Yes, We’re in a Constitutional Crisis

Summary

Strict Scrutiny Podcast Summary

Episode: Yes, We’re in a Constitutional Crisis
Release Date: February 17, 2025
Host/Author: Crooked Media
Duration: Approximately 73 minutes

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Yes, We’re in a Constitutional Crisis is a compelling episode of Strict Scrutiny, hosted by constitutional law professors Leah Lippman, Kate Shaw, and Melissa Murray. This episode delves deep into the tumultuous actions of the Trump administration, highlighting a series of unprecedented moves that suggest a profound constitutional crisis in the United States.

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1. DOJ Corruption and Resignations

The hosts kick off the episode by examining the recent chaos within the Department of Justice (DOJ). They discuss the dismissal of corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, orchestrated by Acting Deputy Attorney General Dag Bag Emil Beauvais.

• Leah Lippman [04:04]: "We're also going to cover some developments in courts involving some of the administration's actions... including the acting deputy Attorney General, who we'll call Dag Bag, Emile Vevey, and interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, aka USA Dick."

Melissa Murray provides a detailed account of how Beauvais directed the dismissal of charges against Mayor Adams without prejudice, effectively leaving the charges dangling in exchange for Mayor Adams's cooperation with federal immigration enforcement.

• Melissa Murray [10:00]: "In that letter, Sassoon explained that she could not in good faith request that these charges be dismissed."

This maneuver has led to significant internal strife, resulting in the resignation of key DOJ officials who oppose these corrupt practices.

• Melissa Murray [26:49]: "There are people doing things, and if you are doing things, like, you see them, too... Over 40 lawsuits in total have already been filed."

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2. Executive Orders and Policy Shifts

The episode highlights a series of executive orders aimed at dismantling longstanding federal protections and regulations:

• Suspension of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA):
  The administration issued an executive order to cease enforcing the FCPA, a 1977 law preventing U.S. entities from bribing foreign officials.

  • Melissa Murray [21:04]: "Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi has also announced that the administration will disband the National Security Division's corporate enforcement unit and drastically limit prosecutions under the Foreign Agent Registration Act."

• Disbanding the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB):
  Russell Vaught, recently confirmed to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and appointed as the acting CFPB director, issued a directive halting all consumer protection law enforcement.

  • Melissa Murray [33:02]: "Vogt's first act as the acting CFPB director was in fact to tell the entire agency, we're no longer enforcing any of the consumer protection laws."

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3. Attacks on Independent Agencies and Oversight Bodies

The administration has systematically targeted independent agencies and oversight bodies to consolidate power:

• Firing of Inspectors General and Ethics Officials:
  Numerous Inspectors General and heads of ethics-related offices have been dismissed or forced to resign, undermining federal accountability.

  • Leah Lippman [47:30]: "You have to sign your name to all briefs, and the administration will fire you if they don't like some of those briefs."

• Curtailing Judicial Independence:
  Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris announced plans to challenge the Supreme Court's precedent in Humphrey's Executor, aiming to strip protections from agency heads and grant the President broader authority to remove officials.

  • Melissa Murray [48:44]: "If accepted by courts, it means restrictions that exist in statutes that constrain the President to summarily remove anyone he chooses will be unconstitutional."

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4. Legal Challenges and Litigation

The episode underscores the surge in litigation aimed at countering administrative overreach:

• Lawsuits Against Key Figures:
  Over three dozen lawsuits have been filed by organizations like State Democracy Defenders, Public Citizen, and the ACLU, challenging actions such as the unilateral termination of DOJ officials and the infringement on federal agency autonomy.

  • Melissa Murray [45:05]: "The claim is that this kind of power can only be exercised by officers of the United States, individuals appointed as the Constitution requires."

• Preliminary Rulings:
  Courts have begun issuing preliminary relief against the administration’s actions, including orders blocking the disbursement of funds and accessing sensitive systems.

  • Melissa Murray [43:42]: "The district court was like, yeah, your card's no good here. Thank you."

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5. Assault on Gender Equality and DEI Policies

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to analyzing the administration's stance on gender and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives:

• Targeting Women in Leadership:
  The administration has systematically removed women from high-ranking positions, including the first female Commandant of the Coast Guard, citing excessive focus on DEI policies.

  • Leah Lippman [62:22]: "This is the contempt that the administration seems to have for women in military leadership positions."

• Rolling Back Protections for Transgender Individuals:
  Executive orders have been issued to eliminate legal protections for transgender people, under the guise of "defending women from gender ideology extremism."

  • Melissa Murray [66:21]: "The federal government is issuing executive order after executive order in defense of women... protects compassionate but horse out."

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6. Responses from the Administration and Media

The hosts critique the administration's official responses and media narratives that downplay the crisis:

• Press Secretary's Denial:
  White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt attempted to deflect claims of a constitutional crisis by blaming judicial activists for hindering executive authority.

  • Caroline Levitt [57:34]: "Many outlets... have been fear mongering the American people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the White House."

• Hosts' Counterarguments:
  The hosts passionately argue that the administration's actions are clear violations of constitutional principles, highlighting the disconnect between public statements and the reality of the situation.

  • Leah Lippman [52:17]: "The chasm between how our constitutional system is functioning and how it should be functioning is so... huge."

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7. Calls to Action and Hope Amidst Crisis

Despite the bleak portrayal of governmental overreach, the hosts offer avenues for resistance and hope:

• Supporting Legal Challenges:
  Listeners are encouraged to donate to organizations fighting against administrative overreach and to support investigative journalism.

  • Melissa Murray [72:23]: "If you're even a fraction of as incensed as we are... support journalism by subscribing to the places who are doing great investigative work."

• Inspiration from Grassroots Movements:
  The hosts highlight the courage of individuals and students who are actively resisting and pushing back against unconstitutional policies.

  • Melissa Murray [69:21]: "High school students around the country... are doing the work, learning about the Constitution, learning about Supreme Court cases."

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Notable Quotes

1. Melissa Murray [05:28]: "But I feel like there is something similar afoot right now, which is that the best way to sound kind of like a raving lunatic right now is to accurately describe the ransacking of the federal government that is occurring in front of our faces."

2. Leah Lippman [47:30]: "It is to eradicate from the federal government any individual or entity that would act with any degree of independence in a way that would check a lawless presence."

3. Melissa Murray [66:21]: "These anti-trans moves are obviously horrific for transgender women... but it's also the point that CIS women, all women, like this, a lot of this policy making is very, very bad for women writ large."

4. Guest Speaker [63:43]: "He is fake, huh? Sam Alito needs to just read the news."

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Conclusion

Yes, We’re in a Constitutional Crisis serves as a stark warning about the current trajectory of the U.S. government under the Trump administration. The hosts meticulously dissect a series of actions that collectively undermine the constitutional balance of power, weaken federal oversight, and attack gender equality. Through detailed analysis and impassioned discussion, Leah, Kate, and Melissa illuminate the severity of the situation while also inspiring listeners to engage in meaningful resistance.

For those seeking to understand the intricate legal battles shaping America's future, this episode offers an essential and insightful examination of the ongoing constitutional upheaval.

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Listen to the full episode on YouTube or your preferred podcast platform to stay informed and empowered.

Transcript

[Leah Lippman]

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[Melissa Murray]

Mr. Chief justice, please support.

[Kate Shaw]

It's an old joke, but when an.

[Melissa Murray]

Argument man argues against two beautiful ladies.

[Kate Shaw]

Like this, they're going to have the last word.

[Melissa Murray]

She spoke not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity.

[Guest Speaker]

She said, I ask no favor for my sex.

[Melissa Murray]

All I ask of our brethren is.

[Guest Speaker]

That they take their feet off our necks.

[Melissa Murray]

Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it.

[Guest Speaker]

Because The Trump administration 2.0 is in full can't stop, won't stop mode with an onslaught of executive orders and other actions that seem designed to break the constitutional order and maybe even the world order, we are not going to be actually talking about the court today. The court's also been on vacation. Like, where are those guys? Like Mustique, where are they? Who knows? The court's not in session, but the federal government is. So we're going to be covering much of what the Trump administration has been doing over the last week. So this is all to say that we are are staying on the chaos beat. And we should note that we are recording live at Fordham Law School on Big crowd here at Fordham Law School, and they're excited. And we're recording on a Thursday evening. And the way this usually plays out is that we record on Thursday and then there's all kinds of stuff that happen on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and then this episode gets released on Monday. So we don't even know what's going to happen. So a lot of this may be preempted by other things, but take it as a time capsule of a moment that we were in on a Thursday night and that there's more to come and we're just going to soldier on and do the best that we can.

[Leah Lippman]

So we are going to start with a rundown of the most outrageous recent developments. It would take us days to get through all of them. So we're just going to cover some highlights, really lowlights and not JVN approved lowlights. This is going to include some new moves made in Inside the Administration by Musk, Trump, and some perhaps less familiar figures, such as the acting deputy Attorney General, who we'll call Dag Bag, Emile Vevey, and interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, aka USA Dick.

[Guest Speaker]

Yes. Good, good.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. So we're also going to cover some developments in courts involving some of the administration's actions. So it's going to be a lot of stuff on DEI for men with bad personalities. And if there's time, we will take a step back and focus on what these early moves tell us about the substantive vision of women and their place in society that seems to drive Trump, Musk, Vance, the Doge bags. Maybe we should call them doggy bags, Doji bags. They are full of shit. The Muskrats. Evil Musketeers and whoever else is calling the shots over there in the mojo dojo casa White House.

[Melissa Murray]

I hope the Dean was prepared for us to get a little spicy tonight.

[Leah Lippman]

I feel like Charlie XCX at the Grammys. Right? Like performing guests.

[Melissa Murray]

Anyhow, there's no delay, though, so they can't bleep anything out. Okay. And I actually want, before we dive in, to make one threshold observation, which is that Leah has been saying for years that the meanest thing you can do to the conservative justices on the Supreme Court is to accurately describe their rulings. It is outrageous.

[Leah Lippman]

Not a joke, just a fact. That is a deep cut RuPaul Drag Race reference, just to be clear.

[Melissa Murray]

And I feel like there is something similar afoot right now, which is that the best way to sound kind of like a raving lunatic right now is to accurately describe the ransacking of the federal government that is occurring in front of our faces. It is crazy. Reciting it without embellishment truly makes you sound unhinged. And I think if you landed here from Mars and just tuned into what we were saying, that would be your conclusion. Like this. There's something wrong. These people are not right in the head. No. Like, this is all just what is happening. We are trying to dispassionately just describe it for you. So on that note, let's start breaking it down.

[Leah Lippman]

So we spent a lot of time in our last episode talking about Doge. And we'll do a bit more of that today, but we're gonna start with the Department of Justice, which is actually becoming pretty. Do, like, get it like D, O J. Doge. D O, G, E, Doge. Okay. Anyways, we are recording this live show in the city of New York, A great city with a not so great mayor.

[Guest Speaker]

He's pretty mid. He's pretty mid.

[Leah Lippman]

Eric Adams. So. Right. Where do things stand with Mr. Adams? Melissa.

[Guest Speaker]

So he seems very committed to the rat situation, which I appreciate. Very committed to threading his eyebrows, which I'm always here for some strong manscaping. So good for him. But until last Monday, Mayor Adams was actually under federal indictment, which. Make America great again. Make America Tammany hall again. Whichever you choose. Not great for the City of New York. He had been charged by the U.S. attorney's office in the Southern District of New York with corruption charges, specifically bribery and the solicitation of foreign campaign contributions. Now, when this was first announced, we were a little dubious about how those charges would ultimately fare before our very corruption forward Supreme Court, which in recent years has taken a hatchet to various federal anti corruption laws. But it appears that we will never actually have the experience of reciting faithfully the conservative justice's anti corruption slash corruption forward decisions because this particular case is never going to get to the United States Supreme Court. Because Acting Deputy Attorney General Dag Bag Emil Beauvais, who was also one of Donald Trump's lawyers in the New York hush money trial and who is now emerging as a top lieutenant in the Trump doj, has decided to put the kibosh on this prosecution, or at least.

[Melissa Murray]

He has tried to do that. So this is a developing story, but here is where we are as of Thursday night.

[Leah Lippman]

So Thursday, 6pm we should say, yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

It'S gonna be a long night.

[Melissa Murray]

It could be a very long night. So let's just bring you up to speed on where things stand as of, what is it, 6:15 Eastern Time on Monday, as Melissa mentioned in a letter that I personally hope will be widely taught in both legal ethics and government lawyering classes for years to come. In that letter, Beauvais directed Danielle Sassoon, then the Acting U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, to dismiss the case against Adams. Dismissed without prejudice, so the charges would remain dangling out there. Seemed like that was part of the point. And Sassoon, we learned just before the recording started, resigned rather than agree to dismiss the charges. Remember, she was the Acting U.S. attorney designated by the Trump administration. She was picked for, elevated for this role by Trump and that's part of why this resignation is such a big deal. So she wrote a letter to the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, saying she could.

[Leah Lippman]

Not Pamela Joe Bondi.

[Guest Speaker]

Say her name. Say her full name.

[Melissa Murray]

I told Melissa I would and I've already, I already failed.

[Guest Speaker]

Very Florida name. Like I grew up in Florida. In the fifth grade, there were five girls who all had Joe as their middle name. So this is very specific, very of the moment.

[Melissa Murray]

I will not omit that again. Pamela Joe Bondi. In the letter, Sassoon explained that she could not in good faith request that these charges be dismissed. And Bove responded with an eight page screed of his own, saying that Sassoon's resignation was accepted in light of her refusal to comply with his directive and also saying many, many other things. So we are mostly going to focus on the initial letter and there is a lot in it. That's the initial letter directing Sassoon to dismiss the charges. First, there is the fact that Bovet decided to put in writing this letter, et al. It is in some tension with Stringer Bell's sage advice not to take notes on a criminal conspiracy. So I mean to be clear, the main Justice Department could have leaned on the Southern District of New York, quietly could have tried. Putting this letter into the public domain. Reflects a choice, and I think a choice to signal into broadcast real antipathy for these kinds of anti corruption prosecutions.

[Leah Lippman]

And more than that. So it does seem in DOJ's defense that they do sometimes understand Stringer Bell's advice because Sassoon's later letter to Pamela Jo Bondi notes, quote, Mr. Bove admonished a member of my team who took notes during that meeting and directed the collection of those notes at the meeting's conclusion. Like, I know I'm engaged in a little conspiracy here.

[Guest Speaker]

Light conspiracy.

[Leah Lippman]

Light conspiracy. Don't take notes.

[Guest Speaker]

All right, so what did the DOJ letter directing the dismissal of the Adams prosecution actually say? Well, first it makes clear that Main justice did not decide to dismiss these charges against Adams because it had determined that there was a problem with the case or with the underlying evidence that had been gathered in support of the prosecution. So that was not the issue. Rather, the decision to let this light corruption slide, as it were, is because Mayor Adams, in the administration's own judgment, apparently needs to be free and on the streets to help the federal government enforce the immigration laws. Let's put this differently. This is a non prosecution. That apparently is, in exchange for Mayor Adams's cooperation with the Justice Department, the Immigration Department's decision to enforce the immigration laws and do this mass deportation screen literally. And Sussoon's letter also says as much. It says, quote, adams attorney repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with immigration enforcement. So apparently that was what was on offer. And the DOJ said yes, I would sold that. Exactly. Yes, Please, please.

[Melissa Murray]

Look, to be fair, the initial DOJ letter did contain some suggestion that the case should be dismissed for other reasons. Not because of the weakness of the evidence or the legal theory, but because the charges were at least being pursued too close to the, to the mayoral election. Right. They were impeding Mayor Adams reelection bid. And also there was a suggestion that the previous presidential administration was essentially punishing Adams for his criticism of their immigration policy. And that at least was the ostensible reason provided in part of the letter. But all of that, even inside the four corners of the letter, seems pretty pretextual because the letter then goes on to say, quote, we are particularly concerned about the impact of the prosecution on Mayor Adams ability to support critical, ongoing federal efforts to protect the American people from the disastrous effects of unlawful mass migration and resettlement. So it really does seem to be a thank you for your cooperation kind of situation.

[Leah Lippman]

And as we all know, tips and gratuities to officials are perfectly legal, right? Per the US Supreme Court.

[Guest Speaker]

Non prosecution. The best tip.

[Leah Lippman]

Exactly. Exactly. Now, there is a footnote in that letter that tries to walk it back a little. It reads, quote, your office correctly noted in a memorandum, as Mr. Bove clearly stated to defense counsel, the government is not offering to exchange dismissal of a criminal case for Adam's assistance on immigration enforcement. End quote. Insert Katherine Hahn winking face here. That's not actually in the letter. But the footnote doesn't really blunt the impact of the text. That's right there above the line. You know, like we said Stringer Bell would never. But these guys seem to want to convey to people, scratch our back, we'll scratch yours. They want to make clear the implied slash, not so implied. Quid pro quo. Do our bidding and we'll put you above the law, too.

[Guest Speaker]

Can I ask a question, though, just as a con law matter, do you remember that whole Prince thing about how the federal government cannot commandeer state officials into the service of a federal program?

[Leah Lippman]

It's true. But what if the federal government. Government instead implies that a state officer's freedom depends on whether they are keeping daddy happy by enforcing federal immigration law, not conscription. Not commentary. Exactly. That is totally fine. So after the Department of Justice's Public Integrity section was informed they would be taking over Mayor Adams case, the acting head of the unit and his boss, the senior most career official in DOJ's criminal division, both resigned. Like, this is Trump's Saturday night Massacre when Nixon was firing officials who wouldn't do his bidding to keep him above the law. And this is just another Thursday afternoon, less than a month into the Trump administration. This is an order so foul, so transparently corrupt. Trump selected officials are resigning rather than touch it. So the New York Times also reported that Mr. Beauvais, in accepting Sassoon's resignation, informed her that the prosecutor who worked on the case, Adam's case, were being placed on administrative leave and would be investigated by the Attorney General and the Justice Department's internal investigative arm.

[Guest Speaker]

He also named those line prosecutors by name in the letter. So, I mean, like, not full doxxing because their addresses aren't there, but, I mean, this does open them up to all kinds of stuff.

[Leah Lippman]

Yep.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah.

[Melissa Murray]

So you know the district judge who is Presiding over the case, Judge Dale Ho, whose nickname we have regrettably had to retire since he took the bench. But you can listen to the back.

[Guest Speaker]

Catal if you're a true fan, you.

[Melissa Murray]

Know, but, you know, I don't think it is clear who is going to actually like stand up in front of Judge Ho and ask that these charges be dismissed. You know, maybe it will be Bovet personally who is in main justice, but.

[Leah Lippman]

It'Ll be big balls. That's a joke.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah. So, so, so we, we don't know. But I, I am quite sure that is going, that is going to be quite a hearing. If and when somebody puts their name to this ask and has to answer questions about why, maybe it'll be Elon Musk.

[Guest Speaker]

Anyway, guess what? We're not even done covering the doj. That was just one episode in this week at your Department of Justice. There are more DOJ/ New York City hijinks that we can talk about. Last night, newly confirmed Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi announced that the Justice Department is suing the state of New York. At her press conference, Attorney General Pamela Jo Bondi announced that DOJ has, quote, filed charges against Kathy Hochul, Tish James and others, end quote. Now, that is not actually true because Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi was talking about a civil suit that does not involve charges at all. It is a challenge to the city's immigration policy. So it's not a criminal prosecution and therefore the term charges is really not apartment but why would the nation's top law enforcement official pay attention to these minor, minor distinctions between a criminal prosecution and a civil suit?

[Leah Lippman]

The best people, the meritocracy in action.

[Guest Speaker]

I think so. All right.

[Melissa Murray]

So staying on the topic of New York because there is, yes, more so the great controller of our city, Brad Lander, who is also running for mayor without federal charges dangling over him, announced yesterday some not so great news news, which is that the federal government has apparently clawed back $80 million in funds that were not only approved, but evidently also dispersed to New York. The funds were appropriated by Congress to help New York cover the costs of housing and providing other services to migrants in the city. I do not know the mechanism by which this clawback was achieved, but I do know that it seems outrageous. The administration is, to be clear, absolutely entitled to change its immigration enforcement policy. Like no one disputes that, but it cannot do it in this way. I, that I think observation could hold true for much of what we have seen in recent weeks and what we're going to talk about. But we should say that Lander has pledged to challenge the federal government's actions in court. And so that's something that we're going to keep an eye on.

[Leah Lippman]

And what this amounts to, they literally took $80 million out of new York's bank account. Like that is looting the American people. And we should link this back to corruption. Like, you would think New York City's mayor would be making a stink about this. Alas, he has been bought off with a non prosecution decision by the Trump administration. Like it is the corruption all the way down.

[Guest Speaker]

All right, there's more. We're not done. Literally, covering DOJ in this environment is like drinking from a fire hydrant. So we recently learned that the Trump DOJ is planning to take a pass on enforcing anti corruption laws. So, Kel, surprise, right? This is no surprise. Not only is corruption going to be encouraged, anti corruption laws will not be enforced. And as with many of the administration's moves, reading about this felt a little bit like reading an Onion headline. But it's not. So pursuant to a new executive order that was issued, the administration has plans to stop enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The FCPA is a 1977 federal law that prohibits U.S. citizens and entities from bribing foreign government officials in order to benefit their business interests. Seems like a good idea, but I guess the administration decided that it was going to take too long to wait for a case to get up to the United States Supreme Court so they could strike down the fcpa. So the Trump administration decided just to do this with a stroke of the pen instead. And I have to wonder what big law is going to do because like, a lot of big law firms have huge FCPA practices. So, I mean, if there is a burgeoning coalition to fight back here, I think it's white shoe law firms from.

[Leah Lippman]

Your lips.

[Melissa Murray]

Complimenting this executive order ordering literally non enforcement of this Corrupt Practices Act. Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi has also announced that the administration will disband the National Security Division's corporate enforcement unit and drastically limit prosecutions under the Foreign Agent Registration Act. Or Farah, you know, does seem to reduce to make corruption great again.

[Leah Lippman]

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[Leah Lippman]

So let's move from The Acting Deputy AG, dag bag, and the newly confirmed AG to the interim U.S. attorney for D.C. as we said, USA, dick. A guy by the name of Ed Martin. So a few days before Beauvais absurd Adams letter, Martin sent a fawning letter to Elon Musk and Doge compatriot Steve Davis that was evidently sent via X only as one does.

[Melissa Murray]

You know, when the new postal service is just X.

[Leah Lippman]

Right. That's.

[Melissa Murray]

We're gonna have to all communicate using.

[Leah Lippman]

Communicating with private citizens.

[Guest Speaker]

Sliding into your DMs, as it were.

[Leah Lippman]

Yes. So the topic of this letter appears to be reporting on the names of individuals in Doge wreaking havoc on the federal government. And Martin pledged in the letter that, quote, if people are found to have broken the law or even acted simply unethically, we will investigate them and we will chase them to the end of the earth to hold them accountable. End quote. That last part is bolded in the letter. So, too is a sentence in the next paragraph which reads, quote, nuin is above the law. Yes, that's spelled N O, O N E. Who is Nguyen? You asked.

[Guest Speaker]

Only the best person, I think. Definitely someone who's part of the meritocracy, 100%. So Martin is really distinguishing himself even among this administration of absolute winners. So after being installed as interim U.S. attorney for the District of the District of Columbia, he fired dozens of prosecutors who were involved in the prosecution of the January 6th protesters. So very, very normal.

[Leah Lippman]

And I want to step back to note that what they are doing seems to be in tension with Attorney General Pamela Joe Bondi's PJB's new Department of justice policy of requiring all DOJ lawyers to sign all briefs. You know, previously the department had allowed attorneys to opt out of participating in certain cases or signing their names onto briefs, a move Bondi said, quote, politicized the department. So now people seem to be in a double bind. You have to sign your name to all briefs, and the administration will fire you if they don't like some of those briefs. Because in addition to firing people involved in January 6th prosecutions, the Department is reportedly investigating the prosecutors on the Adams case as well.

[Guest Speaker]

All right, back to Ed Martin. So Martin also withdrew all of the still pending charges against those January 6th defendants. So folks who had not yet been convicted, but still had charges pending against them. All of those charges were withdrawn. But guess what, listeners? One of the January 6th defendants.

[Leah Lippman]

Wait, wait, wait, question. Did those January 6th defendants were they needed to help enforce federal immigration law?

[Guest Speaker]

Probably. Yes.

[Leah Lippman]

Probably.

[Guest Speaker]

Or the Voting Rights Act. Yes, it's hard to say.

[Melissa Murray]

Deep cut.

[Guest Speaker]

Very deep cut. All right. Well, it turns out that One of the January 6th defendants who got one of these get, literally get out of jail free cards was Martin's own client. So Ed Martin was still representing this guy. He hadn't actually withdrawn from the representation of this defendant. And when that was brought to Martin's attention, like, hey, there's a little conflict here, he said that he believed that he had withdrawn from the case, but it turned out that he hadn't. And when he went to actually get dismissed from the case, having already directed the dismissals of those charges, the district judge who he went before basically told him that he would not be granting leave for Martin to withdraw because Martin was no longer a member in good standing of the federal court. There. That is how you do it. Okay. Like legend, absolutely iconic. The district court was like, yeah, your card's no good here. Thank you.

[Melissa Murray]

And correctly, there's at least one ethics complaint growing out of all of this that has been filed against him by the 65 project. So we will see where that goes. I mean, I truly cannot imagine what the I think hardworking, decent people in the U.S. attorney's office in D.C. must be making of all of this. Their nominal head who can't even withdraw from his unethical representation because he has let his bar membership laps.

[Guest Speaker]

Only the best people.

[Melissa Murray]

One more piece of DOJ kind of adjacent news involves Rod Blagojevich.

[Guest Speaker]

I never. I really was not expecting to hear Rodejoyev.

[Leah Lippman]

No, me either.

[Melissa Murray]

You sort of forgot that that whole thing happened.

[Guest Speaker]

It's almost like he's been under a bridge somewhere.

[Leah Lippman]

He had just kind of become irrelevant.

[Melissa Murray]

Well, I don't know. I don't know what the next season is gonna hold, but I think he could be a central figure. It's entirely possible. In any event, he is, as a reminder, the former governor of my home state of Illinois. And Blagojevich did not have the good sense to try to sell a Senate seat while Donald Trump was the president. That was poor timing on his part. So he was prosecuted because that's what we did then. And he was convicted. He served eight years in federal prison, and he had the rest of his 14 year sentence commuted by Donald Trump. The first time Donald Trump was the president. Well, Trump has now made that commutation into a full pardon. Blagojevich feels quite vindicated, and I just feel like maybe this is his moment. I don't know, maybe he'll run for mayor, too.

[Leah Lippman]

Well, no, he too is needed to help enforce federal immigration law and the Voting Rights Act.

[Melissa Murray]

Yep.

[Guest Speaker]

All right. Okay. We need a palate cleanser from all of this DOJ nonsense. Let's do some updates on some other agencies outside of doj, and then we can turn to all of the lawsuits, which we've gotten a lot of questions about. So lots to say about that. First up, I think we should remind everyone that Russell Vaught was confirmed to omb. And who is Russell Vaught? Well, he is, if you listen to our summer episodes, the architect of much of Project 2025. And Project 2025 was the conservative blueprint for the first 100 days of the Trump administration, which Donald Trump said he had absolutely no knowledge of. Have. Interestingly, the first 30 odd days of the Trump administration seems to be following Project 2025 pretty much down to the letter. So even been 30, maybe there was some overlap.

[Melissa Murray]

It's even been 30 yet. Melissa, can you believe it?

[Guest Speaker]

It's not. It's.

[Melissa Murray]

Who knows when we hit the 30 day mark, I don't know where we're going to be.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah. How many days has it been?

[Melissa Murray]

20.

[Leah Lippman]

Some 25. When we're recording, we are 25 days.

[Guest Speaker]

Into a four year sentence. Oh, my God. Okay. All right.

[Leah Lippman]

And four years is optimistic.

[Melissa Murray]

Oh, God.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, there is that third term. Exactly. Anyway, we know that Russell Vaught is part of the unilateral funding freeze. He hadn't even been confirmed to OMB when he got that going. But despite that, you would think that the fact that he paused all of this federal funding would have been a moment for the senators on both sides of the aisle to be like, hey, is this the guy we want running omb? But apparently not bought, sailed through the Senate, was confirmed, and for good measure, he was then subsequently made the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the CFPB whose real director Donald Trump fired last Friday, two Fridays ago.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah.

[Leah Lippman]

So for folks who might not be familiar with it, the CFPB does super important work. It supervises banks and other financial institutions. It protects consumers by doing consumer education, investigating complaints filed by consumers, finding companies that engage in fraudulent and abusive practices. And so of course, these guys were like, that one's got to go.

[Guest Speaker]

Very, very populous. Yes, definitely. Good for the price of eggs.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. And you know, I Think this too is part of the corruption forward ethos of the administration. Because guess who was and is trying to do something that the CFPB might have regulated? Our secret president, Elon Musk. Who wants to create so secret. You're right. Who wants to create some sort of Musk buck and use X as a digital payment system. And federal regulators had to no surprise, been carefully reviewing and scrutinizing digital payment systems because of security risks, fraud risks and more. And that's no longer a problem.

[Guest Speaker]

Coincidence.

[Melissa Murray]

I'm sure it's a pure coincidence, but Vogt's first act as the acting CFPB director was in fact to tell the entire agency, we're no longer enforcing any of the consumer protection laws. Literally. That's essentially what his agency wide message said. The offices are closed. No one is to perform any work tasks. If there's an urgent matter, you should email Mark Pauletta, who's the chief legal officer. Then there was an email in that, an email address for Pauletta that I'm pretty sure had a typo in it because CFPB's letters were transposed. So I don't know where that email went, but it turns out if you want to work at the CFPB and you have a job at the cfpb, there is literally no way for you to do that. You are barred from doing any work at the cfpb. Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

And Mark Paoletta, is that. Is he a friend of our favorite justice?

[Melissa Murray]

I mean, all roads lead back to Clarence Thomas somehow.

[Guest Speaker]

So, yes, all roads do lead back. Speaking of roads and meritocracy, do you remember Road Rule, Real World contestant, lumberjack, New Secretary of Transportation, Sean Duffy?

[Leah Lippman]

Oh, I do, because I took a flight today and was literally panicked the entire time thinking about it.

[Guest Speaker]

Well, you have good reason to be panicked because there was yet another airline collision, this time in Arizona on Duffy's watch. So again, I just want to point out. Meritocracy. Yes, meritocracy. All right. This airline collision, there was a fatality involved. This is really a catastrophe, deeply concerning if you ever do air travel, which a lot of us do, but interestingly, guess where you're not going to hear about this sort of thing. Typically, it's been the case that when there is an incident like this, there would be an ordinary press release because the National Transportation Safety Board would release one. But in one of the most disturbing instances of the unholy entanglement between the United States government and Elon Musk's X, it was announced that going forward the only way that investigative information and information about agency news conferences will be released is through X itself. So X is not only going to be your mail service and your digital payment system, it is also going to be the way in which the United States government communicates with all of us about airline safety and maybe other things. So this seems great for free markets and competition and data privacy.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. So I also want to be clear what I think is kind of happening here, why they're doing this. So I think it's related to the fact that some federal departments are reportedly considering telling reputable news agencies to clear out and make room for wingnuts. So CNN reported that the Pentagon shared a plan that would replace NBC News as well as Breitbart. Apparently not right wing enough with One America News Network in the Pentagon press corps workplace. And the New York Post was going to be invited to the New York Times workplace.

[Melissa Murray]

They're just rotating, Leah. They're giving everybody a turn.

[Leah Lippman]

That's what's happening. And it just so happens that Oann's turn is forever.

[Guest Speaker]

But don't you love the idea of page Six in the Pentagon?

[Leah Lippman]

I don't think they're on the list.

[Guest Speaker]

Pete Hegseth having lunch with. So good.

[Leah Lippman]

So I think this hearkens back to something we covered a while ago, which is a project that was called Teneo. This was Leonard Leo's Federalist Society for Everything. That was a plan that was described as a way to crush liberal dominance in the media, in education and elsewhere. And here I think they are propping up these far right news networks to give them access and to give them stories that other outlets are not going to have. I also think this same impetus is partially what explains the administration going after higher education institutions by withdrawing or attempting to withdraw National Institute of Health research funds and other, again, penalties that they just seek to be imposing on these places.

[Melissa Murray]

All right, so we have a lot of other moves in other agencies we want to cover. We talked last week in our last episode about the abrupt termination or pause, but potentially longer term pause of many of the programs run by usaid. There was a lot of additional reporting just in the last week about USAID workers literally stranded when the agency abruptly placed employees on administrative leave, stopped their programs, ordered many people back to the United States. I mean, and to be clear, these are individuals, many of them, who are essentially U.S. diplomats. They hold diplomatic passports, they represent the United States and carry out US Aid policy in programs all over the world. And last Friday, many of them were told they would have to immediately leave their post, meaning pack up their lives, pull their kids out of schools. You know, one family reported having to leave a post and not bring their dog with them. Which, like, for us, all of us as dog owners, is just like an unthinkable thing from the government to have done. Of all the horrible things the government has done in recent weeks, it also kind of appears since we last recorded, that the Doge Cabal has now set its sights on the Department of Education in a way it hadn't even a week ago. And can I just, like, pause to say how truly, like a military takeover it feels to be saying things like. Or reading things like, okay, the Department of Education has fallen. Right. And it's like, no, no, wait. It might be holding on. It might not have fully fallen yet. This is the tenor, I think, of our conversations and much of the coverage this week. And it's chilling.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. So a few hours before we were recording, Senator Ron Wyden posted this on Blue sky, quote, my office is hearing that Doge is now at the irs. That means Musk's henchmen are in a position to dig through a trove of data about every taxpayer in America. End quote. So it seems to me that we are like a few news cycles out from a story along the lines of some Dogebro on a ketamine bender leaves, at least at some weird strip club, like a USB drive with millions of Americans bank accounts and Social Security numbers. I'm not trying to manifest that.

[Guest Speaker]

Sorry. All right. So it seems that the Muskrats have stormed the Department of Education and have announced that they are unilaterally terminating nearly $1 billion in U.S. dOE contracts, including essentially eliminating a research office that was intended to track student progress. And there's already a lawsuit challenging that, and we're going to turn to it in a minute, but that's sort of where things are. They are definitely in the building.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. So this was a short list of lowlights out of doj, omb, usaid, Education and more. Axios described this as masculine maximalism.

[Guest Speaker]

They're trying to get a desk at the Pentagon.

[Leah Lippman]

I just could. Not with that. But much of what is happening is in clear violation of laws passed by Congress, leading me to say, like, babe, wake up. New unitary executive theory just dropped. Not only is all of the executive power vested in presidents, Republican presidents, all legislative power is also vested in presidents. You would think Congress would mind. And you would be wrong. Right. Yeah. You would be wrong. Because when Senator Thom Tillis was asked about Elon Musk exercising Congress's power of the purse, Tillis answered, quote, that runs afoul of the Constitution in the strictest sense. But it's not uncommon for presidents to flex a little bit on where they can spend and where they can stop spending.

[Guest Speaker]

I don't even understand that statement. Like how can a little flex be unconstitutional in the strictest sense, but still be okay?

[Leah Lippman]

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[Kate Shaw]

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[Leah Lippman]

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[Melissa Murray]

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[Guest Speaker]

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[Guest Speaker]

So it seems that Congress is not just asleep at the wheel. It also seems to be co piloting the plane right into the storm. You can pick whatever metaphor you want. But the good news is the lawsuits are flying fast and furious. So that's good.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah.

[Melissa Murray]

And so we're going to turn to that topic now. We cannot provide a full roundup of all of the lawsuits pending right now. There are too many, over three dozen and probably significantly over. But we do want to quickly shout out the organizations that are doing some of this work. State Democracy Defenders, Public Citizen, Protect Democracy, Democracy Forward, the aclu, the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. And I'm sure there are more, but these are all scrappy little organizations doing incredible work pulling together plaintiffs, filing complaints, really laboring to make sure and to show all of us that something of the rule of law remains. There are also some law firms that are stepping up to support this work, but more need to be doing that.

[Leah Lippman]

And I also want to note that state attorneys general offices have also been on the front lines doing a lot of work. Over 40 lawsuits in total have already been filed. Melissa's colleague at nyu, Ryan Goodman, and the Justice Security website have been doing fantastic work cataloging all of these cases. You know, the suits are challenging, among other things, the removal of officials who cannot lawfully be fired without satisfying certain conditions, granting DOGE access to sensitive payment systems, unilaterally canceling programs, activities, expenditures, entire offices and even agencies, as well as substantive challenges to things like the Birthright Citizenship Executive Order. And many of these cases have resulted in preliminary relief.

[Melissa Murray]

So let's start by mentioning one that was just filed that I think makes a really important argument that's distinct from those that have been filed already. And it's a suit filed against both Elon Musk and Doge. And it is challenging the extraordinary power that Musk and Doge are exercising as inconsistent with the Constitution and specifically with the Appointments Clause. So the claim is that this kind of power can only be exercised by officers of the United States, individuals appointed as the Constitution requires for those who exercise significant authority on behalf of the United States States. So if it's a principal officer, the President has to nominate and the Senate has to confirm. And even inferior officers can only be appointed through the mechanisms that the Constitution allows. If Congress acts to confer the appointment authority somewhere other than the president with Senate confirmation. None of that happened here. And so the focus of the suit is just that, you know, this extraordinary power that they are wielding as to the Education Department, that's the focus of this lawsuit. But the arguments absolutely apply much more broadly.

[Guest Speaker]

All right. We also want to talk about some of the personnel related actions and the litigation that those actions have prompted. So just to give you, like a snapshot, over the last three weeks, the first three weeks of his administration, Donald Trump has fired the following people, career officials at the DOJ and the FBI, for no other reason than the fact that they worked on the January 6th prosecutions. He has fired a number of inspectors general, the internal watchdogs of the federal government. They fired the head of the Office of Special Counsel, which is an entity that enforces the civil service laws and protects whistleblowers. It's fired the head of the Office of Government Ethics because that person is in charge of ethics. He's fired a board member of the nlrb, preventing the board from having a quorum and not being able to do its work enforcing labor laws. It's fired the head of the cfpb, it's fired the FEC commissioner, It's fired the EEOC commissioner, and it's fired much of the Kennedy Center's board and replaced them with new board members, including one Usha Vance.

[Leah Lippman]

So each of these offices slightly different, and the legal arguments against the permissibility of the firing look somewhat different from one to the next. But the cumulative meaning and effect of these firings is clear. You know, it is to eradicate from the federal government any individual or entity that would act with any degree of independence in a way that would check a lawless presence.

[Guest Speaker]

President, it sounds like something I read in Project 2025.

[Leah Lippman]

What's that? Don't know her.

[Melissa Murray]

And to be clear, some of these officials are not going quietly. So there have been lawsuits filed. Actually, just last night, a district court issued an order to allow the head of the Office of Special Counsel, Hampton Dellinger, who is represented by friend of the show Joshua Matz, to remain in his position in advance of a hearing that was scheduled for next week. So for now, Dellinger stays put.

[Leah Lippman]

So we've already mentioned others are also planning to sue. That list includes NLRB board member Wilcox and a friend of the show and previous guest Ellen Weintraub, who was attempted to be fired as an FEC commissioner last week. So the administration is going to have a number of these suits on their hands. And lo and behold, Wednesday night, acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris made an announcement that we knew was coming, but is nevertheless significant. So they are going to argue before the Supreme Court that the case of Humphrey's executor should be overruled. As our constitutional law students know well, Humphrey's executor is a 1935 opinion that allowed Congress to create agencies with heads that are somewhat shielded from the President's ability to remove them and thus are able to be somewhat independent from politics and the President.

[Melissa Murray]

So this has been, you know, building for a while, but it's still a very big deal. The announcement came in the form of what's known as a 530d letter the Department of Justice actually sent to to the Senate. And that happens sometimes. The executive branch decides not to defend a statute or a precedent. You know, a recent example was when the Obama administration decided to stop defending the Defense of Marriage Act. It announced that it had concluded that DOMA was unconstitutional. And it announced that in a letter, a 530d letter sent to the Senate. But you know, here, obviously the upshot of this argument, if accepted by courts, is that many, maybe not all, but many of the restrictions that exist in statutes that constrain the ability of the President to just summarily remove anyone he chooses will be unconstitutional. And thus one of the last remaining checks on the President inside the executive branch will be gone. And as we've said previously on the show, it couldn't come at a better time. So, you know, we should say these arguments are not identical to the arguments against the job protections that members of the civil service enjoy, because on the list of individuals that we've mentioned are a number of civil servants who don't have the exact same protections that, that the members of boards like the NLRB have. But they may be gearing up to make that argument too, that all of the protections that career civil servants enjoy are similarly impermissible in that they encroach on the President's power, which again apparently includes not just all of the executive power, but all the legislative power and maybe all of the judicial power too.

[Guest Speaker]

All to say that the lawsuits are flying and some of those lawsuits are resulting in rulings against the administration and the men's at Harvard Law School and Yale Law School. Well, those mens have some thoughts about this and we promised you in last week's episode that Leah had some thoughts about Harvard Law School Professor Noah Feldman's intervention on this question. So, Leah, I'm just going to let you cook go.

[Leah Lippman]

I just want to say I got on a Plane, even though I was scared I was going to die in a fiery crash specifically so I could get to this part of the show.

[Melissa Murray]

We are all so grateful, Leah.

[Leah Lippman]

So the column by Noah was, don't worry, the system is working great because courts are invalidating some of these Trump orders. I don't even know where to begin with how absurd and wrongheaded this is. Like, the fact that these cases are even getting to court is itself, I think, a mark that something has gone horribly wrong. Like an indication of a real crisis. Like the president is engaged in systemic and systematic legal violations. Seems to view the law as like a decorative wall plant. And courts are not going to be able to stop everything because some of what the administration is doing is legal but wildly destructive, and the damage is going to be long term and hard to reverse. And also, courts are more likely to do their jobs and enforce the law. Ruling against the administration if people are agitated and if there is public outcry and using your platform to give the public false assurances. Right. To tell them basically to calm down and to take away some of the public outcry is a choice. And this guy's metier is bad lawyer brained. Nay, Harvard law professor brained apes. He is just vamping and primping in Bloomberg, and I have no patience for it.

[Melissa Murray]

So we are definitely not getting invited to do a lot. And I am okay with that.

[Leah Lippman]

And he does this because this is another callback, just like metier was, because people say things like, quote, neither of us can remember what Noah said, but I know it was so profound that appeared in the New York Times, just to be clear. And again, like, the chasm between how our constitutional system is.

[Guest Speaker]

He's dead.

[Leah Lippman]

No, I'm not done. I'm not done. I'm Elena Kagan with some douchebag at the lectern in front of me, and I am not done.

[Guest Speaker]

Go off.

[Melissa Murray]

Go off.

[Leah Lippman]

Okay, so the gap between how our constitutional system is functioning like, and how it should be functioning is so, like, huge, Right? Like, the idea that you would write a column that says everything is hunky dory. Did you look around? It is just so delusional. It is beyond delusional.

[Guest Speaker]

I'm a stop you because we are an equal opportunity destroyer podcast and it's time for Yale Law School to enter the chat.

[Melissa Murray]

That's right.

[Guest Speaker]

Okay.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah. So let us set up the Jed Rubenfeld intervention. What triggered this intervention was one of the district court losses that we have mentioned, which was a ruling by District Judge Paul Engelmeier. In the Southern District of New York, which was really just a very preliminary ruling, pausing Elon Musk's underlings from accessing the treasury payment system until a couple of days later when an actual hearing could occur. It was a very modest light touch order, but JD Vance took it personally and he took to X, which is apparently how we all communicate and exclusively must communicate to inch awfully close to encouraging defiance of court orders.

[Guest Speaker]

Quite awfully close.

[Melissa Murray]

I am in a strike. So Steve Laudick had a good column about this reading in the most charitable conceivable way, what J.D. vance was saying.

[Leah Lippman]

That's.

[Melissa Murray]

It's not how J.D. vance intended it. But let me read the couple of sentences and then we can decide sort of how. How close he came. And maybe, you know, he's all the way there to outright. To encouraging outright defiance. So Vance said, quote, if a judge tried to tell a general how to conduct a military operation, that would be illegal. If a judge tried to command the Attorney General and how to use her discretion as a prosecutor, that's also illegal. Judges aren't allowed to control the executive's legitimate power. So I think there is a kernel of truth there. A judge directing a military operation, telling a general where to send troops, everyone agrees courts can't do that would clearly constitute a political question not suitable for judicial resolution. The point, though, is irrelevant because no judge is trying to do anything close to those examples. And thus the claim is deliberately misleading and seems designed to stoke opposition to courts in ways that could be quite dangerous if the administration decides it needs to actually amass public support for outright defiance. Okay, that's the context now. Enter Yale Law Schools. Jed Rubenfeld, you want to do the honors?

[Guest Speaker]

I'll read it. I'll read it. So weird. Okay, I'm the voice of Jud Rubenfeld. JD Is correct about this, and his examples are exactly right. Where the executive has sole and plenary power under the Constitution, as in commanding military operations or exercising prosecution prosecutorial discretion, judges cannot constitutionally interfere. That's. Yeah, I mean, but there was more to it. Like, I think contextually this wasn't about military operations, and both of them knew that. So this is just a very Yale Law School kind of thing to do.

[Melissa Murray]

Yeah, yeah, no, I was not trying to co sign the kind of embrace or endorsement that that Rubenfeld seems to be offering here. I actually think that it is incredibly dangerous too. So the very narrow, I think, point made by Vance in a law school classroom, like, has a colonel a truth to it. The point he's making on the public stage is that we should think very seriously about not abiding by court orders. And I think Rubenfeld had to understand what he appeared to be endorsing in that it's that tweet in a way that is wildly dangerous.

[Guest Speaker]

You can't divorce the statement by J.D. vance from an earlier statement he made when he was running for senator from Ohio, where he said that he would advise President Trump that if the courts did not go rule in his favor, he could simply do what Andrew Jackson did and say, you know, let the Chief justice, let him enforce his decision. I mean, that is sort of the broader context in which this entire exchange is occurring.

[Leah Lippman]

So what irks me is like they are equating to very different things and suggesting, like, a false equivalency. Right. And conflating easy cases in both directions. Right. And suggesting there's some gray area here. Also, the Marshall thing that just annoys me because it's like, did you not read the rest of the story about how Andrew Jackson eventually came to the court and the federal government's defense when South Carolina attempted to nullify federal law and basically said, as president, I have a duty to enforce federal law and it would destroy the union. Right. If officials could just be like, I'm going to veto nullify that federal law. Like, again, read a book. Okay? So, to make things better, White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt entered the chat.

[Caroline Levitt]

Now, before I take questions, I would like to address an extremely dishonest narrative that we've seen emerging over the past few days. Many outlets in this room have been fear mongering the American people into believing there is a constitutional crisis taking place here at the White House. I've been hearing those words a lot lately. But in fact, the real constitutional crisis is taking place within our judicial branch, where dishonest district court judges in liberal districts across the country are abusing their power to unilaterally block President Trump's basic executive authority. We believe these judges are acting as judicial activists rather than honest arbiters of the law. And they have issued at least 12 injunctions against this administration in the past 14 days, often without citing any evidence or grounds for their lawsuits. This is part of a larger concerted effort by Democrat activists and nothing more than the continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump.

[Guest Speaker]

Bless her heart. Okay, first of all, Caroline, we weren't even in the room. Like, we're the ones constantly saying we are in the throes of a constitutional crisis, and we are, and we weren't Even there, so.

[Melissa Murray]

But she's listening.

[Guest Speaker]

She's listening. Obviously friend of the pod, Caroline. But yeah, like, this is what that is. This is a genuine constitutional crisis. I'm glad she recognizes. I'm glad someone recognizes it. Also. Now you have a problem with forum shopping after Judge Matthew Kaczmarek. Like, girl, come on, we've got the receipts. Okay. Also, the idea that judges have cited no evidence or grounds. Like, again, do you read? Did you read the.

[Melissa Murray]

No.

[Leah Lippman]

Like, the answer is clearly no.

[Guest Speaker]

All right. Okay. So that's all I'm gonna say about that.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah. Also 12. Like, that's it. Consider the denominator.

[Guest Speaker]

True.

[Leah Lippman]

Strict scrutiny is brought to you by Skims. I have to wear real professional clothes, but I'd always rather be in yoga pants, sweatpants, and jammies. So compromise. While my outerwear looks legit, I stick with the most comfy bras and underwear skims, which is made of my all time favorite favorite smooth, buttery fabrics. My personal favorite skims line is their Fits Everybody line. The fabric, as I've said before, is stretchy but also supportive. And it's buttery, soft, and somehow stays that way wash after wash after wash. The Skims Fits Everybody Boy Short has been my obsession ever since I tried them. It's smooth, but also a real boy short. And I love that they're so seamless that I don't have to worry about bulky fabric digging into me or showing. And the Fits Everybody Bralette is my go to Bralette. It works as an everyday bra that's supportive, and I can also use it as a sports bra that doesn't feel restrictive or flattening. It honestly doesn't even feel like a bra. It's that awesome shop Skims Best intimates, including the Fits Everybody collection and [e-mail] and Skims New York flagship on Fifth Avenue. After you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows.

[Kate Shaw]

Now streaming on Peacock by All that's Holy, Bridget Jones.

[Leah Lippman]

Hello, old friend.

[Kate Shaw]

Bridget Jones is back.

[Leah Lippman]

We are about to embark on an.

[Kate Shaw]

Adventure for one final chapter.

[Melissa Murray]

Anything else I can help with? Yes.

[Kate Shaw]

Experience every moment.

[Guest Speaker]

Do you think about what might have been?

[Kate Shaw]

And fall in love to Bridget all over again. It's time to live Bridget Jones Mad about the Boy. Streaming now only on Peacock.

[Melissa Murray]

So we have maybe 10 or so minutes remaining. So in the last part of the show, we wanted to take a few minutes to talk about an important through line in some of the administration's orders and actions, which we have talked about kind of individually but haven't pulled together, which is sort of the view of sex and gender that emerges from some of these moves. And in some ways, like the question almost answers itself, which is like, what do the Doge Bros think about women having power and autonomy? But let's unpack justice.

[Guest Speaker]

Spoiler alert. It's not good for you ladies.

[Leah Lippman]

So there was an insane story that didn't get enough attention about the commandant of the Coast Guard.

[Guest Speaker]

Commandant.

[Leah Lippman]

Commandant of the Coast Guard. The first woman to serve in that role and the first woman to lead any branch of the armed forces. So of course, within 24 hours of inauguration, the administration was determined to remove her in the most sadistic fashion, citing dei. Right. The then acting DHS secretary issued a statement disparaging her leadership and excessive focus on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

[Guest Speaker]

And then it got worse. So she was summarily fired. She was given a 60 day period to find new housing because she was living in Coast Guard quarters. And then about two weeks later, according to NBC, she was thrown out of her living quarters with just three hours to pack up her life because again, the president wants her out of quarters. According to the NBC report. This is the contempt that the administration seems to have for women in military leadership positions. And I'm not even getting into the fact that they nominated Pete Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah, so. Or consider how they have justified some of their announced policies. So when HUD Secretary Scott Turner announced they were halting some enforcement actions, those protecting trans people, he said, quote, we at this agency are carrying out the mission laid out by President Trump when he signed an executive order to restore biological truth to the federal government. This means recognizing there are only two sexes, male and female. It means getting the government out of the way of what the Lord established from the beginning when he created man in his own image. End quote. I'm going to say something will probably get cut from the episode. I don't even think Sam Alito needs to read the articles on pornhub anymore. He can just read the news.

[Guest Speaker]

That's staying in.

[Melissa Murray]

Even in.

[Guest Speaker]

Yeah, that's staying in.

[Leah Lippman]

Sweet.

[Melissa Murray]

So, you know, and just the fact that there are so many utterances and writings along those lines that the kind of fire hose of news has sort of have so overtaken us, we haven't stopped to appreciate is just really stunning. So we just, you know, kind of want to point out a few other things. So, you know, one that There's a claim that these efforts that the administration has taken to eliminate literally all legal protections for transgender individuals, and it seems essentially try to erase their very existence. They claim all of this is necessary to protect and defend women. So literally the first part of the title of one of these anti trans executive orders was, quote, defending women from gender ideology extremism. So let's actually ask how committed the administration appears to be to defending women.

[Guest Speaker]

Not so much, I think. So there are two things to mention here. One, I don't think they're necessarily interested in defending women, but more importantly, the constitutional scheme that we have been living under since 1996 with the United States versus Virginia, and maybe even earlier with Craig versus Boren, the 1960, 1970s sex equality case basically says that the government cannot make policies in order to protect women. That that is a species of paternalism rooted in sex based stereotypes about gender roles. And the fact that we're even talking about protecting women, that like the federal government, is issuing executive order after executive order in defense of women. And this kind of paternalism gives us the very distinct feeling that the very bedrock principles of constitutional sex equality are under threat. And if you were confused about that, just consider some of the language in the Dobbs opinion that didn't get a lot of attention because they were too busy rolling back the right to an abortion in Dobbs. Justice Alito says that there is no root for the abortion right in equal protection. And he goes all the way back to godolding a case where the court said pregnancy discrimination is not sex based discrimination because not all women get pregnant. It was the 70s, there were no women on the court. But there were other cases since then. 1996, United States versus Virginia, 2003 Hibs. And they ignore all of this. And then of course, Justice Alito says that women are not without electoral and political power. So apparently we aren't because we need defunding. So there's a real inconsistency here and everything's up for drabs and right.

[Melissa Murray]

To be clear, right, like these anti trans moves are obviously horrific for transgender women. Like that is really clear and needs to be underscored. But it's also the point that Melissa's making is that CIS women, all women, like this, a lot of this policy making is very, very bad for women writ large. And the view that women need protecting from government policy policy is one that, if taken seriously, would roll back over half a century of constitutional equality jurisprudence in ways that, again, I think have been a little lost in the Shuffle given the fire hose. So in turning now from kind of this high level observation to some substantive initiatives, we wanted to just tick through a few that we haven't had a chance to mention, but that are quite important.

[Leah Lippman]

So the Department of Education rescinded Title IX guidance as stated nil. That is name, image and likeness payments must be proportionate between male and female athlet so women can be paid less. And the administration has been disrupting federal funding for rape crisis centers. So state level organizations reported they weren't getting CDC funding. The federal office on violence against women removed funding opportunities ways to apply for grants from its website. They've been blaming deadly airplane crashes on the presence of women in the workforce. A memo from NSA leadership listed some banned words, words not to be used on websites and internal network pages. One of those words, feminism. This is a government. A real F word. Exactly. A government of roligarchs and patriarchs.

[Guest Speaker]

So that was a lot. There is some cause for celebration. So we don't want to leave you with the idea that we're just a bunch of Debbie Downers, gloom and doom. We want to celebrate some things. And today, Thursday, the time we're recording, we got word from Washington about a new confirmation. And we wanted to mark this new addition to the administration with a toast. And you already are groaning, so it seems like you know what I'm going to say. Yes. Robert F. Kennedy was confirmed today as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

[Leah Lippman]

DEI for brain worms. And we are going to mark this occasion not with champagne toasting the end of the administrative state, but with raw milk, people. Raw milk.

[Guest Speaker]

That's right.

[Leah Lippman]

We're going to do it by chugging some milk.

[Guest Speaker]

Raw milk.

[Melissa Murray]

It is. It is. This milk is pasteurized. It is. Very, very pasteurized.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah.

[Guest Speaker]

All right. To that gentleman. Cheers.

[Melissa Murray]

Cheers.

[Leah Lippman]

Cheers.

[Guest Speaker]

Cheers.

[Melissa Murray]

Are you really going to drink this? I'm an oat milk girly myself. I'm gonna leave this here.

[Leah Lippman]

Yeah, same. Right. So I also brought a bear carcass that because I rushed here from the airport, I wasn't able to dispose of. So after the show, we're gonna drop this bad boy off at Central Park.

[Melissa Murray]

Luckily, it's very close by.

[Guest Speaker]

Very close by. Okay, okay. So all of this is a lot. Again, we want to be a little more upbeat. So I'm going to ask my co hosts. How are you finding hope amidst all of this?

[Melissa Murray]

I mean, I think it's hard, but important. So I think that honestly, the resignations today at DOJ were really an important moment. I think I think that. That seeing people stand up, even at personal cost to what they think is outrageous, unethical conduct that can't be squared with the rule of law. I think that courage is contagious. I think actually that that really was important, and I'm glad that it happened today so we could kind of try to process it a little bit in real time with all of you. So that's one thing.

[Guest Speaker]

Leah.

[Leah Lippman]

Ooh, this is a hard one.

[Guest Speaker]

Dig deep.

[Leah Lippman]

I appreciated a post by friend of the pod, guest of the pod, Sherlyn Ifill, on her sub stack in which she said, like, I see a lot of statements along the lines of, no one is doing anything. But that's not true. There are people doing things, and if you are doing things, like, you see them, too. And that has partially been my experience, and I appreciated that.

[Guest Speaker]

So I am taking solace in the fact that I believe the children are future. And it's not just a song. Middle school students at a US base in Germany walked out of school in protest when Secretary Pete Hegseth came to visit. Right on, kids. I'm also cheered that there are high school students around the country, including here in this room tonight. We'd love to say hello to Dr. Rachel Halper's Supreme Court class and the feminists of Trinity who are back there, too. They are doing the work, learning about the Constitution, learning about Supreme Court cases. And the fact that they are pitching in and doing this work right now is huge. So that's giving me hope. And the fact that Lee is going to dispose of this bear carcass, moments.

[Leah Lippman]

Of levity like that in Noah's body, that's not going in. Okay.

[Guest Speaker]

All right. This is all to say that we are in the midst of a genuine constitutional crisis. Do not lose sight of that. Do not let them gaslight you into believing that it's not true. Like, this is the moment. And one day we'll ask ourselves, what do we do in this moment? And that's serious. These are tough times. Hang in there. If you're even a fraction of as incensed as we are about all of this, please make a phone call. Donate some money to organizations doing this litigation. Support journalism by subscribing to the places who are doing great investigative work, like ProPublica and Wired, and keep listening to strict scrutiny because we'll keep pushing this stuff out. We will be back next week, and hopefully we will continue to keep lighting a fire under ourselves and all of you.

[Leah Lippman]

So before we are back next week, a few notes from this week. Elon Musk's Doge gang just got slapped down by a federal judge, but not before infiltrating the treasury first. If you're wondering how we let billionaires hijack the government, tune in to the newest episode of Assembly Required. This week, Stacey Abrams unpacks how Musk and his cronies carved out unchecked power and what we can do about it. With Wired editor Leah Figar, they unpack Doge's grip on the Treasury.

[Melissa Murray]

And then I joined Stacy to answer big questions like is this even legal? And got to actually get some tips from Stacey's experience heading up the minority in the Georgia Legislature. And what a party that isn't in control of a chamber but still can flex some muscles can do. So I thought that was a great conversation. Listen now to stay informed and get practical steps on ways you can fight back. You can search for Assembly Required wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.

[Leah Lippman]

And if you're looking for more essential conversations, tune in to Pod Save the People, where organizer and activist Deray McKesson, along with Kaia Henderson and Miles Johnson, bring a sharp take on news, culture and social justice, focusing on the stories that that too often go overlooked. This week they dive into how an AI program wrongfully jailed an innocent man for 17 months and what that means for the future of justice. Listen to Pod Save the People every Tuesday, wherever you get your podcasts. So someone on Goodreads wrote in a review that they were reading this book Lawless and didn't realize that it was Leah Lippman from Strict Scrutiny or that she had a book. And I feel like this is a failure on my part. I do have a book coming out how the Supreme Court Runs Unconservative Grievance, Fringe Theories and Bad Vibes. And also it relates back to Mojo Dojo Casa House. There is a Mojo Dojo Casa House reference in the very first chapter, to wit. So if you would like to hear the equivalent of my pimply virgin edgelord friendless Libertarian Dogebro reads. But for Supreme Court Justices, you should pre order it now and again. It is called how the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and bad vibes. As RuPaul said, never be afraid of a shameless plug.

[Guest Speaker]

Strict Scrutiny is a crooked media production hosted and executive produced by Leah Lippman, me, Melissa Murray, and Kate Shaw. We are produced and edited by Melody Rowell. Michael Goldsmith is our Associate producer. We get audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Our music is by Eddie Cooper and production support comes from Madeline Haringer and Ari Schwartz. Matt de Groat is our head of production and we are very grateful for our digital team, including Joe mc. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. You can subscribe to strict scrutiny on YouTube. To catch full episodes, you can find [e-mail] strict scrutiny podcast. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe to Strict Scrutiny in your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. And if you want to help other people find the show, please rate and review us. It really helps.

[Leah Lippman]

And a special thanks this week to Sophie Eisenstadt, who shepherded this entire live show.

[Kate Shaw]

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[Guest Speaker]

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