Law and Chaos

DOCKET ALERTS:   Pam Bondi is GTFO! But the mess she leaves will take a generation to repair.   The Supreme Court paved the way to disappear Steve Bannon's conviction for contempt of Congress.   Trump commands the NCAA to quit being woke. He also has thoughts about the transfer portal.   MAIN SHOW:   Judge Richard Leon! Preliminarily enjoins! Trump's tackyass ballroom! Administration files ridicul...

DOCKET ALERTS:   The House Judiciary Committee wants to change the US Attorney statute to say what Attorney General Bondi claimed it did in court. This would involve the Senate voluntarily surrendering their power to vote on nominees, so … lotsa luck. Back in New Jersey, prosecutors say they'll seek superseding indictments in cases with Alina Habba's name on them, to remove the stink of illegitima...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Anthropic got its injunction against the Department of Defense and Pete Hegseth's designation of the company as a supply chain risk.   Elon Musk lost a shareholder class action suit in California over sh*tposts he made when he was trying to get out of buying Twitter. He demands a new trial because the jury made a 420 joke, and everyone knows that only he is allowed to do that. Mea...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Lots of legal news out of US Agency for Global Media, the parent agency for Voice of America. Judge Royce Lamberth ruled that Kari Lake was never legally appointed CEO of USAGM, and thus her orders shutting the sub-agencies down and firing all the employees were null and void. The government appealed , but in the sloppiest way possible. Now the agency is getting sued again for vio...

DOCKET ALERTS:   The Supreme Court rebuffed the Trump Administration's "emergency" request to revoke temporary protected status for half a million Haitian and Syrian nationals. It granted cert before judgment and set oral argument for April.   The DOJ dropped charges against Jay Carey, a veteran who burned a flag in Lafayette Park to protest Trump's executive order purporting to ban flag-burning....

We've got two deep dives for you today, each with a lot of laughs (and almost no Donald Trump)!   First, we break down the lawsuit brought by seven police officers against rapper Afroman for hurting their feelings, which ended in a total victory for the defense. It's still legal to make fun of cops in America! We dissect the claims, discuss what it means to sue for false light invasion of privacy...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Kash Patel brings UFC to FBI. WTF???   A federal judge in Maryland issued a TRO blocking the construction of an ICE detention facility without first undertaking the legally required environmental impact assessment.   The Trump administration filed an "emergency" petition to the Supreme Court demanding that it be allowed to immediately deport 350,000 Haitians who have enjoyed Tempo...

DOCKET ALERTS:   War Powers Resolution fails in both Houses of Congress.   DHS is ramping up for an immigration surge in Maryland and has purchased an 825,000-square-foot warehouse in Hagerstown. The state is suing to block the facility on environmental grounds. In Baltimore, Judge Julie Rubin joins judges in New York and Los Angeles in holding that ICE is systematically violating the Fifth Amendm...

Law and Chaos wishes a big mazal tov to Kristi Noem on her new, very real job as assistant principal of the Yeehaw American Hegemony Club. And to Lindsey Halligan on catching a Florida Bar investigation .   We'll discuss our recent post on Pam Bondi's very timely announcement that she intends to take over state bar complaints against DOJ employees. It comes at a moment when district court judges a...

DOCKET ALERTS:   The Trump administration is tapping out on the lawsuits defending executive orders attacking law firms. Too bad, so sad for the Vichy law firms that pledged a billion dollars in "conservative pro bono" work. Justice Gorsuch says we can't take guns away from drug users because the Founders were drunk all the time.   The Federal Circuit declines a request by the Trump administration...

DOCKET ALERTS:   The Justice Department is suing New Jersey for not letting ICE use state buildings and parks for immigration enforcement. Because the Tenth Amendment is basically a suggestion?   CBP agents dumped a blind, sick, refugee who spoke no English outside a doughnut shop in Buffalo because they couldn't deport him. Local police are investigating his death.   Defense Secretary Pete Hegset...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Special Counsel Jack Smith's report on the stolen documents case must remain sealed forever in perpetuity.   Kouri Richins goes on trial for murdering her husband in Utah. She's not being charged for writing a terrible children's book about dealing with grief over the loss of a parent … but maybe she should be?    The Fifth Circuit, sitting en banc,...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Florida's Attorney General James Uthmeier is getting paid $50,000 a semester to teach a single class at University of Florida's law school.    The Trump Administration finally obeyed the court order and put the exhibit on enslaved people back at President's House in Philadelphia.   The Supreme Court has decided to eliminate corruption by asking litigants to add their stock ticker...

DOCKET ALERTS:   Trump celebrated President's Day by filing a trademark for Donald J. Trump International Airport — just in time for Florida's move to rename Palm Beach International Airport in his honor. KA-CHING!   In Colorado, a state judge ruled that throwing prisoners in solitary confinement as a penalty for refusing to work violates the state constitution's ban on involuntary servitude. It's...

Docket Alerts:   Exactly zero grand jurors voted to indict the members of Congress who made a video in November reminding active duty service members of their duty to refuse illegal orders. And Judge Richard Leon told Secretary Hegseth to pound "Horsefeathers!" with his attempt to demote Senator Mark Kelly and dock his naval retirement.   The Justice Department hasn't stopped trying to evade senat...

Docket Alerts:   In Jeffrey Epstein news: Ghislaine Maxwell showed up for congressional testimony, but says she's taking the Fifth unless and until she gets a pardon. Bill and Hillary Clinton agreed to testify, averting a vote to refer them to DOJ for contempt of Congress. Paul Weiss managing partner Brad Karp stepped down after his emails to the noted pedophile were published.    Luigi Mangione w...

Andrew flies solo on today's show, which… coincidentally features a bunch of law from the 1980s. Learn how a 1981 advertisement for a soon-to-be defunct video game system shaped the law of copyright into what it is today after Atari sued Magnavox to pull a Pac-Man clone off the shelves.     In the second story, we talk about the death of antitrust law. What once broke up the phone company's monopo...

DOCKET ALERTS:   We bid a fond goodbye to Ed Martin … well, fond-ish.   Liam Ramos, the little boy kidnapped by ICE in Minneapolis along with his father is back home after a judge in Texas granted his habeas petition. Read the scathing order here .   Judge Jia Cobb re-imposed a temporary restraining order barring DHS from excluding legislators from immigrant detention facilities.    Two immigrant...

Docket Alerts:   Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard led a raid on the Fulton County Election Hub and Operating Center in Atlanta. ProPublica got the warrant . Mo Ivory, a Democratic commissioner for Fulton County, breaks it down on Instagram.   In Chicago, Marimar Martinez has moved to unseal evidence from DOJ's failed effort to prosecute her for getting shot by ICE.   Reuters reports...

Hats off to Minnesota! The Twin Cities kicked Greg Bovino's a** so hard he's limping back to California and then retiring altogether. We'll discuss the Trump administration's apparent pivot on the invasion of Minneapolis and the many legal cases pending there.   First up, Minnesota v. Noem , where the state is trying to convince Judge Katherine Menendez to order DHS out of Minneapolis. Their Tenth...

An ICE whistleblower reveals a secret memo where DHS lawyers say agents can arrest people in their homes without a warrant. The Fourth Amendment says otherwise! And the Supreme Court's conservatives were extremely unimpressed with Trump's plan to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook on Truth Social. We'll break down Wednesday's oral argument in detail but first, we've got approximately one mill...

Breaking! The president is bugf*** insane! But first … docket alerts. Dun-dun-DUNNNNN.   We've reached the "yelling at chestnuts for being lazy" stage of the presidency, as Trump barks out ever-nuttier orders.    Meanwhile in Texas, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk managed to moot the appeal of an LGBTQ+ student group at West Texas A&M which sued in 2023 to enjoin their school's ban on drag shows. All he h...

The Trump administration's war on Minnesota continues, and now the president is threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act. Clearly he thinks that is synonymous with declaring THE PURGE. But he's wrong, and we'll tell you why. Plus we've got good news(!) on California redistricting, green energy, and voting rights.   Links:   Tangipa v. Newsom [CA gerrymander] https://storage.courtlistener.com/rec...

Markets are freaked out about the DOJ's threats to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell. And so are we! We've got a deep dive into a court order barring Trump from adding an extra-legal proof of citizenship requirement to voter registration forms and a breakdown of Illinois and Minnesota's respective lawsuits against ICE and CBP. And for subscribers, we'll explain why JD Vance's claim that "Every p...

Congressional Republicans defect to support two Democratic resolutions. It's not exactly a show of spine — maybe a vertebrae — but is it the beginning of something? Yet another US Attorney gets disqualified, this time in New York. Meanwhile Judges in Virginia wonder how it's remotely ethical for Lindsey Halligan to present herself in court filings as a US Attorney. The DOJ is violating the Epstein...