PODCAST

Serious Trouble

Josh Barro and Ken White

An irreverent podcast about the law from Josh Barro and Ken White. www.serioustrouble.show

news news commentary

All Episodes

39:50

The New George Santos

Serious Trouble ·

2025/02/27

The Trump administration continues to ice out the Associated Press, and now the AP is suing. We discuss how the administration changed its argument (not great, from a policy perspective, but it may actually put the White House on stronger legal ground). Ed Martin — the conservative activist serving as acting US Attorney for the District of Columbia, whom Trump has named to be the permanent US Attorney for that district — continues to send out weird, threatening letters about non-criminal behavior by

38:13

Not Like U.S. Attorneys

Serious Trouble ·

2025/02/19

Emil Bove's weaponization of the Justice Department is leading to resignations, including of a former protégé; Pam Bondi's bark is worse than her bite; Alex Spiro is a good lawyer. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.serioustrouble.show/subscribe

42:42

Everyone Is Fired

Serious Trouble ·

2025/02/05

This week: more firings — dozens of DOJ line prosecutors who worked on January 6 cases. Trump’s flurry of executive actions has drawn a flurry of litigation, much of it related to the Administrative Procedure Act. States and grantees are suing to stop the OMB funding pause, and finding success so far. Unions representing government workers are suing Elon Musk’s access to their information. Several anonymous FBI agents are even suing to stop disclosure to Trump officials of which cases they worked

34:42

Settlements and Separations

Serious Trouble ·

2025/01/31

Just a week and a half back into the presidency, Donald Trump has seen to it that various federal prosecutors who were involved in prosecuting him have been fired. Can he do that? Also: the DOJ continues to drop cases against defendants who enjoy Trump’s political favor, so other defendants and convicts are trying to curry Trump's favor, including former Sen. Bob Menendez, who was just sentenced for a bribery scheme that didn’t even involve a Mercedes E-Class. And Meta has paid a large settlement to

21:22

Thank You For Suing, Drake

Serious Trouble ·

2025/01/24

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showIt's the first Serious Trouble of the new Trump administration. We start with a discussion of pardons: the ones Joe Biden gave on his way out of office and the ones Donald Trump gave on his way in.For premium subscribers: the Jack Smith reports (the one about the January 6 prosecution which was released publicly, and the one about the documents prosecution, which Judge Aileen Cannon has blocked from being released

30:19

Unconditional Discharge

Serious Trouble ·

2025/01/14

The Supreme Court declined to save Donald Trump from being sentenced in his New York criminal case, but the justices said that decision was in part because there wasn’t much to save him from: Judge Juan Merchan had indicated that he would sentence Trump to an unconditional discharge, i.e. no punishment. In other Trump-criminal-case-wind-down news, Judge Aileen Cannon has continued to make trouble for DOJ officials seeking to release parts of a report about Trump’s two federal criminal prosecutions

39:43

I Am Not In Serious Trouble

Serious Trouble ·

2025/01/10

It’s already a busy 2025 for some of our favorite characters. On this episode: Rudy Giuliani has been held in contempt in proceedings in Judge Lewis Liman’s courtroom, where he has stalled the liquidation of his assets for the benefit of two women he defamed. Donald Trump gets an "unconditional discharge" penalty from Judge Juan Merchan and is trying to stop the release of Jack Smith's report. George Santos asks a judge to delay his sentencing so he can develop and monetize his podcast (!), Eric

27:45

Petite Policy

Serious Trouble ·

2025/01/03

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showWelcome to the first Serious Trouble episode of 2025! For all subscribers this week, Ken and Josh discuss Luigi Mangione’s indictments in both Pennsylvania and New York, and he’s also the subject of a federal criminal complaint. Both New York and the Feds look eager to prosecute him, and there’s going to be wrangling over who gets to go first, with an important difference in the stakes — he’s facing a capital

48:35

An Expensive Settlement

Serious Trouble ·

2024/12/18

This is our last episode of 2024! We'll be back right after the new year to discuss new messes. Today, we look at the substantial settlement that Disney-owned ABC has agreed to pay over George Stephanopoulos’s repeated assertions that Donald Trump had been found “liable for rape” by a jury or juries. And Trump sues CBS, Ann Selzer and the Des Moines Register. Plus: Judge Juan Merchan has ruled that the Supreme Court decision establishing a sphere of presidential immunity does not compromise the

41:17

Six-Pack Abs Can't Save You Now, Luigi

Serious Trouble ·

2024/12/13

People get really weird when a murder suspect is hot, huh? Luigi Mangione needs to be extradited to New York, and he’s resisting that — we discuss why it can make sense for a defendant to delay the inevitable. Also in New York, Daniel Penny has been acquitted of criminally negligent homicide in the killing of Jordan Neely. Juries can get weird. Plus: InfoWars may not be sold to The Onion after all, an expert witness in AI used AI to write his testimony and it hallucinated some fake cases (oops!), we

24:04

Pardon Me For All That I Have Done

Serious Trouble ·

2024/12/06

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showJoe Biden has committed the ultimate act of snowplow parenting: a presidential pardon for his son, and not just for the specific acts he faced charges over, but for anything he did between 2014 and five days ago. This week, Ken and I discuss exactly how unusual this pardon was and exactly what kinds of norms about pardons even remain to enforce, and rumors that Biden might hand out a lot more preemptive pardons for

45:56

Diss Isn't RICO

Serious Trouble ·

2024/11/27

Did you know Ken is a huge Kendrick Lamar fan? Well, not really. But he is psyched that Lamar and Drake have produced some truly hilarious litigation to discuss. Their beef goes back years, and they have traded diss tracks — in Kendrick's latest, he calls Drake a “certified pedophile” who’s “tryna strike a chord and it’s probably A Minor.” Is that defamation? If you’re a regular listener to this show, you know it very likely isn’t — and even Drake isn’t quite ready to sue for defamation. But he has

16:42

Matt Gaetz Pulls Out

Serious Trouble ·

2024/11/22

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showWouldn’t you know we recorded this show Thursday at 11am Eastern, just in time for Matt Gaetz to withdraw his candidacy for Attorney General a bit after noon? Don’t worry — we went back and recorded a new beginning of the episode, tossing out the now moot (probably?) conversation we had about the ethics report everyone in Washington wants to see. Ken and I still took the opportunity to talk about how a DOJ under

28:46

The Aftermath

Serious Trouble ·

2024/11/13

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showLast week’s presidential election, which has made Donald Trump once again the president-elect, will obviously have profound effects on the various criminal cases against him. On this show, we cover the Department of Justice winding down the two federal prosecutions and why they're doing it now, and the prospects for the prosecutions in Georgia and New York.For paying subscribers: a deeper conversation on what should

40:39

Young Thug Pleads Out

Serious Trouble ·

2024/11/05

For your Election Day listening pleasure, we have an episode for you covering the news that has arisen in the lead-up to the election:* Updates on Eric Adams, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes says her office is looking into whether Donald Trump illegally threatened Liz Cheney at a rally in Arizona.* Young Thug, the Atlanta rapper who has stood accused of running a street gang, pleaded guilty in the long-running, very messy RICO case where he has stood trial alongside several of his associates

23:37

Michael Avenatti Is Still a Bad Lawyer

Serious Trouble ·

2024/10/24

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showFor all listeners, we have updates this week on Michael Avenatti, Aileen Cannon, Laura Loomer and Bill Maher. Our valued paying subscribers (thank you for your support!) will also hear about: the Central Park Five lawsuit against Donald Trump, Rudy Giuliani being ordered to hand over assets to the election workers he defamed, FTX defendant Ryan Salame, who alleges (dubiously) that federal prosecutors double-crossed

42:20

Twelve Busybody Idiots

Serious Trouble ·

2024/10/18

SpaceX is suing the California Coastal Commission for objecting to a plan to increase the frequency of SpaceX launches from Vandenberg Space Force Base. The commissioners did raise some concerns that actually relate to the Pacific coastline, but they also mouthed off about how they dislike SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s general political activities. And Judge Tanya Chutkan considers how the Supreme Court decision in Fischer affects the criminal charge against Donald Trump for obstructing an official

19:14

XL Brief

Serious Trouble ·

2024/10/10

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThe long memo Jack Smith promised is here: a 185-page document laying out evidence he’d like to present in his January 6-related case against Donald Trump. The memo has to be so long because the Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity was so complex and vague: Smith must show, act by act, that he’s offering evidence either of Trump’s unofficial actions, or of official acts where he can overcome the

38:20

To Be On Safe Side, Please Delete All Messages You...

Serious Trouble ·

2024/09/30

Federal prosecutors allege that New York mayor Eric Adams accepted tens of thousands of dollars of free business-class upgrade on Turkish Airlines as part of a broader scheme to receive illegal support from foreign nationals (including concealed political donations from Turks) in exchange for official favors, including from the Fire Department of New York. This is a long, fun “speaking indictment” with juicy details.Plus, there’s other news: Three Iranian hackers indicted for the breach of Trump

23:40

Superseding Indictment

Serious Trouble ·

2024/09/26

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showRyan Wesley Routh has been charged with attempting to assassinate a major presidential candidate. Ken and Josh discuss how proving Routh’s intent to kill the former president might be challenging (had he not left a note expressing his intent), and we talk about what “attempt” is — Routh never pulled the trigger, but there are a number of “substantial steps” he took toward killing Trump that should still make this

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