Serious Trouble

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