UNBIASED - New Lawsuit Seeks Disqualification of Trump in 2024 Election, DOJ Sues SpaceX, Prigozhin Confirmed Dead, Mark Meadows' Hearing, and More.

Episode Date: August 29, 2023

1. Prigozhin Confirmed Dead in Russian Plane Crash (2:13)2. Caplan vs. Trump: Florida Seeks to Disqualify Trump Under the Disqualification Clause of the 14th Amendment (5:59)3. DOJ Sues SpaceX Over Hiring Procedures; Failing to Hire Asylees and Refugees (13:12)4. GA Judge Hears Arguments Over Potential Removal of Mark Meadows' Case to Federal Court (21:34)5. Judge Sets Trial Date in Trump's Federal Election Interference Case (29:06)6. California Attorney General Sues School District Over New Transgender Policy (31:35)7. Hawaiian Electric Releases Statement Following Maui Fire; Places Blame on Firefighters (32:09)8. Dept. of Transportation Fines American Airlines $4M for Violating Tarmac Delay Rule (34:32)If you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and share it with those you know that also appreciate unbiased news!Subscribe to Jordan's weekly free newsletter featuring hot topics in the news, trending lawsuits, and more.Follow Jordan on Instagram and TikTok.All sources for this episode can be found here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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news and legal analysis. Enjoy the show. Welcome back to the Jordan is my lawyer podcast. Happy Tuesday. I thank you, first of all, for bearing with me. I didn't release an episode last Friday because I was sick. I'm still kind of getting my voice back. So I still sound a little bit off, but hopefully by Friday's episode, I will be normal again, but I couldn't hold off on another episode. So here we go. Today I have multiple stories for you. I have four full-length stories and then three or four things that I just quickly want to mention. So the four full-length stories are going to be the plane crash that killed Evgeny Prokhozhin in Russia. The Russian

officials officially came out and said that he died on the plane. We're also going to talk about a new lawsuit called Kaplan versus Trump. A Florida lawyer is challenging Donald Trump's ability to run for president. And then we'll talk about a lawsuit where the DOJ is suing SpaceX over some hiring procedures. And the fourth story will be about Mark Meadows' hearing that just took place in front of the Georgia judge. He's trying to get his criminal charges moved to federal court because things just work better for him that way. And I'll explain why. So those are going to be the four full-length stories. And then of course, I have three or four short stories I want to mention. And that'll be today's episode. Before we get into it,

let me just remind you to please leave my show a review on whatever platform you listen. If you enjoy the show, once you've listened to this episode and you feel I deserve a nice review, I would really appreciate you leaving me one. If you have left me a review already, I sincerely thank you. One final reminder. Yes, I am a lawyer. No, I am not your lawyer. Without further ado, let's get into today's stories. A Russian investigative committee spokeswoman confirmed Yevgeny Prokhorin's death on Sunday, though the spokesperson did not indicate the cause of the plane's crash, which the United States and Western intelligence has assumed was deliberate and planned. But here's a little bit

of background. So Prokosin is this guy who led a mercenary group called the Wagner Group. And it's basically this group that fights on behalf of Russia. So it's not an official Russian military, but they do have their arms, their weapons supplied by Russia, and they fight on behalf of Russia and in outside territories, in places like Africa and Ukraine. So Prigozhin led this group. Well, about two months ago, Prigozhin decides he's going to lead this group in turning on Russia, like on the Russian government, on Putin. And the rebellion was said to have been caused by this attack by the Russian military, which killed about 2,000 Wagner fighters. So the Wagner group first takes control of this military facility in a city at the Ukraine-Russia border, and then starts heading towards Moscow. But that's when the

president of Belarus steps in and brokers this deal between Putin and Prokhorin in order to stop the rebellion. Now, the rebellion stops, right? It only lasts one day. So although this rebellion didn't make it very far, some were calling this the biggest threat to Putin since he took power. Now, Putin obviously didn't like this. We know what kind of guy Putin is. He doesn't want to be seen as the weaker link or the weaker individual. He doesn't want to be seen as losing to anybody. So people began wondering, you know, how long is Prokofiev going to make it? It's only a matter of time before Putin does something about him. Well,

according to the terms of the deal, Prokofiev would stop the rebellion, which he did. He would walk free without any charges and resettle in Belarus. Now, this didn't seem like a very Putin-esque, I will call it, deal. Putin is the type of guy that you are going to face the consequences. So for him to get just let off scot-free, head to Belarus and all is fine, seemed a little bit off. So it wasn't exactly reasonable or logical to think someone like Putin would keep someone like Prokofiev around for very long. Knowing that, in the last two months, Prokofiev has been kind of in hiding. No one's really seen much of him. No one's heard much from him. And then the news of this plane crash breaks and no one's really surprised.

So I posted a poll to my Instagram story asking my followers if they thought this plane crash was planned or was it an accident, like a true accident, something went wrong, the plane went down. 95% of respondents said that it was planned. Only 5% said that they thought this was a true accident. So it's not an uncommon thought to think that this was a strategic move by Putin, considering on the plane was not only Progozhin, the leader of the Wagner group, the one who led the rebellion, but also Wagner's secondhand man and someone who was in charge of the logistics of the Wagner group. So it's not crazy to think that Putin had this plane downed. Now, Russian officials have said and the Kremlin have said that any assumptions or statements that this was a deliberate plan. There are lies. There is no truth to them. So

that's Russian's stance on it. Everyone else seems to have a different take. That wraps up what I want to say about Prokosian. Let's move on to Kaplan v. Trump. Kaplan v. Trump is a new lawsuit. It was filed on Thursday of last week by a lawyer in Florida. This lawyer is just a tax lawyer. He's just a regular guy who votes in elections, just like me and you. And he is asking the court to determine whether Trump is constitutionally prohibited from seeking a second term as president. And included in that inquiry, he's also asking the court to determine whether Trump is eligible to participate in the Florida Republican primary set to take place in 2024.

Now, this question stems from the disqualification clause. The disqualification clause is a clause of the 14th Amendment. And what it says is this, and I'm just going to read you the relevant parts as it pertains to the president. What it says is, no person shall be an elector of president or hold any office under the United States or under any state who, having previously taken an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. Now, the exception to this clause is if two-thirds of both houses grant an individual amnesty, then that person can go on to hold office despite having engaged in any insurrection or rebellion. In the simplest of

terms, what this lawsuit is saying is that Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. He took an oath to support the Constitution. And on January 6th, 2021, he engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the United States government. And he did so, according to this lawsuit, by directing people to the Capitol. And not only did he himself engage in this insurrection or rebellion, but the lawsuit also says that he gave aid or comfort to those who went to the Capitol by calling them these special people and telling them that he loved them. So what this lawsuit says is that even if he didn't engage in insurrection or rebellion, which the lawsuit says he did, but it says even if he didn't, he gave aid or comfort

to the enemies thereof, which is also part of the disqualification clause. Now, a little bit of background on the disqualification clause. This clause was ratified in 1868. It was ratified after the Civil War, and it was meant to prevent former Confederate officials from holding office. What happened was there's been confusion surrounding the disqualification clause since day one. So this was ratified in 1868. That same year, Chief Justice Chase issued two inconsistent rulings. His first ruling said the disqualification clause was intended to be an exclusive punishment, meaning it didn't require a separate act of Congress to enforce it. But then in another ruling, just mere months later, Chief Justice Chase said that this disqualification clause was not self-executing and that without congressional

legislation, it didn't by itself disqualify a public official from holding office. And since then, the argument on both sides has remained the same. So the question that legal experts have debated is whether this disqualification clause is self-executing. In other words, does the clause immediately apply upon insurrection, or is there something else necessary for the clause to take effect, like a conviction, legislation, a judicial action, something else? So I'll give you some takes from both sides. Recently, two legal scholars wrote an article in The Atlantic. One of the scholars is a retired conservative federal judge. The other is a Harvard law professor. And I'll read you an excerpt from the article. It says this. It says, quote,

The disqualification clause operates independently of any such criminal proceeding, and indeed, also independently of impeachment proceedings and of congressional legislation. The clause was designed to operate directly and immediately upon those who betray their oaths to the Constitution, whether by taking up arms to overturn our government or by waging war on our government by attempting to overturn a presidential election through a bloodless coup, end quote. Now, on the other side of that, a poli-sci professor from Florida Atlantic University was interviewed by ABC, and he said just the opposite, or maybe not so much the opposite, but he gave a different take on it. So what he said was this. He said, quote,

the challenge here is that the 14th Amendment isn't necessarily self-executing. In other words, it doesn't just automatically happen. And there is some question about what it means to be engaged in insurrection or rebellion and how that is defined. The challenge for us is that historically, it hasn't been well-defined. The question is about what is participating in a rebellion or insurrection. And the provision of the 14th Amendment really turns on how it is that we assess what happened. So again, these are all opinions, but it just goes to illustrate that no one is really sure. The disqualification clause hasn't really been so much of an issue to where it's been well-defined. So on one hand, you have people

arguing about what is a rebellion or insurrection as defined by the disqualification clause, and is what Donald Trump engaged in that? And then on the other hand, you have the question of, is this self-executing? So there's multiple aspects to this argument of whether the disqualification clause applies here. Now, before we leave this story, one other issue that's worth touching on and one other issue that the plaintiff may run into is standing. Standing is the ability to bring a lawsuit. In order to establish standing, you have to show, so let's say you file a lawsuit. One of the main defenses that the defendant is going to bring is that you lack standing. You cannot bring this lawsuit. And what you have to show is that one, you suffered some sort of actual or threatened injury. Two, your injury can be

fairly traced to the challenged action of the defendant. And three, the injury can be redressed or fixed by the court. In this case, the threatened injury is going to be the toughest element to prove because there was no actual injury. Donald Trump hasn't been elected president again. It's a threatened injury. So that's going to be what the lawyer here who filed this lawsuit has the hardest time with. What will likely happen is Donald Trump's team is going to file a motion to dismiss this lawsuit. And one of their arguments, like I said, will be lack of standing. The judge will then hear the motion, determine whether to dismiss the lawsuit based on any of the arguments set forth by Trump's attorneys or let the lawsuit proceed and let it play out. So that is Kaplan versus Trump. Let's move on to

the SpaceX lawsuit. I reported on the SpaceX lawsuit briefly in my weekly newsletter that went out on Saturday, but I wanted to add some more details here. If you are not subscribed to my free weekly newsletter, I highly suggest you do so. It's a way for me to provide you with even more nonpartisan news. So you can always go to jordanismylawyer.com slash subscribe and subscribe there. Let's talk about this. The DOJ is suing SpaceX. And what they're saying is that SpaceX has discriminated against asylees and refugees throughout its hiring process from at least September 2018 to May 2022. What this lawsuit says is that in online job postings and statements made by not only Elon Musk, but other employees and recruiters, SpaceX discouraged asylees and refugees from applying to the company by stating that the

company could only hire U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents. The lawsuit goes on to say that by failing to fairly consider and refusing to hire these individuals based on citizenship status, SpaceX violated the Immigration and Nationality Act. Now what the particular section of the Immigration and Nationality Act says is that it is an unfair immigration-related employment practice for a person or entity to discriminate against someone other than an unauthorized alien, this does not apply to them, with respect to the hiring of the person for employment or discharging the person from employment due to the person's national origin or citizenship status. And this is what the DOJ says SpaceX violated. They were engaged in this unfair practice. So the lawsuit says the

immigrant and employee rights section of the DOJ opened its investigation into SpaceX's hiring processes in May of 2020. And it did so because it had reason to believe that SpaceX was engaging in discriminatory behavior, likely because of Elon Musk's own statements, but I'll get into that in a minute. And the investigation concluded in November of 2022. Throughout the course of this investigation, the DOJ says that it found reasonable cause to believe that SpaceX had engaged in these practices of unfair immigration related employee practices and now has filed this lawsuit. Here is where the confusion seems to lie between the DOJ and SpaceX. So companies like SpaceX are subject to certain

export control laws and regulations. This mainly is the International Traffic and Arms Regulation called ETAR. It's ETAR for short. So if you hear me saying ETAR, that's what I'm referring to, International Traffic and Arms Regulations. What these regulations say in part is that foreign people, so those who don't fall under the definition of a United States person, need authorization from the federal government to access export-controlled items, such as those handled at SpaceX. And Elon Musk has been very transparent about the fact that they don't hire non-U.S. citizens. So these were statements he made back in 2016. And then I'll get into the more recent statements.

So in 2016, he was speaking at a astronautical event in Mexico. And one of the audience members asked him why SpaceX only hired people from the United States. And he responded, quote, I think people are very confused about this. Unfortunately, this is not up to us. If you're working on rocket technology, that's considered an advanced weapons technology. So even a normal work visa isn't sufficient unless you get special permission from the Secretary of Defense or the Secretary of State. I want to be clear, this is not out of some desire of SpaceX to just hire people with green cards. It's because we're not allowed to do anything else. And he even goes on to say,

I think this is not a wise policy for the United States because there are so many talented people all around the world that we would love to have work at our company, but unless they can somehow get a green card, we're legally prevented from hiring anyone. And he then says, for example, this is not the case with Tesla. A quarter of our engineering team is from outside the United States because we don't have the ETA restriction. I really wish we could do more, but our hands are tied. He made similar statements in 2012, and then more recently in June of 2020, after he was notified of the investigation into SpaceX, he tweeted, quote, US law requires at least a green card to be hired at SpaceX, as rockets are considered advanced weapons technology, end quote. And then most recently,

just a few days ago on Twitter, once news of the lawsuit dropped, he tweeted, quote, SpaceX was told repeatedly that hiring anyone who is not a permanent resident of the United States would violate international arms trafficking laws, which would be a criminal offense. We couldn't even hire Canadian citizens, despite Canada being part of NORAD. This is yet another case of weaponization of the DOJ for political purposes, end quote. The DOJ, on the other hand, says that export control laws and regulations don't prohibit or restrict employers from hiring asylees and refugees. In fact, they say that the laws treat asylees and refugees just like United States citizens, and that once refugees

are hired, they can access export-controlled information and materials without additional government approval. So two different ideas here. The DOJ says that asylees and refugees are treated just like U.S. citizens. Nothing in the armed trafficking laws in ETAR says that they can't be hired. And Elon Musk says that he's been told that's not the case. One attorney not involved with this case at all, but has represented companies accused of similar practices. His name is Jonathan Grodd. He said that companies like SpaceX are not barred from hiring foreign nationals at all, which is what the DOJ is saying, but that companies do have to seek certain visas for foreign nationals or obtain government approval when it comes to

restrictions, which is kind of what Elon Musk is saying. And he goes on to say that SpaceX is within its right to decide not to pursue that path. The attorney also said that SpaceX does have a business incentive to be conservative with its hiring practices in order to avoid an accidental ETAR violation, because if it did mistakenly violate export controls, it could put its government contracts at risk. And these are these contracts that SpaceX has with NASA and the Department of Defense. So what this one attorney is saying is that maybe they chose to go this more conservative route so that they didn't risk a violation, an unintentional violation, and put these big contracts that it has at risk. But again,

that is one attorney's take on it who is not related to this case but has dealt with similar situations. The DOJ is asking the court to order SpaceX to cease and desist from the illegal practices it's currently utilizing and also to take affirmative steps to address those practices. It's also asking for civil penalties, so monetary penalties. It's asking for fair consideration and back pay to all applicants who were improperly rejected. And it's asking the court to order SpaceX to hire applicants who were victims of discriminatory practices and were qualified for employment. So that is the gist of the DOJ's lawsuit against SpaceX. It boils down to some confusion between the DOJ and SpaceX and how to balance, you know, unfair employment practices with these ETAR restrictions. Let's take a quick

break. And when we come back, I will finish with our last few stories. The judge overseeing the election interference case in Georgia heard arguments on Monday as to why and why not Mark Meadows case should be moved to federal court. First of all, who is Mark Meadows? For those who don't know, Mark Meadows was Donald Trump's chief of staff. He is one of the co-defendants that was indicted alongside Donald Trump in the election interference case in Georgia. And now let's talk about why he wants this case moved. Currently, the case is in state court in Georgia. He wants this case moved to federal court. Why? In short, Meadows' argument is that under the supremacy clause, the federal court should dismiss the charges against him because the conduct underlying his charges was conducted as part of his duties as Trump's chief of staff.

So let's break that down a little bit. What is the supremacy clause? The supremacy clause, in the most broad sense, says that federal law takes precedence over state laws. In other words, the laws of the United States are supreme to everything else, hence the name Supremacy Clause. This also means that states cannot interfere with the federal government's exercise of its powers. In practice, and particularly in an early 1890 case out of the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court ruled that federal officers are immune from state prosecution for acts that were committed within the reasonable scope of their official duties. That is why Meadows is trying to get this case moved. Now, note that even if this case is moved,

he isn't automatically granted immunity. It's not guaranteed that his charges will be dismissed. However, he does feel that even if the charges aren't dismissed, having this case in federal court is more favorable to him. So that's why he's trying to get it moved. Now let's focus on Monday's hearing. The judge basically has to consider whether Mark Meadows was acting in a federal capacity when he conducted the actions set forth in the indictment, or was he essentially just part of Trump's campaign staff acting in Georgia? Because here's where it's a little bit complicated. Had Trump not been the sitting president, this question would be much easier. This question would easily be answered that Mark Meadows was acting as part of Trump's campaign staff. He wasn't president. But because Trump was the

sitting president at the time, it's now a question of was he acting as Trump's chief of staff or was he rather acting as campaign staff in trying to get Trump elected again. So that's what this really boils down to. Now, because of that, Meadows is arguing that everything he did was done in his role as chief of staff. On the other hand, District Attorney Willis is arguing the opposite, that Meadows was acting outside the scope of his official duties. The law that Willis is relying on is called the Hatch Act. It forbids government officials from using their federal office to engage in political activity, and this includes campaigning. So Willis's argument is that Meadows' involvement in the pressure campaign on Georgia's election officials is clearly conduct he was not allowed to engage in as a federal

officer, and therefore he is not entitled to the federal immunity defense. So the arguments are heard all day on Monday, and they start just after 10 a.m., and it starts with Mark Meadows himself testifying about his role as chief of staff and in the alleged incidents set forth in the indictment. He testified for over three and a half hours, so I'm not going to get into the, you know, nitty gritty of the testimony. But if I had to sum up the testimony in just a few short sentences, he basically testified to the fact that his role as chief of staff involved setting up meetings and communications between various agencies and states, and that it was his job to be in almost every meeting the president had, and that includes the alleged meetings and

conversations in the indictment. So as an example, he said that he attended the meeting in the Oval Office with Michigan state legislators over allegations of potential fraud, and he did so in his official capacity as chief of staff because he needed to be able to advise Trump. As another example, the indictment alleges that Meadows traveled to Georgia on December 22nd, 2020, in order to observe a signature match audit. Meadows testified that he observed the counting progress and reported his findings back to Trump because those actions fell within his responsibilities as chief of staff. So you get the gist, right?

He's testifying that everything he did was part of his duties as chief of staff. One key point that the state focused on, so the prosecutors, was this text that Mark Meadows sent to Georgia's Secretary of State Chief Investigator. What the text said is this. It said, quote, is there any way to speed up Fulton County signature verdicts in order to have the results before January 6th if Trump campaign assists financially? End quote. The reason that this text is important to the state, to the prosecutor, is because the state wants to show that Meadows' actions, or at least some of them, were not conducted

in his official role as chief of staff, but rather as campaign staff. Meadows testified when asked about this text that he was in this unique relationship acting as chief of staff, but not offering federal funds. So that's the gist of the testimony. As I said, he was on the stand for just over three and a half hours. The defense rested their case, and then it was the state's turn. The state put on two witnesses. The first was Kurt Hilbert. He was an attorney on the phone call with Trump and Georgia's secretary of state on January 2nd, 2021, that phone call where Trump asked Georgia's Secretary of State to find more votes. And Hilbert testified that the only reason for the call was to discuss campaign matters, but that he did understand Meadows was on the call as Trump's chief of staff. Georgia's Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger, then took the stand and was asked what role the federal government plays in the certification of elections, to which he responded, none. Now, this question was obviously asked to show that Meadows and Trump

were not acting in their official federal duties, but rather through the campaign. Raffensperger also testified that he believed the January 2nd call was a campaign call. So you can see the whole picture here where the state is presenting this idea that all of these actions were done in furtherance of Trump's campaign, whereas the defense, Mark Meadows and his attorneys, are trying to testify to the fact that this was all done in his role as chief of staff and not on the campaign staff. The judge ended the hearing by saying he would rule as quickly as possible on the matter, acknowledged that the arraignments are scheduled for September 6th, so his ruling will likely come down before that date, but we did not get a ruling at the end of Monday's hearing.

Now, moving on to a similar but different topic. Also on Monday, the judge overseeing the federal election interference case in D.C. heard arguments as to whether Trump's trial should start in January 2024, as special counsel Jack Smith had requested, or April 2026, as Trump had requested. Ultimately, the judge decided the trial will start on March 4th, 2024, which is one day before Super Tuesday, saying that Trump would have to make the date work regardless of his schedule, and that the proposed date of April 2026 is far beyond what is necessary. If March 4th, 2024 sounds familiar, it's probably because you're subscribed to my newsletter, but also because Fulton County's

district attorney had requested that Trump's Georgia election interference trial start on that day, on March 4th, 2024. So what will likely happen is the judge in Georgia will pick a date sometime after March 2024, maybe even sometime closer to summer 2024, given his current lineup. And the DA just won't get that March 4th date, but it'll probably happen a few months after that. Now, this is what Donald Trump's current timeline looks like. So starting October 2nd, in about a month, he has the civil trial for fraud in New York that was brought by the attorney general. Then January 15th, 2024, he has E. Jean Carroll's defamation case, also a civil trial. This is E. Carroll's original case that was filed in 2019.

The one that we just recently got the verdict on was a more recent 2022 case. So this is a separate case. Then about two weeks later, January 29th, 2024, he has a civil trial for a class action lawsuit for fraud in New York. Then March 4th, 2024, he has this federal election interference case, which is a criminal trial. March 25th, 2024, he has the criminal trial dealing with the Stormy Daniels hush money payments in New York. And then May 20th, 2024, he has the classified documents trial. That's also a criminal trial. So that's why I say the Georgia election interference trial will likely be maybe June, July, summer of 2024 sometime, but that is what his current trial schedule looks like. So let's wrap up this episode with a few notable mentions.

The first one being that California's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the Chino Valley Unified School District over the district's new policy that requires schools to notify parents within three days if their children change their gender identification or pronouns. The attorney general says the policy forcibly outs transgender students and threatens their well-being, whereas the district's board president says that parents have a right to know the decisions their children are making in schools. The second notable mention is about Hawaiian Electric. Hawaiian Electric is the utility company that is currently facing multiple lawsuits in the aftermath of the wildfire on Maui. Hawaiian Electric released a statement on Sunday night taking responsibility for its power

lines causing the first fire, but faulting firefighters for declaring the fire contained and leaving the scene only for a second fire to break out, which ended up being the disastrous one, saying that the electricity had been shut off for hours when the second fire broke out, and basically that it wasn't their fault. The statement starts off by saying our hearts and hands are with the people of Lahaina and Maui. And it goes on to say, we were surprised and disappointed that the County of Maui rushed to court even before completing its own investigation. We believe the complaint is factually and legally irresponsible. Unfortunately, the County's lawsuit may

leave us no choice in the legal system, but to show its responsibility for what happened that day. And it goes on to lay out several facts, according to Hawaiian Electric, of course. The first fact being that this morning fire, which is what they are calling it, broke out around 6.30 a.m. and it was in fact caused by power lines that fell in high winds. The next fact that it points out is that the Maui County Fire Department responded and reported that the fire was 100% contained and left the scene, saying that the fire had been extinguished. Then the statement says around 3 p.m. after Hawaiian Electric's power lines in West Maui had been de-energized for more than six hours, a second fire, which they're calling the afternoon

fire, began in the same area as the morning fire. And it says that the cause of that fire has not been determined, but basically says that if the fire department hadn't left and said the fire was extinguished, the second fire would have never happened. Following the statement's release on Sunday night, Hawaiian Electric's stock rose more than 40% on Monday. And obviously we know in the last couple of weeks that stock had taken a tumble. So it was back up on Monday, but that is pretty much what Hawaiian Electric says about the fire, and it kind of gives us some insight as to how they would defend the lawsuits that it currently has against it. The third and final notable mention is that the U.S. Department of Transportation

fined American Airlines $4.1 million on Monday for unlawfully keeping thousands of passengers on the tarmac for hours. And this is over a few years, but basically the fine, which is the largest ever penalty for violating the tarmac delay rule, was issued after an investigation found that between 2018 and 2021, American Airlines allowed 43 domestic flights to remain on the tarmac for lengthy periods of time without providing passengers an opportunity to deplane, which is in violation of the Department of Transportation's tarmac delay rule. So something you may not know is that the department has this tarmac delay rule

that says that an airline cannot keep you grounded on a plane for more than three hours without providing you an opportunity to deplane. In fact, it's three hours for a domestic flight and four hours for an international flight. But the rule also says that the airline must provide passengers with snacks and water no later than two hours after the start of the delay. And during the delay, airlines are also required to provide working toilets, a comfortable cabin temperature, and adequate medical attention when needed. American received a similar fine, although it was a lot less in amount. I think it was a $1 million fine, but for the same reason, tarmac delays and not abiding by the rules. And that fine was

received in 2016. But in the beginning of this year, the Department of Transportation said that they were going to start increasing these fines so as to deter these airlines more. That concludes today's episode. Thank you for sticking with me and my sick voice. I hope to be back to normal on Friday. If you enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to leave me a review. your week and i will talk to you on friday