This week Ken and Josh discuss Judge Lewis Kaplan losing some patience with Sam Bankman-Fried, and not just because Bankman-Fried’s mom tried to communicate with him ex parte. SBF has been making purportedly pro se filings, at least one of which appears to have been dictated to and FedExed by his mother, and he simultaneously has an appeal proceeding in the appeals court with real lawyers. Kaplan says he has to choose — are you pro se or not? And he wants to know — have any lawyers besides mom been helping with these filings he’s supposedly personally responsible for?

Meanwhile, the “Department of War” has been having a rough time in court. The Pentagon’s anti-reporting press policy has been thrown out as a First Amendment violation, so now the Pentagon says no reporters at all can work out of the Pentagon press room. Meanwhile, Anthropic won a preliminary injunction blocking the Pentagon’s declaration that the company is a “Supply Chain Risk.” (The Anthropic order came down after we taped — we’ll have a further update on next week’s show.)

That’s for all subscribers. Paying subscribers will also hear our conversations about:

* DOJ’s admission that it had no evidence of a crime related to Jay Powell’s testimony about Federal Reserve headquarters renovation cost overruns (and the surprisingly low bar for issuing a subpoena that the government nevertheless failed to clear).

* A surprisingly practical choice by DOJ in New Jersey.

* Minnesota’s effort to force the federal government to disclose investigative material related to the shooting deaths of Alex Pretti and Renée Good.

* Mike Lindell in contempt of court.

* Mike Flynn getting a settlement from Trump for his alleged persecution by Trump’s own DOJ.

* No protective order for those DOGE henchman depositions.

* And the Oklahoma Supreme Court telling attorneys to go ahead and use AI, if they dare.

Upgrade your subscription to receive all of our episodes at serioustrouble.show.

This week Ken and Josh discuss the Afroman trial and also look at a rough hearing for AUSAs in New Jersey, as the Trump administration decides it will hire candidates straight out of law school to work in US Attorneys’ offices.

That’s for all subscribers. Paying subscribers will also hear our conversations about:

* Judge James Boasberg’s order quashing subpoenas to the Federal Reserve, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s choice to appeal that order, and Boasberg’s other order requiring the disclosure of grand jury no-bills.

* Capitol pipe bomber defendant Brian Cole, who has made his anticipated claim that the president’s pardon of January 6 rioters also applies to him (even though this seems to go against the plain language of the pardon, which applies only to those “convicted” of offenses related to January 6.)

* Sam Bankman-Fried’s mom, who got slapped down for trying to have ex-parte communications with the judge overseeing his case; Judge Lewis Kaplan reminded Prof. Barbara Fried that she might be a lawyer, but she’s not her son’s lawyer, at least not in this case.

* Defendants convicted of terrorism-related offenses in Texas over an anti-ICE action where they set off fireworks and one defendant shot a law enforcement officer in the neck; as Ken notes, despite the rhetoric on both sides, this trial was never really about whether ‘Antifa’ constitutes a terror organization.

* More hot hot administrative procedure action, with Judge Brian Murphy issuing a preliminary injunction against the new, laxer child vaccination guidelines from Robert F. Kennedy Jr’.s Department of Health and Human Services.

* And dog-fashion magazine Dogue, which is being sued by Condé Nast for infringing the Vogue trademark.

Upgrade your subscription to receive all of our episodes at serioustrouble.show.

This week Ken and Josh discuss the Customs Service saying its computers won't let it refund IEEPA tariffs, more situations where courts are telling the Trump Administration it can’t just ignore the need to get officials confirmed by the Senate, and another decision about ICE.

That's for all subscribers. Paying subscribers will also hear our conversations about a number of additional lawsuits, including some especially weird ones:

* Voting machine maker Smartmatic’s parent company under indictment over bribes its former executives are alleged to have paid in the Philippines, alleges that it is being selectively and vindictively prosecuted.

* Anthropic suing over the Pentagon’s “supply chain risk” designation that threatens the company’s business. The company makes First Amendment claims, but Ken thinks its less glamorous arguments — like that the designation violated everyone’s favorite law, the Administrative Procedure Act — are more persuasive.

* Nippon Life Insurance Company of America suing OpenAI, the makers of the ChatGPT AI engine. Nippon says it has been dogged by a vexatious litigant — she decided she didn’t like the settlement she’d signed with the company, and when her human lawyer advised her that settlements are a no-backsies kind of situation, she fired him in favor of the AI engine that gave her the advice she wanted to hear: sue, sue, sue. Nippon says this is tortious interference with the valid settlement contract they’d entered with their aggrieved former policyholder. Because tortious interference requires knowledge of the contract you’re interfering with, this lawsuit turns an interesting philosophical question into an interesting legal one — did OpenAI “know” that Nippon had a settlement, simply because their former policyholder told ChatGPT about it?

* And Ed Martin appears to be the Justice Department official with some especially stupid bar trouble.

Upgrade your subscription to receive all of our episodes at serioustrouble.show.