A decision from the Supreme Court this week might affect some potential pardons that President Trump may or may not be considering. In Gamble v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld (7-2, with Justices Gorsuch and Ginsburg dissenting) the dual sovereignty doctrine that says states and the federal government can separately charge and try the same crime if an act is illegal under both federal and state law. Paul Manafort’s probably paying attention to this. Ken says the decision wasn’t a surprise, and remember way back in October when we spent 35 minutes dissecting a theory that Justice Kavanaugh was nominated to try to kill this doctrine? Good times.
Then: Paul Manafort is not going to Rikers Island, the notorious prison in New York, to await the start of his trial in the state. Someone really high up in the Department of Justice intervened. Why, and what gives?
Ken and Josh take a couple of timely and newsy questions sent in by listeners, and then settle in for a chat about Alex Jones and why, if you’re Alex Jones’s lawyer, you should not agree to go on Alex Jones’s show while he’s discussing a conspiracy theory involving the opposing counsel. Yikes.