Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with her caucus on Tuesday and announced the House is beginning a formal impeachment inquiry of President Trump. The impetus for this is a whistleblower report Congress hasn’t seen, because the acting director of national intelligence overruled his inspector general, saying Congress isn’t entitled to see it. But we’ve been learning more and more about what’s in that report, and it seems to concern President Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. On Wednesday morning, the White House released an approximate transcript of this conversation, and it shows Trump pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for an investigation of the Bidens and urging him to work with Rudy Giuliani on such an investigation.

Is pushing a foreign country to investigate your political rival, withholding aid from that country, possibly linking the two matters -- is any of that a crime?

And regarding impeachment: since President Trump and his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, essentially admitted to this on national TV, do Democrats have what they need or is an investigation or inquiry necessary? Ken and Josh discuss Democrats’ impeachment strategy, and the politics of assembling either a broad or narrow impeachment articles. Should the president’s lies about the hush money payments figure into this?

The White House claims top advisers have absolute immunity from testifying to Congress about their interactions with the president. Is there any legal basis for that? And does either side of the argument want a court to weigh in on this? Not really. Ken White tells us why. Former Trump campaign chair Corey Lewandowski, who testified (or rather, tried very hard to not give any answers to any questions about possible incidents of obstruction of justice) in a House Judiciary Committee hearing, never served in the White House. Does executive privilege extend to him in any way? What remedy does Congress have in this situation?

Then: one of the foreign emoluments cases is back in the news. A federal trial judge in New York threw out a suit from the group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington on behalf of hotels that compete with Trump hotels in Washington DC, but a three-judge panel from the Second Circuit Court of Appeals has brought it back because the New York judge had too narrow a view of standing. Standing, of course, is the issue that has tripped up the other emoluments cases.

Plus: listener questions about Andrew McCabe, the Manhattan district attorney subpoenas eight years of Trump’s tax returns, and a very specific discussion about the Department of Justice and Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

Congress is back, so we’re got some investigation action in the committees. The House Judiciary Committee will vote this week on a resolution setting rules for an impeachment investigation into President Trump. What significance will this vote have? And if there is an impeachment inquiry, will it help Democrats get documents they are seeking? Committees are also looking into whether the Trump administration improperly pressured the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son. And with the reports the Air Force stayed at Trump’s hotel in Scotland on a refueling stop, there’s an investigation into whether Trump violated the domestic emoluments clause. We’ve talked about the foreign emoluments clause before -- this is different, but a potential case has a lot of the same issues as the other emoluments cases.

Former Obama White House Counsel Greg Craig was acquitted in a federal criminal trial of lying to investigators. Paul Manafort and his lawyers are arguing a New York state case against him presents a double jeopardy issue. Michael Flynn has a dramatic day in court, and there’s more Jacob Wohl antics to discuss.

Former FBI agent Asha Rangappa joins Ken White for a special All The President’s Lawyers. Ken and Asha talk about what the media gets wrong (and right) about how the FBI and federal investigations work, and the wall between counterintelligence and criminal investigations done by the FBI. Plus, Ken asks Asha about the counterintelligence side of the Mueller investigation, and what her advice would be if a federal agent comes knocking.

The New York Times reports federal prosecutors are nearing a decision about whether to prosecute Andrew McCabe, the former deputy director of the FBI. McCabe was fired last year (on the day he was set to retire) based on an inspector general report that found he repeatedly lacked candor in interviews with investigators looking into a leak to the Wall Street Journal. According to the IG, the leak essentially confirmed the existence of an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation just weeks before the election, and generally, the FBI does not comment on ongoing investigations. The IG report said McCabe authorized the leak but mislead several people about it, including then-FBI director James Comey. Now McCabe could be indicted for lying to federal investigators.

Does it seem like prosecutors have a good case against McCabe? What about vindictive prosecution, given that President Trump has been openly out to get him? And what about McCabe’s civil suit against the FBI for wrongful termination?

Plus: Why are Democrats fighting about seeking President Trump’s tax returns? And if it seems like President Trump has a lot fewer legal problems than a year ago, should we believe that’s the case?

Fallout continues this week from Jeffrey Epstein’s death, which has now been officially ruled a suicide. Where’s his longtime confidante, Ghislaine Maxwell, who’s widely suspected of participating in a conspiracy to sex traffic girls for him? She’s been missing or at least she hasn’t been in public. Those photos of her at an In-N-Out Burger in the Valley? They appear to be fake. Josh and Ken talk about those dupes and if they were likely to have misled the Feds. Should we assume the government is looking for her in the first place? And, despite Epstein’s death, would a case against Maxwell be harder to prosecute than people think? What about the will he signed two days before he died?

Plus: accountability in the Epstein saga, an IRS analyst pleads guilty to leaking financial records to Michael Avenatti, and long suffering federal judges and what happens when they get angry and hit ‘reply all.’

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center on Saturday, as he awaited trial. What happens next in the investigation? Attorney General Bill Barr said the Department of Justice would still come after his co-conspirators. What happens to his estate and his assets?

Plus: your questions about emoluments and if anyone has standing to sue President Trump for an emoluments clause violation, the latest in former White House Counsel Greg Craig’s trial, Peter Strzok and Andrew McCabe are suing over their firings, it looks like Jacob Wohl did a bad thing, and Michael Avenatti and Ken White exchanged some words this weekend.

The House still isn’t moving to impeach the president, but House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler said *if* his committee *were* to proceed in that direction, articles of impeachment could pass his committee in the late fall. Nadler cited key court decisions about the committee’s efforts to obtain evidence and witnesses coming in October or November. But: is there a need for more fact-finding?

Ken and Josh take some questions from listeners on impeachment and the new California state law requiring candidates to release their tax returns to get on the ballot.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson’s in a tough spot with Roger Stone. The judge ordered Stone off all social media a few weeks ago, and now he’s suing, saying it’s a violation of his First Amendment rights. Does he have a good argument? On the other side, the lawyers for the government have asked Judge Jackson if they can show a clip of The Godfather Part II to make a point to the jury.

Plus: Judge Emmett Sullivan and the emoluments case, and is Michael Avenatti a good presidential candidate?

This week, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by the Democratic National Committee, which had alleged that the Russian Federation engaged in a RICO conspiracy with Donald Trump, the Trump campaign, Paul Manafort, Julian Assange, Roger Stone and others. RICO, of course, is the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (as you ATPL listeners already know). It’s a law designed to allow prosecutions and lawsuits aimed at the mafia and others who operate criminal enterprises.

Of course, there really was a Russian government-backed hack of DNC email servers and the information obtained in the hack really was released in an effort to benefit the Trump campaign. So why didn’t this lawsuit work?

Plus: California Governor Gavin Newsom signs into law a requirement candidates release their tax returns to get on the ballot. Let the legal arguments begin. President Trump continues to preemptively fight Congress seeking his tax returns under a New York state law. Jerry Nadler has a weird press conference about seeking grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation. Is this the beginning of an impeachment inquiry? And, is Larry Klayman a good lawyer?

At long last, members of the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees got to question special counsel Robert Mueller about his investigation of President Trump and Russian interference in the 2016 election. Special guest former prosecutor Renato Mariott spoke with host Josh Barro about whether the little that Mueller said was noteworthy. Mariotti says Mueller was trying to be very careful with his words because he did not want to say something that could become a soundbite. One thing Mueller did talk about was why he did not subpoena President Trump during the investigation. And in spite of the statute of limitations on certain crimes, Mueller did leave the door open for a possible indictment once Trump leaves office.