Serious Trouble

It appears that E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump might actually go to trial pretty soon — the court is behaving like it does when a trial is about to begin. This week, we talked about evidence of Trump’s prior behavior — two other accusations from women who say he committed sexual crimes against them, decades apart — that Judge Lewis Kaplan has decided may be admitted in court. Usually, testimony about prior bad acts isn’t allowed in evidence because it’s prejudicial, but there’s a special, legislated exception for evidence about sexual assaults. Even the Access Hollywood tape will be admitted under this exception.We also talked about moves by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg, who may be preparing to indict Donald Trump for falsifying business records related to his hush-money payment to porn actress Stormy Daniels. And we talked about Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the former FBI staffers who were involved in both an extramarital affair and the FBI’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s links to Russia. He’s suing for wrongful termination and she’s suing over the release of her embarrassing text messages; long-suffering federal judge Amy Berman Jackson is presiding over their case, and she’s decided they may depose both Trump and FBI Director Christopher Wray, but only about specific topics and only for two hours each. We discussed what you have to show in order to get the right to depose a president (or former president) himself when you sue the US government.Visit serioustrouble.show to find a transcript of this episode and to support our 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

First: Yet another of SBF's top lieutenants has pleaded guilty to crimes including wire fraud and commodities fraud, and in the plea documents we learned more about SBF’s ill-advised campaign finance schemes. Plus, prosecutors and his own lawyers are proposing an agreement to further restrict SBF’s access to technology — including taking away his smartphone. Then Josh and Ken catch up on Donald Trump’s legal affairs. There are signs that special counsel Jack Smith is trying to move swiftly toward charging decisions — though “swiftly” means something different to a federal prosecutor than to most people, and legal wrangling over efforts to pierce Trump’s attorney-client privilege could delay matters. We talked about why some of Trump’s conversations with lawyers might not be privileged, and what it means for the investigation that prosecutors are so interested in his dealings with his lawyers. And then we talked about different kinds of privilege, relating to Trump’s former role as president. Trump says he can’t be sued for inciting violence on January 6 because remarks he made on the White House lawn were given in his official capacity. The Department of Justice narrowly disagrees (which is surprising). Finally, we looked at Trump’s assertion that executive privilege bars Mike Pence from testifying before a grand jury regarding events related to January 6. In doing so, he faces a legal problem we’ve discussed before: How can you assert executive privilege against the executive branch?Visit serioustrouble.show to find a transcript of this episode and to subscribe. 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

Defamation litigation tends to be unavailing. Many offending statements don’t meet the definition of defamation — they may be opinions, or insults, or false statements against a public figure made without actual malice, or even true factual statements you just didn’t like hearing. This week’s episode is mostly a deep dive into defamation lawsuits brought against Fox News (and related parties) by two voting technology companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. This litigation looks different from most defamation litigation. Smartmatic and Dominion are large companies whose business has likely been impaired by the lies told about them. Those lies were broadcast extremely widely — no need to worry about the Streisand effect. One of the entities that shared many of the lies, Fox News, is a very deep pocket. And Fox has good reason to worry it could end up facing some very large judgments. Ken and Josh discuss the favorable rulings and power moves in both of these cases, plus an update on Rust shooting. (Appellate public defender Caitlin Smith, who wrote into us several weeks ago about why the enhancement was invalid, has been proved right.) And we talked about how Sam Bankman-Fried got into a position where the judge presiding over his case seems to like him less than the prosecutors do.Visit serioustrouble.show to support the show, 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

Dear listeners,We’re back with more serious trouble!On this week’s show, we take a look at the (partial) report of a Georgia special grand jury that had been investigating efforts to interfere in that state’s reporting of its 2020 presidential election results. The report says the grand jurors think they heard some perjury. And its unreleased portions may contain recommendations about criminal charges — recommendations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could bring to a regular grand jury for indictment.We talk about Mike Pence’s effort to avoid a subpoena from Special Counsel Jack Smith. Pence says he’s can’t be forced to testify about January 6 because of the “speech or debate” clause of the US Constitution, which protects senators and representatives from being questioned about their official duties. Except… he wasn’t a senator or a representative, he was the Vice President. The VP has an odd place in our constitutional structure — mostly executive, but also the presiding officer of one house of our legislature — and we talk about the possibility that Pence could assert testimonial protections assigned to either branch.We talk about federal prosecutors’ efforts to pierce attorney-client privilege and force one of former president Trump’s attorneys to testify about his interactions with his client — which gives us an opportunity to talk once again about the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.We talk about Alec Baldwin. As we discussed a couple of weeks ago, he has a good argument that the firearms enhancement prosecutors want to use to extend his sentence can’t be applied to him. His expensive, talented and aggressive lawyers are on that question — after a Variety reporter asked them about the issue, after hearing about it on our podcast — and they’re also looking to disqualify the currently-assigned special prosecutor on his case. Meanwhile, Baldwin is preparing to restart production on Rust… so Ken talks about why it might not be the best idea to literally act out the events that led up to your criminal charges while you face trial. 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.showElon Musk got a big win in the civil trial over whether his “funding secured” statements defrauded shareholders. We talked about how “that’s Elon being Elon” can be an effective defense. We also talked about Sam Bankman-Fried and the ever-sprawling pool of potentially-cooperating witnesses who might tell prosecutors about his and FTX’s wrongdoing. For paying subscribers, there’s more: the California State Bar might disbar attorney John Eastman, Mark Pomerantz has written a book about how he thinks the Manhattan DA's investigation of Donald Trump could have been different (he quit the investigation), and the feds are investigating George Santos about the GoFundMe for that poor service dog's care.Visit serioustrouble.show to sign up for our newsletter, support the show, and find a transcript of this episode.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThis week, we talk about how not to stay out on bail (yes, once again, it's Sam Bankman-Fried), and how the judge is likely to respond to him contacting FTX employees. We also talk about David DePape, who seems pretty nuts — but not nuts enough to have an effective insanity defense for his attack on Paul Pelosi. That’s the end of the free episode. For paying subscribers, we continue on with answers to your questions about Alec Baldwin, who has officially been charged with involuntary manslaughter. And we have more Trump litigation to discuss — he’s suing Bob Woodward, saying Woodward wasn’t supposed to release the audio recordings of Trump’s interviews with him. And Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg appears to be investigating another angle on possible criminal wrongdoing — but not a very promising one.Visit serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscribe and to find relevant links and episode transcripts.

This week, Ken and I talked about a substantial sanctions order — nearly $1 million — that Donald Trump and his attorney Alina Habba must pay for the frivolous RICO lawsuit they brought against dozens of defendants. As sanctions orders go, this is really big — and Ken thinks Habba should worry about being disbarred — but is this really an effective deterrent against Trump, who got lots of publicity and fundraising opportunities from the suit? We also looked at criminal charges against Alec Baldwin. He is to be tried for involuntary manslaughter related to his fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his film Rust in 2021. When is a terrible accident also a crime? And we talked about Brian Walshe, whose Google searches helped lead to his arrest for the murder of his still-missing wife.Visit serioustrouble.show to subscribe to our newsletter and support the show, and find relevant links and episode transcripts. 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.showKen is utterly dismayed that Sam Bankman-Fried has started a Substack, where he’s writing in great detail about FTX. Then: Ken and Josh talk about the classified documents found at President Biden’s home in Wilmington and the Penn Biden Center in Pennsylvania, if there is legal exposure for the president, among other questions. For paying subscribers, Ken and Josh preview the trial in the securities fraud class action suit brought on behalf of Tesla shareholders (related to Elon Musk's famous “funding secured” tweet), and some updates on George Santos and Allen Weisselberg, who is due at Rikers soon. Visit serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscriber, sign up for our newsletter and find a transcript and other links.

In some ways, George Santos is having a pretty good year. The congressman-elect's new salary is $174,000 a year, which is a lot more than he was making at the Dish Network call center. Of course, there are some other things that aren’t going so great for him. He is a big lying liar who lies, and while lying about whether you ever worked at Goldman Sachs isn’t a crime, some of the lies Santos told could have legal consequences. We talk this week about problems that could arise from statements he made to the government about his finances, or from the manner in which he funded his campaign, and about how prosecutors will go about figuring out whether any of his lies were crimes. Plus: Sam Bankman-Fried, who’s out of Bahamian prison and confined to his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California, is fortunate to be out on bail. Two of his top lieutenants (Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang) have pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate in his prosecution. In theory, his trial is scheduled for October, and we also talked about whether — if he doesn’t eventually change his plea to guilty himself — it will be in his interest to hurry to trial or seek to delay and delay.Finally, a spat between cartoonists. Dilbert creator Scott Adams has threatened to sue right-wing political cartoonist Ben Garrison for drawing a cartoon that suggested Anthony Fauci had hypnotized him into getting vaccinated for COVID. Can a cartoon be defamatory? Maybe. But this one isn’t.Visit serioustrouble.show to sign up for our newsletter, find links and transcripts and 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

We talk a lot on this show about bad clients — people in legal trouble who disregard advice, talk when they should shut up, and generally make their lawyers' lives miserable while increasing their own odds of facing a large judgment award or ending up in prison for a good, long time. You know, clients like Sam Bankman-Fried and Donald Trump. So we thought it would be good to talk about what it takes to be a good client. If you're in legal trouble, what can you do to ensure you leverage your lawyer's skills to get a good outcome, instead of driving him or her to distraction and shooting yourself in the foot?Join the conversation, find transcripts and support the show at serioustrouble.show. Have a Merry Christmas, and we'll see you in January. 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.showSam Bankman-Fried… boy, is he in serious trouble. He’s been indicted on several counts, with the central accusation being that he defrauded customers, lenders, and equity investors doing business with his now-bankrupt companies, FTX and Alameda Research. Importantly, the story Bankman-Fried has been relentlessly telling about himself is a story the government says is still fraud even if it’s true. Ken and I talk about Bankman-Fried as a masterclass in what-not-to-do as a criminal defendant. He seems woefully unprepared to face parallel civil and criminal actions, especially since he continues to proudly describe how he doesn’t listen to what lawyers tell him to do. He is, quite possibly, a worse client than Donald Trump. But that makes him very interesting! This show is about 20 minutes for free subscribers and 40 minutes for paying subscribers — if you want the whole show and this week’s second show on the rest of the news, upgrade now at www.serioustrouble.show.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showSam Bankman-Fried is in serious trouble! And he has a strategy: tweet through it. We talk about the legal risks that come from tweeting through your legal risks — it’s not just that SBF risks providing evidence to help the government prove he committed crimes; he may also be committing new crimes, like wire fraud, in real time. For all listeners, we have a breakdown of the lessons in what-not-to-do from SBF. For premium subscribers, we also look at serious trouble for Elon Musk. He was in the Delaware Chancery Court this week — not to be forced to buy Twitter, but to answer a shareholder lawsuit about his compensation at Tesla. And we have updates on Donald Trump. In the Mar-a-Lago documents case, his lawyers’ arguments seem designed to try the patience of Special Master Raymond Dearie. And in one civil lawsuit, his lawyers are facing Rule 11 sanctions — you have to behave really badly for that to happen — while in another lawsuit (against Elon Musk’s Twitter!) he’s picked up a prestigious, if checkered, legal advocate: former appellate judge Alex Kozinski.Visit serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscriber of the show and you'll get all of our future full length episodes.

In this episode of Serious Trouble, we discuss:- An order granting the New York Attorney General’s request for a monitor to oversee Trump Organization financial activity, and some troubles the Trumps face in this civil action that they would not face in a criminal case.- An acquittal on all counts for Tom Barrack, a businessman and associate of Donald Trump’s who was accused of acting as an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates.- The dismissal of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy’s defamation case against my former employer, Insider, over Insider’s reporting on allegations regarding his sexual behavior.- Elon Musk’s offhand allegation that people trying to pressure companies to pull their ads off Twitter are engaged in “tortious interference” with Twitter’s business.Visit serioustrouble.show to find relevant links and transcripts, and to become a supporter of 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

We answer a listener question about what’s likely to happen to InfoWars, now that Alex Jones and his companies are subject to a $965 million defamation judgment. We also talk about legal difficulties at Fox News — including one that’s overblown. And, after receiving a lot of requests from you to discuss this topic, we talk aboutd the prospects of chess prodigy Hans Niemann’s lawsuit, in which he says world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and others defamed him by accusing him of cheating. Finally, we bring you an update on Jacob Wohl and his guilty plea to a big-boy state felony — while keeping our eyes on the federal prize.Visit www.serioustrouble.show for episode links, a transcript, and to become a supporter of 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.showSomeone close to attorney Christina Bobb is making sure reporters hear it was definitely not her fault that she incorrectly told investigators in June that Trump had already handed over all the marked-classified documents remaining at Mar-a-Lago. Bobb insisted on adding a caveat to her declaration, saying it was based on information provided to her. Bobb likely did that with the intention to insulate herself from legal risk, but Ken says it could actually harm her position.For paying subscribers, we also discussed:- Hunter Biden’s legal predicament, why it would be leaking into the press that federal agents believe there’s enough evidence to charge him with tax and false statement crimes, and the likelihood that he might face indictment after the midterm elections- a risible defamation suit Donald Trump has filed against CNN.- what you do if you’re a judge or an opposing party when a litigant (such as, hypothetically, Elon Musk) promises he’s finally, really ready to perform on his commitments if you will only please, please, please delay the trial that’s about to start.Visit www.serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscriber and to read more about this episode.

There’s been a lot of legal news in the last ten days, and so today’s show is on the long side: nearly an hour and it’s also free for all listeners in its full length. We talked about the oddly snippy correspondence between Judge Aileen Cannon and the much more senior federal judge she’s named as special master overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents, we answer a listener’s question about whether Trump’s position as a former president vests him with any added responsibilities, in the eyes of the courts, in addition to the ability to gain special dispensation, which “Real Housewives” franchise best embodies the spirit of Donald Trump’s fractious legal team, an update on prosecutions related to the January 6 riot, and a look at dueling appellate decisions in the 5th and 11th Circuits, reaching different conclusions about whether state governments can tell social media platforms what content to host on their sites.Visit www.serioustrouble.show for transcripts and more, and to become a supporter of 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.showWhew, it’s been a big news week! Big enough that we had to record this episode one and a half times: on Wednesday, following the first conference with Special Master Raymond Dearie; and again on Thursday, after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals made Dearie’s job much easier by saying the DOJ is free to use approximately 100 marked-classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and that Dearie need not review them. This episode covers the 11th Circuit order, what's left for Judge Dearie to review, New York Attorney General Letitia James’s new civil lawsuit against the Trumps — and for paid subscribers: the wind-down of Special Counsel John Durham’s probe into the FBI investigators who investigated Donald Trump, angry judges presiding over the Parkland shooter’s sentencing and Alex Jones’s latest defamation trial, and a civil lawsuit and a criminal investigation relating to the Venezuelan migrants who were talked — apparently under false pretenses — into boarding a plane to Martha’s Vineyard.To become a subscriber, join the conversation and to find links and a transcript for this episode, visit www.serioustrouble.show.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showIf you are a lawyer, it is important to make sure you get paid for your work, especially if your client is someone like Donald Trump, who has very complex legal needs and a history of trying not to pay his vendors. So we weren’t surprised that attorney Chris Kise, one of the big shots on Trump’s legal team, has collected a $3 million fee deposit in preparation for what could be very extensive legal billings. Plus: we discussed how it works when multiple lawyers from different firms team up on the same criminal defense — “badly,” is the short answer — and what you should do if the FBI tries to question you at a Hardee’s.For paying subscribers only, we have a discussion of Judge Aileen Cannon’s latest puzzling order in the lawsuit Trump brought over the search of Mar-a-Lago. She’s named a well-respected senior federal judge — Raymond Dearie — as special master, and given him a deadline of November 30 to complete his review of seized documents.Become a subscriber now at www.serioustrouble.show to support our podcast and to receive all full-length Serious Trouble episodes.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showDear listeners,It’s another week of serious trouble!This week, Ken and I talk about the unsealed application for the Mar-a-Lago warrant, such as it is — most of the juicy bits are blacked out, but we did learn some things about what the government is investigating and who does not seem to be a target.The government says its “privilege review team” — an alternative, loser terminology for the taint team — is already done reviewing the documents from Trump’s boxes. As such, Trump’s demand for a special master to oversee that review may be moot, but we’ll know more after Judge Aileen Cannon holds a hearing about it on Thursday.Plus, for paying subscribers: the speed with which Judge Cannon has acted on Trump’s requests has alarmed and annoyed some Trump critics. But if Trump’s objective with his motions is (as it is so often) to delay the proceedings, then her speedy responses — and her choice not to enjoin the government’s investigative activities — aren’t serving his interests so far.And we talk about Ben Shapiro, who says he was defamed. Shapiro is on better grounds than many who cry defamation — provably false statements of fact were made about his alleged receipt of PPP loans, possibly with reckless disregard for the truth — but he stumbles at the key last step: showing he suffered quantifiable harm due to the statements.Finally, at the very end of the paid version of the show, we have an outtake for fans of taint team talk.You know you want to hear it.Enjoy the show!Josh

It’s another action-packed week for Serious Trouble! On today’s episode, we talk about former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg’s plea deal that will send him to Rikers Island for about three months for tax crimes — and won’t involve testifying against Donald Trump personally. We look at the legal fight over the sealing of the application for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, and at Trump’s… filing, of sorts, demanding the return of “his” documents and the appointment of a special master to weed out any potentially privileged materials, instead of a taint team that he considers to be tainted. Plus, we talk about Trump’s difficulties in retaining A-list legal counsel, and we apologize to a listener for doubting that he’s served on 15 juries in his lifetime. Thank you for your service, Tim!This week’s episode is free for all listeners, so if you like it, we’d encourage you to help us get the word out — share it with a friend, or post it on social media. If you’re a paid subscriber, thank you; if you’d like to become one and get every single episode, you can do that by going to http://www.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

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showNow we’ve seen the warrant! On this week’s show, we talk about the search of Mar-a-Lago, and what it tells us about why the FBI wanted to poke around there. We discuss how Merrick Garland avoided pulling a Comey, when we might see the affidavit supporting the search warrant, we answer a question from a listener about how the government handles public trials involving classified documents it can’t share publicly, and how we might be able to assess whether a prosecution related to the offenses at issue here is worth the trouble. For a transcript of this episode and to become a subscriber and join the Serious Trouble community, go to serioustrouble.show.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showWell, there’s been some serious trouble this week. The FBI executed a search warrant, looking for documents at Mar-a-Lago. According to former president Donald Trump, they even broke into his safe! What had to happen for such a warrant to be approved, and why federal prosecutors would have sought it — can it really be just about the Presidential Records Act? Who is entitled to what information, and when? Trump has been complaining a lot about the raid, but he hasn’t shown us the search warrant detailing exactly what the Feds were supposed to be looking for and what potential offenses they were related to. Plus: Alex Jones. Will he actually have to pay close to $50 million to Sandy Hook families? And how come his lawyers failed to claw back the private documents they accidentally produced to the plaintiffs? Well, maybe they didn’t have a lot of better options. Visit serioustrouble.show to subscribe, and to access discussion threads, links and episode transcripts.

In this episode, Ken and Josh discuss the cross examination of Alex Jones in the trial that will determine the damages for the defamation claim on which he already lost to parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre. After Jones repeatedly failed to comply with orders to turn over records and documents (to the point that he lost by default because he was so uncooperative), Jones’ lawyer accidentally shared the entire contents of Jones’s phone — including texts about Sandy Hook — with the plaintiffs’ attorney and then failed to take the necessary steps to assert privilege over any of the contents and retract them. Ken and Josh also discuss the questions jurors had for Jones.For a transcript of this episode and to hear bonus material, go to www.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

On this episode of Serious Trouble, we talk about developments in Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s investigation of efforts to steal Georgia’s electoral votes in the 2020 election. Willis sent “target letters” telling all 16 members of the fake Trump slate they might be prosecuted. When do DAs send letters like that, and what should you do if you get one? Plus, we discuss a memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland, which lays out the cautions US Attorneys should take before bringing politically sensitive indictments. And, Indiana’s Attorney General called the doctor who performed an abortion for a 10-year-old girl from Ohio “an abortion activist posing as a doctor, with a history of failing to report,” on national television, and he suggested she might have committed a crime. What’s her recourse in Indiana?Visit serioustrouble.show to find episode transcripts and links, and to become a paying subscriber in order to receive all Serious Trouble episodes. 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 agreed to buy Twitter. He doesn’t want to buy it anymore. Twitter wants to enforce the contract that requires him to buy the company, and so they’re arguing in the chancery court in Delaware about what will happen next.What is a chancery court? What is “specific performance”? Will a Delaware court actually force this company — an entity with employees, customers, and significant societal influence — into the hands of a buyer who doesn’t want to own and operate it?Listen to this episode where we discussed all those matters. For a transcript of this episode visit 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

Ken and Josh discuss an apparent agreement for Pat Cippolone (or “Patsy Baloney,” if you ask an auto-transcription system) to talk with the January 6 committee, and why his interview will be a little complicated because of privilege issues — both attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. We look at how that might matter, and what he might say that’s of interest. Plus: grand jury subpoenas in the Atlanta DA’s investigation, what happens when an interested third party is paying your legal expenses, and a Washington Post op-ed claims it’s easier than people say to show Donald Trump had the requisite intent to commit certain crimes. Is that true? We don’t think so, and we’ll address why.For a transcript of this episode and other resources, go to www.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

Surprise! This is an extra, unscheduled episode of Serious Trouble, about some breaking news in investigations related to the January 6 riot — a federal search of attorney John Eastman’s electronic devices, and a unexpectedly scheduled hearing with testimony from Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump’s White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows. (We said we’d do at least 40 episodes a year, but that’s a floor, not a ceiling!) 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

To find episode notes, transcripts, a discussion thread and to become a subscriber (so that you receive all Serious Trouble episodes), visit us at serioustrouble.show.This week's episode is all about the Uvalde massacre, the botched police response, and what legal rights you have to expect the police to perform their jobs. You may be surprised to learn they’re pretty limited. Ken and Josh also talk about where the idea of qualified immunity comes from, and when it does (and doesn’t) protect police from liability for their actions. And they discuss why Texas law may put the various government agencies involved in this debacle on pretty solid ground when they refuse to disclose embarrassing documents, such as body camera footage. 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

To get this episode into your premium RSS feed, please click the button below from your phone:Dear readers,Serious Trouble is not a Trump show — it’s a show about law. But the top legal story this week is about Trump, so that’s how we’re starting: with a discussion of the theory of Trump’s criminality advanced by the January 6 investigating committee.What would it entail to prove in court that Donald Trump criminally sought to interfere with an official proceeding, and should the Justice Department try? What sort of criminal defense would Trump mount if it got to trial? Would Sidney Powell and Rudy Giuliani end up on the witness stand?We also talked about how some of the witnesses in deposition videos presented by the committee seemed to be almost enjoying themselves, especially former Attorney General Bill Barr. Can a deposition be fun? Ken has some thoughts on why it can be a good strategy for lawyers to try to keep things feeling fun and light even when the matters at hand are deadly serious.And we talked about our ambivalence at having missed the defamation lawsuit between Johnny Depp and Amber Heard — arguably the most prominent defamation case in decades and also a huge, embarrassing mess. We’ve talked a lot over the years about how hard it is to prove defamation, especially against a public figure — so how did they both prevail on at least some of their claims? And what does the verdict mean for future defamation litigants?We hope you enjoy the episode. If you have questions or responses, please share them in the comments section below, or you can email us at [email protected] here are some links to documents and statutes we discussed on today’s show — you might find these useful as you listen. We’ll prepare a list like this for you to accompany every episode we release.* Here’s a transcript of the episode.* Title 18, United States Code, Section 1512(c)(2) is the statute prohibiting obstruction of an official federal proceeding — did Trump violate it?* Title 18, United States Code, Section 371 contains both the plain-vanilla federal law prohibiting conspiracy to violate federal statutes and the prohibition on defrauding the federal government — did Trump violate that?* What does “defraud the United States” mean? Well, we know what the Department of Justice thinks that it means — take a look at the relevant section of the United States Attorney’s Manual, which includes the case Ken quotes in the episode.* What law governed the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard trial, and what issues were actually before the jury? Read the jury instructions and find out:* Here’s the SNL cold open about the Depp/Heard trial being “for fun”:We’ll be back with another episode for you next week. Very seriously,Ken White, Josh Barro & Sara Fay 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