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- [00:11]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Welcome back to Sisters in law with Barb McQuaid, Joyce Vance, Jo Wine Banks, and me, Kimberly Atkinstore. It is 2025, so there is no better way to kick off the new year than by checking out our merch store. We restocked everything just in time for you to ring in the new year with all of your hashtag Sisters In Law best. So go to politicon.com merch and check it all out. Snow's on the way, so I recommend the hoodie. Now let's get on with the show where we will discuss the horrific attack in New Orleans and what that means. We'll also talk about Chief Justice John Roberts year end report on the judiciary and what that means. And finally, we will talk about the 14th amendment and if there is any bearing on Donald Trump's ability to take office. But first, I wanted to chat with you guys. I saw a post on social media saying that there will soon be a new museum being built on the Washington Mall. It will be the first ever Smithsonian Institute dedicated to the history of women in America. And they were seeking ideas, the organizers were seeking ideas as to who should be featured in it. And I, of course, said Jill Wine Banks absolutely needs a whole wing. Like, like, she needs a room for every career. Like, she may, like, maybe a big museum. She needs so much. And I thought, what cool things. She also has cool things that I think people would love to see. So I was wondering, what do you guys think should be in the Jill Wine Banks wing of the National Women's Museum at the Smithsonian? I think I will start with the coat that she wore on the COVID of her book, the Watergate Girl. I love that coat. Like, I am obsessed with that coat. Like, it's so iconic and I adore it. Do you still have that coat, Jill?
- [02:16]
Jill Wine Banks
I do not have that coat. And I would be ashamed to wear it now. Why? Oh, because it had a fur collar.
- [02:24]
Kimberly Atkinstore
But it's vintage. That's okay.
- [02:26]
Jill Wine Banks
Like, it's vintage vintage. Because I'm vintage. What can I say? I would vote for my pins, I would have to say. Or the coat that I wore the day that I went to interview Rosemary woods in the White House. Or the pin that I wore that day.
- [02:46]
Kimberly Atkinstore
That'd be great.
- [02:48]
Jill Wine Banks
Those would be my things. The suit I wore that day was auctioned off for charity.
- [02:53]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Oh, well, that's great.
- [02:54]
Jill Wine Banks
Yes, for women journalists.
- [02:56]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Oh, see, she's a treasure.
- [02:58]
Joyce Vance
She is a treasure. So, you know, there's also the miniskirt you wore that got you criticized by the court in that would be plural. Yeah, that'd be pretty good. But what about the tools of the trade? Like back then when you guys were drafting indictments, you probably used a typewriter. So maybe the typewriter that was used to draft the indictment against co conspirator 1 Richard Nixon. That might be kind of cool.
- [03:23]
Jill Wine Banks
Yeah. Or the briefcase, which was a standard issue government vinyl thingy we all had. Of course.
- [03:32]
Joyce Vance
The naldehyde thing.
- [03:33]
Jill Wine Banks
Yes, exactly.
- [03:35]
Joyce Vance
Pleasure. What do they call it?
- [03:36]
Barb McQuaid
That's so funny. Hey, Jill. What I would love to see would be like a sort of a multimedia Forrest Gump style exhibit. Except in your case, it would be real. Of every place in history that you crop up. Like here's Joel von Banks in North Korea. I just remember all the moments on the show where we've been talking about something like, oh, did I tell you about when I ran that company? Or I mean, I would love to see that exhibit.
- [04:04]
Kimberly Atkinstore
That would be great. That, I mean, I think that would be fantastic. I'm honest. Like I said, a whole wing to join Banks. And one of the people who posted the post said noted like so they are aware.
- [04:19]
Joyce Vance
Working on it.
- [04:20]
Jill Wine Banks
That is sustained. Thank you guys. I really appreciate it. And maybe this will help my children's book about careers for youngsters to consider in their future. Because I do have a lot of career.
- [04:32]
Kimberly Atkinstore
I have a children's book author.
- [04:33]
Jill Wine Banks
Well, not yet. Not yet.
- [04:35]
Barb McQuaid
But I love it though. It's like your career choice. All of the above.
- [04:42]
Jill Wine Banks
Oh yes, that'll be so much fun.
- [04:53]
Barb McQuaid
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- [05:28]
Jill Wine Banks
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- [06:21]
Joyce Vance
Oh, Jill, you never subtly stand out from the crowd. You're a star wherever you go, a national treasure. And I guess if the range is fresh faced or full glam, where does freckle face fall in? Cause that's me.
- [06:35]
Jill Wine Banks
That's why.
- [06:35]
Joyce Vance
The thing I love most about Thrive Cosmetics is that cause is in the name for a reason. Thrive not only defines luxury beauty with its clean skin loving ingredients and uncompromising standards, they give back too. Every purchase supports organizations helping communities.
- [06:52]
Barb McQuaid
Thrive.
- [06:52]
Joyce Vance
Thrive donates to eight major causes, including the fight against cancer and domestic abuse, veteran and education organizations, and more. I'm so glad we're part of it.
- [07:03]
Kimberly Atkinstore
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- [07:40]
Barb McQuaid
Well, New Year's Day got off to a tragic start. Everyone knows there was an early morning terrorist attack on Bourbon street in New Orleans. And despite some of the early fog of war confusion that suggested more than one person was involved, authorities now believe that the subject, who died in a shootout with police, acted as a lone wolf and was motivated by a conversion to ISIS ideology. It feels very much like the classic online radicalization that we've seen over and over again. You know, we've all heard on the news, I suspect a lot of talk about the investigation, what happened and the suspect. We'll focus a little bit today on the legal angles and what remains to be done. Jill, the subject is deceased. There won't be any prosecution. So what's left for law enforcement to do?
- [08:34]
Jill Wine Banks
There's still a lot for law enforcement and legislators to do. I think we have to look at really what caused this conversion. So what specifically was it something that was just within the free speech rights of someone to say and for him to read. How much of this came from any knowledge he had from the service in the military. And what does this say about mental health of soldiers? We have to look at that and what needs to be done, particularly in light of Project 2025, which is threatening to cut veterans benefits and this sort of thing, we need to look at the laws that might have been violated, because maybe there's a way to better enforce the laws. Particularly if we look at the second episode, which was in Las Vegas, which involved a gun. We need to look at how that gun was obtained. The rental of the cars in both cases was through a consumer to consumer app. And so we need to look at all of these things, not just the ISIS connection of this particular one. But I think there is a threat that maybe we need to look at intelligence warnings and laws and whether we need additional laws to protect us.
- [09:59]
Barb McQuaid
Yes. So, Barb, you've got experience in anti terrorism work, and I think you understand at a very ground level what happens in U.S. attorney's offices, FBI offices, ATF offices across the country following an incident like this, because you don't just wrap up the investigation and leave it there. So maybe you can talk with us about how the effect of an incident like this is felt more broadly just in New Orleans. And what do you expect is going on across the country?
- [10:31]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I think one thing that's important to note for our listeners is although terrorist attacks maybe have seemed to be on the back burner in recent years, and we've been paying attention to other kinds of things, the FBI has not gone to sleep on any of this stuff. There are cases that come up from time to time that we hear about. And I think sometimes when an attack is thwarted, we tend to give it less attention than maybe it deserves. There was a planned attack around the election in Oklahoma that the FBI said was part of an ISIS inspired plot and they were able to stop it. But this, I think, demonstrates the stakes when one does not get stopped. And so I think immediately, no doubt, there were efforts across the country to investigate, to determine whether he had any accomplices or associates, whether anybody else was involved. And they pretty quickly have ruled that out. One of the things I know they said they did was to search his cell phone and other digital devices found at his home in Texas. And from those things they concluded that he did alone. But I think that this will have some ripple effects in other offices. For one, as you said, it appears that he had been radicalized. This is somebody who served in the US military for something like 10 years, US citizen. And so what was it that caused him to adopt this ISIS ideology? As you said, there was an ISIS flag attached to the car, and he made some pro ISIS videos just before he did this attack between midnight and 3am what caused him to become radicalized? Because it would be important to find that out so that you could prevent other people from becoming radicalized. There is a First Amendment right to say I love ISIS online, but when people are crossing over into discussing violence, that's a more significant thing. So I imagine there will be continued intelligence investigations into some of the sources of radicalization online. One thing that is probably going to happen that I think is maybe a bad takeaway from all of this is Joyce, I know you and I were texting about this during the press conference in New Orleans where people were very critical of the police department there because they had taken down some security bollards that were being replaced before the Super Bowl. They put cars there instead and people were criticizing them for not having a more secure perimeter around this. You know, you can only secure so much. They could have expanded it out a few more blocks and then the attack would have happened, you know, just at a different location.
- [13:04]
Kimberly Atkinstore
So hardware, Wasn't it true. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but wasn't it true that, I mean this happened at about 3 in the morning. There were those barricades through the new year and being run in and over the course if anybody's gone to, for example, I used to live in Times Square. So it would be this total like secure parameter around Times Square. But then by 1:00 that's like coming.
- [13:28]
Joyce Vance
Down, garbage trucks needs to get through there, right? It's kind of a mess, you gotta clean it up. So there's been some, I think ill directed criticism at kind of the hardening of the target. But, but I am sure people learn the lesson anyway and special events are going to be extra secure as a result of this. And having a layer of security is certainly an important thing. They always talk about layered security. So that's one aspect of the security. But one of the others I also think should be making a comeback is this idea of countering violent extremism. It is something that was a very active initiative during the Obama administration when Al Qaeda and ISIS were kind of in their heyday and the goal was to intervene with people who were demonstrating an interest in ISIS or Al Qaeda videos and violent tendencies. Now it's tricky because people certainly have a right to say things and express what they want to express, but using an intervention strategy. So if you see kids at school who might be falling, you can see all the signals. They've become alienated, they've become disengaged, they've lost Interest in their Hobb, other kinds of things, regardless of whether it's they've been radicalized by ISIS or they're suicidal, when people are showing these red flags looking for intervention strategies, and some schools have it for active shooter situations. But having violent extremism in whatever form it is, is something that we should be looking to help people who are having either mental health issues or perhaps have become radicalized by what they're seeing online.
- [15:11]
Barb McQuaid
You know, I couldn't agree with that more. The protocols for countering violent extremism that were sort of pioneered by the Obama White House were really effective. Folks like Barb and me got to play a role in that. And also included in that was Arab Muslim outreach. Sending federal law enforcement out into communities not to prosecute or investigate, but to essentially to become friends, to help each other, to work together. That was very effective. But now we're entering sort of a new era, Kim. And we've got this situation where Trump was pretty quick to jump on this claim, as were others. Speaker Johnson, newly reelected, and they said that the suspect was an immigrant, and that wasn't true. He was a U.S. citizen. He served in the military for 10 years. His commanding officer has expressed great surprise that this happened. So with threatened mass deportations around the corner in the new administration, do you think this becomes part of the narrative? Are we actually going to evolve from an era where they grossly mischaracterize immigrants to outright lies, or is this just a one off?
- [16:20]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Oh, this is certainly not a one off. And think about how far we come to the point that you were making after 9 11, when that actually was a foreign based attack on the United States. A week after that attack, what did the President of the United States, George W. Bush, do? He went to a mosque because he wanted to make clear that while he stood by what he said and stood on business, when it came to wanted dead or alive, whoever was responsible for this, that he was not gonna hold responsible innocent people or demonize people broadly based on the actions of terrorists. That was leadership. There are a few things on earth that I agree with George W. Bush on, but that was leadership. In that moment, what we are seeing is the absolute opposite in its worst form. We are seeing the president lying, first of all, by focusing on the border. Right.
- [17:17]
Joyce Vance
Donald Trump.
- [17:18]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Yeah, he, he. First of all, like you mentioned, the fog of war, Joyce, it took days. I didn't say a thing about this, and I'm just a journalist, you know, I didn't say a thing about what because I knew we didn't know what was happening. We didn't know if the two incidents in Las Vegas and New Orleans were connected. We didn't know the motivation, and we needed to let investigators do their work. So it went from a fear that this was a plot by multiple people to the understanding as now the FBI is saying that this was a single actor in New Orleans and that this was likely in Las Vegas, a suicide of a veteran, which is something entirely different than people feared in the beginning. Right away, Donald Trump instead jumped in to attack Joe Biden on an open border policy, which has nothing, nothing, nothing to do with anything that happened anywhere. These were two American citizens who served their country in the military. One appears to have been radicalized domestically here in the United States, and the other one we don't even know. Perhaps this is a mental health issue that speaks to the military and the need to address that, which is a huge issue. But we have him fomenting this, and it's not. And what scares me the most about him fomenting this type of hate is not just the fact that as you pointed out, mass deportations are on tap based on what they said, but it's also the fact of he's not trying to do this to stir up votes because he knows that immigration motivates vote. He is a lame duck. He's either just doing it to demonize these folks or because he genuinely is a believer that everybody with a last name that is not Anglicanized and whose family or who hails from a different part of the world or who believes in religion other than Christianity is in inherently othered and don't belong in this country. That's what he's saying in this moment. And it's absolutely disgraceful.
- [19:16]
Barb McQuaid
You know, it is. It's really frightening. It's really tragic. It's the kind of thing that whips up hate crimes. And it has always stuck with me that the first person who was killed in the United States in, quote, retaliation following 911 wasn't a Muslim person. It was a Sikh gentleman at a gas station shot by some ignorant person who couldn't make the distinction. And I guess just thought it was open season. And, you know, that's sort of the devil that sits on the shoulder of America. We don't need a president that's encouraging that devil and encouraging the worst voices in our society. So, you know, this is like a moment where a true leader would come out and apologize and say, I got ahead of myself. I was wrong. Donald Trump is never going to do that. I was wondering while you were talking, Kim, if he'd ever even said, set foot inside of a mosque, which I sort of tend to doubt. But I, maybe I'm misinformed on that. Certainly though we're entitled to expect more, but the more that we are going to get is more that's like this. Donald Trump and Cash Patel have both called for abolishing the FBI or at least neutering the FBI in a serious way. You know this incident in New Orleans, the Tesla that it explodes in front of the Trump property. Boy, these really point out the need to have strong, well coordinated federal law enforcement capable of working with and supporting state and local partners. Because if anything was apparent with these events this week, it was that the locals don't have the resources standing on their own to deal with these incidents. And it really is all hands on deck with every law enforcement agency bringing what it's best capable of doing to the table. So how do you think this all plays out? Do you think Trump and Patel will back up off of this call to sort of circumscribe law enforcement's ability to walk? Will they accept the political reality? Are they still going to try to leave us defenseless? Jill, what do you think?
- [21:29]
Jill Wine Banks
Well, I think there's a lot going on here and that when you look at the need for the FBI, I think you've pointed out, Joyce, quite correctly, that we need a federal effort who can track people interstate, who can have the expertise in bomb disposal, IED disposal, all of those things are really essential and you can't have every local police department having that. So you need the FBI. Having said all that, what are they going to do? I mean, Project 2025 and Cash Patel are dedicated to using the FBI for retribution. So that's a slightly different question. They want to eliminate the 10 year term for the and actually, of course they don't have to officially get rid of it because they have in effect gotten rid of it by forcing people out twice now. And so there is no more 10 year term to make it a non political appointment. And I think you're going to lose the ability to distinguish between terrorism and suicide, between a lone wolf who has been radicalized and one who's not a lone wolf but is actually working with a foreign terror group. I mean, we need the FBI. I think that they may not be able to abolish it in the way that they would like to, but they've succeeded in getting rid of it being a nonpolitical agency and it will be continuing to look at Things from the retribution standpoint. And that is really, really scary. I think, you know, the obvious connections between these cases and also, I don't think we've mentioned that Tesla was very helpful in this investigation because they have a huge amount of data that I was not aware of. But there's a lot of internal cameras and external cameras and, and also at Tesla charging stations, they have cameras so that every car that was there also is recording this car being there. So it's really interesting how the FBI can use that information. And yes, I suppose to some extent local police could use it, but not as well as having a federally coordinated system. And I don't want to go back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover, who served for over 40 years as the director. He was still director when I started at Justice. And we don't want to go back to that. We want that 10 year term.
- [24:04]
Barb McQuaid
A point that you're making here that's so important is this notion of discrete expertise. The FBI is extraordinarily good at what it does. I can recall working on a bomb case where there was talk of a legendary ATF expert who was so familiar with the institutional knowledge that the agency possessed that he was often able to look at devices and talk about who else had built bombs in that same style or using those kind of components. FBI has great expertise with IEDs. To some extent they overlap with ATF, but it tends to be mutually reinforcing. No local agency could have that scale of knowledge on its own. Even for the federal agents, it requires constant training. These guys have to get in the room together and talk to each other. When there's a major, major incident like the one in New Orleans, the special teams come in from all over the country both to assist and to train. And what I think Trump and Patel miss is that the FBI is out there playing defense every single freaking day. Right? And they're defending against these sorts of events constantly. The public doesn't always see that. We used to see that to some extent when we worked inside of government. If even one of these bad actors gets across the goal line like what happened in New Orleans, then people get harmed. We really can't thank law enforcement enough for the job that they do. Barb, I know you have probably similar thoughts. In some ways completely agree with what.
- [25:42]
Joyce Vance
You and Jill have just said. You know, Cash Patel has called for removing all of the FBI agents in the headquarters and making them into street cops, which is not the role of the FBI. The FBI is not only a law enforcement agency, it's Also an intelligence agency, as you're pointing out. But the reason that leadership matters so much, and I think Kash Patel is so ill suited to serve, is in an incident like this, I think we saw what was happening, at least some of it at the FBI. So they very quickly designated it a terrorism investigation. And maybe that seems obvious to the public, but you'll notice many times they do not, or they wait before they do so, because they have to have a factual basis to do that. They can't just say every kind of explosion is a terrorist incident. This one had some hallmarks, including that video, which they found pretty quickly, and that flag. And so they were able to designate it a terrorist investigation. And that has significance, not just symbolic. When you have a terrorist investigation, it allows the FBI to use additional investigative techniques that are not available to an ordinary criminal investigation. For example, they're able to get nationwide search warrant authority, so they could go to a magistrate judge in New Orleans and get a warrant for the phone they find at the scene and all the devices that are found at the defendant's home in Texas. That's very efficient to not have to go to a lot of different judges to get warrants. They can, if it is a international terrorism incident, which this was designated with the connection to isis, they can also query FISA collection using his name to see if he's been in contact with targets who are located overseas. And if they can find probable cause of any associates. Turns out they did not. They could have gone up on FISAS about anyone they determined to be where there's probable cause to believe they were acting as an agent of a foreign power. And if they had found some local cell here that was working together, they could conduct what's called an enterprise investigation to completely investigate everybody involved. So there's a lot going on there. The other really important part of a case like this is it also is necessary that you respect the civil liberties interests of everyone involved here. You can't just say, we're gonna pull off all the stops and use every authority there is to investigate. Because there are also things in what the FBI calls its DIA Domestic Investigations Operations Guide that says, for example, you may not base an investigation solely on First Amendment protected activity. You have to observe all of these authorities in any kind of court process that you want. So those are two really important aspects of that, because, as Jill said, we don't want to go back to the days of J. Edgar Hoover when the FBI, in the name of national security, would surveil people like Martin Luther King. And others who they saw as, you know, political threats to the administration. So I think all of that just demonstrates how important it is to have a person with knowledge, experience and judgment leading the FBI. Someone who is not a knee jerk political reactionary like Kash Patel appears to me to be.
- [29:00]
Barb McQuaid
Kim, what's the journalists take on this? I mean, it really is an important, pressing issue. You're inside of the Beltway. What are you seeing?
- [29:08]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Yeah, I agree with everything that you guys said. And I think it's also important to remember that the plan is also, according to Project 2025, to take the FBI out of DOJ and put it directly under White House control, which on top of all of this, would be absolutely gobsmacking. So I don't have a lot of high hopes as to any of this. I think all that I, and all four of us can do at this point is to keep people aware, make people understand the stakes so that we can keep our eyes on it, so that we are clear there is no sane washing happening. There is no, you know, mincing words at just how dangerous the situation is.
- [29:52]
Barb McQuaid
So look, you guys know I'm not really big on engaging in Pollyanna exercises and I tend to spend probably way more time than is healthy out on the ledge these days. But I mean, this is important stuff, right? And when it comes to foreign terrorism, the country seems to get it. And despite a few regrettable episodes, like Louisiana Senator Kennedy pushing the FBI asac, who just happens to be a woman of color, away from the microphone so he could mansplain what she was very capably talking about at the press conference, I mean, by and large we work on these issues in a bipartisan fashion. Not true. When it comes to domestic terrorism, which has somehow or another become subsumed into culture wars, do you think that there's a possible way that these events, as tragic as they are, that they could provide some basis for bipartisan work on making sure that we can effectively defend against foreign and domestic terror? Or is that just beyond the pale right now? Kim, you're shaking your head.
- [30:54]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Well, no way, because we have already. Listen, the FBI has said for years, for years, years, that the greatest terror threat is from domestic terror in America and it is from radicalization. Whether it is right wing radicalization or in this case, radicalization based on isis, that has been the biggest threat. We have known that. The FBI has said that under administrations of both parties and it has been ignored. Up until very, very recently, the entire anti terrorism apparatus was devoted foreign. Foreign terrorism. When that wasn't even the biggest threat that threat had been. And yes, this is horrific. But it's also important to know that ISIS as it exists, especially after the fall of Assad, is a shadow of what it used to be. It doesn't mean that it's not a threat at all. Obviously it is. This person was radicalized by that organization. But it is not 2001 ISIS. It is not 2004 ISIS. It is really, it has scattered, it is little cells that still exist in places like Syria and Iraq. But it's not the top threat to Americans. I fear a, that people are gonna miss the ball, think that it's 2001 again, and start acting crazy and miss the real terror. The real, the biggest threat was demonstrated very clearly on January 6, 2021. That's a bigger threat to all of us at this moment than even radicalized ISIS supporters. But we're never gon back there because we were just so broken. If we couldn't get there in the last 10 years, I don't expect we should get there now.
- [32:35]
Barb McQuaid
Jill, are you any more optimistic than Kim is?
- [32:38]
Jill Wine Banks
Oh, I wish I could think of something optimistic to say. And I think, you know, as Barb has often pointed out, both on MSNBC in her book and in this show, the threat is real and we aren't dealing with it. And this goes back back a long way. I think Kim is right. It certainly goes back to 2001, maybe even further back. And I remember bipartisanship. I remember when we would have worked on this and seen this as a real threat to America that needed to be solved. I don't see any hope of bipartisanship. Although today we did see Johnson and Hakeem Jeffries having what seemed to be a very cordial exchange. And there are reports that the two of them get along and will work together well. So maybe I am being Pollyanna in taking that one brief moment on television to say maybe there's a chance that we can work together in this closely divided Congress where literally it's one or two votes away and could change with the removal of some Republicans to go to the cabinet and maybe Democrats taking over those seats in some cases. So maybe that's some hope. I don't know.
- [33:58]
Barb McQuaid
It's always the politics. Always the politics. So, Barb, I love the hope.
- [34:04]
Kimberly Atkinstore
I don't. Even if I don't embrace it, I love the hope.
- [34:06]
Barb McQuaid
So, Barb, if instead of Vice President J.D. vance, we had President J. Vance, and if I could appoint you as my director of the FBI, no, seriously, you know, if, if you were the director of the FBI, what, what would you do? I mean, how do we take on domestic and foreign terror as public safety priorities and remove the politics? You be great at that.
- [34:28]
Joyce Vance
Oh, thank you. As soon as you're elected president, I appreciate it. I support President Vance. You know, I mean, remember, right after the September 11 attacks, we were united for a minute there. We came together because we'd been, you know, attacked, and we were united in our response for a brief period of time. And now it didn't happen even for an instance. I mean, Donald Trump used it as an opportunity to stir up fear of immigration, which is all is game, right? It's all about stoking division in society. And that's why I think maybe we need to look for leadership outside of politics, including FBI directors. So something tells me Kash Patel is not the one to separate politics from law enforcement. In fact, he seems, if anything, to be more inclined than anyone to conflate those two things. But I think in a better world, and maybe in four years, we'll get that better world, or maybe Kash Patel doesn't get through and we get a real FBI director. I think that could be a place where somebody says, look, this is a serious threat and even an attorney general who may be. I'm not the big critic of Merrick Garland that some are, but I do think he could have done even more. He probably thought he was doing a lot to just speak about the threats against us, the American public. I know that there were politicians who would take everything he said and twist it around, but I think that's what leadership requires. I think Chris Wray also tried to keep a very low profile in an effort to kind of keep the ball rolling without angering Donald Trump. And so I don't know what that was like, but again, I think if he could have spoken out more about, look, these are very real threats to our public safety. I think that could have brought and maybe could still bring a more united response to help us protect America. Well, Chief Justice John Roberts published his annual year end report on the courts this week. I want to get your takes on the report and just to focus the discussion a little bit. That usually chooses a topic. And this year he spoke out about threats to the independence of the judiciary, including violence, intimidation, disinformation, and defiance of court decisions. Kim, certainly there are legitimate concerns about threats and attacks against judges, which indeed pose a threat to the rule of law. But some critics are calling Roberts report tone day deaf. Do you agree? What's your view?
- [37:18]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Yeah, I'm one of those critics. So let me back up to your look out to your first point. Violence, violent threats, threats to members of the judiciary is a problem. It is a problem that is increasing and it is horrific and all due efforts need to be put in place to ensure that members of our judiciary are safe on that that the Chief justice and I are in firm solid agreement. But just reading his year end report as a whole that so just sort of to get an idea, the Chief justice of the supreme the Chief justice of the United States, that's his title every year on New Year's Eve puts out this report that basically gives like the state of the judiciary way back in the day. It used to be a document really about the needs of the judiciary, things like staffing and and you know, funding and, and things that they doing well, new programs that they've implemented or things that they want to do. But in recent years it's sort of been kind of, I don't know, I want to say platitudes, but it just hasn't been the kind of robust document that you paid a lot of attention to as a child.
- [38:29]
Joyce Vance
It's more like grievances. Don't you think?
- [38:31]
Kimberly Atkinstore
It's like well now it is. For a while it was just kind of boring, right? It was just like oh, we want to think about something. It really as a journalist I would barely pay attention to it. This report feels like Festivus like it feels totally like I got a lot of problems with you people, the chief justice said and you're going to hear about it and what clearly is coming from this court because I don't think this is just John Robert sentiment. I think that he has had one of the eight people around him or one or two of the eight people around him in his ear. This is the anger at some members of this court at being so heavily criticized in the last couple of years. And the problem is the reason that they're so heavily criticized. But let's set aside the substance of their opinions for a minute. Right. That's a big part of it. But just for the point of this conversation, it's the number one thing that I hear about folks is the fact that this Supreme Court refuses to abide by even the non binding rules that they set for themselves. And that that smacks of a lack of ethics and there seems to be zero desire to do anything about it. So and Chief Justice Roberts said exactly zero words to that, to the fact that they put out this ethics quote unquote I'm doing air quotes new ethics rules and they are still breaking them. We're still hearing about undisclosed trips. We are still seeing the justices contrary to what the Chief justice said. Well, you know, judges speak through their opinions. So I too believe that, that the Chief justice of the United States take was tone deaf. Now I just want to say unequivocally that threats, any sort of threats, particularly violent threats to members of the judiciary are completely out of bounds. It is a big problem. It needs to be addressed with all due diligence. On that we agree 100% percent. But what it sounds to me that this report, which is very different than what these reports used to be, these used to be administrative reports about things that the judiciary has done well or needs of the judiciary, things that they need to be able to do better. This year anyway, it sounds like festivus. It sounds like grievances from the Chief justice and probably the people in his ear, which include members of the majority of that court that are speaking, that are angry with the fact that people have been vocally unhappy with the way the Supreme Court handles itself. But the thing that is bad is that he totally skips over the reason most people have lost confidence in the court and that is because they don't seem to hold themselves accountable for anything. They have ethics rules that should bind them that they have ignored for years. Then they put out this new restatement of ethics rules that they promise to follow, which are just the old unenforceable rules, but then again, they don't follow them. We have justices like Sam Alito who either don't recuse in cases that he should or will recuse without giving a reason why. Contrast, say a Justice Elena Kagan, who explains clearly every time she recuses. Right. Because those are what the rules say that she should do and she follows him. You have new disclosures about fancy trips from Harlan Crow that Clarence Thomas has accepted that we talked about last week. We see this. And so why should, shouldn't the the public have questions about the legitimacy of this court when they question it? That's not an attack on the judiciary. That's them seeing with their own eyes and using their own critical thinking skills to say somethingism is here and the chief justice said nothing about that. So I think that this is a terribly tone deaf report. Despite valid things such as attack on members of the judiciary that he points out, he misses a big part of what the problem of the court is. And that's why I think this is tone deaf.
- [42:50]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I Completely agree with you, Kim. He complains. Not only does he fail to mention those elephants in the room, but he also complains about anybody who disagrees with the opinions of the court as being sort of illegitimate criticism. Now, there is one. There are certainly some bits of legitimate criticism, though. And Jill, I want to ask you about that. One of his four areas of fest is Kim calls it festivus grievances. Is he kind of calls out politicians who advocate for disobeying court orders. You know, he calls it defiance of court decisions. He doesn't name names. But does he have a point there? And could he be talking about people like Donald Trump or J.D. vance or Governor Griff, Greg Abbott of Texas? What are your thoughts there?
- [43:46]
Jill Wine Banks
I would say he is talking about all the above. There's no question that they have verbally called for disobeyance. And there are some cases, I am sure, where disobeyance might be justified, but it's hard to think of them. And none of the things that J.D. vance is talking about are legitimate. To stop obeying court orders, administrations of both parties lose cases and they have to obey court orders. This goes back to forever where people have had to obey. Richard Nixon had to obey a court order to turn over tapes that ended up in his having to resign or be convicted. So I think it's a really serious problem. I want to go back to some of the things that have already been said which, which is the absence of any reference to the seriousness of the ethics issue and the transparency issue, because in addition to all of his report, there was a request to refer Thomas, Justice Thomas, to the Department of Justice. And the conference that makes that decision said, no, we're not going to refer it. And in, in part, they had some reasons that you could discuss. But what they missed is that since they made that decision, another trip has been revealed which he did not report. And I think that at some point you have to say, you know, we don't have to keep catching you, and then you post hoc vijay, do a report. You have to do it in advance. You have to report.
- [45:28]
Kimberly Atkinstore
SJ means after the fact, y'all.
- [45:30]
Jill Wine Banks
Thank you.
- [45:31]
Joyce Vance
Is that another one of Those big words? 25 stack words even?
- [45:36]
Jill Wine Banks
I wouldn't use that in my children's book. Honestly, I wouldn't. I don't know how it came out of my mouth. I don't even know how I remembered the word sorry. Oh, God, forgive me. Forgive me. Anyway, I do think it's a serious problem that if people aren't doing the transparency which is clearly required. That is one that is, is not sort of up to them to do or not do. So I think it's really a serious thing. And I wanna say the threat issue, you are so right, Kim. Obviously, we can't have threats that sometimes result in serious injury, but it's not just to the judiciary. We can go back to killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare. Cause you wanna start a discussion that you think is important about healthcare in America. We can't allow this violence and vigilantism to continue. So that's, you know, it's hard for me to think I'm agreeing with Justice Roberts on anything, but obviously that part I agree on. I just don't agree on any of the other things. And I do agree that politicians who advocate for, you know, like, if the court does something we don't like, we're not going to obey. That is what happens when you lose total trust in the Supreme Court. It will cause people to stop obeying. And we've always said the only way the Supreme Court can enforce it is through people obeying, and they must. Otherwise, we don't have a rule of law in America.
- [47:08]
Joyce Vance
Joyce, I wanna ask you about the Supreme Court as an institution. I know you teach a course, law school course on democratic institutions. And the courts are certainly one of the most important institutions, the Supreme Court, the most important among the courts. One of the things that Chief Justice Roberts notes is that disinformation from foreign state actors on social media about the courts is undermining public confidence in the institution. And that certainly is one of the major goals of Russian disinformation, is to make Americans lose confidence in democratic institutions. Is it a fair point when Chief Justice Roberts raises it? Or is this instead just an excuse to deflect criticism? Right. I mean, anytime someone criticizes anything, I say, like, oh, well, you're just an enemy of democracy. That's just disinformation. What are your thoughts on that particular point?
- [48:03]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah, I mean, I guess both can be true. Right. We should all be deeply concerned about disinformation being spread by foreign state actors, including Russia and China and others. You know, they use that on the Internet in an effort to drive a wedge between Americans and to undermine our institutions. But we also know that Donald Trump has a bad tendency to lean in on this, often using that disinformation to further his own purposes. And as Kim pointed out, you know, earlier today, he's now a lame duck. Right? I mean, he's not doing it to get votes. He's doing it if he continues to out of pure mean spiritedness. So that, I think is something else that we have to throw into the mix. But look, the reality is that there are legitimate grounds for criticizing this Court. We've talked about some of them. We've been talking about them for months. There's this imbalance between the great power the Court is entrusted with and its total lack of willingness to impose enforceable ethics standards on itself. And that's especially a problem in light of clear abuses. That's fair ground for criticism. And to the extent that the Chief justice doesn't want to address it and wants to dismiss it, I think he is guilty of what you're talking about, Barb, of just trying to distract, you know, this apparent conflict of interest that Thomas and Alito have, where they are taking scads of money and expensive vacations and other stuff from very powerful men who are interested in cases that are in front of the Court and then these Justices vote their way. I mean, that's something that the Chief justice should have taken head on. Instead, he's trying to distract us from it and blame us for calling that out and criticizing it. And so look, I reached the conclusion that this Court has given our foreign enemies plenty of material to work with, and it is up to the Court to clean up its own act before it starts trying to lay the criticism off on us and others.
- [50:06]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I guess that's probably the best answer. Both can be true, but it certainly is an element. But it's not the only story. Let me just ask you maybe in one quick lightning round here, if you could like pull Chief Justice Justice Roberts aside, like, you know, grab him by the lapels and say, look, here is some candid advice you need to hear to lead this Court during this very challenging time. What would that piece of advice be? Let's go Kim.
- [50:44]
Kimberly Atkinstore
And then Jill and Joyce be an actual institutionalist. I am not a resolution person, but one thing I'm not going to do in 2025 is keep calling Chief Justice John Roberts an institutionalist because he has had the opportunity to step up in that role. If you really believe believes that in the importance of the institution of the U.S. supreme Court. And he has not done so. So put your mouth and your money where your perceived title is as an institutionalist and do the job of making the Court hold itself responsible.
- [51:25]
Joyce Vance
Okay. How about you, Jill?
- [51:27]
Jill Wine Banks
I would just put maybe two specifics under that topic because I agree with Kim, and those are obviously, as we've been talking about, ethics reform needs to be put in place and enforced. Enforceable ethics that are actually enforced. So that would be my first piece of advice. And of course, he doesn't want to hear that, but he also won't want to hear that they've got to stop their political predetermination of the outcome of cases. And that is how I have seen the last few few sessions of court coming out, is they decide how they're gonna go. They wanna get rid of regulations, so they're gonna totally eviscerate all of the regulatory agencies and their powers. Things like that are happening. And that's because that's what they want politically. And I think that if politics is governing how the court decides, it will continue to lose its credibility. The other thing I want to note is something else that was in the appendix to that report, and that is that if you look at the graphs, caseload and number of cases argued is going down. And that surprised me greatly. And as a result of that, it makes me think that President Biden did the right thing in not approving, not signing, signing the Judges act to increase the number of judges we have. First of all, there were so many vacancies. If it was really to fill the case, to diminish the caseload, then Congress should have confirmed the pending judges, which they didn't do. And it's too late now because we have a new Congress. So I thought the report was really interesting and very much missing on several grounds.
- [53:23]
Joyce Vance
Okay, Joyce, what are you gonna say to Roberts when you've got him cornered at the cocktail party?
- [53:29]
Barb McQuaid
Well, look, I think Kim and Jill have already said all the good stuff, so maybe I'll just be a little bit uglier than they have been willing to be. You know, I read this report and I gotta say, sometimes the Chief justice strikes me like crazy Uncle Bob, right, Who's been going down a Reddit rabbit hole and discovering QAnon. I mean, I don't mean that maybe that far, but I sometimes think that maybe he's been listening to, you know, Jenni Thomas and Martha Annalito a little bit too much. And it's like this report is flying, you know, the upside down flag, right, Saying, help the Republic. And he's missing the fact that the problems maybe are inside the institution. So I would encourage the Chief justice to do what many Chief Justices and other Supreme Court justices do and get out a little. Maybe go out and speak with law students or maybe speak with regular folks who maybe won't feel quite as compelled to be polite or as intimidated by the office that he holds. You know, the real problem when you're the Chief justice of the United States is everybody tells you what they think you want to hear. John Roberts, I think, needs to hear some of what's going on elsewhere in America. He needs to be exposed to women who are dying in Texas because they can't get medical care. I think it would do him some good to be out among the people that he is supposed to serve.
- [54:54]
Joyce Vance
Oh, I love it. Get out of the ivory tower. Chief Justice John Roberts, I would give him one other all the things you guys have said are absolutely true and I think are good advice. So I've been trying to think of one other piece of advice, and I think I would say this. Don't allow yourself to be a tool of the right, which I think this court has been. Now, certainly Roberts himself is very conservative. But one of the things that I think has undermined the credibility of this court is the way they have been perceived as a tool of the right. Because don't forget, the justices choose which cases they decide. And more and more they've been picking cases like let's review Roe vs Wade. Let's take a look at affirmative action. Let's take a look at Chevron. The only reason those cases got overturned is because the court decided they wanted to overturn them. And I think when you overreach in that way, when you don't put a check on your own power, when you exercise power just because you can, that is what undermines public confidence in the institution. And so there are certainly important cases coming down the road that the Court should take up. But don't go out of your way to overturn decades old precedent just to please the right.
- [56:19]
Jill Wine Banks
Section 1 of the 14th Amendment is the most famous section of that amendment. It provides due process and equal protection of the laws. But Section three has become the focus of some real attention recently. I've had many questions on social media, and I bet all of you have, about whether that section can be used to prevent Donald J. Trump from taking the oath of office on January 20th in basically a few weeks. So let's talk about that first. Here's what Section 3 says. I think we need to keep that in mind. And I've taken out all the extraneous words that don't relate to the issue. No person shall hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, who, having previously taken an oath as an officer of the United States to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. So I think all of you can weigh in on all of these things. But let me start with you, Kim, and talk about what does that mean? SCOTUS recently looked at the language in terms of Colorado keeping Donald Trump off of the ballot in the presidential primary there, and the lower court has said, yep, they could keep him off. SCOTUS disagreed. What did the court decide about Trump and holding off office? Or was it just that he couldn't run for office?
- [57:45]
Kimberly Atkinstore
So what essentially the court said was for the purpose of the primary, which is what the Colorado case was based on, trying to bump him from the primary ballot in Colorado, that the 14th Amendment essentially did not. This disqualification clause essentially did not apply to that in a decision that I think actually was decided correctly, that primaries are handled by parties in this country, and they are the ones who set the rules as to who can appear on a primary ballot. So it's up to the Colorado Republican Party to decide that, not the Supreme Court, not members of Congress, anybody else. So the decision explicitly said that when it comes to the general election, that's a different question. If you want to come back to us when that, if that arises, we'll take a look at it. But that's not the case presented before us. So the Supreme Court by, for all intents and purposes, has not ruled on this issue as it applies to someone actually taking office.
- [58:45]
Jill Wine Banks
Okay, so Joyce, as Kim has started suggesting, that case left open the question of whether the 14th Amendment section 3 bars Trump from holding office. Did SCOTUS address that? Does the language of the 14th Amendment bar him from being inaugurated?
- [59:01]
Barb McQuaid
And.
- [59:01]
Jill Wine Banks
And if so, what would it take to bring the case up, to have a decision as to whether it could?
- [59:09]
Barb McQuaid
Okay, so look, I'm gonna be the voice of realism here. No one who is advocating for this approach wants to hear what I'm going to say, but I feel compelled to say it anyhow. This is the bottom line. This Supreme Court is not going to bar Donald Trump from taking office on 14th amendment grounds. It's just not gonna happen. Happen on earth two, where the United States Senate voted to convict Donald Trump on the articles of impeachment for January 6th. This wouldn't be an issue because he would clearly be barred from taking office on 14th amendment grounds. That's what should have happened and didn't. And so, yes, in a very real sense, there is still a little bit of an issue in play here, but the 14th Amendment, by its terms, would say that an insurrector could be Barred a single state can't do it. Congress can. Congress abdicated its responsibility in this regard. And maybe I should say that correctly, Republicans in Congress abdicated their responsibility in that regard. So. And you know, as an appellate lawyer by nature, I like to poke and prod at these sort of picky and legal questions. But here I'm just going to say that what we should be doing is turning our focus to the midterm elections and just pulling out all the stops to create new guardrails in Congress so that we can't have a repeat, so that Donald Trump, who does violate the Constitution and his oath, could be impeached and convicted on that impeachment. The sad truth is that Americans have really short memories. And when Trump is back in office and there's no pretense of helping to make life better for average Americans, then maybe people will wake back up and recognize what we have done. But it's going to be the midterms and not a 14th amendment, sort of an errand. That is the guardrail that we need for the next four years.
- [61:01]
Jill Wine Banks
I, of course, hope you're right and that that will happen. But I do want to just reemphasize that you said the language of the 14th Amendment is clear, that he is barred from taking office and that it's just a failure of the Supreme Court that they won't let that happen. And, you know, it's sort of maybe irrelevant.
- [61:22]
Barb McQuaid
I'm not sure that that's what I said. I'm sort of in Kim's camp. I think that they decided the case properly.
- [61:28]
Joyce Vance
Right.
- [61:28]
Jill Wine Banks
But we're talking about whether they would, in a new case that is brought before them, say he can't be inaugurated because we decided he could run for office. But it says in the amendment that he can't hold office. He has done this.
- [61:44]
Kimberly Atkinstore
The Supreme Court properly decided that he could not be kept off a primary ballot. This was a very specific question. It said nothing about running. Yeah, it said nothing about running even in the general.
- [61:57]
Jill Wine Banks
So I agree that the court said the primary he could not be barred from because they are run by a political party, not by the government. I don't agree that if the case came before them now talking about whether he could be inaugurated and hold office, that the Supreme Court would not recognize the language of the 14th Amendment. But there's another sentence in the 14th Amendment that I think is interesting, and that is the last sentence says, but Congress may, by a vote of two thirds of each House, remove such disability. And to me, that sounds like the disability is automatic. The Congress can, by affirmative vote, remove the impediment to holding office, but they don't have to do anything to cause the disability. What do you think, Barb?
- [62:48]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah.
- [62:49]
Joyce Vance
And you know, Jill, you are focusing on something that actually came up in the court's opinion. You may recall that Justice Barrett issued a concurring opinion and the other three women justices agreed with her view, though they dissented in the. I'm sorry, Pumpernickel. They agree. It was 9.
- [63:09]
Kimberly Atkinstore
0.
- [63:10]
Joyce Vance
I'll start over. Jill, you're right. In fact, this came up in that Supreme Court decision about the Colorado case where Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote a concurring opinion that was joined by the other women justices, where she said that the court actually went a little too far. It would have been enough to say a state cannot remove a candidate from the ballot, period. The end. And the court is supposed to answer only the question that's in front of it, where there's a live case and controversy. Instead, they went a little bit further and they addressed the question you're raising. Jill. One of the things the majority said was that before disqualifying someone under section 3, there must be a determination that the provision actually applies to the person. So did Donald Trump engage in surveillance? I mean, we all can kind of say from a seat of the pants perspective, yes, but there has to be some fact finder that does that. And what they said is only Congress could do that and that they had to do it by authorizing appropriate legislation to enforce the 14th Amendment, which again, was criticized by the other justices as this is. This is going way too far. But even if that were the case, I'm not sure that works. Because. Because wouldn't that be either an ex post facto problem, which means after the fact, or even a bill of attainder, which is creating legislation just for one person. And so I don't know that their remedy even works. I think a better reading of the statute is the one you just gave Jill, which is that the default is that the person's not eligible. Now, maybe there needs to be a finding that Congress votes and says, we agree he did commit insurrection, but after that the remedy ought to be, and therefore he's just barred from office. It takes that two thirds vote to find that the disqualification can be overridden.
- [65:15]
Jill Wine Banks
And don't you think, though, that there have been a number of commentators have said there has been a fact finding, the majority of Congress voted to impeach him on those facts. And there have been other. The Colorado had a five day hearing saying that he was guilty of this. So there have been fact findings that would make it a disability that is automatically applied. That's how I come out on this. But let's sort of. I'm going to consolidate this into one bigger question for all of you, which is it's tricky to say how exactly this gets implemented in the same way that we have a drafting problem on the emolums clause. And so what do we need to do to make these things enforceable? I mean, it seems clear that I think we would all agree that the emoluments clause was violated in Trump's first term, that he made money from foreign governments and states through his hotels and other adventures, but nobody could do anything about it. So what needs to be done to allow. Allow a reasonable use of the 14th Amendment, Section 3 and the emoluments clause.
- [66:28]
Kimberly Atkinstore
So a good place to start would be for Congress to pass an enabling statute. One of the biggest problems with this is that it is unclear whether an enabling statute is even necessary, which kind of cripples everybody. The Supreme Court is not gonna wanna wade into this. Other folks, if Congress speaks clear, clearly saying, here is a statute that lays out the process by which this part of the Constitution is enacted. That will go a long way. Will it get challenged? Yes, but that would be at least the first step in finding some actual concrete steps that can be taken to move forward. And I think the same thing for the emoluments clause. Yes, it's there, but it does. It doesn't have the same effect of a statute passed by Congress with a way to enforce it built right in. I think that's the stuff that needs to happen. Will it? That's a different conversation, but I think that would be the most logical first step.
- [67:27]
Jill Wine Banks
I see you shaking your head, Joyce. In agreement, I think.
- [67:31]
Barb McQuaid
Yeah. I think Kim is just bingo, spot on on this one. And it seems like this isn't the first time that we've been in this place during this podcast. Right. I mean, tomorrow talking about stuff that Congress needs to do and Congress abdicating its responsibility, I think that characterizes where we are pretty accurately.
- [67:51]
Jill Wine Banks
Barb, do you want to add anything or is this the end?
- [67:53]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, I think clear process is what we need. And whether we will get that clear process by this Congress, I think remains to be seen.
- [68:04]
Jill Wine Banks
Yeah, I agree with you that that's what we need. And, and even though I don't think it's necessary, I think it would avoid any further challenge to it in the Same way that I don't think a joint congressional resolution is necessary to implement the Equal Rights Amendment, but that if we could get that, it would eliminate the only potential argument at the Supreme Court against it being the law of the land.
- [68:37]
Kimberly Atkinstore
All right, we have reached the point in the show that we all love so much, and that is answering your questions. If you have a question for us, please email us at sisters in law politicon.com or tag us on social media and we will get to as many as we can every week. Every week we try to get to three, and if we don't get to them, take a look on your screen socials, check out your mentions. We may get in there. We sneak in there sometimes and we answer your questions. I haven't been enjoying I admit that I am probably the most social media shy when it comes to engagement because social media really gives me anxiety, all it does. But I have been engaging more with y'all and I really have been enjoying it, especially with our listeners who are in for good. If you come to me with nonsense, block you. But if you have a good question, wow, Listen, it is 2025 and I'm tired of nonsense on social media. But when it's our listeners and people who come with really wonderful questions, I am really enjoying engaging with them. So the first question for this episode comes from Patrick, who asks, is there any way to block Trump's pardon of the January 6th insurrectionist? Join what do you think?
- [69:55]
Barb McQuaid
You know, I am so glad you asked this question, Patrick, because just a couple of hours ago I put a piece up on the Brennan Center's website where I'm a fellow talking about this idea that Trump is going to pardon January 6th defendants and what that might mean. As you can guess, and as I'm assuming from your question, I'm not a fan of this, but here's the issue. The Constitution gives the president a broad unrestricted pardon power. The only restriction in the Constitution is that it can't be used for impeachment. There's a strong suggestion, based on the words of the Founding Fathers, that it also couldn't be used by a president to pardon him or herself, although that issue has never been tested in the courts. Perhaps that will be a feature of the next four years, too. But here's the reality. Donald Trump can and has said that he will issue pardons for these folks. The question isn't whether it's lawful. The question is whether it's awful. In other words, even though presidents have the power to do some things, they Shouldn't. And every prior president, even though there have been some very questionable pardons, they have certainly not pardoned their own personal army, which is sort of what this amounts to. You know, I think what this underscores is the fact that we no longer have any meaningful form of universal civics education in this country. And people have sort of watched the Donald Trump show, like, oh, isn't it great? He's such a tough guy. He's such a bully. Rah, rah, go. Because it's entertainment and theater, not government. And I think if he does pardon these folks when that happens and they go back to their communities and they're available to give more support to groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers, who will undoubtedly be buoyed by this, then we will all see the concrete negative consequences of this. And perhaps if there's a silver lining to this, which I sort of doubt at this point, but perhaps if there is one, it will be that people will begin to reconsider the consequences of their votes.
- [72:06]
Kimberly Atkinstore
All right. Well, our next question comes from Barbara, who asks, what is the rate of interest for damages and court fines? Are there different interest rates? Oh, this question. I just love it. As a former civil litigator, the question comes. Barbara. So I'm going to ask Barbara, what do you think?
- [72:25]
Joyce Vance
Yeah. Happy to answer a question from any Barbara who is out there. And I know, Kim, only a civil geek like you would like this, but it does come up in civil and criminal cases. And there are statutes on this. So there are federal statutes, there are state statutes, and let me just give one example. For a federal case, the federal statute sets the interest rate at a rate equal to the weekly average 1 year constant maturity treasury yield as established by the Board of Governors of. Of the Federal Reserve System. So it shows up. It might be X percent, Y percent, but the court will have access to that information and will set it when fines and fees and other things are set.
- [73:08]
Jill Wine Banks
Can I just add to that, that in the state of Florida, I was a plaintiff, a successful plaintiff, and the interest rate in Florida was 10% compounded annually. And the stupid defendant didn't pay me, but then went to sell the house, which I had a lien on, and he had to pay me 10% compounded annually. I made a big fortune.
- [73:32]
Barb McQuaid
Okay, wait, can we put this in the Jill Winebanks exhibit at the National Women's?
- [73:36]
Joyce Vance
Yeah, Here we go.
- [73:39]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Yes. I love it.
- [73:40]
Jill Wine Banks
Yes. And then we have to thank my friends who did this at pro bono for me. One of my best Friends, of course, while we were living in Florida were lawyers. Not surprising. And Tracy Nichols represented me in small claims court and got this judgment and then we ended up getting it enforced. So there you go.
- [73:59]
Kimberly Atkinstore
That's great. All right, and our last question for this episode comes from Charles Gritten, who asks if Trump does try to mass fire civil servants, are there legal challenges they or Democrats in Congress could file and have a chance for for success? What do you think, Jill?
- [74:19]
Jill Wine Banks
So I think this is such an interesting question because of course it is something that you have to worry about. And I don't know about you guys, but I've heard from a lot of doj, particularly employees who are worried about losing their jobs or having to resign just because it would be so awful to have to live in the rule of Donald Trump. And the answer is, of course there are laws that protect civil servants. They can only be fired for cause. They have to have due process, they have to have a hearing. But the person in charge of that is a political appointee, the head of the Office of Personnel Management. And so I'm a little bit worried that even though the law says due process and you can't be fired without cause, that they will find cause that doesn't really exist and they will be successful. So I think there will be a lot of lawsuits if this happens and that I think that there should be pro bono legal services offered to people in this circumstance. But I can't really answer that with any assurity that it will not be successful that there'll be a mass firing that he gets away with.
- [75:42]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Well, thank you for listening to Sisters in law with Barb McQuaid, Joyce Vance, the one and only Jill Winebanks who deserves her own museum, and me, Kimberly Atkinstore. Follow Sisters in Law on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast. And you know what? Give us a five star review because you wouldn't believe it, but there are still people who have not heard of this show and by doing that, you help them find us and then we can all get together on Saturday mornings and have this type of fun and also show some love for this week's sponsor, Thrive Cosmetics. It's good stuff. I have been using this long before this podcast even existed. We love how it does good. And the link is in the show notes support Thrive because they help bring this podcast to you. See you next week with another episode, Sisters in Law.
- [76:45]
Jill Wine Banks
Be right back.
- [76:46]
Joyce Vance
We were so close to getting started.
- [76:49]
Barb McQuaid
I was on my podcast and I realized I just couldn't do it.
- [76:54]
Joyce Vance
What is. Is that the doorbell? Is that the phone? What is that?
- [76:56]
Kimberly Atkinstore
I don't know. She has so many phones.
- [76:58]
Barb McQuaid
Is that the Adam's phone Family?
- [77:01]
Kimberly Atkinstore
No, that's.
- [77:02]
Joyce Vance
What? Fifth of Beethoven?
- [77:03]
Kimberly Atkinstore
Yes. Say what. What symphony is that?
- [77:06]
Barb McQuaid
But done, like, done in a very Adam vibe. That is not how it was meant to be.
- [77:13]
Joyce Vance
That's like asking Chat GPT. Please compose a Beethoven symphony in the style of the Adam. Oh my God.
- [77:26]
E
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- [77:52]
Joyce Vance
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