Serious Trouble

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThe long memo Jack Smith promised is here: a 185-page document laying out evidence he’d like to present in his January 6-related case against Donald Trump. The memo has to be so long because the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity was so complex and vague: Smith must show, act by act, that he’s offering evidence either of Trump’s unofficial actions, or of official acts where he can overcome the presumption of immunity. Ken and I discuss how Smith argues that most of the acts he wants to present are unofficial, his case that Trump’s official efforts to coerce Pence are fair game, and how long it’s going to take courts to adjudicate all these questions before a trial can start (years). For paying subscribers, we also discuss:* One of the bitchiest motions Ken has ever seen* Clare Locke surviving a motion to dismiss in their nine-year-old-fan-of-Kansas-City-Chiefs client’s defamation case against Deadspin, for having accused him of wearing blackface and hating black people and Native Americans* Garth Brooks (a.k.a. the anonymous celebrity “John Doe”) facing an anonymous lawsuit from his former hairstylist, who he also tried to sue anonymously to stop her from suing him anonymously* Professor Joe Gow, who will sue the University of Wisconsin for dismissing him over his vegan porn side project;* Former Mesa County Clerk Tina Peters getting nine years in prison for her “Stop the Steal” efforts* Updates on the Eric Adams scandalTo get the whole episode, subscribe at serioustrouble.show.

Federal prosecutors allege that New York mayor Eric Adams accepted tens of thousands of dollars of free business-class upgrade on Turkish Airlines as part of a broader scheme to receive illegal support from foreign nationals (including concealed political donations from Turks) in exchange for official favors, including from the Fire Department of New York. This is a long, fun “speaking indictment” with juicy details.Plus, there’s other news: Three Iranian hackers indicted for the breach of Trump campaign documents; a hot bench in an appellate hearing over the $450 million Trump civil judgment that may or may not amount to anything; and a settlement in Smartmatic v. Newsmax that everyone is pretending to be happy about.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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showRyan Wesley Routh has been charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate. Ken and Josh discuss how proving Routh’s intent to kill the former president might be challenging (had he not left a note expressing his intent), and we talk about what “attempt” is — Routh never pulled the trigger, but there are a number of “substantial steps” he took toward killing Trump that should still make this case not that hard for prosecutors to prove.Plus: a light sentence for Caroline Ellison for her role in the FTX implosion, Judge Chutkan OK's a long brief from the special counsel on presidential immunity, an advocacy group tries to get criminal charges for Trump and Vance for their comments about Haitian immigrants in Ohio, Brett Favre can't sue Shannon Sharpe, and Matt Gaetz updates. Sign up at serioustrouble.show to listen to the whole episode.

We were kind of expecting Sean Combs to get indicted sooner or later, but we weren’t expecting the indictment to be for RICO. Federal prosecutors allege that Combs, as the leader of the “Combs Enterprise,” led a criminal organization for purposes including coercing female victims to have sex with male prostitutes at drug-fueled orgies known as “freak-offs.” Is that really RICO?Plus: just gun charges (for now) for the man caught laying in wait for Donald Trump at his Florida golf course with a rifle, and a lot of hot, hot defamation action. Visit serioustrouble.show to sign up for the newsletter and to support the 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showJosh and Ken discuss developments in the Data Colada-Francesca Gino-Harvard case, Sarah Palin's defamation case against the New York Times (for free subscribers), and (for paying subscribers) the different philosophies the judges have about how the presidential election should affect the scheduling of the Trump criminal cases they preside over.Plus: Hunter Biden's Alford plea, the Tenet Media FARA case and whether it’s okay to be an unregistered foreign agent if you’re the agent of a Belgian, and a pre-indictment preview of the serious trouble that awaits New York Mayor Eric Adams and many of his aides.Visit serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscriber and to find a transcript of this episode.

You probably saw the moronic TikTok trend in which check fraud became trendy and was rebranded as a “glitch” that allowed you to get large amounts of money out of any Chase ATM, even if you had little cash in your account. It’s federally illegal, it’s illegal in every state, and “I saw it on TikTok” isn’t a defense. Still, that doesn’t necessarily mean every one of these cases will be interesting to prosecutors.Speaking of stupid criminals: Jacob Wohl and his sidekick Jack Burkman are back in the news; Russians are indicted over a scheme to pay right-wing influencers; Trump tries (again) to get his hush money prosecution removed to federal court, but is still unlikely to succeed.Visit serioustrouble.show to find a transcript of this episode and to sign up for our newsletter. 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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showJack Smith is attempting to salvage his two federal prosecutions of Donald Trump with a superseding indictment that removes evidence about Trump’s presidential acts from the document backing his charges over Trump’s effort to steal the 2020 election. The new indictment removes the allegations that are closest to the core of presidential powers — for example, Trump’s efforts to get the Department of Justice to open a bogus investigation — while retaining other acts Smith believes he can successfully argue were unofficial. Plus: Jack Smith counters Judge Cannon's dismissal of the documents case; Arizona defendants in the case about the state’s fake-elector scheme are using the state’s very odd anti-SLAPP statute to argue their charges should be dismissed; onetime-superlawyer Tom Girardi was convicted of stealing huge sums from his clients; the Ketamine Queen now has a prominent defense lawyer; LiveNation’s CEO may have to be deposed in a lawsuit over the Astroworld music festival disaster, despite the apex witness doctrine and Texas’s efforts to position itself as the pro-business court state.Finally, we have a correction from last week. When we talked about a motion Disney made in a wrongful death case arguing a litigant would have to arbitrate because he entered into an arbitration agreement as part of his Disney+ service contract, we misidentified the prestigious law firm that surprised us by making the argument. It was White & Case, not O’Melveny & Myers. We regret the error.Visit serioustrouble.show and sign up to support the show in order to hear this entire episode.

George Santos has pleaded guilty and will likely be sentenced next February to several years in federal prison. Santos also lost his copyright claim against Disney over his Cameo videos that were broadcast on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Disney had less luck trying to argue that a customer whose wife died of an allergic reaction would have to arbitrate any wrongful death claim because of an obscure clause in the service contract for Disney+. Several associates of Matthew Perry were indicted for their roles in getting him the ketamine that killed him, and DC Councilmember Trayon White, last seen saying dumb things about the Rothschilds, is now a defendant in a very dumb bribery case. 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

Elon Musk has produced some new legal issues for us this week. He has sued a coalition of advertisers for colluding to boycott the Twitter platform, saying this is an antitrust violation, and Musk is also the subject, along with Donald Trump, of a labor law complaint before the National Labor Relations Board, filed by the United Auto Workers.Plus: Trump may sue the federal government over the Mar-a-Lago raid, Missouri will not get the Supreme Court to consider whether its voters were harmed by the gag order in Trump’s New York criminal case. Saying that JD Vance fucked a couch isn’t defamatory (it’s satire) and saying Trump wasn’t almost in a helicopter crash with Willie Brown isn’t defamatory either (it’s true). And Trump’s campaign was hacked. And oh my god, the Young Thug Georgia RICO trial, it’s an even bigger mess than the Trump Georgia RICO trial.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

As we’ve discussed, the Supreme Court threw a major wrench into the various prosecutions of Donald Trump with their ruling on presidential immunity. The RICO prosecution in Atlanta was already so hopelessly fucked that they probably won’t need to think about it for a couple of years, and the documents case in Florida is, for now, dismissed. But in New York, Judge Juan Merchan is proceeding toward sentencing, notwithstanding immunity being one of Trump’s several issues for appeal, and in Washington, DC, Judge Tanya Chutkan is trying to figure it out, though the issue probably won’t even be fully briefed until after the election.Plus: Judge Chutkan has ruled that Trump was not a victim of selective or vindictive prosecution. A committee of the District of Columbia Bar Association has recommended that Jeffrey Clark’s law license be suspended. Sen. Bob Menendez has been convicted — showing that bribery is still illegal. The Washington Post has a somewhat odd story about an investigation in a possible Egyptian effort to bribe Donald Trump that did not amount to much. And the QAnon Shaman has won a court order instructing the government to return his headdress. 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