Judge Eviscerates Blanche's DOJ, Tosses Abrego Garcia Indictment

Transcript

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

0:00:00 Clip: Thank you.

0:00:04 Matt: LAX, Boston, Chicago. No more international flights. That would destroy the country, destroy the airline industry completely.

0:00:18 Thomas: I thought they were just naming it after him. You're telling me these idiots, these assholes are paying him to use his name?

0:00:25 Matt: Pretty straightforward corruption.

0:00:32 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Opening Arguments. This is episode 1265. I'm Thomas Smith. That over there is real life attorney, Matt Cameron. How are you doing?

0:00:38 Matt: I'm having an amazing day. I am now. Honestly, I was having a pretty bad day until I just invented a whole new form of entertainment that I'm going to share with you in a few moments.

0:00:46 Thomas: Neat.

0:00:46 Matt: Yeah, I Finally, my mom finally let me get one. On.

0:00:53 Matt: But no, I was listening to the Ábrego García decision and piano concertos at the same time, and I want to tell you about this transcendent experience. And of course, I want to talk about the Ábrego García decision, because it is outstanding. It's one of the best things to happen since last January at all.

0:00:47 Thomas: Called Nintendo. No, Yeah. Good news day. I love it. You listening to it? Just like on the news or was there an actual,

0:01:08 Matt: Didn't get away with it. An app called Speechify to listen to legal documents sometimes, I will say. I'm a very auditory learner, and I'm always doing something else.

0:01:13 Thomas: Gotcha. I like it. You could also come up with pairings for people, you know, you'd be like, Hmm, this, uh, this Ábrego García decision pairs very well with a, uh 1693, uh whatever

0:01:27 Matt: Yeah, I was trying I was trying out post-rock. I Was trying out classical and jazz, but it was really the Mendelssohn. I'll tell you about it. We'll get there. Then we got to talk about this thing on the other end of the scale, because we just have to talk about it, the Florida airport deal that Trump's made to, well, I don't want to spoil it yet, but this is outrageous. And it is also potentially going to bring back a little thing called emoluments from 2017, 2018, back when we all thought that might work. There's actually an interesting path here.

0:01:58 Thomas: I just want to make a meta comment, which is that I not just you. I've heard this on the news, too. Too. People literally are. This is how much Trump has beaten us down. And it's a symptom of the problem. People are like, oh, I'm so sorry that this involves emoluments. Like, I'm sorry. I can't. I'm just I bear with me. I know it involves a part of the constant fucking Constitution. But I know just we're not I know we don't do that anymore. So just I'm sold.

0:02:13 Matt: That's how I feel. Yeah?

0:02:22 Thomas: I am so sorry to bring up emoluments. I just I'M TERRIBLY SORRY. Everybody. I'M NOT EVEN MAKING FUN OF YOU. I'VE HEARD THE NEWS DO THIS LIKE AND IT'S SO FUNNY BECAUSE IT'S JUST such a huge it just shows you the way the freaking fascists do it they just prey on like a lot of really human impulses you know that's like actually we should be just as serious and just as mad about emoluments now as whenever the first time we did like it's the same constitution right it's

0:02:30 Matt: It's a good point. It's such an important point.

0:02:50 Thomas: It's the same Constitution and it's worse in terms of what he's doing so if anything we should all be be like wow emoluments even more yeah

0:02:59 Matt: I know we all got into the the idea, 2017, 2018, because we never really had to think about it before because, you know, just the nature of things. But no, it's still there. Like you said, it still happening and it's worse than ever. I mean, this is really out in the open. And there is actually, the problem has always been getting judicial review. And it's a very interesting way this could get judicial review that I'd love to talk about. So

0:03:15 Thomas: Again not not criticizing you at all it's it's I've heard it in a lot of places and it really it's making me think about a lot I think it shows us how much we are not responding to trump as and of himself as we should we are responding to the zeitgeist around him which is how he continues to win because he keeps moving moving that zeitgeist. And we're like, oh, oh we don't care about the constitution. Oh, okay. I guess. So get in mind guys, I guess it's part of the constitution doesn't matter. So I go, okay, I guess, you know, and it's like, that's how he does it. And the media is really complicit in that. I think they're not trying to, but they're Not trying not to.

0:03:45 Matt: And you can't discount the power of blue sky doomerism either. That's sort of what we're swimming in. You know, there's always that guy who's going to say, oh, there is no point to that. That is not not going to happen, right? But you got to do it. It's the law. And I think there's really something here.

0:03:58 Thomas: Least Least helpful thing in the World. All right. I'll stop ranting, but I just wanted to say that. And that way, when we get to it, I don't have to rant again.

0:04:06 Matt: I'm with you. That's right. Rant is complete.

0:04:09 Thomas: All right. Well, I'm excited for... Oh, and then, of course, you have a footnote, right?

0:04:09 Matt: Good rant. Good rant." A very fun footnote. Well, I mean, it's quote-unquote fun like a lot of our footnotes, but it involves corporations doing something that only should be doing and unusual decision out of Delaware.

0:04:23 Thomas: Not going to say it. All right, say the line, Bart. I'm going to... Not going to stay in the line part.

0:04:28 Matt: We're saving the line. You've got to wait until the end.

0:04:33 Thomas: Matt, in addition to the footnote, which is always fantastic, douche levels were so high this week that we have a bonus amuse douche. I know. Don't adjust that dial. The amuse douches normally only on Vapid Response. But I'm told there was so much douche that we could be even further amused.

0:04:53 Matt: One is really, it's catastrophically, I mean, it is almost, as we often discuss, it is the plate of nachos. It is not just, yeah... It's going to leave you pretty full, but I'm still going to give you a bite because it's too good not to use. It is the first introduction of our Department of Homeland Security Secretary to the chat in Unopening Arguments. So let's bring him on.

0:04:59 Thomas: A full meal. Yeah. Going to be like Europeans eating at any American restaurant for the first time being like, dear God, this is some, I don't, this has a lot of food. I can't, we just have people -sized portions. What are you guys doing here? That's what the douche will be like. Okay. All right. Excited to get to it. We'll take our usual first break. Avoid that at patreon.com/law, support the show, get the goodies. We got the next lot awful movies coming up. Always Always excited about that uh you so much for supporting and please share the show that's most important of all all right we'll be right back all right man it was douche

0:05:24 Matt: Pretty much. That's right. Yeah, we got a great show for you today, but we got to kick it off with Mark Wayne Mullen saying the dumbest shit I've ever heard from a cabinet secretary in my life.

0:05:51 Thomas: That's saying a lot saying

0:05:52 Matt: See if you disagree.

0:05:54 Clip: The fact that liberal law enforcement wouldn't respond and so I I visited with the white

0:05:59 Thomas: Sorry I already need to stop especially the fact that local law enforcement am I crazy I mean I I know people misspeak yeah I'm actually not sure is it blog enforcement matt

0:06:04 Matt: Thought I thought he said blog enforcement I'm hiding under my desk if he's coming for me that's

0:06:11 Thomas: You have a blog you better be careful and you're an immigration attorney you're on the top of their radar okay sorry it's just I don't know is that uh I always love uh especially and then uh local law enforcement let's see

0:06:24 Clip: The fact that liberal law enforcement won't respond so I visited the white house today sean and um I I said, you know, if they're going to not allow us to go out and arrest the worst of the worst, and then when we call for assistance at the facilities, that the street, it belongs to the city. If it belonged to us, we would take care of it, but it belongs in the city, and they're barricading our employees from coming in and out of the facility, then why are we processing international flights into the airport there?

0:06:27 Thomas: What

0:06:29 Matt: Here

0:06:55 Clip: And we are currently, which we're not an initiate yet, but we're currently drawing up plans to say, They listen to these sanctuary cities where the local radical left Democrats aren't allowing us to to do our job and enforce federal laws. Then we shouldn't be processing international flights into their into their cities either, because they don't want us to enforce immigration, but they want us to process immigration at their facilities. Nothing about that makes sense to me. Let me tell you something. They're aiding and abetting

0:06:55 Thomas: Uh huh oh

0:06:59 Matt: It comes

0:07:15 Thomas: My god that's god okay

0:07:25 Matt: Yep this is just

0:07:26 Clip: Lawbreaking and.

0:07:26 Thomas: I was I was just I know I don'T expect anything from hannity but there was a small chance I agree with you that that might be the dumbest thing in the world there was what's the chance that he's like, Hey, fucking what?

0:07:37 Matt: You just say flights you're gonna stop flights

0:07:40 Thomas: So family's coming back on a vacation. Are you saying they don't get to come back now because of local law enforcement, not especially enforcing immigration. What are you talking about, man?

0:07:44 Matt: Right. We are LAX, Boston, Chicago. No more international flights. They're just going to stop having CBP in those airports. That's the proposal. That would destroy the country, destroy the airline industry completely. Can you even imagine?

0:08:04 Thomas: It's so it's no, because that would never happen because it is as bad as things are. They're not that bad like they're not that stupid there's at least some people oh I think genuinely other MAGA people who aren't this dumb would be like dude what are you okay or it might be that he's just saying stuff to get a rise and even because like I mean he's dumb but that is real dumb I don't know oh

0:08:14 Matt: The airlines, the states, like the immediate injunction. Yeah. Isn't the first time he's mentioned it. That is That's why I think he might really want to do it. He keeps bringing it up. And the Atlantic said this has been a repeating thing and people have begged him to stop talking about it. Airlines told him, we can't do this. This is not happening. You can't just completely destroy it as if the jet fuel wasn't bad enough.

0:08:41 Thomas: What are you talking about do you think we're getting a lot of illegals but via international flight isn't that the one place you literally can't unless you just overstay a visa like you can't be undocumented and quite a bit of going through you know security nonsense I'm scared I won't get in every time and I'm a citizen yeah

0:09:02 Matt: Get on the plane. If you can't prove that you can get off in the US, they will not put you on the plane because they have to pay to turn you around.

0:09:04 Thomas: Well think he's trying to make the point that there's some connection here like says like the immigrants are going to be they're coming through the he literally says that like if we if they're if they're not going to enforce immigration why should we be even processing the flights from international whatever that's bringing the immigrants that's just stupid man yeah

0:09:24 Matt: It's incredibly stupid the whole thing and self -destructive it's about a self-destructive policy and these people have come up with a lot of destructive policies but this is really I can't even get my head around how stupid this is but why we deploy it it's too good not to yeah

0:09:34 Thomas: Pretty great good stuff that's a I'm I'm a completely full I can't continue you show over no nice

0:09:41 Matt: Now that we're in a good mood we should move on to the Ábrego García story because this is I am in such a good mode about it honestly You can hear it in my voice, I'm sure. I've barely slept all week and reading this, hearing this, just sort of absorbing what the judge is actually saying because they didn't get away with it.

0:09:55 Matt: This is, again, Kilmore, Berger, Garcia, the man that they have been hounding in a Kafka, like actually Kafka the trial sense way, not just like generally, oh, this is not Kafka -esque. Literally, the name of our episode when we first covered it was Kafka, ESQ, because that's how I felt about it.

0:10:08 Thomas: Which was your creation and it was one of the best names in the history of anything being named Kafka

0:10:11 Matt: Was very proud of that one. I read the trial, think about the trial of the Kafka book, and it's one of my favorites, I will forever see a Ábrego García's face.

0:10:19 Thomas: So good that was such a good name for

0:10:23 Matt: Just works. And because, you know, I think that a lot of what I do every day is Kafkaesque, but the idea, I mean, this obviously implicates that it touches on that, but just to remind everybody, he was given withholding removal from El Salvador. That's the one place they couldn't remove him. They conspired to remove him either by negligence or by intent to El Salvador, to Seacott, to a torture prison. And then the only way that they would bring him back is if they could charge him with a federal crime that they dug up out of nowhere.

0:10:45 Thomas: Reason they couldn't like we've talked about this it's already bad enough they could have just said oh well there's a mistake there's gonna be mistakes but no big deal like that would already obviously be awful but that would be fine like they could just be like yeah it's more more important that the illegals are not in our blah, blah, blah. And that would still be the fascism, you but they have to go fascism plus, plus, plus they have no, it's not just our mistake. You actually, you were bad and we didn't know you're bad, but we're, we're now we're making you haven't been bad so that we couldn't have made a mistake, right?

0:11:20 Matt: A DOJ that was instructed never to back down, never to admit fault. And obviously, this was a mistake or intentional misconduct, and they had to justify bringing him back by charging with a crime after they were ordered to bring him back to the Supreme Court. Get worked up about this, obviously, but we

0:11:34 Thomas: It's insane. I mean, literally it's, it's trying to put someone in prison for the crime of we've effed up on something else and almost put you in a torture prison.

0:11:40 Matt: Yep and right that's talked before about the charges not cooked up they were but they literally went down and as the judge is going to find here uh found some gang member that the people investigating this had never heard of before and there was like a briefly investing his brief investigation of something he's involved in but nothing came of it and as we're going to hear they reopened that investigation at the direct um of main justice in dc which is what we suspect but I will just say that this decision here from Judge Waverly Crenshaw. He's an Obama appointee.

0:12:07 Thomas: What a name too.

0:12:07 Matt: Oh, I know, a fantastic name. Writer, really fun to read this. But this order entered on the 22nd, and it is, it's beautiful. I just have to, but I have to tell you very quickly a personal story, because again, I was having a terrible day today, and I went out for late lunch, and I put my headphones on. And one thing that I like to do when I'm having a bad day or when I just need to de -stress is just walk around Boston on a beautiful day and listen listen to the second movements of piano concertos. Kind of a thing. Just the second adagio movement is usually, you always want to go for the second. The first is, you know, maybe a little too slow. The third is going to be more of a scherzo, but right in the middle, you got a nice balance of an adagIO usually. So I've got Mendelssohn going and I realized that I want to listen to The Ábrego García Decision because I have Speechify and I can listen to it. And I've never done this before, but I realized as I'm playing it that Spotify is still playing and I have this beautiful melange of Mendelssohn

0:12:32 Thomas: The second movie. Okay. Wow.

0:12:54 Matt: And Justice playing together. And I can give you a little sample. I thing is the Speechify app, and again, I am opposed to AI generally in the use of my life, But John Rhys -Davies did agree to have his voice used for it.

0:13:05 Thomas: Okay I hate that crap I I want to pass a law that's like every single publication should hire a voice actor to read all of their articles like this is a lot like that's in thomas smith's communist america OK, because I do this where I'm like, man, I really want to read this article, but I don't read. I need to listen to stuff. Oh, look, they have a play button. Oh, I can play. Oh, it's AI. Not doing it.

0:13:27 Matt: Been other instances, and I want to talk about them sometime soon, about voices being stolen that NPR and other people have been able to prove. Scarlett Johansson, when she commendably refused to use her voice for AI, she's going to be paid a lot of money. And she actually sued, I think, or was about to sue because they used a voice that sound just like hers because they liked her voice from her so much and of thing. So yeah, I mean, I have some ethical questions, but again, it's the only way to listen to something like this the day of.

0:13:49 Thomas: No, I'm not. I'm Not. This is not a Chris. Sometimes I still use it, but it's I just I want to hear a human inflection. I don't care what the voice is. I want To hear like because they do the inflection all wrong, but that's OK. It is. I didn't know about the John Rhys -Davies thing. That's that is pretty cool.

0:13:57 Matt: I agree. It's John Rhyss -Davie's reading Ábrego García decision over Mendelssohn, and it's gorgeous. Just beautiful. Agent Peter Joseph confirmed that placement of the revocation hearing when he... A. Hernández Reyes confirmed that the paper he sought was some form of governmental benefit or protection for himself and his family in exchange for his cooperation.

0:14:23 Thomas: I hear some music. Are you getting the music going too? Well, that's pretty good. I see what you mean. I'm telling you, you could curate our experience.

0:14:25 Matt: Death. Revocation. H .R .X. 2. Testified that it would be atypical

0:14:33 Thomas: You could tell us, okay go to this piece and listen to this decision.

0:14:33 Matt: For someone in Hernandez -Rayes' position in the country illegally. Illegally, deported multiple

0:14:38 Thomas: I think this is a brilliant, brilliant

0:14:38 Matt: Times. Yeah, Yeah, I I love to DJ. And so he's sentenced for for illegally released to a halfway house as opposed to being sent to ICE custody and deported. Hernandez Reyes.

0:14:41 Thomas: Business idea. Okay, that's great. Gist and I approve, but I really want to now know about what the decision.

0:14:58 Matt: Sorry, yes. I got all hung up on the new form of entertainment. I intervened, invented, and now I can't stop Spotify.

0:15:01 Thomas: It's pretty cool. I fully endorse that.

0:15:04 Matt: Okay, so I'll send you the decision so that you can actually read it for us. Rhys -Davis is not taking your job today. Day uh well uh

0:15:09 Thomas: He can take my job anytime he wants. That's fine with me. And my job no I don't know

0:15:16 Matt: John reese davies welcome to the studio uh we've continued to talk about over the course of this year, I never thought in my life I'd be talking so much about vindictive and selective prosecution. But But if there's anybody who's ever been vindictively prosecuted, it's just this man. To And, me that it's the relief of actually just seeing a federal judge say, yeah, I see what you see, because I just feel like so often I'm shouting to the void about these things and maybe I'm crazy, right? But just this is really confirming. So let's just read a little bit of conclusions of law here.

0:15:44 Thomas: The record developed the court first. Oh no know not as gimli or uh with the record developed the court first revisits the presumption of vindictiveness the court does so for two reasons first the full evidentiary record may now establish actual vindictiness second if it does not the court must consider the full evidentiary to determine if the government has carried its burden of rebutting the presumption of vindictiveness. In short, the timing of Agent Van Wee's decision to reopen the closed HSI investigation of the November 2022 traffic stop and Blanche's now unrebutted public statements tying the reopened investigation to Abrego's successful lawsuit taints the investigation with a vindictive motive. Yeah, I'd say that sounds about right. That vindictve taint. Yeah that's really good

0:16:37 Matt: So imagine me half listening and he mentions Todd Blanche and then in the next sentence mentions that vindictive taint. There's also retaliatory taint coming on up, so it's so good.

0:16:46 Thomas: That man that's borderline intentional and if it is that's the greatest judge in the history of time imagine yeah blanche is a vindictive taint let it be down in oa law forever blanche's new name is that vindictve taint that vindic it's like like an asshole talking about his ex -wife or something, you know, like that's what the tone sounds like. That vindictive taint continued with Singh's close substantive of McGuire's and his prosecution's team's work leading to the indictment. Want to go further or are you just really trying to get to vindictivetaint? Okay.

0:17:23 Matt: Yeah, a little further.

0:17:24 Thomas: After the indictment was presented, the executive branch found a way to return Abrego to the United States to comply with the district of Maryland's order to facilitate his return. The court finds insufficient evidence of actual vindictiveness, the court concludes that the government has failed to rebut the presumption of vindictivness. Hmm. That's interesting.

0:17:42 Matt: Yeah. So let's break that down very quickly with this paragraph. So there's a lot going on here. I wanted to have you read it so you can just see this is a great summary of what's happening. But because of the timing, he's entitled to a presumption of taint, basically.

0:17:55 Matt: I mean, that's what the law says, though.

0:17:56 Thomas: Aren't we all?

0:17:57 Matt: Yeah exactly, presumption taint. We are not, actually. Most assuredly, most of us are not entitled to this presumption. But it turns out when they charge you with human trafficking at the federal level in a case that had been closed four years ago, just the same time that they're bringing you back, so they have an excuse to bring you back. That looks pretty bad, I guess.

0:18:13 Thomas: Some vindictive taint says, I'm doing this because he got back into the country yeah

0:18:18 Matt: Yeah, so found that's enough. It reaches the threshold. At that point, it is the government's burden to show that they are not vindictive taints. We can just keep saying this. Find there is all the way to vindictiveness. He doesn't have quite there, but he found that they can't rebut the presumption of vindictivness, so we're just going to leave it there. It was vindictive, basically, that we're right in the middle. Goes through the evidence of vindiciveness. As he goes to the timeline, and the timeline is just incredibly damning, obviously. I mean, these people really sure.

0:18:24 Thomas: It's so good uh yeah they think they can get away with anything because they're a bunch of vindictive taints yep

0:18:50 Matt: 10th, 2025, and I know I'm jumping over a bit. I've seen people following this story, but you don't have to even know what happened up to this point. You just know he's wrongfully deported. Judge Zennis in DC reviewing the case finds that there's no meaningful effort to comply with bringing him back, even though she's ordered that. That. And April 11, she finds there's no meaningful effort comply. 17th, six days later, they reopened the HSA Baltimore investigation one week after the Supreme Court and six days after that noncompliance finding. And then they put out a press release the next day. You might remember that we went over it in which they've summarized what they thought they could claim was the evidence against him, which was ridiculous.

0:19:19 Thomas: Now is this the one where he said the welcome back thing or whatever yeah

0:19:26 Matt: Was around that time. Yeah. Yeah, and they also detailed the suspected trafficking incident being that he was driving across the country. I mean, that was was it. Now that we have the timeline because the evidence is in, this is what we've been waiting for, right? So you get, again, remember, April 10th. And then to April 18th, when they released the release, they go to see Hernández Reyes, who's the gang member who's going to be the person we talked about, one of the least credible people you can imagine, has everything to gain from participating. Somebody that the original team investigating had never heard of before, but basically was forced on them by DC. There's a finding about that. Singh is basically Todd Blanch's deputy at the time. So he's running all of this. Todd Blanche is running it through his deputy Singh. And know we're piling scandal upon scandal here, but I've never heard of anything at least this well documented. I know this has happened before, no doubt. We've had vindictive prosecutions at the federal level before, but the degree to which this is documented and so obvious. Then you might remember Ben Ben Schrader resigned, the chief of the criminal division in Tennessee. He resigned the day that that indictment came out.

0:19:28 Thomas: In traffic yeah yep wow oh wow

0:20:26 Matt: And it turns out on May 15th, he had circulated a memo saying he did not want to charge and asked it to be passed back to DC and have it be their responsibility. Yep. And

0:20:34 Thomas: You know what's crazy is I I kind of remember that but it's it's mixed in with so many other resignations over unconscionable actions that have been taken I'm like which which one was that there's the adams there's like for real the one of these things would be a presidential presidency ending scandal in any other era To we remember this Saturday Night Massacre or whatever. Like, we Remember like, oh, yeah, this guy resigned, that guy resigned because Nixon tried to make him fire the AG or whatever That's every single day times a million, and we can't even keep them straight

0:21:10 Matt: Nixon was trying to stop the investigation into himself. We've already done that one a couple of times. We've been through that one. Now we're doing this one. And we've never seen anything quite like this at this level. Let's go to page 16. I want you to read out some of the facts here because again, all the stuff that we know now and just put very beautifully. Bottom of 16. So he's going to talk about Hernández Reyes, the person who ended up being the witness they needed. Here's what they have here about his rewards at

0:21:32 Thomas: Cooperation yielded benefits for Hernandez -Reyes Though his current status is unclear, the evidence shows that he was released to a halfway house at some point following his cooperation. Jeez. Agent Peter Joseph confirmed the placement at revocation when he testified that it would, quote, be atypical for someone in Hernandez -Reyes' position, quote in the country illegally deported multiple times and serving a sentence for illegal reentry to be released to halfway halfway house, quote, as opposed to being sent to ICE custody and deported. Yeah, especially under this effing administration.

0:22:03 Matt: Confirm. Yep. Can confirm. But any, really, I mean, somebody of that description who's known to be a gang member, they would never ever let him out.

0:22:12 Thomas: -Reyes' knowledge of Abrego's activities was not newly discovered or previously unavailable. Nothing prevented the government from recovering it earlier through due diligence, and nothing suggests they lack the means to do so. The government chose to pursue that evidence only after Abrega's successful lawsuit and the the ongoing requirement to report daily to Judge to return Abrego to the United States. This supports the inference that the government would not have reopened the investigation or secured testimony from Hernandez -Reyes, but for Abregos' successful lawsuit. The evidence falls short of actual vindictiveness, and I'm really not sure how, but okay, the presumption remains requiring the government to rebut it like what what would be actual vindictiveness then

0:22:57 Matt: It would be if you think that they knew that Hernandez -Lorez was lying, which I think they did, but I think you can't really prove that. I mean, maybe that's the best I can guess, because, coached.

0:23:02 Thomas: So actual would be like if it's completely made up this is more like it's you know kind of bs but like maybe we can pretend you thought it was real yeah

0:23:11 Matt: It looks bad. We dug some guy out that the investigating team hadn't heard of, but sure, yeah. Let's read a little bit about Blanche's statements and we'll wrap it up. Yeah, we've

0:23:20 Thomas: That vindictive taint is unrebutted statements blanche did not testify at the february 26th evidentiary hearing. His public statements stand unrebutted. Blanche stated that the executive branch began investigating, in quotes, Abrego after a judge in Maryland, quote, questioned the executive branch's decision to deport him. The court previously found that Blanche's, quote remarkable statements could directly establish that the motivations for Abrega's criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights. And that Blanch, quote quote, directly tied HSI's investigation to Abrego's Maryland suit. Words directly confirmed that the executive branch reopened the criminal investigation because the judicial branch required the executive branche to facilitate Abrega's return from El Salvador. That evidence confirms what the timing of Agent Van Wee's reopening suggests. From the time that Agent Yeah.

0:24:18 Matt: Got two kinds of taints, so on in detail to explain about Singh coming from D .C., directing everything and what we know about all that now. Beautiful summary of the evidence, but see where this is going. This is the rare motion that just completely knocked it out because the evidence is all there.

0:24:43 Thomas: The phrasing of like, Blanche's statements are unrebutted. Like he like also he needs to come rebut his own statement or at least the government needs to like rebut his own statements?

0:24:52 Matt: Other implication is maybe don't say that in public because he just did the case in.

0:24:56 Thomas: It's just an interesting thing.

0:24:57 Matt: All these people.

0:24:57 Thomas: Like usually it's like, oh, they didn't rebut, you cause it happens in sometimes when, you know, a side abandons an argument or doesn't deal with an argument of the other side, then that's kind of like, well, I guess you conceded it then if you, since you didn't reboot it, but this is like, no, his own words. Interesting. Court does not reach its conclusion lightly. The objective evidence here shows that absent Abrego's successful lawsuit challenging his removal to El Salvador, the government would not have brought this prosecution. The executive branch closed its investigation on the November 2022 traffic stop only after Abrega succeeded in vindicating his rights. Did the executive branch re -opened that investigation. What the government labels as, quote, new evidence was not new as a matter of law. The prosecutor's subjective good faith does not cure the retaliatory teen.

0:25:02 Matt: That's true that's true right that's an interesting question I just want to point out he's saying the prosecutor is subjective like he's coming in and saying so I'm just going to take his word that he's say it was good faith that's basically it's very kind of passive what he's saying here because

0:25:56 Thomas: Subjective good faith. Yeah, so guess he's not saying it's for sure good faith. It's subjective as in he's saying he believes it like own bullshit.

0:26:02 Matt: Exactly because he's not seen objective evidence of good faith and certainly it's all the way the other way for me

0:26:08 Thomas: Yeah but the It sounds like the important thing is you can't just find some stooge in order to like wash off your own taint, Blanche. Like you got if you're going to you need to clean your taint and you can'T find someone at some patsy to clean your tainT for you. You you are the taint and you need to be cleaned.

0:26:18 Matt: Wash your own. Listeners, this is the lesson. We've just learned the lesson of the day. Clean your own taint.

0:26:29 Thomas: Keep your tainted taint clean.

0:26:30 Matt: Fantastic.

0:26:31 Thomas: Do you want me to finish it or no?

0:26:33 Matt: Yeah. Hell yeah.

0:26:34 Thomas: Absent Blanche'S tainted investigation. Agent Saud would not have called McGuire. Singh would not have brought him into the fold, and McGuire would not have sought an indictment against Abrego. The indictment then provided the executive branch cover to comply with Judge Xenis' order to facilitate Abregos' return to the United States as soon as possible. Abregos' motion to dismiss the indictment must be granted, and appropriate order will enter.

0:27:00 Matt: Wait, really? Decringe.

0:27:01 Thomas: Frickin' Waverly D. Crenshaw, damn it.

0:27:03 Matt: I'm listening to this, I'm realizing we have, it's kind of what you're saying up front, we have been suffering from Stockholm syndrome here in the fact that just having a federal judge actually see me, well, all of us, right? Because we all see this, right. But it does feel often that judges live in another world. They are people. I've met plenty of them. They do see what we see. And you could not miss what was going on here.

0:27:23 Matt: And he just didn't buy any of it. So good.

0:27:24 Thomas: Incredible and don't know if I misspoke in the beginning but I forgot that it was it talk about it in different terms where it's like punishment for his lawsuit but it's also in order to say oh yeah because the judge ordered hey bring him back because you effed up and then they're like no and then the judge is like yes and then And then they're like, OK, well, we actually wanted to bring him back because he's a criminal. That's what it was precisely. I think I might have misspoken earlier and got it slightly misremembered. Forgot it was like a reason to justify the thing they were going to have to do anyway.

0:27:58 Thomas: And that also wouldn't make any sense if that was true. It wouldn't mean that what they did made sense. You know, it's a weird toddler intuition to be like, oh, well. Yeah, we are not because you said so. So I'm bringing them back because I wanted to, because it turns out that there's this crime that we got to do. Yeah, it's nothing.

0:28:17 Matt: Squirrel. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Yep.

0:28:21 Thomas: It's toddler crap. Your tank.

0:28:25 Matt: Or it'll get washed for you. That's what we've learned. Yeah so that is quite a lot of taint for one day. But I am such a good mood. I still am. And I can post some more ideas about music to pair this to. Listeners, if you have ideas, please share them. But really just listening to judicial opinions, really strong, great judicial opinions full of facts that you're just so happy to hear with beautiful music is a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

0:28:33 Thomas: That's amazing. Ooh, love it. If I had either infinite time and or there was any money in it, I would provide this service of mixing it down, reading it. But neither of those is the case. I don't have time. I would do it for free if there was time.

0:29:01 Matt: This can be a youtube channel. I'm telling you, use public domain classical music and do good readings. And that's my idea, guys. Please, come on. Some credit.

0:29:09 Thomas: That's, I mean, it's a good idea. It is a good ideia.

0:29:11 Matt: I think so.

0:29:12 Thomas: All right. Well, we're going to take a break and see what other taints, you know, we had an amuse douche and a taint. We got, there's a theme. I'm sorry that I'm 13 years old, but hey, it is a great idea. It's not every day that a judge calls Blanche a tainting and it just, it' s making my day. So we'll take a brake and we'll see what others, you -year -old humor we have for you.

0:29:32 Matt: Oh, we got plenty.

0:29:37 Thomas: Matt, emoluments, unapologetically emoluments.

0:29:41 Matt: Yeah, for sure. We're onto a giant taint. Just a tremendous taint on the state of Florida, which itself we could say some things about, but you get the idea. So this is the former Palm Beach International Airport. Until recently, it was called the Palm Beach international airport.

0:29:59 Thomas: Artist, artist formerly known as Palm Beach.

0:30:02 Matt: The one I assume that Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump have both flown out of plenty. So it really should be the Trump Epstein Airport.

0:30:08 Thomas: You know what? Just for fun. Honestly, we should rename it that if we ever had the power, just like the Trump Epstein airport, that'd be really good.

0:30:13 Matt: Put in another bid and sell merch. I think that you could actually sell merch, I've got two really good business ideas in five minutes here.

0:30:18 Thomas: Man. Man. Like that. I don't think we mentioned on here, but there was a pop -up like Epstein Trump library in New York or something like that. Yeah.

0:30:25 Matt: That was great. Yeah.

0:30:27 Thomas: It's stuff like that that's good. Doing, doing the Lord's work.

0:30:30 Matt: Is something I can't imagine that the people who wrote the Constitution could have possibly anticipated when they're talking about a Mullman's because they're thinking about Benjamin Franklin gets a diamond -encrusted box he has to to give back, you know, and, or like George Washington's agonizing about it, whether he can sell flour from his slave plantation. Like that's the thing he's worried about is whether

0:30:46 Thomas: They made me get rid, sell my peanut farm says, uh, what's his name?

0:30:50 Matt: Right. Jimmy Carter. And yeah. So I did not know this was happening, but just let me say this out loud. The president of the United States has for the first time ever engaged in a licensing opportunity while he's the president to a state, to a State.

0:31:02 Thomas: Unbelievable.

0:31:03 Matt: The state of Florida had to sign off on this agreement, which was signed on May 4th.

0:31:06 Thomas: That's unbelievable.

0:31:07 Matt: Paul Beach County. No, it is. It is the Donald J. Trump International Airport. It's been renamed and he's getting millions of dollars out of it as a licensing agreement.

0:31:15 Thomas: Saw this story and I, it was, or, well, I might've seen the headline. I was like, well that's dumb. You know, that that they're erecting, you know, golden idols of their guy and naming. I thought they were just naming it after him. You're telling me these idiots, these assholes are paying him to use his name?

0:31:32 Matt: And I guess the way they think this is legal is that it's royalty free. No fees, royalties, or compensations.

0:31:39 Thomas: So they're not paying? What do you mean? Is

0:31:40 Matt: So Trump doesn't make money off of it officially. That's the plan, right? But of course, it buried in the contract if you go a little further down to to part 2.9.

0:31:48 Thomas: It the presidential library or some crap?

0:31:50 Matt: It's pretty straightforward corruption.

0:31:52 Thomas: So is that, by the way. But yeah, God.

0:31:55 Matt: To sell merchandise featuring the licensed mark, the agreement requires such merchandise to be purchased through approved retailers to the extent permitted by law. So it's going to be that the Trump organization has to sign off on who's selling Trump merchandise at the Trump airport, but allegedly they're not going to get royalties from it in part of this contract, but he's already gotten money out of it to use the mark, the mark of his name, the president's name.

0:32:10 Thomas: My God. God, still paying like, the you JFK, the Kennedy family to use JFK for the airport? That's ridiculous. So this is one of those squarely in the like, look, I'm not taking a presidential salary. I'm just making billions of dollars from the presidency. It's like this meaningless, Hey, there's no royalties. There'll just be bribes later.

0:32:40 Matt: And also, isn't just getting an airport named after you in a moment? It's kind of a big deal to get an airport name after you.

0:32:45 Thomas: Isn't emoluments usually foreign stuff or is there a separate foreign emolument category? Oh

0:32:50 Matt: Yeah, there's both foreign and domestic.

0:32:51 Thomas: Okay, yeah, I think of florida as a foreign country but I guess we'll count this as yeah domestic

0:32:57 Matt: The $2.75 million is a budget that's going to cover the signage rebranding costs, allegedly, but they're going to have to work with the Trump organization, I assume. But it doesn't matter because there's, again, this weird corrupt deal to rename the airport and then have them sell the merch there, exclusively get their merch from the the Trump people. So whatever's going on, even if he didn't get money immediately, it is so corrupt. It's so bad. And argument here. I thought about this for a minute. And Andy Craig is a great election lawyer on Blue Sky. He mentioned something in passing that really got me thinking. And I just started thinking about it the last couple of days. And he was saying, this actually might be the thing where a state has a claim against another state for an emoluments case, because he didn't say why. And I had to think about it for a while. But I think my theory would be that you're opening a market. You're essentially saying it's open season. If you want to get licensing rights from the president and you want make these deals, then Oklahoma, maybe you want get on this game, Texas, and then obviously Massachusetts, California are going to do it. So just more ways to give out favors. And so if you could have say Massachusetts or New York sue and say you're opening a by which essentially it's going to be corrupt and blue states are not going to benefit from and it's completely in violation of the ambulance clause and it is hurting all of us, it's hurting this concept of federalism. Maybe. I think that might actually be enough. And the reason that I would say it should be another state and not any other kind of private party, because there've been a number of these, obviously, that have tried to do it through private parties. Nothing's really worked yet. If it's a state, then you get original jurisdiction, potentially.

0:33:43 Thomas: What does that mean in

0:34:21 Matt: That is the amazing thing that happens in some cases when two states are involved in litigation with one another, where only the Supreme Court can hear the case. It goes straight to SCOTUS when

0:34:27 Thomas: One state is involved with litigation with another state very much

0:34:31 Matt: They're suing each other over something. Yeah, that's That's right. And they hate each other very much. Happens here is that it can only be heard by the Supreme Court. Usually we're talking, actually, the only time I went to the Supreme Court, I sat in an original jurisdiction case and it was so boring because it was actually about a land border, like a little bit of strip of land that was disputed between states is the most common kind.

0:34:47 Thomas: Sorry are you saying this would be good because

0:34:50 Matt: Would be great because it would force the issue to the supreme court. And because Thomas and Alito have already been on the record saying that they believe original jurisdiction cases have to be heard. So can be hypocrites. They can Their official position is they can't say no to an original jurisdiction request. If And they have to hear it, then it has to come in front of the court and they actually have to put it on the record. They've been trying this entire time to keep one of these cases away from them.

0:35:11 Thomas: They just shadow doc editor or something I

0:35:13 Matt: Don't really see how there'd be a stay. I feel like this is an issue that has to be decided. No huge harm here.

0:35:16 Thomas: So that so you're saying the benefit you know they can ultimately obviously just rule in his favor but the benefit is like getting it so they've tried to not even have to go on record as saying this is you know fine because maybe even they don't want to say this is fine I

0:35:32 Matt: The other cases so far have been dismissed for standing issues. There have only been two or three of them. There are two cases coming out of this airport thing that are both looking pretty promising for this. But you mentioned the land thing.

0:35:43 Thomas: I mentioned the land thing.

0:35:44 Matt: Thing.

0:35:44 Thomas: Oh, oh, oh yes. Well that's, and that's and you know, just to be fair, I, I arguably we shouldn't even do this. Like this at this point is mentioning like, and to be fair, sometimes the climate change scientists get a decimal point slightly off. To be fair. There's been plenty of corruption with presidential libraries before Trump, like that, especially Clinton, you know like that's been a thing. It has, you know, it hasn't been quite the same. There has been some bad stuff. But Um, that, yeah, that predates Trump.

0:36:12 Matt: I'm not aware of one. I mean, I don't remember exactly what the deal was with Clinton Library. I think it was with private donors, right? But this is Florida just giving Trump a piece of land worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Same thing. Once again, Florida. And

0:36:22 Thomas: Think I just heard the what's the name pardon that Clinton gave was was after somebody donated to his presidential library.

0:36:30 Matt: Rich probably.

0:36:30 Thomas: Yeah Mark. I think

0:36:31 Matt: That was the big one. Seems so long ago now. The strongest one one is actually this Dunn's Farm v. Trump, because the non -profit next door, urban agricultural student and two Miami residents whose views the tower would block, because of course it's going to be in a tower. Why wouldn't the library be in the tower?

0:36:47 Thomas: Sorry. You're talking about I we're not on the airport anymore.

0:36:51 Matt: No, yeah, just talking real quick about the land thing, just to make the point.

0:36:52 Thomas: Just making sure so this is land. I might have missed it, but Florida is just giving him land for the presidential library.

0:36:59 Matt: Yeah, straight up hundreds of million dollars worth of land. And neighbors are basically saying this thing is going to look ugly and I don't want to look at it, which is always a good way to go, aesthetic injury.

0:37:06 Thomas: Yeah, that seems standing -ish.

0:37:08 Matt: Actually looks like it might have some of the best standing because you're being directly harmed by presidential emolument. It's actually getting in your way. Injury, too, because Dunn's Farm, part of one of the plaintiffs, wanted to use the land themselves for urban agriculture and the state just gave it away. Then the student is saying he's being deprived of the educational value of what the college was going to put it to. So pretty good stuff.

0:37:26 Thomas: Plus I'll be made dumber by a Trump library being anywhere near me.

0:37:30 Matt: Right. I'm trying to study here. It's not good for the brain. There are three cases. And again, you know, I hate to get all 2018 on you. And I'm sorry to even be apologizing, but I really believe that one of these has to maybe have a shot because we have to get this issue heard. We have to have a statement on the record about what an amendment is. I think John Roberts, my prediction would be he's going to say it's a political question. Congress needs to pass a law just like with the insurrectionists, right?

0:37:51 Thomas: So they need to pass a law to say the same thing that's in the Constitution? Right.

0:37:55 Matt: Yeah, right. To either define it or to say that he can't do it. Because I think he's supposed to ask Congress, right, if he wants to take a moment. So you

0:38:01 Thomas: Oh, so Congress is the one who, that's right, they need have, but I I thought we tried that, didn't we? Didn't we, didn'T Congress sue for one of them? Because

0:38:09 Matt: Yeah, you're right. So that was in 2020. Yep, there you're at. So yeah, the Blumenfeld, B. Trump, and D .C. Circuit, they found that individual legislators lack standing and that the constitutional injuries in that belong to to Congress as a body, not to the members. So I guess the entire Congress would have to agree to do it.

0:38:23 Thomas: I thought they did. Okay. So, well, yeah. What does that mean? Like, the House do it or does it have to be, is remember the bullshit being like, well, then what is an emolument? It now doesn't exist, I guess.

0:38:28 Matt: Members of the House that were suing. So, I feel like that'll give you something, members of Congress. So. Right.

0:38:37 Thomas: And how that went. So we did have some individual kind of members of Congress, but maybe not enough or something. What would constitute enough? Throw absolutely everything at the wall and on the record, when and if, and when we take back Congress and this this could be something. Why not?

0:38:56 Matt: Was 29 senators and 186 house members and they said that there's not a majority of either body so therefore they can't they would not in themselves be able to approve or deny the president's request because they're a minority so they said basically like a majority one chamber that seems to be what they're saying to can see the point because you get you know marjorie taylor green doing this all the time right and trying

0:39:08 Thomas: I mean, I guess that makes sense. Be that they would have the right to approve or deny. It should be that they would have the right to vote on it, right? Should be what it is. This is just Thomas talking.

0:39:29 Matt: Yeah no that's a good thought that's

0:39:31 Thomas: That? Would you have to know ahead of time what Congress's vote was going to be in order for someone to have standing? That can't be right.

0:39:35 Matt: I guess it's yeah presumption if you have a majority of people that are coming to the court and saying we would vote this way if you gave it to us if you give us the right to do it yeah

0:39:43 Thomas: I was like, oh, that kind of makes sense. And then the more you think about it, it's like, I don't know that that does make sense because you need a majority of people to put their name on a lawsuit to definitely signal that you might vote, you know, and again, approving or denying, again, I'm just talking as reasonable guy, trying to be reasonable guy. If it's in the constitution, what is the wording in the freaking constitution, Matt, that the president needs to what? Like what is actual language of it?

0:40:10 Matt: Title of nobility shall be granted by the united states and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall without the consent of the Congress accept any present emolument office or title of any kind whatsoever from any king, prince, or foreign state. It's also, yeah, so it's from the states and also from them.

0:40:25 Thomas: Okay. So here's judge Thomas Smith. Nowhere way the decision went, if I'm understanding what you said, is the standing was dependent on, well, you need to make sure you would have had a majority to say no. But that's not what the Constitution says. Constitution says consent. So like, doesn't it seem like it's almost the burden flipped around? Because like, no, he didn't even ask. Right.

0:40:43 Matt: It does. That's a great point. Yeah.

0:40:47 Thomas: Sure that I don't know what judge ruled this way, but Judge Thomas Thomas Smith would, would talk about that because it's, it's so stupid that we just got rid of a part of the constitution for some reason. I don't know why.

0:41:00 Matt: Precarious decision. So it was the DC circuit coming together. But like to go deeper on this another time. I was mostly looking at the airport story, but the whole thing is pretty interesting. And past the point where we're just going to say there's one weird trick that's going to have Donnie not wriggle out of this one, but we have to hold every one of these things to account. And we have a lot of people who are really don't like the idea of the president licensing his name, even if he's not allegedly getting direct royalties out of it. Just, why else would he be doing it? And even if he just wanted his name in all the airports, that's pretty messed up. You're going to make make contracts contracts to sell merchandise at these airports while you're the president. Even just the minimal reading of this.

0:41:30 Thomas: Looking forward to every red state having their airport be named the Donald Trump airport. And then you're like, where are you flying into the Trump? Ah, let's see.

0:41:39 Matt: That's right. You can see ATC problems all over the place coming from Trump to Trump.

0:41:43 Thomas: Yeah, that's man, I'm just still mad about that emoluments decision, because like if you had a majority, then they could just vote on it. Right. Like what? Why would you ever need to sue? I don't know something about that seems wrong to me, but who knows?

0:41:57 Matt: Is he didn't do it. So yeah, I totally take your point. He didn't ask permission.

0:42:01 Thomas: And if he didn't ask for permission, if you're saying you would need to have a majority to have standing, then you're like concluding what the vote would be. It's just that part seems wrong. It doesn't seem like the judge's duty is to say, well, let me count count heads here. Do you do you have enough? You know, like it doesn't make any sense.

0:42:18 Matt: Yeah I'm going to read this more closely after we go. And we can cut this part, but I'm tending to agree with you.

0:42:19 Thomas: Is the D.C. Circuit. So, yeah. Imagine it being just like they don't want to like what would that ruling even look like? Like how would they enforce it? Maybe they worried about like they're going to lose legitimacy if they if the court tries to say, oh, yeah, this was bad. And then like nothing happens. Then they're you know, I don't know. I feel like it was my memory. It was as it seemed more about that kind of practical sort of like you remember the the Colorado thing where it was about the.

0:42:50 Matt: Insurrectionists, yeah, I was thinking about that.

0:42:52 Thomas: Where they just decided the Constitution doesn't exist there, too. And it seemed like it Was more about like, well, I'll be really tricky for us to enforce the Constitution. So we don't want to do that.

0:43:02 Matt: And never passed a law to enforce it, so technically it's not self -enforcing. They could say that about this too, that Congress is supposed to explain it more, but I don't know. The closing line, just for context of this decision, is that the members can and likely will continue to use their weighty voices to make the case.

0:43:05 Thomas: Just BS. Oh, come on. Is that what the Constitution says? Does it say that they can use their weighty voices if they don't like it?

0:43:19 Matt: I guess implying in this that their voices weigh enough to tip the balance for impeachment, but that's not happening.

0:43:28 Thomas: It's just ridiculous. I mean, why would it be spelled out separately in the Constitution if nothing happens about it? It's just so insane. And then I'm not going to go on the rant again, but like, think about how, how this is to the rule of law that what happened there caused people to not only give up on emoluments, but actively apologizing about even talking about it. It's like crazy.

0:43:51 Matt: With it. No, including me.

0:43:52 Thomas: Yeah, no. And I get it.

0:43:52 Matt: I really didn't want to bring this because I was like, this is so stale. This is all played out in the 2018 resistance stuff, but it's still good. It's still true.

0:43:59 Thomas: Love to do that with the Second Amendment. If anything touches the Second amendment, they're like, what, is it a second class right? If we don't let you wear 1 ,800 guns on your head at all times and not register any of them, well, I guess it's a second -class right. What about this? Stupid. All

0:44:15 Matt: With you. We got one more stupid thing to talk about and then we can get out of here and we'll come back.

0:44:18 Thomas: Well, it's, uh, it'S a footnote, so I'm

0:44:21 Matt: It is, it's a stupid footnote.

0:44:21 Thomas: Excited. I can't wait. Well, let's take our last break.

0:44:24 Matt: It'S a funny one.

0:44:25 Thomas: Patreon.com slash law, and we'll be back with the footnote. Right, Matt, what do you got for us?

0:44:32 Matt: Right. Well this is a story about Delaware and Delaware, it turns out that there is a town in Delaware called Fenwick Island, which amended its charter in 2008. And it gave some very special rights to some very special people, uh, corporations, of course. Delaware is run by corporations. This is the place to go.

0:44:48 Thomas: That's why all the corporations incorporate Delaware, yeah.

0:44:52 Matt: I will just tell you, 12 % of Fenwick Island's registered voters are corporations.

0:44:57 Thomas: What?

0:44:58 Matt: Yes. So this amendment to the town charter allows corporations that own property in the island to have a vote. They just get to vote like you do. So you could be Thomas Smith and also the Thomas Smith Corporation, I guess, And for the town votes. And of course, this is not a place where undocumented people can vote. So, you know, you've got people sending their kids to school.

0:45:10 Thomas: For local stuff or something? Right, yeah, oh, heaven forbid. Yeah.

0:45:18 Matt: The corporations are sending their children to school, but yeah, they can't vote on the school board.

0:45:22 Thomas: Corporations are people, undocumented people aren't.

0:45:25 Matt: Right. No, really brings it out. I'll just read you the language. Every property owner, as of March 1, prior to the annual municipal election, whether a natural person or artificial entity, including but not limited to corporations, partnerships, trusts, and limited liability companies who is registered to vote, if provided by ordinance, candidates, she'll have one vote. % of the voting population in Fenwick Island are corporations, are legal entities. And the ways that you could game this, I know it's just one vote at a time, but it's And it's Not that hard if you have a small town.

0:45:51 Matt: ACLU, I think, very reasonably brought suit. And I'd be interested to know what Jenessa says about this. This is a much more heard department. But this is the claim here that that they're diluting the vote, right? Basically that you're allowing corporations to flood the zone with fake votes.

0:46:05 Thomas: Have to own some kind of real estate, is that what it is? So you set up a bunch of microtransactions of little, you know, somethings, yeah?

0:46:08 Matt: So you could have out of town people. Yeah, you could get people in Texas and Colorado, whatever, controlling your town.

0:46:15 Thomas: Yeah, it doesn't seem good.

0:46:17 Matt: At all. But this did not work out. This was actually upheld.

0:46:20 Thomas: What?

0:46:21 Matt: No standing issue. Subject matter jurisdiction apparently does not exist for some reason here. And like this could work in a different way if they did it a different way, but he's saying that the municipalities that all do this need to be participatory in this litigation. ACLU is basically bringing us one town. They're saying you should bring us every town in Delaware that does this. The conclusion. Vision. I appreciate that plaintiff may disagree with Delaware's policy of authorizing certain municipalities to allow voting on behalf of entity property owners. Visions of faceless large corporations, or even how, very timely science fiction reference there for 2001, a movie that came out in 1968.

0:46:53 Matt: That's the movie he's seen. Or even how controlling a small town are frightening and the stuff of science fiction. However, plaintiff has not demonstrated this policy violates the principle of one person slash entity slash vote. Other persuasive of independent authority other than the elections clause of Delaware constitution itself and matters of policy appropriately left to legislative bodies and not the courts defendants motion is granted so Fenwick Island's policy at least for now of allowing corporations to vote the same as people stands and think that's absurd I'd love to hear Jenessa's full analysis of this but I just wanted to raise it because I'd never heard of anything like this in my life it's a really actually cool protection problem yeah

0:47:25 Thomas: Crazy. That's absolutely crazy. I mean, I guess, I the argument could be okay, but those people also could just move there and vote. So if I'm arguing with myself in the doomsday scenario of, Oh, you could have a bunch of people from out of state buying up, whatever, I mean. In theory they also could set up an address there and like go move there and vote maybe or something or not yeah more work

0:47:48 Matt: But it's all the more work than just having an LSA present, but

0:47:50 Thomas: I'm just arguing myself but yeah it does seem at the very least seems like a bad idea I don't know yeah

0:47:53 Matt: No, I'm with you. It's crazy. Yeah, it really does. And I just don't really want to live in that world where I just, I don't know. It also goes back, it harkens back to the sort of original understanding of who gets to vote, which are landed gentlemen, basically, the esquires of the world. That's not good either. Well, 1800s stuff here, 1700s really. Just... I mean, it's not the funnest footnote we've had, but I just thought it was a very strange little point of law.

0:48:14 Thomas: Well that's fine the show was so fun it's okay that we kind of have a bummer footnote because I'm I'm still floating on taint air I'm walking flight. I'm walking on taint air.

0:48:21 Matt: Just stupid. Taint shine.

0:48:26 Thomas: Yeah. Rarefied taint there. Good.

0:48:30 Matt: Just a joy and it's a good day to read. It came out days ago and I didn't have a chance to read it and I'm glad I did.

0:48:32 Thomas: It was a great day. Yeah, this show is dedicated to the, what vindictive taint.

0:48:39 Matt: Both vindictive and retaliatory taints. Might even be different people. I don't

0:48:43 Thomas: Two different. Oh yeah. Wow. He's got two taints. Everybody, everybody, I'm starting this rumor.

0:48:51 Thomas: Todd Blanche, Two Taint Todd, they call him. That's what they used to call him in the fraternity.

0:48:58 Matt: This might be a good place to end things.

0:48:59 Thomas: How dare you?

0:49:01 Matt: All

0:49:02 Thomas: Oh, good times. All right. Well, that was a lot of fun. I'm in a great mood. Great for Kilmar. Fantastic. For listening, everybody. Thanks, Matt, for the fun breakdown. Really appreciate it.

0:49:13 Matt: Right, go wash your taints,

0:49:15 Thomas: Oh, a second ago, go. It was too far when I make the joke.

0:49:21 Matt: It was the Todd Blanche part. I'm gonna get arrested.