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The answer for T3BE34 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!
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Unpredictably, our recent torrent of episodes continues. We take a deep dive into Moore v. United States, which addressed the scope of Congress's constitutional power to tax.
Jon Lovett joins Melissa and Leah to climb inside the mind of one of Project 2025’s biggest boosters: J.D. Vance. It’s nasty in there! Then, Leah and Melissa discuss the proposed SCOTUS reforms. Finally, Leah chats with Olivia Warren and Deeva Shah about misconduct in the federal judiciary–specifically, the investigation into certified creep Judge Joshua Kindred.
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2025!
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Order your copy of Leah's book, Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes
OA1057
We’re giving ourselves a break this week from Trump, the Supreme Court, and all things 2024 to indulge in one of Matt’s all-time favorite subjects: CIA mind control experiments! In this extra-carefully-researched episode, Matt breaks down the history of the federal government’s MKULTRA program to fund research in brainwashing, mind control, and LSD on unsuspecting U.S. and (for some reason) Canadian citizens, as well as the inherent legal issues in trying to sue the CIA for something you can’t remember and for which most evidence has been destroyed. Why was the CIA funding a sadistic mad scientist in Montreal, and is there any hope of justice for the families of his victims today?
BOOKS
Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control , Stephen Kinzer (2019)
The Search for the Manchurian Candidate: the CIA and Mind Control, John Marks (1979)(link goes to full text on CIA website)
The Devil's Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America's Secret Government: David Talbot (2016)
CHAOS: The Truth Behind the Manson Murders, Tom O’Neill (2020)
LEGAL PROCEEDINGS
“PROJECT MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification,” (transcript of joint Senate hearing)(8/3/1977)
Judgment dismissing former Deputy U.S. Marshall Wayne Ritchie’s claims against the CIA in Ritchie v. U.S. (N.D. CA 2005)
ARTICLES
ANATOMY OF A PUBLIC INTEREST CASE AGAINST THE CIA, Joseph Rauh and Jim Turner, Hamline Journal of Law and Public Policy (Fall 1990)
MK-ULTRA: Quebec high court says U.S. has immunity in Canada | Montreal Gazette (10/3/23)
CIA Denies Conspiracy Theory That It Used MKUltra on Trump Shooter, Gizmodo.com (7/28/24)
“After Learning of Whitey Bulger LSD Tests, Juror Has Regrets,” PBS (2/18/2020)
“Before He Was the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski was a CIA Mind Control Test Subject,” Washington Post (6/11/2023)
PODCASTS & DOCUMENTARIES
Brainwashed, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2024)
Madness, WBUR (2020)
The Sleep Room: CIA-funded experiments on patients in Montreal hospital (1998) - The Fifth Estate (CBC)
Wormwood, Errol Morris, Netflix (2017)
In the first in a new series, The Law According to Trump, Amicus begins an extensive exploration of Donald Trump's tumultuous relationship with the courts and legal system, focusing on Trump's use of lawyers and lawsuits to enhance his brand, wealth, and power. In the past few months, attention has rightly been on several blockbuster federal cases involving former President Trump, all the way up to and including his immunity case at the Supreme Court, but Trump’s history with the law goes back much further and is much broader than the election subversion cases.
While Dahlia Lithwick takes a well-deserved break, Amicus is very lucky to have award-winning investigative journalist Andrea Bernstein in the host chair. Andrea has covered five trials against Trump or his company for NPR, is the author of American Oligarchs: the Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power, and she has also hosted three podcasts that touch on Trump and the law, including, most recently “We Don’t Talk About Leonard.”
This episode delves into Trump's history of litigation with a close eye on how he has used nuisance lawsuits. Slate’s jurisprudence editor Jeremy Stahl joins Andrea to outline the many people and organizations the former President has sued since leaving office. Then, former US Attorney Jim Zirin, author of Plaintiff in Chief: A Portrait of Donald Trump in 3500 Lawsuits, fills us in on the history of Trump’s love of litigation.
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OA1056
As the Trump campaign celebrates the “demise” of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, we check in on reports of its death to see just how exaggerated they might be. Does it even matter that the ultra-conservative push to remake the personnel and policies of the federal government run by people who talk like Bond villains is (allegedly) no longer in the policy game? And how did things get to the point that these people were too extreme for Stephen Miller?
We then discuss the Supreme Court’s recent decision to dismiss Moyle v US without a decision on the merits of Idaho's attempts to criminalize nearly all abortions. Why did the conservative justices rush to jump into this case only to find that they never should have done that? What can we learn from this week's unprecedented inside leaks about how this decision?
Finally, a quick check on the state of Donald Trump's gag order and Nikki Haley's weird attempt to get her name out of her treacherous former SuperPAC's collective mouth.
42 USC 1395dd (relevant EMTALA provision)
St Luke’s Medical System’s amicus brief in Moyle (detailing specific harms to pregnant people of allowing Idaho’s so-called “Defense of Life Act” to go into effect)
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We continue our breakneck pace and dig into two substantive criminal law opinions: Fischer v. United States and Snyder v. United States.
The answer for T3BE33 is coming your way, and we launch our next Bar Prep question with Heather!
Right now, the best place to play (if you aren't a patron...) is at reddit.com/r/openargs!
If you’d like to support the show (and lose the ads!), please pledge at patreon.com/law!
President Biden has stepped aside as a candidate, and as promised, we look at what’s next from a variety of points of view. Some Republicans, notably the Speaker, are claiming that the President should actually resign or step back under the 25th amendment. What would this mean? Meanwhile, we have a lot more in this early episode, including a reader’s question on Barack Obama; another on Edmund Burke; a preview of an amazing EverScholar program; a preview of Biden’s Supreme Court proposed reform; and more. CLE credit is available from podcast.njsba.com.
We're back just a few days after our last episode to dive in to Harrington v. Purdue Pharma, a 5-4 decision about the power of the bankruptcy system to release claims against third parties.