Lawyers Guild, The - Wednesday, June 3, 2026

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1. This is Dr. Michio Kaku, professor of theoretical physics and author of Parallel Worlds and Hyperspace.
2. And whenever I'm in Los Angeles, I tune into my favorite radio station, KPFK 90.7 on your FM dial.
3. Hi, this is Leela Downs. You're listening to KPFK 90.7 FM Los Angeles, 98.7 FM Santa Barbara, globally on kpfk.org.
4. luna
5. Naila
6. lloraba ante mi
7. Thank you.
8. Thank you.
9. Thank you.
10. Thank you.
11. Thank you.
12. 🎵
13. Thank you.
14. so
15. so
16. Thank you.
17. The program that you're about to hear is a rebroadcast and has previously aired here on KPFK.
18. Good afternoon, friends.
19. Good afternoon and welcome to this week's edition of the Lawyer's Guild Show.
20. I'm Jim Lafferty along with my co-host and friend Maria Hall.
21. Maria, how are you?
22. Oh, well, you know what they say.
23. I'm fine.
24. You're fine.
25. Trying to not watch the news, unfortunately.
26. I know, but that's the thing, isn't it?
27. I know.
28. We've got an interesting show today, as always.
29. But we have our friend, Mr. Rohde on.
30. So I can't let you.
31. You want to tell us about it?
32. I just get right to the introduction.
33. Oh, sure.
34. No, I'll just give a shout out to Steve Rohde because he always gives us so much good, great information.
35. So, yeah, please stay tuned.
36. We're going over a lot very quickly.
37. It'll be another speed round today.
38. That's right.
39. Yes.
40. Once again, this week, friends, we're going to devote our entire show to reviewing some court cases and some other recent legal developments in America, including a bombshell of an opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court just this morning.
41. So you'll want to stay tuned for all of that.
42. And our guest, fortunately, is once again a constitutional scholar and activist, Stephen Rohde.
43. Mr. Rohde is an author of two books, numerous articles and book reviews on constitutional law and history.
44. He the former president of the ACLU Foundation of Southern California a special advisor on free speech and the First Amendment for the Muslim Public Affairs Council and he the host of a new podcast called Speaking
45. Freely, produced by Ms. Studios, and, well, it's available on Spotify, iHeartRadio, and other
46. streaming platforms. I should mention that Steve Rohde and myself and Maria Hall are co-hosts of
47. a national public affairs show as well. It's called Law and Disorder. It's now airing on
48. close to 200 stations around the country. You can go to our website, Law and Disorder, and
49. I'll hear all the old shows, find out when the new shows are coming, and so forth. But Steve Rohde,
50. for now, welcome to this week's edition of the Lawyers Guild Show.
51. Thank you so much, Jim and Maria. This is such a terrific opportunity for me to
52. gather my thoughts, pay attention, and try to explain what the hell is going on in this country.
53. Well, that's some task, and you do it well. Steve, as I said a moment ago, I think we've
54. had some bad news today. Certainly this very morning, the U.S. Supreme Court announced a
55. decision that further guts, really, I don't know what's left to gut, further guts the Voting Rights
56. Act, thereby further disenfranchising Black voters. What were the facts in the case and
57. why does this ruling by the majority of the justices represent a further gutting of the Act?
58. This is a case called Louisiana versus Calais, C-A-L-L-A-I-S. I think I'm pronouncing that
59. correctly. It comes out of Louisiana. It is a terrible blow to the American people,
60. to the American voter, to minority voters struggling to overcome centuries of racial
61. discrimination and voter suppression. And it is also a terrible attack on separation of powers
62. and the role that Congress plays in our government.
63. So we've had the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
64. Since then, Section 2 is a special provision.
65. This act, of course, grew out of the power granted under the 14th Amendment
66. and the post-Civil War amendments to redress racism in our country.
67. Unfortunately, the Republican Party has made it a pillar of their platform to destroy voting rights, to limit voting rights, so that they as a minority party in so many states and regions can control our elections and therefore control all three branches of government.
68. In 1980, in a case called City of Mobile versus Bolden, the court said that the only kind of discrimination that could be redressed by the Voting Rights Act was intentional dilution of minority votes.
69. Well, Congress confronted that and in the 1980s passed amendments to the Voting Rights Act strengthening Section 2 so that discriminatory effect or results of gerrymandering could also come within the purview of the Voting Rights Act.
70. Well in 2013 in Shelby County v Holder Chief Justice Roberts began the assault striking down Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and now we have this law this result today
71. What this 6-3 highly partisan majority did was they overturned a Louisiana redistricting,
72. which was intended to redress racial discrimination that had previously existed in other redistricting.
73. Lower courts had upheld what Louisiana was doing.
74. But today, only hours ago, that six-member super conservative majority struck it down.
75. I would like to discuss this case in more detail on a future program.
76. For now, I will say that Justice Kagan, in a dissent on behalf of the three of the women on the court and the progressives, called it a demolition of the Voting Rights Act.
77. Now a state, quote, can, without legal consequences, systematically dilute minority citizen voting power.
78. An expert on voting rights, Rick Hazen, said this will go down in history as one of the most pernicious and damaging Supreme Court decisions of the last century.
79. And it is a slap at Congress as well as the American people.
80. We don't know how this will play out in the midterm elections coming up very shortly in our country.
81. It's obviously intended to help Republicans.
82. And finally, I have to say that this court and our nation has to come and have a reckoning.
83. Can race be considered in crafting remedies to overcome racial discrimination?
84. We are confronting that issue in diversity, equity, and inclusion, in affirmative action,
85. and elsewhere. The Supreme Court acts like it is blind to the continuation of racial discrimination
86. in this country, and we're going to have to confront that as a nation. Yes, indeed. Yes,
87. indeed. Well, sad days, I say. Steve, continue with the Supreme Court for a minute, but not
88. necessarily a case. A couple of the justices have been speaking out in rather unusual ways of late,
89. have they not? I'm thinking of Justice Clarence Thomas and his speech blasting progressivism
90. in the threat that progressivism supposedly poses for America. Talk to us about this development.
91. Yes. On April 15, Thomas gave a one-hour speech at a law school at the University of Texas at
92. He set out to condemn progressivism, but I think he ended up exposing his profound ignorance of American history and the depths of his dangerous partisanship, and he has reopened the whole question about his ethical violations on the court.
93. He has tried to promote the notion that we enjoy God-given rights.
94. That's his term, and that our government exists to protect our God-given inalienable rights.
95. This is such a violation of separation of church and state.
96. He cites the Declaration of Independence, which does speak about our rights,
97. coming from our Creator. But what he forgets is that after the Declaration of Independence,
98. we got the U.S. Constitution, which was an answer to the Declaration, and it specifically
99. provided that there should be no religious test for public office, and in the First Amendment,
100. it created a wall of separation between church and state. I have had the distinct opportunity
101. to write an article on this for LA Progressive newspaper. You'll be seeing that published over
102. the weekend. And I'm pleased to be able to expand on why Thomas's remarks are so dangerous
103. and his mean-spirited and ill-informed attack on progressivism fails the test of any
104. freshman college American history student, but he is one of nine people with so much power on the
105. Supreme Court. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. Well, Steve, let's go on to the issue of governmental
106. overreach. In a court ruling, a federal judge vacated a Robert Kennedy Jr. declaration and
107. permanently blocked Trump's trans youth care hospital threats. What is this all about?
108. Well, as we become accustomed on this radio show and elsewhere, there are some wins and there are
109. some losses to talk about. This is definitely a win. U.S. District Judge Mustafa Kasube issued a
110. blistering 49-page written opinion vacating the Robert Kennedy Jr. declaration. Now, last December
111. 2025, as head of the Health and Human Services, Kennedy issued a declaration threatening to revoke
112. all federal funding, including Medicare and Medicaid, from any hospital or provider that
113. offered gender-affirming care for transgendered youth.
114. This decision last Saturday vacates that declaration nationwide.
115. It eliminates the legal basis for roughly 40 hospitals cited when they shuttered their
116. trans youth care programs earlier this year.
117. and it bars the Trump administration from implementing the declaration or any materially
118. similars for their federal funding for offering gender-affirming care. Notice, even in that,
119. the courts are waking up. 600 lawsuits have been filed against this administration, actually upwards
120. of 700, multiple injunctions, and they're gaining knowledge that the Trump administration and the DOJ
121. will try to evade those rulings by switching the name they give to a policy that has just been enjoined.
122. And this judge was farsighted enough to say that this declaration and any material similar policy is enjoined.
123. They cited, they called it a bald-faced lie that the Kennedy Declaration amounts to nothing more than one man's musings.
124. on gender affirming care They said the court is not persuaded by defendant attempts to gaslight it into believing that the Kennedy Declaration does anything other than what it says
125. And these days that's becoming common.
126. The judge said, unserious leaders are unsafe.
127. There is nothing more serious than our leaders' dedication to the rule of law so that we might maintain the integrity of our constitutional democracy.
128. This case highlights a leader's unserious regard for the rule of law.
129. This case demonstrates how disregard for the rule of law does not merely result in an abstract infraction.
130. Rather, and tragically, this case is one of a long list of examples of how a leader's
131. wanton disregard for the rule of law causes very real harm to very real people.
132. This is a major step forward.
133. Of course this case will be appealed and end up in the US Supreme Court, and we can only
134. hope they will come to their senses when the case reaches that.
135. Continuing on the good news side, a Pennsylvania court has ruled that the state constitution of that state, Pennsylvania, does indeed provide the right of abortion.
136. Talk to us about this case.
137. This is very important to show about the strength of state courts and state constitutions.
138. If the U.S. Supreme Court is going to trash the U.S. Constitution and is the last word on U.S. constitutional law, unless overridden by constitutional amendments, the state courts and the state constitutions, which in many respects, including here in California, provide greater protection for individual rights than does the federal constitution, certainly as interpreted by the current Supreme Court.
139. The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court, which is the intermediate appellate court for state agency disputes, ruled 4-3, it was a close call, granting summary judgment to a group of abortion providers who challenged the constitutionality of a state statute prohibiting the use of Medicare funds for abortion.
140. The appellate court granted summary judgment based on the state's equal right amendment
141. that prohibits sex-based discrimination specifically.
142. As such, the block on Medicare funds targeting only people who are pregnant violates that amendment.
143. The ruling is stark contrast to what's developing in the federal courts.
144. We all know the tragic ruling in 2022 in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which struck down a federal constitutional right to abortion.
145. The Bureau publicly praised this decision, saying that a woman's ability to access reproductive care should never be determined by her income. It should be a right, and that's been protected by this court, and we'll track that case as it works through the higher court system.
146. Well thank you for that And Steve a federal appeals court ruled that Trump ban on asylum claims at the border is illegal This was a terrifying question and issue So tell us about the case and whether you think the Supreme Court will rule the same if and when the case is appealed to the high court This is a very important case because it sweeps across immigration law in this current Trump era
147. It affects scores of people facing these efforts to turn back existing immigration law.
148. So in a two-to-one decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
149. upheld an earlier ruling by a district judge that Donald Trump had to adhere to the requirements
150. outlined in the Immigration and Nationality Act and could not categorically deny asylum claims
151. from people crossing from Mexico into the United States. Existing immigration law,
152. said the leading judge in this case, does not allow the president to remove
153. plaintiffs under summary removal procedures of his own making. Judge
154. Michelle Child, speaking for the two-member majority, said that she
155. rejected the administration's view of the law which would allow it to quote
156. unilaterally and needlessly return individuals even to countries where they
157. will most certainly face prosecution. The administration now has 45 days to ask for
158. the court to be the case to be reheard before the full appellate court and of
159. course it could appeal directly to the Supreme Court. Trump's attempts to
160. enact this sweeping ban is rooted in a proclamation he signed the day he took
161. office in his second term, he simply declared there was an invasion along the southern border
162. and invoked what he called his inherent right and duty of the executive branch to defend our
163. national sovereignty. Implementing that proclamation, the Department of Homeland
164. Securities blocked people from applying for asylum other than at a designated port of entry.
165. The judge in this case ruled against Trump. There was a partial dissent by a Trump-appointed judge who claimed the lower court lacked authority to issue such a broad ruling.
166. Lee Gelnart, an ACLU attorney who argued the appeal, praised the ruling saying the case was about, quote, human hardship and the separation of powers and that the judges made clear that the president lacks the power to unilaterally override laws passed by Congress.
167. So I want to emphasize one more time that these are cases in which Congress has already acted.
168. What the president is doing is not only violating the rights of these asylum seekers, but also the power of Congress.
169. Yes, indeed. Well, continuing on, the U.S. Justice Department, the Justice Department, has now targeted, excuse my voice, hundreds of citizens in a new push to denaturalize those citizens.
170. How have they gone about doing this? And is what they're doing, in your opinion, legal, constitutional?
171. Well, I want to put it on everyone's radar that the next battle, not just at our borders, not just with people here with green cards, but citizens, to denaturalize U.S. citizens.
172. The Department of Justice has identified 384 foreign Americans whose citizenship it wants to revoke It has alerted civil litigators in the Department of Justice in 39 regional offices that they could soon be assigned to file denaturalization cases
173. Under federal law, the government may seek a court to strip the citizenship of people who obtained it
174. fraudulently, for instance, by entering into a sham marriage or by withholding information about
175. their past that would have made them ineligible. Some who commit crimes here in the United States
176. can be denaturalized, but the government must present evidence to a federal judge through a
177. civil or criminal proceeding, making the process, it could be challenged and time-consuming.
178. A Justice Department spokesman said the officials were pursuing a high volume of decentralization referrals in history.
179. The problem is that this is set against what has been done in the past.
180. It was in the McCarthy era and other eras that denaturalization has been used against those with whom the government disagreed politically and used this as a pretext to expel them from the United States.
181. Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said,
182. The message it sends is that naturalized citizens don't have the same rights and stability as native-born citizens.
183. The government has used this power in the past to target people it views as political opponents.
184. As of 2024, there were more than 818,000 immigrants had become American citizens.
185. They naturalized citizens do enjoy almost all of the rights and responsibilities of native born citizens.
186. A notable exception is foreign born citizens cannot run for president.
187. We're going to watch these cases carefully because they are setting up a new avenue for the Trump administration to go after those that it disagrees with and wants to expel from this country.
188. Exactly. Well, Steve, a lawsuit was filed in Maryland on April 20th, alleging that Trump's
189. anti-DEI executive order violates the First Amendment. Who filed this lawsuit and what do
190. you see as its chances of success? This is a very important case and I'm glad it's been filed and I
191. want to monitor it as it moves along. It relates, frankly, to issues I raised at the top of this
192. program in talking about the Supreme Court and the Voting Rights Act, because part and parcel
193. with that attack, Trump has gone after diversity, equity, and inclusion, making it a dirty concept
194. in this country to try to redress racial discrimination that has marked our country
195. from its founding and has yet to be eradicated. Donald Trump's executive order in this case
196. directed agencies to cancel federal contracts and subcontracts with businesses that engage in what
197. he called racially discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion activities. They claim
198. in the new lawsuit that this violates the First Amendment.
199. This case was brought by the National Association of Diversity Officers
200. of Higher Education, the American Association of University Professors, the United Academics
201. of Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park, the National Association of Minority
202. Contractors, and NAMC, District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia chapters.
203. They were complaining that this broad, vague March 26 executive order violates free speech and associational rights of federal contractors and subcontractors by misconstruing the concept of DEI to equate it, illegal DEI, with any discussion of race and ethnicity.
204. and to confuse that with racially discriminatory activities and policies.
205. The suit says that the president attempts to use intimidation
206. to coerce contractors and subcontractors from abandoning their lawful DEI efforts
207. under threat of civil and criminal prosecution
208. and the loss of federal business opportunities for noncompliance.
209. This case was brought on behalf of university professors, contractors, and subcontractors, and it'll seek a preliminary and permanent injunction prohibiting the president and these agencies from implementing the March 26 executive order.
210. Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiff, said in a statement that Trump's latest EO defies both law and reality.
211. She said that the order is unlawful and would have disastrous consequences for workers doing the public's business throughout the country,
212. but also for millions of people who rely on the work and services that contractors, subcontractors, their employees and partners provide.
213. So this is a very important case. I'm glad it's filed by such a prominent civil rights organization.
214. And we're going to monitor it closely. Yes. Good.
215. Well, Trump's been sued. He's been sued now. Why? For firing most of the black officials in the government. Who brought this lawsuit and what are the facts of the case?
216. This is another powerful lawsuit. I am just so proud of all of the lawyers from various public interest law firms that are doing this work.
217. I've said repeatedly on your show that these lawsuits are necessary but not sufficient to resist Trump.
218. They are a parallel to the No King's Day protests and all the work that the rest of us are doing in the streets and elsewhere.
219. But here, Alvin Brown, a Democrat member of the National Transportation Safety Board, he was nominated by President Biden, was fired from his post in May of 2025.
220. In his lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court, he said that political differences could not have been the main reason for his firing and that he claims that 75% of black officials at independent agencies have been fired under Trump.
221. At the time of Mr Brown removal from the NTSB there were two other Democrats serving on the board Since Brown firing he accusing it of being racially motivated It therefore violated Mr Brown constitutional rights
222. under the Fifth Amendment.
223. The lawsuit also points to people of color
224. being dismissed at agencies, including the National Labor
225. Relations Board, the Equal Employment Opportunity
226. Commission, the Federal Reserve, and the Library of Congress.
227. And the lawsuit cited Trump's attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs
228. and the fact that Brown was replaced by John DeLue, who is white.
229. This is one case because it has to be factually based to have standing to bring a case of this nature.
230. But the implications of this case are widespread and may finally put the lie to what Trump has been doing.
231. Yes.
232. Oh, I was going to say, it does look like it's a good time for our break.
233. Yes.
234. We have a very quick station ID break.
235. Let's go for that.
236. And then I have another burning question for Steve when we return.
237. In the darkness of insanity
238. I ask myself
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255. And we are back with you here on the Lawyer's Guild Show. I'm Jim Lafferty, along with Maria
256. Allman, the host. We're interviewing Steve Rohde, a great author, activist, constitutional scholar.
257. Maria, you were about to ask a question when we kicked that break.
258. Yes, I was. Let's go on with our interview since we're doing the speed round today. Rapid fire questions. So let's go now to the Department of Justice or back to the Department of Justice, which has just dropped its criminal investigation of federal from the chair, Chairman Jerome Powell, and has referred the matter to the inspector general. Tell us about this. It's been a little bit of a roller coaster.
259. Well, this is such an example of how Trump and the Department of Injustice have weaponized the powers granted to them once they took office.
260. They brought a terrible groundless criminal prosecution against Jerome Powell who is the head of the Federal Reserve He chair of the Federal Reserve They cooked up this criminal investigation alleging that he made false statements to
261. Congress about cost overruns in the Federal Reserve's ongoing headquarter renovation during
262. a Senate Banking Committee panel last June.
263. Janine Pirro announced she was closing this criminal investigation into Jerome Powell.
264. This time they didn't even wait for a judge to throw it out.
265. This is a new form of taco.
266. As far as Trump is concerned, all was chickening out.
267. under 18 U.S.C. Code 1001, it is a criminal offense to knowingly and willfully make false statements to Congress
268. with a penalty of up to five years imprisonment.
269. Powell had characterized this investigation as a politically motivated pressure campaign.
270. It was akin to the other prosecutions which the government has brought.
271. And I guess we shouldn't let this go by without mentioning that James Comey has now been re-indicted,
272. even after the first charges were dropped, this time for organizing some shells on a beach with the saying 86-47.
273. that's what they're alleging was a threat against the president.
274. Well, in this case, and maybe that one someday soon,
275. they dropped the charges against Jerome Powell.
276. And I heard he announced today that he's staying on as a member of the Federal Reserve,
277. even if not as chair.
278. Yes, indeed.
279. Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of the great institutions in the country
280. that fights for civil rights, civil liberties,
281. But the Department of Justice has just filed an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center. Why? Well, the Southern Poverty Law Center has paid informants that it places in violent right-wing groups. What are the further facts of this case and what is the legal basis for the Department of Justice indictment here?
282. This is a terrifying criminal indictment against one of the most prominent and leading civil rights organizations, the Southern Poverty Law Center, that has been fighting the Ku Klux Klan and other terrorists and extreme groups in the United States for decades.
283. These Trump DOJ lawyers obviously stay up at night combing through the statutes to try to figure out some kind of criminal charge they can bring.
284. The very bringing of these charges requires now the Southern Poverty Law Center to divert money to hire lawyers to be distracted through subpoenas and other steps in this criminal case.
285. What the Justice Department did is they indicted the SPLC on Tuesday, accusing
286. the nonprofit of having quote secretly funneled over three million dollars to
287. extremist hate groups and networks like the Ku Klux Klan via wire fraud false statements to banks and a money laundering conspiracy Wow would that be a shocking indictment if only it was true
288. What are they talking about?
289. They are talking about the fact that for years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has used anonymous
290. undercover agents who have infiltrated these organizations, who have pretended for years on end
291. of being true believers of the Ku Klux Klan and these other groups, gathering information,
292. which has then been made public and in many cases turned over to state and federal governmental
293. agencies to prosecute the Ku Klux Klan and these other hate groups. The DOJ has tortured those facts
294. as if the Southern Poverty Law Center was secretly funneling money to the organizations
295. that it was investigating. The SPLC has a history of surveilling and monitoring white supremacists
296. and hate groups. It has used paid informants and field sources in order to gather that kind of
297. accurate information. And it has publicly and within federal proceedings and state proceedings
298. told the world that it was doing this once those informants had extricated themselves
299. and turned over their evidence.
300. What Glenn Kirshner, a former U.S. Army prosecutor
301. and former assistant U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia,
302. with 30 years of experience, he said this,
303. the government wants to put them through the ringer
304. and chill similar organizations.
305. Prosecutors, he said, regularly use informants.
306. This is the federal government saying, do as we say, not as we do.
307. It's a constitutionally protected right for these groups to engage in activities,
308. publish reports, provide information, and the DOJ and the FBI themselves have long benefited from information collected by these groups.
309. Todd Blodgett, a former paid FBI informant, said it wasn't news to me.
310. He once owned the largest neo-Nazi record label as well as an advertising firm that worked with far-right racist groups like Liberty Lobby, and he was a paid FBI informant.
311. The indictment alleges that informants behaved and spoke in racist ways that went against the nonprofit's mission and that this should be considered evidence of fraud.
312. This is another case I can't wait for the first motion to dismiss to reach a federal judge.
313. I think this will be thrown out.
314. I would hope that the Southern Poverty Law Center
315. would be able to win sanctions for this.
316. It is one of the grossest examples of weaponizing
317. the Department of Justice against these grossly
318. groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center. Let's not forget that as far as the Ku Klux Klan and
319. these other hate groups are concerned, Trump recently granted clemency and pardons to the
320. individuals convicted for their actual acts of terrorism and insurrection on January 6, 2021.
321. So this is a shocking example. It's meant to threaten and intimidate other organizations. I'm sure that the Southern Poverty Law Center will fight back strongly. And I can't wait to announce on this program that that indictment has been dismissed.
322. Yes.
323. Well, thank you for that. You know, the financial situation of Donald Trump and his family has vastly improved since his return to the White House last year. But the question of whether it's legal for all of them to profit from his position as president, and that's been playing out in the courts. So please enlighten us. What is the latest?
324. Well, I was so thrilled to see this ruling. It came in on the last day of March. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Trump is civilly liable for damages that he caused on January 6, 2021.
325. Judge Mehta filed a 79-page ruling in a case that denied Trump civil immunity.
326. The judge gave a careful analysis devoted to distinguishing between Trump's criminal actions as an officeholder, for which the Supreme Court anointed him with absolute immunity, versus his actions in seeking office, which are not official acts and therefore are not immune from civil or criminal punishment.
327. punishment. The decision by this judge carefully followed the Supreme Court's
328. immunity ruling and will allow claims against him from members of Congress and
329. Capitol Police officers to proceed to trial. After a prior ruling that Trump's
330. speech on the lips, plausibly amounted to incitement, which is a narrow exception
331. to the First Amendment, Trump's legal team sought to substitute the United States of
332. America as the defendant in place of the president, claiming that what he did and said on January
333. 6 was part of his employment as president of the United States.
334. That motion was denied.
335. The judge said that whether Trump was speaking or engaging in conduct in an official capacity
336. as an officeholder or instead in an unofficial capacity as an office seeker was an issue
337. for the court to decide.
338. The immunity itself, the case, the famous immunity decision itself recognized that there
339. there may be contexts in which the president,
340. notwithstanding the prominence of his position,
341. speaks in an unofficial capacity,
342. perhaps as candidate for office or party leader.
343. That quoting from the US Supreme Court And that exactly what the plaintiffs who brought this civil case for damages All of this means that Trump billion empire could be up for grabs when they win a judgment and go to collect it
344. Well, of course, Trump's never shy about suing and bringing outrageous lawsuits.
345. He's now sued the IRS for $10 billion.
346. What's the latest news in this case?
347. This is just remarkable. He has sued the IRS for wrongfully revealing and leaking his tax returns.
348. This is a $10 billion lawsuit against his own IRS. Now, US District Judge Kathleen Williams
349. has asked Trump's private lawyers and the Department of Justice to explain whether
350. Trump's control over the IRS means that he's suing himself.
351. She pointed out, quote,
352. Although President Trump avers that he is bringing this lawsuit in his personal capacity,
353. he is the sitting president, and his named adversaries are entities whose decisions are subject to his direction.
354. She wrote in her order,
355. It is unclear to this court whether the parties are sufficiently adverse to each other so as to satisfy the Constitution's case or controversy requirement.
356. What I love about this case is that Trump and the right wing has been crowing about the unitary executive theory for decades that he is at the top of the government and he controls everything.
357. Well, that means he controls the IRS, which is the entity he is suing.
358. This one is really important.
359. Trump himself said, this is very interesting.
360. We're thinking about doing something for charity.
361. I'll give money to charity.
362. But separately, in a separate legal case, he said, I'm suing myself, right?
363. So he can never hold back. He said the secret part out loud. I think this is a powerful claim. The judge has set briefing by May 20 and hearing on May 27. And I am eagerly looking forward to the judge's ruling, throwing out his $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS.
364. Yeah, maybe he'll even dismiss it voluntarily. Who knows?
365. Taco, taco.
366. So in a similar vein, Donald Trump also sued the Wall Street Journal for $10 billion for reporting on his Epstein ties.
367. And now Kash Patel is following that lead by suing the Atlantic for defamation.
368. But Steve, isn't there a very high bar for public figures to sue the media for defamation in the United States?
369. You bet. And this federal judge in Florida knows the law and applied it.
370. Judge Darren Gales in Florida, a U.S. District Judge, threw out Trump's $10 billion defamation
371. suit against the Wall Street Journal and against Rupert Murdoch, his former friend, I guess.
372. The judge said that under the New York Times v Sullivan case public figures can only prevail in a defamation case if they prove what was published was made a false statement with actual malice meaning that they
373. had knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard of the truth. This was an article last year
374. in which a sexually suggested letter that the newspaper said bore Trump's signature
375. and was included in that 2003 album compiled for Epstein's 50th birthday.
376. The Wall Street Journal had researched that.
377. They allowed included in the article Trump's denial.
378. and the judge wrote whether President Trump was the author of the letter or
379. Epstein's friends are questions of fact that cannot be determined at this stage
380. in the litigation. He gave them a brief period of time to file an amended
381. complaint if they could come up with any new facts but he gave them till last
382. Monday and I just did a search and no new complaint was filed that I can find. So this could be
383. another taco. The Dow Jones Corporation that publishes the Wall Street Journal said we stand
384. behind the reliability, rigor, and accuracy of the Wall Street Journal's reporting. And they went
385. toe-to-toe with Trump. They wouldn't settle that case as other media outlets have done. And that
386. score one for the free press. Indeed. Well, there's been an important ruling talking about
387. separation of church and state now, an important ruling from a federal appeals court in Texas
388. having to do with public schools and, of course, those Ten Commandments and the posting thereof.
389. Tell us about this. Yes, very troubling. In a narrow nine to three ruling by the Fifth Circuit,
390. en banc, meaning that they reverse two lower court decisions, including a decision of their brethren,
391. and ruled by one vote that Texas can require public schools to display the Ten Commandments in every classroom in the state.
392. This was a law signed by Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, in 2025, and various families of different faith backgrounds filed a lawsuit challenging it.
393. It's really part of this broader conservative push to infuse Christianity into public schools.
394. The Texas law mandates the displays be placed in a conspicuous location in each classroom on a typeface visible from anywhere in the room.
395. The posters must be at least 16 inches wide and 20 inches tall and must include the text of a particular version of the Ten Commandments.
396. Lower court judges had struck down this law, saying it was a clear violation of the First Amendment separation of church and state.
397. The Louisiana Attorney General celebrated the ruling, but others like the teachers involved
398. were deeply troubled.
399. Lena Lee a high school English teacher in Keller Texas a Fort Worth suburb called the decision devastating She said students in Texas are being unjustly used as pawns in this game of conservatism Schools should not be a battleground
400. for conservatives to push their agenda. I am very, very worried about this case. I'm worried
401. that the Supreme Court may not grant cert because it takes four votes to grant cert,
402. and we have only three progressives on the court.
403. I'm without four votes.
404. They won't even review this case
405. and it will stand at least law in the Fifth Circuit.
406. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed.
407. Well, let's turn to the matter of freedom of protest.
408. There's another troubling case making its way through the courts
409. where the organizer of a Black Lives Matter protest
410. is being sued civilly by a police officer who claims he was injured at a protest.
411. What are the stakes here? Tell us about this.
412. We've been following this case here and on Law and Disorder. In 2016, DeRay McKesson
413. joined a protest against the fatal police shooting of Alton Sterling. And during that protest,
414. a police officer was hit by a rock. DeRay McKesson didn't throw the rock,
415. nor did he ask anyone to throw it or engage in any other violence. The officer sued McKesson,
416. alleging that he was a leader of Black Lives Matter that had organized the protest. This case
417. has worked its way up and down through the courts for eight years and unfortunately once again that
418. fifth circuit has allowed this case to go to trial acting as if it will be judged under a negligence
419. standard was mckesson negligent in organizing a rally because it was reasonably foreseeable
420. that organizing the protest would result in a random protester throwing a rock that hit a police officer.
421. Simply stating the issue shows you how dangerous this case is to the entire right to protest.
422. We all know the nature of big, large protests, often provoked by ICE agents and other police officers,
423. resulting in violence on one side or another.
424. If this case ever results in a jury verdict and then is upheld on appeal,
425. it will have a chilling effect on protests.
426. Who would organize, who would participate in a protest?
427. If you could be civilly liable for the miscreants and the violent acts of anyone else
428. with whom you have no relationship, whom you did not incite to violence or otherwise cause these criminal acts.
429. Protesters are facing six and seven figure damage awards for acts they didn't commit.
430. And the inevitable result will be to quash and silence more and more protests in this country.
431. The federal court allowed the case to go to trial.
432. I am still hopeful that there are trial motions before it reaches trial.
433. in the trial court, reaches trial in the trial court itself, where they will raise