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    News

    Objections: With Adam Klasfeld

    Always Relevant, Never Hearsay, Sometimes Argumentative. In each episode of Objections, Adam Klasfeld navigates listeners through the top legal stories of the week with experts in a straightforward, analytical and factual manner.
    Klasfeld is a senior investigative reporter and editor for Law&Crime. Adam has reported on every corner of the legal system for more than a decade, with datelines from federal courts, state courts, the United Nations, Guantánamo Bay, the Ecuadorean Amazon, and a court-martial inside a military base near NSA headquarters.

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    Latest Episodes:
    Prosecuting an ex-leader: Lessons from Italy, from Berlusconi to Trump (Feat. Luca Arnaudo) Jun 15, 2023

    The United States has joined the community of developed and democratic nations to have launched a prosecution of a former government leader.

    In this final episode of "Objections," host Adam Klasfeld gauges the reaction to the indictment of former President Donald Trump from Italy, whose former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi died shortly after that event. A front-page headline of a recent international edition of The New York Times read: "Berlusconi gave Trump a template," comparing their reputations as tycoons-turned-politicians known for praising Vladimir Putin, contesting elections that they lost, and now, facing repeated criminal accusations in court.

    Guest Luca Arnaudo, a law professor currently based in Rome who’s also a distinguished lecturer at Syracuse University College of Law in the United States, analyzes Berlusconi's legacy, the differences between the U.S. and Italian systems of justice, and how both politicians used their criminal cases to rally their supporters.

    Host Adam Klasfeld signs off on a proud run of the "Objections" podcast.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Devil in the Dorm Jun 06, 2023

    Law&Crime Network’s twisted series ‘Devil in the Dorm’ is free and live on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by actress Elisabeth Rohm, the six-part podcast dives into the horrifying sex cult case involving Larry Ray, a disturbing man, who moved into his daughter’s college dorm to prey on young students.

    LISTEN NOW: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/devil-in-the-dorm/id1667678268

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    'A witness against himself': Trump's E. Jean Carroll deposition, annotated May 10, 2023

    Former President Donald Trump likely sexually abused author E. Jean Carroll in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s, then defamed her by denying it, a federal jury found in an historic civil ruling. The panel, composed of six men and three women, reached their verdict in less than three hours and awarded $5 million.

    On this week's episode, "Objections" revisits the only testimony at trial that has an audio record: Trump's deposition, annotating key passages with excerpts from Carroll's closing arguments.

    During summations, Carroll's lead attorney Roberta Kaplan told jurors: "In a very real sense, Donald Trump here is a witness against himself."

    By splicing portions of Trump's deposition next to recitations of her arguments, listeners can hear those passages as they apparently were understood by the jury.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    'Discord' leaks: Separating national security from politics (Feat. Tracy Walder) Apr 27, 2023

    The arrest of 21-year-old Jack Texeira in connection with the Discord leaks once again raises questions about what the United States is doing to protect its secrets. This time, by all accounts, the suspecting leaker isn’t someone who even has any pretensions of acting in the public interest.

    A young airman in the Massachusetts National Guard, Texeira reportedly wanted to impress a group of teenagers in a chat room for gamers. Experts believe his online boasting could put Ukrainians at risk in their war with Russia.

    Tracy Walder, an ex-CIA officer and the author of The Unexpected Spy, discusses why she thinks it'd be wrong to focus on age when it comes to mass leaks, and why she urges folks to set aside politics on the topic of classified disclosures.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Fox's $787.5M defamation deal is record-setting, massive and painful: Experts Apr 19, 2023

    After Fox's $787.5 million settlement averted a historic defamation trial, pundits across the political spectrum rushed to play down the deal.

    For Fox News critics on the left, the payout amounted to less than half of what Dominion Voting Systems demanded, averted an embarrassing six-week trial, and would be dusted off the shoulders by an unrepentant news giant. The Atlantic flatly declared: "Fox News Lost the Lawsuit but Won the War," and a prominent reporter for Mother Jones poo-pooed it as the network's cost of doing business. News outlets on the political right largely whistled past the legal earthquake that had just transpired. Fox News went on with its regular programming, and the pro-Donald Trump outlet The Federalist simply ignored it.

    Inside the media bar, attorneys were far less blasé. Three prominent First Amendment lawyers uniformly agreed that Fox's settlement was record-setting, massive, and would be too painful for the network to ignore.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Actual malice is Fox's 'only lifeline' as Dominion trial looms: Expert (Feat. Jeff Kosseff) Apr 12, 2023

    Fox has been fighting to prevent Dominion Voting Systems from landing a $1.6 billion judgment for conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election that the network aired, as the case heads for jury selection this week.

    Even before trial begins, Fox heads into court with stinging defeats. A judge found, in a rare summary judgment ruling, that the broadcasts at issue in the case were false. Dominion only has to prove that Fox acted with actual malice.

    In the latest episode, First Amendment scholar Jeff Kosseff explains why that standard, established by the landmark SCOTUS decision New York Times v. Sullivan, remains Fox's "only lifeline" shielding the network from massive liabilities.

    Check out episode 79 for more information about what Dominion uncovered during discovery.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    The People v. Trump: Inside the 60-person capacity courtroom (Feat. Diana Florence) Apr 05, 2023

    The world was watching the arraignment of former President Donald Trump, but only 60 spectators were allowed in the courtroom. Some 210 others received the next best thing: seats in the overflow courtroom, where the proceedings streamed via closed-circuit TV.

    This week's episode of Objections begins with host Adam Klasfeld's brief observations from inside the courtroom.

    The episode then turns to an interview with former Manhattan prosecutor Diana Florence, who spent some 25 years inside the New York District Attorney's office and was DA Alvin Bragg's rival. She analyses the indictment through the lens of the office's historic cases.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Introducing: Chasing Ghosts: The Hunt for the D.C. Snipers Apr 03, 2023

    Thirteen people were randomly shot across Washington D.C. — in just three weeks — back in October 2002. As each new victim was gunned down, the FBI and local detectives struggled to track down a killer — until a tip helped them piece together the murder mystery. Journalist Tony Holt hosts Law&Crime Network’s 10-part series, Chasing Ghosts: The Hunt for the D.C. Snipers, which takes a magnifying look at one of the most devastating killing sprees in U.S. history.

    All 10 episodes are available here!: https://bit.ly/3nGNev3

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    'Individual-1': Looking back at forgotten details in 'zombie' Trump hush-money case Mar 29, 2023

    Former President Donald Trump predicted he would be arrested a little more than a week ago. He was wrong, but the press has been on high alert for what would be a history-making indictment of a former president.

    Still, nobody knows whether Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will indict him — or with what charges, if he does. That’s up to a grand jury.

    If this is about hush money to Stormy Daniels, there's an extensive public record about what happened. In this episode, "Objections" breaks down the forgotten details of those half-decade-old filings.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Sidebar: JPMorgan and Deutsche must face lawsuits over Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking Mar 22, 2023

    Jeffrey Epstein survivors and the Virgin Island government can pursue claims that JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank knowingly benefited from participating in a sex trafficking venture.

    The ruling ratchets up pressure on JPMorgan, whose CEO Jamie Dimon was recently served with a subpoena. Some of its former senior executive Jes Staley's roughly 1,200 messages with Epstein have spilled into the public sphere as a result of this lawsuit.

    This week, "Objections" rebroadcasts a previous episode of another Law&Crime podcast, "Sidebar," whose host Angenette Levy interviews Adam Klasfeld on the topic.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Anonymous jury of Trump’s peers: Courtroom secrecy and the former president (Feat. Chris Keleher) Mar 15, 2023

    Just one month shy of a trial in E. Jean Carroll's rape case, a federal judge revealed, without explanation, that he is considering empaneling an anonymous jury.

    A relatively recent phenomenon, anonymous juries became an increasingly relied upon tool to protect those called to serve in high-profile trials, including mafia, terrorism, and sex trafficking cases. In theory, they’re supposed to protect jurors from intimidation and safeguard their privacy from too much media scrutiny. In practice, whether you have one depends on many factors, like jurisdiction.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast, appellate attorney Christopher Keleher details the fascinating history of anonymous juries, laying out their benefits and drawbacks. Keleher also explains why Trump might not know who's deciding Carroll's lawsuit — but the former president probably will know the identities of any prospective jurors if prosecutors charge him in New York City.

    He wrote the 2010 University of San Francisco Law Review article "The Repercussions of Anonymous Juries."

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    The mysterious recantation of Marilyn Manson's accuser (Feat. Jonathan Handel) Mar 08, 2023

    One of Marilyn Manson’s accusers has recanted her sexual abuse allegations against him, and her sudden reversal has raised a number of questions — including about the shock rocker’s attorney.

    Named in court papers by his birth name Brian Warner, Manson has been in the middle of an aggressive counteroffensive against women accusing him of sexual misconduct. The saga started when his ex-girlfriend, actress Evan Rachel Wood, accused him of rape, physical abuse and cult-like behavior.

    Now, another ex-girlfriend, Ashley Smithline, suddenly reversed her claims and asserted Wood "manipulated" her, but a judge ruled that her sworn declaration won't be let into Manson's lawsuit against Wood.

    On this week's episode, Hollywood-based lawyer Jonathan Handel hashes out the latest developments — and why he believes that Smithline's voicemail raises questions about Manson's lawyer.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Ex-Oath Keepers spokesman on the 'war of mythologies' (Feat. Jason Van Tatenhove) Mar 01, 2023

    Before he became Oath Keepers spokesperson, Jason Van Tatenhove had been an aspiring gonzo journalist with a sense of adventure. So, he set out to the Bundy ranch with hopes to embed with Stewart Rhodes in 2014. He says that journey ended when he overheard a disturbing conversation with members engaging in Holocaust denialism.

    Van Tatenhove left the group long before the attack on the U.S. Capitol, but he shared his insights from his time there as a witness for the Jan. 6th Committee.

    In this week's podcast, Van Tatenhove discusses his new book “The Perils of Extremism,” threats he faced after his congressional testimony, and how to win the "war of mythologies."

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Unsealed brief with Fox News execs' 2020 election outtakes is media lawyer's 'nightmare' (Feat. Jeff Kosseff) Feb 22, 2023

    Top Fox News executives, right up to Rupert Murdoch, were quoted deriding the same 2020 election conspiracy theories some in their network pushed, in an explosive new legal brief unsealed last week.

    Those revelations could prove damaging to Fox in defending a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion, one of the two voting machine companies scapegoated to explain Donald Trump’s defeat in the last presidential race.

    On the latest episode, Professor Jeff Kosseff — a prominent First Amendment and cybersecurity scholar, and the author of the soon-to-be-released book “Liar in a Crowded Theater” — unpacks why the messages quoted in Dominion’s brief might be the stuff of "nightmares" for Fox.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Jeffrey Epstein's 'Doe' docket: Law&Crime breaks down who and what will be public Feb 15, 2023

    For nearly half a decade, a battle to unseal the names of Jeffrey Epstein's alleged victims, witnesses and accomplices has been raging in federal courtrooms in Manhattan.

    Now, attorneys for Ghislaine Maxwell and one of Epstein's most prominent survivors have created a list of more than 150 people whose names may be unsealed in that open records case. They are the "John and Jane Does" at issue in Virginia Giuffre's long-settled lawsuit against Maxwell, who weren't parties to the litigation but whose identities may become public.

    In this week's episode, Law&Crime breaks down what information is likely to emerge. Two of the network's podcast hosts discuss, with Sidebar's Jesse Weber asking Objections host Adam Klasfeld about the developments.

    Read more on Lawandcrime.com.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Larry Ray's first survivor to go public opens up (Feat. Daniel Barban Levin) Feb 08, 2023

    Some of the videos of the horrendous abuse suffered by the first victim of “cult” leader Larry Ray are horrific to describe, let alone to watch. One of them shows Ray striking writer Daniel Barban Levin in the gut with a hammer, pulling on his tongue with a set of pliers and, in the same video, threatening to get even "more severe."

    In a lengthy sit-down interview for Law&Crime’s podcast “Objections: with Adam Klasfeld,” Levin emphasized that these were blackmail videos, which used to make him and his peers quake in silence.

    “It was part of why I didn’t speak out for many years because I remembered the sound of that camera shutter when he photographed me during like this horrible, humiliating abuse, and I knew that he had these pictures and video,” Levin explained.

    That was then.

    “The incredible irony is that we were empowered to use this very same footage against him to put him in prison," he added.

    In the interview, Levin explains why he now embraces those recordings he once feared, which have been disseminated far and wide in news articles, podcasts, documentaries and TV broadcasts. Law&Crime's podcast "Devil in the Dorm," now on Wondery+, mines thousands of pages of public record and numerous court exhibits to examine Larry Ray's crimes. Levin talks in the interview about his participation in Hulu's soon-to-be-released documentary "Stolen Youth," and why he wanted the most grisly footage of his humiliation in the final cut.

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    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Why Alec Baldwin's 'Firearm Enhancement' Could Be Shaky (Feat. Mitchell Epner) Feb 01, 2023

    The firearm enhancement statute laying a possible five-year prison sentence over actor Alec Baldwin's head was revised after the "Rust" shooting.

    On the latest episode of "Objections," former prosecutor Mitch Epner explains why that matters: the ex post facto clause of the U.S. Constitution, handing the actor a powerful tool to eliminate by far the most stringent possible penalty against him.

    In a wide-ranging interview, Epner reviews the documents released by prosecutors against Baldwin and his co-defendants and explains why he thinks the actor did himself no favors by agreeing to talk to ABC News.

    "He believes himself to be very good at talking," Epner said, referring to Baldwin. "And what I try to explain to my clients is that no matter how good you are at talking, no matter how much money you've made at talking, the only reasonable thing to do when you are under criminal investigation is shut up."

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Introducing: Devil in the Dorm Jan 30, 2023

    In late 2010, a middle-aged man moved into his daughter's college dorm and created what has all the hallmarks of a cult. Over the decade that followed, he extorted millions of dollars from vulnerable young adults through violence, psychological torture, and forced sex work. Actress and Director Elisabeth Rohm narrates Law&Crime's 6-part investigative series, which draws from thousands of pages of transcripts, exhibits, audio files, and video recordings from a federal trial and explores the actions and motives of Larry Ray. This is Law&Crime’s Devil in the Dorm. You can listen to Law&Crime’s Devil in the Dorm now exclusively on Wondery Plus. Find Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Georgia DA: Trump 2020 Election Charging Decisions Are 'Imminent' (Feat. Renato Mariotti) Jan 25, 2023

    The Georgia prosecutor investigating former President Donald Trump and others over attempts to overturn the 2020 election results told a judge that "decisions on imminent" on charges.

    Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti analyzes what such a case could look like — and warns against Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) pursuing a case under Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

    "I think there's this belief that Trump is like a crime boss and kingpin — and this and that — and that essentially, all you need to do is just put it all out there, and that will be evident," Mariotti said. "What I would just say to the public is that white collar crimes can be very difficult to prove up."

    Mariotti opines that racketeering allegations could needlessly complicate a case over Trump's wide-ranging efforts to subvert Georgia's election results through his "word salad" phone call with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and the fake-electors scheme.

    On the podcast, Mariotti also chimes in a federal judge's nearly $1 million sanctions against Trump and his lawyer — and what the discovery of classified documents in the homes of President Joe Bidenand former Vice President Mike Pence could mean for special counsel Jack Smith's probe.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Tulsa Race Massacre Survivors Battle the Clock (Feat. Damario Solomon-Simmons) Jan 18, 2023

    More than a century after the Tulsa race massacre decimated “Black Wall Street,” the survivors are still waiting for justice — and their attorney says that their courtroom opponents have adopted a grim strategy.

    “Don’t make any mistake about it: Their strategy is for these people to die,” attorney Damario Solomon-Simmons declared on the podcast.

    The lawyer explains why he believes that, the status of his clients’ case, and how the public’s understanding of the massacre changed since the litigation began. Solomon-Simmons, who grew up in the Tulsa neighborhood where the massacre occurred, also talks about his own journey toward learning about the history of what has been called one of the worst acts of racial terrorism in U.S. history.

    Read more here: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/their-strategy-is-for-these-people-to-die-tulsa-race-massacre-survivors-lawyer-accuses-city-of-brutal-bid-to-run-out-the-clock/

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    'A True Crime Follower's Worst Nightmare': Dissecting the Idaho Four Murder Case (Feat. Jesse Weber) Jan 11, 2023

    It’s a quadruple homicide case out of Idaho that has captivated much of the nation.

    Bryan Kohberger, a criminology student pursuing his Ph.D., stands accused of murdering four University of Idaho students, all between the ages of 20 and 21 years old. The students were found stabbed to death on the second and third floors of an off-campus house in the college town on Nov. 13, 2022.

    The slayings brought an uncommon amount of national attention to Moscow, Idaho, a city of roughly 25,000 people in the state’s panhandle.

    In this week’s episode, Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber, who reported live on the ground there, provides the latest updates on that case — and interrogates why this criminal case unleashed a flood of online sleuths attempting to solve the crime. Weber also explains what happens when people’s expectations for criminal justice, from social media and crimes dramas, hits up against the system as it actually exist, and how this case provides an opportunity to educate the public on just how the justice system works.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Next Year in the Epstein Saga (Feat. Sigrid McCawley and Kenya Davis) Dec 28, 2022

    Almost exactly one year ago, a federal jury convicted Ghislaine Maxwell for sex trafficking minors for Jeffrey Epstein’s predation. Maxwell received a 20-year sentence this past June, in a prosecution largely sparked by civil litigation by survivor Virginia Giuffre.

    In the year's final episode, Giuffre's lawyer Sigrid McCawley and the partner at her law firm Kenya Davis talk about what's next for the Epstein saga — and explain how New York's Adult Survivors Act has unleashed a flood of litigation that otherwise would have been barred by the statute of limitations.

    Those include lawsuits accusing JPMorgan Chase and Deutsche Bank of "complicity" in Epstein's crimes, slated for trial in 2023.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Introducing… They Walk Among America Dec 21, 2022

    We all want to believe that we are good judges of character; that if someone close to us was a bad person, we would know. But how well do you know your neighbors? How much can you trust those around you? What does a killer look like? Monsters don’t live under the bed; they walk among us. From the award-winning team behind the UK true crime podcast — They Walk Among Us — They Walk Among America provides a unique and in-depth account of some of the most puzzling and polarizing cases from the United States. With extensive research and immersive audio, They Walk Among America is a storytelling-style podcast that delves deeper into the cases that have horrified and captivated the public. Hosted by Nina Innsted and produced in association with the Law & Crime podcast network.

    For more information, visit https://lawandcrime.com/podcasts/ or https://theywalkamonguspodcast.com/

    APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/they-walk-among-america/id1585879757

    SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/3dZDE1V7kaKq3TuZVoO6li?dl_branch=1&si=s4ENiLclR0ugpVatOWD1Ig

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Viktor Bout's Lawyer Gives Inside Account of Brittney Griner Trade (Feat. Steve Zissou) Dec 14, 2022

    The prisoner swap that traded Russian arms trafficker Viktor Bout for WNBA star Brittney Griner inspired commentary across the political aisle. It also revealed how long Bout had been on the international bargaining table, for other U.S. citizens in Russian prisons.

    In the podcast, Bout's lawyer Steve Zissou confirms that former President Donald Trump passed on an opportunity to trade his client for former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan. He also responds to a Twitter post from Donald Trump Jr. calling Bout a "terrorist."

    Diving deep into the more than decade-old trial of Viktor Bout, the interview explores his reputation as the "Merchant of Death," the sting operation that brought him down, and the sober account of what will become of his arms trade.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    New York Online Hate Speech Law Sparks Legal Rumble (Feat. Eugene Volokh) Dec 07, 2022

    Shortly before a New York law targeting online hate speech took effect, a prominent First Amendment scholar joined two social media platforms in challenging it in a federal lawsuit filed in Manhattan. The plaintiffs are UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, the social media company Rumble, and another website called Locals.

    Passed in the wake of the white-supremacist inspired mass murder in Buffalo, the challenged law forces social media platforms to post a policy for moderating content that would “vilify, humiliate, or incite violence” against people based on race, class, gender or other protected groups. Those platforms would have to establish a reporting system for enforcement and would be subject to civil liability for violations.

    This week's guest — Professor Volokh, who runs the blog the Volokh Conspiracy — explains why he believes that the language of the statute is too broad to pass constitutional muster. He also hashes out Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is such a key law for free speech on the internet and why it's recently become such a lightning rod across the political aisle.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    Respect for Marriage (Feat. Jim Obergefell) — Rebroadcast Nov 30, 2022

    In light of the Senate's recent passage of the Respect for Marriage Act, this August episode featuring an interview with Jim Obergefell — the man behind the landmark Supreme Court ruling for marriage equality — is being rebroadcast.

    The day that the Supreme Court released its ruling for marriage quality, Jim Obergefell — the man behind the watershed decision — saw a sign of his impending victory on his admission slip.

    "Every time I had been in the Supreme Court, the tickets were bright orange," Obergefell reflected on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    "On Friday, June 26 — that day, it wasn't bright orange," he continued. "It was lavender, and when we realized that we all thought, 'Well, this has to be a sign. This has to be a positive sign. There's no reason for the ticket to have changed color, let alone being lavender.'"

    In an extended interview, Obergefell moves beyond the cold record of that case to reflect upon how he and his late husband John Arthur began their legal battle over their marriage. He describes how he became ordained to officiate weddings after his Supreme Court victory — and came to read the closing lines of the ruling that bears his name at "every" ceremony.

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    After Midterms, Election Deniers Down — But Not Out (Feat. Lindsay Schubiner) Nov 16, 2022

    Most pundits have viewed the midterms results as a repudiation of 2020 election denialism and ex-President Donald Trump, noting that extreme candidates like Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and Kari Lake in Arizona lost.

    So did most election conspiracist candidates for secretaries of state, who can exert substantial power over states’ electoral systems. But upon closer inspection, a more complicated portrait emerges.

    A broad swath of the GOP House representatives who objected to President Joe Biden's victory won, as did other first-time candidates who embraced election lies.

    Detailing the complete and messy picture in this week’s episode is Lindsay Schubiner, from the extremism watchdog Western States. She provides a needed antidote to the heady celebrations about the triumphant bounceback of American democracy.

    SUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:

    Court Junkie

    Sidebar

    They Walk Among America

    Coptales and Cocktails

    The Disturbing Truth

    Speaking Freely

    See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

    The Oath Keepers Tapes from the Seditious Conspiracy Trial Nov 09, 2022

    Over the course of Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes's seditious conspiracy trial, the government released a flood of secret recordings, encrypted messages, and other evidence highlighting the group's private communications around the time of the Jan. 6th attack on the Capitol.

    This episode gathers much of that newly released evidence. It explores what it shows about the Oath Keepers' history dating back to its founding — and the group's efforts to keep former President Trump in power after his 2020 election defeat.

    Law&Crime has been reporting the trial from the ground extensively, and the show's host shares his insights and reporting about Rhodes's testimony and cross-examination.

    Note: The audio evidence released from the trial includes explicit language.

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    Court Junkie

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    They Walk Among America

    Coptales and Cocktails

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    The Dark Money Group Behind the Arizona Drop Box Voting 'Vigilantes' (Feat. Jessica Huseman) Nov 02, 2022

    As lawsuits surrounding the Arizona drop box "vigilantes" swirled in court, an obscure group called Clean Elections USA and its Steve Bannon-linked founder took focus in the litigation. Investigative journalists specializing in elections, however, unpacked the less-covered role of True the Vote, a right-wing dark money group that's been an influential force in conservative politics for more than a decade.

    In our latest episode, the editorial director of an elections-focused news organization behind those exposés picks apart those connections.

    "This is not a grassroots effort," VoteBeat's editorial director Jessica Huseman said on the podcast. "This is very much a thing that is very well-organized, very well-staffed. And so isn't nearly as a sort of organic as as many on the right have painted it to be."

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    Ex-DOJ National Security Leader: Combating ISIS Prepared Me to Take on U.S. Militias (Feat. Mary McCord) Oct 26, 2022

    Nearly 1,900 miles away from where leaders of the Oath Keepers have been standing an historic trial for seditious conspiracy in Washington, D.C., a watershed ruling combating so-called militia groups came down in a county courthouse in New Mexico.

    In that case, a Bernalillo County judge barred a little-known paramilitary organization known as the New Mexico Civil Guard from using "organized force" at protests or gatherings. Former Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary McCord — now the executive director for the Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) at Georgetown Law — helped spearhead that fight.

    On the latest podcast episode, McCord details her legal strategy for bringing U.S. domestic extremists to heel — using statutes that have been on the books in most states for decades if not centuries. She views her current labors as a continuation of her work inside the Department of Justice, where she capped off her nearly 20-year tenure with a leadership role on national security.

    "This is when a foreign terrorist organization, ISIS, declared a caliphate and was taking up physically taking over territory in Syria and claiming to be its own sovereign state," McCord reflected, noting that many U.S. citizens traveled abroad to take up that fight.

    "The way that those who are adhering to extremist movements recruit — and spread and propagandize and monetize and plot and plan — is very similar to the way we see domestic extremists do similar recruitment," she noted. "They prey on people's vulnerabilities, their grievances. They create an 'us-versus-them.' You know, let's blame somebody else for our own problems, whether they're economic or what-have-you."

    This week's show features McCord's reflections on her career, her work against U.S. paramilitary groups, and her analysis of the ongoing Oath Keepers seditious conspiracy case.

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    Parkland Jurors 'Voted Their Conscience' (Feat. Rev. Sharon Risher) Oct 19, 2022

    Just days apart from each other last week, two of the most high-profile death penalty cases in memory reached sharply different outcomes. The Supreme Court paved the way for the execution of Dylann Roof, the neo-Nazi behind the massacre at a historic Black church in Charleston. Then, two days later, a jury delivered a life sentence — rather than the capital punishment sought by the government — in the case of Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz.

    Several families of the Parkland victims expressed disgust at the latter verdict, saying that they were "devastated and shocked" that the jury gave Cruz life imprisonment rather than death.

    The three jurors who spared Cruz from capital punishment have a high-profile defender: the Rev. Sharon Risher, who lost her mother Ethel Lance and her cousins Tyzwana Sanders and Susie Jackson in the 2015 Charleston massacre at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

    "They voted their conscience," Risher said of the jurors on the latest episode of the podcast. "They voted what they felt in their heart, and our legal system gives the jurors the power to take all the evidence in and to vote their conscience. And that's what they did. It took a lot for them to go against all of the others. It took courage to do that."

    The Rev. Risher explains how the profound loss of three of her family members in the Charleston church shooting led her on an unlikely patch toward anti-death penalty activism. She reflects on seeing her mother and cousins' murderer in court, moving beyond a desire for retribution, and shares sentiments in support for Parkland jurors as they increasingly come under criticism.


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    Khashoggi's Widow on "Jamal, Inc." (Feat. Hanan Elatr and Randa Fahmy) Oct 13, 2022

    The fourth anniversary of Jamal Khashoggi’s death has passed, and the public's understanding of his murder continues to evolve. The struggle for information about the incident continues, and leading some of those fights is his widow: Hanan Elatr, who married Khashoggi in Virginia just months before he died. On the latest episode of “Objections,” Ms. Elatr Khashoggi and her lawyer Randa Fahmy detail their various battles for information. They have threatened a lawsuit against the NSO Group, the maker of spyware that the Washington Post reportedly found on Elatr’s phone before her late husband’s murder. They have requested the return of Khashoggi’s electronic devices from the Turkish government and asked President Biden’s Director of National Intelligence to exert pressure on Ankara for that to happen.After years of seemingly being written out of Khashoggi’s story, Elatr has become increasingly vocal in changing the perception of his legacy.On the podcast, Elatr says the slain Washington Post reporter never viewed himself as a Saudi dissident — and she lashes out at a phenomenon she describes as “Jamal, Inc.,” the various interests she accuses of capitalizing on her late husband’s legacy.

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    Inside the Martha’s Vineyard Migrants Investigation (Feat. Rachel Self) Sep 28, 2022

    When announcing an investigation last week into the relocation of 48 migrants from Texas to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar denounced "political posturing" at the expense of asylum-seekers. He also credited one immigration attorney in particular with shining a light on their plight: Rachel Self, who had been on the ground helping the migrants on the island.

    On the latest episode of "Objections," Self reflects upon her conversation with the sheriff, her encounters with the immigrants, and the possible criminal liability of those who "victimized" them.

    "They knew there would be no infrastructure, nor any organizational capacity on Martha's Vineyard to be able to help anyone," Self said in the interview, referring to those who sent the migrants there. "They knew that they wouldn't be able to leave easily. So it was either designed to be confusing, demoralizing and frightening for them, or maybe worse: It was designed without thinking how they would feel at all, because the people who pulled this stunt didn't think of them as people. And they can't conceive of anyone else thinking of them as people, either."

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    Donald Trump's Legal Kingdom and His Horse (Feat. David Enrich) Sep 21, 2022

    When former President Donald Trump submitted candidates for a special master to review documents seized from Mar-a-Lago, one of his two choices was from the firm Jones Day, whose attorneys filled his administration. That nominee ultimately didn't make the cut, but make no mistake: the firm's fingerprints are still seen throughout Trump's circle.

    The definitive account of how the firm became the former president's go-to legal shop — sometimes, to turmoil inside the firm — New York Times investigative reporter David Enrich's book Servants of the Damned: Giant Law Firms, Donald Trump, and the Corruption of Justice is much more than a chronicle of one firm's history with the MAGA movement. It shows how that firm's evolution from its origins in Cleveland to an international powerhouse reflects broader trends in the legal industry, reflecting on a time before the law was viewed as a business.

    In a lengthy conversation reflecting the book's investigative, historical and philosophical journey, Enrich opens up about his findings on Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld." He also discussed the chapter of his book, "Trump's Stallion," about how the former president once tried pay a lawyer with a deed to a horse. The deal never went through, but Trump ultimately paid part of what he owed, Enrich reports.

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    Ex-9/11 Special Master Calls Mar-a-Lago Ruling 'Overreach' (Feat. Ken Feinberg) Sep 14, 2022

    The former special master for the Sept. 11 Victim Compensation Fund and Deepwater Horizon disaster made clear in an interview that he saw no need for a similar process to take place with respect to the highly classified documents found in former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago property.

    "I think that this is judicial overreach, especially in a case involving highly sensitive classified documents," prominent attorney Kenneth Feinberg, who has served as a special master in high-profile litigation and government appointments, says on the podcast. "The court should not be intervening in such a executive branch function, traditionally and historically."

    A little more than a week ago, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon did just that, finding judicial oversight justified by the "undeniably unprecedented" nature of an investigation of a former president. The government has appealed the order to the 11th Circuit, warning that the disclosure of the documents with "TOP SECRET" markings alone would cause "exceptionally grave damage" to U.S. national security.

    Prosecutors did not seek a stay of the ruling as to the more than 11,000 government documents without classification markings that the FBI found inside Mar-a-Lago.

    With a special master review imminent in at least some form, Feinberg answers questions about the process going ahead — starting with, what is a "special master," anyway? Though he disagrees with the judge's ruling and Trump's legal team, he also articulates what he believes their strongest arguments are.

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    Top National Security Lawyer Dissects Mar-a-Lago Raid (feat. Brad Moss) Aug 10, 2022

    If federal prosecutors were to pursue charges against Donald Trump because of his handling of classified information, a top national security lawyer believes the former president would face an uphill battle at any trial.

    "It would be a very complicated piece of litigation only because Trump would try to bog it down in pretrial motions, no doubt," attorney Bradley Moss says on the podcast. "But if a charge is brought — if the information is as we believe it is, at this point — I don't foresee a way he would avoid conviction."

    Moss, a leading expert on classification matters, answers all the questions you may have about the FBI's recent search off Mar-a-Lago, Trump's primary home. He explains what the search required, which statutes the DOJ may be considering, how high the sign-off on the raid likely went, and what federal authorities might do with information they may have found in the former president's safe and home.


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    Respect for Marriage (Feat. Jim Obergefell) Aug 03, 2022

    The day that the Supreme Court released its ruling for marriage quality, Jim Obergefell — the man behind the watershed decision — saw a sign of his impending victory on his admission slip.

    "Every time I had been in the Supreme Court, the tickets were bright orange," Obergefell reflected on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    "On Friday, June 26 — that day, it wasn't bright orange," he continued. "It was lavender, and when we realized that we all thought, 'Well, this has to be a sign. This has to be a positive sign. There's no reason for the ticket to have changed color, let alone being lavender.'"

    In an extended interview, Obergefell moves beyond the cold record of that case to reflect upon how he and his late husband John Arthur began their legal battle over their marriage. He describes how he became ordained to officiate weddings after his Supreme Court victory — and came to read the closing lines of the ruling that bears his name at "every" ceremony.

    He also discusses his ongoing political campaign for state office in Ohio and movement on Capitol Hill right now to preserve same-sex marriage with the Respect for Marriage Act.

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    Pressure in the Peach State (Feat. Brandon Bullard) Jul 28, 2022

    After finding himself inside the crosshairs of an investigation into attempts to overturn the 2020 election, Georgia state Sen. Burt Jones (R) successfully disqualified the prosecutor who announced that he was a "target." Jones may not have wide name recognition outside of Georgia, but he's currently running for lieutenant governor, the state's second highest executive branch post. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D), in what a Georgia judge described as a "What were you thinking" moment, attended the fundraiser of his rival. "This is not an invisible prosecution," Georgia appellate attorney Brandon Bullard — who is intimately familiar with the Peach State's laws and politics — noted . "Every step is going to be scrutinized and to think that this wasn't going to matter: It's a lapse — at least a lapse in awareness — if not a lapse of judgment." In the latest episode, Bullard helps unpack what's next for the Fulton County DA's investigation. He also explains that while this is a loss for the prosecutor, it may also be a blessing in disguise for the integrity of the case that she is building.

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    Russia's 'hostage diplomacy' with WNBA star Brittney Griner (Feat. Adrienne Lawrence) Jul 20, 2022

    As WNBA star Brittney Griner faces the possibility of 10 years in a Russian prison, that country's government reportedly hopes to swap her for a notorious arms trafficker locked up in a U.S. prison.

    The latest episode of Law&Crime’s podcast “Objections: with Adam Klasfeld” looks into the global phenomenon of “hostage diplomacy” and the difficult choices governments face when an authoritarian regime detains one of their citizens.

    “We don’t want to continue to put ourselves in situations where Americans are just taken at will so that Russians or other countries that have somewhat of a hostile relationship with the United States are able to negotiate for things that they want,” noted attorney Adrienne Lawrence, a TV host and the author of the book Staying in the Game: The Playbook for Beating Workplace Sexual Harassment.

    The episode explores why Griner played the off-season in Russia, gender pay disparities in professional basketball, and the trade Russia reportedly wants to make for "Merchant of Death" Viktor Bout.

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    Elon Musk's High Stakes Game of Chicken (Feat. David Lurie) Jul 13, 2022

    Following through on its legal threats, Twitter sued Elon Musk in Delaware in a lawsuit seeking to follow through on a $44 billion deal, and some experts have envisioned a worst-case scenario that would put a vital court for American business on a collision course with the richest man in the world.

    In the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," attorney David Lurie — a trial lawyer and frequent legal commentator — rejects the thought experiment that Musk might defy a ruling against him.

    If a chancellor orders Musk to complete the deal, Lurie predicts, the billionaire simply has too much on the line to thumb his nose at the court.

    "Keep in mind: Elon Musk is not a Russian oligarch," Lurie notes on the podcast. "He's a citizen of the United States. He's heavily invested in major companies that are established in Delaware and headquartered in the United States, with their assets in the United States. He has really no way to shield himself from the authority of a court."

    Lurie provides analysis charting the likely course of litigation, the legal issues involved, and what the discourse surrounding it says about our national moment.

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    Litigating Julian Assange’s Extradition (Feat. Jameel Jaffer) Jun 22, 2022

    After the U.K. formally approved the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, First Amendment groups in the United States expressed broad opposition to his prosecution. Does he deserve it?

    Prosecutors accuse Assange of conduct that go well beyond traditional journalism, including conspiring to break into a U.S. military database, gaining unauthorized access to an Icelandic government computer, and picking targets for hacker collectives to breach. One of those targets was the New York Times, prosecutors say.

    Still, Jameel Jaffer, the director of the prominent Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, calls Assange’s prosecution a “dagger to the throat of press freedom.”

    In the latest episode of “Objections,” Jaffer fields questions about some of the toughest criticisms of Assange, from U.S. prosecutors and others, and says that in the end, the case is about more than him.

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    Was the 'Big Rip-Off' Legal? (Feat. Robert Maguire) Jun 15, 2022

    Toward the end of its most recent public hearing, the Jan. 6 Committee released a roughly two-minute video laying out how former President Donald Trump and his allies raised $250 million off what they called the "big rip-off."

    According to the committee, they pitched a supposed "Official Election Defense Fund" that did not exist in order to fight bogus claims of election fraud that even Trump campaign officials knew were false.

    What's more, a top official for an anti-corruption watchdog that's one of Trump's staunchest critics says Trump is likely to escape any criminal or civil liability over it—at least, based on what's currently known about it.

    "It is incredibly frustrating to learn how many things are highly unethical, but probably legal, and this is probably one of them," Robert Maguire, the research director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), told Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

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    Unpacking 'The Jan. 6 Strategy' (Feat. Shanlon Wu) Jun 08, 2022

    The Department of Justice turned up the heat on the Proud Boys by charging the extremist group's leader and some of his accused co-conspirators earlier this week with seditious conspiracy.

    For one former federal prosecutor, that development served as a prelude for the Jan. 6 Committee's main challenge in their upcoming hearings over the attack on the U.S. Capitol: demonstrating who allegedly provided "brains" to their "muscle."

    "They did not come up with the legal theory behind why interfering on that day was going to change the outcome of the election," said Shanlon Wu, a former general counsel to ex-Attorney General Janet Reno. "They didn't come up with the idea, 'Hey, we can put these slates of alternative electors in states like Georgia.' They were just the muscle. And where there muscle, there's got to be a brain. The muscles not moving involuntarily there."

    The day after the interview, a federal judge wrote in a ruling that Trump's legal team referred to "the January 6 strategy" in an email well before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Wu breaks down the committee's challenges during their debut hearing, where they are expected to present their initial findings, disclose previously unseen material and hear from two witnesses.

    Wu breaks down how the Committee might make its case to the American people.

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    'A Tale of Two Trials': How the U.S. and U.K. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard Cases Diverged (Feat. Teresa Silva and Gavin Millar) Jun 02, 2022

    After a Virginia jury handed Johnny Depp a resounding victory in his defamation battle, Amber Heard's legal team floated new messaging: The verdict was a "tale of two trials"—the U.S. trial that the Pirates of the Caribbean star won and the U.K. one that he lost.

    The latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld" takes a deep dive into the differences between the two legal systems, featuring an exclusive interview with Swedish criminologist Teresa Silva, whose peer-reviewed critique of the U.K. ruling made her the toast of Depp's online supporters.

    Prominent British barrister Gavin Millar, who represented an investigator reporter for The Guardian in another high-profile defamation battle involving Cambridge Analytica, picks apart the similarities and differences between the two systems. Both interviews took place on the day of closing arguments in Depp and Heard's U.S. case, before they delivered their surprising—and, by some accounts, contradictory—mixed verdict.

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    Ex-FTC Official Who Battled Facebook a Decade Ago Reflects on D.C. AG's 'David v. Goliath' Fight Against Mark Zuckerberg (Feat. David Vladeck) May 25, 2022

    When the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in 2018, the now-former director of the Federal Trade Commission bureau that put Facebook under a consent decree about a decade ago recalled feeling "pissed."

    Now a professor at Georgetown Law, David Vladeck led the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection when it put Facebook under a consent decree specifically aimed at curbing its privacy violations. Facebook's violation of that order during the Cambridge Analytica scandal resulted in a record-breaking $5 billion civil penalty against the social media giant some six years later.

    After the federal government dropped the hammer, the fallout continued on the local level in a recently filed lawsuit by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D), who accused Zuckerberg of being "personally involved" in the decisions that led to 2016 election manipulation. Racine described his litigation as a "David v. Goliath" battle in a recent interview with CNBC.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Vladeck agrees with that analogy and says that accountability for Facebook will only come when Zuckerberg feels pain from regulators.

    "Unless Zuckerberg is responsible for compliance, there really is no other way to threaten Facebook," Vladeck said.

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    Meet the Woman Organizing Nearly 70 AGs and DAs Who Won't Prosecute Abortion Cases if Roe Is Overturned (Feat. Miriam Krinsky) May 18, 2022

    By the count of some advocacy groups, more than half of U.S. states will likely ban abortion if Roe v. Wade is stricken down, and 12 of those already have such laws on the books—just waiting for a Supreme Court ruling to activate them.

    "If in fact we see our highest court in the land wipe away 50 years of settled precedent and deem Roe v. Wade to be 'egregiously wrong,' the balance is going to shift to the state courts," Miriam Krinsky, the executive director of the advocacy group Fair and Just Prosecution, observed on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    A longtime former prosecutor, Krinsky has been gathering dozens of elected district attorneys and attorneys general from coast to coast who have vowed not to enforce any laws criminalizing abortion. That list, by her organization's count, has grown to nearly 70 elected prosecutors to date.

    "I think we're going to see elected local prosecutors become the last line of defense in many instances, and seeking to use their settled discretion to protect these kinds of decisions—and refuse to bring them into the criminal legal system," Krinsky said.

    In this episode, Krinsky describes organizing elected DAs and describes how state courts will become key battlegrounds if the leaked draft Supreme Court opinion overturn Roe resembles its final form.

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    A Scholar's View of Supreme Court Leaks—and Why Chief Justice Roberts Presides Over an 'Accountability-Free Zone' (Feat. Steven Lubet) May 11, 2022

    Despite the aftershocks of Politico obtaining and publishing a draft majority opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade, monumental Supreme Court leaks have a history dating back centuries.

    Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law Professor Steven Lubet unpacks that tradition on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld" and explains why he believes the chief shares some responsibility for what he calls the Supreme Court's "accountability-free zone."

    The Supreme Court is the only one in the United States never to have adopted a code of conduct, and it has remained silent in the face of controversies involving justices, on the left and right.

    In the episode, Lubet traces the development of the first U.S. judicial code of ethics to former President and ex-Chief Justice William Howard Taft, and he explains efforts after Watergate to make those guidelines mandatory, rather than aspirational. He also unpacks ongoing efforts in Congress that would require the Supreme Court to develop an ethics code, create new mechanisms for recusal, and expand access to court proceedings through live-streams.

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    Marjorie Taylor Greene's Lawyer Defends Client's 80-Plus Memory Lapses and 'Marshall Law' Text (Feat. James Bopp) May 04, 2022

    When Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) took to the witness stand in an administrative courtroom in Atlanta, she answered a number of questions mostly related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol with variations of "I don't remember" or "I don't recall"—more than 80 times by her challengers' count.

    Attorneys for Georgia voters seeking to knock her off the ballot under the 14th Amendment's Section Three disqualification clause characterize her lack of recall as "half-hearted post-hoc attempts to distance herself from the violence" that took place on that day.

    Offering a full-throated defense of his client's sworn testimony on Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," her attorney James Bopp Jr. calls that nonsense.

    "This isn't a memory test," Bopp said in a lengthy, rambunctious interview.

    A longtime attorney for prominent GOP causes, Bopp has built a career around high-profile legal battles involving the First Amendment. Most notably, he spearheaded the Citizens United case that produced the landmark Supreme Court ruling relaxing campaign finance laws. On the podcast, Bopp is pressed on Greene's misspelled text message about "Marshall law" to former President Donald Trump's ex-chief of staff Mark Meadows. Bopp also sounds off on his quickly-withdrawn series of lawsuits after the 2020 presidential election and why he believesTrump'slawyers did a "terrible job" trying to overturn it.

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    Lawyer Who Grilled Marjorie Taylor Greene Opens Up on 'Insurrection' Candidacy Challenges and Whether Donald Trump Is Next (Feat. Andrew Celli) Apr 27, 2022

    Across the country in Georgia, Arizona, and North Carolina, candidacy challenges have bubbled up in courthouses seeking to knock politicians off the ballot for their alleged support of "insurrection" on Jan. 6. On Friday, the challengers advanced farther than ever before toward that goal in a evidentiary hearing in Atlanta, where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had been forced to testify under oath about her activities before the attack on the U.S. Capitol.

    The lawyer who faced off against Greene inside that administrative courtroom opened up on his interrogation in the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," tackling such questions as the historical meaning of insurrection and whether candidacy challenges like these are leading up to an effort to disqualify Donald Trump in 2024.

    "One step at a time," remarked attorney Andrew Celli, in an interview recorded two days after he went toe-to-toe against Greene.

    At the heart of the candidacy challenges is the third section of the 14th Amendment, ratified after the Civil War and barring anyone who swears an oath to the Constitution from engaging in or aiding an insurrection against it. Greene took her oath of office on Jan. 3, 2021, and for the challengers, her actions over the ensuing three days was enough to trigger that constitutional remedy. A federal judge already has allowed them to advance that challenge on the law.

    Indiana University Law Professor Gerard Magliocca also speaks on this episode about his testimony in Greene's case about how insurrection historically has been understood in the United States.

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    Meet the 'Depp Heads': Pirate Flag-Waving Johnny Depp Supporters Flock to Defamation Trial Against Amber Heard (Feat. Angenette Levy) Apr 20, 2022

    They call themselves the "Depp Heads"—the Johnny Depp superfans who travel from across the country to a small county courthouse in Fairfax County, Va.

    Every morning, they wait in line as early as 5 a.m. in order to be among the first 100 people to secure a wristband that will allow them to attend the trial between Depp and his ex-wife Amber Heard, who accused the “Pirates of the Caribbean” star of domestic abuse in 2016.

    Law&Crime's correspondent Angenette Levy details the travels, origins and beliefs of the "Depp Heads" on the latest episode of the podcast, "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    "Remember the Grateful Dead you had the 'Deadheads,' right?" Levy asked. "They were the people that traveled around and followed Jerry Garcia and the rest of the band and went from city to city. Well, now we have apparently 'Depp Heads.'"

    On the first day of jury selection, Depp Heads were out in full force from across the country, and Levy taped interviews with those who flew in across the country, including California, Minnesota, and elsewhere. Miniature pirate flags—an allusion to Depp's breakaway role as Captain Jack Sparrow in "Pirates of the Caribbean"—waved in the breeze outside the courthouse with constant regularity, and handing them out to eager recipients was Minnesota mom Kristina Gibbons, who had brought her four children with her.

    "Only two of them are here right now," Gibbons told Levy.

    On the podcast, Levy describes her travels among the Depp Heads, describes other scenes from the courthouse, and explains why the case found its way from Hollywood to a courthouse in Fairfax County, whose defamation laws have made it an attractive jurisdiction for people ready to litigate over bad press.

    The music is "Hoist," by Andy G. Cohen. "Objections" is produced by Sam Goldberg. Michael Deininger and Ashton Schwinn run the YouTube page.

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    Michael Cohen Calls 'Bulls**t' on Manhattan DA's Claim That Donald Trump Investigation Is Still Alive (Feat. Michael Cohen) Apr 13, 2022

    Barraged with criticism after two top prosecutors resigned in protest, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) released a statement last week insisting that his investigation into former President Donald Trump remains ongoing.

    Not everyone, however, is persuaded, particularly Michael Cohen, whose congressional testimony sparked the probe into Trump some three years ago.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Cohen holds nothing back about his confidence in Bragg to pursue the 45th president, splashing cold water on the Manhattan DA's claim on CNN that he is pursuing new evidence and leads.

    "I call bullshit on that," Cohen sounded off. "I know the evidence that they had. I was responsible for providing them with a lot of it. I also know that Alvin Bragg came out and made a statement that there's some new evidence that we're going to follow and that's what we do. I call bullshit on that. There is no new evidence that we did not discuss."

    Beyond the Manhattan DA probe, Cohen discusses reports about Trump's children and the Jan. 6 Committee and his civil lawsuit over being sent back to prison after announcing plans to write a book, a sequence of events that one federal judge found to have been retaliation.

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    Josh Duggar’s ‘Destruction’: The Story Behind the Ex-Reality TV Star’s Worst Download (Feat. Matthew Carney and Jack Staton) Mar 30, 2022

    This episode originally aired on June 22, 2021, and it's being rebroadcast with a new introduction.

    During a bond hearing in May, a Homeland Security Investigations agent described some of the horrific material allegedly found on the computer of former reality TV star Josh Duggar, who was recently convicted of child pornography crimes.

    The agent testified that one video titled "Daisy's Destruction," showing the rape of an 18-month old girl, ranked among the "Top Five worst of the worst" that he ever had to examine.

    Law&Crime's podcast "Objections" explores the crime case behind that video, created by Peter Scully, an Australian man dubbed by international tabloids as the "world's worst pedophile.” Scully is currently serving a life sentence in the Philippines for human trafficking and rape.

    In the episode, Australia’s ABC correspondent Matthew Carney describes reporting from the crime scene following Scully’s arrest, and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Jack Staton generally describes the fight against child exploitation globally.

    Warning: This episode involves disturbing subject matter.

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    Reporters Behind the Sarah Lawrence Sex 'Cult' Exposé Recount Origins of the 'Fascinating, Troubling Story' (Feat. Ezra Marcus and James Walsh) Mar 23, 2022

    Some four years ago, a reporter learned from fellow Sarah Lawrence College alumni about a "troubling" website about an ex-student there. The website, whose address had been in the student's name, looked like an attempt to blackmail her with written and videotaped false confessions. Two reporters researched that lead extensively before publishing an exposé titled “Larry Ray and the Stolen Kids of Sarah Lawrence.”

    The central figure in the article, Lawrence Ray, is now standing federal trial in Manhattan on a 17-count racketeering indictment, and the woman on the website, Claudia, has been testifying against him for three days. She claims that Ray forced her into prostitution to the tune of $2.5 million over the course of four years, in key testimony for Ray's sex trafficking count.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast “Objections: with Adam Klasfeld,” the authors of the New York Magazine article that first uncovered the unsettling case—Ezra Marcus and James Walsh—describe the origins of their discovery and their impressions of the ongoing federal trial.

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    The Thorny Policy Question Beneath the Pro-Trump Media's Furor Over a John Durham Filing (Feat. Julian Sanchez) Mar 16, 2022

    After special prosecutor John Durham filed a document claiming that a tech executive "exploited" internet traffic data to find derogatory information about Donald Trump, the allegation instantly set off a furor on the political right.

    "The most striking example I recall hearing was Jesse Watters on Fox saying that Durham had disclosed that Hillary Clinton paid people to hack into Donald Trump's home and office computers in order to plant evidence of Russian collusion," the Cato Institute's senior fellow Julian Sanchez recalled on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    Describing Watters's assertion as "impressive" in its falsehood, Sanchez added: "Literally no part of that sentence is correct."

    Specializing in issues of technology and civil liberties, Sanchez explains on the podcast that the actual story buried beneath the mound of overheated rhetoric is a thorny problem of privacy in an age of bulk data analysis.

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    After Exposé on Turmoil Inside Manhattan DA's Office, Ex-NYC Prosecutor Weighs in on Future of Trump Probe (Feat. Julie Rendelman) Mar 09, 2022

    Once considered one of most dangerous criminal probes orbiting the former president, the Manhattan district attorney's investigation that led to indictments against Donald Trump's business and former associate Allen Weisselberg now stands in turmoil.

    Officially, the investigation continues, but two of its top prosecutors—Carey Dunne and Mark Pomerantz—resigned late last month. A recent New York Times exposé on the heated arguments preceding their departure suggest both men strongly disagreed with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's reluctance to bring charges against Trump himself. The Times quoted Dunne explaining his need to "disassociate myself with this decision because I think it was on the wrong side of history.”

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," former Brooklyn prosecutor Julie Rendelman provides insight on line prosecutors' disagreements with district attorneys—and what this clash could mean for the future of the Trump probe.

    "You've heard that saying, 'You can indict a ham sandwich,' and in many ways, it's true," Rendelman notes. "You can indict a ham sandwich. It doesn't take much to get you indicted. It takes a whole hell of a lot in order to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is guilty. And with Trump, it's not just about whether he cooked the books. It's also whether he intentionally cooked the books for the purpose of some level of criminality."

    Rendelman, a former homicide prosecutor behind the upcoming Law&Crime podcast "Without a Body," explains how an investigation deals with the absence of seemingly crucial evidence. Her podcast draws from her prosecutorial experiences to show how investigators proceed in a homicide case where a body is never found.

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    Financial Sanctions in the Wake of Russia's Invasion of Ukraine Draw Global Attention to 'Criminal Services Industry' (Feat. Drew Sullivan) Mar 02, 2022

    Ratcheting up the financial sanctions that followed Russia's invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden announced a dedicated Department of Justice task force to go after Vladimir Putin's oligarchs during Tuesday night's State of the Union address: "We are joining with our European allies to find and seize your yachts, your luxury apartments, your private jets. We are coming for your ill-begotten gains," the U.S. president declared.

    Investigative journalists have long traced the opaque flows of Russian oligarch money around the world, and few have done it as tenaciously and effectively as the European collective Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," OCCRP's co-founder and publisher Drew Sullivan describes how Putin and his oligarchs hide their money through what he calls the "criminal services industry."

    "These law firms and banks are really helping these relatively provincial, Eastern European leaders to suddenly find that they could steal money and move it offshore, bring it back in another form and get done what they wanted to get done," he noted.

    Sullivan also details the "laborious" process through which reporters uncover assets hidden in layers of "nested," anonymous corporations. Devastating sanctions to Russia's most important banks prompted Putin over the weekend to effectively threaten nuclear war, a development Sullivan construes as a sign that the global financial backlash to his war on Ukraine has hit the autocrat where it hurts.

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    Sandy Hook Chronicler Charts Families' Litigation Against Alex Jones and the 'Battle for Truth' (Feat. Elizabeth Williamson) Feb 22, 2022

    As the 10-year anniversary of the mass shooting approaches, families of Sandy Hook victims have been racking up a string of legal victories. Nine of them reached a $73 million settlement last week with insurers for the arms manufacturer Remington, the maker of the Bushmaster AR-15-style rifle that gunman Adam Lanza used in the massacre.

    In her soon-to-be-released book “Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth,” New York Times feature writer Elizabeth Williamson charts the families' longstanding litigation against InfoWars broadcaster Alex Jones, who defaulted late last year on a string of lawsuits about his conspiracy theory that the shootings that killed 26 people inside the elementary school—plus the gunman and his mother—did not happen.

    Discussing the book on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Williamson describes Sandy Hook conspiracy theories as a template for others to come.

    "Sandy Hook was the first mass shooting to create these viral conspiracy claims online," she said in an interview. "Then, it was every mass shooting. Then, it was Pizzagate. Then, it was QAnon. Then, it was coronavirus, and then, it was the election."

    Late last year, Jones defaulted in defamation litigation, and he faces a damages trial in the spring. The book will be released on March 8.

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    Inside the Steve Bannon-Linked 'Psy-Op' That a Texas Butterfly Preserve Director Says Shut Down Her Border Refuge (Feat. Marianna Treviño Wright) Feb 16, 2022

    The leader of a Texas butterfly preserve vividly remembers the day in July 2017, when she saw five workmen around the levee of her refuge, three of them wielding chainsaws, cutting down trees and mowing down vegetation.

    "It was a shocking moment," recalled Marianna Treviño Wright, the executive director of the now-closed National Butterfly Center in Mission, Texas. "I said, 'Who are you, and what are you doing here? And they said, 'Well, the government sent us to clear this land for a border wall.'"

    Little did she know at the time, Treviño Wright said, that her fight against the construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall would plunge her into a years-long battle with prominent figures in MAGA-world, including ex-White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, and possibly, former President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner. Nor did she know, she says, that her well-publicized court battles against those powerful forces that be would make her the target of QAnon-style conspiracy theories that would shut down her preserve and make her fear for her life.

    In an extended interview with Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Treviño Wright describes how her 100-acre haven for nature lovers and lepidopterists leapt into national headlines — and became a lightning rod for right-wing conspiracy theories with a history of provoking violence.

    After years of this campaign, she says, an alarming incident involving a fringe congressional candidate in Virginia shut down her refuge indefinitely weeks ago. Its doors remain closed as of publication.

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    Federal Trial Against Ahmaud Arbery's Murderers Puts Justice Department in 'Politically Difficult' Spot (Feat. Ken White) Feb 09, 2022

    As Ahmaud Arbery's murderers prepared to plead guilty to federal civil rights charges last week, two of the men appeared ready to tell a judge that they chased and killed a 25-year-old man because he was Black. Those admissions would have represented a long-delayed reckoning in a case that animated the racial justice movement globally and drew attention to what many described as a modern-day lynching in the Deep South.

    Then, the deal fell apart, with Arbery's family denouncing prosecutors for even contemplating such a plea agreement.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," prominent legal commentator Ken White—better known by the nom de plume Popehat—unpacks why that happened, what it means for the criminal justice reform movement and what to expect at the trial which began this week with jury selection.

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    Oath Keepers Founder's Estranged Wife Tells Why She Asked a Judge to Keep Ex in Jail (Feat. Tasha Adams) Feb 02, 2022

    When Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes first had a detention hearing following his seditious conspiracy indictment, his estranged wife Tasha Adams felt certain that he would be locked up and kept away from her and their six children.

    Then, Adams noticed an alarming report in Politico report suggesting that a federal judge appeared ready to let her ex loose.

    "I got a little panicked," Adams told Law&Crime in an interview with Law&Crime's podcast "Objections." "I really thought it was a done deal. Like, I didn't not expect any chance of bail whatsoever."

    In an extraordinary interview, Adams details why she told a judge she wants to keep Rhodes in jail. She also details her allegations of physical abuse, the history of the Oath Keepers, and her fears that Rhodes may harm her children and become a "Brownshirt" acting as an "unseen arm" of former President Donald Trump, if released.

    Read more about the episode here: https://lawandcrime.com/objections-podcast/oath-keepers-founders-estranged-wife-tells-why-she-asked-a-judge-to-keep-ex-in-jail-fears-hell-take-their-kids-and-become-brownshirt-for-trump/?utm_source=mostpopular

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    Reporter Who Broke Ghislaine Maxwell Juror Story Opens Up About the Complicated Fallout (Feat. Lucia Osborne-Crowley) Jan 11, 2022

    When she landed the world's first interview with a Ghislaine Maxwell juror, journalist and author Lucia Osborne-Crowley knew that the story would be significant—and perhaps even fraught.

    "It was a really, really overwhelming interview for me because there were so many things going through my head," Obsorne-Crowley recounted.

    The juror, once anonymized only as Juror No. 50 and now known by the name Scotty David, had told her that he was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. He also told her that those experiences informed his decision to convict Maxwell of sex trafficking and other federal crimes that could lock up the Jeffrey Epstein accomplice for the rest of her life.

    "This is a verdict for all of the victims," David declared in what ran as a pull quote in the headline of Osborne-Crowley's exclusive in the U.K.'s Independent.

    Now, that verdict may stand in turmoil. Two news outlets have reported that David wrote in a sworn juror questionnaire that he was not a sexual abuse victim, and Maxwell's defense attorneys have asked for a retrial.

    On this episode, Obsorne-Crowley—an accomplished journalist, trained lawyer, and published author on the subjects of her own sexual abuse—unpacks the complicated ripples of her major scoop and how it has resonated in her life and career.

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    Celebrity Attorney for Eight Jeffrey Epstein Victims Sheds Light on Clients' Perspective on Ghislaine Maxwell Trial (Feat. Lisa Bloom) Dec 15, 2021

    Throughout Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial, her attorneys have sought to discredit her alleged victims along themes of "memory, manipulation and money." The lawyers will likely cast those themes into sharper relief as the defense case begins on Thursday.

    Attorney Lisa Bloom, who has represented eight women awarded settlements from a fund designed to compensate Jeffrey Epstein victims, unpacks that defense strategy through the eyes of her clients in the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    "There's no perfect victim," Bloom said in a Zoom interview. "There's no perfect plaintiff, and I do civil cases. And you know, you take your victim as you find them. It's very common that there would be drug abuse, or you know, selling sex for money or inconsistent memories."

    "I've never been prouder of a group of clients. They went through so much agony, and so many mental health disorders as a result of being sexually abused by this man," she added later in the show, referring to Epstein.

    Bloom's clients are not the same women who took the stand against Maxwell, but they share some similar stories.

    This episode was first published the day before the opening of Maxwell's defense case.

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    Ex-Sex Trafficking Prosecutor Unpacks the Early Stages of Ghislaine Maxwell's Trial (Feat. Mitchell Epner) Dec 08, 2021

    In 2000, former President Bill Clinton signed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, a landmark piece of legislation later reauthorized by his successors that protect survivors with tools like "T" visas and stiff penalties for alleged perpetrators.

    "Prior to that, victims were loathe to cooperate, because they would often be shipped back to towns where the traffickers held power and could exact awful reprisals," attorney Mitchell Epner, a former federal prosecutor who led intake on sex-trafficking cases in the District of New Jersey in 2003 and 2004, told Law&Crime. "Traffickers would often threaten girls and women that, if they cooperated with police/prosecutors, they would be killed in hideous fashion after being deported."

    Now of counsel with the firm Rottenberg Lipman Rich PC, Epner drew from his experiences navigating that then-nascent prosecutorial tool to offer insights into the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell. She stands accused of sexually trafficking minors for Jeffrey Epstein and enticed them to travel to perform illegal sex acts.

    If convicted of all charges, Maxwell, 59, can be imprisoned effectively for the rest of her life.

    Offering analysis at length in a Zoom interview, Epner told Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld" that the outcome of Maxwell's trial will depend less on the panel's studious parsing of the various exhibits that come into evidence.

    Instead, Maxwell's fate will hinge upon something more fundamental: whose account the jury believes.

    Quoting the famed trial lawyer Gerry Spence, Epner said: "Facts are not persuasive; stories are."

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    Nearly Two Decades After 'Spotlight' Investigation, Key Lawyer in Clergy Sexual Abuse Litigation Is Still Fighting (Feat. Mitchell Garabedian) Nov 30, 2021

    Nearly two decades after the Boston Globe's watershed "Spotlight" investigation blew the lid on sexual abuse inside the Catholic Church, one of the key lawyers who brought that scandal to public light has not relented on his clergy accountability crusade.

    Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who was depicted in a film about the "Spotlight" series, discussed the ongoing legal battles, his Hollywood treatment and his continuing fight for disclosure on the Law&Crime podcast "Objections: With Adam Klasfeld."

    "The investigation had a tremendous impact and helping notify the public that they have to protect children, where those children and adults are in a caring custody of priests," Garabedian said in the interview, referring to the Globe expose. "And it had great impact in helping clergy sexual abuse victims or survivors try to heal and come forward and report the abuse."

    "With a clergy sexual abuse survivor or victim, it's all about validation," Garabedian added. "The survivor of victim has to know that the abuse was not their fault."

    In early 2002, the Globe published its Pulitzer-winning series "Spotlight Investigation: Abuse in the Catholic Church," sparking multiple criminal prosecutions and international attention. It also made the already tenacious Garabedian even busier, inspiring other people who said they are survivors to seek legal counsel.

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    NRA Exposé Reports 'Chaos' Inside Gun Group Facing 'Serious Existential Threat' (Feat. Tim Mak) Nov 23, 2021

    With the trials of Kyle Rittenhouse and Ahmaud Arbery's accused murderers coming to a head in November, U.S. gun law and policy have captured global attention the same month a new book exposes the inner workings of the National Rifle Association—the most powerful group in shaping these topics.

    NPR's investigative correspondent Tim Mak's book "Misfire: Inside the Downfall of the NRA" details what the author describes in an interview as the "serious existential threat to the NRA" posed by New York Attorney General Letitia James's (D) lawsuit seeking its dissolution.

    "The NRA has in the past dealt with revolts from its members. It's dealt with legal problems. It's dealt with allegations of financial malfeasance and dealt with just incredible challenges from within and disparate factions in-fighting," Mak says on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld."

    "But it's never dealt with all of these things happening all at once and in this acute crisis," Mak added.

    James, for her part, campaigned for attorney general by calling the NRA a "terrorist organization." Now, she's running for governor.

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    Wisconsin Justice Who Shot Down 'King' Trump’s Bid to Overturn 2020 Election Recalls 'Armed Protesters' Outside During Oral Arguments (Feat. Justice Jill Karofsky) Nov 16, 2021

    Elected in a landslide just months earlier to Wisconsin's highest court, Justice Jill Karofsky vividly recalls the atmosphere of "intimidation" that greeted oral arguments on Dec. 12, 2020, the day that former President Donald Trump's lawsuit seeking to overturn that case landed in her court.

    The Zoom proceedings captured national attention as Trump's then-ongoing legal blitz spectacularly failed in other courts, but Justice Karofsky recalled being well aware of an ominous demonstration boiling outside the view of the cameras.

    "During the argument, as I looked out my window, there were armed protesters walking right outside of my window and walking around the Capitol during the oral arguments," Karofsky recounted in an exclusive interview nearly a year after the proceedings.

    The Wisconsin Supreme Court operates from the second floor of the east wing of the State Capitol.

    "When the arguments were over, I got a police escort to my car," Karofsky continued. "I had a had, you know, beefed up security for quite some time afterwards."

    Like public servants throughout the country, Karofsky and her colleagues faced torrents of threats and abuse for months to come. On the podcast, she sounds off on democracy, threats against public servants, and how she was sworn to the the court just before the 2020 presidential election during a 100-mile ultramarathon race.

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    After $220,000 Court Win Against Hobby Lobby, a Transgender Manager Finally Can Use the Women’s Restroom (Feat. Meggan Sommerville & Jacob Meister) Sep 01, 2021

    A little more than a week after her landmark $220,000 victory against Hobby Lobby, a transgender manager and her lawyer have confirmed that the conservative Christian-owned crafts company now allows her to use the women's restroom.

    Hobby Lobby denied frame department manager Meggan Sommerville that right for more than a decade, a policy that an Illinois appellate court recently found caused her "emotional devastation" deserving of the toughest penalty the state's Human Rights Commission has ever awarded.

    "Fortunately, about a week and a half ago, they told Meggan that, for the first time, they will abide by the court's decision, and she can use the women's room at work," her attorney Jacob Meister reveals on the show.

    Fresh from her victory from a unanimous three-judge panel, Sommerville opens up about the turmoil Hobby Lobby's former policy caused her.

    "I still will have dreams, nightmares of being in environments where I'm not accepted, where I am just in this constant battle to prove to the world around me who I am," Sommerville said. "It's tough. I don't wish this on anybody. Hopefully one day I will be able to get past it, but it's been emotionally devastating."

    Her lawyer Meister unpacks the significance of his client’s court victory for other transgender people in the workplace and explains why lawyers say in cases involving gender: "It always comes down to bathrooms."

    Toward the end of the episode, Sommerville shares an anecdote about the support she received from one of her Hobby Lobby customers when she first transitioned.

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    Meet One of Fledgling Artist Hunter Biden's Toughest Critics: Obama's Ex-Ethics Czar (Feat. Walter Shaub) Aug 25, 2021

    From his stint on a Ukrainian oligarch's company board to endless conspiracy theories about his laptop, the career path of the president's son Hunter Biden has ignited controversy for years. His recent foray into the art world, however, has put him under fire outside the familiar corners of the political right.

    Take former President Barack Obama's ethics czar Walter Shaub, whose criticism has been persistent and stinging.

    The week after the New York Times reported that the First Son hopes to fetch up to $500,000 apiece for some 15 works of art, Shaub did not mince words.

    "I just think that's absolutely appalling," Shaub said on Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: With Adam Klasfeld."

    "Now, that's a criticism of Hunter Biden, and he's a sympathetic character, who we can feel bad for on many levels," Shaub continued. "But some of his problems are of his own making, in that he has always built his career around being Joe Biden's son. And here he is doing that, once again. If he were a patriot—if he cared about this country—he would not want to tarnish his father's reputation that way."

    Learn more about why Shaub believes the fledgling artist's debut showing—and the White House's response to it—stands in the way of an "ethical Renaissance" in Washington, which he fears will undermine the president's promise to turn the corner from the Trump era.

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    'Under Wraps and Heavily Redacted': 'Perversion of Justice' Author Reflects on Transparency Fight Two Years After Jeffrey Epstein's Death (Feat. Julie K. Brown) Aug 17, 2021

    Swift and enduring, the impact of the Miami Herald's three-part investigative series "Perversion of Justice" reanimated the Jeffrey Epstein docket, brought survivors from the shadows onto the record, led to the disgraced exit of a presidential cabinet member, and has been credited with sparking two federal prosecutions. Its author Julie K. Brown's subsequent open records battles foisted thousands of pages onto the public domain and established legal precedent in favor of sunlight.

    Still, Brown's accomplishments have not made her optimistic about a new era of openness.

    "We've had to fight so hard to get every single little document that we've gotten," she said, exasperated. "Instead of becoming more and more transparent, the process is becoming less transparent, because so many people are involved."

    Reflecting on her fight for transparency on Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Brown talks about her new book about her watershed investigation, her interactions with Epstein's victims, her lingering suspicions about his death, and why she believes that courts remain "under pressure" to keep the rest of the story "under wraps and heavily redacted."

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    Ex-DOJ Official’s Reported Plot to Subvert the 2020 Election for Trump Raises Expert’s Alarm About ‘Insider Threat’ (Feat. Ryan Goodman) Aug 10, 2021

    Even by the standards of a feverish post-election cycle, a recently disclosed draft letter by a Department of Justice staffer seeking to undermine the election results in Georgia reached new heights of paranoia.

    Jeffrey Clark, the former head of the Justice Department’s civil division under Trump, cited an unspecified theory about hackers having evidence that a Dominion voting machine "accessed the Internet through a smart thermostat with a net connection trail leading back to China," according to a draft letter first reported by ABC News last week.

    Dated Dec. 28, that draft letter urged top Peach State officials to evaluate supposed election “irregularities,” and Clark sent it to Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen and acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue. Both reportedly rejected the overture, but the disclosure of the thwarted scheme reportedly spurred Rosen to share what he knew about the plans the Justice Department’s inspector general and the Senate Judiciary Committee.

    On the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: With Adam Klasfeld," New York University School of Law Professor Ryan Goodman reflects on last week's revelations in Clark's saga and what it means for what national security experts like him call the "insider threat."

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    'Defanging the Kraken': Detroit's Attorney Speaks Out About Sanctions Fight with Election-Attacking Lawyers (Feat. David Fink) Aug 03, 2021

    Soundly defeated in four separate courts, the election-attacking legal monster known as the "Kraken" has been morphing into a different beast.

    Associated with pro-Trump conspiracy theorists Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, the Kraken took its name from an octopus-like creature of mythology and inserted its tentacles into federal courts in Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and Michigan. The last court is where the Kraken met perhaps its most formidable adversary: Detroit's lawyer David Fink, who decided that defeating the lawsuit alone was not enough.

    "Step one was stopping the Kraken," Fink declared on the podcast. "Step two is caging the Kraken."

    In December, Fink became the first attorney to seek heavy sanctions against the lawyers pushing former President Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. A federal judge in Michigan has been considering Fink's long-pending request to refer Powell, Wood, and seven other attorneys working with them for disbarment proceedings. He also wants the judge to sanction the nine lawyers with a fine for the money that they raised in support of their election conspiracy theories.

    That brought Fink to another phase of his opposition: "Defanging the Kraken."

    Learn more on this podcast.

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    'A Slap on the Wrist': Legal Expert Pans Multibillion-Dollar Opioid Settlement (Feat. Jen Taub) Jul 27, 2021

    Blockbuster settlements with people and corporations that used to be the biggest names in the opioid industry came in rapid order this July.

    First, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a $4.5 billion dollar deal that would ban the Sackler family from the trade, and the so-called "big three" drug distributors and a pharmaceutical giant proposed a $26 billion global settlement that would end persistent litigation with more than a dozen states.

    But behind the large numbers and the lifetime industry bans, a scholar known for charting inequality in the justice system saw the same old "slap on the wrist."

    "At the end of the day, the family that made billions of dollars from selling a highly addictive drug that the corporation fraudulently peddled as safe and effective—and not as addictive as other opioids—they will still be exceedingly wealthy," Western New England University School of Law Professor Jennifer Taub says on the episode.

    Listen to Taub's analysis of the opioid litigation—and the nascent prosecution of the Trump Organization and CFO Allen Weisselberg on this podcast.











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    Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs Opens Up on 'Renewed Threats'—to Her Safety and the Ballot (Feat. Katie Hobbs) Jul 08, 2021

    In the weeks following the 2020 presidential election, public officials across the country who defended the integrity of the vote were subjected to hatred and threats. One of them was Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D), who called out former President Donald Trump and members of the Republican Party for stoking public rage.

    “Their words and actions have consequences,” Hobbs said in November, linking the threats against her, her family, and her office to widespread misinformation.

    For her efforts, Hobbs was targeted by death threats and even had her home address and son's phone number leaked online.

    In a wide-ranging interview for Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Secretary Hobbs—who is now running for governor—disclosed that she needs protection yet again in the wake of a so-called "forensic audit" in Arizona that have reheated the old conspiracy theories that previously put her in danger.

    "The level of harassment and just attacks on my office from every angle has not let up, and there are renewed threats, leading to me having to have a security detail for the second time," Hobbs said. "It's not part of my job to have that. But it's the second time in the last six months that it's happened."

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    'We Will Hunt You Down': Whistleblower's Lawyer from First Trump Impeachment Recounts Death Threats That Recently Sent a Man to Prison (Feat. Mark Zaid) Jul 01, 2021

    In early June, a man who threatened the lawyer for the whistleblower associated with former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment was sentenced to one year in prison. National Security Attorney Mark Zaid remembers the incident well—because he was that lawyer. In the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Zaid recounts his phone ringing incessantly with messages from angry Trump supporters in late 2019.

    "I received about half a dozen what I consider to be genuine death threats that crossed the line," Zaid reflects. "The first one I remember had nothing but the title in the email: 'a bullet in your head.' Okay, well, that one's different."

    One of those threats came from 54-year-old Brittan Atkinson, who served more than six months in pretrial detention when he was arrested last year. He will serve an additional five months in prison as a result of his recent sentence.

    When remembering that time period, Zaid says that the word that comes to mind is one that is perhaps the most "overused" of the Trump tenure.

    "It was surreal," he says.

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    Josh Duggar’s ‘Destruction’: The Story Behind the Ex-Reality TV Star’s Worst Alleged Download (Feat. Matthew Carney and Jack Staton) Jun 22, 2021

    Warning: This episode involves disturbing subject matter.

    During a bond hearing in May, a Homeland Security Investigations agent described some of the horrific material allegedly found on the computer of former reality TV star Josh Duggar, who is currently awaiting trial for allegedly possessing and receiving child pornography.

    The agent testified that one video titled "Daisy's Destruction," showing the rape of an 18-month old girl, ranked among the "Top Five worst of the worst" that he ever had to examine.

    Law&Crime's podcast "Objections" explores the crime case behind that video, created by Peter Scully, an Australian man dubbed by international tabloids as the "world's worst pedophile.” Scully is currently serving a life sentence in the Philippines for human trafficking and rape.

    In the episode, Australia’s ABC correspondent Matthew Carney describes reporting from the crime scene following Scully’s arrest, and Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Jack Staton generally describes the fight against child exploitation globally.

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    The Kenyan-Born Doctor at Florida's Bank of Justice (Feat. Dr. Baiywo Rop and Jerry Girley) Jun 15, 2021

    Late last month, a Florida jury awarded a $2.75 million verdict for Dr. Baiywo Rop, a Kenyan-born doctor who won a lawsuit accusing an Adventist Health System hospital of discriminating against him because of his race and national origin. Then, in an unusual development a week later, a judge vacated the jury's multimillion-dollar judgment against Adventist, the state’s second-largest employer.

    In the latest episode of "Objections," Dr. Rop and his lawyer Jerry Girley describe how that case reminds them of a lesser-remembered part of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream Speech."

    That's the passage about the proverbial "bank of justice."

    “So what we said to the jury is, 'Look, here we are again at the Bank of Justice,'" Girley recalls on the podcast. "Promises have been made. You have the authority, the ability to pay this check. It is a payment on a promise that was made hundreds of years ago. It is a payment on the notion the concept of equality before the law.”

    Both describe the case, verdict, ruling and ongoing appeal on the show.

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    U.S. Journalist Danny Fenster's Detention in Myanmar, Michael Flynn, and the Rule of Law (Feat. Jordan Acker) Jun 08, 2021

    On the morning of Monday, May 24th, the Myanmar government detained a U.S. journalist before he boarded an international flight. Danny Fenster, the managing editor of the independent news outlet Frontier Myanmar, has been held captive there since that time.

    Fenster’s childhood friend Jordan Acker recounts how the arrest sent shockwaves through the small city where they grew up: Huntington Woods, a roughly 1.5 square mile suburb of Detroit, Michigan.

    "There's always a feeling of hopelessness when this happens, that there's not a lot that you can do in these sorts of situations," Acker recounted, detailing the community's efforts to create a "Free Fenster" logo, draw attention to his plight, and lobby local and federal officials to advocate for his release.

    An attorney with experience in the House Judiciary Committee, Department of Homeland Security, and the Michigan Board of Regents, Acker describes how Fenster told the stories of the persecuted before being targeted by the Myanmar regime. Acker also sounds off on retired General Michael Flynn's "despicable" and "sickening" praise for Myanmar's coup this past February.

    Flynn made his widely criticized remarks at a QAnon conference in Texas days after Fenster's arrest, before walking them back amid a firestorm of criticism.

    Learn more about Fenster at BringDannyHome.com.

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    Alternatives to the Jan. 6th Commission (Feat. Norman Ornstein) Jun 01, 2021

    Despite Senate Republicans voting down the idea of a bipartisan commission to investigate the Jan. 6th siege of the U.S. Capitol, there remain multiple avenues for a similar probe to take root.

    Laying out those alternatives on the podcast, congressional scholar Norman Ornstein notes that any of the remaining options will face unique challenges.

    "Every time we've had commissions in the past—whether if you go back to the Kerner Commission set up by a presidential decree, an executive order by Lyndon Johnson to investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy, all the way through things like the 9/11 Commission—they've been bipartisan and evenly divided," Ornstein noted on the podcast.

    For Ornstein, the fact that Rep. Greg Pence (R-Ind.) voted against a commission to investigate the same pro-Trump mob that chanted for his brother Mike Pence to be hanged shows how impossible such cooperation has become.

    On the episode, Ornstein rattles off the drawbacks and benefits of proceeding through a select committee created by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an executive order by President Joe Biden, or a blue-ribbon panel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland's Justice Department.

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    An 'Objections' Exclusive: On the Anniversary of George Floyd’s Murder, Derek Chauvin Has a New Accuser (Feat. Amy Coughlin) May 25, 2021

    On the night of Jan. 16, 2017, a Minneapolis mother's then-12-year-old child lapsed into a mental health crisis that left her and family feeling unsafe. She placed an emergency call, seeking help.

    Instead, she says, she got Derek Chauvin.

    "I felt afraid for my life, and certainly for my kid's life at that moment, because of the way that [Chauvin] was responding to my words," the mother, Amy Coughlin, told Law&Crime exclusively on the latest episode of the podcast "Objections: With Adam Klasfeld."

    Revealed on the anniversary of George Floyd's death, Chauvin's brush with Coughlin and her child fell months before the officer allegedly brutalized another teenager, whose case formed the basis of a separate civil rights prosecution of the now-convicted murderer.

    Like Floyd, the 14-year-old in the federal case allegedly could not breathe because Chauvin put him in the prone position in September 2017.

    Coughlin claims the same thing happened to her 12-year-old, mere months earlier.

    "He had placed his knee on his back and close to his neck, if not on his neck," Coughlin said in the interview. "At that point, my child was just screaming 'Mom,' screaming. And I was pleading, 'Please. He's sick. Please. He's not resisting. You're hurting him. Please, get off of him. Please, let him up.'"

    Her family's story—told for the first time on this episode—powerfully speaks to an ongoing national conversation about mental health and policing.

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    ‘The Dirty Little Secret’ of U.S. Cybersecurity (Feat. Frank Figliuzzi) May 18, 2021

    In the wake of a cyber attack last week that disrupted operations of a 5,500-mile Colonial Pipeline, the infrastructure reportedly supplying nearly half of the fuel for the East Coast of the United States had to shut down, but former FBI assistant director Frank Figliuzzi noted that the suspected perpetrator—the Russian-based criminal group, DarkSide—pulled off a fairly "rudimentary" hack.

    “Imagine if there was a sophisticated nation state actor that decided to pull out all the stops and defeat sophisticated security countermeasures, we'd be in big trouble,” Figluizzi, a national security contributor for NBC News, noted on the latest episode of Law&Crime’s “Objections.”

    With a simple ransomware attack, DarkSide reportedly got the pipeline owner to cough up $5 million in extortion money, but not before its attack sparked shortages at gas stations throughout the region as panicked consumers purchased fuel that they feared would run dry.

    Having led the bureau’s counterintelligence division and served as an agent for 25 years, Figliuzzi warned that is just an example of what could happen.

    “The dirty little secret is, the nation states are already telling us they can do this,” Figliuzzi said. “Whether it's China, Iran, North Korea or Russia, we have seen them peek into some of the scariest places you can imagine—hydroelectric dams, power grids, traffic, air traffic control, 911 systems, credit card payment systems, you name it. They have waved ‘Hello,’ in those networks.”

    Figliuzzi, author of “The FBI Way,” is the host of the upcoming podcast “The Bureau.”

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    Meet the Environmental Lawyer 'Begging' the U.S. DOJ to Prosecute Him (Feat. Steven Donziger and Rep. Jim McGovern) May 11, 2021

    Over the course of 28 years in courts across the world, litigation over drilling by Chevron's predecessor Texaco in the Ecuadorean rainforest has taken countless surprising turns, but perhaps none so unusual as the ongoing criminal trial of their archnemisis: environmental lawyer Steven Donziger.

    "We kind of laugh about this on our legal team, but I'm probably the only lawyer in America ever to really be begging to be prosecuted by the DOJ criminally," Donziger quipped during a Zoom interview taped days before his criminal trial in Manhattan Federal Court.

    On the latest episode of the Law&Crime podcast "Objections: with Adam Klasfeld," Donziger and one of his most high-profile supporters, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), explain to the show's host why they are both asking for the Department of Justice's intervention in the criminal case.

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    The 'Sovereign District' Catches Up to Rudy Giuliani (Feat. Elie Honig) May 04, 2021

    The day that authorities executed a search warrant at his Manhattan apartment, Rudy Giuliani appeared uncharacteristically quiet about the development, but the sometime Donald Trump lawyer and former New York City mayor broke that silence in written and televised broadsides against prosecutors the next day.

    "Rudy would know as well as anybody that the first piece of advice that any criminal defendant, suspect, subject of a search warrant should take or receive is 'Shut up,'" CNN's senior legal analyst Elie Honig says on this podcast. "Rudy: Not the shutting up type."

    A former Assistant U.S. Attorney inside the Southern District of New York, Honig worked as a prosecutor in the same federal jurisdiction that reportedly has Giuliani in its crosshairs. Giuliani led the Southern District as a U.S. Attorney between 1983 and 1989, decades before Honig's tenure there.

    In the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections: With Adam Klasfeld," Honig charts Giuliani's trajectory from leader to reported target of the U.S. Attorney's Office for SDNY, affectionately nicknamed the "Sovereign District" for its history of independence. Honig is also the author of the soon-to-be-released book "Hatchet Man" on Attorney General Bill Barr and the host of the podcast "Third Degree."

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    Historic Reckonings in the Case of Emmett Till and the Armenian Genocide (Feat. Deborah Watts & Ömer Taşpınar) Apr 27, 2021

    Guests discuss two history-making events of the past week: Emmett Till's cousin Deborah Watts talks about the significance of Derek Chauvin's murder convictions, and scholar Ömer Taşpınar unpacks the significance of President Joe Biden recognizing the Armenian genocide.

    At a press conference following the Chauvin verdict, Philonise Floyd invoked the memory of 14-year-old Till—whose kidnapping, torture, and lynching animated the civil rights movement—by calling him the "first George Floyd."

    Watts, the co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, welcomed that comparison.

    "We had spent some time together a few days before that," Watts recalled in an interview. "And I believe that just in sharing that bond, we were able to embrace and just understand each other's journey and pain, in sharing the story of Emmett Till."

    She talks on the show about Till, Floyd, lynching and her foundation's push to prosecute the 66-year-old case.

    Taşpınar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of the book “What the West Is Getting Wrong about the Middle East,” explains why Turkey resists accepting the Armenian genocide—and why the United States has been so slow to officially recognize it.

    Listeners can learn more about the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation here at https://emmetttilllegacyfoundation.com.

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    The Lawsuit Against Derek Chauvin’s Expert That the Jury Never Heard (Feat. Brian Buckmire) Apr 20, 2021

    The man who went on to become Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin's key medical witness in his murder trial was hit with a lawsuit late last year accusing him of a cover up in a case filed by the family of a 19-year-old Black man who died in a "chillingly similar manner" to George Floyd.

    Though the similarities between the two incidents have received widespread press attention, Chauvin's jury never heard of the allegations against his main medical expert: Dr. David Fowler, the former chief medical examiner for the state of Maryland.

    In the latest episode of the Law&Crime podcast "Objections," Law&Crime Daily host Brian Buckmire—who is also a public defender—reflects on the trial that captivated the country and probes why prosecutors never questioned Fowler about the allegations.

    "So the jaded public defender in me wants to say it's very possible that the someone in the government could mess that up, because we already saw that happened once in this case," Buckmire said on the podcast, referring to a moment when the defense criticized authorities for supposedly failing to perform a carbon monoxide test on Floyd.

    But as Buckmire noted, authorities had performed that test, and prosecutors discovered that fact via their expert, Dr. Andrew Baker, too late to admit the evidence.

    "Dr. Baker was listening to the testimony of Dr. Fowler saying, ‘Well, they should have done this test,’ and Dr. Baker out of nowhere finds that test that would have been able to slap down that argument from Dr. Fowler," Buckmire said on the podcast. "But because of rules of evidence, you cannot spring new information on a defendant."

    As the episode airs, jurors are engaged in their first full day of deliberation

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    'A Good Friend with a 100-Foot Yacht': Audio Highlights from the NRA Chief’s Testimony (Feat. Shannon Watts) Apr 13, 2021

    Breaking a nearly weeklong silence following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in December 2012, the National Rifle Association’s longtime leader Wayne LaPierre introduced what would become a Second Amendment rallying cry.

    “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre declared in the wake of that mass shooting, which killed 26 people, including 20 children.

    More than eight years later, LaPierre’s testimony at the NRA’s bankruptcy trial showed him apparently adopting a different standard for his own safety. LaPierre claimed that he accepted trips on a Hollywood producer's 108-foot yacht named the Illusions after Sandy Hook for “security” reasons. The NRA chief offered the same rationale for flying exclusively by private charter jet, and he defended his receipt of nearly $300,000 in Italian suits from a Beverly Hills Zegna, which the group's longtime public relations Ackerman McQueen bought him for television appearances.

    The latest episode of “Objections” features highlights from court-released audio of LaPierre’s blockbuster testimony from a federal bankruptcy court in Dallas, Texas.

    For Shannon Watts, the founder of the anti-gun violence group Moms Demand Action, LaPierre's self-described method of protecting his safety is sharply off-message with his organization's line.

    "Wayne up here has spent decades and made millions of dollars, saying the only thing that can protect you from danger is a gun, right?" Watts told Law&Crime's podcast "Objections" in an extended interview. "That the 'only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.' Well, apparently in Wayne LaPierre's case, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good friend with a 100-foot yacht."

    Waterbury Police Chief Fernando Spagnolo, whose Connecticut city is a less than half-hour drive away from Newtown, reflects on the tragedy. The police chief testified at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.

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    The Settled Law Behind 'Vaccine Passports' (Feat. Prof. Eric Feldman) Apr 06, 2021

    For all of the political furor surrounding so-called "vaccine passports," certain countries have long required proof of immunity for tropical diseases, and experts note that the law on the issue is not a close question.

    "Are vaccine mandates legal? There are lots of hard questions in the universe of law, but that's not a hard question," University of Pennsylvania law Professor Eric Feldman noted on the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections." "That's an easy question," the professor added. "The answer is yes."

    The Supreme Court settled that matter in the case of Jacobson v. Massachusetts, affirming penalties against a Swedish-American pastor who resisted a smallpox vaccine back in 1905. That watershed case was over a true mandate: Pastor Henning Jacobson was convicted of refusing the vaccine and forced to pay a $5 fine, but so-called vaccine passports operate differently. They are not compulsory, but such certifications through voluntary programs could make it easier for participants in the program to travel, dine in a restaurant or attend a sporting event.

    In this episode, Professor Feldman, from UPenn's Medical Ethics & Health Policy, answers questions about vaccines and the law.

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    “Behind #FightBack: Untold Tales of Lin Wood and How Kyle Rittenhouse’s Mother Sees It All”’ (Feat. Wendy Rittenhouse and Dave Hancock) Mar 30, 2021

    Before the #FightBack Foundation came to be associated with lawyer Lin Wood’s post-election conspiracy theories, the non-profit group known by the Twitter hashtag had been affiliated with Kyle Rittenhouse.

    Rittenhouse was 17 years old when he was charged with killing two men and injuring a third during protests and riots that broke out in Kenosha, Wisconsin, following the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Rittenhouse claimed self-defense, and #Fightback raised the $2 million that his legal team needed to bail him out on Nov. 20, just weeks after a presidential election whose results Wood repeatedly tried to overturn.

    In exclusive interviews for Law&Crime’s podcast “Objections,” the teenager’s mother Wendy Rittenhouse and #FightBack’s former executive director Dave Hancock speak out for the first time about their demands that the non-profit conduct an audit of the money that it fundraised.

    Ms. Rittenhouse claims on the podcast that two of #FightBack’s directors—Wood and conservative firebrand John Pierce—latched onto her son’s case for personal reasons. “They used Kyle to gain money, gain Twitter followers,” Ms. Rittenhouse told Law&Crime. “I felt now they didn't care about Kyle.”

    This is the untold story of #FightBack, including allegations backed up by multiple on-the-record interviews, police dash cam videos, business records, and recordings provided by Wood's former business associate.

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    A Storm of Threats to the Ballot—And No Umbrella (Feat. Sylvia Albert) Mar 23, 2021

    When the Supreme Court gutted protections from the Voting Rights Act in Shelby County v. Holder in 2013, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote an immortal dissent comparing the majority's reasoning that the provisions were no longer necessary to throwing out an umbrella when one is dry.

    Common Cause director of voting and elections Syvia Albert believes that Ginsburg's warning is increasingly relevant. "We're about to be soaked to the bone," Albert predicted.

    In a wide-ranging interview, Albert breaks down the Supreme Court backdrop allowing a flood of legislation restricting ballot-access, the countermovement to expand voting rights, and a new high court drama that she believes could remove the last part of the Voting Rights Act that "still has teeth."

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    'The Cuomo Show' (Feat. Albany Times Union editor Casey Seiler) Mar 09, 2021

    Two days before his newspaper ran a surprising editorial calling for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's resignation, Albany Times Union editor Casey Seiler sat down with host Adam Klasfeld for a lengthy interview identifying a through line of the governor's three-term tenure: an aversion to independent investigations.

    "You can call it a Shakespearean flaw because, as in so many Shakespeare characters, his virtues are so close to his faults, right?" Seiler noted. "In Cuomo’s case, it is control. When there is a flood, the governor wants to be there wading through the water. When there is a snowstorm, he wants to be helping drag your truck out of the snowy ditch, right? He wants his hands in everything."

    "The flip side of that, the flaw, is the pathological horror at any independent investigation that has anything to do with him," he added.

    In an article titled "The Andrew Cuomo Show Has Lost the Plot," New Republic reporter Alex Pareene contrasted "TV Cuomo" with "newspaper Cuomo," and the author argued that the nursing home and sexual harassment stories have introduced a nation previously familiar with the television character to the print subject.

    No news outlet has covered the latter subject more closely than Cuomo's hometown paper, the Times Union, which endorsed him three times for governor before calling upon him to resign this past weekend. In this episode, Seiler traces the trajectory of Cuomo's career, how the governor wriggled out of past scandals by pulling the levers of power—and what changed with the latest round of controversies.

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    Illuminating the Shadow Docket (Feat. Jennifer Rodgers and Stephen Vladeck) Mar 02, 2021

    On the latest episode of "Objections," experts unpack why federal prosecutors opposed dismissing Steve Bannon's indictment after his pardon and what to do about the Supreme Court's growing "shadow docket."

    Former Southern District of New York prosecutor and CNN legal analyst Jennifer Rodgers explains why ex-President Trump's pardon of Bannon does not fully shield the former White House strategist from federal prosecution, let alone a state probe reportedly heating up across the street.

    University of Texas School of Law Professor Stephen Vladeck discusses his recent House Judiciary Committee hearing about what legal scholars dub the Supreme Court's "shadow docket," rulings decided outside the court’s regular docket without oral argument.

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    Houston's 'Hidden Tax' of Trauma (Feat. Christian Menefee) Feb 23, 2021

    The largest county in Texas has undergone a sea change in political leadership in recent years, and the elected officials' focus—like everyone else in the state—has turned to outages last week that affected millions of people, killed dozens and launched investigations into what went wrong.

    “Folks are overwhelmed, and there's a big element of trauma," Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee, who became the top civil lawyer here in November, noted in the latest episode of Law&Crime's podcast "Objections."

    In a city beset by multiple 500-year weather events within the past half-decade, the Houston Chronicle called trauma the Bayou City's hidden tax, and Menefee agrees, noting it's a price paid more acutely by the poor and communities of color. Part of a new movement of younger, more diverse and progressive leaders, Menefee—the first African-American Harris County Attorney—sounds off on environmental justice and his just-launched civil investigation into regulators previously obscure outside the Lone Star State: the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Public Utility Commission (PUC).

    University of Texas Professor David Spence unpacks the complicated history of Texas's independent energy grid.

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    Getting Personal (Feat. Rep. Val Demings and ex-Rep. Denver Riggleman) Feb 16, 2021

    Rep. Val Demings (D-Fla.), Orlando's ex-police chief, and ex-Rep. Denver Riggleman (R-Va.), a former Air Force intelligence officer, make impeachment personal on the latest episode of Law&Crime's "Objections."

    A former manager from ex-President Trump's first impeachment, Rep. Demings passed the torch to her successors with advice to weave personal narratives as the voices for U.S. public. In her interview, she elaborates on that advice, reflects on the "Thin Blue Line" as a former Orlando police chief, and talks about her new post as chair of the House Homeland Security's Subcommittee on Emergency Preparedness, Response, and Recovery.

    When delivering his farewell address on Dec. 10, then-Rep. Riggleman warned about the dangers of disinformation, and he recalled telling his then-colleagues in the GOP that there would be an "80 percent chance of violence" around the time of the transition. He reflected on this episode about how he "hated to be validated" on Jan. 6, bemoaned the direction of his former party, and described a political career bookended by misinformation campaigns directed at him.

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    The 'Shaman's' Statement (Feat. Al Watkins) Feb 09, 2021

    One of the most visible participants in the U.S. Capitol siege, Jacob Chansley became known throughout the world as the "QAnon Shaman" as photographs of him standing behind then-Vice President Mike Pence's dais in face paint, wearing a fur-pelted-and-horned headdress and carrying a spear hit the wires.

    Telling reporters that his client is willing to testify at Donald Trump's impeachment trial, Chansley's attorney Albert Watkins answers hard questions: Is his client's claim that he was only following the president's orders the Nuremberg defense? Will Chansley renounce the QAnon conspiracy theory that galvanized the insurrection? And was Chansley just Trump's dupe—or what prosecutors call a leader of a dangerous movement?

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    'Unity Requires Accountability' (Feat. Sen. Ron Wyden) Feb 02, 2021

    It's Groundhog Day again, and another Donald Trump impeachment trial is on the horizon.

    As Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) readies for another round of jury service looking into the Jan. 6 insurrection, the incoming Finance Committee Chairman talks about the other Trump-era investigations he is pursuing: a multibillion-dollar money laundering scheme implicating the Turkish government, Jared Kushner's billion-dollar property deal and Qatar, and the justice for the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi—with a new revelation about the CIA report.

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    Washington / OKC (feat. Aitan Goelman) Jan 25, 2021

    For the debut episode of Law&Crime's "Objections," former Oklahoma City bombing prosecutor Aitan Goelman chats with host Adam Klasfeld about the parallels between that domestic terrorism attack and the Capitol siege of Jan. 6, including the role that conspiracy theories played in sparking the violence.

    Pro-Trump attorney Lin Wood, a wellspring of 2020 election conspiracy theories, can be heard fighting with his former law partners in never-before-released tapes. Obtained and heard for the first time in this episode, the recordings show the breakdown of Wood's relationship with those partners, who accuse him of assault, fraud, and “erratic, hostile, abusive, and threatening” behavior.

    The tapes—clippings from seven recordings submitted to a Georgia court—open a window into the man who became tied to former President Trump's efforts to overturn the election.

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