#166: "Good Luck Reading This”

Try as we might, we don’t think we’d ever reach the level of petty disdain that is oozing from these footnotes in this judge’s opinion. 

Matt Taibbi’s lawyers adopted the Mamdani strategy of creating their own graphic to convince a judge not to dismiss his case against journalist Eion Higgins.

The nonprofit group National Security Counselors and YouTube’s Legal Eagle sued to access national security-related opinions by the Office of Legal Counsel from President Trump’s first term.

In a joint opinion, two federal judges decide they should not have to recuse themselves.

A judge rejected the executive branch’s attempt to withhold communications about what happened at DOGE last year.

The Democratic National Committee filed an amicus brief in the Justice Department’s civil case against the state of Arizona over access to its voter rolls.

Here comes the wave of cases over money lost to tariffs.

A Minnesota judge ordered the government to allow the re-entry of a man ICE had deported just hours after his habeas petition was granted and ordered to be released. 

An officer in the U.S. Navy was sentenced to 97 months in prison for his participation in Greggy’s Cult, a precursor group to the online terror ring 764.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York said in a footnote that it was too short-staffed over the weekend to create a table of authorities for its motion. Footnote two is worth a look, too.

In California, there’s a case involving a U.S. Navy analyst, a club soccer team, a sporting goods store, and lots of bribes. 

Members of Congress can visit ICE detention centers now without giving several days' notice after a judge stayed (former?) Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s policy that required at least a seven-day notice.

Federal prosecutors say a high school gym coach was secretly taping students in the locker room. He was previously charged at the state level for destroying his phone when law enforcement was investigating the case.

If you ever wanted to see what text chains would look like while (allegedly) planning an assassination the President on behalf of the Iranian government, we’ve got you covered. 

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution released a trailer for their new podcast examining who blew up the Georgia Guidestones. We’re in. 

The State Department owes $20,000 in legal fees to ProPublica over a FOIA case. We’re still holding out hope for the PACER settlement gold rush.

It’s a sign of the times we live in when a YouTube account named “@JusticePeaceUnity” winds up in a threat case.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers released a tracker for criminal cases across the country that appear to break from past practices. Not to be too catty but it’s an absolute hodgepodge of random entries. 

A man from Brooklyn was charged for allegedly running his car repeatedly into the side of the Chabad-Lubavitch Movement’s headquarters.

We’ve never heard of an alleged road rage incident involving an medieval axe, but there’s a first time for everything.

This case in Texas may be a harbinger for things to come. Après moi, le déluge. 

Judge Wigenton has reached her tipping point: "This Court declines to allow Respondents to transform an unlawful detention into a lawful one through alternative, retrospective, post hoc justification presented mid-litigation, as doing so would give the Government a free pass to violate a person’s statutory and constitutional rights first and search for authority later." 

It’s likely out of your comfort zone, but give our song of the week a chance. If that’s not in your Americana wheelhouse, try this other song by him about having a new baby, which will earworm your weekend.

The “presumption of regularity” continues to look not great. This time, over the government’s attempt to access medical records of transgender patients in Pennsylvania. Chief Judge Cathy Bisson wrote, “To the extent the DOJ has urged trust, moreover, it must understand why its assurances are cold comfort… The Court will not belabor the point. The DOJ’s actions in this area are unprecedented, to say the least. Reliance on historical norms, standards and, frankly, decency, cannot be seen as given.”

A Florida man pleaded guilty to sharing videos of monkey torture. The plea came amidst a surge in animal abuse cases following a memo issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi to focus on protection of animals.

Our editor is a semifinalist for the Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Journalism. The winner will be announced in April, thus opening the possibility that he’ll soon be insufferable at D.C. cocktail parties. 

Here we were thinking that Tron was just a movie with a cool Daft Punk soundtrack.

Chris Beall, the best First Amendment lawyer in the business (and, full disclosure, the winningest lawyer in Court Watch motions history), filed an interesting lawsuit on behalf of his client, a Colorado bookstore.

An attorney wants a judge to quash a subpoena for him by Truth Social’s lawyers after they served him at the end of discovery and potentially want to ask questions about a government whistleblower he represents.

A New York man was indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit murder for hire, providing material support to terrorists, and financing terrorism, among others, for an alleged plot to kill two dissidents on behalf of a foreign country’s security service.

For fans of the latest season of Industry, here’s a case involving a purported shell corporation, the SEC, and a would-be merger with the Trump Media Group. A judge ruled that the case can continue, deciding against the defendant’s motion to dismiss, which argued that the statements at issue were too broad.

The Justice Department announced the takedown of a 142,000-member hacker forum called “LeakBase,” where members could purchase stolen data and hacking tools. The takedown was in cooperation with 14 other countries, including Europol.

Speaking of hackers, we have some North Korean ones for you.

The D.C. “surge” continues to lead to interesting cases about the nexus between federal law enforcement and traffic stops.

Here’s a multimillion-dollar phishing scam from a place called the Caffeine Store.

A Portland protester who ICE agents detained outside of a detention facility sued the government.

On that note, an Oregon judge issued a restraining order limiting federal agents’ use of nonlethal munitions on protestors.

The family of a man whose son died after Google’s Gemini allegedly convinced him to commit suicide in order to join his ‘AI wife’ in the metaverse sued the company. The details in the civil complaint would make most readers want to get pitchforks, torches, and an unruly mob to storm a datacenter. 

There’s drama spilling into federal court from a Title IX investigation into a professor at a Maryland university.

A 61-year-old Japanese man was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to a scheme in which he tried to sell nuclear materials to an undercover agent posing as an Iranian general in return for surface-to-air missiles.  

The Justice Department motioned to withdraw its motion to withdraw its appeal (not a typo) in the law firm case.

It’s a little off-putting to see a newspaper motion for court records to be sealed. If it wasn’t so ridiculously petty, we’d consider filing a motion to stop it. 

A prominent gun rights Texas attorney withdrew from a civil case against the state of Colorado. He is taking a new job in D.C. at the Department of Justice.

Polymarket sued Michigan over state regulations.

The FBI says a man who was previously sentenced to two years in prison for domestic abuse stalked a World of Warcraft streamer on Twitch after she banned him from her stream.

An alleged 80-year-old Greek arms smuggler was arraigned in Ohio on Thursday.

The FOIA office at the State Department appears to be struggling.

A logistics contractor sued a private security group after its agents reportedly evacuated Afghanistan and left behind their weapons at the contractor’s base, leading the Taliban to take it over—thinking it was a U.S. military base—and torture workers for the logistics contractor.

Attorneys representing Director Kash Patel and the FBI filed a motion to dismiss in the civil case brought by nine former agents who were fired for kneeling in a protest during the summer of 2020.

Can governors designate groups as a terrorist organization? The answer is no, at least for now.

A Minneapolis man was sentenced to 57 months in prison for attempting to bribe a juror during a federal fraud trial.

The Fourth Circuit said that Elon Musk won’t have to be deposed in a case over USAID.

The federal defenders representing a Florida man accused of committing voter fraud in Pennsylvania filed a motion for acquittal.

Apparently, using a dead person’s name can work for a few years, but the feds will eventually notice.

The United Methodist Church in Georgia says it had $400,000 stolen from it.

A civilian contractor at Naval Station Norfolk was arrested for allegedly cutting and stealing 48,000 pounds of copper wires from the base to sell.