can do something improper because of political pressure being brought from above. However, another development in the past few days was that the, that U.S. Attorney moved to dismiss another case that the same lawyer had worked on involving allegations of fraud in billing the government for COVID tests, a case, a big, I think a fairly big fraud case, that as far as I can tell does not have any political implications on its face.

and suggesting, and we haven't seen any grand jury transcripts there, but it suggests that, sorry, the defendants had moved to get a, to release the grand jury transcripts because they thought that maybe something was afoot. And rather than do so, the U.S. attorney moved to dismiss the case, which suggests that maybe this is a prosecutor who is in a variety of cases trying to put her finger on the scale or, or, work the grand jurors in a way that's improper. And maybe it was, maybe it was a coincidence that this was not, that the other case was so politicized. Hopefully we'll learn more about this in weeks to come. Moving on now, back to you, Roger, and back to D.C. And back to one of the president's favorite people, Jerome Powell. Yeah. This was, remember, the grand jury proceeding in front of Judge Boasburg.

And the U.S. Attorney Gene Piro was trying to get two grand jury subpoenas for relating to Jerome Powell on the Fed. And Judge Boasberg washed those back in March. And you might remember Puro saying, this outrageous decision will be appealed by the U.S. Department of Justice. She said that several times. They moved for reconsideration. Judge Oisberg issued another very humiliating ruling for the office about how the case was.

basically just harassing him for political reasons. Not his words, but it was that the gist. And then they finally denied, they did not appeal, and they dropped the case. And then they went back to Boasburg to try to ask him to vacate the rulings saying they were now moot. So trying to get rid of the embarrassing rulings. And he said no and then gave them a third embarrassing ruling. So this is sort of the judicial version of the Streisand effect. He said things like describing his previous ruling.

The court found that the subpoenas were meant to harass Jerome Powell and pressure him to truckle to the president's policy preferences. It also concluded that the government had no good faith basis to believe that Jerome Powell was guilty of any crime other than displeasing the president and that the government's justifications were mere pretexts. The legal theory that the government was pursuing here was sort of a version of something that comes up more often at the appellate level. The classic example is you have the Court of Appeals rights a decision. And it has a... presidential weight. It binds, you know, like maybe three or four states. And the party that is

upset with the ruling, and it's usually a party that has a lot of litigation, like the government or an insurance company or something like that, they appeal to get this terrible precedent overturned. And then something beyond anyone's power happens and moots the case. I don't know, somebody dies, the litigant dies. And so the case becomes moot, but the litigant does not want that precedent to stay on the books. And so there is a doctrine where the Supreme Court will say, yeah, if it's not really, he didn't have a chance to appeal it, we will vacate that decision. And so here the attempt was sort of the same. to get rid of the opinion because it had become moot,

and that's why they didn't appeal it. But actually, it's not a good analogy for a number of reasons, and that's what Judge Boasberg explains, mainly they could have appealed, and they didn't appeal. They didn't appeal it, and so that's voluntary on their part. And it's not even clear that it's moot, because Piro keeps threatening, oh, I'm not pursuing it now, but we're going to see what the IG says.

And if he finds that there's something there, I may go after him again. So he rejects it. Those are the legal grounds. But it's a strange thing for them to keep going back to Boasburg trying to erase these painful. rulings when it just keeps getting worse and worse. Yeah, I mean, is there any, can you think of any, I mean, often there's a method to the madness of the administration here, like they pursue bad or weird ends through logical means, at least. But is there any strategy you can think of that it would explain this?

Not really. It was embarrassing, and they hope maybe to take it off the books. You know, it doesn't even have, you know, a district judge ruling has no binding precedential weight, not even within the district, not even on him. I mean, like I said, the facts could change in this case. If they get more evidence, he'll render a different ruling. So I can't really understand it, no. Very strange.

Next up on our docket, we have some odd developments in Ohio where the FBI has been, well, I'll let Anna tell us about that. What's the FBI I've been doing in Ohio? Yeah, it's. Well, they've conducted a search at the office of a progressive group that works on voting rights issues and voter registration issues. And it's not entirely clear yet. We wanted to flag this, but it's not entirely clear yet what the basis for the search was. I have not seen the search warrant itself or the supporting affidavit yet. I don't believe that those things are publicly available. So other than the reporting, which MS now first reported, Carol Linig,

other than that, initial reporting, we don't know much about the basis for the search, but we know there was a search. We also know that the FBI has been also visiting, it sounds like, based on the reporting, in some instances, the homes of some of the volunteers or people who work for the organization and has, you know, provided subpoenas for information and in some cases electronic devices. So it's not clear what exactly is going on there, Eric, but it's something that we're certainly keeping our eye on, especially in light of previous efforts by the FBI related to, for example, in Fulton County, the search at the election hub there. So we'll see what happens, but there's not a whole lot of information

right now what exactly the basis of this search might be. Good to know. We now turn from DOJ politicization to another one of our favorite categories. I feel like we're kind of playing Jeopardy, and we had the categories up top of then a variety of dollar amounts assessed to each of them. But this is now turning to the category of Trump's monuments. There is a new lawsuit challenging the White House UFC fight that is scheduled to take place on Sunday, which I am sure by total coincidence, just happens to be the president's 80th birthday. And I could say I drove by. I was picking up my kids from a party last night and I drove by somewhat distance from the White House.

and this massive thing they call the claw, just like lit up and blue and red. And it's, I can say it's even more hideous than whatever you can imagine it to be. It's really impressive accomplishment in that regard. Roger, tell us about the lawsuit. Yeah, it's a really interesting lawsuit. It was unsuccessful earlier today.

Judge Amit Mehta denied the TRO that the place, plaintiffs were seeking to stop the match and some things associated with it. But it's an educational thing. And it was only filed June 6th, and that's part of the problem. There was a strong, the government argued that it was unreasonably, there was unreasonable delay. And but just so you understand the facts, tonight, Friday, it's supposed to begin, and there will be an event, there will be a faceoff at the Lincoln Memorial. And in the brief, which was a government's brief, they said, well, we're not going to be in the chamber itself of the Lincoln. Memorial, of course, not where the statue is.

And, you know, we're going to be out between the Lincoln Memorial and the reflecting pool. This is in the brief that was filed, I think, maybe Tuesday. And then the plaintiffs who are the lawyer, it's the public integrity project, wrote to them and said, but it's in your plans that you are going to go through there. And then they wrote a correction. next day. Maybe this is Wednesday, I guess. They wrote a correction saying, yeah, actually, the fighters are going to take the elevator up. They're going to go into the chamber. They cross past the statue and then come down the stairs.

Sorry, the government filed a correction? A correction, yeah, saying, yeah, that they this was, they had it wrong. The plaintiffs were right. The event does take place in the chamber of the, does involve walking through past the statue and so on. I should get to the point. So that's tonight. And then on, there's an event tomorrow,

but that's at the ellipse and that's not being challenged. And then on Sunday is the main event. And that is supposed to be on the White House South Lawn. The fighters are supposed to come out of the Oval Office and go into this octagon and the cage match. That's underneath this claw, which is 600 tons of steel. It's 92 feet high. It's 145 feet wide that's been built. And all of this, and this is the point of the suit, all of this is a for-profit event.

And probably, as far as the plaintiffs know, the only, the first for-profit sporting event ever held on White House grounds. and it's by the UFC, the head of the UFC is this friend of Trump's named Dana White, and it's being broadcast by Skydance, by Paramount Skydance, another ally of Trump. And allegedly, and none of the allegations, well, of basically, of basically, basically cronyism and sort of corruption were touched in the reply from the government. They didn't deny anything. They didn't engage. They simply adopted legal responses.

And so the Skydance is apparently supposed to charge, if you want to see the main event, you need to have the premium subscription, pay this premium subscription fee. And there are sponsors. There are allegedly something called $1 million VIP packages, maybe $1.5 million VIP packages, which according to the plaintiffs seem to be sort of glorified tickets, good tickets. And you can see from the pictures now, you know, Monster is a big sponsor and I think there's some others.

So that's why the Public Integrity Project, which was created by a guy, an attorney named Brendan Ballou, got involved. It's about, it's not exactly, although the, The legal claim is aesthetic injury and dignitary injury. It's sort of about, it's really about what in the briefs they call a volcano of corruption and an inflection point in the history of the country. The problems that the main hurdles were standing, which is our usual.

hurdle here. It's the big hurdle with the ballroom. It's the big hurdle with the triumphal arch. It's the big hurdle with the fund, the anti-weaponization fund. And so they had two people, Susan Douglas, who's an activist, an organizer, and she comes frequently to the White House and the Lincoln Memorial. And Paul Romano, a retired Air Force sergeant. He's a ride chair driver. And of course, they both thought these things were hideous and disgusting. But it's not a – Romano was also upset about the – well, both are upset about the desecration

of national monuments, the commercialization, the commercial exploitation of these monuments. But that said, there were serious standing problems. You know, they both live in Alexandria. It's not even clear that Romano was gonna be there when this occurred. And Douglas was gonna come, but she was going to come to protests.

So there's sort of a self-inflicted quality to the injury. And then there was the issue of delay. And Ballou, the plaintiff's attorney, said, well, that's because they concealed the corrupt nature of the thing. We knew there was going to be an event. We didn't know it was who was controlling it. We thought it was being controlled by the government. It wasn't until recently. We found that the U.S.

was running the show. And when he found out June 4th, and he brought a suit two days later. But the truth is, this has been

underway, you know, people have been preparing for a year. $60 million has been spent. And a lot of innocent people, fans who wanted to see the event, paid airfare and got hotels. And so there were going to be a lot of innocent bystanders if at this late, it hurt. If at this late stage, it was interrupted.

So Judge Meda did today rejected on standing. And to some extent, the delay issue, also lack of irreparable injury, which you need for these. equitable relief. excuse me, it's a, it's a disturbing set of facts

and the, it's a, it's as a, I think, fortatory device, is that the right word? Is that any word? Educational device,

it's a, it's a valuable lawsuit. A teachable moment? Is that? A teachable moment. Yeah, also playing there. Did Judge Mita also rule against them on the basis of that it took too long to file or not? He mentioned, he did mention unreasonable delay.

He hedged a little there because there were some claims where Ballou, he felt Ballou maybe was right that, you know, he didn't know it, it arose until very recent. but there were also some claims where he felt he should have known earlier. So that was a that was a subsidiary factor. Got it. Roger, I hear you have another thing to discuss regarding Donald Trump's edifice complex. Yes. Well, as you probably know, We have developments at the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center.

You know, two weeks ago, Judge Cooper said, you're going to need to take down your name to Trump. You've got 14 days. And so he waited to day 13 or 14, I'm not sure which, and then move for a stay. And so today, Judge, he this was you know that the arguments in this motion are sort of a staggering the one party says yeah Congress said that the name would be the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center

but he didn't but it didn't forbid secondary names and of course and the example they gave They said, you know, like other things in government have secondary names. Like the Department of War is also known by secondary names, which is such a weird analogy. I mean, Department of War is, well, anyway, it's a, it's like a three-year-old wrote this thing. And so Judge Cooper rejected that in a, you know,

paragraph earlier today. And actually, you know, there were a couple webcams that were there and the scaffolding was built and it took to take down the names and then just maybe about an hour ago, he filed with the DC Circuit. The DC Circuit, so far as I know, has not granted, any stay. So he will technically be in violation of the order in a couple hours. I'm in a

different time zone. So at midnight tonight. But anyway, we'll have to see what the D.C. Circuit does, I guess. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Judge Cooper also said that, in the stay paper, in the stay in denying the request for stay, he said, look, you've been, you've managed to do everything else short of taking off the name, right? And so you, with regard to the second year name thing, you've already gone about, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, you've, uh, removed the website from. Yeah, they had taken substantial steps over the last. And, and it looked like they were complying. And then at the last minute, there was a, there was a, you, sudden switch and you know it's classic it's the phenomenon we're dealing with but yeah you know you're right there was and yeah no go ahead go ahead yeah if if there were a if there was reason not to comply you know nine-tenths of it was already in you were in you were nine-tenths of the way there. And so you've sort of undercut the argument that there was some reason you couldn't comply.

There was also an argument in this motion that said, well, you know, if we take it down and later the D.C. circuit says we can keep the name, it's going to be very confusing for the public to keep changing the name back and forth. And then, you know, and then the other reasons were like Eidon, will impede fundraising efforts, you know, which they'd been unable to prove the first time around. Anyway. And so this filing, the D.C. Circuit was right before, like maybe 15 minutes before we went live, right? Something like that?

The D.C. Circuit one, yes. Yeah. And Roger, have you had a chance to look at it? No, I haven't. I mean, it seemed to go. I think I was a. assuming it would go over the same ground. I haven't looked at it. So, Roger, I have some exciting news for you about the first, about the introduction to that filing, that someone on Blue Sky was just reading it and posted a little bit about it in the past 15 minutes. It seems like a raccoon or a squirrel perhaps somehow got into the filing, got into the introduction.

and made some edits or possibly the president of the United States. I don't know which, and I'm not making any accusations. But there are several exclamation points and some language that is suspiciously familiar in very long paragraphs. And for example, there's a sentence that says the district court is not allowing us to close in order to properly fix up and repair the building, including between. potentially life-threatening structural damage like beams and parking garage ceilings that are rusted and in serious danger of falling out to people below. Indeed, total collapse, exclamation point. Well, for one thing, that's wrong, right? I mean, he said that they could go back and, and if they provided justification for it, they could, in fact, properly close the building, right?

Yes. They can go ahead with renovations. I mean, yeah. And they couldn't close the building entirely, I mean, they could, and stop programming, unless they went through a full process and came to the same conclusion, and then they can close it. The thing that's confusing me is that I'm wondering if they appealed the same thing that they sought the stay on, because the stay was solely about the name.

The stay did not really address the issues about going forward and whether there would be a complete stay on programming or not. So I guess I do need to read this and see if the appeal even relates to the stay. It would not shock me if the president had ordered the inclusion of language that had absolutely nothing to do with what is before the quarter of appeals at this point. And then I'm sorry, I just, this is so much fun to read. Without the name Trump on the building, our fundraising will not only come to a halt, but any and all money is raised or committed would be obligated to be returned, refunded, or terminated. Which is just great. I mean, just that that

very Trumpian trio of verb is returned, refunded, or terminated, or terminated. Or, which is just great. You said, that that very Trumpian terminated, like he's trying to sound all legal and stuff. And I assume that's not, they would not be stupid enough to raise funds contingent on the building being named after Trump. But who knows? Trump explains, he says, the reason for this clause is that people and companies who have given or will be giving millions of dollars to the center were only willing to do so with the name Trump on the building.

Many did it because they love the concept of two great presidents, one Republican, one Democrat, working together as one, in many ways, a bipartisan relationship, exclamation point. The argument, I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. The argument that all funding would stop, basically, if his name wasn't on the building, was brought up. in a strange declaration about two days before Judge Cooper's ruling and about a month after the arguments on the fully briefed issues. It was brought up and there was never any evidence for it. there was evidence against it. And so that's sort of the record on the fundraising power of his name.

I think that Richard Brunel had talked about very positive fundraising prospects before the name change. So anyway, this. I don't think this will be convincing unless they get a very favorable panel. I like how Trump or whoever added this language suggests that people gave money goes they loved the idea of two great presidents, one Republican, one Democrat, together without kind of realizing that one of the two has been dead for over 60 years. Slate, in fact. Slate. Yes, exactly.

memorial to a slain president. And maybe I'm the only one that remembers. But you know, this was you know, this is the first time I saw my mother cry. This was a real guy.

And this was a real this was somebody that matters. And for this guy, Trump, to nail his name. I mean, onto his memorial.

As what Congress says this is, this is a living memorial to a slain president. I mean, it's a crime. And Grinnell, you know, as I watched them taking down, I thought they were going to start taking down these things. I thought, you know, is this being done forensically? Because it needs to be.

There needs, you know, you need to preserve evidence. and hopefully the video will be sufficient. Believe it or not, we actually have a second Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center-related litigation item today. And this, which I'll discuss, involves a lawsuit this time by the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center against a musician named Charles Red, who performed every year in some Christmas Eve, something called the Christmas Eve Jazz Jam. But when the renaming was announced, he backed out of it.

And saying, I don't want to be part of this anymore. He said publicly, he said to the Associated Press and he got some nice publicity for it. And someone at the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center, or possibly the president, himself decided to sue. And that suit did not, it was a kind of standard breach of contract claim in a local court in District of Columbia. And the judge, Judge Tanya Jay Jones-Bosier, who I'm not familiar with, ruled against it, granted motion to dismiss this past week. And so

So interestingly, the motion to dismiss was filed under D.C.'s anti-SLP Act. I believe slap is, stands for, I think, strategic litigation against public participation. And you see this often in defamation claims. These are lawsuits that are, sorry, anti-SLAPP Act is intended to guard against lawsuits that are, are filed by someone aiming to squash the expression of opposing points of view. And you often see it used against frivolous defamation suits. But it's perhaps unusual to see it in a contract claim. And to secure dismissal, you need to make a prima facie showing that the claimant issue

arises from something you did in further instance of your right of advocacy on public issues, then the burden shifts to the other party who need to demonstrate that their claim is likely to succeed on the merits. And the reason why these acts exist is that if you prevail under it, you're presumptively entitled to a fee award. And that is, it serves as a disincentive to plaintiffs to file lawsuits that could be slapped down, if you will, under an anti-SLAPP act. And so the court, so basically Charles Redd, he said, look, you know, this breach of contract claim they're filing is because they're mad at me because of my public statements about the disagreement with adding Trump's name. and the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center said, no, no, no, it's it's, it's, it's, it's that you just that you didn't show up for the concert.

We had a contract and you're supposed to, uh, show up for it. Um, but the court, you said, well, that's not, that's not really true. Uh, the, the, the complaint says that you agreed that Mr. Red agreed to a morals clause. And he, he chose to abuse the public forum provided to him by the center in order to make a political statement. That's the quote. So it's clearly suing him because of the political statements. The statement he made to the press about backing out because, as the judge further noted, lots of folks backed out. But he's the only one who made a public statement and then got sued.

And then the judge looks through the contract and finds that there is actually no written contract at the time. time and also that there's basically no effort to prove any any damages caused by the alleged breach of contract. Like the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Center said they had lost goodwill with the public and sunk costs preparing for a concert that didn't occur. But apparently it was one, it was a free concert and there was no reference to Charles Redd in any of their marketing materials. And, you know, the judge said, look, you know, you don't need to actually specify what the damages are, but or the amount of damages, but you need to do a little bit more proffer some type of expenses or costs beyond just kind of conclusory allegations. And that a lot of artists, in fact, canceled. This was not just him. So there, if anything, they may have saved money in some way from expenses.

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Yeah, Delany Hall in New Jersey is the immigration facility that has been the subject of a lot of recent protests. It is a place where, you know, there's been a lot of protesting around the conditions at the facility. And then now the conditions at the facility have also found their way into legal disputes. There's a case before Judge Koreshi in New Jersey that was a habeas. petition. And the man who filed this petition was seeking release, but also seeking to challenge the conditions at the facility at Delaney Hall. And as a part of that case, Judge Koreshi set a hearing, an evidentiary hearing for administration officials to testify about the conditions at Delaney Hall. And that set off a chain of events in which first there was this kind of notification

to the court that there was a settlement agreement of some sorts, but it wasn't clear exactly what the settlement agreement between the parties were, or what it was. Then it was, then we found out that actually the petitioner was not going to move forward with the settlement, but what the government did instead ahead of this evidentiary hearing was to transfer the petitioner from Delaney Hall to, I believe it was Elizabeth Town to a different immigration facility, or Elizabeth, New Jersey.

And as a result, while all this is ongoing, Judge Koreshi isn't sure, you know, whether to move forward with this hearing or not, he, you know, plans to move forward with it because it's so unclear what exactly is going on with this, you know, was the petitioner released? Was he, you know, then it was the transfer? it wasn't clear whether there was a chance that he could be transferred back to Delaney Hall. So Judge Khrushy decided to move forward with this hearing. Meanwhile, the government goes to the Third Circuit to seek mandamus to put off the hearing. The Third Circuit does grant a stay, invites the judge to respond to the government. government's petition. So all of this is happening over the past few days.

And today we did get two things from Judge Khrushy. The first was a ruling on the habeas petition and the conditions of confinement claim. And of those, the habeas, the actual seeking release was, was, denied without prejudice. And then the conditions claim was denied as moot because, of course, it related to conditions that Delaney Hall. And at this point, the petitioner had been moved to Elizabeth, New Jersey, to a different facility. But in these filings, in addition to that filing, there was also the response that Judge Karachi gave to the Third Circuit and explains all of this sequence of events that made it unclear, you know, whether he should move forward with a

hearing and gave the reason of wanting to move forward, which was that at that point, the government had not provided any representations that the petitioner would not be moved back to Delaney Hall. At this point, however, they have provided such assurances. And so for that reason, Judge Khrishi, you know, said, I'm going to deny this conditions of confinement a claim as moot. But there's a lot of strong and interesting language in these, especially in the order on the habeas claims, in which the judge is cautioning DOJ, you know, I'm going to take you at your word for now on on this question of, you know, moving, not moving the petitioner back to Delaney Hall, but, you know, like, you can't use these kind of maneuvers to get around an evidentiary hearing.

Essentially, that's the gist of it. So another really remarkable ruling in which a judge black, the government over the erosion of the presumption of regularity. But for now, it seems to have resolved, I think, this standoff over the evidence you're hearing. Roger, did I miss anything? Because I know you've been following this closely as well. No, that's what happened here.

Just some background that Qureshi is one of the many judges in the country and in New Jersey that are really have had it with the mandatory detention policies. And he had warned the government in the past. And this fellow who brought it had been in detention for two months. and originally the petition claimed that he had no criminal record. And that didn't turn out to be true.

He had an open theft charge in Florida, and so the mandatory detention was actually accepted, was the law for what he was charged with. That aside, he's been, it's really Qarachia. It's because of Qarachia that we have a U.S. attorney in New Jersey. You know, remember there was Alina Habba, and then when she was disqualified, the government tried to appoint, or I guess, I think it was Pam Bondi, appointed a triumvirate, and then they were disqualified.

and then they were still sort of jerking around the courts. And there was people were saying, you know, Alina Habba had been seen at the U.S. Attorney's Office and was laying some role too. And he just called a hearing and said, okay, everyone get in here. I want all of these triumvirate to be there. Everyone's going to testify. We're going to find out who's running the show. And before the hearing, an agreement was worked out, and Robert Fraser was chosen that both the U.S. District Court for New Jersey and Pam Bondi or Todd Blanche could agree, and they got a U.S. attorney who was lawful. So, Karachi, you know, likes to, let's get to the bottom of it.

That's just, I don't want to hear about accusations about Delaney Hall. Let's have a hearing. You get somebody from ICE here. We're going to find out what's going on. And then they transferred. And he said, forget about it. We're having the hearing. And then the Third Circuit intervened.

And then these other things happened. And so that's sort of Qureshi. He backed down or given the facts and I guess. but it's been an important figure here. Oh, can I just say as well, sorry, Roger, on the Brad Lander question that you had for me. Oh, yeah. So it was a regulatory offense. One of those weird ones where it's not even, like, it's not even on PACER.

It is technically could have been a misdemeanor. but if anyone followed the, you know, bin and then National Park Service regulatory offense saga, you know that these are kind of weird limbo kind of area, but it was a regulation that prohibits obstructing the use of federal property. I see. Yeah.

Yeah, and so. That's why, because I had never heard of it. And then, of course, when you say obstruction, I knew it was none of the obstructions we're familiar with. So that's all. So that's what the underlying offense was. Okay. Roger.

What is the H-1B fee and what happened about it this week? Yeah, this is, you know, the H-1B visa is for people that have a foreign workers with specialty occupations that can't be filled by Americans or enough Americans. And so last year at some point, I think September 19th, Trump decided to charge $100,000 for each, the employer pays it, but for each H-1B visa he wants. they had been expensive. You know, there's a lot of fees. It could range from about 1,000 up to about 7,500, but 100,000 was something that was of a different order. And so we've had a couple of suits.

And in fact, you might remember, in fact, I'm pretty sure Eric spoke about it. Some months back, Barrel Howell, who's a very good judge in D.C., rejected a challenge to it. And this time, Lee Sorokin, a judge in, I think Boston is certainly District of Massachusetts, Lee Sorokin, granted struck it down. It was summary judgment and it's a it's a 706 order under the

administrative procedure act. So this actually will have a national effect and it has been appealed and the government is seeking a stay. from the First Circuit. The government, the, the president has enormous discretion over visas.

There's two statutes. And you may remember from Trump versus Hawaii, the travel bans, the travel ban case from the first term.

And they upheld those because under 12, there's 212F and 215A of the Immigration Nationality Act. And the U.S. code versions are 8 U.S.C. 1182F and 8 U.S.C. 1185A1. they give a lot of control to the president about who can enter the country. But it's usually you're thinking about who you're not saying, you know, are they a danger? You're not saying, I don't care who, as long as they pay 100,000. That's sort of not the usual way we think of using that statute, even though it gives a lot of discretion. So here he found that this was an unauthorized tax, basically, that the immigration law doesn't say isn't set up to impose taxes. And that's what this amounted to.

It wasn't, you know, there's a whole set of laws over what's a tax and what's a penalty and $100,000. that you know, it's not like you're saying it's bad to come in or it's bad to get an H1B visa. It's okay. You just need to pay us $100,000.

The I think what's changed since Beryl Howe got the case, which was several months back, is the Learning Resources case, the tariffs case at the Supreme Court. I'm sort of, I'm speculating here, but this case was briefed and decided after learning resources, which, you know, decided that the AIPA did not authorize taxes. It authorized regulation, and you could not, and tariff would be a type of tax. regulation, they wouldn't infer from the word regulation, the idea that you could impose a tax. And so learning resources was cited five times in this ruling. And I think that's probably one of the key differences. Also, there was also an argument before that, well, the DHS is getting the money here,

not the IRS, so it's not a tax. But again, that was the case in the IEPA case, the tariffs, the money was going to DHS, and the Supreme Court said that doesn't make any difference. It's still a tax. So, yeah, that was a big case. Did Judge Sourkewarkin engage with Judge Howell's opinion or not really? He acknowledged that she went the other way. I forget how he didn't distinguish it. I forget what he said exactly. Got it.

Next, one item that I think came down last Friday, and so we did not have a chance to bone up on it for last week's Lawfare Live, a district court in Rhode Island has blocked a bunch of immigration-related policies. Tell us about it, Roger. Yeah, these are policy. This was Judge John J. Mitch McConnell, Jr., who is an Obama appointee in Rhode Island. I think we've mentioned him before. And it's a series of, and there have been other cases raising these.

It's a series, this also relates to the travel bans. But after around November 26th of last year, when an Afghan national shot two National Guard members in D.C. and killed one of them. Maybe I, if you have to say allegedly, I guess he hasn't been adjudicated yet. But the next day, the administration began imposing a series of policies.

There's about four of them that put a quote, unquote, pause on benefits. It means, like all pending asylum claims, all withholding of removal, work permit request, green card, citizens, applications. All of those are paused for people from 39 countries. And the theory was, well, those countries are high-risk countries. they have insufficient vetting and screening. But it really changed the immigration laws

because a lot of these statutes that allow for asylum, allow for withholding of removal, use the word shell. You know, the immigration. The defendant here is the U.S. CIS, the Customs and Immigration Service. I hope that's right. But citizenship and immigration. Citizenship and immigration. Okay, thank you.

I used to work at DHS, so that's the only reason I know. Okay. And so this challenged all of those, I think, four policies under the Fifth Amendment and the APA. I think the decision was made under the APA here. And the money lines are, but the rule of law has to apply to everyone equally and evident here. USCIS has neither followed the law nor done things the right way.

Indeed, the agency has violated the very immigration laws that Congress has charged it with administering, as well as the administrative laws that govern the agency's actions. Dot, dot, dot. The government justifies its actions with pretextual concerns of national security that mask anti-immigrant sentiments

that it is forbidden from letting influence its decision making. This was one of the cases that it too cites some of Trump's language and Kristi Noem's language right after that shooting, the famous Kristi Noem's tweet December 1st, I just met with the president. I am recommending a full travel ban on every damn country that's been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies, dot, dot, dot, all caps.

We don't want them, not one. That's played an important role in the Mio case, in the TPS case that the Supreme Court will render shortly. It's ruling on. So that too was a factor here as far as the animus and the fact that the anti-immigrant animus was the real motivating factor, not these national security concerns. Great. And we have one more immigration item from you, Roger, right?

I think we do. And this one is really thanks to, it's not really. As far as I know, it's not yet a case. It's the New York Times.

And here's some tough names, but Mega, Roger Gopalung, and Hamad Ali Aziz. They, they, apparently there are about two dozen people that the government is about to ship, wants to ship to, It's these third country removals that wants to remove to the Central African Republic. These are at least two of the women are from Iran. They fled Iran. One is a Syrian who's a Sufi Muslim who is being tortured there.

and of course they're being sent to countries. We've seen this with Ghana and Equatorial Guinea and Eswatini. And Central African Republican, the public is one of these countries where the State Department says do not travel there under any circumstances. And if you do travel, it might be a good idea to have, you know, a copy of your dental records so your family can identify your body when, you know, the charred remains are discovered, are recovered. You know, these are really gruesome places to be sent. And, and what the government apparently does is it, you know, these are desperately poor companies.

It pays them something and they say, yes, we will, we will be careful with your people and make sure they aren't refooled. And back to the original country, where the withholding of removal has been granted. And whatever else you want us to say, just give us the money. And we saw that with Ghana. We saw that people were refouled,

refouled, refouled. I don't know the word. What could you explain for those of us who, for those of listeners who don't know what that means? You explain what that means? Yeah. Refulment, refulamol, or something. But the idea is you're sent back to the country you came from.

We send these people to Ghana because, and Ghana sends them to the country, the country that our immigration judges have said they must not be sent to. The whole reason where it's like a bank shop, where the immigration is not allowed to send them to, like with Abrago, it would be like with Abrago. He's not supposed to be sent to El Salvador. Let's send him to Central African Republican, Central African Republicans, Republic sends him to El Salvador. Because most of these countries don't keep people that aren't their own citizens. So, and all of this we are dealing with because the Supreme Court in the DVD case many months ago stayed the district judge order below, Ryan Murphy, who found that this third country removal stuff didn't, what was illegal.

and he tried to stop it. And the Supreme Court said, no, while this is being in litigation, we have to let this go on. And it's going on. People are being sent to these countries they have. But is there anything that, as you noted there, you said there's no litigation now by these folks or the subject of the Times article.

Why not? There might be. It sounded like there must be or there is about to be because it was attorney speaking to the New York Times. But I don't know how much luck they'll have. There is no injunction at the moment. The DVD case is now before the First Circuit where we should get a ruling shortly. but even, well, I can't say for sure, if they tried to stop it, I think the Supreme Court stay would still be in effect

until there's a cert petition. I'm not 100% sure of that. We have a few questions from our loyal listeners, or are loyal lawfare live listeners who are listening live. And I, Anna Hickey, do I read them myself that loud? Or will some people, folks read? Okay, John, go ahead. All right.

So I reviewed the transcripts released in the Broadview 6, ECF 219, 220, and 221. And although the prosecutorial ethics violations that have been described are present, they seem far less bad than I thought they were going to be, at least based on reporting. And so I'm wondering if I'm discounting their significance. So two examples. One, the improper ex parte conversation was a grand juror stopping the prosecutor in the hallway and asking about having trouble with their feelings and the rule to apply the facts to the law. And Mecklenberg replied, that's true.

That's exactly what we want you to do. And then on excusing the juror, she didn't actually do that. She suggested the juror could excuse themselves if they came. be impartial. And that feels subtly but importantly different. Her words, if you feel that you can't be blank, then excuse yourself. That's fine. There's still 16, question mark. And I don't actually know if that's far more minor or far more sinister. So I guess I'm just wondering if these are really reasons to throw out the case. And it seems like what Judge Perry said about the redactions being far worse than the underlying conduct makes sense and resonates with me.

I'll give my views and obviously, you know, Roger and I feel free to jump in. I do agree with you about the conversation with that was in the hallway with the jurors. I think that Judge Perry described as a substantive conversation with grand jurors, but it did not seem very substantive to me. With regard to excusing, you know, the grand juror, I mean, Judge, rather the prosecutor did say, you know, do you know, open mind for deliberation. And she said, if there's anyone who feels differently? Because if you do, then you shouldn't deliberate with, and then she kind of like interrupted

herself and went on to something else. So it seems that she was doing a little bit more than offering him a chance or her a chance to leave. And later, she says, are you going to be able to listen to open mind? Tell me the truth. And then the grand jury says, I know. And then she says, okay, then you have to go. And then she gets cut off.

So I think she was, you know, really trying to evict that grand juror from the case. And, you know, it's whether it rises to the level of a conviction being overturned some, I don't know. You know, down the road, I don't know the law there, but it seemed to disturb the U.S. attorney enough, the office. enough that so that at one point they redacted it. They did, they redacted it in the materials that they turned over to Judge Perry and then later on just decided to dismiss the whole case. And I don't know whether it was because of, you know, the underlying offense, if you will, by the prosecutor that caused them to dismiss the case or whether it was that, you know, coupled with their later decision to hide it from the judge that made them think this was not going to end well from them for

them and it still is may very well not end well for them with possible sanctions against them. I guess we'll see in some of the other cases where these similar issues are being raised, how much of a pattern this is in that office. Yep. I sort of agree with John about the, I was surprised when I saw the, the conversations outside the jury room, the fact that she seemed to, maybe I'm wrong, she seemed to immediately. afterwards report what she had done and said, I shouldn't have spoken. But, you know, it's so hard to just be rude to somebody who comes up to you and asks a

question like that to say, I can't talk to you. And I think there's a reflexive thing, and she did the right thing to report it all as soon as possible, assuming she reported it correctly. But I did think the vouching was pretty clear. And then I didn't read the whole thing. Also, when the judge described it, I thought she said there ended up being like three people excused. It was more than just one that ended up leaving. I think there was one who she basically forced out.

Yes. And then there was another who I think left on their own. Yeah. Anna, do you want to weigh in on any of this? Yeah.

I mean, I just, with the excuse, with the excusals, I, like, it's one thing if a grand, because,

you know, grand juries, you have to have quorum. You often have grand jurors who are missing because of things like appointments and that kind of thing. I just don't know what reason there would be or authority there is for a grand juror to be excused or to excuse themselves based on like because that goes to a qualification of the grandeur of this idea of, you know, whether you can be impartial, I guess, which seems more like, I guess I just am not quite sure. I think there's a big difference between I've got a a dentist appointment, well, you should excuse yourself for the day versus I don't think this case is right and I won't be able to vote for it kind of thing. Oh, well, you should, you know,

and then suggesting that the grand jurors should excuse themselves from. Yeah, I think that's right because there's, I don't think there's any voir dire for a grand jury. And it seems, yeah, I, my most, most of my experience with grand juries is from a state grand jury procedure. So I am not sure in the federal grand jury, but usually it's just like are, do you actually live in the district? Like are you, there's, you know, certain qualifications. Then there's like, you know, are you, you know, you might have an issue if you're related to one of the people who there's like a case. that is coming before you or that kind of thing. But, like, otherwise, it's the quality,

there's not really like a voir dire in the way there is in regular jury practice. So. And I'll note also that when she was trying to, you know, kick out that grandeur, the context, I think, it matters. It was the previous meeting of that grand jury on the previous week, they voted, they rejected this indictment. And so she's now coming back to them a second time. And so when she's trying to kick out someone who she thinks is a problem, it's because this is a really a live issue for her and she doesn't want to lose again.

So it seems that maybe this is not something she would have done under normal circumstances, but she was afraid she would lose again. And so she wanted to, you know, kick out any bad, you know, any people who might continue to vote against her. And, sorry, not just vote against her, but more importantly, persuade others to vote against her. Yeah, yeah, I think that that's, because that's the thing is that it's kind of like it's, it's so suggestive of, well, you should, you know, take yourself out of the scenario if you're not going to be able to vote for the case kind of thing as a, you know, I don't know. I think that's the thing that makes it troubling.

We have three questions left. Do I read them, Anahiki, or? Yes, please read them. I'll read them. So the first question from Elaine G. How can conflict of interest corruption be structurally opposed legally? And is there a way to narrow the apparently widening gap between legal theory and practice. I'm going to rephrase that slightly, and what I think Elaine is getting at is we had these laws on the books, and it seems that the laws don't wind up leading to consequences about things such as conflict of interest for a variety of reasons.

Roger or Anna, do you want to take a crack at that? No. I think it's a good question. I don't know how useful I can be. The answer seems, you know, the answer for everything seems to be impeachment and impeachment is not doable. Because with this unitary executive, it's. It seems like push come to shove, the president does what he wants. So I guess I'm not being very helpful here.

But for instance, conflict of interest, I mean, do we believe that Todd Blanche? I mean, Todd Blanche is not his personal attorney anymore. He's just the acting attorney general who must do what Trump wants because that's Trump's interpretation of the Constitution. And he is the one who sort of signs a document that waives all.

tax liability, he alone for Trump, his former client, his quote unquote former. I mean, it's just way beyond anything that I can begin to. I mean, if this is okay, then what is it?

Anna, any thoughts? The next two questions are both the final, next and final two questions are both about the immunity aspect of the agreements, quote unquote agreement between Trump and Department of Justice. This is the relate to, well, sorry, I'll just read the questions. Do the rulings on, this is from David Emery, do the rulings on the Trump Slush Fund have any impact on the Trump family release of liability from IRS? If not, who has standing to object to that? And the second question by an anonymous attendee is basically to the same effect in asking whether anyone has filed a suit that is specifically challenging that aspect of it. and and the attendee also notes that there's already is a DOJ fund established to compensate people who have claims for frivolous lawsuits.

Am I right to think that Todd Blanche pulled the entire IRS dealings out of pure air, which I assume any of the IRS immunity aspect to it? Anna, do you want to answer those? Oh, dear. I am afraid that I was having a conversation with John in the chat still on the question of, So can you, can you? Yeah, it's about the, sure. It's about the immunity, the Trump family release of liability from IRS.

And do these laws, do these rulings on the Trump slush fund, have any impact on that? And if not, who has standing to object to that? I mean, as we write in our piece, I don't think any of this changes the fact that, you know, individual settlements can still be reached in, you know, regardless of whether there is a slush fund. And so the goals of the settlement fund or the anti-weaponization fund, whatever it was called, can still be reached. And I can't think, I mean, Eric, you probably have, you're the standing guy. So what, you know, we have been hard pressed to think of situations in which people would have standing. But do you have additional thoughts after having been at these hearings?

Well, I mean, on this specific question asked about the release of liability from IRS, the basically the immunity aspect of what Todd Blanche did with his second order, I find it really hard to see who has, would have standing to challenge. I mean, it's basically, it's basically, you know, the IRS saying, I'm not going to give you, you know, we're not going to pursue these, these audits that we're not going to, that may you have resulted in you owing us another $100 million. I mean, I could, it's weird. I mean, you could, it would be a stretch, but I could maybe imagine some. competitor of the Trump organization suing and saying that they, you know, we compete against

the Trump organization. And if Trump is, is allowed to hold on to $100 million that he doesn't deserve, then he will be more effective at competing against us. That sounds a little silly, as I say it, I doubt a court would grant standing. But Roger, you sounds like you want to say something on that. Yeah, I don't think you need somebody to challenge that. I think the next administration, you need people to just go ahead and charge them and then, or, you know, bring the case. And then when he says, oh, I got this, no, look, I got this thing from Todd Blanche, you say, what is that thing?

That's worthless. This was, you know, this was a fraudulent settlement. This was a piece of paper signed by your former lawyer, signed by nobody else. It was signed the day after the so-called settlement. That's worthless. So I don't think we need to do anything right now. I think the problem will be statutes of limitations. But I think you just go, and also the loss of evidence, if they discontinue ongoing audits.

But I don't think you need to challenge it right now. It's just a nullity. You would later on say, that was a nullity. It doesn't protect you. I think that's exactly right. And that also, I can say accurately that's what Anna and I wrote in our initial piece that this was, was, will be regarded as presumptively invalid by a future administration. And I'm no expert in IRS enforcement, but I don't think there's a statute of limitations on how long they can bring a civil enforcement action. So I believe that wraps it up for today.

And we've gone along, but we had lots of fun things to talk about. This podcast is a part of Lawfair's live stream series, Lawfare Live, the trials of the Trump administration. Subscribe to Lawfair's YouTube to receive alert the next time we go live. The Lawfare podcast is produced by the Lawfare Institute, which is not a coincidence. You can get ad-free versions of this and all other. lawfare work by becoming a material supporter of lawfare at our website. Lawfaremedia.org slash support, where you'll also get access to special events and other content available only to our supporters. The podcast is edited by the great folks at Goat

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