Serious Trouble

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week: James Comey has been charged with federal crimes again, sort of. This is one of several cases in which the Trump DOJ is even sloppier than it has been, in an apparent rush to get charges out before the midterm elections, for some reason. Also this week: we cover weird shenanigans in a false statements...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week, we got our hands on the actual lawsuit Eric Deters has filed against Kimberly Guilfoyle and her attorneys, which is amateurish in certain ways, but Ken says the core defamation claims sound plausible enough to have legs. This week, we discuss that case, plus the investigation of Ilhan Omar and developm...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Remember Katie Zacharia? She was White House press secretary for a few days last week and was fired while we were recording this episode. One of her big offenses was claiming to be a lawyer, despite never passing the bar. But what is a lawyer anyway? Is a lawyer different from an attorney? Also this week: the rai...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show President Trump said he’d stop using taxpayer money to air what certainly look like campaign ads, but then he kept doing it, so now, the Democratic National Committee is suing. Also this week: a Minnesota teenager arranged to buy an assault rifle to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on the Mall of America — of co...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show A former Cornell University student has filed a Jane Doe lawsuit accusing seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of sexual misconduct, including rape, in an incident that occurred in October 2024. We discuss this case, and the actions and conclusions of the local district attorney, who Governor Kathy Hochul has...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Donald Trump tried to ban CNN, MSNOW and Politico from the White House and, as Trump himself predicted, he was almost immediately ordered by a federal court to let those outlets back in. The judge was unimpressed with the government’s claims that the outlets were ejected on national security grounds, partly becau...

Remember Joseph DiGenova? He was a Trump defender from the first administration brought back to help with the investigation into the investigators that DOJ is running down in south Florida. Well, he’s gone again . He seems to have had some disputes with the Attorney General about the conduct of that investigation — “if you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem,” h...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week: the Lindsay Clancy murder trial jury hung 11-1, ending in a mistrial. We discuss how judges press juries to agree, and why they maybe shouldn’t. And the Tate brothers — one of whom has possessed a fake Mexican passport in the name of “Vladimir Scorpius” — unsurprisingly failed to convince a judge to gi...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Most federal prosecutors win almost all the time, in part because they are careful about the cases they bring and in part because they’re good at their jobs. Lately, Jeanine Pirro’s US Attorney’s office in Washington D.C. has only been winning about half the time . This week, we discuss what’s likely driving the...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Like some of the big law firms, Disney hoped to buy peace with the Trump administration through a bogus settlement. It didn’t work. Disney is now suing the FCC, saying the commission’s move to review its broadcast licenses early is unconstitutional retaliation for its speech — namely, ABC broadcasts the president...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show The Tate brothers want bail pending their extradition proceedings to the United Kingdom, which is a long shot, not just because their social media is full of statements about how they are flight risks. “You can’t ban me from driving, I have nine drivers licenses. You can’t freeze my passport, I have four.” Also t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week: Jeanine Pirro would like everyone to know this embarrassing turn in the reflecting pool case is all Interior Secretary Doug Burgum’s fault. We talk about her remarkable and remarkably detailed filing seeking to dismiss charges against David Hearn related to the pool, plus Anthony Fauci refusing to test...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week: Did you miss James Comey? Well, he’s back: he’s filed a flurry of motions attacking his prosecution for seashell-related offenses. We talk through all of them, plus motions from Olympian James Hearn, who also wants to look into possible grand-jury shenanigans leading up to his indictment for damaging t...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show What a reversal of fortune for Andrew and Tristan Tate! One minute you’re the toast of (certain quarters of) MAGA; the next minute federal agents are arresting you, intending to extradite you to face rape charges in the UK. This week, we talk about how extradition works, and while Trump could intervene at any tim...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week: Judge Kathleen Williams’ eviscerates President Trump’s attorneys for their sham lawsuit that was ultimately used as a pretext to create the “weaponization fund” settlement. Her order is bracing. But what are its practical effects? Is the settlement actually void, including the part that was supposed to...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Humphrey’s Executor , which has been obviously dead for some time, is now officially overturned . Except! The Federal Reserve is special and unique and in a historical tradition. Also this week: John Bolton has pleaded guilty to mishandling national defense information and might even get jail time. In Florida, fe...

David Lat joins Josh Barro for a conversation about the state of the legal industry under Donald Trump — how Big Law and the legal industry are faring after those executive orders and settlements — and they talk about how AI is changing the work of law firms, from staffing to billing rates. Plus: a look at the unusual breakdown in Thursday’s Supreme Court decision in the Monsanto case. We hope you...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show The U.S. Attorney’s office in Chicago has dismissed another high-profile case — this one a COVID fraud case — that had been led by AUSA Sheri Mecklenburg. We discuss that and more developments in the Broadview Six case. Meanwhile, in Minnesota, federal prosecutors have obtained a conspiracy indictment against sel...

This week: the grand jury transcripts from the Broadview Six case show an array of embarrassing misconduct by AUSAs from the office of the US Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. As Ken describes, these are things that AUSAs are very clearly taught not to do. And yet. Also this week: a couple of new flavors of AI hallucination trouble in the courts; Donald Trump’s legal team that’s suin...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week’s Serious Trouble comes to you live from a perch overlooking the soon-to-be-built Trump National Championship Golf Links at East Potomac Park by Donald J. Trump. Or, maybe — as I looked over the federally administered national parkland along the Potomac River, I was looking at a suite of projects where...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show The ‘Broadview Six’ case was one of the Trump administration’s prominent prosecutions of anti-ICE protesters. Federal prosecutors in Chicago brought felony charges to fanfare, then curiously dropped them, keeping only misdemeanor counts. Now we know why: they engaged in egregious misconduct to obtain the felony i...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Donald Trump has announced a new $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization fund” to be doled out as he sees fit to “victims” of the “weaponization” of the Justice Department. It's financed from the Judgment Fund, a strange legal creature — it’s a permanent, unlimited appropriation the federal government can use to pay j...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show The lurid JP Morgan sex case has gotten more interesting: apparently, the bank offered a $1 million settlement to the banker who wanted an eight-figure settlement related to the lurid sex-harassment allegations he has made against a senior colleague. Something is weird here. Also this week: The Justice Department...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show There's a lot of stupid litigation to cover this week, starting with the lawsuit so many of you asked us about. An ex-banker who has made salacious allegations against a former JP Morgan colleague , but how credible are they? And what can you do if you are a bank or a banker and someone makes preposterous allegat...

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week Ken and Josh discuss the James Comey indictment, this time, purportedly for threatening the president with seashells . They also discuss the criminal complaint against would-be assassin Cole Tomas Allen and Maurene Comey’s lawsuit over her firing for being James Comey’s daughter . That’s this week’s fre...