Indictments Dismissed

KIM (00:11)
Welcome back to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Barb McQuaid, Joyce Fance, Jill Winebanks, and me, Kim Atkins-Stora. I mean, welcome back to me. It’s been so long since I’ve talked to you guys. I’ve missed you.

BARB (00:24)
Yeah, we’re so glad you’re back, Kim.

KIM (00:26)
And thank you so much for holding down the fort while I was away for a little bit. I really appreciate it. And as for you listeners, the hoodies and t-shirts are available to order for the holidays. Who would not love hashtag sisters in law gear in their stockings this year? I don’t know. I don’t know. So you should go right now to politicon.com slash merch where you can find all of the goodies and the link is in the show notes too. So don’t wait, go there now before things sell out in the holiday rush. Well, it has been quite a week. So we have a lot to discuss. We can’t even scratch the surface of everything that happened this week, y’all, because it has been a doozy. But we are going to discuss a few things. One, the inability of the Department of Justice to be able to indict Letitia James. She is Teflon Tish, and we’re going to break down why. Also, SCOTUS gone wild, the Supreme Court.

But what I think is a preview of the full dagger it’s about to draw, a drive into the heart of the Voting Rights Act by allowing Texas’s gerrymandered district to go into effect. And should we call the Pentagon the Department of War Crimes now? We’ll break down all the drama over Secretary Hegseth and that hit on a boat in the Caribbean.

But before we get to that, you I saw a story ⁓ that said that California is considering requiring all lawyers to take a civility oath. It’s basically an oath not to be jerks as a practice law. Listen, I’ve said before, the number one reason I stopped practicing law was because as a civil litigator, I dealt with other lawyers all day long and lawyers I found to be really, really big. It’s a family show, so I’ll say jerks. Just for no reason. mean, just really disagreeable people, nasty for no reason. It just, I just can’t, I don’t thrive in that kind of an atmosphere. So I’m all for a civility oath, especially if it’s enforceable in some way. Like I have a lot of questions about how it works, but what do you guys think? Do you think lawyers need a civility oath? you guys have this issue as prosecutors? Were defense attorneys awful or what do you think? How about you,

BARB (02:57)
You know, one of the things that’s super interesting that was very surprising to me is how civil criminal practitioners are, at least to prosecutors. Really? It was very different from my experience in civil practice, because mine was like yours, in a big law, at a big law firm. People can be really sharp elbowed and, you know, they don’t exactly lie to you, but they lead you to believe one thing and then represent something else to the court. It was really discouraging to see that sort of thing.

KIM (03:06)
Really?

BARB (03:25)
But I found it to be completely different in the world of criminal practice. And I think one reason may be that it’s a much smaller bar. And so what goes around comes around. You see the same people over and over again. Maybe that’s the reason. But I found people to be very ⁓ collegial, very civil. ⁓ If you wanted an extension, as long as it didn’t compromise any rights of their client, people gave that sort of courtesy pretty regularly. So I thought that was great. ⁓

But I do know what you mean when it comes to civil practice or some of the things I think we’re seeing in ⁓ some of the cases coming down now ⁓ in the current administration. If it had some teeth, I think a civility oath could be useful. But ⁓ what are you going to do for people who aren’t, right? I suppose it’s just a reminder symbolically of how important it is to the profession that you participate in communications with opposing counsel with civility. the jerks who already aren’t doing it probably are not going to comply unless there is some punishment in exchange for the failure to comply.

KIM (04:37)
Yeah, and it’s tough, right? Because it depends on what the uncivil act is. Like, as you mentioned, I found a lot of times with when opposing counsel asked me for an extension to file answers to interrogatories or something, just, you know, basic litigation stuff, I would always say, sure. But then when I asked for it, when I got sick, they said no. It’s like stuff like that. But then you also might run into First Amendment problems if, you know, people if…people are like verbally nasty to you, which has also happened to me. But what do you think, Jill?

JILL (05:09)
I agree with Barb. My experience as a prosecutor is that you have a lot of power. And I think that’s maybe one of the additional reasons that defense attorneys behave, ⁓ which I would also say the thing I experienced more from defense lawyers was early in my practice, the sexism. But not the nastiness.

What I found horrible in private practice and which really made it unattractive to me was the frivolous motions that were put forward, the delay, the stuff that was put forward for no real reason with no prospect of winning. ⁓ I’m always glad when sanctions are imposed ⁓ as they have been on Alina Jaba and Donald Trump recently. We’ll talk more about that later. ⁓some sort of enforcement mechanism. It’s like the emoluments clause. Donald Trump violates it, and so what? There’s no enforcement mechanism. You violate the civility. Not bad to have a reminder that you should be civil, but didn’t your mother raise you to believe that you should behave and be civil and nice? So I don’t know how an adult lawyer is going to change their behavior just because they sign a civility. In some states, there are classes that you have to take incivility, I think it’s every couple of years. And that’s a good idea, not a bad thing to say, there’s a technique I could use. So it’s not a bad thing, I just don’t think it’s gonna make a big difference.

KIM (06:44)
What do you think, Joyce?

JOYCE (06:46)
You know, it makes me sad that we even have to have the conversation because members of the bar are professionals and they should know better. I think to some extent, know, Barb is right that the criminal bar ⁓ tends to get along a little bit better than the civil bar because at the end of the day, none of us are losing money or going to prison, whereas in civil cases, the stakes are a little bit different. I think it’s also different geographically. For instance, there’s an enormous difference in the Birmingham bar and the amount of collegiality that we share than there was when I practiced law in Washington, D.C. when, I had the experience that you mentioned where people wouldn’t give extensions or wouldn’t engage in that sort of nice behavior. Ultimately, I worry about letting bar associations or some force police who’s behaving well and who isn’t because I think that could turn very easily into a game of playing favorites and ins and outs.

And I think it’s up to bars and to lawyers themselves to set standards and to be collegial and to engage in the best practices we expect of lawyers. I suspect we can do a lot to shape those views in law school, but ultimately, you know, we live in a difficult moment and what’s happening in the bar associations reflects the mood elsewhere in the country too, I fear.

KIM (08:09)
Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think at the end of the day, I mean, just don’t be a jerk, no matter what your profession. Come on. Like it doesn’t… To me, when other lawyers did that to me, and I suspect there may have been, you know, to Jill’s point, some ⁓ sexism or racism even involved in my personal experience, but just, you know…

It’s enough things going on in the world. Like, let’s not just be jerks to each other. So I’ll be interested to see what happens in California and whether it does sure serve as some sort of exemplar, but we’ll keep our eyes on that.

JILL (08:53)
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KIM (09:15)
Jill, clearly, Brisby thinks that there aren’t enough pictures of him on the aura frame, so could you fix that, please?

JILL (09:20)
Exactly that. I’m glad you interpreted him correctly.

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BARB (12:08)
was a bad week for the Department of Justice in districts where Trump has installed loyalists as US attorneys. Let’s start with the most recent one in the Eastern District of Virginia, where the court recently dismissed the indictments against James Comey and Letitia James because of the illegal appointment of Lindsay Halligan as the US attorney there. They tried to do over, and the grand jury said nothing doing. They declined to return an indictment. Jill, let me ask you about this. I found it

very interesting that this time the prosecutors sought the indictment in the Norfolk division. Joyce, I know that’s not the correct pronunciation of Norfolk, but I find that when I try to pronounce it correctly, I can’t avoid swearing. So I’m going to go with Norfolk.

JOYCE (12:55)
Okay, okay. I’m gonna let loose and now you’re gonna be all over me. ⁓

BARB (13:00)
Norfolk

division. Whereas last time, remember, Lindsay Halligan presented the case in Alexandria. Remember, there was this whole kerfuffle where they fired the career people in Norfolk who had presented part of the case there. And so Lindsay Halligan presented it herself in Alexandria. And that’s the one, of course, because it got invalidated because she was not validly appointed as a US attorney. What do you think is the significance of that choice to go to Norfolk and not Alexandria and whether that played any role in their decision?

JILL (13:29)
So first, let me say how unusual it is to get a no true bill. It happens in less than 0.001 % of cases. It’s just never happened, I’m sure, to any of us. we don’t know even of anybody who it happened to. So it’s really unusual. this one was because the case was dismissed because of Lindsay Halligan being improperly appointed, unlawfully appointed.

The Department of Justice is probably in the midst of appealing that. And so they can’t really go back there, but I think they actually could. All they would need to do would be to have a legitimate prosecutor present the case to a different grand jury. That would probably work if they could find someone.

BARB (14:21)
Don’t they even also need some evidence, ⁓

JILL (14:24)
Well,

there… Yes. Okay. You are absolutely right. course, there is that problem that it’s an unfounded case and that it should not be brought at all. But we know that it is a ⁓ discriminatory case, that it is a vindictive, selective prosecution based on no merit because all of the legitimate prosecutors who were presented with the possibility of doing this, I won’t do it. And the US attorney for the Eastern District was fired or resigned

instead of being fired because he wouldn’t do it. And the staff presented a declination memo to the newly appointed Lindsay Halligan who said, I don’t care, I’m doing it, but no one else would go with her. No one in the office. On the other hand, even in, and I’ll say it this way, did Barb Norfolk of Virginia, ⁓ even there, no one from there apparently is willing because they brought in someone from Missouri. Why from Missouri? don’t know why.

JOYCE (15:22)
Civil lawyers from Missouri, not even criminal prosecutors.

JILL (15:25)
Right, so they don’t know what they’re doing. It’s the same thing as Lindsay Halligan. But if they could bring them into Norfolk, why couldn’t they bring them into Alexandria? I don’t know. So it could have been brought anywhere, but they decided to go back to this other jurisdiction. And then they presented it. And it got no-billed. it is now a legitimate assistant US attorney, at least, who

presented it, but it is a symbol of how bad the case is, that even with that, they couldn’t get an indictment. And I think there’s just a lot going on there. It’s just another episode in the stuff. mean, Barbara and Joyce, you’ve talked about if you had a law school exam that gave this as a hypothetical, it would be too ridiculous and no one would believe it. And this is just one more example of how ridiculous it is.

They lose because of the bad appointment of a US attorney, and then they try to do it somewhere else, and it’s rejected. And it’s just absurd that they’re doing this. It’s a challenge to the substantive part of the case, ⁓ and is more evidence that this is a selective prosecution. And remember that the person who referred the case to the Department of Justice, Pulte, his family has done something that

looks like they actually did violate the rules. Of course, they’re not indicted. There are a lot of other Republicans who look suspiciously like they might have violated the actual rules. Whereas there is exculpatory evidence that Letitia James did not. It’s clearly a selective case that should be thrown out, shouldn’t ever be brought. They should stop now, but they are talking about another triad.

KIM (17:20)
Can I just add to just living in the Washington DC area, Alexandria, I if you’re pulling from a jury pool, that’s greater Washington DC and it tends to be quite blue. The farther outside of greater Washington that you get in Virginia, the redder it gets. So my thought was always, it was, know, Alexandria was too woke. So they’re gonna try it again.

BARB (17:41)
A little forum shopping.

KIM (17:43)
In a different part of Virginia, but it still didn’t work.

BARB (17:46)
Yeah. Well, Joyce, there has been reporting that some of the documents in this case are actually exonerating. There was a great piece in Politico in October that actually looked at some of these mortgage documents that showed that they actually permitted the property to be used as a rental property, which is the ⁓ basis for ⁓ charging James with mortgage fraud.

Can you tell us about the legal duty of prosecutors to present exculpatory evidence to a grand jury? ⁓ We don’t know, of course, whether it was or wasn’t presented to this grand jury, ⁓ but that could account for the finding of a no-true bill, couldn’t it?

JOYCE (18:30)
You know, it’s a really great question because the rules are very clear, but maybe if you’re a civil lawyer from St. Louis, you don’t know them when you’re in front of the grand jury down in Norfolk. as you say, we don’t know grand jury proceedings are completely opaque because of secrecy rules, but prosecutors obligations are very clear. There’s a case called United States versus Williams from 1992, a Supreme court case where the court held that federal courts can’t

force prosecutors to share exculpatory information with the grand jury. But, and there’s a but here, it’s DOJ policy that prosecutors, at least a prosecutor who’s personally aware of substantial evidence that directly negates the guilt of a subject of the investigation, has to make the grand jury familiar with that information before they seek an indictment. Now look, the consequences of failure to do that aren’t

⁓ aren’t like a death penalty for your prosecution. In the Williams case, they had actually tried to get the case dismissed and the court declined to do that. Well, with the DOJ policy, the remedy is not dismissal of a case, it’s that prosecutors get referred internally at DOJ for sanctions. And of course, in this justice department, that process is non-existent, I’m certain. So it’s sort of a toothless remedy in some ways, but as a practical matter,

Only a foolish prosecutor would go in front of a grand jury and get an indictment knowing that there was exculpatory evidence available. Because the first thing that would happen is that the defense lawyer would begin to raise that in court. And if the case made it to a jury, it would be fair game there. Prosecutors are obligated to turn over exculpatory evidence in discovery to defendants. The failure to do that is pretty much a career ender for a prosecutor.

Ultimately, there is a consequence in every reason to believe that prosecutors still have to be responsible in this area.

BARB (20:34)
Yeah, that’s such a perfect answer. ⁓ In fact, Joyce, I didn’t even realize that the Supreme Court had ruled the way it did until I started teaching criminal procedure because of the DOJ policy. Like, of course you present exculpatory evidence to the grand jury. I actually thought that was the law. It was just DOJ policy. I’ve since learned the Williams case that you just talked about, which is the Supreme Court says it’s not constitutionally required. It’s not a due process violation, but it is ensconced in DOJ policy.

And we would always present any exculpatory information to the grand jury. Part of it is because it seemed like you don’t want to go down this path of putting somebody through the burden of being prosecuted if they’re not going to be convicted at trial anyway because of this exculpatory information. You also, however, wanted to get a read from the grand jury. Is this a big deal? Because sometimes exculpatory information is, you know, I have 10 witnesses and one of them turns out to have been mistaken.

I might still go forward with that case, right? Because I’ve got nine good witnesses and the jury just has to accept that this 10th witness made a mistake. ⁓ I kind of want to get a gauge on that from a grand jury so that ⁓ as I’m assessing whether to take this case, I can figure out how bothered is a random group of jurors by this bad fact that I have in my case. Maybe that gives me pause. Maybe I decide not to bring the case as a result of that. this idea of presenting exculpatory information

is a really important one. So thank you for explaining that to us. ⁓ So Kim, where are we now? Does this mean, guess, Letitia James is in the clear, right? They’re done. ⁓ No more mortgage fraud case for Letitia James. Or can they try again? And if so, do think they will?

KIM (22:17)
Well, they’ve said they want to. mean, according to… They can’t get tired of losing. They are going to try this again. And clearly we have to underscore that the whole reason that we’re here is because Donald Trump ordered them to do it. He publicly told Pam Bondi to prosecute Letitia James and Pam Bondi replied and said on True Social and said that she would. So again, that’s probably a lot of evidence that’s… ⁓

BARB (22:19)
Sorry!

KIM (22:46)
racking up in the vindictive prosecution ⁓ claims that ⁓ James would have if somehow they do find some grand jury somewhere willing to return a true bill. But this is really a big waste of time, waste of resources. I feel terrible for any line prosecutor if they can find one that gets put on this case and they really need to stop it.

JILL (23:13)
Yeah.

JOYCE (23:13)
You know, and to the point you made earlier, Kim, about politics, I think something that’s lost on folks sometimes that’s worth saying is that Norfolk is a democratic area. They voted for Joe Biden. They vote largely blue in the counties, although it’s heavily military. You know, if they’re looking for a conservative jury, I don’t think that they’re going to get one down there.

KIM (23:39)
Maybe go try Roanoke next.

JOYCE (23:42)
Thank God it’s in the Western District.

BARB (23:45)
Newport News, I always liked that name, Newport News. They got a court there, Newport News, Virginia. ⁓

JOYCE (23:50)
But I mean, you know, it’s very much like the issue that I had in my district in Huntsville where we have a big military base. And because of that, you have a very cosmopolitan, very highly educated makeup in your juries. And it’s not necessarily what people might expect.

BARB (24:06)
Yeah, I think people should not confuse conservative with MAGA, right? Like, people who’ve served honorably in the military or in the government, like, they get how bad this is. And so I think that is maybe a mistake that they’re making, assuming that people who are in, you know, traditionally red areas or more conservative areas are going to be in the bag for the Trump administration. I think some of them are the biggest opponents of what’s going on, because they’re the ones who know just how ⁓ wildly inappropriate all of this is.

Well, let’s talk about another issue that occurred earlier in this week with the Department of Justice. And that is the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the appointment of the US attorney in New Jersey, Alina Habba, is invalid. Jill, can you tell us what the court decided in that case?

JILL (24:53)
Sure, and while we’re looking at trends, this is one more in a series of trends. We’ve mentioned Lindsay Halligan, but there’s Nevada and California where we’ve had this issue. Alina Haba, of course, was a former personal attorney for Donald Trump with no particular qualifications to serve as US Attorney. And the Third Circuit ruled on Monday of this week, you know, last Monday, that she had been unlawfully serving as New Jersey’s top federal prosecutor for many months.

And that’s because she had been appointed to serve in a temporary position, which means for 120 days, her 120 days expired. by the way, during that 120 days, she said the bad things out loud. She was not careful and she basically said, I’m going to use my position to turn this district red. She was clearly looking for political wins in that case. ⁓ And so it was…

interesting because at the end of 120 days, she had not yet been confirmed, which meant that the appointment of a prosecutor is no longer that of the executive branch. It goes to the judges in the district. And if no one’s appointed, then the first assistant becomes the acting person. And so what happened here was the first assistant did become the acting and then she was fired by Pam Bondi so that Pam Bondi

could name Alina Haba as the first assistant. And then she could, as first assistant, take over her own former role. So, I mean, this is like so crazy. Again, this is one of your law school exams that you wouldn’t ever use this as an example. It’s just too ridiculous. ⁓ So there you go. You have a person saying, I’m going to use this job for political reasons. And she did, by the way, indict a lot of Democrats, the governor, the mayor, the congresswoman, the state attorney general.

And so that may have influenced the judges in not saying she should stay in the office, ⁓ aside from her lack of total experience to do this. ⁓ So now you have a fired first assistant and the third circuit very wisely said, well, no, we can’t evade the constitution and the vacancy act that says Congress has a role to play. The Senate confirms candidates and you can’t do this as an end run against

Senate confirmation. And I should also point out, I already mentioned this in answering another question, but Haba and Trump have been fined nearly a million dollars in sanctions for filing completely frivolous cases against Hillary Clinton and other political ⁓ adversaries. I mean, this is a person who should not be the US attorney and hopefully will not get to be. And the Third Circuit was right to say, you can’t ⁓ evade.

the Senate’s role in confirmations.

BARB (27:54)
Yeah, know, Jill just mentioned several other districts where we’ve got problems with these interim U.S. attorneys. She mentioned Nevada. She mentioned central California, as well as New Jersey and Eastern District of Virginia. There’s another one, which is the Northern District of New York. Yeah. The U.S. attorney there has a similar appointment as a special assistant to the attorney general. And that office is investigating Letitia James.

civilly, I wonder about both his appointment and about whether you think that case has any validity.

JOYCE (28:31)
Yeah, so this is an interesting legal challenge that Tish James has brought against the validity of his appointment. She’s arguing that John Sarcone ⁓ is not lawfully in place as a US attorney. It’s sort of similar to the arguments we’ve seen other places, but with a twist, right? Because she’s alleging the fact that he’s not properly in place makes the subpoenas that he’s issued in investigations into her Trump-related civil cases invalid. ⁓

She says that his appointment is an effort to circumvent Senate confirmation. It undoubtedly is. And so that’s that same tactic we’ve seen in other districts where you don’t get a Senate confirmed nominee ⁓ Trump, or rather more correctly, I think, Pam Bondi puts the person in and then appoints them to be a special assistant. And so the specific issue that’s being presented in Northern New York is whether his temporary role

which is extended via that unusual special attorney designation, gives him legitimate authority to issue subpoenas in federal grand jury probes. And James is arguing that his appointment simply is an illegal maneuver that’s designed to bypass Senate confirmation, and she doesn’t have to play along.

BARB (29:46)
Yeah, well, it’s an interesting ⁓ way that they’re going about these attorney, ⁓ US attorney appointments. Kim, let me ask you about that. know, Trump’s using these interim acting and special attorney appointments for US attorneys. What’s going on there? Why not just use the normal Senate confirmation process? know, Joyce and I went through that process. ⁓ It wasn’t bad at all. I think the Senate is… ⁓

JOYCE (30:09)
Isn’t so bad?

BARB (30:15)
You know, it’s fairly deferential to the president on US attorneys ⁓ because they’re only four-year appointments. Sometimes they extend eight years. And, you know, it’s not like a judge, which is a lifetime appointment. Why not just go the normal route?

KIM (30:31)
Well, they tried and it turns out that ⁓ both Lindsay Halligan, I should say neither Lindsay Halligan nor Alina Haba have a scintilla of prosecutorial experience and the silly old Senate with their advise and consent capacity, they basically said, you know, it’s our job to make sure that there are qualified people in these positions and two people, one of which,

was a former White House official and the other, what, an insurance attorney, just don’t rise to that level. So their nominations were blocked by the senators from their own seats. So ⁓ yeah, that should have been game over. But as Jill pointed out, Pam Bondi tried to maneuver her way around the Constitution ⁓ with these sort of ⁓ tactics to keep them both in office. And so far, hasn’t worked.

BARB (31:28)
Yeah. Well, we’ll see how it goes. ⁓ I, for one, am rooting for the separation of powers. ⁓ And so far, I’m feeling good about the way the courts have been ruling on these cases. But we’ll have to keep tabs on them and ⁓ circle back when we know more.

KIM (31:53)
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JOYCE (38:45)
Well, the December calendar at the court began last week with the Supreme Court hearing argument in a wide range of important and interesting cases. This coming week, they’ll hear a very important case involving campaign finance. And you can, and you should if you have time, listen in on the court’s website. We’ll set that case up for you and let you know what to expect. Kim, you’re our Supreme Court expert. Can you talk about the campaign finance case the court is hearing next week and help us understand the issue?

KIM (39:16)
Yes. So ⁓ it is a case that could broaden or actually probably weaken is probably a better word, the campaign finance limits, even beyond what happened in that seminal case, Citizens United. You remember that was the case that ⁓ in which the Supreme Court basically said the First Amendment gives corporations the right to give unlimited funding to

to political organizing ⁓ action committees in campaigns ⁓ because they have the right to speak as freely as any citizen and they speak in the form of money. And that really changed ⁓ how political campaigns are financed. Well, the new case that the court is hearing this week, ⁓ it’s called NRSC versus Federal Election Commission.

could take down another boundary that exists. So currently federal law prohibits those political action committees from coordinating with campaigns. Political action committees, they can buy ads, they can infuse all kinds of money, they can do all kinds of things, but they can’t work in conjunction with a campaign. Campaign has to raise its own money, campaign has to do its own oppo research and all of that. Well, there are a group of people challenging that.

It’s a group of people who include JD Vance. This case was brought when JD Vance was still a member of the Senate. And he and the National Republican Congressional Committee sued saying that that violates their First Amendment rights because ⁓ they should be able to freely coordinate with these political action committees ⁓ leading up to an election. And this is really important because the

laws that govern political campaigns have stricter fundraising limits than the political action committees. ⁓ Each individual can only contribute a certain amount, which is unlike PACs and super PACs. There are limits ⁓ in other ways that contributions can be made, and it usually means that campaigns themselves have ⁓ campaign cash bundles.

that are much smaller than that of super PACs. If you blow through that distinction, it literally will allow corporations, anyone, Elon, anybody who wants to give any candidate an endless amount of money. It will really blow up campaign finance ⁓ reform, campaign finance laws, and create a free for all.

JOYCE (42:00)
So what’s the precise issue that the court has to determine as a result of this argument?

KIM (42:08)
It’s whether the distinction between political committees and campaigns violates the campaign’s First Amendment rights because they cannot coordinate or communicate with the PACs and super PACs.

JOYCE (42:23)
You know, that’s so inside baseball. I love the way that you give the context for it because it helps us understand that this isn’t just a hyper-technical legal case with this hyper-technical legal issue. It’s actually got very serious real-world consequences. And of course, the Republicans will be arguing their side of the case. Jill, what are the arguments that you expect them to make? Let’s give them their best face and then discuss.

JILL (42:48)
I hate giving them their best face because I don’t think there is a good one.

JOYCE (42:52)
You

know the cord is gonna do it though, so we may as well-

JILL (42:55)
No, I didn’t think Citizens United was a possibility and sort of think it maybe was one of the worst decisions of the court. I guess I would. Maybe at ⁓

KIM (43:04)
Maybe there,

JOYCE (43:06)
So many candidates for that distinction.

JILL (43:09)
It’s in some of the voting rights. mean, who knows? ⁓ Anyway, Republicans were the plaintiffs and they were challenging the spending limits and they argued that the limits severely restrict political party committees from doing what the First Amendment entitles them to do. They want to fully associate and advocate for their own candidates for federal office. And I hate to say it, but that sort of makes sense that you…

exist really to support your own candidates. That’s the thing. ⁓ But the Supreme Court had a case before in 2014 ⁓ that declared preventing corruption or the appearance of corruption was the only legitimate government interest in regulating campaign financing ⁓ and saying that it would be silly to think that the party would corrupt its own candidates by funding them.

So, if the only real purpose of the law is to prevent a return to the campaign funding problems of the Watergate era, because remember, all these laws were passed because Watergate was caused by unlimited funding, no reporting, you didn’t have to make any declarations, the White House safes, the Committee to Re-elect creeps safes, were filled with cash. So when they needed a million dollars to pay for hush money,

Nixon said, I know where I can get the money because it was just in the safes. They had all this money. And so I personally think that it’s important that we keep these restrictions in place so that we don’t return to the pre-Watergate campaign financing schemes that existed.

JOYCE (44:55)
You know, Barb, normally the Solicitor General would be in the mix in a case like this. ⁓ Here, that’s not the case, and our good friend Mark Elias will be arguing instead. Can you explain why that’s the case and what Democrats will be ⁓ arguing for on behalf of voters?

BARB (45:11)
So Joyce, ordinarily, the administration and the Department of Justice represents the interests of Congress by defending the legality of statutes. But from time to time, and as they’ve done in this case, the administration is siding with the challengers. We’ve got Republican senators who are challenging this, and the Trump administration says, yes, we too believe that this statute is unconstitutional. And so they’ve asked the court.

to appoint outside counsel to represent the FEC, and they’ve done that. They have appointed a lawyer named Roman Martinez. He is a former law clerk to Chief Justice John Roberts, and he will be representing the interests of the FEC. In addition, ⁓ Mark Elias, the extraordinary ⁓ election lawyer, is also going to be part of the case, making the same argument on behalf of the Democratic National Committee, and both of them are making this argument about why the

law is constitutional. Remember, no right, even the First Amendment right of free speech is absolute. Nothing is unlimited. There is a standard we refer to as strict scrutiny, which says that Congress may limit fundamental rights, including the right to free speech, as long as the restriction is narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling governmental interest. And what they argue here is the compelling governmental interest

is to avoid corruption or its appearance through direct donations to a candidate. And so the Supreme Court has upheld the restrictions on giving donations to a candidate. I think it’s $3,500 to a candidate for the presidency. ⁓ And there’s another limit on parties for something like $44,000, a lot more money, but there’s still a limit on it. And they argue that this restriction is narrowly tailored to prevent the party

from simply becoming this backdoor way of allowing unlimited donations by some supporter. So instead of following these ordinary restrictions, somebody could just give all this money to the party and the party could make unlimited expenditures on behalf of the candidate. Now they can still make expenditures, but they can’t coordinate with the candidate and say, I’d like you to spend money for me on ⁓ office space and knocking on doors and add revenue. And what they say in their brief is,

paying the bills of a candidate is exactly the same thing as handing them cash. And so if it’s permissible to avoid these contribution, to uphold contribution limits, we should also uphold these expenditure limits. ⁓ I think one extra argument that doesn’t get ⁓ enough juice from the Supreme Court, you know, they have said over the years they have narrowed the legitimate purpose.

for these limits on campaign contributions because they say after all campaign donations are speech and we have an unlimited right to free speech. That is such the viewpoint of these wealthy politically connected justices because ordinary people aren’t making 3,500 or 44,000 let alone $270 million contributions to candidates. And I think long ago they really lost sight of an additional compelling governmental purpose and that is equality among voters.

the ability of one person, one vote, and each of us to have equal participation at the ballot box. And now we’ve got so much influence by billionaires in our elections because of these limitless ways of backdoor dark money super PACs. And ⁓ in a perfect world, the Supreme Court would see the light and say, you know, we realize how we went astray in Citizens United 15 years ago. And we’ve seen…

the undue influence of big money and how it has corrupted our politics. Let us use this moment to reaffirm the Federal Election Campaign Act and also to reverse Citizens United. I know that’s a fantasy, but wouldn’t that be a great day for equality in America?

JOYCE (49:20)
know, amen. mean, that’s exactly what we need. We’re going to have that moment, by the way. You know, I’m quite confident that that day is coming, but it may be very far off. think about other tragic Supreme Court cases like Korematsu or Dred Scott, cases that take decades to resolve. that’s our long-term trajectory is that the moral arc bends towards justice. It’s just that right now we need to be pushing awfully hard on it, I think.

KIM (49:49)
Well, I hope my great-great-great-great-grand nieces and nephews enjoy that when that does happen.

JOYCE (49:55)
I that that’s what it is, Kim. Well, there are other cases being argued in front of the court next week, but we’ll have to take them up in next week’s show. You know, I had hoped this wouldn’t be the case, but there’s a shadow docket case that we need to discuss with you before we leave this topic. So Kim, could you please heap scorn on the court shadow docket decision in LULAC Thursday night, because it richly deserves it. And by heaping scorn, I guess I should be more specific.

Here’s the appropriate legal question. Can you comment maybe on which of the Texas gerrymandering cases they decided, how the court decided it? And can we talk about Justice Kagan’s dissent too? Maybe we just need to have a free for all on this one.

KIM (50:39)
So the court ⁓ on the shadow docket upended a lower court ruling, which found that Texas’s new map, you know, the effort to try to ⁓ gerrymander the congressional maps in order to increase the number of GOP held seats by about five that Donald Trump ordered. And a lower court said, nope, that was actually a racial gerrymander. So it violates the Voting Rights Act.

Well, the Supreme Court said, nah, go ahead and let it go into place. And its reasoning was despite the fact that a federal court went through a painstaking analysis of the facts of the case, hundreds of pages, which included essentially ⁓ Greg Abbott and other Texas officials admitting that they were, among other things, considering race in redrawing this map.

The lower court did not give enough deference to the doctrine of legislative good faith. There is a presumption in a redistricting case, according to the Supreme Court and its precedent, that in analyzing a claim of racial gerrymandering, you give the legislature a presumption of good faith. You don’t automatically assume that just because it looks like a racial gerrymander that they intended for it to be a racial gerrymander.

JOYCE (52:08)
I that this was such an echo of Shelby County where they ascribed good faith to the Alabama legislature. I mean, these guys never learn.

KIM (52:17)
And given the facts of this case and how much evidence there was, my question is, when can you ever meet, when can you ever overcome a presumption of legislative good faith? This was as bad a as you can possibly get. But the Supreme Court said, no, no, basically you have to let the legislature do what it wants. And it not only allowed this racially gerrymandered, I can’t say that enough, map to go into place, but it’s basically nullifying district courts. ⁓

⁓ If I was a U.S. District Court judge today, I would say, what’s my job? Because if I do my job, the Supreme Court’s gonna say, no, you did it wrong because the Republicans didn’t win. I will say that the court also passingly mentioned that this also protects California’s new redistrict map, which was meant to counter, nullify the effect of Texas’s.

So some people are saying this isn’t as big of a win, but I don’t think about this as a win for Trump or a not win for Trump. This is a blow to democracy. And it also is a preview of the disdain this court holds for whatever remains of the Voting Rights Act as we await the ruling in the big VRA case, the Texas, the Louisiana gerrymandering ⁓ case, which could actually all but strike down the Voting Rights Act as we know it.

It gives a big preview about how much disdain that they have for that. So it’s really a loss for democracy. And at this point, I can only say Congress needs to step in and realize that it’s in both parties’ interests to stop the gerrymander wars. I’m not going to fault California for trying to do what it can to keep people from being ⁓ so badly misrepresented by the

Donald Trump’s call to red states to gerrymander all their maps to try to hold onto a partisan advantage. I’m not gonna throw shade at them. But in the end, the redistricting races can never be one. They can never be one. We need to get back where we have equal and fair representation for everyone. And the Supreme Court’s not gonna help. So at some point, this is one thing I do think at some point in the future, Congress is gonna have to have a…

a real moment to come together and say, we need to change how this is, whether that’s expanding the house, whether that’s changing the rules about how big each district can be, how closely connected it must be. I don’t know, but this has to end.

JOYCE (54:52)
You know, Kim, I think what you’re saying makes so much sense to me. I sort of reached the same conclusion writing about this last night that ultimately Congress has to be the fix. Something that struck me, and I wonder if this hit any of the rest of y’all the same way, is that when Rucho, which is the case that says that partisan gerrymanders the court won’t touch, only racial gerrymanders can be dealt with in the courts. And when they did it, they expressed a certain amount of distaste for political gerrymanders.

But the Supreme Court majority said, you know, that’s not our lane. We’re not supposed to decide political questions. They’re not justiciable. We’ll only look at a gerrymander if it’s racial and invalidated on that grounds. It was almost as though they were holding their nose to make what they believed was a legally correct decision. And that’s just not the case anymore. mean, you get to this and like you say, it’s shadow docket. So we get a couple of pages from Justice Alito where he writes a concurrence.

He’s joined by Thomas and Gorsuch. And he just sort of says, well, it’s a partisan, this gerrymander was done for partisan advantage. you know, that’s sort of okay. It’s indisputable. And it’s very much an offensive change in tone, which is why I love the fact that Justice Kagan took the time to write a lengthy dissent where she sort of slices and dices that.

BARB (56:13)
Yeah, you ⁓ you mentioned Rucho and then of course she’s got this lengthy dissent in this case. She talks about how gerrymandering is so anti-democratic, right? They say, we can’t touch this because it’s political. Like, what? Everything’s political. Every time somebody ⁓ violates the law, if the president exceeds his power, if Congress exceeds their power, all

it’s political, the idea that, but we don’t touch these gerrymanders because that’s political. It is a violation of equal protection when they get in there. It’s a violation of due process, of voting rights. I just don’t know how they live with themselves. Do they really believe this to be true or do they see this as the end to ⁓ achieving just brute power to assert one party over the other?

Kagan talked about it in Rucho in 2019 and here we are. I mean, she’s just like apoplectic. Like what, what are we doing? And I get it, I’m with her.

JILL (57:19)
Her dissent is so well done and it makes so clear that this is a case where the Supreme Court majority is eviscerating the Voting Rights Act and the rights of citizens to be equally represented. And that it did it in the shadow docket where there was basically a weekend of they might have read the cold record after the district court, which is completely dis…

missed basically, had spent weeks and months listening to testimony and analyzing the actual facts. And the Supreme Court is not one that reviews facts, which they should have lived with what the district court had found. So it’s really a horrible decision and has a horrible outcome. And it’s just one of many that we’re seeing now.

KIM (58:19)
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You know, it’s so hard picking topics with the plethora of choices we have every week. And I wanted to talk about Trump’s pardons of Democratic Representative Henley Quaylor for public corruption, which made me wonder if Trump was just saying, A, no one, including me, should ever be tried for public corruption, and his inexplicable pardon of the president of Honduras who was sentenced to 45 years in the US for drug crimes that killed thousands while Donald Trump is

approving blowing up ships in international waters because they might be carrying ⁓ cocaine or fentanyl, although there’s no evidence of that at all, and then blowing up survivors of a shipwreck in clear violation of the laws of war. But there were so many questions about a different topic that I felt I had to talk about Hegseth and what’s going on with just the activities in international waters.

Some of those questions came from our listeners, Jay in Durham, North Carolina, Lindy in Chicago, and Richard and Sally. Sally’s from Pennsylvania. Richard didn’t say where he’s from. And I’m going to incorporate some of their questions in the questions I have for you. But Kim, I want to start with you because you’re a journalist and a lawyer. So let’s start with the typical thing of a journalist. Who did what on September 2nd? To the extent that we know the answer, that was the date of the first bombing of a ship on claimed

claims that it has narco trafficking boat, but there’s no evidence of that. There’s never been any evidence put forward. So specifically, whether or not the first strike was legal, and as former general consulate army, I’m telling you, it was not legal. But even if it was, was the second tap to kill the shipwreck survivors of the explosion, was that legal? What do we know about who ordered the second strike? Was it Hexeth or Bradley or someone else, like maybe

I don’t know, is one of them being thrown under the bus? ⁓ Anyway, what do you think, Kim? What are the facts here as best we know them?

KIM (1:03:35)
The answer, honestly, is I don’t know, because we don’t know. There has been no public hearing about what has happened. There have been private briefings in Congress. There has been an ever-changing story coming from Secretary Hegseth, who initially said that ⁓ he was there and witnessed the strike. And then he said, well, he didn’t witness the second strike because he was too busy with all the big important things he has to do as Secretary of War. We had reporting from The Washington Post that he did, in fact,

order it and that the Admiral, ⁓ Admiral Bradley, was acting on his spoken directive to leave no one behind, if there is anyone left alive, to make sure that they are no longer alive. You have some of the lawmakers who sat in on the private briefings, some like Senator Tom Cotton, who claimed that it was clear that after the first strike that the remaining two occupants of the boat were trying to continue the mission.

to ⁓ somehow smuggle drugs into the United States. I don’t know how you do that ⁓ floating in the sea on a piece of boat that you’re trying to use to hold on for your life. I don’t understand how that happens. You have Democrats who are in the briefings who give a completely different story. So a big problem with all of this is that we do not know, but the stakes are so high because it could very well be that federal and international war.

crimes, war laws were violated and that these are war crimes and this is something that we really ought to get to the bottom.

JILL (1:05:10)
Absolutely. And we also have reporting that Admiral Bradley, who seems to be getting thrown under the bus as Rosemary Woods was in the Watergate case, being thrown under the bus by ⁓ Hegseth and maybe by Trump, ⁓ did say, it’s reported, I don’t know it’s true because we haven’t heard it, that in fact, Hegseth didn’t give the order to leave no one alive. ⁓ So we, as you said,

We don’t really know what the facts are, but they certainly are the kind that the public has a right to know, and we need to have some public hearing on what the evidence is of responsibility by Hegseth, by President Trump, and by Admiral Bradley. So Joyce, as I said, the reporting has identified conflicting justifications for such an order. Do any of those satisfy the rules of engagement or the rules of war?

And the US military manual says shipwreck survivors and killing them would be the exact example of an unlawful order. So how does any of the explanations given by Trump, Hex, Suther, Bradley satisfy that this could have possibly been legal?

JOYCE (1:06:24)
Yeah, I mean, like Kim says, right, this is hard to figure out because we don’t know all of the facts. So I think the easiest way for us to look at it for starters is like this. If we’re at war, one set of rules applies. And here being at war would mean that this is a non-international armed conflict. That’s sort of the linguistic hook. That would be a sustained war between factions, something like a civil war or war by a government against a rebel group. And look,

I’m not a law of war expert, but the people, the experts that we rely on in this area, they seem to uniformly believe that this does not qualify for that sort of a designation. But just for the sake of argument, let’s pretend it does because our military is pretending that it does. And even if we are at war in that sense, it’s not clear that there’s a justification for the initial strikes and this so-called second tap where they hit survivors of the first strike.

That one’s clearly off the table because international law and US military rules prohibit attacks on shipwrecked people. There’s no one who’s more shipwrecked than someone who’s clinging to the side of the wreckage of a boat. And it’s, you you have to remember the context here. This is the first of the strikes. The United States did not announce its intentions in advance. So these people who it’s now reported that there’s video released showing them waving up into the air.

You know, they’re doing that to try to attract the attention of American craft overhead. They’ve just been struck. They don’t know why they want to be rescued. And it’s worth mentioning, I think, that if this is the rule, if this is the regime that we’re going to insist on, it applies to our own members of the military too, should they be on the other side of an attack like this, which I think is a cautionary tale worth taking advantage of.

And then I think the final part of the equation, Jill, is this. If we’re not at war, this is just plain old fashioned murder, right? We don’t have a death penalty for drug trafficking. We know how to interdict drugs on the open seas and prosecute the people that are involved ⁓ after seizing them. We don’t blow them up and kill them. So if we’re not at war, this is simply murder.

JILL (1:08:44)
It is absolutely, and as you said, the normal thing would be to stop the ship, search it, seize any contraband if any is found, arrest the people, try them, get them convicted if possible, and then sentence them. And the sentence would not be death because as was said, this is not a capital offense in America. And Barb, there are at least a couple things that really make all of this suspicious. And one is that the

boat in this first instance had 11 people on board. And everyone who’s an expert in this field says, if you are carrying drugs, you do not have 11 people taking up space in the boat. You want the space for drugs. And so that makes it extremely suspicious that this was a drug boat. ⁓ But in addition, we have a second example that makes me suspicious. And that was there was a second ⁓

destruction of a boat where there were two survivors. And those survivors were picked up. And then instead of being brought here for trial, because we supposedly have evidence that they are drug traffickers, they were released to their home countries. So, Barb, does that make you think that all of the excuses that are being offered are undermined by the return of these two people and by the fact that there were 11 people on this boat?

BARB (1:10:12)
Yeah, and in fact, ⁓ I love ⁓ the fact that you’ve been talking about throwing Bradley under the bus. I heard Joyce earlier this week use the phrase, was it underbusting?

JOYCE (1:10:26)
That was Heather Cox Richardson. That’s not me. I got it from Heather and I love it so much.

BARB (1:10:31)
Yeah, it’s good shorthand way of saying what is happening here, right? Like, Hegs is like, ⁓ I had to leave the room because I’m very busy man. I have very important responsibilities at the Department of War, like posting pictures of Franklin the Turtle blowing up boats and doing pushups. He’s like, he’s a child. ⁓ But yeah, I think that there was this other incident where we did have

people who survived an initial attack, and they were returned to their home countries. They were not treated as either enemy combatants, nor were they treated as criminal defendants. They were instead just, let’s just send them on home and not ask too many questions. And then, you know, that happened, I think, after this incident. Even though we were only learning about this in recent days.

weeks, it actually happened September 2nd. It was one of the first boat strikes. And this other effort where they said, we should just send them on home. It does make you wonder if somebody didn’t start asking questions like, you did what now? There were some people clinging to wreckage and you killed them? No, no, no, no, no. That’s not what we do when we’ve got helpless shipwrecked enemies. We help them, we rescue them. And that’s exactly what happened.

after the fact. I think that that sequence of events does cast some concern about the way these other people were treated. And so I think eventually one of these things is going to happen where it all comes out. The truth usually does come out in these kinds of things. And we’re going to learn ⁓ about what happened. I don’t know who is going to be specifically to blame.

But at some point, we are going to have hearings. I don’t know if it’s going to happen during this administration or the next administration, but we’re going to find out. People in government love to use the passive voice and say things like, mistakes were made, without acknowledging who made them. ⁓ But at some point, we’re going to find out whether it was Hegseth who gave the order or if it was Bradley who gave the order. But somebody is responsible for this. I think that because we are not in armed conflict,

with Venezuela, it seems to me, in my opinion, that these are murders. And ⁓ maybe I’ll be proven wrong because of some legal argument of which I am unaware. But ⁓ that’s where I see this going, if not now at some point.

JILL (1:13:12)
putting my money on that same outcome. I believe it is murder. ⁓ Extrajudicial killing is the word being used now, but the same as murder. And even if the first strike was legal, ⁓ I think the second was clearly not. And you raised what happened in between the September 2nd, which was the first destruction of a boat, and the second with survivors.

Remember that the commander of Southcom, Admiral Holsey, ⁓ either was fired or retired. There seems to be some debate on that. ⁓ But he had raised questions about the legality of what was going on in these waters. know, Hexeth doesn’t use the word legality. He talks about lethality. But we talk about legality.

JOYCE (1:14:11)
The holiday season is upon us. That means short days, but they’re busy ones with festive nights and you always have to find something to wear. That means it’s really important to have comfortable bras on hand. And that means you can upgrade yourself and your comfort with Honey Love. You know, before we discovered them, much of the shapewear and undergarments that I was wearing at least were sort of uncomfortable. There was a reason to switch into comfy clothes the second you got home.

But once Honeyloves started advertising with us here at Hashtag Sisters-in-Law, that changed. Their wireless offerings are soft and lightweight and supportive, and you really forget that they’re there making it comfortable, but also part of the fit.

JILL (1:14:55)
Whether you’re traveling, running around in cozy layers, or dressing up for holiday parties, Honey Love gives you effortless lift and support. Everything they have is designed to move with your body, not against it. It’s time to ditch digging straps, underwire pokes, and constantly adjusting so that you feel good. Embrace breathable support that feels like a second skin. No matter what you have going on,

Go ahead and join us in saying goodbye to the wires and discomfort. Rock your holiday outfits with confidence this season. They have some great bra bundle options if you have trouble choosing just one style.

BARB (1:15:36)
Honey Love is also the perfect pairing with exercise and outdoor activities, especially as the weather gets colder. I love how comfortable their leggings are, and they are my go-to for running, going out on errands, and even just lounging in front of the fire with a good book. Best of all, their targeted compression technology means you never feel suffocated, and I know you’ll love their Honey Love-inspired looks.

KIM (1:15:58)
So here’s the deal, treat yourself or someone special to the most comfortable, supportive and innovative bras this holiday season. Save 20 % off site-wide at honeylove.com slash sisters. That’s honeylove.com slash sisters. Make sure to tell them that hashtag sisters-in-law sent you. They will ask. Celebrate the season feeling confident and comfortable with Honeylove.

Again, that’s 20 % off at honeylove.com slash sisters. Don’t wait, your holiday comfort starts here. And the link as always is in the show notes.

We’ve now reached the part of the show we love most, which is answering listener questions. If you wanna submit a question and you know what to do, either tag us in our socials or in the socials of the Sisters in Law podcast, or send them to sistersinlawatpoliticon.com via email. We answer three in each show, but we also might slide into the mentions of your questions online and your socials if we get the time.

So our first question is from Jay in Durham, North Carolina, who asks, does the presidential pardon power extend to court martial convictions? That’s a great question. Does it, Joyce?

JOYCE (1:17:23)
The answer is yes. It’s a very timely question because of much of what we’re looking at right now. But the precedent most recently comes from Donald Trump, who has issued presidential pardons for people who are court-martialed, in some cases involving conduct that their fellow soldiers in their units thought was very reprehensible involving attacks on civilians. So unfortunately here, the answer, suspect, Jay, is not the one you were hoping for.

KIM (1:17:51)
All right, our next question comes from Karen in Colorado. Karen asks, are there really no limitations on the president’s pardon power for federal offenses? What if the president receives something of value in exchange? Is there any way to get around the Supreme Court’s immunity decision to prosecute a president who misuses the pardon power? What do you think,

BARB (1:18:12)
this is such a great question. In fact, you parrot a line from Justice Sotomayor’s dissent in the immunity decision. She points this out as the extreme harm that can occur as a result of the immunity decision. She says, accept a bribe for a pardon, immune, ⁓ order the Navy SEALs to attack a political rival and assassinate them.

immune. ⁓ No, a president cannot be charged criminally for conduct that occurs within his official duties. And I think that is one of the things that was seen as so outrageous because in other areas where people act under color of law, law enforcement officers are allowed to use force that the rest of us aren’t allowed to use. And we understand that. But once you exceed the scope of your duties or you abuse your authority,

That’s where the law ends. And I think that’s where most of us expected the court to its draw the line when it came to presidential immunity. Now there is one remedy. It’s become a little toothless in recent years, and that is impeachment. And so if a president accepted a bribe in exchange for a pardon, he could not be criminally prosecuted, but he could be impeached for that. And impeachment is supposed to be the mechanism. And after the immunity decision, it’s now the sole mechanism.

for holding accountable a president who abuses his official powers. ⁓ It would be great if Congress would wake up and actually put some teeth into the impeachment power, but what we’ve seen is that ⁓ members of Congress don’t seem to want to convict presidents of their own party.

KIM (1:19:55)
It’s also worth noting that the impeachment power also exists when it comes to secretaries, such as secretaries of war. yeah, maybe let your lawmakers know that you might want to see that. ⁓ Our final question comes from Beverly in Chandler, Arizona. And Beverly asks, can the International Court of Justice in The Hague issue an order to prosecute Trump and certain subordinates as criminals with respect to the actions, to actions deemed as international

crimes. ⁓ Jill is our resident Hague expert. What do think, Jill?

JILL (1:20:30)
Well, Beverly, I don’t think you’ll like this answer, but we aren’t part of the International Criminal Court. We never signed the Treaty of Rome. And so the answer is no, we can’t be held liable because we haven’t given them jurisdiction. So there you go. We can violate international law and not be held responsible. Could America be sanctioned by other countries for our reprehensible conduct? Maybe.

⁓ And I think we’re getting to a point where other countries are going to start considering that.

KIM (1:21:04)
And can we look like, ⁓ can our reputation internationally be absolutely trashed? Can we be looked on at the rest of the world ⁓ like, you know, countries like Iran and keep that kind of company? Yes, we can. It can be really devastating to the role that America plays in the world. Well, thank you for listening to Hashtag Sisters-in-Law with Joyce Vance, Barb McQuade, Jill Winebanks, and me.

Kim Atkins store Snickers is also here telling me it’s time to take her for a walk so we have to wrap it up. Don’t forget to follow hashtag sisters in law wherever you listen and please give us a five star review because it helps other people who haven’t found us yet to find us. And don’t forget get your merch it makes a perfect holiday gift. get compliments on the hoodie. I really like the ⁓ t-shirts they’re nice and comfy and soft.

They’re perfect stocking stuffers, so get yours at politicon.com slash merch. And please show some love for our sponsors this week. Aura Frames, Laundry Sauce, One Skin, Helix, and Honey Love. They really make this show happen. So if you show them love, you’re really showing us love. See you next week with another episode. Hashtag Sisters in Law. ⁓

JILL (1:22:26)
Peace. For sure. ⁓

KIM (1:22:29)
He said,

JOYCE (1:22:30)
Okay,

I’m going to give you the chance to unleash.

BARB (1:22:34)
see what you did there. That was nice. I liked it.

JILL (1:22:37)
Okay.