Strict Scrutiny - SCOTUS's Indefensible Delay in Trump's Immunity Case

Episode Date: June 20, 2024

The gang is back together! Ahead of the Strict Scrutiny live show on Saturday in DC, Kate, Melissa and Leah comb through four decisions from the Court. Are these the cases everyone’s waiting for? Not quite, but they do involve repatriation taxes, malicious prosecution, federal rules of evidence, and retaliatory arrests.Read Leah's NYT OpEd: "Something’s Rotten About the Justices Taking So Long on Trump’s Immunity Case" Follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Threads, and Bluesky

Mr. Chief Justice, may it please the court. It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word. She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our legs. Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. We're your hosts. I'm Melissa Murray. I'm Leah Littman. And I'm Kate Shaw. And yes, the band is back together. It's so nice to see your face, Leah.

I know that you guys, you and Melissa did an emergency episode, but the three of us have not been back together, and now we are. This is a bonus episode in which we're going to cover the four opinions that we got today, that's Thursday, as well as one of the opinions that we did not get. And we're going to talk about how we are still without that opinion. And so we're going to cover those opinions to bring you up to speed on the court's doings, but also to clear space for the bigger news in our upcoming live show. And in case you missed it, we are gearing up for a live show at the Howard Theater this Saturday night in Washington, D.C. The show is sold out, but I am told there is a secondary market for tickets if you're

interested. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling 22. I think this is how Taylor feels. I don't know that it's like a Taylor Swift style secondary market. Speaking of a Taylor Swift secondary market, there are degrees of secondary market. Oh, this is a good segue. Get there, Leah. Make your plug. Yeah. Speaking of a Taylor Swift secondary market, because of my accident, I am no longer able

to go to Europe to see the Taylor Swift show, to which I had purchased tickets. So I have these four tickets to the show in Zurich, Switzerland, and I'm desperately in search of four tickets to some U.S. show, ideally Indianapolis. If you happen to have them or would like to trade, everyone knows where to find you. I mean, I think Zurich for Indianapolis is a fair trade. I agree. Zurich for Indianapolis. They're really great seats. They're really great seats.

They're lower bowl. Please, listeners, stricties, as it were, make this happen for Leah. Okay, back to business. This is not an actual emergency episode, but it does give us an occasion to talk about an actual factual emergency at the court. And that is the justices leisurely approach to the Trump immunity case. Like, I know it is summer. I know people are moving slower. But, wow, this is a languid pace. It is.

And, you know, remember back at the oral argument when one Neil Gorsuch told everyone he wanted to write an opinion for the ages? I do. Yeah, those were his words. He's not getting this opinion, Neil. It's not happening. No. But he's still like, it's going to be a banger. We need all the time. We need the time.

We should mention that Leah published yesterday in The New York Times a banger of an op-ed just trying to remind everyone that the Supreme Court is outrageously derelict in the delay in this immunity case. Leah? Wait, wait. Does America need to know if one of its presidential candidates might be taking the oath of office in shackles? Is that necessary? I mean, if one of its presidential candidates can ever face immunity for misdeeds, when one of the presidential candidates is running for office on an explicit platform of revenge against rivals and enemies. Like, are these things America should know before going to the ballot box? Leah, what do you think? And also, will you please, for folks who haven't read the op-ed, remind us of the numbers in terms of this delay?

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, my vote is that America should know this. That seems like a good thing. Spoiler! Wait, wait, wait. You vote for America to know if it is within the scope of presidential duties to get seal team six to assassinate a political that is where my vote would be um i know i know it's shocking um but uh some of the kind of figures or timing that i noted in the piece just to underscore the delay in the trump case relative to others which i think

is one of the more striking things is it's been 113 days now since the court granted cert and decided to hear the case. It's now been 56 days since the argument on April 25th and over six months since Jack Smith first asked the court to take the case back in December. And you compare that to, you know, it took two months from the court's grant to a decision in the Colorado disqualification case that said Trump could appear on the ballot, and one month from the argument to the decision in that case. Or compare it to... Yeah, but Leah, that was a pro-Tomp ruling, so of course it was different. Of course the time. That's apples to oranges. Right. The fact that it's Kate saying this means there's really a world turned upside down. Is Martha Anolito here?

How many Martha Ritas have you had, Kate? You're so cynical. Yeah. None. It's early. But this case is making me lose all faith. It really is. I mean, it's been a lot of time.

I mean, Beyonce could write a whole new album in an entirely new genre in the time it's taken them to get to this. I hope she has been. Polka. Beyonce. Papa. Papa. Maybe the court is been. Polka, Beyonce, Papa, Papa. Maybe the court is releasing a Polka album.

But you talk also right about the Nixon case, which is, of course, another really important comparator. And that case, it's like, what, 54 days from argument? Sorry, from grant. No, from grant to decision. And then 16 days from argument to decision. So literally, it takes them two weeks. And there's so many other comparators, where the court has acted more quickly, again, not necessarily in cases that benefited Trump, but always to kind of benefit Republican interests. So 10 years ago, in Perry versus Perez, you know, when Texas sought permission to use a set of maps that had not gone through the preclearance process under the Voting Rights Act that was required at the time, the court issued the decision less than two weeks after argument in the recent vaccination case, NFIB v. OSHA. There, too, the court issued a decision less than two weeks after argument

to invalidate that policy. So they can do it. Just to give you a timeline, Special Counsel Jack Smith actually asked the court to take this case all the way back in December before the D.C. Circuit had even weighed in here, and the court refused to do so. And that's even though the court has frequently granted cert before judgment that is weighing in even before a circuit court of appeals has issued a final disposition. And they have done that at the end of the Trump administration in order to clear room for the Trump administration to execute federal prisoners before Joe Biden assumed office, since Joe Biden had announced that he was going to pause the federal death penalty. So that was one case where they granted cert before judgment. That was an important deadline for the court. But apparently, there's no similar sense of urgency or exigence when we're

talking about whether a jury will get to decide whether a former president who is now running for reelection is actually guilty of conspiring to obstruct official proceedings and interfere with the civil rights of millions in the course of challenging the results of a validly conducted election. I mean, it's absolutely shocking. Welcome to hell. Seriously. Daryl. So, right.

No opinion today. We will see if we have an opinion tomorrow. The court is going to have, you know, probably a bunch of release days next week because they want to really ruin our June. They do. Like, you know, Melissa, Kate, and Leah have plans. Let's fuck this up. Just like how a standing calendar invite that is the entire week as opposed to like, you know, increments of time.

Maybe that's what we do. But yeah, I mean, the bottom line here is we are going to have to wait at least a little longer and maybe a lot longer for the court to tell us once again whether we, the American people, have any chance of knowing what a jury of his peers makes of the January 6 charges against Donald Trump. But while we wait. Well, I mean, again, I think the bottom line for this is that this is not going to be decided in a court of law. They've effectively immunized Donald Trump by waiting this long, which means that the jury of his peers is actually going to come at the ballot box when we get to weigh in. But without this critical information.

That's because the vibes were off in the January 6th prosecution. So, you know, they just had to put a pause on that. A vibe pause. A vibe pause. Vibe check, vibe pause, et cetera. Vibe pause for freedom. All right, we'll see how long it is. Okay.

All right, well, while we're in the midst of this vibe pause for freedom, we did get a few more opinions. Let's talk about what they did decide. What did they, like, move at a glacial pace? You know how that throws me, but not a glacial pace for some of these bangers. So let's go through them. passed in 2017 as part of Trump's big Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. But the case was really framed as a test case for the future of some potential wealth tax. Wealth taxes hurt your emotional support billionaire, right? They hurt them where it hurts. They do.

Get some right in the pocketbook. They hurt them in the PJs. No room on you for the flight if you have to pay this wealth tax. That's right. So anyway, another fun fact about this case, the case actually foreshadowed some of the gossip that has recently been circulating around the Supreme Court because one of the lawyers involved in the litigation in this case actually moonlights as a journalist. And in his side hustle as a journalist, this particular lawyer, David Rifkin, was the journalist to whom friend of the pod Samuel Alito gave his super defensive, not at all problematic interview with the Wall Street Journal back in July of 2023. So catch that if you can, readers. It's all archived.

It's still a good read, even a year later. And also foreshadowed, I think, some of what we learned in the intervening year. It really kind of did. In some ways, so did Sam Alito's head shaking at the State of the Union address in which Barack Obama complained about Citizens United, criticized the court. Not true. Not true. Not OK. Nobody can touch me. Nobody can criticize me. It's sort of like everything that's happened since. That is the opener for one of the chapters in my book. It is? Yeah. That's wonderful. It's honestly like it's, I think, you know, there's these moments like what is like the pivot point for the Supreme Court is I think there is a thesis that maybe you're offering and I'm really excited to read that

like that's at least an important pivot point that like you cannot criticize me, you cannot touch me. All right, back to this case. Okay, back to more so at the fact that i am exhibiting restraint i know i know this is how this is how off the rails we are already and we have like 20 ish opinions yet to come um i've turned you okay back on track so the more case is about the validity of a mandatory repatriation tax, MRT, which, as Leah said, was part of this 2017 law, created basically a one-time tax that essentially attributed some of the income of American-controlled foreign corporations to the corporation's American shareholders. And some billionaires took that MRT personally. You come for the PJs, you come for me. So much so that the conservative legal movement

orchestrated this entire lawsuit to prevent Congress from imposing this and any future wealth tax. So the facts and theory of the case are as follows. The plaintiffs here, the Moores, purchased shares of a foreign company, and the MRT meant that their tax liability increased by around $15,000. So the Moores filed a lawsuit arguing that the mandatory repatriation tax was not an income tax and therefore violated the Constitution's apportionment clause, which requires taxes to be imposed so that each state's share is proportional to its population. And we should say that the facts might not be quite as simple as framed. That is, it's not just a tax on some poor individual with barely any connection to the foreign corporation.

One of the plaintiffs was reportedly on the board of directors for said corporation, made multiple trips overseas, and lent the company several hundred thousand dollars. So it's not like they had very little connection to the corporation whose income they were being taxed for. They were invested. Yes. Yes. Yes. So these plaintiffs argued that the MRT taxed their personal property, that is their shares in the foreign company,

rather than income from the corporation. And a tax on personal property, they argue, would be a direct tax, not an income tax, and thus would need to be apportioned among the states. And their theory of the case could have blown up a fair amount of the tax code, which often attributes income to one entity, particularly legal entities like corporations, to another. So good news, America, the modern fiscal state lives to see another day. Because in a 7-2 opinion written by Justice Kavanaugh, the court held that the mandatory repatriation tax was a permissible exercise of Congress's taxing power. Indeed, the majority reiterated that Congress has, quote, broad power to lay and collect taxes, end quote. Sorry, billionaires. Or maybe not so sorry, since the opinion repeatedly went out of its way to say they weren't actually deciding whether

there was a realization requirement or what the limits are for when income can be attributed. Right. Because in addition to this direct tax argument, the plaintiffs were arguing that this taxation was on unrealized income or that the income of the corporation could not be attributed to them. And so really broadly construed, this argument could have imperiled all kinds of taxation schemes, both some that already exist and relatively narrow failure, I suppose, in a couple of ways. So one, there's a footnote, footnote two, that really explicitly seems to kind of throw a bone to the PJ crowd. The anxious billionaire. Exactly. So the footnote says, quote, our analysis today does not address the distinct issues that would be raised by, and then among other things, taxes on holdings, wealth or net worth. So here's at least a question for another day, says the majority.

So the case does not blow up some future wealth tax, which I think, you know, a lot of the energy behind the case was hoping that it would do. It also doesn't provide clear assurance that such a tax would definitely be squarely constitutional. But I think this is a good day at the Bohemian Grove. They're all breathing their collective sigh of relief. Like, drinks all around at the Bohemian Grove. Right. Isn't that not every day at the Bohemian Grove? I mean, morning drinks.

No, because they're behind. They're a couple hours behind. But they were having morning drinks, not just afternoon drinks. Probably. I'm sure it was well-received. They would have liked, I think, to have the door decisively slammed. And it's just essentially the court is not deciding any larger issue about a wealth tax or unrealized income. It's like women seeking access to medication abortion.

We'll take this shitty status quo for now. Well, it's not so shitty for the billionaires. Well, it's not what they want. Okay, that's right. It wasn't a free, huge, judicially ordered tax cut of like half of the tax code, which was the ask. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe that is a hard day. Who knows? A mixed bag for the billionaires. A mixed bag for billionaires just means that there are a couple of ones regarding taxes should be resolved with regard to the year 1913, which is the year that the 16th Amendment authorizing income taxes was ratified. So that's the originalist time one for taxation.

Okay. So now we know. Thank you. Justice Jackson filed a concurrence in which she emphasized how broad Congress's power, really plenary power, is in the realm of taxation. She also, I think, is anticipating kind of future litigation battles to come. And she is trying to stake out this ground in which she says Congress has enormously broad authority to tax. Tax policy is going to be controversial and unpopular. Let's not become the place that tax policy gets hashed out, right? The courts are not the right venue. Will she be heated? Who knows? But that seems like what she's trying to do. Well, I think this is doing more than just

simply acknowledging the breadth of the tax power. But given that so many other heads of congressional power are being shut down, I think this is like a displacement theory to open up other windows for Congress as these more traditional lenses get closed. Anyway, she's not the only concurrence, though. It was the best concurrence, I have to say, but not the only one. Justice Barrett also filed a concurrence joined by Justice Alito, which says everything about the Barrett concurrence. It's good to know these two are finally getting along, right? But there's amity. Well, anyway. I kind of doubt it.

Well, he's with her on this, at least. That's true. Okay. So in this concurrence, Justice Barrett emphasized the narrowness of the court's holding and noted that the question of whether Congress can attribute the income of closely held corporations to their shareholders is, in fact, a difficult question, and unfortunately, one that was barely addressed in the course of this litigation. And in her view, the court was too quick, in this majority opinion, to bless the attribution of corporate income to shareholders. So that's an invitation, I think, to take this up in another venue in a different case.

Yeah, it's like a pretty dissentee concurrence. And there's also a separate dissent from Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch. Because he would go further. Right. And the crux really is like, you know, the sort of question of shareholder realization. And so I, you know, even though this looks like, oh, this is a seven to repudiation of this audacious theory, there's actually sympathy for some. Sympathy for the devil. Sympathy for the devil. Definitely. Again, not necessarily a horrible day at the Bohemian Grove. I think some of those justices preserved those PJ invites. I did want to note one thing about the court's disposition of this case,

which is it basically did what it could do in the immunity case, namely decide they don't actually have to decide the exact scope of the federal power being claimed. So the challengers in this case had argued taxes were only income taxes if there was some income realization that the tax taxed. And the court basically said, we don't have to decide that because here there was realization to the corporation. And Congress reasonably attributed that to the shareholders. And they could do something similar in the immunity case and say they don't have to decide the limits of presidential immunity because the January 6th case just doesn't fall under it. As Tatiana says, choices. And they could make good ones, but we don't expect them to.

More likely, bad decisions. Yeah. Bad choices, bad decisions, all of it. Next case we're going to cover is Chiaverini versus City of Napoleon, which is a case about whether and when you can sue for a malicious prosecution claim. Malicious prosecution is basically when the government charges you with a crime as punishment for, say, exercising your right to free speech, right? It retaliates with the prosecution. The twist in this case is that the plaintiff here was actually charged with multiple crimes. And while there was probable cause to charge a plaintiff with at least some of those multiple crimes, for at least one of those crimes, there was no probable cause. So hence the plaintiff's claim of malicious prosecution. And traditionally, to make out a malicious prosecution claim, you have to show the absence of probable cause.

That is, that there wasn't a reasonable belief you committed the offense you've been charged with. And the question here was basically whether overcharging defeats a malicious prosecution claim, that is whether the existence of probable cause for some crimes with which you've been charged means you also can't sue for malicious prosecution for the one crime for which there wasn't probable cause to charge you. And in a 6-3 opinion by Justice Kagan, SCOTUS held that the existence of probable cause for one of the charges doesn't bar you from suing for another charge for which there wasn't probable cause. So authorities can't insulate an unlawful charge by throwing in some other charges that might be supported wasn't probable cause. So authorities can't insulate an unlawful charge by throwing in some other charges that might be supported by a probable cause. Kagan explains that this conclusion follows both from the meaning of the Fourth Amendment and also common law

practice. We said this opinion was a six to three opinion, but notably, famed libertarian Neil Gorsuch dissented along with Justices Thomas and Alito. So, hmm. Yeah, not to continue hmming slash beating the same drum, but did want to note that in this case as well, the court declined to resolve the element of causation. That is, how a plaintiff has to show that the malicious prosecution contributed to their detention on the one charge for which there wasn't probable cause. The court said, quote, but that new dispute that is the one over causation is not now fit for our resolution, end quote. Basically, it passed on the issue because it wasn't properly raised and

wasn't actually kind of teed up. Now, the court might also resolve the immunity case quickly by noting that certain issues in that case are not presented or otherwise not fit for resolution, like, say, whether a president can be charged with a quote mistake as Justice Alito floated or for activities that possibly fall within the scope of the president's official duties, since again, that's not actually presented in the immunity case. Once again, choices. It is important if the court does go big, if it does write for the ages like Gorsuch wants, it will have made the choice to do that. It could very easily say we don't have to decide. There's never, ever immunity under any circumstances. We can simply say, no plausible

claim to immunity exists here. We save for another day. We hope never to have a president like this again. They don't even have to say that. We just save for another day these hard questions. And the problem is, you can't say that if, in fact, you are hoping for a president like that. I don't know. I don't know how many of them are, but some of them. I can think of two. Exactly. The question is how many more than two. All right. In addition to those bangers, the court also issued Diaz versus United States. And this is an important case about the federal rules of evidence. Federal rule of evidence 704b provides that in a criminal

case, an expert witness must not state an opinion about whether the defendant did or did not have a mental state or condition that constitutes an element of the crime charged or of a defense. Those matters are for the trier of fact alone. The question presented in Diaz, though, is whether in a prosecution for drug trafficking, where an element of the offense is whether the defendant knew she was carrying illegal drugs, does Rule 704b permit the government's expert witness to testify that most people crossing the border with drugs know that they are carrying those drugs in part because drug trafficking organizations typically do not entrust large quantities of drugs to unknowing couriers. So in that expert testimony, can the expert testify that, yeah, every drug courier knows this? Or even typically, right? Yeah. And Justice Thomas wrote for another 6-3 court,

finding that this sort of expert testimony is permissible. So again, testifying about particular classes of individuals, what is typically known, doesn't violate the prohibition on experts testifying about a particular defendant's state of mind. Jackson, interestingly, concurred, noting that the court's holding was something that not just the prosecution, but also the defense could benefit from, right? testimony about group characteristics or sort of typical state of mind was permissible. It's not just prosecutors seeking to make out a case about a drug courier and typical knowledge, but also defense attorneys trying to present evidence that might be helpful to criminal defendants about things like mental health conditions or the effects of domestic violence. So she seemed eager to suggest that the court was not announcing a rule that was in some fundamental sense pro-prosecution, but actually could be used by all parties. So I think this is her Beyonce moment. I think those free tickets to the Renaissance tour really are influencing...

Polluted her judgment. I don't know about this. Improperly? No, no, no. Fine. Influencing, opening up new vistas for her and her jurisprudence, because I think she's genuinely thinking about how to take this Thomas pro-government lemon and turn it into public defender lemonade. And I think this might be how she's doing it. So good on her for finding the silver lining in this. Yeah, she does seem to. Well, it's also just an interesting smart concurrence. You know, as Ellie said in the live show, you know you're that bitch when you cause all this conversation so i think i said it actually he wrote it i said it i'm sorry okay wow as ellie and melissa came up with watch the live show without telling us you

didn't watch the live show i listened to it you bitch oh my god no you did it i did no you tried to say ellie no remember there was a debate about whether Ellie could say B, whether Ellie could say that. There was a whole thing about this, right? But then I said it. But he started. You said you say it. You know you that. I think he might have said it but didn't say bitch.

I don't know. I didn't watch the live show. Let's go back. We'll roll the tape. Anyway, Leah. So Justice Gorsuch dissented, joined by Justices Sotomayor and Kagan, suggesting that the opinion gives the government a powerful new tool, the ability to put an expert who can hold forth on what most people, like the defendant, think when they commit a legally prescribed act.

And finally, the last opinion of the day was Gonzalez versus Trevino, which I think we can just cheerfully label yet another Fifth Circuit slapdown. I'm sure a lot of guys have stats, but we're getting up there in terms of how many we've had this term and it's going to be more. Well, we can talk about that. I mean, I feel like you should take something from it if you are continually getting slapped down by the court. And the takeaway should not be that the court is moderate or consensus driven or normal, but that you are really fucking out there.

Yeah. Fifth Circuit. Okay. Well, that the farm team for the next Republican president's Supreme Court nominee is really fucking out there. That part. Yeah. That part.

This particular case involved a retaliatory arrest claim. That is where a plaintiff claims that they were arrested as punishment for exercising their constitutional rights. Here, the plaintiff, who was a city council member, says that she was retaliated against because of her work organizing a petition seeking the removal of the city manager. Specifically, she was arrested for removing a government record, the petition itself. And she concedes there was probable cause for that arrest. She inadvertently discovered a copy of the petition in her binder.

But she says she can sue for retaliatory arrest, even though there was probable cause for that arrest, because no one else had ever been charged with this offense, that is, removing or tampering with a government record, in circumstances at all like this. There are some of those prosecutions, but they all involve charges for things like using or making fake government IDs or fake checks or cheating on government exams. Not like putting a petition in your binder when you're a government official yourself. It's pretty crazy. Well, and it's also just like a different kind of document. Yes.

It's not as crazy as being charged with falsifying business records for paying off an adult film star when no one else gets charged with that. No, no, no. Clearly not. But actually everyone else gets charged with that no no no clearly not but actually in case this orgasm was not landing yes anyway hi stevie stevie yeah um my dog stevie has some opinions um uh she heard that dog whistle not the immunity case though she's just like the court um so here in gonzalez the court said that even though there was probable cause for that arrest, which ordinarily defeats a retaliatory arrest claim, the plaintiff here can still proceed on her claim because she produced, quote, objective evidence

that she was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been, end quote. This was a per curiam opinion, i.e. there was no noted author. Justice Alito wrote a concurrence purporting to provide additional guidance no one needs to the lower courts on both this case and future retaliatory arrest cases. Justice Kavanaugh also wrote a separate concurrence, and Justice Jackson, joined by Justice Sotomayor, concurred. Only Justice Thomas dissented. And Fifth Circuit, stay winning. It's really weird to have a per curiam with a lot of separate concurrences. Yeah, it kind of defeats the purpose. I don't really know why they did it that way, because it was like a short five-page per curiam. And maybe then at some point, everyone was like,

I got something I want to say. And then everybody just piled on, but they just kept it per curiam. I don't know. I'm not that interested. I won't spend much time talking about it, but it is weird. Well, maybe it's a little like ordering catering for a party and then being like, but it's potluck. Right. Yeah. You don't usually have an opinion that looks like this. But I think it's possible they're just like, get it out.

Get it out. We got too much else to do. Well, so maybe. I do think that the glacial pace of all of these opinions and the fact that we're getting these sort of anodyne ones now, I think they're fighting. Don't you think they're fighting about some of these big ones for sure? That and they have so few cases that they actually took up. I feel like they all feel compelled to want to say something because they have so few opportunities to actually write opinions. Yeah, that's a good theory, too.

Idle hands. They just want to do stuff, but they also hate doing it with these people. We have things they can do if they want to do stuff. There are better uses of their time. What do we make of this potential red flag? Obviously, an upside down red flag. Justice Alito was not on the bench today thursday when these opinions were announced where was he he was up a flagpole was he experiencing some vergogna i mean like anticipatory celebration slash morning for whatever they're going to do tomorrow getting started early on a long weekend i don't know yeah he's downing those like protein shakes for tomorrow slash next week yeah we're calisthenics or he's gonna read it all from the bench yeah yeah i mean that could

cut in a few different ways but i i have no reason to think that anything good is gonna happen so i think he just like he doesn't want to let his glee show he doesn't want to take what happened to you i i know she's dark i feel like we're in a dark place. You got into a bike accident. She's gone off the rails. I'm like the only one just keeping it 100. So speaking of all the bad decisions that are to come, there are 18 more opinions to go. There won't be an emergency episode tomorrow, no matter what happens, because we have a live show on Saturday. So anything big will be covered in the live show. And we will have that live show in your ear holes first thing Monday morning. And in addition to breaking down the Friday opinions, there will be some very special

guests and much, much more. Very special guests. I know I'm very excited. Is that why Sam was taking the took the day off Thursday? Maybe he's the special guest. He's getting his glow up so he can see us in person. We're coming for you, Sam. We're going to be in your hood. Oh, my God. Would it be the best if Martha Ann came down so she could hate listen in person instead of just in her home? In her homes. So I wanted to add in one additional thank you before we wrap this up and close her that I forgot to add last time when I was first back on the show.

And that is I wanted to thank Shannon, the occupational therapist who taught me how to do basic living functions with one arm while I was still in the hospital so I could be at home. It turns out she is a podcast listener and came into the room and was like, oh, are you actually Leah Littman? And I was like, yes, I am now Leah Littman with a broken arm. So thank you, Shannon. Thank you, Shannon. We so appreciate you, Shannon. Even though.

Thank you for turning our girl into a one-armed bandit. We love it. The thing is like Leah with one arm is still like riding circles around almost everyone on the planet. But I'm glad that that's awesome that you got, I mean, I know you got good care. So thanks, Shannon. Thank you, Shannon. All right, we'll leave it there. Strict Scrutiny is a Crooked Media production,

hosted and executive produced by Leah Littman, Melissa Murray, and me, Kate Shaw, produced and edited by Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our associate producer. Our interns this summer are Hannah Saroff and Tessa Donahue. Audio support from Cal Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Music by Eddie Cooper. Production support from Madeline Herringer and Ari Schwartz. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. And thanks to our digital team, Phoebe Bradford and Joe Matosky. Subscribe to Strict Scrutiny on YouTube to catch full episodes. Find us at youtube.com forward slash strictscrutinypodcast. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode.

And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps. Also, to clarify, I did not ask for five-star reviews as a get-well present. I don't think you remember what you asked for. You were, okay, yeah, to be fair, I was on painkillers, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it, okay? If I asked for anything, it was going to be Taylor Swift. I distinctly remember. Wait, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. In your stupor, you said, you know, it would make my dominant arm feel better.

I know Melissa actually sounded serious. I think that's a fair corrective because it was so deadpan the way she delivered it. I for a second was like, I don't remember that, but maybe I did say that. But I do, do not recall any such thing. I'm pretty sure that's just Melissa. I'm sorry to throw you under the bus there. I resent this. I really resent this.

I just don't think you remember. I didn't resent the request. I just wanted to clarify.