Welcome to Court Watch #189. We have a roundup filled with meth at the CIA headquarters, FIFA tea, and a $450 million investment scam. But first, let’s talk about Caamp, the American folk band that is the background music for a lot of our writing.
When one of our favorite Caamp songs, All The Debt I Owe, came on the playlist this week, we felt a pull to see if we could find a song that matched the vibe. Admittedly, our muses for court watching come from a lot of different and strange places. Much like the band and the song, the would-be court docket had to include a larger than life (in some circles) figure, be relatively unknown outside of the most terminally online fans, have some sort of unpayable debt/the promise of new beginnings, and a rhythmic soothing that reminds you of sleep.
Which naturally brought us to the Great Lakes. In the beginning of this year, the Minnesota sleep comfort company, MyPillow, sued ACI International, a company that makes slippers, for putting a levy on MyPillow’s Amazon account. The suit states ACI International implemented the levy after MyPillow fell behind on its payments to the manufacturer, which MyPillow attributed to economic losses after being a target of the FBI’s Arctic Frost investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 election. In the filings, MyPillow argued that ACI’s levy could result in the company’s demise. All told, MyPillow was purportedly on the hook for millions of dollars but had a cash flow issue. But there was a possibility of a, for lack of a better word, government bailout. According to emails filed as exhibits in the case, MyPillow founder Mike Lindell offered a cut of a possible weaponization settlement to pay off the debt.
MyPillow claimed ACI International continued the tax levy despite the two companies reaching an agreement that MyPillow would use a portion of a possible settlement with the government over purported wrongdoing in the Arctic Frost investigation to pay ACI International. In response to the lawsuit, ACI International filed separate motions this week to transfer the case to California and dismiss it, along with a host of exhibits.
One exhibit is the “security agreement” for the hypothetical Arctic Frost settlement. The agreement states MyPillow owes ACI International $15.4 million and promises that MyPillow will pay the full debt if it receives a settlement of more than $50 million. If the settlement is less than $50 million, the security agreement proposes for My Pillow to pay 80 percent of its outstanding debt.
The newest court filings from ACI International includes a declaration from its lawyer that, “I am not aware of any evidence that MyPillow has submitted a claim relating to “Arctic Frost” to any governmental agency, or that any recovery on any such claim has been made or is owed to MyPillow.”
MyPillow and Lindell did not respond to a January 2026 request for comment on the lawsuit. His lawyers did not respond to an additional inquiry this week. We didn’t reach out to Caamp, though they did previously release a song called No Sleep.
Now on to other dockets you may have slept on this week.
The Docket Roundup
A federal judge is refusing, on procedural grounds, to dismiss charges against alleged co-conspirators in Indian billionaire Gautam Adani’s case.
It wouldn’t be the first week of the college football season without Lane Kiffin drama.
The Trump administration has started deporting Iranian immigrants to the Central African Republic, including several who had pending asylum appeals.
A doctor and several former federal employees sued the CDC for not giving more guidance about Havana syndrome.
OpenAI is being sued by a 13-year-old who witnessed a school shooting in Canada. The lawsuit argues that ChatGPT encouraged the shooter.
Prosecutors are appealing a district court judge’s ruling that tower dumps are unconstitutional to the Fifth Circuit. It’s a case we’ve been watching closely with huge ramifications for how law enforcement conducts investigations involving multiple crime scenes.
A judge ordered the State Department to turn over answers to why it shut down USAID.
A former postal employee who bought a flamethrower off TikTok was deemed competent to stand trial by a judge and released from a mental facility.
A newly unsealed warrant gives a window into how the IRGC sought cryptocurrency donations online.
If we came up with a list of things you would not want in your car while trying to drive into the CIA headquarters, meth and a fixed-blade knife would make that list.
Prosecutors wanted a 33-month prison sentence for a Chinese spy who is the son of a Republican operative. They got 24 months.
Leon Black is resisting subpoenas from the House Oversight Committee in an Epstein-related probe.
The Justice Department’s National Security Division announced that it seized more than half a million dollars intended to go to Hamas.
A 17-year-old from Maine was the first juvenile in the country to be federally charged for being a member of 764. The buried lede in the FBI press release, however, is that the number of active investigations has increased to more than 500 today from 250 in December 2025.
Prosecutors and federal defenders are still sorting out the release conditions for the defendant in the Roblox ISIS alleged threat case, apparently after an eight-month miscommunication.
Finally, the hypothetical 3L law exam question of how a crim pro law professor would handle a questionable search came true.
The Justice Department declined to investigate an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Executive Office for U.S. Attorneys for hiring prostitutes. The Justice Department attorney resigned before the investigation could commence, thus killing it before it could proceed.
“A shitshow,” says a customs official on a bodycam discussing a large-scale immigration raid in New York.
A man who appears to be suffering from a mental illness was arrested for allegedly threatening a Nashville police officer over Instagram DMs. The son of an undocumented woman, who reportedly told investigators he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, was charged in North Carolina for allegedly threatening ICE agents. A Tennessee woman was charged with threatening to kill FBI agents. A California podcaster was charged with threatening to kill the President. And rounding out this week in (allegedly) poor reactions to law enforcement, a judge ordered a Wyoming man to stay locked up before being tried for reportedly threatening a local police officer, judge, and county prosecutor who handled his DUI case.
The Ninth Circuit sided with the state of Nevada and tribal authorities over Kalshi, about whether prediction markets operate as gambling sites.
It took at least eight law enforcement officers to detain one handcuffed purported credit card scammer at the Fort Lauderdale airport.
The Justice Department wants a judge to unseal search warrant applications for Victoria Toensing, a Republican operative who is married to Joe diGenova, a counselor to Attorney General Todd Blanche.
A teen was charged in North Carolina state court with three counts of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder for her alleged ties to the San Diego mosque shooting, an interesting development in efforts to push back against increasingly online violent extremism.
A dog-themed crypto coin allegedly turned out to be dog shit.
The Justice Department paid $3,500 to the third branch for civil contempt in an immigration case.
Allegedly selling machine gun conversion devices through TikTok is a new one.
Your pro se of the week is an elections case out of Illinois that raises concerns about how anonymous voting-by-mail sequences could be reverse-engineered to identify voters.
In honor of our plans to see Ben Rector (with the National Symphony Orchestra (!)) at Constitution Hall next Tuesday, here’s our song of the week.
The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is involved in an ammunition case after a traffic stop in Ohio led to an interesting discovery.
Iran, North Korea, and the Sinaloa Cartel—this crypto seizure has it all.
The FTC and 22 states sued Amazon, claiming the company manipulates and falsely advertises its prices.
A judge allowed the government to force-feed the man accused of shooting two members of the National Guard in D.C. last year, who's been on a hunger strike.
The Atlantic filed another brief to support its motion to dismiss FBI Director Kash Patel’s civil suit against the publication.
A new group of pardoned J6ers, who are calling themselves in court filings the “J6ers Were Tortured In The DC Gulag,” asked a judge to order Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon to investigate their civil rights claims. (Hat tip to Lawfare’s Sarah Willrich.)
We love us some good old-fashioned FIFA tea.
The state of Maryland asked a judge to unseal a transcript from a sex offender case that’s been sealed for almost 20 years.
A road over an isthmus in Alaska can go ahead after an environmental group sought to block its construction.
The D.C. Circuit vacated a district court’s decision to dismiss Bowe Bergdahl’s court-martial conviction for leaving his U.S. Army installation in Afghanistan in 2009.
Speaking of the D.C. Circuit, what’s up with this opinion regarding an anonymous SEC lawsuit?
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management agreed to turn over records to the New York Times.
A federal judge had some strong words for the Trump administration’s executive order in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling affirming birthright citizenship.
The feds obtained an indictment in Texas for a man who allegedly cyberstalked by sending a torrent of Instagram direct messages.
There’s an alleged $450 million pre-IPO investment scam out of California and New York.
The BBC wants Cassidy Hutchinson to still testify in President Trump’s defamation case.
A Virginian woman allegedly lured a man to her home over Snapchat at 2 in the morning, where her partner mugged him with an AR-15.
Thanks for reading. For Sunday’s The Rabbit Hole, we’re diving into an old national security case and asking the question about whether second chances are ever a possibility.
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