Former President Trump was acquitted over the weekend in his second impeachment trial. A record seven members of his own party voted to convict him but that wasn’t enough to bar Trump from seeking future office. How strong was the defense his lawyers presented? The end of the impeachment trial doesn’t signal the end of legal exposure for Trump either. The newly elected district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, talked to the New York Times about investigating Trump’s efforts to interfere with the state’s vote count, and there are two civil lawsuits against Trump and others stemming from the riot. Josh Barro and Ken White discuss those, what Mitch McConnell had to say about Trump and the justice system after the end of impeachment, the possibility of state RICO charges, the “turducken of legal incompetence” and more.

Josh Barro and Ken White talk about President Trump’s lawyers’ first day of impeachment arguments, and more on the legal cases of those arrested during the riot. President Biden seeking the resignation of all Trump-appointed US Attorneys (except one), and his Department of Justice drops its suit against a former aide to Melania Trump. Plus: Palm Beach seems pretty okay with Trump living at Mar-a-Lago now, why Smartmatic’s defamation suit is looking pretty good, and more.

Last week, Josh Barro and Ken White talked about the very normal legal team defending President Trump in his impeachment trial. Well, one week later, the entire team is gone and a new set of lawyers has come in. So, who are they? Are they good lawyers?

Ken and Josh analyze the arguments in the briefs from the House impeachment managers and the response from Trump’s lawyers. Then: the New York Times reported on how much money President Trump spent on legal efforts to contest the election, and it looks like he took the PR strategy more seriously than the legal strategy. It seems to havee worked as a fundraising strategy too.

Plus: Kevin Clinesmith’s sentence, the Lincoln Project isn’t happy with Rudy Giuliani, Lin Wood’s in trouble in Georgia, listeners have follow-up questions for Ken on the capacity concerns of prosecuting all the Capitol rioters, and more.

One week since he took office, President Biden’s got a legal problem. Josh Barro and Ken White talk about the Texas judge who ordered a temporary stop to Biden’s executive order for a 100-day moratorium on deportations. It’s pretty similar to legal issues the Trump administration had with executive orders.

Ken and Josh talk about Jeffrey Clark, the top official at the Department of Justice who allegedly tried to hatch a plan to get President Trump to fire the acting attorney general and advance claims of election fraud. It didn’t work, and now there’s an investigation. The Washington Post reported there’s an internal debate at the Department of Justice about whether to charge every person who participated in the insurrection at the Capitol or focus on the organizers or those who may have committed other crimes once inside the Capitol. Ken White says it’s a very tall order to do so, and he explains why.

Plus: President Trump hires Butch Bowers to represent him in his upcoming impeachment trial, Dominion Voting Systems sues Rudy Giuliani for defamation, the Department of Justice made a pre-inauguration appeal to stand in for President Trump in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation suit against him, and more.

As President Trump was about to walk out of the White House for the last time, he made some final pardons. Ken White and Josh Barro talk about who got one in the final days of the Trump presidency, who didn’t (the Capitol rioters, Donald Trump Jr. and the other Trump children, Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump himself), and whether that was bad legal advice. Would it have been wise for President Trump to give the self-pardon a shot? How many people, pardoned or not, are at risk for prosecution by state officials?

Plus: who will represent Donald Trump in his upcoming impeachment trial, and is it really a thing that Rudy Giuliani can’t represent him for ethics reasons? Ken and Josh also talk about whether “but President Trump told me to do it” is a good defense, Mike Lindell, and the new name of this podcast.

One week after a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol, interrupting the congressional proceeding that affirmed Joe Biden’s defeat of President Trump, officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice have made some arrests and have promised more are on the way. What are the charges we know about right now, and what do they mean? Are there other possible charges? And is President Trump in legal trouble for his words and conduct in support of the insurrection? Josh Barro and Ken White talk about possible legal problems President Trump could face, and the political consequence: impeachment. As we recorded this episode, the House was moving closer to a vote on one article of impeachment (that has since passed). What are the other political remedies for President Trump besides impeachment? Can a twice-impeached president still exercise his pardon power, have Secret Service protection, and run for office again?

On Saturday, President Trump called Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and urged him to revise Georgia’s presidential election result so he would be the winner. He told Raffensperger he only needed to find about 12,000 votes. The call went on for an hour with President Trump reciting conspiracy theories while Raffensperger and his lawyer Ryan Germany explained with remarkable patience that the problem with the president’s arguments is that they are wrong and made up. Did the president commit a crime during this call? Is it illegal to ask an election official to rig the election for you? Who else was on the call, and might they be in legal trouble too?

Josh Barro and Ken White catch up on President Trump’s pre-Christmas pardons and more.

The Trump administration has been a remarkable time for lawyers. Often, not remarkable in a good way.

Ken and Josh talk about a completely nuts meeting at the White House on Friday night in which Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani and Michael Flynn were urging President Trump to do some crazy things, and other advisers were urging the president not to do those crazy things. Wait, didn’t they say Sidney Powell was “practicing law on her own”? And what’s this about her being a special counsel?

Sidney Powell has been out there alleging a wide ranging conspiracy to steal the election involving two companies that make election equipment and software. The companies are competitors but Powell has alleged they are part of a conspiracy to rig elections set in motion by the late Hugo Chavez, and now both of these companies are pushing back. 

Josh Barro interviews Tom Clare, who is representing Dominion Voting Systems, which sent a letter to Powell demanding she retract her statements about Dominion and preserve documents related to her communications in the event Dominion sues her for defamation.

Then, Ken and Josh take listener questions on so many topics: the president’s pardon power, how the Trump campaign war chest is being spent, whether cities can sue the campaign for unpaid security bills for those Trump rallies, the grounds on which President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago neighbors are battling his return to Florida, how much Secret Service protection the Trump family can expect after he leaves office, whether there will be Rule 11 sanctions for bad lawyering, and a lot more.

All The President’s Lawyers will return in January. Thank you so much for listening to the show in 2020.

Attorney General Bill Barr is leaving the administration a few days before Christmas. Is he being fired for doing the job he was supposed to do? And who is Jeffrey Rosen, who will serve as acting attorney general after Barr leaves?

Hunter Biden has been under investigation by the US Attorney’s office in Delaware since 2018. It started as a money laundering investigation and in the course of that investigation, they developed questions about whether Hunter Biden was paying the taxes he was supposed to. Bill Barr knew about the investigation, yet it wasn’t made public until after the election (much to President Trump’s annoyance). It didn’t leak and Ken says that probably indicates it isn’t a politically motivated investigation. There are some other reasons why this didn’t leak. Anyways: how worried should Hunter Biden be? And would it be a good idea to have a special counsel appointed for this investigation?

The Supreme Court has now repeatedly rejected challenges of the election result from President Trump and his allies. What does the court’s rejection mean and how should we interpret the stances of Justices Alito and Thomas? And should President Trump be surprised? (No.) Ken and Josh also talk about the decision from the Wisconsin Supreme Court and what happens when you wait too long to sue.

We’ve reached the stage in the legal efforts by President Trump’s allies to contest the election results where the Supreme Court could opt to get involved, but they’re not getting involved.

Congressman Mike Kelly sought an injunction from the Supreme Court to block Pennsylvania’s certification of its election results. Despite President Trump tweeting a photo of Amy Coney Barrett with lasers coming out of her eyes, the court declined to hear it, and none of the justices went on the record objecting to that decision. Ken White and Josh Barro talk through why this wasn’t a surprise, the reasons why the court probably won’t take up any of the other cases including the case from the Texas attorney general, and why this is really different from when the Supreme Court heard the election challenge in 2000. 

Plus: Judge Emmet Sullivan has finally dismissed the Michael Flynn case, now that Flynn has accepted a pardon from President Trump, but Judge Sullivan had a lot to say about the pardon and many related issues on the record. Why did he do this? Other people had opinions about Flynn’s pardon too. Ken and Josh talk through a few of those, and it sounds like more pardons are coming. If you’re offered a pardon by a president but you’re pretty sure you haven’t broken any federal laws, should you accept it anyway?