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

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19:15

Snap Decisions

Serious Trouble ·

2025/11/04

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showOn this week's show for everyone: two court decisions direct the Trump administration to continue sending SNAP (food stamp) funds to states and the administration has chosen not to appeal these orders — likely not relishing the politics of withholding SNAP funds — but the legal situation may get more complicated if the shutdown does not end soon. Plus: more motions from James Comey.For paying subscribers: legal

26:48

Literal Truth and Theoretical Conflicts

Serious Trouble ·

2025/10/30

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThis week, both James Comey and Letitia James continue to seek dismissal of the criminal charges brought against them, and one argument they’ve both made will be considered by a judge from another state. We talk about why that's happening, we also discuss a lesson from the Barry Bonds steroids case that could be relevant for Comey, and we look at a complaint James has made about Halligan’s communications about grand

23:15

Insider Betting

Serious Trouble ·

2025/10/25

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showThis week in the free episode: the indictment of John Bolton and how it's pretty different from the Comey indictment, plus Trump's apparent demand that the Justice Department pay him $230 million for the indignity of being prosecuted.Paying subscribers also get to hear a dive into two wild NBA-related indictments that came down this week in the Eastern District of New York. One indictment alleges that conspirators,

19:12

Drake's Not Like Us (Familiar With Defamation Law)

Serious Trouble ·

2025/10/17

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showLetitia James has been indicted, as President Trump’s retribution campaign continues. (So has John Bolton, but that happened after we recorded.) While the Bolton indictment has a forbidding, professional feel, the James indictment does not, and is likely to be vulnerable to some of the same attacks James Comey is raising against his own indictment. But then, is the point even to get a conviction? Plus: another US

15:21

Race To Trial

Serious Trouble ·

2025/10/09

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showJames Comey has been arraigned and has a trial date of January 5. Both his lawyer and the judge appear set on moving rapidly to trial, and the government is rushing to be ready. We discuss the motions it sounds like Comey's legal team will file, which likely will be helped by the message from the president demanding Comey’s prosecution that does really appear to have been intended as a private message for Attorney

19:42

Grand Jury Shopping

Serious Trouble ·

2025/10/02

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showWe know more this week about indictment of James Comey. Maybe the grand jury vote was weak, but an indictment is an indictment, right? Maybe not. We discuss how Comey’s attorneys are likely to seek dismissal of the indictments. Meanwhile, we have some more detail on how the FBI came to be conducting a public corruption investigation into Tom Homan when he wasn’t even a public official. That — plus a discussion of

21:59

Stop Making Us Defend James Comey

Serious Trouble ·

2025/09/27

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showJames Comey has been indicted, charged with making a false statement and obstruction of justice. Now, the government will try to prove he lied to Congress when he said he never “authorized someone else at the FBI to be an anonymous source in news reports” about the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails, even though he had, in fact, authorized “Person 3” to do this. But — who will prosecutors say Comey did

18:39

Federal Censorship Commission

Serious Trouble ·

2025/09/19

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showDisney has “indefinitely” ceased airing Jimmy Kimmel Live under pressure from FCC chairman Brandon Carr and from Nexstar and Sinclair, two major owners of ABC affiliate stations, which themselves faced significant pressure from Carr. It is illegal for federal officials to “jawbone” private actors into punishing other private actors for their speech, but for relief to be possible, there has to be a pretty clear

39:54

Surprising Federal Crimes

Serious Trouble ·

2025/09/12

This week’s show takes a look at federal charges in the widely discussed Charlotte train murder case. Murder, of course, is not generally a federal crime, but because the murder happened on a train, the Feds have charged it as a violation of 18 USC § 1992, which prohibits “an act, including the use of a dangerous weapon, with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury to any person” in various transportation-related places, including on train tracks.Meanwhile, the Supreme Court will soon

37:13

Triple No Bill

Serious Trouble ·

2025/09/02

This week: Jeanine Pirro has returned to her roots as a prosecutor, but prosecutors in her office have failed to secure felony indictments in at least three cases they brought to grand juries, including the case of “Sandwich Guy” Sean Dunn, who will face only misdemeanor charges for launching a submarine sandwich at a CBP officer.Trump lost another appeal related to many of his tariffs (IEEPA!); Trump’s weird lawsuit against federal judges in Maryland was thrown out; Alan Dershowitz lost his appeal

43:57

Godmother of Greenpoint

Serious Trouble ·

2025/08/23

As Eric Adams says, New York is the Zagreb of America. People from all over the world come to New York to make their dreams come true. And sometimes, those dreams are illegal. Today we talk about the second indictment for longtime Adams consigliere Ingrid Lewis-Martin for taking a TV series cameo in exchange for impeding a street safety redesign that would have complicated access to co-defendants Gina and Tony Argento’s Broadway Stages in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Other aides are swept up in that case

38:03

I Threw The Sandwich, But I Did Not Throw the Panini

Serious Trouble ·

2025/08/15

Judge Paul Engelmeyer has refused the Trump administration’s request to release the grand jury transcripts from Ghislaine Maxwell’s prosecution. He notes forcefully that he’s reviewed the grand jury transcripts and there’s no there there — everything of interest disclosed to the grand jury became public at trial. Indeed, the only reason Engelmeyer considered releasing the transcript was that it would serve the public interest of showing the government had been lying about what’s in the transcript

43:27

Arenas Poker Club

Serious Trouble ·

2025/08/07

This week Ken and Josh discuss the next steps the Trump administration may be considering to deal with the Epstein mess: what to do about the files, what to do about the transcript of Todd Blanche's meeting with Ghislaine Maxwell. Maxwell, who was moved to a much nicer federal prison, has a colorable argument that her conviction should be thrown out because she was supposed to be covered by the sweetheart deal Jeffrey Epstein cut with federal prosecutors back during the Bush administration.Plus:

21:47

Ghislaine Looks for a Deal

Serious Trouble ·

2025/07/29

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showGhislaine Maxwell has sat for a meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who not very long ago was serving as President Trump’s personal criminal defense attorney. The idea seems to be that Maxwell could offer some “help” getting to the bottom of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal in exchange for some sort of leniency. That’s for free subscribers. For paying subscribers this week, there’s much more:* Emmanuel and

48:01

To Most People It's Extremely Tedious

Serious Trouble ·

2025/07/22

Donald Trump has sued the Wall Street Journal over its story saying he wrote a weird poem to Jeffrey Epstein and drew a caricature of a naked woman with his own signature as her pubic hair as part of a book wishing a happy 50th birthday to the New York financier. Ken and Josh discuss the suit, which looks more like an exclamation point on his claims that he never even liked that Epstein guy! than a serious effort to win damages from (or extort) the Rupert Murdoch empire. Meanwhile, Trump is seeking

48:14

Oh Mann

Serious Trouble ·

2025/07/10

This week, we discuss the mostly favorable verdict for Sean Combs, a.k.a. P. Diddy and his upcoming sentencing. In another bizarre sex-related case, two founders of OneTaste, a new-age-female-empowerment-business-slash-sex-cult, have been convicted of coercing their employees into sex acts.Also this week: an update on D.H.S. vs. D.V.D., a case where the Supreme Court’s orders have been fairly inscrutable and the litigants have now been deported to South Sudan; another shadow docket victory for the

21:49

Nationwide Injunctions Are Enjoined

Serious Trouble ·

2025/07/01

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.showFor all subscribers: a discussion of the Sean Combs jury deliberations and a look at the 6-3 Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. CASA that says trial courts (generally) can no longer issue nationwide injunctions. As Ken and I discuss, the ruling is sure to greatly change how aggressive executive branch actions get litigated, but the exact nature of the change is not yet clear.Paying subscribers also get a look at Gavin

39:51

One-Way Ticket to South Sudan

Serious Trouble ·

2025/06/26

More shadow docket news on this week’s show: The Supreme Court’s conservative majority blocked an order from a federal judge in Boston that had imposed due process requirements when the Trump administration tries to deport migrants to countries other than their countries of origin. As is often the case with shadow docket orders, the judges in the majority did not explain their reasoning, leaving the lower courts without clear guidance on what to do next: was the order blocked because the class of

42:38

Of And Concerning

Serious Trouble ·

2025/06/19

It’s been a big week for some of the dumber litigation we follow around here. It’s not all dumb — we start with an update on California’s litigation over the deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, where the state has gotten relief at the trial court level but faces a tough road in the appeals courts. And we look at a case in Boston where a federal judge has blocked, for now, the cancellation of certain grants the National Institutes of Health have deemed excessively DEI-related.Then we

43:29

Newsom v. Trump

Serious Trouble ·

2025/06/13

Donald Trump has activated the National Guard in California over the objections of Governor Gavin Newsom, and Newsom has sued, claiming the activation is illegal. Ken and Josh discuss Newsom's chances of prevailing against the president's broad authority to use the military for various purposes. Meanwhile, union leader David Huerta has been charged for his actions of civil disobedience. One of Huerta’s legal problems stems from his choice to yell at the federal agents, “What are you going to do,

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