This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Well, holy crap. As you’ve likely heard, Dominion v. Fox will not be going to trial. We recorded this episode on Tuesday morning, and then when the settlement came out, we recorded again — so this is some fresh, fresh content, looking at what forces would have driven the parties to get to ‘yes,’ and how the settlement came to be so large — likely the largest settlement ever paid in a defamation case in the US. ...
Apr 19, 2023•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week, Ken and Josh discuss major developments in Dominion Voting Systems’ lawsuit against Fox News, which will imminently go to trial in Delaware. So far, pre-trial rulings have been in Dominion's favor, but as we saw a few months ago in the Tesla shareholder lawsuit against Elon Musk, it’s possible to win big on the pre-trial motions and still lose at trial. We discussed that outlook as the parties procee...
Apr 13, 2023•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Well, this one’s a doozy. There’s a reason this week’s episode for paid subscribers is more than an hour long. After years of hearing that “the walls are closing in on Donald Trump,” after two impeachments, and after Ken and Sara and I produced hundreds of podcast episodes regarding his legal travails, Donald Trump has finally been charged with a felony — 34 of them, actually. It’s quite complicated and interes...
Apr 06, 2023•12 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Ken is back from his vacation, and there were no Trump indictments while he was gone. Isn’t that nice? We discuss the evidence that led many people, including Trump himself, to declare an indictment was imminent; and we discuss what we might infer about whether there will even be an indictment. Plus, updates on other Trump-related legal proceedings: anonymity for the jury in E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit...
Mar 30, 2023•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast It appears that E. Jean Carroll’s defamation lawsuit against Donald Trump might actually go to trial pretty soon — the court is behaving like it does when a trial is about to begin. This week, we talked about evidence of Trump’s prior behavior — two other accusations from women who say he committed sexual crimes against them, decades apart — that Judge Lewis Kaplan has decided may be admitted in court. Usually, testimony about prior bad acts isn’t allowed in evidence because it’s prejudicial, bu...
Mar 15, 2023•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast First: Yet another of SBF's top lieutenants has pleaded guilty to crimes including wire fraud and commodities fraud, and in the plea documents we learned more about SBF’s ill-advised campaign finance schemes. Plus, prosecutors and his own lawyers are proposing an agreement to further restrict SBF’s access to technology — including taking away his smartphone. Then Josh and Ken catch up on Donald Trump’s legal affairs. There are signs that special counsel Jack Smith is trying to move swiftly towar...
Mar 08, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Defamation litigation tends to be unavailing. Many offending statements don’t meet the definition of defamation — they may be opinions, or insults, or false statements against a public figure made without actual malice, or even true factual statements you just didn’t like hearing. This week’s episode is mostly a deep dive into defamation lawsuits brought against Fox News (and related parties) by two voting technology companies, Dominion Voting Systems and Smartmatic. This litigation looks differ...
Feb 22, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Dear listeners, We’re back with more serious trouble! On this week’s show, we take a look at the (partial) report of a Georgia special grand jury that had been investigating efforts to interfere in that state’s reporting of its 2020 presidential election results. The report says the grand jurors think they heard some perjury. And its unreleased portions may contain recommendations about criminal charges — recommendations that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis could bring to a regular g...
Feb 17, 2023•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Elon Musk got a big win in the civil trial over whether his “funding secured” statements defrauded shareholders. We talked about how “that’s Elon being Elon” can be an effective defense. We also talked about Sam Bankman-Fried and the ever-sprawling pool of potentially-cooperating witnesses who might tell prosecutors about his and FTX’s wrongdoing. For paying subscribers, there’s more: the California State Bar m...
Feb 08, 2023•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show This week, we talk about how not to stay out on bail (yes, once again, it's Sam Bankman-Fried), and how the judge is likely to respond to him contacting FTX employees. We also talk about David DePape, who seems pretty nuts — but not nuts enough to have an effective insanity defense for his attack on Paul Pelosi. That’s the end of the free episode. For paying subscribers, we continue on with answers to your ques...
Feb 01, 2023•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Ken and I talked about a substantial sanctions order — nearly $1 million — that Donald Trump and his attorney Alina Habba must pay for the frivolous RICO lawsuit they brought against dozens of defendants. As sanctions orders go, this is really big — and Ken thinks Habba should worry about being disbarred — but is this really an effective deterrent against Trump, who got lots of publicity and fundraising opportunities from the suit? We also looked at criminal charges against Alec Baldw...
Jan 25, 2023•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Ken is utterly dismayed that Sam Bankman-Fried has started a Substack, where he’s writing in great detail about FTX. Then: Ken and Josh talk about the classified documents found at President Biden’s home in Wilmington and the Penn Biden Center in Pennsylvania, if there is legal exposure for the president, among other questions. For paying subscribers, Ken and Josh preview the trial in the securities fraud class...
Jan 18, 2023•20 min•Transcript available on Metacast In some ways, George Santos is having a pretty good year. The congressman-elect's new salary is $174,000 a year, which is a lot more than he was making at the Dish Network call center. Of course, there are some other things that aren’t going so great for him. He is a big lying liar who lies , and while lying about whether you ever worked at Goldman Sachs isn’t a crime, some of the lies Santos told could have legal consequences. We talk this week about problems that could arise from statements he...
Jan 05, 2023•38 min•Transcript available on Metacast We talk a lot on this show about bad clients — people in legal trouble who disregard advice, talk when they should shut up, and generally make their lawyers' lives miserable while increasing their own odds of facing a large judgment award or ending up in prison for a good, long time. You know, clients like Sam Bankman-Fried and Donald Trump. So we thought it would be good to talk about what it takes to be a good client. If you're in legal trouble, what can you do to ensure you leverage your lawy...
Dec 22, 2022•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Sam Bankman-Fried… boy, is he in serious trouble. He’s been indicted on several counts, with the central accusation being that he defrauded customers, lenders, and equity investors doing business with his now-bankrupt companies, FTX and Alameda Research. Importantly, the story Bankman-Fried has been relentlessly telling about himself is a story the government says is still fraud even if it’s true. Ken and I tal...
Dec 14, 2022•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Sam Bankman-Fried is in serious trouble! And he has a strategy: tweet through it. We talk about the legal risks that come from tweeting through your legal risks — it’s not just that SBF risks providing evidence to help the government prove he committed crimes; he may also be committing new crimes, like wire fraud, in real time. For all listeners, we have a breakdown of the lessons in what-not-to-do from SBF. Fo...
Nov 17, 2022•21 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode of Serious Trouble, we discuss: - An order granting the New York Attorney General’s request for a monitor to oversee Trump Organization financial activity, and some troubles the Trumps face in this civil action that they would not face in a criminal case. - An acquittal on all counts for Tom Barrack, a businessman and associate of Donald Trump’s who was accused of acting as an unregistered agent for the United Arab Emirates. - The dismissal of Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy...
Nov 08, 2022•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast We answer a listener question about what’s likely to happen to InfoWars, now that Alex Jones and his companies are subject to a $965 million defamation judgment. We also talk about legal difficulties at Fox News — including one that’s overblown. And, after receiving a lot of requests from you to discuss this topic, we talk aboutd the prospects of chess prodigy Hans Niemann’s lawsuit, in which he says world chess champion Magnus Carlsen and others defamed him by accusing him of cheating. Finally,...
Oct 26, 2022•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Someone close to attorney Christina Bobb is making sure reporters hear it was definitely not her fault that she incorrectly told investigators in June that Trump had already handed over all the marked-classified documents remaining at Mar-a-Lago. Bobb insisted on adding a caveat to her declaration, saying it was based on information provided to her. Bobb likely did that with the intention to insulate herself fr...
Oct 12, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast There’s been a lot of legal news in the last ten days, and so today’s show is on the long side: nearly an hour and it’s also free for all listeners in its full length. We talked about the oddly snippy correspondence between Judge Aileen Cannon and the much more senior federal judge she’s named as special master overseeing the Mar-a-Lago documents, we answer a listener’s question about whether Trump’s position as a former president vests him with any added responsibilities, in the eyes of the cou...
Oct 05, 2022•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Whew, it’s been a big news week! Big enough that we had to record this episode one and a half times: on Wednesday, following the first conference with Special Master Raymond Dearie; and again on Thursday, after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals made Dearie’s job much easier by saying the DOJ is free to use approximately 100 marked-classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago and that Dearie need not review them....
Sep 22, 2022•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show If you are a lawyer, it is important to make sure you get paid for your work, especially if your client is someone like Donald Trump, who has very complex legal needs and a history of trying not to pay his vendors. So we weren’t surprised that attorney Chris Kise, one of the big shots on Trump’s legal team, has collected a $3 million fee deposit in preparation for what could be very extensive legal billings. Pl...
Sep 19, 2022•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Dear listeners, It’s another week of serious trouble! This week, Ken and I talk about the unsealed application for the Mar-a-Lago warrant, such as it is — most of the juicy bits are blacked out, but we did learn some things about what the government is investigating and who does not seem to be a target. The government says its “privilege review team” — an alternative, loser terminology for the taint team — is a...
Aug 30, 2022•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s another action-packed week for Serious Trouble! On today’s episode, we talk about former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg’s plea deal that will send him to Rikers Island for about three months for tax crimes — and won’t involve testifying against Donald Trump personally. We look at the legal fight over the sealing of the application for the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, and at Trump’s… filing, of sorts, demanding the return of “his” documents and the appointment of a special master to ...
Aug 23, 2022•40 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Now we’ve seen the warrant! On this week’s show, we talk about the search of Mar-a-Lago, and what it tells us about why the FBI wanted to poke around there. We discuss how Merrick Garland avoided pulling a Comey, when we might see the affidavit supporting the search warrant, we answer a question from a listener about how the government handles public trials involving classified documents it can’t share publicly...
Aug 16, 2022•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.serioustrouble.show Well, there’s been some serious trouble this week. The FBI executed a search warrant, looking for documents at Mar-a-Lago. According to former president Donald Trump, they even broke into his safe! What had to happen for such a warrant to be approved, and why federal prosecutors would have sought it — can it really be just about the Presidential Records Act? Who is entitled to what information, and when? Trump ...
Aug 09, 2022•9 min•Transcript available on Metacast In this episode, Ken and Josh discuss the cross examination of Alex Jones in the trial that will determine the damages for the defamation claim on which he already lost to parents of a child killed in the Sandy Hook massacre. After Jones repeatedly failed to comply with orders to turn over records and documents (to the point that he lost by default because he was so uncooperative), Jones’ lawyer accidentally shared the entire contents of Jones’s phone — including texts about Sandy Hook — with th...
Aug 04, 2022•18 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this episode of Serious Trouble, we talk about developments in Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s investigation of efforts to steal Georgia’s electoral votes in the 2020 election. Willis sent “target letters” telling all 16 members of the fake Trump slate they might be prosecuted. When do DAs send letters like that, and what should you do if you get one? Plus, we discuss a memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland, which lays out the cautions US Attorneys should take before bringing politically ...
Jul 21, 2022•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter. He doesn’t want to buy it anymore. Twitter wants to enforce the contract that requires him to buy the company, and so they’re arguing in the chancery court in Delaware about what will happen next. What is a chancery court? What is “specific performance”? Will a Delaware court actually force this company — an entity with employees, customers, and significant societal influence — into the hands of a buyer who doesn’t want to own and operate it? Listen to this episo...
Jul 15, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ken and Josh discuss an apparent agreement for Pat Cippolone (or “Patsy Baloney,” if you ask an auto-transcription system) to talk with the January 6 committee, and why his interview will be a little complicated because of privilege issues — both attorney-client privilege and executive privilege. We look at how that might matter, and what he might say that’s of interest. Plus: grand jury subpoenas in the Atlanta DA’s investigation, what happens when an interested third party is paying your legal...
Jul 07, 2022•36 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
