Jack - Misdemeanor Terrorist

Episode Date: April 27, 2025

Judge Xinis postpones discovery in the Abrego Garcia after the government files a request to delay under seal.A conservative three judge panel for the DC Circuit Court of appeals temporarily blocks Judge Boasberg’s opinion that probable cause exists to hold the government in criminal contempt in the Alien Enemies Act case.The Supreme Court issues a late night order blocking the rendition of hundreds of additional detainees to El Salvador.A Reagan appointed judge lambasts the Department of Justice for not only failing to provide reasoned analysis for shuttering the VOA, but for failing to engage in any analysis at all.Plus listener questions…Questions for the pod? Questions from Listeners Follow AG Substack|MuellershewroteBlueSky|@muellershewroteAndrew McCabe isn’t on social media, but you can buy his book The ThreatThe Threat: How the FBI Protects America in the Age of Terror and TrumpWe would like to know more about our listeners. Please participate in this brief surveyListener Survey and CommentsThis Show is Available Ad-Free And Early For Patreon and Supercast Supporters at the Justice Enforcers level and above:https://dailybeans.supercast.techOrhttps://patreon.com/thedailybeansOr when you subscribe on Apple Podcastshttps://apple.co/3YNpW3P

MSW Media. Judge Sini's two-week discovery in the Abrego Garcia case is put on hold after the government files a request to delay under seal. A conservative three-judge panel for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Judge Boesberg's opinion that probable cause exists to hold the government in criminal contempt in the Alien Enemies Act case. The Supreme Court issues a late night order blocking the rendition of hundreds of additional detainees to El Salvador. And a Reagan appointed judge lambasts the Department of Justice for not only failing to provide reasoned analysis for shuttering the VOA, but for failing to engage in any analysis at all. This is Unjustified.

Hey everybody, it is Sunday, April 27th, 2025. I'm Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe. Hey Andy. It's really pretty amazing how much things can change in a week, right? I mean, it was just a week ago we were discussing Judge Sinis's scathing order granting expedited discovery in the Abrego Garcia case.

We thought that by today we'd be halfway through with that discovery, but it's been paused for reasons that are not clear, but that both the judge and Abrego Garcia's lawyers apparently agreed to. Yeah, that's the kicker, right? Like what could they possibly agree to? Well, given some of the stuff that she had to say in some previous orders, we'll go over that. And last week, we also thought we'd be getting into the contempt proceedings in Judge Boasberg's court for the government defying his orders to turn the planes around that, you around that were on their way to El Salvador. But Trump appealed the unappealable order and drew a conservative three-judge panel that actually granted a temporary administrative stay on his ruling. So that's an interesting peccadillo. We'll talk about that.

Yeah, for sure. But in the meantime, the Supreme Court blocked Trump from renditioning another 200 or so Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act. And the ACLU has added the openly gay makeup artist and stylist, Andres Hernandez Romero, as lead plaintiff in the new class action suit brought before Judge Boasberg in the original Alien Enemies Act case. Yeah. And, you know, when we say the original Alien Enemies Act case, the JGG case, that was vacated, but he left that docket open, right? And we'll talk about that. So that's

what we mean by the original Alien Enemies Act case. This is an amended complaint. And if it sounds confusing, it is. We're going to do our best to break it down for you. Plus, we'll leave you with a fiery bench slap from a Reagan-appointed judge that just tears into Trump's Department of Justice. And as always, we'll close with listener questions. If you have a question for us, there's a link in the show notes you can click on to submit your question. Andy, I have whiplash.

I was all set to dive into the Abrego Garcia pre-contempt discovery bonanza. So let's start there. Yeah, let's do it. Because I mean, I was looking forward to this. Now, last week, we left off with Judge Sinis issuing her two week expedited discovery order that included interrogatories, requests for documents, the production of documents,

and depositions of Trump administrators with knowledge. And she also set all kinds of deadlines. And we went over that order last week. She also anticipated the government might stonewall. So she came up with a process that included the plaintiffs being able to issue a letter to ask for a teleconference if they came to loggerheads with the government on discovery. And she said, if all else fails, that she grants the plaintiff's permission to file for additional sanctions before the two weeks were up. Yeah, the old invitation to file sanctions

is not something you see in every case, but we had it here. So pretty stern orders. The first deadline for the government came up on April 21st That's when the government owed answers to a brego Garcia's lawyers interrogatories Pretty much as soon as the government turned them in the plaintiffs took advantage of the judge's process to inform the court that their answers Were woefully insufficient and they asked for a same-day teleconference

Now this is from the plaintiffs letter to the court on April 21st. We write on behalf of plaintiffs in the above caption matter to respectfully request that the court hold a conference tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. or as soon thereafter as the court is available to address the government's failure to comply with the court's April 15, 2025 order granting expedited discovery requiring

the government to, among other things, produce documents and respond to plaintiffs' interrogatories." That was a really long sentence. And if you can tell, I've got a cold, so my management of the air is not going well here. But in any case, the letter goes on to say, on the eve of the first court order deposition concerning the government's failure to comply with this court's orders, the government responded to plaintiff's discovery requests by producing nothing of substance. Its document production consists entirely of public filings from the dockets, copies of plaintiffs' own discovery requests, and correspondence and two non-substantive cover emails transmitting declarations filed in this

case. Its interrogatory responses are similarly non-responsive. It's like they sent their shopping list. Here's a bunch of stuff you already have. A note about what movies to watch on Netflix this week. Conclave, that's the one you should watch. Shortly thereafter Judge Sini's the one you should watch. Shortly thereafter, Judge Sini's issued an order. No teleconference needed. She just tore into the Department of Justice lawyers. She said, plaintiffs have notified the court of seemingly intractable discovery disputes

that require immediate attention to remain on the expedited discovery schedule. To facilitate the just and expeditious production of discovery, the court rules on the defendant's stated objections included within their answers to interrogatories and responses to RPDs. That's Request for Production of Documents. First, defendants object to certain discovery, that's the Trump administration, objects to certain discovery because they claim the requests are based on the false premise that the United States can or has been ordered to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador. Defendants and their counsel well know that the falsehood lies not in any supposed premise,

but in their continued mischaracterization of the Supreme Court's order. That order made clear that this court, quote, properly required the government to facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador. Word for word. Word for word. I mean, that's amazing. I don't know what to say there. Okay.

The order goes on to say, second, equally specious, defendant's objections on the grounds of privilege are rejected. Defendants invoke in name only a range of protections, attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine, the deliberative process privilege, the state secrets privilege, and an unidentified, quote, governmental privilege,

without providing any supporting information or analysis as defendants and their counsel know the proponent of a privilege must demonstrate the legal and factual basis to invoke the protections that such privilege affords. There's a unique idea actually make proof that you are entitled to the thing that you claim. She goes on to say their boilerplate non-particularized objections are presumptively invalid and reflect a willful refusal to comply with this court's discovery order and governing rules.

Although defendants state now that they are willing to quote meet and confer with counsel about the production of such a log, their repeated refusals to meet and confer about much of anything else undermine the reliability of this assertion. The court thus finds this offer was not made in good faith. And that's really, really important because this, some commentators have been talking about this loss of the court's

not preference, but practice of taking the government at their word. So historically, the courts will always take the government for, you know, in the course of like litigation maneuvers and arguments and things like that, the government has earned a reputation of accuracy and truthfulness, and the courts kind of acknowledge that. That is disappearing with each one of these cases. And I think that's what you see in that last sentence. The court finds this offer was not made in good faith. So they don't even take the government at their word when they say, oh, we'll meet and confer. She's saying, no, you probably won't. Yeah. And that concept is going to be important when we get to the Supreme Court intervention

later in another Alien Enemies Act case, because it seems that the Supreme Court is even losing faith in what the government says, except for Alito. But you know, whatever. He's very loyal. Yeah, but that is a brutal bench lashing, I guess you would call it, from the judge here. To have that said about you and your lawyering in a... Yeah, it's not good.

It's bad. So she goes on, find the defendant's protestations regarding the abbreviated timeline persuasive. For weeks, defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this court's orders. Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions. That ends now. If the defendants want to preserve their privilege claims, they must support them with the required detail. Otherwise, they will

lose the protections they failed to properly invoke." And then she says says you have until tomorrow at 6 p.m. to hand in your analysis of your privilege log basically but to say you know this is kind of an important point if they don't do this properly she will revoke any right to privilege assertions brought by the government. That's right. That's right and just so folks know, the privilege log is basically when you've been asked for a whole bunch of discovery and you claim a privilege, you literally create a list of each thing

that the other side asked you for. And then it's like a spreadsheet kind of, and then you identify what privilege your refusal to produce it is based upon. And then in the next column, what facts there are to support your assertion of that privilege. That allows the court to go through and say like, check, check. Yes, this one fits, this one fits, but this one down here doesn't, or I need more information. It's just like the administrative way of the person asserting privilege specifying exactly

how when and where, and the court arbitrating whether or not it will be granted or or observed. Yeah i mean if john eastman can do it come on yeah right come on i mean you recall if you were listening to the jack podcast there were several privilege logs when they were trying to get. When jack smith was trying to get eastman's emails from university. when Jack Smith was trying to get Eastman's emails from Chapman University. And then they went through all of them and the judge said yes on these, no on these and would grant a bunch and deny a bunch. But anyway, she goes on to say, the defendants object to any discovery request concerning events predating the court's April 4th order as beyond the scope of the expedited discovery. Defendants arbitrarily cramped

reading of this court's order is rejected. That's just like flat out. You lose. Man. Yeah. Like, no, you're arbitrarily cramped reading. Wrong. Try again. Then there are several specifics. And here's one example. Defendants answer to interrogatory number five in which they name exactly two individuals who have been or will be involved in any of the actions responsive to interrogatories one through four or in ordering or authorizing a Brega Garcia's removal to El Salvador, his initial placement in Seacoat or his continued confinement in Seacoat. That reflects a deliberate evasion

of their fundamental discovery obligations. Defendants identify only Robert Cerna and Evan Katz as the universe of individuals responsive to these questions. Given the context of this case, defendants have failed to respond in good faith and their refusal to do so can only be viewed as willful and intentional non-compliance.

Yikes. Yikes. Another example of many, she says, Defendants must answer interrogatory 12. The interrogatory is limited to all efforts the government has taken to facilitate the return of aliens wrongfully removed to El Salvador. The request is particularly relevant and probative to whether defendants are taking any steps in good faith to comply with this court's facilitation order involving the very country to which Abrego Garcia was wrongfully removed.

The court also rejects that this narrow request is, quote, unduly burdensome because defendants have made absolutely no showing as to why it cannot, with a modicum of due diligence, answer the question. And there's this one. As to interrogatory number 14, seeking the complete factual basis for defendant's assertion that Abrego Garcia is a member of MS-13,

defendants relevancy and scope objections are rejected. Defendants cannot invoke the moniker of MS-13 as responsive to the court's previous order and then object to follow up interrogatories seeking a factual basis for the same. Yeah. They might be, have you ever heard like a lawyer on TV saying, no, they opened the door. Yeah. They did.

It can't be a shield and a sword, right? You can't say he's MS-13. And OK, well, how? We don't have to tell you. Because of some governmental privilege that I just made up. Like, it doesn't work that way. It's funny, too, because that cuts right to the heart of this whole thing. There's no process here.

There's no fairness. There's no due process. You can it cuts right to the heart of this whole thing. There's no process here. There's no fairness. There's no due process. You can't say somebody's a member of MS-13 and then not be willing to go into court and prove it. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Now, these examples, Andy, they go on for several pages, but you get the idea. And it was important that we went over some of these in this order and some of the language

that she's using, which is very forceful and like you're rejected. No, you're bad. Right. Wrong. Because we need to get a picture of how angry and exasperated Judge Sinis is because of what happens next in the case, which is pretty confusing. On April 23rd, a few hours before the amended answers and privilege log were due, the government filed a sealed ex parte motion to pause the proceedings for

a week. Now docket watchers were like, Oh my God, unbelievable. After that scathing order about their woefully insufficient discovery and their bad faith, she's never going to go for this, right? Yeah. And I was thinking, wow, that takes some chutzpah. And we were all thinking that because we imagined it was some kind of tired excuse. Like they needed time to contemplate state secret privilege or drew and sign wanted to attend his daughter's friends, cousins, Justin Bieber fan club swearing in ceremony or something. I feel like that's important, but okay. Yeah. True. But remember when she's like, there's no hours and cancel all your vacation and we're getting this done.

You gotta be like, judge, you gotta be a believer. All right. I'm sorry. Be a believer. But then the same day, the judge issued a two sentence order. Cool as a cucumber. The court has reviewed the defendant's motion to stay and the plaintiff's response with the agreement of the parties

The court hereby orders that discovery shall be stayed until April 30th, 2025 at 5 p.m The end that's it That's all yes. So weird right because it can't be a Justin Bieber fan club Request it can't be a we're looking at state secrets privilege. That was all due that day, right? Privilege logs and, and answers to the questions that she said weren't beyond the scope. So it has to be something else that all the parties agreed to. Yeah, the two, the two points here that are like, most important to figuring this out are the fact one that they both agreed, which which is so it had to be something at least appealing to the to the plaintiffs and to that it was filed under seal which means the government did not want the world to know.

Either what they're planning on doing or the position they're taking or something that's really bizarre I have a guess. It's really bizarre. I have a guess. Oh, oh, do tell. I think that they said, give us a week to go down there and release him from Seacoat and deport him to a third country where he's allowed to be deported to. Wow. Interesting. Because remember when they said that, oh, well, if we just brought him back, we're just

going to send him to another country. El Salvador was the only country he couldn't be sent to because of the withholding order in 2019. Because he fled El Salvador because of gang violence. So they were like, you can't send him back to El Salvador. They could send him to anywhere else if they found that he was here undocumented or illegally. That's due process right there. So I'm thinking maybe they said, give us a week and we'll see what we can do. Uh, that would be the only thing if I were the judge or if I were a Brego Garcia as attorneys that I would agree to, but they were really adamant that he should be returned to the United States. Although that's not what the Supreme court order said. Right.

The Supreme court order said you have to facilitate his release from the prison in El Salvador and give him the due process he would have gotten were he never sent there. Yeah, which still makes me kind of, I mean, yeah, do the plaintiffs want him out? Absolutely. They want him out sooner rather than later. And if the government comes in and says, listen, judge, give us another week and this whole thing, we have reason to believe this whole thing is going to be moot by then. But would the plaintiffs actually agree to him getting shipped to a third party country? Don't you think at this point, having fought this hard, they want him to come back here and get the process that he's entitled

to? I don't know. I mean, that's, that's why I know. Yeah. That was my question, right? Like what that doesn't seem. Cause you know, like I said, Supreme court didn't say you have to bring them back to the U S you just have to facilitate his release from El Salvador. Right. And they said, you know, redefine effectuate now judge Cines her order on April 10th after that Supreme court order was to facilitate the release and return. Right. So, I don't know. We'll see. I'm assuming we'll find out and I'm also interested in why they wanted to file an under

seal like you said. Was this something embarrassing? Something that might make them look woke or something? I don't understand. But there's also some late breaking news right now, Andy. This is from the Atlantic. Three days after Abrego Garcia's family filed its lawsuit over his deportation, government attorneys began discussing on how to undo their mistake and bring him back to the United States. In their conversations,

officials went as far as to float the idea of having the U.S. ambassador to El Salvador make a personal appeal to Bukele for Abrego Garcia's return. But then the White House got ahold of it, right? The State Department's legal team wanted more information from DHS about his alleged role in the MS-13 gang as well. They said that the State Department, there was thin evidence that was supplied in response to that question, and it was met with skepticism from State Department lawyers. So early on, behind the scenes,

the Trump administration was like, oh, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, let's bring him back, let's bring him back. I don't think he's a member of MS-13, let's bring him back. And then the White House got ahold of it, doubled down and started their rhetoric. So that's an interesting scoop from the Atlantic. Yeah, very interesting.

And it's, you know, I mean, it, I don't know, it's not encouraging, but it does show you, there are some people looking at this thing, like the initial, what was his name, Riveni, the initial trial attorney, Riveni, who clearly saw it that way. And, you know, who got fired over it. And the evidence about the MS-13 affiliation is actually,

we've talked about this before from a source, the source, I guess, has been identified now as a former law enforcement officer from Maryland, who was, I believe, fired, at least disciplined for some sort of, yeah, some sort of misconduct. And he's the one person who's made this claim against the guy that he was affiliated with a MS-13 clique in Northern New York. Yeah. And the Highestville Police Department actually put out some information that they, what they found for people. One of them was a member of MS-13. They were like doing something and

they picked up all four, but they said in their paperwork that a Brego Garcia was not the member of MS-13. So maybe the Trump administration is like, well, he was standing there next to somebody who was wearing the Chicago Bulls hoodie. And why not put that in your thing? He was associated with, you know, why MS-13 instead of just not answering the interrogatory say he was arrested with a member of MS-13. Yeah. For this, but he was eventually released, you know, the charges were dropped and he was not to be found as a member.

Maybe that's why they don't want to talk about that. But, you know, the Trump administration has never been one to give you the whole story. They cite Marbury v. Madison in order to get absolute immunity. Both have worked. So they only give you the first sentence. So I'm surprised that the Trump administration was like, he was arrested next to he was arrested with an MS 13 gang member. Yeah. But they didn't even say that. They just didn't respond to the interrogatory at all. Anyway,

that story is unfolding and we'll talk more about that probably on next week's show. But next we're going to talk about what happened in Judge Boasberg's court this week, but we have to take a quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. Welcome back. Okay, you'll recall last week as we were recording the show, another story was just starting to unfold. That the Trump administration appeared to be staging another rendition of Venezuelans to El Salvador under the Alien Enemies Act, this time from the Blue Bonnet detention facility outside of Abilene in the Northern District of Texas.

Yes. Yes. And I had thought initially they were busing men from Blue Bonnet to Harlingen in the Southern District, which is where they flew the previous planes out of. Those are the ones that Judge Boesberg ordered to turn around on March 15th. Yes. But as court filings began hitting the docket, it became apparent that the government was actually moving men to Blue Bonnet in the Northern District of Texas, not away from there.

Uh, presumably, uh, though it's not been proven, they were doing that. They were moving the men there because there was not a restraining order in place in that jurisdiction blocking rendition under the Alien Enemies Act where there was in the Southern District. So they started busing people from the Southern District and from other districts like I think Colorado now has a temporary restraining order because you know the Supreme Court's like you can't have it nationwide. It has to be district by district with habeas pet. So there's Southern District of New York, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Southern District of Texas. There's been flights all around

getting people to blue bonded in the Northern District of Texas. And the lawyers were like, we talked about this last week. They were like, we're freaked out. Judge Boasberg, they're going to send these guys to El Salvador. So the plaintiffs filed with Boasberg. They filed with the Northern District of Texas, a temporary restraining order, but that court denied the temporary restraining order because the government said they had no plans to fly anyone out of the district and the court believed them. right? The plaintiffs also filed an emergency administrative stay or a tro with the Fifth Circuit and they also filed with the Supreme Court, file, file, file. So they had it everywhere. They had all their bases covered and they filed with Boasberg too. That's right. So Boasberg held an emergency hearing right after we finished recording

last week's podcast. But, Allison, you and I were wondering exactly how Boasberg would have jurisdiction, I mean, given that the plaintiffs were in northern Texas and he was in DC. And as it turns out, Boasberg had the same concern. And he ultimately had to deny the temporary restraining order. But during the hearing, there were questions about whether the government had any plans to fly anyone to El Salvador over theining order. But during the hearing, there were questions about whether the government had any plans to fly anyone to El Salvador over the Easter weekend, but the government couldn't commit. They even took a 30-minute recess to see if Ensign could get the answer to the question. He came back and said, follow this one now, the government could not commit to not flying

anyone out that weekend. Only the government. Still Boasberg had to deny the TRO because the Supreme Court vacated an identical TRO when it started requiring habeas petitions to be filed in the jurisdiction where the plaintiffs were being detained. So that put all eyes on the Fifth Circuit and the Supreme Court where the plaintiffs, as you said, had also filed for emergency relief. Yeah. And at that point, we're like, well, we're going to bed. Fifth Circuit, Supreme Court, no way. But then-

But? Much to the surprise of many, just before 1 a.m., the Supreme Court aggressively and surprisingly weighed in. Now, Steve Vladeck writes this for the one first substack. Just before 1 a.m. Eastern, late night, very early this morning, the Supreme Court handed down a truly remarkable order in the latest litigation challenging the Trump administration's attempts to use the Alien Enemies Act, the AEA, to summarily remove large numbers of non-citizens to third countries, including El Salvador. So here's the Supreme Court's very brief order that came in the middle of the night.

There is before the court an application on behalf of a putative class of detainees seeking an injunction against their removal under the Alien Enemies Act. The matter is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Upon action by the Fifth Circuit, the Solicitor General, the Trump administration, is invited to file a response to the application before this court as soon as possible. The government is directed not to remove any member of the putative class of detainees from the United States until further order of this court. Wow. Now, Justice Thomas and Justice Alito dissent from the court's order, statement from Alito to follow. So Alito's dissent wasn't included in this order. Yeah, which I gather is customary under these emergency applications. If somebody wants to dissent, they're given a little bit more time to do it. It doesn't necessarily come out.

Well, normally the Supreme Court would wait till he's done. We wouldn't think the Supreme Court would step in here so fast. Yeah, but they couldn't, right? Because literally thinking that the planes were warming up the engines, they had to get this order out. And so they give Alito a little bit of chance. Oh no, I understand. No, I understand.

I'm just saying none of us thought that they would stop these planes from going out. Totally. a little bit of chance. Oh, no. A little chance. I understand. No, I understand. I'm just saying none of us thought that they would stop these plans from going out. Right. Totally. I mean, this one struck us all as very out of the ordinary. And as Steve Vladeck writes, it says a lot without saying very much. He, Vladeck, puts it this way. He says, first, the full court didn't wait for the Fifth Circuit or act through the individual

circuit justice, which would have been Alito. Even in other fast-moving emergency applications, the court has often made a show out of at least appearing to wait for the lower courts to rule before intervening, even if that ruling might not have influenced the outcome. Here, though, the court didn't wait at all. Indeed, the order specifically invites the government to respond once the Fifth Circuit weighed in, acknowledging that the Fifth Circuit hadn't ruled, and indeed that the government hadn't responded to the application in the Supreme Court just yet.

Now, this may seem like a technical point, but it underscores how seriously the court, or at least the majority of it, took the urgency of the matter. Yep, yep. And Professor Vladeck also says, second, the court didn't hide behind any procedural technicalities. One of the real themes of this court's interventions in Trump related emergency applications to date has been using procedural technicalities to justify siding with the federal government. And third, and perhaps most significantly, the court seemed to not be content with relying upon representations

by the government's lawyers. In the hearing before Chief Judge Boasberg, Drew Ensign had specifically stated, on behalf of the government, that no planes would be leaving Friday, albeit with a bit less clarity about Saturday and Sunday. True, the government hasn't formally responded to the Supreme Court, but the justices, or at least their clerks, would have been well

aware of that exchange. Indeed, some of the clerks were likely listening to the hearing as it happened. In a world in which a majority of the justices were willing to take these kinds of representations at face value, there might have been no need to intervene overnight Friday evening. The justices could have taken at least some of Saturday to try to sort things out before handing down their decision. The court appears to be finally getting the message and in turn handing down rulings with none of the wiggle room we saw in the JGG and Abrego Garcia decisions last week. That is a massively significant development unto itself. I agree.

Totally. When he's talking about the wiggle room in JGG in Ibrago Garcia, he's talking about, oh, habeas petitions and you have to give due deference and regard to Trump and his mighty powers of dealing with foreign affairs. And in Ibrago Garcia, it was, well, we go back down to the court and to tell us what effectuate means and, you know, we'll see you again soon. Right. So that's what he's talking about there. Yeah. And it's like we were saying earlier in the show, this is yet another example of not just a court, but the court. Right. At least implying that they don't take the government at their word.

And that is just a, that's a massive shift in kind of American jurisprudence. Yeah, and not a court or the court, but this court. That's right. That's exactly right. Or at least the most of them, not those other two. Yeah, Supreme Court who thinks he's a king, right? For sure. And needs all the due regard and deference in the world when it comes to foreign affairs.

Came in at 1 a.m., didn't wait for Alito, didn't wait for the Fifth Circuit. And there was actually a little bit of a weirdness. They didn't say in their little thing that it was referred to the court by Alito, which is normally the language. So we actually still aren't sure how the full court got ahold of it. Cause Alito could have said no on his own. Yeah. From the fifth circuit, through the fifth circuit. I don't know, maybe it was asleep.

And I just wonder how these things happen. I mean, I guess they actually, I mean, obviously, I don't know how they mechanically discuss something like this and get everyone to vote. Like, is it all remote? Are they all home on a on a Friday night of Easter? We can't they have a signal. Nice. Nice. They hit up Pete. They're like, Yo, Pete, can you get the group together? The small group Supreme Court for a...

That's how the ACA and Dobbs decision leaked, right? It's signal chat. They accidentally put Jeffrey Goldberg on it. Anyway, oh, the jokes. The jokes. Yeah, the jokes. They write themselves. All right. Speaking of jokes that write themselves, we're going to talk about Alito's dissent that we did eventually get, but we have to take another quick break. Stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. So it's pretty amazing that the Supreme Court issued that decision before Alito could write his dissent, right? Like you said, sometimes they

do give them a little more time, but we did get it a couple days later. I guess Martha needed time to pick out her new flag that she was going to put up. But anyhow, we have some highlights or lowlights from Alito's dissent joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. This is again from Vladek's one first. And if you're not subscribed, you really should subscribe. I thought it would be useful to analyze the specific arguments he proffers, some of which are just wrong, some of which are non sequiturs, and some of which are truly galling. That's what the professor, a LaGioria Tell law professor says about Justice Alito.

First, Alito says, it is not clear that the court has jurisdiction. What happened to making a rule for the ages? Anyway, Vladek says, Alito tries to argue that the district court's denial of the ACLU's request for a TRO could not be immediately appealed and therefore the ACLU's appeal wasn't in the court of appeals.

There are at least two independently fatal problems with this assertion. First, a case is in a Court of Appeals for purposes of the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction, even if the Court of Appeals ultimately holds that it doesn't have jurisdiction. That's because the Supreme Court's power to hear an appeal does not turn on whether the Court of Appeals properly has jurisdiction under the separate jurisdictional statutes for those tribunals. So, wrong. Second, and in any event, the Supreme Court just expanded the circumstances in which district court rulings on TROs can be immediately appealed in a pair of rulings in which Justice Alito

was in the majority. Alito never explains why the TROs and the Department of Education and JGG cases were immediately appealable, but the denial of a TRO in those cases was not. So he's like wrong and wrong. So that's the first big thing that Alito just got wrong. Yeah. So next, Alito complains that the ACLU went to the Fifth Circuit just 133 minutes after it sought emergency relief from the district court. And that's simply incorrect. In fact, the district court had more than 14 hours to rule before the ACLU sought relief from the Fifth Circuit. Oops, that would be wrong number two. Alito also got another important point

wrong. He wrote, quote, an attorney representing the government in a different matter, informed the district court in that case during a hearing yesterday evening that no such deportations were then planned to occur either yesterday, April 18 or today, April 20. Professor Vladeck writes, quote, this is perhaps the most troubling point Alito makes in his dissent. He is quite obviously referring to an exchange between the Justice Department lawyer, Drew Ensign, and Chief Judge Boasberg in the emergency hearing Boasberg held Friday afternoon in the JGG case, where the ACLU is also trying to get a new TRO to block the apparently imminent

AEA removals of folks from Texas. According to multiple accounts of folks who were listening, Ensign said he was unaware of any flight schedule for Friday, but that he was specifically instructed to, quote, reserve the right for the government to conduct removals on Saturday, April 19th. In other words, the DOJ lawyer did not say what Alito said he said. Yeah. So, you know, we're talking earlier about the court taking the word of the government. He didn't even have the word of the government, right? Yeah. That was, that's just the infamous, I cannot say that we will not move any people to El

Salvador. Yeah, can't commit. We reserve the right, as a matter of fact, to fly people out on April 19. So just flat out got it wrong. There are several other technical issues with Alito's dissent and you can read all about them in the one first sub stack. Professor Vladeck breaks it down in very easy to understand language. So all right, let's shift gears now.

And let's pick up where we left off on Judge Boasberg's docket. Last week, we reported that Boasberg had ruled that probable cause exists to hold the government in criminal contempt for failing to follow his orders to turn the planes around. Even though the Supreme Court eventually vacated those orders, you still have to

follow them until they're vacated. And the Trump administration did not. Boasberg's opinion was not appealable. And that's according to Steve Lattic, not just me, but Trump appealed them anyhow, and through the luck of the draw, got Katzis and Rao on the appellate panel who did issue a temporary administrative stay of Boesberg's ruling. As of right now we still haven't heard anything further. But the docket on the original Alien Enemies Act case, JGG, is now active again. The ACLU has filed a new suit on behalf of an amended

complaint, I should say, on behalf of those from the original flights that still remain in Seacoat. And they've asked Judge Boesberg to certify a new class with a couple of subclasses. The new lead plaintiffs on the case are Andres Hernandez Romero, the openly gay stylist and makeup artist wrongfully sent to El Salvador, and Fraga Reyes Mota. That's the guy that had no tattoos and whose paperwork included the wrong name among several other administrative errors. So they're the new lead plaintiffs on this amended complaint, right? So they're kind of amending what they originally did that those first orders

that turn the planes around and those T.R.S. were vacated. So that's kind of where we are, because the judge was like, you have until April 16th. On April 8th, he's like, if anybody wants to say anything more, you have until April 16th to do so. And they did. Right. So the ACLU has filed an amended complaint, a motion for preliminary injunction, and a motion to certify the class.

So let's start with the class motion. The petitioners want to modify the class to include all non-citizens who were, are, or will be subject to the March 2025 presidential proclamation entitled, Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Trende Aragua and or its implementation. Now, petitioners also move the court to certify the following subclasses. Subclass one, which they call the CICOT subclass, all non-citizens in custody at the Terrorism Confinement Center, CICOT, in El Salvador, who were, are, or will be subject to the March 2025 presidential proclamation about the Alien Enemies Act.

Subclass two, which is called the criminal custody subclass. This is all non-citizens in criminal custody who were, are, or will be subject to the March, 2025 presidential proclamation entitled Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act. And that's the first two subclasses. Yeah, so that criminal custody subclass, that's anyone, anywhere who could be subject to removal

under the proclamation. And my first thought was, well, Boasberg can't do this for anyone outside of his jurisdiction. But criminal custody makes it different. There's only about 32 people around the country that are in criminal custody makes it different. Right, there's only about 32 people around the country that are in criminal custody that are subject to this removal. So it's not everyone everywhere,

it's just people in criminal custody. So they've narrowed it. Yeah, we'll see. I expect the government will attack it on that ground. So we'll see, who knows, but. Right But it even said, they had some case citations saying that habeas can be heard in another jurisdiction if somebody's in criminal custody. So we'll see. We'll see how it ends up going, what Boasberg says. Now next, let's talk about their amended complaint. This is the beef, right? This is the merits.

This is what everyone's like, when are we going to get to the part where we decide that Trump can't use the alien enemies act in the first place because we're not at war? So this asks the court to rule that the government violated multiple laws by wrongly using the AEA. So everyone, like I said, wants to know when the court will get to the heart of the matter here that the AEA is not applicable because we aren't at war and Trendagro is not working on behalf of the Venezuelan government or the Maduro regime. That's this, right? This is the beef. They also say the government violated in here, they violated the INA, the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring

Act of 1998, the APA, the Administrative Procedures Act. They also say that they violated due process under the Fifth Amendment. They violated habeas corpus. They have punitive detention in violation of the Fifth Amendment, criminal punishment in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, and cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment. Dang, dang, dang. There you go.

That's all of it. So they're asking the court to stop rendition under the AEA, return all the prisoners from Seacoat to the United States, grant writ of habeas for the class, and require the government to give up to 30 days notice to anyone subject to removal, not the 12 hours that the Department of Justice has told the court is a reasonable amount of time. That's right. So then there's the preliminary injunction, which they phrase like this. Plaintiffs hereby move for a preliminary injunction

to prevent further harm to petitioners and to subclasses who are already facing or imminently face grave and irreparable harm from the government's unlawful use of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily expel individuals from the United States unlawful use of the Alien Enemies Act to summarily expel individuals from the United States and imprison them in El Salvador. First, for the CICOT subclass, petitioners move for an order requiring respondents to immediately request and take all reasonable steps to facilitate the return of the subclass to the United States from respondents jailer in El

Salvador. Second, for the criminal custody subclass, petitioners seek an order in joining respondents from removing any subclass member from the United States under the President's proclamation and requiring respondents to provide adequate notice of designation to each subclass member and class council, and a reasonable opportunity to challenge their designation, detention, and removal under the AEA consistent with due process. Yeah, that's interesting. All right. So remember, the preliminary injunction stops things from happening temporarily while the court considers the beef. So generally when you file a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, you file underneath it your complaint, right? The thing that's

going to be decided on the merits. And that beefy complaint about the AEA is the one that we have here about the AEA being unlawful. Preliminary injunctions are appealable to the Supreme Court as are any rulings on the amended complaint. And we'll keep you posted on what Judge Boasberg does in this new case and what happens next in the criminal contempt case, which has stalled because of the brief administrative temporary stay issued by, I believe, the DC Circuit Court, Katz and Rao. There was one, I think, Obama appointee who dissented, but we'll see if they go on bonk with that. It's interesting. But we're all caught up for now, Andy. We're all caught

up on these cases at the moment. So we have a few more brief stories, including some terrifying orders from Pam Bondi, but we do have to take one last quick break. So stick around. We'll be right back. All right, everybody. Welcome back. We have a few quick stories before we get to listener questions today. First, a judge was arrested without the use of a grand jury by the FBI for allegedly obstructing justice and concealing an individual to prevent discovery and arrest. Kash Patel, Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi have bragged about it on True Social and Twitter. But then Kash Patel immediately deleted his tweet, but then I think he reposted it again. But here's something that the Department of Justice has said in an affidavit.

After leaving the chief judge's vestibule and returning to the public hallway, DEA Agent A reported that Flores Ruiz and his attorney were in the public hallway. DEA Agent B also observed Flores Ruiz and his attorney in the hallway near courtroom 615 and noted that Flores Ruiz was looking around the hallway. From different vantage points, both agents observed Flores Ruiz and his counsel walk briskly toward the elevator bank on the south end of the sixth floor. I am familiar with the layout of the sixth floor of the courthouse and know that the south elevators are not the closest elevators to courtroom 615 and therefore it appears that Flores Ruiz

and his counsel elected not to use the closest elevator bank to the courtroom 615. DEA Agent A followed Flores Ruiz and his attorney toward the south elevator bank. At approximately 850 a.m. DEA Agent A alerted other members of the arrest team that DEA Agent A was on the elevator with Flores Ruiz. So if you're asking also why there's DEA agents and FBI agents, that is likely because like 25% of the FBI and DEA have been reassigned and deputized to ICE. Yeah, there's, there's so many, there are so many problems with this thing. Let me ask you, let me ask you about arresting somebody without a grand jury indictment. I watch a lot of court drama on television

and I know like New York state law for example, is if you have pretty good reason to arrest someone like you got a witness statement and a positive ID and a voice ID, you can arrest them, but you have 24 hours to get a true bill from a grand jury after that, after you arrest them. Is it kind of the same thing with federal charges? Like you can charge if you have good enough reason to believe somebody committed these crimes and then you have to get a true bill. I mean, don't you have to get a true bill at some point? Well, you still have to go to a judge,

even if you don't have the person indicted, a true bill is an indictment. If you don't have them indicted first, that's like the traditional way to do it is the prosecutor presents evidence to a grand jury, then the grand jury votes. There's probable cause of a crime was committed. They issue the indictment. You get an arrest warrant based on that indictment.

If it's something that happens quicker, the agents can fill out an affidavit and they can write a complaint. The prosecutors do, and you go straight to a judge, and a judge makes the determination of probable cause. If he finds that there is probable cause, the arrest warrant is issued by the judge, and then you have 10 days to indict the case. So it's not 24 hours, it's a little bit longer. Typically, lots of times,

defendants will waive the indictment and not insist on being indicted, depending on what they've been charged with and all that kind of stuff. So there's different ways to do it and slightly different than the federal system. I don't think like, I think this whole episode here is really, should never have happened and is regretful for a lot of reasons. Pre preliminarily, like people do get arrested in courthouses. It's not unheard of, it doesn't happen every day, but it typically has to take place like in the public area of the courthouse,

like in the hallway outside the court, uh, rooms. And, um, you don't, you typically do it after the person has been in court and had their day in court for whatever proceeding they're there for, whatever. And then also, in order to get into that area as an armed agent, you kind of have to at first make yourself known to the security people on the way in.

You tell them we're here to arrest someone, here's the person, here's where we're gonna do it. So everybody's kind of on the same page. This... It feels like a propaganda stunt. It is, I think, for a lot of reasons. The key to that is how the government reacted after it happened. Whether or not this woman, the Judge Hannah Duggan, I think is her name, committed a crime here, that's for the process to figure out.

The complaint is pretty detailed. They claim to have witnesses who were in the courtroom, heard things that she said, saw her actions and allegedly escorting the lawyer and Ruiz through a juror door into an area that's not public. Whether or not that was an effort to help them evade law enforcement, like that's what the trial will be for to figure out. They didn't have to go through this nut roll. Today, when they came back, it's been about a week

when they got their ducks together and they came to arrest the judge, they waited. They didn't go to her house like you would do for any other defendant, knock on the door, and all that kind of stuff. They didn't treat her like you would treat any other person of respectable stature in the community who's never had any kind of criminal involvement. Typically, you know, white collar offenders do this all the time. Your lawyer gets a phone call and they say, come to the courthouse at X time to be presented.

Trump. Donald Trump got all sorts of- Donald Trump. Yeah, there you go. That we all saw that show happen in three different cities. So they didn't do that with her. They went to the courthouse and arrested her at the courthouse in front of the public and her colleagues, took her back and put her in the cell and made her sit in the cell for hours until her arraignment finally took place. So this was all done as an orchestrated bit of Trump administration performative retaliation so that judges all across the country will see this and say, I don't want that happening to me. And they'll be more compliant.

So in another yet another example of the kind of retaliatory, uh, coercive approach that the Trump administration takes to justice. And now they're on TV, because I was on just an hour or so ago, yelling and screaming about, you don't understand, this guy's a horrible person. He was in court on a domestic violence claim, which is what he was in court on.

He was in misdemeanor court. This judge only hears misdemeanor court. This judge only hears misdemeanors. And I'm not, I'm not minimizing domestic violence in any way, but like, there's a process there too. There's a due process that has to happen in that case as well. Yeah, that guy gets due process too, you know? Yeah. That's the way it's supposed to work. Typically the justice department, they file their complaints, their indictments, and they don't speak about cases while they're still pending. Instead, here you got Pam Bondi out on Fox News all day long, yelling and screaming about

this judge, what a horrible person she is. Well, that's what this does. This feeds the narrative for this administration that the judiciary is corrupt and needs to be taken down a peg, et cetera. So this is in some ways like the best thing that ever happened to them because it gave them an opportunity to just wail away on her and the judiciary writ large and try to look like the white knights of immigration enforcement. But anyway, also today we've got Pam Bondi signing a memo that directs law enforcement

nationwide to pursue suspected gang members into their homes, in some cases without any sort of warrant, according to a copy of the directive exclusively obtained by USA Today. The directive is issued by the Attorney General on March 14th. Oh wow, like over a month ago. Oh yeah. Provides the first public view of the specific implementation of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act invoked to deport migrants accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua. It provides directives to frontline officers apprehending suspected Tren de Aragua members,

suggesting officers obtain a warrant of apprehension and removal, quote, as much as practicable. Yeah, those administrative warrants are signed by immigration officers, not judges like criminal warrants. Due to a quote, dynamic nature of law enforcement procedures, officers are free to apprehend aliens based on their reasonable belief they meet the definitions. The memo states it purports to grant authority for police to enter a suspected quote alien enemies residence if circumstances render it impracticable to first obtain a warrant. Wow. This is frightening. I mean, really frightening and doubly frightening that my former colleagues

are out there doing this with them because this is not something that FBI agents do. Well, it wasn't until now. Wow. Yeah. That is terrifying. That is so anti-constitutional. Yeah. My goodness.

And we know what happens to those people once they're detained. They get shuttled down to places like Blue Bonnet, thrown on a plane or attempted to get thrown on a plane and sent out of the country. So without any sort of due process. So yeah, sometimes not just sent to another country, but sent to a prison where they could go for life. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

For sure. All right. Ed Martin, our good friend Ed Martin issued a statement this week for the arrest of a domestic terrorist accused of vandalizing Tesla's despite the domestic terrorist moniker Andy, the person was charged with a misdemeanor and released on his own cognizance. You are a domestic terrorist, but we all hate Tesla. So, you know, just slap on the wrist. What do you, what can I say? Wow. So I bet this is just them, is just them trying to force their domestic terrorism label onto misdemeanor

vandalism charges for people who are ROR. Just wow. I've never seen domestic terrorist and ROR in the same statement, but he released it. Yeah. I mean, thank you, Ed, once again, sending us more information for the show. And we'd be remiss if we didn't share some of the dressing down that Trump's Department of Justice received this week from Judge Lamberth in the Voice of America case. Now, Judge Lamberth, just like Judge Wilkinson in the Fourth Circuit last week, Lamberth

was also appointed by President Reagan. So no left leaning, what is it? No Marxist slouch. Lunatic, lefty, whatever the heck it is. Radical leftist. Radical leftist, yeah. So Paul Barrett writes for Just Security, as with the two earlier TROs, Judge Lambrith did not delve into the potentially sticky question of whether President Trump violated the First Amendment protections of expression and the press when he shut down the Voice of America and its affiliates. The

judge found the case relatively easy to resolve based on two other main grounds, the constitutional principle of separation of powers and the Administrative Procedures Act. The judge explained that the separation of powers analysis is buttressed by the APA under which courts have the authority to set aside an executive branch action deemed arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law. Mm-hmm. And when shutting down VOA, the administration not only failed to provide reasoned analysis, the judge said, it failed to engage in any analysis at all.

Moreover, the earlier TROs were based on this failure. In response, the administration had the opportunity in written filings and in-person hearings to proffer some kind of reasoning, any kind of reasoning, but government lawyers declined to do so. And Judge Lamberth seemed startled. Quote, in their briefing before this court, he said, the administration's attorneys do not even use the words arbitrary or capricious anywhere, even though the central holding of the TRO was that the defendant's actions were arbitrary and capricious. During a hearing before him, the judge added, the defendants opted not to argue the merits of the arbitrary and capricious challenge despite being given several opportunities

to do so. It's almost as if to say nudge nudge, wink wink, arbitrary and capricious. It reminds me of when Judge Eileen Cannon was like, yeah, you know, it's this kind of equitable jurisdiction for your special master in the documents case, right? If you wanted to give me that, I'd look at it. Now the government made the elementary mistake of relying solely on a claim that Judge Lamberth lacked jurisdiction to hear the case, which he convincingly rejected. It was a rudimentary error by the Department of Justice lawyers. In cases such as this, lawyers are trained

to argue in the alternative, make the jurisdictional argument, but in case that doesn't fly, offer the substantive statutory argument as well. Incredibly, the government did not do so. Andy, we talked about this all the time during the Jack podcast. We called it the even if clauses. Even if you decide, judge, that he is immune. It doesn't apply here because these aren't official acts. In this case, it would be, he's not immune, the end, right? No, you make the even if arguments and the DOJ failed to do so and Lamberth took him to school for it.

You typically make every argument you possibly can. Like if there, so this standard is, is set aside an executive branch action deemed arbitrary, capricious, and abusive discretion or otherwise not in accordance with the law. So typically a lawyer would address each one of those elements and provide some precedent and case law supporting- It's not arbitrary because it's not capricious because it doesn't do this. It's not an abuse of discretion and it's finally, you know, it is in accordance with the law.

But now they're just like, yeah, like I remember the judges going through Ritchie factors, like, well, I'm going to dismiss this on this one thing, but I'm going to go through your Ritchie factors anyway. Each one. I tell you each one why. So they failed. And that's it. Again, we've talked about this now for a few weeks, Andy, that the DOJ, remember there were some Department of Justice lawyers who were running back and forth to courts that were like principal attorneys and the judge is like, what are you doing here? He's like, I don't know, I'm supposed to be in Florida. They're just so short staffed and

there's the brain drain, right, is so significant that they're only left with like handfuls of lawyers and they aren't making the good arguments. Now we haven't seen good arguments from Trump lawyers. I mean, how many times did we take apart, uh, Emil Bovi's, uh, arguments or filings or Todd Blanchett's and now they're senior staff at the department of justice. So it stands to reason, I guess, but, um, the judges aren't, the judges aren't pleased. Yeah, for sure. They shouldn't be. All right. We have some listener questions, and then we'll get out of here.

I know we've kept you for over an hour now. I feel like a professor. I'm sorry I'll dismiss you in just a moment, but we want to get to these listener questions, at least one of them. If you do have a question, there's a link in the show notes you can click on. Submit your question.

We'll see if we can get to it on the air. We do read all of them, and we absolutely were just always just fascinated and riveted by your amazing questions. So again, click on that link in the show notes and send your questions. What do we have this week for questions, Andy? All right, so this one comes to us from Andrea

and Andrea writes in something that I think a lot of people are wondering as we track all of these cases that seem to be bouncing back and forth. She says, cases against the government are going up and down between federal and appeals courts and the Supreme Court. I'm curious about the inner workings of judges chambers. Can judges at, for example, the federal level, consult with their colleagues on the bench

or higher up the food chain before they issue orders? I think that with controversial issues, they'd wanna know their findings are justified and that their colleagues support their decisions. Or is this a judicial no-no? It's a really good question. And I think it's reasonable that people, not just you, Andrew, but lots of people would think that that's probably happening behind the scenes. Now, sometimes, sometimes, like I remember when Judge Eileen Cannon's three of her colleagues called her and said, don't take these cases.

Yeah. So that was the same thing I was going to point to. So generally, you're not going to go outside of your immediate group of colleagues. So that's the judges that serve at the same level as you. So if you're a district court judge, that's the other district court judges and to include the chief judge of your district who is the one judge who's nominally kind of in charge of all the rest of you.

And generally you're not gonna talk about the substance of the legal issues you're ruling on. That what you do, what you might see, and you did see it in that case with Eileen Cannon, you had the chief justice of that district saying to her, hey, you should think about recusing from this. And then she had another judge made the same argument to her.

Those kinds of things, maybe, especially in a case like that, where you had like older senior supervisory judges talking to a very, very new colleague. But generally, experienced judges, they're going to have conversations about the legal issue in the case. It's with their law clerks. Yeah, I was going to say if they're clerks, right? Yeah. Because that's all them, right? That all comes back to them. They're not going

to go to other judges and say, and what do you think? Should I call it this way or should I call it that way? And they definitely won't have those conversations with like judges on the appellate court because it would be kind of improper to like putting that issue in front of an appellate judge before the case is even there. Yeah. I have seen judges in district court write for judges in higher courts or justices on the Supreme Court with them in mind just because they know the rulings that they've made in the past.

Oh yeah. Once you've made your decision. I don't think there's a direct consult going on. I would say I totally agree with everything Andy just said. This is from speaking with a few judges that I've talked to and asked similar questions about. They don't generally go out of their level. They usually stick to talking to their clerks who they bounce law off of and things like

that. But they are very aware of what courts above them, like Judge Chutkin, what the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rulings are, what those specific judges are like, what the kind of language they like to hear. And then of course, the Supreme Court too. We've seen a lot of like Judge Prior and the 11th Circuit will write kind of almost to Clarence Thomas, but only based on stuff that they already know those judicial decisions have been made. So yeah, that's my thought exactly. They very much do not want to get overturned, period. And so they know all of the, they

know the precedent in their circuit, right? They're very, like you say, they're watching those opinions that are coming out of their circuit court on high profile issues. Those are the cases that are most important to them when they're looking for precedent upon which to base their decisions. And if they know like particular judges on the circuit court look for particular pieces of evidence, they'll make sure they highlight that in their decision. That all definitely goes on more so than we think about we think it's all federal law who cares It's all the same, but they're very circuit focused but I don't think a lot of like You know phone calls get made or over the tennis court or signal chat middle of the pickleball game

judge Well great question and you know, I'm gonna go back and talk to some more of my judge and lawyer friends to see if I can get any more information out of them on that subject. But wonderful question. All right. I think that's all we have time for. We've already been an hour and 10 minutes, Andy. So we're going to call it for this week. But again, thank you so much for your questions and click on that link in the show notes if you want to submit yours Maybe maybe it'll be a quiet week and we can get to more listener questions next week

Remember that one like at the end of the jack Era where we did like did all listener questions because we didn't have any jack news lightning round like more questions For questions, so there will come a day We're like, come on, more questions. Yeah. We're digging for questions. So there will come a day. That's right. I don't know if it's going to be this week or this month, but we will need your questions.

So please submit them. We always like to go back to some older questions and check them out when we're running low. So hey, there's always a day in everyone's house where you go digging deep into the closet trying to find that last can of beans, you know? So when we get there, you know, we'll be coursing through the questions for more. Yep. Appreciate you all. Thanks for listening and we'll be back. We'll be back next week. I've been Alison Gill. And I'm Andy McCabe.

Unjustified is written and executive produced by Alison Gill with additional research and analysis by Andrew McCabe. Sound design and editing is by Molly Hockey with art and web design by Joel Reeder at Moxie Design Studios. The theme music for Unjustified is written and performed by Ben Folds, and the show is a proud member of the MSW Media Network, a collection of creator-owned independent podcasts dedicated to news, politics, and justice. For more information, please visit MSWMedia.com.