Amicus Plus

A federal judge in Chicago caught the Justice Department in a staggering web of misconduct and attempted coverup —and she has the receipts to prove it.  This week District Judge April Perry admonished the US Attorney prosecuting the Broadview Six for railroading a grand jury into indicting the protestors, and said she was mulling sanctions against the attorneys involved. On this week’s Amicus Plus bonus episode, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern discuss the many ways this botched prosecution reveals how dangerous Trump’s DOJ has become. Later: what a strange 5-4 split in a SCOTUS death penalty case signals for the future of a long-standing prohibition on executing the mentally impaired. This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Donald Trump's $1.8 billion "anti-weaponization" settlement fund has stunned legal experts—not just because it's corrupt, but because of how skillfully and transparently it is designed to protect the Trump Family and reward loyalists. On this week's Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick brings together two of the sharpest observers of Trump-era lawlessness to map exactly what this is and why it matters.J.P. Cooney, a career federal prosecutor and former top deputy in Jack Smith's special counsel's office, explains how President Trump sued his own IRS as a private party, settled the case through attorneys who have also been his personal lawyers, and then secured an addendum—signed by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche—immunizing Trump and his family from any IRS audit or tax-enforcement proceeding. Cooney calls it "practiced, skillful corruption". As Investigative journalist Andrea Bernstein, host of The Law According to Trump, author of American Oligarchs, and a veteran of five Trump trials, points out, this settlement enshrines Trumpian language— such as "unlawful raid at Mar-a-Lago" and "Russia collusion hoax"—in official U.S. government documents. Bernstein says it’s vital to be clear about  who stands to receive payouts: people convicted of seditious conspiracy, assaulting Capitol police officers, and other crimes they admitted to in open court. Cooney and Bernstein agree this fund doesn't just reward insurrection—it incentivizes future violence, chills legitimate dissent, and systematically erases the historical record of Jan. 6. Later, Slate executive editor Susan Matthews joins to preview the new season of Slow Burn, Becoming Justice Gorsuch—and explain why the most anonymous justice on the court is so pivotal to understanding the power and the politics of the highest court in the land. Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Amicus co-host Mark Joseph Stern welcomes Madiba Dennie, deputy editor of Balls and Strikes and author of The Originalism Trap, to break down two legal stories from the past week. First up: a federal judge in Rhode Island didn't just rule against the Trump DOJ — she torched its credibility, calling its conduct "appalling" and declaring that the presumption of regularity no longer applies. Mark and Madiba discuss the case, which involves transgender minors, a wildly overreaching subpoena for private data, and a rare instance of one judge throwing shade at another. Later: Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier is arguing that surrogacy violates the 13th Amendment—a theory so sweeping it would also ban sperm donation, egg donation, and quite possibly adoption itself. This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

This week on Amicus, hosts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern break down a whirlwind stretch of reproductive rights legal battles, from the Fifth Circuit's sweeping nationwide ban on telehealth medication abortion, to the Supreme Court's emergency order blocking it. Madiba Dennie (Deputy Editor, Balls and Strikes; and author of The Originalism Trap) joins to explain what the furious dissents from Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito reveal about where this is all headed.Then, Dahlia sits down with writer, activist, and former NARAL president Ilyse Hogue for a wide-ranging conversation about why the assault on medication abortion and the assault on voting rights are the same fight — and why progressives keep losing the narrative battle even when public opinion and shared values are on their side. They also discuss an overlooked but hugely significant win for free speech in the Media Matters v. FTC case, and why fighting back against government bullying matters more than ever.Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Last week was a devastating week for representative democracy, as evidenced by the decision in Louisiana v Callais.  This week, several states accepted the Supreme Court’s offer to gerrymander Black districts out of existence and to do so at great speeds, before the November midterms, and yes, after voting has begun in many jurisdictions. On this week’s Amicus Plus Bonus episode, Dahlia Lithwick checks in with Balls & Strikes’ Madiba Dennie on how to understand a Supreme Court supermajority that is both determined to beat back multiracial democracy and weirdly even more insistent that this has nothing to do with politics.This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

With much of the attention focused on Wednesday’s catastrophic ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, which effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act, lots of people may have missed the other horrific news out of SCOTUS on the same day. Also on Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in cases challenging Temporary Protected Status for people from Haiti and Syria. Dahlia Lithwick is joined by Madiba Dennie to break down the sheer racism behind the Trump administration’s efforts to deport TPS recipients, and how some justices simply…pretended race couldn’t possibly be relevant to these cases. “I can’t see race” and “I won’t see race” are very different things! For more from Madiba, read her on TPS in Balls & Strikes: “The Supreme Court Did Not Want to Talk About Trump’s Long History of Gutter Racism.” This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

Dahlia Lithwick reviews what has been an “exceptionally bad week” for American democracy. Former U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade explains why the charges against former FBI director James Comey, rooted in the claim that he threatened to kill President Trump – via the medium of seashells on Instagram – are unlikely to stick, no matter how hard Trump’s Acting (and actively auditioning) Attorney General Todd Blanche tries. A deleted insta post from a beach in North Carolina is just not going to meet the Supreme Court’s true-threat standard as laid out in Counterman v Colorado.  But actually, landing a conviction is not the point, McQuade says –– Blanche has learned from Trump’s longstanding legal playbook that he can always win by losing. And that’s why she is also closely watching the DOJ’s indictment of the Southern Poverty Law Center under a dubious fraud theory, warning that Blanche is both more skilled and more ruthless in using prosecutions for political ends, with few accountability mechanisms beyond potential disbarment. McQuade’s new book, The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government is available for pre-order now. Next, Dahlia discusses this week’s devastating SCOTUS decision in Louisiana v Callais with Madiba Dennie who explains how Justice Alito and the 6-3 Republican supermajority set about hollowing out Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, inviting states to redraw maps and entrench racial disenfranchisement, all under the cover of historically distorted “originalism.”Want more Amicus? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes with exclusive legal analysis. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.

On Wednesday, Justice Samuel Alito delivered the latest, probably lethal blow in the Supreme Court’s decades-long campaign against multi-racial democracy in America, with a 6-3 majority opinion gutting what remained of the Voting Rights Act in Louisiana v Callais. In this special extra episode of Amicus, Dahlia Lithwick talks with Janai Nelson, President and Director-Counsel of the Legal Defense Fund (LDF), the nation’s premier civil rights law organization. Nelson argued Louisiana v. Callais before the United States Supreme Court in October of 2025. Together, they examine the history ignored by the right wing majority, and look ahead to the disastrous consequences this ruling unleashes on American democracy, from school boards all the way to the halls of congress.This episode is member-exclusive. Listen to it now by subscribing to Slate Plus. By joining, not only will you unlock weekly bonus episodes of Amicus—you’ll also access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly from the Amicus show page on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/amicusplus to get access wherever you listen.