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Donald Trump may be in serious trouble, but Michael Cohen’s testimony isn’t the reason. On this week’s episode, Ken and I talk about the thud with which Cohen’s testimony landed at the civil trial over alleged fraud at various Trump businesses. Judge Arthur Engoron called a little impromptu hearing in which Trump took the witness stand, testifying about who exactly he was referring to when he told reporters a person sitting “alongside” the judge was even more partisan than him. In DC, Judge Tanya Chutkan has un-stayed her broader gag order, so Trump is again permitted from “targeting” court staff, the prosecution team, and likely potential witnesses.

Plus: in Colorado, there’s a trial to decide whether Trump can even be on the state’s presidential ballot, or whether part of the 14th Amendment bars him from serving as president again on the grounds that he participated in an insurrection or rebellion in violation of his oath of office. And: an update on Sam Bankman-Fried, who has testified in his defense — we talk about how that went. Finally, from Long Island, an update on George Santos.

Paid subscribers get this whole episode. Free subscribers get just the conversations about the proceedings before judges Engoron and Chutkan — so if you’re a free subscriber and you want to hear the full episode, sign up at serioustrouble.show.

It’s been a heated week at Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial in New York. Judge Arthur Engoron was enraged at Trump’s failure to fully comply with an order to take down a web post attacking his law clerk and he imposed a $5,000 sanction. Trump attorney Christopher Kise also drew the judge’s ire for his rude and dismissive comments to that same law clerk and to one of the attorneys from the New York Attorney General’s office. Not great.

Plus: we're up to four guilty pleas in DA Fani Willis' RICO prosecution, Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a written version of the gag order she’d already announced in court, but then issued a stay pending appeal. That stay means Trump remains free to run his mouth as he likes (except about Arthur Engoron’s court staff) and he has been. In New Mexico, prosecutors plan to take Alec Baldwin’s manslaughter charge to a grand jury again — we discuss what could be going on here. And Ken and I talked some about whether it might be a good idea to put Sam Bankman-Fried on the stand to defend himself, and after recording, we learned his defense team intends to do just that.

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When it rains, it pours: Donald Trump is now subject to not one but two gag orders, and the new one is more expansive than the first. Judge Tanya Chutkan's order isn’t as broad as the government requested — Trump is still free to criticize Judge Chutkan herself, as well as the US government and the Justice Department, though not the individual prosecuting attorneys — but it’s broad enough to be constitutionally questionable. Trump will appeal the gag order — and Ken is pleased that this case will present an opportunity to develop law in this area, since it’s currently unclear what the Constitution demands when balancing defendants’ speech rights and the courts’ needs. Of course, there’s also the open question of what Judge Chutkan will actually do if and when Trump violates her order.

Also on this episode: two superseding indictments for members of Congress — Senator Bob Menendez and Representative George Santos. We take a look at Sam Bankman-Fried’s ongoing trial and at how being in federal custody might affect your access to Adderall. We talk about DA Fani Willis’s apparent intention to call Alex Jones to testify in the upcoming “cheese and crackers” RICO trial of Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

And we have an update on the case of Prof. Francesca Gino, who sued Harvard (and several of her fellow behavioral scientists) after Harvard suspended her without pay following concerns those scientists raised about data fraud in her papers.

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Donald Trump withdrew his lawsuit against Michael Cohen so he wouldn’t have to sit for a deposition on the holiday, but Columbus Day didn’t stop us from bringing you a new episode of Serious Trouble. This week, we look at Trump’s first gag order: The former president’s gratuitous social media attacks against Judge Arthur Engoron’s law clerk enraged the judge and led him to order Trump (and also the other parties in the New York AG’s civil fraud lawsuit) not to publicly criticize his staff. We also talk about scheduling. Trump has asked Judge Aileen Cannon to delay his criminal trial in the documents case, which is currently set for May. We talk about defamation litigation — Rudy Giuliani is suing Joe Biden for calling him a Russian pawn, a California college student is suing Elon Musk for accusing him of being a fake white nationalist, and a Georgia voter is suing Dinesh D’Souza for calling him a ballot mule. And we look briefly at the Georgia RICO case, where one minor defendant is pleading guilty and cooperating — though it remains to be seen how that will effect the cases DA Fani Willis can present against more prominent defendants.

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The McDonnell line of Supreme Court cases isn't likely to save Bob Menendez; Hunter Biden sues Rudy Giuliani and Robert Costello, who is suing Rudy Giuliani; Judge Tanya Chutkan isn't going anywhere

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Rudy Giuliani's ex-lawyer is suing him for non-payment; Hunter Biden is suing the IRS for airing his dirty laundry; the FTX bankruptcy estate is suing SBF's parents for being morons; Ray Epps, still not a Fed, is pleading guilty; Jack Smith wants a gag order on Donald Trump.

This episode starts in Georgia and with Mark Meadows, who lost harder than we expected in his efforts to keep his RICO trial in federal court. And we discuss the report of the investigative special grand jury, which recommended charges against 39 individuals — way more sweeping than the already-cumbersome 19-person indictment that DA Fani Willis got from the regular grand jury. Plus: a very strange open letter from some criminal defense attorneys to Ken Chesebro, urging him to protect his interests by pleading guilty. A reminder: You shouldn’t take unsolicited legal advice offered over the internet, and you shouldn’t really offer it either — though as Ken notes, this isn’t professional misconduct, it’s just stupid. And speaking of stupid, we talk about Peter Navarro, who walked himself into a federal criminal conviction through a set of actions even the Wall Street Journal editorial page couldn’t defend.

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Here’s what’s on tap in this week’s episode of Serious Trouble.

- The sentences that have been coming down for some of the prime movers behind the January 6 riot at the Capitol

- Fulton County DA Fani Willis says it will take her four months and 150 witnesses to try her big election RICO case — and that each trial will take that long, whether it involves one defendant or all 19. Really?

- Sidney Powell and Ken Chesebro want to be tried separately, but the judge said no. And Trump wants to sever his case from the other 18 defendants.

Plus: an even bigger Georgia RICO case, Trump takes another loss in E. Jean Carroll's other civil case against him, Elon Musk threatens to sue the ADL, and prosecutors say they might soon indict Hunter Biden on gun charges, which seems odd.

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This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show

Rudy Giuliani and Michael Avenatti both used to be good lawyers — or, they at least used to seem to be good lawyers — but those days are long past. This week, Ken and Josh discuss Giuliani and Avenatti — a two-fer — and how Giuliani’s drinking actually poses multiple problems for Donald Trump’s likely legal defenses in Jack Smith’s January 6-related case. We also talk about the trial date that’s been set in that case — March 4 — and the mess that could ensue if Trump tries to skip his own trial, which could result in Chutkan deciding whether it’s worth the drama of having him arrested for violating his bail terms. And we talk about the expanding complications in the prosecution Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has brought against Trump and 18 alleged co-conspirators, all of whom she hopes to try in one single trial. Some of the defendants want to delay the trial, while others want to go to trial quickly.

Free subscribers get our conversations about Georgia and Giuliani. Paid subscribers also get the conversation about the DC case and the March 4 trial date, and Michael Avenatti. Visit serioustrouble.show to become a paying subscriber.

The big action this week was again in Georgia, where 3 of the 19 defendants in Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s RICO case sought to remove their cases to federal court. Removal of criminal cases is unusual — it’s much more common in civil court — so the law on when a federal officer must be tried in federal court is less well developed than you might hope. Ken and Josh talked about the varying strength and creativity of the removal arguments from Jeffrey Clark, Mark Meadows and David Shafer. And we’re still waiting for the removal notice from Trump himself. The whole situation is a bit of a mess — expect Fani Willis to keep moving straight ahead — it could take years to resolve.

In other news, we’ve learned more about the demise of Hunter Biden’s proposed plea agreement, including some signs that Republican political pressure was an important factor in the deal falling apart. And we talked about a remarkable and bold threat from Hunter’s lawyer — that they would seek to put Joe Biden on the stand if Hunter went on trial. Yikes. And we talked about further signs of the financial strain legal troubles are putting on Rudy Giuliani — and about the former president’s limited willingness to help him out with that.

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