Small DoJ Energy

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:01 Matt: Department of Justice was claiming that it had to rush this. It had to get this emergency thing filed because of national security. Said that they believed that people were going to start storming churches if where judges have now said there is no presumption of regularity from the Department of Justice, that we're getting to the point that we can't assume that things are being done, that business is not as usual, that things aren't going to be as good as we want them to be, that things are wrong. They're

0:00:29 Thomas: And welcome to opening arguments this is episode 1237 I'm Thomas that over there's real life immigration attorney Matt Cameron how you doing Matt no

0:00:35 Matt: I'm really happy not to be talking about the Epstein files. We had a great time talking about The Epstein Files, as we always do, but that's a lot of Epstein.

0:00:42 Thomas: That makes one of us because I feel like there's no end to the amount I want to talk about the epstein files we need to make sure it never goes away and just never goes way in terms of trump and and the and any sort of consequences who knows if they'll ever have any but uh yeah I'm I'm glad we're on it there's always always going to be more, but but today we've got a lot of stuff to talk about. Um, on the agenda. I know that I know we've kind of had a lot of stuff pending while we've been talking about Epstein.

0:00:59 Matt: Oh yeah, plenty more. We're not ending this, but just good to have a break.

0:01:10 Matt: I really want to talk about the Don Lemon arrest, along with Georgia Fort, another independent journalist, and just the entire scene that went down in the Minneapolis church, and kind of how that's been reported, and what's going on there, and also kind of take you through the FACE Act, which is what they're being charged under because this is really not what it's for at all. Of Yeah, you'll

0:01:25 Thomas: The face act. Don't know what that is. Yeah.

0:01:28 Matt: Yeah. It has nothing to do with, well, it has something to do with what happened here, but it's not what was passed for as we'll find out. Want The Kilmer -Brigger -Garcia case this week, as well as Mohamed Madawi, who was arrested at a naturalization interview we talked about last year. Are all kind of the big marquee cases, along with Ramesa Ozturk and Mahmoud Khalil. We talked last week about the good news from the Ozturk case. Stuff is all falling apart for the government in all kinds of ways. And I think it's really worth noting these milestones. Some good news here. Then we've got just a BDE kind of a footnote. I'm not going to ruin the surprise yet, but yeah, it's pretty literally that. We'll litigation over penis size.

0:02:13 Thomas: If it I imagine does it have to do with the ski jumping okay a different penis quite a week for penises yeah it's penis week yeah well

0:02:18 Matt: Know. Completely different. It's quite a week for... I forgot about that. Or they were like modifying the outfits to sure

0:02:29 Thomas: The the physics of it is like every bit they add to the the crotch area as like, you know, 25 fricking feet. Cause that's a weird event. I don't understand that event. You fly off of a, you ski. It looked, I'm sure it's incredibly hard. Don't get me wrong, but it's one of those events where it looks like the person could be napping while doing it. Like, cause they just, first they stand there, they ski down a giant jump. The tracks are in the thing. Like they just put their skis in the, basically in the tracks of the ramp. They They ski motionless, like standing motionless. All they do is focus on penis size, I guess. They're just like, come on, come one. Don't think about baseball. Don't think about baseball. And then they jump off the thing. And then, again, I'm not doubting. I imagine it's impossible. I'm just saying the look of it is just like nothing. It's so funny. It's a sport where they just, the diving, then they go into the same position that is zero movement. Like they get into the position. They don't move at all there. And then They Land. And you're like, wow, it's like you barely did anything. Thing, but you jumped 400 ,000 meters somehow. I don't know how it works, but, uh, but yeah, because there's so much drift or whatever, like they're practically parachuting or whatever. I guess that, uh. That, that little bit in the crotch, they should just standardize that, you know, in, uh... In NHL hockey a while back, probably 20 years ago or something, they... The goalies started making bigger and bigger pads. They just started making these absurd, gigantic shin guards that were just like, okay, this is getting out of control. And, uh.. You You know, obviously, there's going to be variability based on body size, but they're like, let's put a stop to this. They made a rule. It can't be any more than such and such inches past your knee or whatever. Do the same thing. Give everyone,

0:04:08 Thomas: Spot everyone an equal penis size in ski jumping. I'm always saying this.

0:04:15 Matt: And they're pumping this up as it were so that they could get extra flying space I don't know like flying squirrels

0:04:21 Thomas: Yeah, if you get whatever the outfit is, if you can get more Fabric on that, you're Flying Squirrel better. Yeah. Flying Squirl's huge dicks. You ever check? Don't check my work, but I'm just taking my word for it. Yeah, no, I'm excited about whatever this footnote is. And you know what they say about the size of a man's footnote?

0:04:29 Matt: Famously that's

0:04:43 Thomas: All right, well, look, you give me an opening to make penis jokes and penis humor.

0:04:42 Matt: Right that's fine oh I

0:04:48 Thomas: I so rarely get one, you know.

0:04:48 Matt: Was counting on it that's great Got to have some fun here.

0:04:52 Thomas: But that's what she said. Okay, we're going to go to break before Matt just quits the show. He might have already. I see the email. Now, yes, Matt quit while I was mid -rant about ski jumping, but he said he agrees to finish up this episode. So we will take our break. Go to patreon.com slash a lot of support the show. I need it now that Matt quit. I'm going to be going in on my own and support the Show. Get the lot off of movies and all the good stuff. Thanks so much to our supporters. You're the best. Particularly if you didn't catch Wednesday's episode, the patron shout outs were so funny. I love it. I love when the patrons Hall of Famers change their names. Some couple of them really got us. Those are great. So uh that's another perk there so thanks so much and we'll continue after the break right matt not not penis actually get out of it okay

0:05:39 Matt: Not yet. You got to wait.

0:05:41 Thomas: I can I could do it I could do it man

0:05:42 Matt: You can do it. All right. We got to talk about Don Lemon and this goes back to January 18th, 2026. This is kind of the time between, unfortunately, when Rene Good and Alex Preddy were shot. And there was a lot of energy, obviously, around getting ICE out of Minneapolis. Were cities, church, and St. Paul, where the pastor, David Easterwood, was the acting field office director of the local ICE office. So that's something that local activists wanted to bring attention to for good reason. Group here that ended up being arrested and went into this, we'll show you a little clip here, but it was a very respectable group of people. I mean, these are civic leaders. These are people that are already known in their communities. Armstrong, the civil rights lawyer, former NAACP chapter president. We have got former St. Paul City Council candidate Chantelle Allen. We got a a state Senate candidate, Jamel Lundy, Green Party organizer, Trayvon Cruz, Army veteran, Will Kelly, another Army veteran in Davis, Austin, and a college student, local activist, Jerome Richardson, and Don Lemon, and Georgia Fort were there as journalists, And Don Lemon, of course, formerly of CNN, now independent. Were very intentionally acting as journalists, doing journalist stuff. And this group was going there to protest and to disrupt the church services and to let everybody at that church know what their pastor was getting up to. Too. So we can play a clip here, and you're going to hear the voice of Nakima, Lady Armstrong. And you might know this name or this face because she was the one that when DHS tweeted about the arrest on X, they

0:07:07 Matt: They changed her face. You

0:07:06 Thomas: Right digitally altered it she was like made it so she's crying god

0:07:12 Matt: Yeah, she walked out tall and proud and looking just totally in charge when she was being arrested, but they turned her into a crying mess in the picture, which is awful.

0:07:21 Thomas: Is weird that's always black women and black people that they do these things too so bizarre but

0:07:24 Matt: Most of the people arrested here were Black, including both of these journalists, for what it's worth.

0:07:28 Thomas: But the particularly the distorting the image stuff is a very much they don't do that with white people like it's just not it tends to be muslim people black people it's like a common racist I don't know what it is about their racism they're really once they get the chance to get photoshop going or ai now I guess it's juste they uh they crack their fingers and go to it yeah

0:07:50 Matt: The making this sound like it was a January 6th takeover of the church. You can see for yourself, but exactly

0:07:56 Thomas: Like saying if I kicked a building it was like a 9 -11 but the building it's like that doesn't you can't have a January 6th of a church because there's not an official like you can't you cannot end our democracy there you know it's like kind of a weird overstatement but okay I'm

0:08:11 Matt: You can annoy people but yeah is a protest, so let's play a clip here right right you get the idea so want to give you a taste that's what the parishioners heard when they were there and the protesters did sit through most of the service it was getting I think after communion that they started this commotion um I think that was a very pointed statement I don't see anything wrong with saying saying that, that's what people in that church need to know, what their pastor is getting up to, and the community needs to know.

0:09:45 Thomas: She was on a microphone I don't know how like how much she responsible for the protest versus covering it or whatever I don't know

0:09:52 Matt: Oh, no, this is the act of a civil levy. I just want to show you what the protest looked like.

0:09:56 Thomas: Gotcha gotcha okay sorry so

0:09:57 Matt: This isn't Georgia Ford, right? To give you kind of the tenor. You could hear the yelling, and you could see that they were kind of standing in the aisles, and they're disrupting services, no doubt, but that was the purpose. They were supposed to make people uncomfortable. That's what protests are for. Were all charged or attempted to be charged with federal crimes. And is another example of just total DOJ overreach. And I want to explain kind of how this went down because the procedural history was as twisted as these things have been because DOJ is trying to get its way and trying to force everything through that it possibly can. The charges they're trying to bring are under the FACE Act that we'll talk about in a minute. But they went to the magistrate to try to get arrest warrants for eight people. And then they went back to the DOJ and they magistrate denied all but three of those arrest warrents, finding there wasn't probable cause for a federal crime from what he could see. Took the extraordinary step of filing a motion to reconsider an Amandamus request immediately with the district court, trying to get the rest of the district board to force these arrest warrants out. And chief judge of district court Minnesota, Joseph Schlix wrote a Letter to the Fourth Circuit letting them know that he was at home. He wasn't aware of any of this. He just found out about this mandamus while he's sitting at home, he doesn't have access because it's sealed. And there's an extraordinary thing here I wanted to read because I've never seen anything like this. He's letting them know that he hasn't seen the mandamus. He doesn't know what's in it. He assumes based on the history that it has to do with these arrest warrants, but he's going to try to respond to it the best he can anyway.

0:11:13 Thomas: We didn't get a chance to cover this yeah this was extraordinary he was like the weekend and the judge was like hey what doing everything he could to kind of deal with this in a way that made sense right

0:11:18 Matt: Yeah he has a son with disabilities his home taken care of and you know the record was sealed and he didn't know what was going on. This is from his sternly worded letter. I'm unable to access any documents in this case because at the request of the United States the case is sealed, apparently even from me. So I've been been given about two and a half hours to respond to a mandamus petition that I have not read and cannot read. Apparently, I'm supposed to guess what the petition is about and guess what the mandamus position says and then respond. I will do so. You know, he's making the point that he actually asked around. He asked every judge in the jurisdiction and every judge on the 8th Circuit that he could find, and nobody had ever heard of anything like this, the government ever doing anything like this. And Department of Justice was claiming that it had to rush this. It had to get this emergency thing filed because of national security.

0:12:05 Matt: They said that they believed that people were going to start storming churches if we didn't get this order, if we get these arrests. Just willfully missing the point of this protest. These are not people that want to go disrupt a church service for no reason. They're going to this church for this reason, for this protest, right?

0:12:20 Thomas: Soon every church that has a guy that's in charge of ice there would I mean that's I I actually as having said that who knows there could be a lot of this

0:12:29 Matt: Who knows? It could be. It could Could be. Yeah. That was just one extraordinary kind of thing out of all of this. And of course, not being able to get the magistrate to issue arrest warrants, they went to the grand jury. And that becomes very important because Lemon and Ford are seeking something really extraordinary, something that has actually become more possible because of the way the DOJ is just messing everything up all of the time. They're trying to get The Grand Jury transcript, which of course is not usually something that anybody can get. That's the point. The Grand jury is supposed to to be a secret show. And they're making the point that the government at this point has been so outrageous about the way it's conducted this prosecution and many other prosecutions that it has actually lost what they call the presumption of regularity, which is where we assume that things basically work the way they're supposed to work. To assume, basically the law is required to assume that when the government goes to the grand jury, that it follows the law and it instructs the grand juror in what the law is and asks for an indictment based on the the controlling law. Federal rules of procedure criminal 6E, generally, you're not going to be able to get grand jury materials. We talked about this when the Trump administration was kind of doing that red herring effort to get the Epstein grand jury material, right, just to try to pretend that was what it was all about. Eventually, some of those did come out, but the Epstein Act kind of sealed the rest of it. But there is an exception in this rule 6E for defendants who can show that a ground may exist to dismiss the indictment because of a matter that occurred heard before the grand jury. So there's some kind of irregularity or some kind of misconduct. And they're arguing here would be pretty extraordinary if it weren't this DOJ and if we didn't already know what the DOJ has said about these people in public. Very important point here is very much like with the Eric Adams prosecution, there are no local prosecutors. There are no local U .S. attorneys on this case. They brought in Harmeet Dhillon, the head of Office of Civil Rights, from D .C. sign and present the indictment, which is is extraordinary. That means nobody in the local office wanted to do it. And remember, the Minnesota U .S. Attorney's Office has had massive attrition. They've lost a lot of people because of the Rene Good and Pettis Alex shootings, including, this is amazing, Joe Thompson, who was actually the acting U .s. Attorney in Minnesota for a few months last year. He was the head of the fraud division. He brought all of those fraud cases, the famous Somali fraud cases. And he resigned out of protest over the way that they handled the Renne Good shooting when he was asked to investigate the widow of Renee Goode. He said that was it. That was the end for him. Also objected to the way they weren't participating with the state and they weren t cooperating. Is now Don Lemon's defense attorney.

0:14:49 Matt: He's turned right around and come back in the courtroom on the other side. I know.

0:14:49 Thomas: I not know that wow

0:14:53 Matt: Yeah, that says something, right? He's on the team. Mate, Dhillon, I think she's come up before. She has quite a character, but she's the head of the Office of Civil Rights. And this is a really good peek into to what DOJ thinks civil rights are now and how they're supposed to work.

0:14:54 Thomas: Yeah huh yeah there are those things things that white people get that nobody else gets. There's

0:15:12 Matt: Christians. Very important that Christians have civil rights. Obviously, important issue here. So let's hear Herb tell Megyn Kelly about how she feels about Don Lemon and these defendants. This is quite a statement from a prosecutor.

0:15:27 Thomas: Boy, she is the worst dude. What? Huh?

0:16:47 Matt: That goes both ways.

0:16:48 Thomas: Yeah. It's a good point. Yeah, yeah.

0:16:52 Matt: Hermione Dillon is also running her mouth, and a lot of that is coming into these motions because this is just one example. She's been posting. I mean, Harmeet Dhillon has a poster's heart. She really just keeps posting.

0:17:03 Thomas: Is just the troll administration. That's all it is. That all it ever has been.

0:17:07 Matt: Straight out. And this is the vaunted office for civil rights, the DOJ office that is one of the premium places that even lefties want to go to if you want to be a prosecutor because you can work on consent decrees to control police departments. You can prosecute bad cops. You can uphold voting rights and all the other good stuff that the government is supposed to be doing to protect us. And of course, it's been gutted under Trump, and their focus is this kind of thing. And this really brought to light something that I was not aware of about the FACE Act and about how it's being used. So let's just talk about the face act before we take a look at the indictment here. You've already heard about the way she's talking about it and just the obvious prejudice here.

0:17:40 Thomas: What's the what's the FACE Act?

0:17:42 Matt: Yeah, so let's talk about The Controlling Law.

0:17:43 Thomas: WTF? Why the face Act?

0:17:45 Matt: Never believe it stands for Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances. You You might notice this is not a clinic. Yep.

0:17:53 Thomas: So here I'm psychic. Here's what happened. They passed that and the compromise was, well, you can't stop people from if you if we could stop people for protesting abortion clinics, then isn't church just as important? And then they threw that in as like a compromise. And then we have this. Is that what happened? Oh

0:18:11 Matt: I think you're right. I think that's exactly what happened because this was not what it was for. Not at all, as the name would suggest. This is a Ted Kennedy bill that he sponsored the Senate in 1993. And it was in response to a Supreme Court decision called Bravey -Alexandria Women's Health. And that was a Scalia 6 -3 joint. And that time, there was no law protecting reproductive rights clinics. And argument was that the KKK Act, The Civil Rights Act basically of 1871 should apply because that protects people on the basis of protected classes if you're trying to deny them access to rights, basically. So typically, this would be used for voting or for other basic civil rights. But obviously, at the time, there was a constitutional right to reproductive care.

0:18:51 Thomas: So it wasn't even in the bill they're just putting it there oh

0:18:55 Matt: I just want to tell you the history. This is how the bill came to be. It's interesting because it's so specifically about about clinics. And then we end up with what we end up with. As you said, it had to be some kind of compromise. Scalia and Bray found that essentially this wasn't about women because, you know, why would it be about women? It's because you people have a right to show up and protect the victims, the true victims, which are the fetuses. And there's no animus to women. So there's not class -based discrimination when you show up in black abortion clinics or do whatever you want to them, I guess. So Congress, obviously, Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton were We're energized about this. They passed this. Clinton signs it. But Section 1 protects clinics and arguably might actually protect crisis pregnancy centers. There's actually a whole conversation about that, which are not, of course, clinics. Those are the ones that try to get women away from any access to abortion. But Section 2, I will read you here. This by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction. So think about what you saw there. There. Intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with, or attempts to intimidate or interfere with, any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship. So this has nothing to do with access to clinics. This is straight up protecting churches, which fine.

0:18:57 Thomas: Gotcha okay okay okay is that the thing I was talking about where they probably just like compromised and put that in okay

0:20:10 Matt: Your psychic abilities have really paid off here. You've been doing this a while. Reminds me of the january sixth prosecutions many of which which were thrown out and which was upheld in fisher Review U .S. we talked about back when that came down and the way back in June 2024 is a Sarbanes -Oxley Act that supposed to have financial records, but there was this very open provision about abstracting an official proceeding that these were brought under. This is kind of like that, except it's about houses of worship, clearly not supposed to be about this. But the real thing for me when I'm looking at this is it requires force or the threat of force. And I don't see that in the videos I've seen. I've watched a number of these these videos of this protest. It was loud. It was raucous. But they weren't keeping people from leaving. And they werenít shoving people. They werenít doing anything that would make them think that they were going to be getting hurt.

0:20:27 Thomas: Sorry yeah yeah what was the wording on that is it just the fact that they're preventing like the church services from happening oh

0:21:00 Matt: They're going to say that it was intimidating or interfering with the lawful exercise of the right. It requires that you do it by force or threat of force or by physical obstruction.

0:21:10 Thomas: They could say that then right oh

0:21:11 Matt: Showing up and yelling in the aisles, I mean, it's unpleasant. It's supposed to be uncomfortable. And it was near the end of the service. A lot of people just chose to leave, even though, you know, they could have stayed out, I guess.

0:21:20 Thomas: It was near the end okay so

0:21:21 Matt: Did wait through it. Actually, the people, the protesters came and joined in the service until they were getting to the end.

0:21:28 Thomas: So it seems like the service happened and then they tried to like make more of a comment than a question at the end of it and

0:21:34 Matt: Right. Exactly. The most part, this a misdemeanor that carries a year or a hundred thousand for a first offense. It can carry up to ten years with injury. In the indictment, they are sort of trying to allege there's some kind of injury. I don't really understand what what it is. I'm going to go back and look at it again, because I just don't understand what they're even saying the injury was. To be physical injury. Get the 10 -year provision, right? To get the felony, right.

0:21:52 Thomas: It does oh oh god yeah Yeah. Yeah.

0:21:55 Matt: So for the misdemeanor, it's just obstructing or interfering. They go through all these overt acts. And the thing that I'm really concerned about, the reason I really want to talk about it is that the overt acts include Don Lemon going up to the pastor and doing journalism, just asking questions. Don't think the pastor they're looking for was even there that day, but he went up to whoever was speaking. Lemon made a point along with Georgia Ford of attending this, showing up, but not chanting, not getting in people's faces, not speaking, just going in and asking questions and covering it as a journalist. Right.

0:22:23 Thomas: Covering it. Yeah, yeah.

0:22:23 Matt: That's what journalists do. And the reason I want to talked about this is because this is a direct threat to journalism, obviously. Is an attempt to charge a journalist that they don't like and they've never liked with a federal offense, a very serious federal offense potentially, drag him through all of this. Is why they have gone to the extraordinary measure of filing this motion to release the grand jury transcript, because they're actually arguing this motion, which I think is completely believable. He's got Abby Lowell, who's a legendary defense attorney working with Joe Thompson on this. It's a pretty solid argument. I'm very interested to see how this goes. But cite all of the different things that Harmeet Dhillon has said in public about him and about the defendants, about these cases. They cite the modification of that photo that we were just talking about. Called Don Lemon a pseudo -journalist, right? I mean, you're trying to deny that he has any journalistic privilege, basically. Reason they're especially energized about filing this motion is because there is an exception in the FACE Act in paragraph D for protected speech, so that that you're not allowed to prosecute people for any kind of expressive conduct, kind of First Amendment -protected activity. It is very important. Doesn't create any kind of new cause of action for interference with activities that otherwise be protected.

0:23:23 Thomas: That's important, isn't it? Question what intent mostly was stopping people from preventing people from accessing abortion clinics, right? There must be some line where it's like, well, we're just protesting protesting here like because that protest I'm sure is recognized as protected speech the fact that they're protesting the abortion clinics right I imagine right but so I guess you saying this this would help cover the journalistic aspect or would this help cover everybody okay

0:23:48 Matt: Yelling at people unpleasantly. Yeah. Motion I'm talking about was specifically filed by Don Lemon and Georgia Ford as journalists. They are saying And again, this is the kind of thing that we're just getting used to people making these arguments, and we know they're true, but I just want to point out again what weird times we live in. They're specifically arguing that there's reason to believe, based on the way the government is talking about this case in public, that they might not have told the grand jury about this exception, which they're required to do, right? So the particularized need they're alleging under the rule, is they're going to say that we need to know what the standard of law the jury was given to the grand jury to get there because the magistrate didn't find probable cause because he was looking at the same law.

0:23:59 Thomas: Gotcha oh wow oh yeah wow doesn't the when the judge like how is a grand jury work? There's no judge making sure you actually present the law properly? Oh, really?

0:24:40 Matt: No. Just a prosecutor's show. Yeah, yeah.

0:24:42 Thomas: No judge involved in the whole thing? In a grand jury? What? Okay, that is, I did not know that. That's news to me.

0:24:44 Matt: No, not a grand jury. Yeah.

0:24:50 Thomas: No one makes sure they're on the up and up?

0:24:54 Matt: To dismiss once the grand jury has brought its indictment, but this cause is pretty low standard, as we know. And that's how it is. Is really unusual, though. And they're citing the Comey case. And we talked at length about some of the irregularities in the Comeys case, obviously, but that was obviously a political prosecution. And they made all kinds of mistakes, including potentially misrepresenting things to the grand jury and potentially including going back and altering the verdict slip in a way without representing the charges when some of them were no -billed. Incredible about this motion, and it's really worth a read, is they're citing all of these different places where judges have now said there is no presumption of regularity from the Department of Justice, that we're getting to the point that we can't assume that things are being done, that business is not as usual, that things aren't going to be as good as we want them to be, that things are wrong. They're just doing things wrong. And there's this extraordinarily long footnote that goes through two pages, which of course I'm delighted in, that just lists out all of these decisions all around the country in which judges have found irregularities in the way the DOJ is doing things. Might work. I wouldn't usually say this would be something thing that you could get. But if on the way that the prosecution has been behaving and the obviously flimsy case anyway, I think they've got something here.

0:25:55 Thomas: That's That's, that's really fascinating.

0:25:56 Matt: It's one to watch. And it's I know I've got lawyer brain. I put a lot of trust in the system in many cases. I'm not an institutionalist, but I do believe in judges and judges like this one. And certainly looking at the letter, for example, just that Joseph Schlitz, the head of the district court in Minnesota sent. He takes his job very seriously. He takes the law very seriously, you know, he doesn't want people messing with this stuff, and he wants it done right. A pretty compelling case here from some very good lawyers saying that this is no presumption of regularity, and we have to actually look at what they told the grand jury, which is just a, it's unimaginable to me that we're actually, we've reached this point, but this is where we are. My imagination can be limited sometimes.

0:26:31 Thomas: Yeah. So when do we get to know what happens there?

0:26:35 Matt: There'll be a hearing on this sometime soon, and we'll keep on it. But the one other thing I wanted to note before we move on is new policy as of January 24th, 2025 is that they will not be charging abortion protesters under the FACE Act, which is what it's for. It's what it'S actually for. And not only that, but they're dropping three cases of people who demonstrably blocked clinics who were charged with crimes under the Biden administration.

0:26:59 Matt: And the name of not politicizing the government, we're going to prosecute Don Lemon and not abortion clinic protesters.

0:27:06 Thomas: Can just decide to use a law for not what it was meant for, but definitely for what it Was not meant for.

0:27:14 Matt: Pretty much it. We're going to be using the freedom of access to clinic entrances to no longer prosecute people who deny freedom of excess to clinics. That's literally what's happening. That is a matter of DOJ policy, essay. And that's civil rights these days, at the federal level, at least. We've got plenty of state civil rights left, but can't really count on your federal civil rights right now, at least not to have them enforced.

0:27:33 Thomas: Just insane.

0:27:34 Matt: It is. But this is an important one. This is another one of those kind of Rubicon kind of cases because it is a journalist. It's a journalist that most people have heard of. He's independent now, but he's, you know, from what I can tell in these clips, he was doing his job as a journalist and that's why he's being charged. Mean, let alone the rest of the defendants, I of these should be federal crimes.

0:27:51 Matt: I'd I'd understand if they wanted to bring a state trespass charge, maybe, but this is a pretty serious federal crime.

0:27:56 Thomas: So what's going to happen with those? Are we not really talking about those ones? Lots of people were charged, right? Right.

0:28:01 Matt: Yeah, all those people I just told you about, that whole group of activists.

0:28:05 Thomas: So. What's their best bet for getting getting out of this? Do you think it's just the fact that there wasn't any violence or that kind of thing?

0:28:12 Matt: Yeah, from what I can tell, I think it's worth, at least worth putting in front of a jury to see if they think that there was a threat of force and that there's an actual obstruction trying to keep people from leaving. Because the face of the indictment, I didn't find to be very convincing. It's

0:28:23 Thomas: But but but think about how much trouble that so so they're going to have to go through all of that. Wow. And Don Lemon, I just didn't spend the night in jail.

0:28:32 Matt: Yeah, that's kind of the stated policy of the Trump administration right now is just to kind of put people through things the best they can. And

0:28:38 Thomas: On journalists have been insane. Saying and heard someone put this really well um which is something I've been thinking about and and saying things like this but really catalyzed it is the media is going to do this thing that they're really great at where when there's a threat to a journalist all of a sudden they can they can make passionate pleas for like okay this is not acceptable all of the sudden because it's and it's the most selfish thing and I get it that they want want to say, no, that's it. But that's not politics. That's just freedom of press. And that's something that's nonpartisan. Yeah. So is a whole bunch of other stuff that you don't do that for. You know, there's tons of examples of freedoms and constitutional rights that people have that are just as important. But when it's those, they'll be like, well, what do you think? So there's an argument on this side that says maybe you don'T have citizenship if you blah, blah, blah. Like it's just they'll both sides everything. But then magically when it'S journalism stuff. They won't. So I guess we can probably at least count on them to cover this pretty, fairly, but I just wish they would apply that to, you everything else.

0:29:39 Matt: Yeah! As with so many of the things, it doesn't exist until it happens to you. So, is important, and, you know, we've got to keep on it. So, there we are, probably

0:29:46 Thomas: Yeah. Be really curious to see if that's successful. Right. Well, um, going to take a brake and then when we get back, we got some good news, right, man? It?

0:29:53 Matt: We got more good immigration news. Happy about it.

0:29:55 Thomas: Fantastic. More good news. We're just swimming in good news lately.

0:30:03 Matt: Yeah, no, we talked about Rameza Ozturk last week and the termination of her case, a landmark kind of thing. And this is a very similar one. This is Mohsan Madawi. I was saying last week, I was trying to remember the other people that have been charged under the provision we were talking about that allows the federal government to a deportation proceeding against people who are a threat to foreign policy, that pose some kind of adverse foreign policy just by existing in the country. And of course, we talked about Ramez Ozturk signing that op -ed, and there was Mahmoud Khalil as a student activist. Then we've got Mohsen Madawi, who is the one who was arrested at his naturalization interview in Vermont. This is unheard of, that he was pulled, lawful permanent resident, just taken his test, about to pass, and pulled out and charged and detained, put into deportation proceedings. Is really distinctive because Mahmoud Khalil wasn't a lawful permanent resident. Ramez Osterk was a student on a student visa, and this man was just about to become a citizen. Case, as we've talked about before a couple of times now, this basis of removal, very rare, very unusual. All it really takes by law is a letter from the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, saying that we think this person poses a threat to foreign policy. There was a really interesting termination order that just came down, and again, from Boston, because that's where these things are happening. He was arrested in Vermont that the Boston Immigration Court controls. .J. Froese Froese here in Boston a very reasonable order, and the ACLU included it in the letter they sent to court. This is actually very much like the Ramesa -Osterich thing, where even though the case has been dismissed, they still have to let the court know because there's a habeas case pending as there is for him too. And the government is expected to appeal this. And so they want to make sure that they keep the court apprised because potentially they could still be taken back in even though they've won at this stage. So the termination in this case was as simple as it gets. And it's just a stupid oversight from the government. And

0:31:48 Thomas: Way. This government?

0:31:49 Matt: Yeah, I know, more presumption of regularity stuff. It's kind of hilarious. I actually really enjoyed this one because

0:31:55 Thomas: Good. I could use this.

0:31:57 Matt: What it came down to was the letter itself. Remember I told you all it takes is a letter from Marco Rubio. We haven't seen that letter, but just saying, I consider this person to present an adverse foreign policy implication to the United States. Judge found that they had not presented proof that this was was actually a letter from Marco Rubio.

0:32:13 Matt: That was it. That was so good. They didn't authenticate or certify it.

0:32:18 Thomas: Didn't, what, you didn't sign it or something?

0:32:19 Matt: He signed it. But she's just like, yeah, this looks like a photocopy. Do you have an authenticated copy? Do you have a certified copy?

0:32:24 Thomas: No way.

0:32:25 Matt: Yeah. And they didn't have one. I'm sure she gave them time to produce one, I would think under circumstances like this.

0:32:31 Thomas: What the hell?

0:32:32 Matt: There. That's, you know, it's all we have is her order. But her order is pretty to the point. And it just says, you know, we've got rules here. And if you want to say that Secretary of State thinks this is this important, you better give me a certified letter saying it." And that's it.

0:32:43 Thomas: Really? Cause like you you say they usually would be like hey remedy this and and it would probably give them a minute right what that doesn't make any sense right

0:32:54 Matt: We're not even talking about the stupid reason that they're saying. Is grants without prejudice. They could maybe try to bring proceedings again. Can appeal this and try to say that they didn't need to be certified or authenticated the way that she said, although the rules do require that. It doesn't take much to authenticate it. They wouldn't have had to do very much work at all.

0:33:11 Thomas: That is really weird yeah

0:33:13 Matt: DHS argued that this was a self -authenticating document because it was signed by Marco Rubio. And they're like, no this isn't a business record, this is a letter from a government official, and we want to know that it's real.

0:33:22 Thomas: I'm baffled at this because like yes they're incompetent but this is a weird this dedication to a stupid point like wouldn't they just be all right just get this stupid thing being authenticated you know huh

0:33:28 Matt: Is, right, Just send it to D .C., overnight it, and get it sealed off or whatever, and but they didn't, and this is where we're at.

0:33:38 Thomas: So many thoughts I'm wondering if it's like another fascism point where they're like no we say goes and you can't challenge this and question it and so that's why they're doing this fight or is it incompetence is it something you know like I am just wow I really don't know what that would be about yeah

0:33:53 Matt: Such a high -profile case, you would think. But my best guess as a practitioner who goes to immigration court, especially this immigration court all the time, that DHS is doing a lot. They're pretty stretched out right now. And I think they probably didn't really consider the fact that this isn't a self -authenticating document, that you do actually need to show up with receipts for something that serious. And they seem to have stuck with it. So that's what they get. Almost as incredible as what I'm about to tell you about Gilmour Obrega -Garcia, because the theme of good news coming out of incompetence, yeah, remarkable legal argument, I have to say. There have been quite a few remarkable arguments, obviously, and to remind everybody, of course, this is the Salvadoran who was, quote unquote, mistakenly deported to the SICOT in El Salvador. He was there for months and returned finally because the U .S. government decided to cover itself by bringing fake criminal charges that we've talked about at length. We picked that indictment apart a while back. Case is not the criminal case. This is the review of his custody case in Maryland. Now, he was released in last year. And in December, the judge issued a temporary restraining order saying that ICE could not take him back into custody. A really interesting thing that happened here. And this is really an interesting peek into how immigration court works or doesn't work sometimes. The immigration judge in that case. Now, as we've talked about, Garcia received what's called withholding of removal. And that is a special form of relief in which they're entering an order of removal, which is deportation, but they're withholding that order because they find it's not safe for you to go back to your country. So essentially, if ICE is ever able to prove that your country is safe for you to return to, then they could effectuate that order. Or as is trying to be done here, they could try to find a safe third country to send you to. In the the whole time I've been practicing, it's very rare, unless somebody has a serious criminal record, that they try to send somebody with a withholding order to another country. They always have the right to do it. We've always known they have the Right to do It. But typically, people are just going to be in a check -in order. They're kind of in this indefinite limbo kind of state, but they're allowed to be here. They've got a work permit. They are in status. Of course, the really shocking thing, beyond the fact that he was deported to one of the worst prisons on Earth, is that that was the one country, El Salvador, that he wasn't supposed to be deported to.

0:34:13 Thomas: Well that's incredible wow right geez once incompetence or

0:35:58 Matt: Yeah, yeah. Or something. Who knows? Clearly just needed to get a plane load of people. And again, just to remind everybody, I've made this point several times and make it again. This was really just a couple of flights. It was too many people. Obviously, one is too many People to be sending down there. But this was not a regular thing. And it has not, as far as we know, happened since that they've sent people down to Seacon. To talk about Khalil and Ozturk and Ábrego García is because these were the big marquee cases that we're all concerned about last year. And there's still lots of reason to be concerned, but they have not really repeated a lot of these arguments. They've not tried to do similar things to a lot of people. And I think these were seen as test cases and they're all failing. And I've just wanted to focus on that because just as far as the judicial system actually working as it should. I think this is a really good sign. So what happened here, and the reason I want to highlight this, is that this temporary restraining order has now become a permanent injunction that ICE cannot take him back into custody. So that's very good news. And I wanted to kind of take you through why that is, because it's a kind of interesting point of law. Then interesting sort of immigration court detail, because in this withholding order, the immigration judge was working quickly as they often are, and he didn't actually properly write out the removal part of it. He didn't actually say that he was ordered removed. It was kind of this weird thing where they realized that he wasn't actually subject to a final order of removal, that there was actually this clerical error, basically. The government went back, and if you're familiar with the expression nunc protunc, which is now as then, basically when you enter

0:37:20 Thomas: Not that's a new one I haven't heard that non

0:37:23 Matt: I love that one. Yeah, nunc pro tunc. Fun to say. And retroactive order. So it's anything where, and it's typically done just to clear up a mistake or something in the interest of justice. If you're going to miss a deadline, if you don't otherwise fix this order, if you want to make sure you're preserving a filing date or something, there are lots of reasons, especially in immigration law, that we need to ask for things to be accepted nunc pro tunc or to be categorized that way so you don t end up getting the updated filing date or stamp date or whatever. So the original withholding order was from 2019, and government got it changed so that it was properly entered. I think there might have been an issue with the country as well, but it says that he is ordered to move to El Salvador. It's written properly. But of course, that order is withheld. Government tried to make one of the dumbest arguments. I feel like I say this every week now.

0:37:24 Thomas: -protect yeah yep yep, you do.

0:38:06 Matt: Of the dumbest arguments I've ever seen. And they tried to say that nunc pro tunc, which I know that's fancy Latin, but I anybody who works in this field knows what it means. Administrative lawyers, I think, know what it mean. It is retroactive. That's the idea. You're not imposing a new order. You are amending the previous one. And it is done literally, it means in Latin, now as if then, that is what it means. Tried to say that this was somehow a new order, even though it's still dated in October, 2019. And now, as if now, nuk pro nuk. The reason they're starting to do this is because they want to kind of misdirect things and to pretend that they have not essentially been been doing nothing for the past six years to try to remove him. Because as the judge points out, there is this 90 -day window where if they take somebody to custody, they have 90 days to try to deport them. The Supreme Court has held you can't hold them for more than six months. There's an additional 90 -Day period that can kick in that you can do a custody review. After the first 90 days, you can Do a second custody review after the second 90 days. But after 180 days, if the Supreme Court is found in a 2001 case called Zeta Vias, which is one I'm very concerned they might might revisit sometime soon, that if you don't have a reasonably foreseeable chance of actually deporting somebody, if their country isn't going to take them back, which happens all the time, or if their documents aren't in order for whatever reason, and it just doesn't look like you're going to make it within the six months, you can have them released. You have to have them release. The government's trying to play games with us and say that the clock had somehow restarted because of this nunc pro tonc order, which the judge points out is absurd. Third. Not only points out for pages about how stupid this argument is about Nuck Protonk and about how they clearly just don't even understand what it means, but also...

0:38:34 Thomas: It was nunk, not pro -tunk. Nunk, pro -tonk. What, am I speaking gibberish here? Come on.

0:39:45 Matt: Is this Latin? Thing is that you might remember as part of the criminal case, they were trying to offer him this really shady plea thing where they were going to say, you accept basically criminal responsibility for something that looks like a really cooked up case that almost certainly you didn't do. We'll send you to Costa Rica, which obviously is a place closer to where you're from, where you speak the language. And if you don't, we'll send you to Uganda or Liberia. And they keep talking about this and they have made no real effort to actually get Liberia or Uganda to accept individual people. We have these agreements that they could accept them, but by law, this is pretty strict. You actually have to be able to show that they are prepared to accept that person. And so I just wanted to read from Judge Seneza's decision. This This is from the 17th of February, just this week. Since August 2025, respondents, that's the government, have refused to procure Ábrego García's immediate removal to Costa Rica in favor of phantom removals to three, parentheses, maybe four, African countries. Indeed, since Obrega Garcia secured his release from criminal custody, respondents have made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success. The same time, respondents purposely and for no reason ignored the one country that is consistently offered to accept Obrega -Garcia as a refugee, and to which he agrees to go." And she quotes a government witness who actually had to acknowledge on the stand that there is no reason to believe that this one man going to Costa Rica would be prejudicial to the interests of the United States. There's no reason we can't just let him go to Costa Rica. Because

0:41:11 Matt: He said, I'm willing just to end all of this. Maybe I don't have a future here. I can go live in Costa Rica. I just don't want to go to Africa. I've never been there. Right? Sense. Think he should have to go to Costa Rica either, but she's saying they're trying to work with you here and you just keep making up countries that he might be able to go to. That just makes it that much worse for them that they clearly have no intention, or they don't have any ability at least to actually carry the order out, which is really important for the legal analysis that she's doing here. Is why we now have a permanent order against ICE that they cannot take him back into custody because they've just run the quack out. They've They've done nothing. It's great. Good news.

0:41:44 Thomas: That's amazing.

0:41:45 Matt: Again, DOJ's attrition, this is kind of the theme here, I think, with all of this is what's left of DOJ, right? Because you've got all those prosecutors in Minnesota that won't bring these cases, prosecutors that have quit en masse. Got this weird argument that they don't actually need to certify a letter from Marco Rubio. You have got this word argument that not pro -tank means now instead of before. War. Stuff. It's unfortunate to see the Department of Justice in this state, but

0:42:10 Thomas: I mean, it's fortunate now, but it isn't good later. Take him back in. What does that leave them? I mean, is he just set or, right,

0:42:18 Matt: Well, he's still got the pending criminal case, butthat's looking pretty good based on what we've been talking about. Know, she is still technically in charge of his custody. If they were actually to come up with a serious plan to send him somewhere else, you might have to review that. But were trying to do was torture him some more. This man they've already tortured plenty, right? They're trying to just bring him in and hold him and force him to some kind of decision and force them out of the country so we don't have to talk about him anymore. That's really what they were doing. Now they can't do that.

0:42:42 Thomas: Wow, that was incredible. All because of a classic Nunk Pro -Tunk gambit. I don't even know. That's so weird.

0:42:51 Matt: Yeah, I I love saying that.

0:42:52 Thomas: Yeah, it is really fun. I can't believe I've never come across that before. I feel like I would remember, you know? I was like, oh, I guess maybe I don'T remember, but I don' t know, man. I feel Like I would Remember that one. That's such a good one, but maybe not. That Was fun. Footnoting? All right. Well, that was great news. So incredibly good news. And competence of this stupid administration strikes again, reminding you that that is inevitably what happens with authoritarianism, with fascism, because it's not based on competence. But it's DEI for fascists. It's what they think DEI is anyway. Not sending their best. I'm amazed. We're not covering it today, obviously. But a with Kristi Noem. Of the corruptions. Some of corruption going on. What's the stuff? Which one is it? Who is it with the private plane and stuff? Was her. Yeah, like that. Amazing. That'S the kind of stuff that happens. Like it's inevitable that it attracts the most corrupt idiots. And that that, know, works out, works

0:43:41 Matt: You face real judges, it sure does. Yeah!

0:43:43 Thomas: All right. Well, I'm excited to take our final break and then get a footnote going. Really fun, fun footnote.

0:43:50 Matt: Got a big one.

0:43:52 Thomas: All right let's this going to be a hard footnote you think it'll be or it'll be never mind anyway so let's talk about whatever you're going to talk about here we go footnote that I'm not allowed to know about yet oh

0:44:11 Matt: This isn't so much a footnote. We're going to the root chakra here. This is a dick note. Is Matt Khalil, I'd never heard of before, but apparently played for the Minnesota Vikings and retired in 2019. is the most ridiculous Streisand effect case I've ever heard of. Everybody remembers is the Streisand effect when Barbra Streisands sued because people published pictures of her house. And that, of course, results in a bunch of pictures of our house being published in connection with all the stories about the lawsuit over the picture of her house. Is the Streisand effect, except for someone who, according to the record in this case, has a penis that is within 0.1% of the population size of a penis, described by his ex-wife as two Coke cans stacked together. Yeah. Even a third, she said.

0:44:48 Thomas: Jesus Christ, maybe even a third

0:44:52 Matt: That's a lot of Coke cans.

0:44:54 Thomas: That's like, I mean, obviously, even the two is you wouldn't ever want that. Like, that's the poor guy. Like, I feel like you're not doing much with that.

0:45:02 Matt: And that's kind of the point. I don't want to make too much light of this, because this that ended because they were incompatible.

0:45:09 Thomas: Oh, wow. And that's that stated reason.

0:45:12 Matt: It. His ex, went on an interview, and it was just kind of like a passing thing in the interview. It wasn't even the point of the interview, but she just mentioned in passing that their marriage had ended because it was painful, it was impossible, and that was the actual reason for the divorce. And they looked into physical options and she's small as a person and he's got this unusual attribute.

0:45:31 Thomas: Get him in the Olympics right now. Get him on that ski jump. Jump.

0:45:34 Matt: Ski jump. That's right, your

0:45:36 Thomas: The scouts are going nuts, like going over the court proceedings. We found one.

0:45:36 Matt: Man's going to fly. So the question

0:45:41 Thomas: I knew this would pay off.

0:45:42 Matt: Is, can you sue somebody for telling everybody how big your dick is? That is the question. Is it an invasion of privacy? Is it unjust enrichment, which is one thing he's arguing, of restitution that someone has an unusually sized penis?

0:45:59 Thomas: Importantly, you're saying that this was an interview. It wasn't just like in a court document because that usually has like, you know, litigation privilege type thing. Okay. So it was in an interview. Wow. So,

0:46:08 Matt: And she's made a couple of other sort of statements about it. And there's, of course, screenshots, as we do now in complaints. There's screenshots of comments and stories and all the things that he's saying contributed to all of this. I mean, I don't know. I'm not sure how to feel about this. Are you being subjected to ridicule? Is it something that you want people to know? Is it Something you don't want people to know I don t know.

0:46:28 Thomas: Up. Yeah, on his side of that. Like, that's tension that he probably didn't want, like, forever now. You of stuck with that forever by

0:46:35 Matt: It's probably gonna end up in his Wikipedia. At the same time, it's not as Wikipedia yet.

0:46:40 Thomas: It's on his Dickopedia. No,

0:46:46 Matt: So on it, Wikipedia.

0:46:46 Thomas: that'S good for them. I don't think that's the time lag. Like, I bet you maybe they're being conscious of that. I feel like Wikipedia is pretty cool.

0:46:54 Matt: That's true. That's sure. I'm talking about it because, of course, it'it's an interesting legal question because it's not something that at first glance I think most people would think is uniquely humiliating or embarrassing.

0:47:03 Thomas: Yeah, like defamatory. The easy joke would be like, oh, I wish that I, you know, someone would say that about me, blah, blah.

0:47:10 Matt: The same time, he's saying these are highly intimate private facts. This is talking about their private marriage relationship and that she didn't have a right to say it. But I also think that you should have a First Amendment right to talk about why your marriage ended.

0:47:21 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. That's true, hmm. Boy, that is a tough one. I don't know.

0:47:26 Matt: Already a big influencer. She already had a lot of following. And he's saying this is unjust enrichment because it's getting her that much more attention and more monetization. But she was married to a very famous football player and already had a bunch of following from other things she was doing online.

0:47:38 Thomas: I don' t know about the unjust enrichment angle. I don', what are the elements of that exactly? Like, how don'T know. I thought, so is it, is it like a, did you say anything about a defamation? Clause or what what's the actual is

0:47:48 Matt: Invasion of privacy. It's just two counts. So you get invasion of private privacy for highly intimate and private facts, and then the unjust enrichment for monetization, increased engagement. And they're getting way more hits than whatever else, but she's already had millions of followers. I just don't know if you can really say that, that this is what did it.

0:48:04 Thomas: But I feel like the first thing like that that that's probably good I

0:48:05 Matt: Yeah, I think there might be something there. I watch the interview and she's not really trying to slam him. She's not saying it out of spite or malice, really. She just kind of saying this is what happened. So I don't know.

0:48:18 Thomas: What do you need for I feel that is that any of the elements of that tort that's

0:48:24 Matt: It has to be highly offensive and humiliating to a reasonable person. And it has to be not newsworthy, not a legitimate public concern, basically, to sensationalize private life. Don't know. They're public figures, and maybe people are curious about why the marriage ended. And it's a pretty specific fact. I don' t know. I' m with you. I can see a side.

0:48:41 Thomas: It is very private though yeah, I don't know that's yeah that's a tough one no no no I'm just joking about penises in general yeah who doesn't it's pillar of comedy yeah I know I make so few of them they're not really my thing but occasionally we let our hair down

0:48:45 Matt: And I don't want to make too much light of this. I've been putting it as a footnote because it' s an interesting legal question. But sure, everybody loves that. We absolutely deserve a few dick jokes after everything we' ve done through here. That's true. Maybe once a year we can just do a couple. Here we are. But And it does sound like it was something that when it came down to it, these people were fundamentally incompatible. And that sounds like there might've been some regret they had to end the marriage.

0:49:13 Thomas: Well yeah who knows uh you know we would have to you know analyze the relevant law and the elements and the the jurisdiction all that stuff uh history But, like, just on a fairness level, it feels pretty rough if there's something that's a very private, personal thing that subjects you to all kinds of unwanted attention and ridicule that you didn't want out there, that someone can put out there and just there's nothing you can do about it, zero consequences.

0:49:40 Thomas: It feels rough. But we also, I don't know, there's a lot of First Amendment stuff that's like, well, that's horrible, but First Amendment, you know, so I don't know.

0:49:49 Matt: And then I also was thinking, when you think about the patriarchy and the damage that does to all of us, think it'd be kind of a different thing if she were saying that he had a micropenis, that it was an inch long, because would be inherently, according to the standards of our society, humiliating. You shouldn't make jokes about people's bodies or size of anything, really. It's just like people are what they are.

0:50:10 Thomas: All right. Yeah.

0:50:10 Matt: We're sort of conditioned by the patriarchy to believe that a couple of Coke cans stacked together is somehow desirable, even though she's clearly saying it's not, and I think a lot of people would agree, and that it's okay to make fun of people. I mean, even like all the stupid Trump stuff where they make fun. I mean let's just don't do that. Like just leave his body alone. That's like the least offensive thing about him.

0:50:28 Thomas: I think we can joke about him lying about his body, lying about his height, and having weird inserts in his shoes and all that. Yeah, no, I'm with you.

0:50:36 Matt: I mean according to the Jeffrey Epstein email that I think we got to, that was one thing that Trump was actually worried about according to Epstein was that there was some ex out there that was going to say he had a small penis. That's from the mouth of Jeffrey Epstein. I don't know.

0:50:48 Thomas: Well there was somebody described, well it might have been Stormy Daniels, right? Said some stuff about it.

0:50:53 Matt: It was weird. Yeah.

0:50:54 Thomas: Yeah but that's interesting. That's an interesting thing. I'd be curious to see how that turns turns out.

0:50:59 Matt: Yeah. Yeah, we'll maybe keep a watch, but I thought that was at least more fun than anything else we're going to talk about today.

0:51:06 Thomas: Yeah. Fascinating. All right. Well, another great show. Thanks so much, Matt. News. Good stuff. Thanks for listening, everybody. We really appreciate you. Thanks for supporting the show. Patreon .com slash law. Thanks for giving me a rare opportunity to make a couple of penis related jokes and have a have a great weekend. We'll see you Monday. Day oh

0:51:23 Matt: Anytime. Made it. And I just want to add before we go that I just wanted to mark the passing of Jesse Jackson and say, if you have a chance to go back and listen to the Keep Hope Alive speech from 1988, this is a good time to do it. We'll look to that.

0:51:36 Thomas: Yeah good call yeah boy

0:51:38 Matt: For your service.

0:51:39 Thomas: Lost a couple like I mean very old but legends you know in two different worlds but like acting legend and civil rights hero uh in a row like it's kind of crazy it's

0:51:43 Matt: We got to mark these things.

0:51:49 Thomas: Like 2016 all over remember when everyone died in 2016 and we're like hey guys guys it's never gonna get any worse than it is right now nothing's will ever be as bad as the year we lost David Bowie and, you know, a bunch of, I think we might have lied. It might have been maybe Severus Snape. What's his name?

0:52:04 Matt: Yeah.

0:52:04 Thomas: With everybody. Just everybody died that year.

0:52:05 Matt: Alan Rickman and Carrie Fisher and yeah.

0:52:06 Thomas: I forget. Yeah.

0:52:07 Matt: All kinds of people. Yeah.

0:52:08 Thomas: Tons of people died. It'll never get worse. 2016, worst year of our lives, everybody. It's all uphill from here. Well, don't worry. Shake it off. Just a bad year, everybody, and then that's what happened.

0:52:21 Thomas: Everything was fantastic after that is how I remember it. Right. Well, thanks so much, and we'll see you Monday.

0:52:27 Matt: Keep up the love.

0:52:31 Clip: This has been Opening Arguments, produced by Thomas and Lydia Smith, with editing help from Peter Baird. The intro is by Thomas Smith. This outro is by Matt Cameron. Support the show at patreon.com/law.