OA1114 - “We are now faced, my friends, with the fact that tomorrow is today.” --Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (April 4, 1967)

We begin the second Trump administration exactly where we intend to remain for the next four years: in dissent. 

Today’s Inauguration Day counter-programming features two of the most powerful dissenters in modern American history: Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

We begin with commentary on Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s defiantly inspiring July 1, 2024 dissent as read from the bench in the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and conclude with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s powerful call for a “revolution of values” to end “power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.” 

• Audio of Supreme Court decision announcements for July 1, 2024 (Sotomayor dissent begins as 42:00)

• Full text of Trump v. US (7/1/2024)(including Roberts majority, Coney Barrett concurrence, and Sotomayor and Jackson dissents)

• “Hear Me Roar: What Provokes Supreme Court Justices to Dissent from the Bench?” Timothy R. Johnson et al, Minnesota Law Review (2010)

• Martin Luther King, Jr. “Beyond Vietnam: A Time To Break Silence” (April 4, 1967)

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OA1113 - Special counsel Jack Smith recently resigned and turned final reports in each of Donald Trump’s federal cases to Attorney General Merrick Garland. We examine the enigma of the man and the complexity of his mission before reviewing his final conclusions and charging decisions. How does this compare to the Mueller Report? Why was Trump never charged under the Insurrection Act? And will Aileen Cannon really get away with keeping the second volume on Trump’s illegal retention of classified documents from ever reaching the four (4) people the AG has decided should be allowed to read it?

Finally, Matt drops a rare PSA footnote to explain why sometimes the very best thing that we can do to support our local immigrant communities is nothing at all.

• “Final Report on the Special Counsel's Investigations and Prosecutions: Volume One,” Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith (1/7/25)

• “False reports of immigration sweeps in California spread social media, cause panic “ Mathew Miranda, Sacramento Bee  (1/13/2025)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1112 and T3BE55! 

But who will watch the doozy watchers? We will. We watched Pete Hegseth's confirmation hearing, but our focus might have been a bit different than elsewhere. Here at Doozywatch(tm) HQ our concern wasn't with Hegseth as much, because every single one of us and them already knows he isn't fit to be Secretary of Defense. Our focus, and the focus on today's OA is - how did the Democrats do? We've been quite nervous about to what extent the Democrats will obey in advance. So what did this hearing tell us? Lydia Smith is here and lordy there are tapes! Then, it's Thomas Takes the Bar Exam 55! That means we've got the answer to last week's question, as well as a fresh new one. Heather Varanini is in the house!

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate t3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1111 - The Eastman Dilemma: Lawfare or Justice? 

We're giving everyone half of this Law'd Awful Movies! We watched John Eastman's... documentary? Whatever it is, a strange nonprofit called the Madison Media Fund produced it, and held the premiere at Mar-a-Lago ahead of its, you guessed it, January 6th release date. You'll hear straight from Eastman, Alan Dershowitz, Jeff Clark, and...Lawrence Lessig regarding Eastman's election "theory." Special Guest Lydia joins us to tackle the folks behind the making of this film, and you won't believe the stuff she's uncovered.

• John Eastman’s first “draft” memo (12/24/20)

• John Eastman’s second memo (early 2021)

• The 65 Project’s complaint re: John Eastman to the CA bar (7/28/22)

• Record of John Eastman CA disbarment proceedings (6/12/23)

• CA Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland’s recommendation in John Eastman’s disbarment proceedings (3/27/24)

To be sure you get access to all previous and future bonus content, be sure to sign up at patreon.com/law!

OA1110 - For the first time in US history, an American President (both former and future) is facing criminal sentencing. We review Judge Juan Merchan’s most recent ruling on Donald Trump’s motion to dismiss his conviction for 34 felony counts of falsifying business records and the difficult balance that Merchan has struck in trying to weigh the jury’s verdict and the rule of law itself against the fact that the defendant will be ten days away from regaining the nuclear codes as of the time of his scheduled hearing. 

We also review Aileen Cannon’s recent probably-illegal desperate order to try to stop special counsel Jack Smith’s report on Trump’s many federal crimes from going public before trying to understand why Democrats would even consider signing on an extremely hard-right immigration bill which can only help to fuel  Trump’s mass deportation machine. How will the Laken Riley Act allow undocumented people to get away with nearly any theft offense, and give state AGs broad power over national immigration policy?  Matt then drops a quick footnote on the questionable state of Rudy Giuliani’s physical, mental, and legal health as two different federal judges consider just how contemptuous he has become before we circle back for some late-breaking updates in both of this episode’s Trump stories.

• Docket for Trump v. US (SD FL)

• NY Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling denying Trump’s motion to dismiss and scheduling sentencing for 1/10/25 (1/3/25)

• Trump’s application for a stay of sentencing to the US Supreme Court (1/7/25)

• SCOTUS ruling on Trump’s application for stay of sentencing (1/9/25)

• Full text of the Laken Riley Act, H.R. 29 (introduced 1/5/25)

• Rudy Giuliani’s sworn declaration confirming that he will be attending contempt proceedings in DC federal court (1/9/25)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1109 and T3BE54 - John Eastman is many things: a hack, a liar,  a disgraced law school dean, a failed Wikipedia editor, and a mostly-disbarred, twice-indicted traitor to the Constitution on a desperate PR campaign to distance himself from the violent insurrection of January 6, 2021 which he set in motion with his  patently bad-faith legal advice to the Trump campaign. But did you know that he also isn’t even a person? Our Profiles in Fascism series continues with a have-to-hear-this-to-believe-it reading from the pages of the Claremont Institute’s deranged American Mind. (There’s just too much good stuff here for the regular show, so the last half is for patrons only!) 

Then, Heather is back with the answer to T3BE Q53 and a fresh new question 54!

• “The Unpersoning of John Eastman,” TJ Harker, The American Mind (5/2/24)

• The 65 Project’s complaint re: John Eastman to the CA bar (7/28/22)

• CA Bar Court Judge Yvette Roland’s recommendation in John Eastman’s disbarment proceedings (3/27/24)

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate t3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

OA1108 - A Coup in Search of a Legal Theory

We commemorate the fourth anniversary of the January 6, 2021 insurrection by remembering the two elite lawyers who bear significant personal, moral, and legal responsibility for one of the single worst days in US political history. The bad-faith legal cover Kenneth Chesebro and John Eastman provided for the “Stop the Steal” movement in the months leading up to MAGA’s violent insurrection would ultimately result in nine deaths, hundreds of injuries, and the initiation of more than 1500 federal criminal cases--but Eastman and his MAGA allies are already trying to rewrite that history in front of us. We push back in this special episode, with more to come.

• SS chief Reinhart Heydrich’s official memo authorizing and regulating the  Kristallnacht “demonstrations” targeting the property of German Jews (11/10/1938)

• January 6th House Select Committee’s final report (and supporting evidence)

• Fake elector records submitted to the National Archives (via FOIA by American Oversight)

• Cleta Mitchell email requesting that John Eastman write a memo for a “movement” which needs “Constitutional support” (11/5/20)

• John Eastman’s first “draft” memo (12/24/20)

• John Eastman’s second memo (early 2021)

• Kenneth Cheseboro’s NY disbarment ruling (10/31/24)

• Record of John Eastman CA disbarment proceedings

• Kenneth Cheseboro December 9, 2020 memo

• John Eastman’s speech at January 6, 2021 “Stop the Steal” rally

• Jack Smith’s Motion for Immunity Determination (with complete supporting brief) in Trump v. US outlining all of the many ways that Trump knew there was no fraud in the 2020 election and the entire fake elector scheme

• DC federal indictment of Donald Trump for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election (8/1/2023)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!

OA1107 - Chief Justice John Roberts has used his annual end-of-the-year report to remind us that federal judges should not accept luxury vacations from billionaires, fly insurrectionist flags on any of their properties, or ever be criticized for any reason. Or, you know--at least one of those things. We also answer a patron question about what happens if Republicans can't get their House in order by the time that electoral votes are supposed to be certified on January 6th before getting to today's main story: the very real possibility that TikTok may not live to see the first day of the second Trump administration if the Supreme Court allows current law barring it from doing business in the US to take effect on January 19th. How could the US government shutting down one of our nation's favorite new ways to communicate not constitute a massive First Amendment problem? Why did a majority of Congressional Democrats, the Biden administration and pre-election Donald Trump all agree that TikTok is a threat to national security? And when is Matt going to finally release his signature TikTok dance video? We answer two of these questions before dropping a quick footnote to look back on a stupid Congressperson's idea of a smart person's legal argument in support of overturning a democratic election.

• DC Circuit decision in Tiktok v. Garland (12/6/24)

• “What If Free Speech Means Banning TikTok?,” Alan Rozhenstein, The Atlantic (12/13/24)

• Redacted transcript of U.S. intelligence briefing to House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 7, 2024 filed with DC Circuit

• ACLU amicus brief in Tiktok v. Garland (12/27/24)

• Donald Trump’s amicus brief in Tiktok v. Garland  (12/30/24)

• Protecting Americans From Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (signed into law 4/24/24)

• “2024 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary,” John Roberts (12/30/24)

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

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OA1106 and T3BE53

The Law'd Awful Movies this month was so much fun, I wanted to give everyone the first ~30 minutes of it. After that, it's the usual Thomas Takes the Bar Exam answer to Q52 and the new Q53. If you are one of the lucky patrons who has already heard LAM1006, feel free to skip to 31:04.

If you'd like to play along with T3BE, here's what to do: hop on Bluesky, follow Openargs, find the post that has this episode, and quote it with your answer! Or, go to our Subreddit and look for the appropriate t3BE posting. Or best of all, become a patron at patreon.com/law and play there!

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

... and he might actually be right! Listen in and hear why.

OA1105 - Harvard Law professor and anti-corruption advocate Lawrence Lessig is almost certainly the only person on Earth to have had a personal relationship with both visionary hacker Aaron Swartz and former Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia. We warmly welcome Professor Lessig back to OA to share--among many other things--his experiences with each of these very different people, why he remains optimistic about campaign finance reform going into the second Trump administration, and the originalist argument against Super PACs.

• “Why They Mattered: Aaron Swartz,” Lawrence Lessig, Politico (12/22/2013)

• They Don’t Represent Us: Reclaiming Our Democracy, Lawrence Lessig (2024)

• Republic Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress--and a Plan to Stop It, Lawrence Lessig (2011)

• Support End Super Pacs

Check out the OA Linktree for all the places to go and things to do!

If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!