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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to this episode of Sisters sidebar with Kimberly Atkins Storr and me, Joyce Vance. If you've got a question for us, and we know that y' all do, you can email them to us@sistersinlawolitikon.com or tag us on social media using Sisters In Law. If you have one of those questions that's been eating away at you, but you've never felt like you could get an answer to it, this is the time we really want to answer your questions. And you don't have to just type them. Your voices are important. We want to hear your voices, too. So now you can email us a voice memo question using one of your notes apps. And you never know, we might play yours in the show. So let's get started. Kim, the first question is for you. It's an audio question from Cameron. Hello, my name is Cameron and I'm from Oregon. Since Trump's proposed arch is proposed to be built in Virginia, can they block its construction?
- [01:07]
B
Oh, this is a good question, Cameron. So the answer is, sadly, no. Virginia does not have jurisdiction over the land at issue that Trump wants to build the arch on, which I can already tell you there is pre construction already underway around this area just across the Potomac from the Lincoln Memorial because it is federal land. It is a federal plot that sits between the Potomac river and Arlington National Cemetery that is under the purview of the federal government. It is not governed by Virginia at this point. It's just a roundabout. It's a place where people go right before going places like the cemetery or the airport. But that is why Trump chose this, to avoid all the regulation he can. He's also trying to have his cake and eat it too, by saying because it's in Virginia, he doesn't have to adhere to the height restrictions that Washington D.C. imposes. You notice that the buildings here, we have no skyscrapers because there are restrictions. But then at the same time trying to say he can bypass other authority because it's federal land and he can, you know, do what he wants and, you know, it's really messy. Nothing like this has been done before. But to get to the heart of it, Virginia officials can't stop it. All right, Joyce, we have a question from Alicia in Portland, Oregon, who asks, would you support all politicians making their tax records public while in office?
- [02:41]
A
Easy answer, Alicia. Yes, absolutely. There's reason not to do this. Look, if I am voting for somebody to represent me, I, I want to know a lot of stuff about them and mostly I want to know who's paying for them. Right. Who are they in bed with financially? Where does their money come from? Did they appear to be on the up and up? So this one is a no brainer for me. What do you think, Kim? It sounds like you.
- [03:08]
B
Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, I wish it's sad that this only was a norm in most cases that it wasn't a actual legal requirement because you need to know who is lining the pockets of our public officials. We need to know where the money is coming from, who they're indebted to, who they're being paid by, who they're connected with, who they stand to profit from. I mean, I think it's a no brainer.
- [03:34]
A
Kim, there's a question for you from Kara in Atlanta, Georgia. She says how does one ethically navigate political events as a lawyer or while pursuing legal internships in polarized times?
- [03:48]
B
Oh, this is a really, really good question. I think people who are either in law school and planning for a law degr in a law career or practicing attorneys do need to be careful. They too have First Amendment rights, let's be clear. And that includes the right to protest or the right to attend political events or to be involved. But the problem when it comes to being a member of the bar and participating in cases as a litigator, for example, is the risk of being conflicted out. So that means if it is shown in the course of your work that you have either, you know, done political work in favor or against one of the parties in a case that you may get in the future that you don't even know you might get at the time that you're engaged in these political activities, you can be conflicted out. You can be prevented from either participating in a particular case or even in a whole area of law of your firm if they see that as a problem. So it's a real, it's a real issue. Just, it's one that you have to be really mindful of when you know you are going to be a lawyer. From the moment that I applied to law school, I made sure that I was very careful of what I did, what I didn't do, my associations for fear that it could come back and bite me later. What do you think, Joyce?
- [05:09]
A
Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a good answer. My situation was a little bit different because I spent most of my career at the Justice Department. So I was covered by the Hatch act that expressly forbade me from participating in a wide range of political activities. And, and you know, while I was at doj My husband, who was a state court judge, we elect our state court judges in Alabama, but he ran twice for the Alabama State Supreme Court. And so I went to DOJ for an ethics opinion on what I could and couldn't do. And I'll, I'll tell this story. The opinion that I got was a little bit too permissive for my taste. It said you can't actually ask for money at one of his events, but you can attend with him, you can sit alongside him, you can gut. And I.
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B
Did you leave that second part out when you told him no, I went
- [06:02]
A
back to the senior career official at the Justice Department, David Margolis, and I said, David, I don't want to have to do all this stuff me a new opinion. But truly I felt like, you know, as someone who was at that point in a leadership position in the office, it was just inappropriate to be there. And maybe it was technically permissible. But why get close to the, to the line? We want to hold those positions. Be much more careful.
- [06:29]
B
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A
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B
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A
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C
Hi, sisters in law. Nice to see you. Nice to hear you. My name is Jill Filmell. I am from Geneva, Illinois. I have a question regarding the current case that's been reopened by the request of 35 federal judges in Florida regarding Donald Trump's suit against the IRS and the alleged agreement that started this slush fund. Now, in the event that the judge does determine that Donald Trump and the Attorney General were in collusion to fraud, defraud the United States, what could happen if they are found guilty or she finds good cause? Can Donald Trump be removed from office? Could Todd Blanche be removed from office? What are the consequences that in the event that he did commit a fraud. Thank you.
- [12:28]
A
You know, this is Jill in Geneva, Illinois. But I think it's. That's not our Jill, having listened to the voice. All questions from Jills. So if you're out there and your name is Jill, send in your questions. Jill, this is a really great question, and I think it's a good opportunity to level set on what's going on with this whole crazy slush fund business, because this happened when Trump filed the case that you're talking about. He filed in Florida, Trump versus irs. Of course, we know that there are now other challenges to the slush fund settlement. One in the District of Columbia, one in the Eastern District of Virginia. But here we're back in Florida, where the original case was filed and it was dismissed, and the judge was right to dismiss it. The rules very clearly say that if a plaintiff wants to dismiss a case before the defendant has filed their reply, their first response to the charges against them are really to the allegations against them. Because this is a civil case, then the plaintiff is entitled to do that and the judge should enter the order of dismissal. That's what happened here. And then questions start being raised and the judge reconsiders, as you say, she. She reads this petition that comes from 35 retired federal judges, a bipartisan group, and she decides to reopen the case. The parties are in the process of briefing it. And the question is, what could happen here? There are a lot of options. The judge might decide, no, the rules are the rules, and I can't reopen this case. It's done. She might decide that she can reopen the case and she can go ahead and rule that because there was never really any adversity between the parties. Right. It's supposed to be that when you have a lawsuit, they're really divergent interests that are. That are that there's an effort to resolve. And here we know, because Donald Trump said it out loud, that he controlled the settlement that the IRS was going to give us. And that's where this notion of fraud on the court comes from, this idea that Donald Trump is pretending that there's a real lawsuit and perpetrating a fraud on the court when he comes up with both the slush fund settlement and then that addenda to the settlement that we get a day later, which essentially forgives Donald Trump and his businesses and his family from every bad thing that they ever did as of the date of the settlement. You know, this really offensive, almost a pardon sort of deal that he gets. And the judge could ultimately decide to set all of that aside, to say that the case wasn't properly in front of her because the parties weren't adverse. There is nothing to settle, and the settlement is a nullity. She could do other things, too. For instance, the judges have suggested, and she herself has suggested, that she could have the inherent authority, if she reopens the case, to deal with it as a frivolously filed lawsuit or some of these pleadings as frivolously filed. And courts are able to punish litigants in those settings. So there is a full range of options on the table, and all eyes, I think, are on the Southern District of Florida to see what happens next. Kim, I love this next question today. It comes from Todd in Los Angeles, and it's the perfect question for two nerdy appellate lawyers. That would be you and me. Todd's question is, what is the difference between de facto and de jure in a legal.
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B
Yes. So this is a good, this is a good, nice, nerdy question. So literally, the words de facto in Latin means from the fact and de jure means from the law. So an example would be of how these are different in the legal context is think about the Voting Rights act, right? It prohibits actual things like de jure discrimination, which would be a law, I'm going to give a, you know, exaggerated one to show that says black people cannot vote at this polling station. If there was a rule that stated that, that would be de jure discrimination. That is, the law itself discriminates against black people. De facto discrimination, for example, would be the argument that by imposing strict voter ID laws, knowing that it's harder for black people to obtain the documents they need to get the sort of ID that would be accepted. That is a de facto discrimination example, because the law itself doesn't say anything about, you know, denying black people that Right. But it, in effect, does that very thing. So that's an example of the difference between de jure and de facto.
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A
You know, that's such a great example. And I. I have another example of de facto discrimination in that same area. So we had this situation where to go and vote in certain polling places in Jefferson county, which is Birmingham, Alabama, you had to be able to go through one of those security areas, you know, to go into a public building, sort of like getting on an airplane. And they weren't wide enough to accommodate wheelchairs.
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B
Oh, man, that's a no, no.
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A
Wheelchairs couldn't vote. And so, you know, the polling officials would go run out and they would take ballots out to people in wheelchairs so that they could vote until Alabama's Secretary of State shut that down, and then it was time for the Justice Department to intervene, which we did. But that's such a great example of de facto segregation. There's nothing that says they can't vote, but in reality, they can vote.
- [18:15]
B
That's exactly right. And our last question today comes from Franklin in the Bay Area of California. Did any of you ever consider going into big law, or was government always your preferred focus? How would you recommend people choose? Did you always want to be a prosecutor? Joyce?
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A
You know, I think all four of us have been in big law at some point.
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B
I was in Little Law. I was in Little law.
- [18:39]
A
Yeah, I worked out in big Law. I was in a big firm in Washington, D.C. and I will just say that, hands down, I loved my firm. I adored my firm. I had a very different experience from what a lot of people had because my law firm had a big commitment to doing pro bono work. And so I was able to do pro bono civil rights work while also learning how to be a litigator. And, you know, I did not start out wanting to go into government, but what happened, and I've told this story before, is my father in law was a federal judge who was murdered by an unhappy litigant. And the Justice Department officials who prosecuted his murder were just wonderful people. They left their families in New York, they came down to Alabama, spent a lot of time there, did such a great job. And my husband and I really felt like one of us needed to pay it forward and spend some time in government. And so I thought. And at this point, I was at a firm in Birmingham, which I also loved, and I thought, well, I'll just leave for a couple of years and go do public service. And I remember around year eight, I was having lunch with one of My former partners. And he was like, you're not ever coming back, are you? Got hooked. I mean, it's a special feeling to stand up in court and to be able to say, may it please the court, I represent the people of the United States of America. But I have been deeply grateful my entire career in government service that I started out at two law firms where I got exceptional training in how to be a good, diligent lawyer from people who really invested in young people. And so I think my answer to your question is whatever it is that you want to do with a legal degree, and maybe this is true beyond the practice of law, find good mentors. Find people who will commit in training you and teaching you to do, you know, as we say at doj, do it in the right way for the right reasons.
- [20:35]
B
Yeah. So I never worked in government, but I was. I never. I knew that I did not want to go into big law when I went into law school. I wanted to be a litigator, and I wanted to get into court as quickly as I could. And I knew that at big law, litigators there who are hired fresh out of law school spend a lot of time, you know, doing grunt work, carrying the partner's litigation bags and stuff before they can actually argue before a court. I actually did end up interviewing and got a call back for the summer associate program at Scatton Arts when I was in school, and I made it all the way to the finals, and then I ended up not getting the job, but I actually was grateful for it because I got a job at a fantastic law office that I went on to work at after law school with wonderful people who gave me. When I came back after taking the bar exam, there was a stack of cases, you know, this high on my desk, and, you know, my, my, my. I hadn't even gotten my results yet. And they're like, it's all right. You can sign them when you get your. When you get your bacca. It was in Boston. It's like, you can. You can sign them when you get your bar card. Just get started.
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A
That I wish I had known about. And. And maybe this is the era I went into law school, you know, big a very easy career path. To go into government was an easy career path. I wish I had known that you could go to one of the civil rights groups as a lawyer.
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B
Yes.
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A
And one of the joys.
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B
I told you I applied to Southern Poverty. Sadly, they didn't.
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A
Joys of my experience in big law was getting to work with the lawyers. Committee for Civil Rights.
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B
Yeah.
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A
And learning about the civil rights community, which I think that's just such a great path for a young lawyer.
- [22:13]
B
So great. So great. Yes, there are a lot of paths. Well, thank you for listening to Sister Sidebar with Joyce Vance and me, Kimberly Atkins Storr. Keep sending in those questions. Send a voice note to sistersinlawoliticon.com so we can hear your voice and maybe play your question on the next episode. Don't forget to show some love for this week's sponsors, Mint Mobile and Thrive Cosmetics. It's why we're able to to bring you this show every week. So make sure you show them some love. And don't forget to follow both Sisters in Law and Sister Sidebar wherever you get your podcast, whether It's Spotify, Apple, YouTube, wherever you're looking, make sure you follow us, give us a great rating and tell your friends about us, too. And don't forget to grab some merch@politicon.com merch. See you next Saturday for Sisters in Law and next Wednesday for Sister Sidebar. You know, the student version, the Crossing Helper.
- [23:30]
A
I always wanted to do that and I never got picked. See, I didn't.
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B
So in my school, there were the Crossing helpers and then there. But there were the hall monitors that were inside the school that would like, you know, I wanted to be a hall monitor, but I didn't get it. I was the crossing person instead. And I was so mad. So I didn't appreciate what I had. It was a cool, it was a
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A
cool little thing school where I went to school.
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B
All right.