Today’s issue: Trump’s Newest Immigration Fight To Eliminate States’ Rights

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ConLaw Lesson #105: Trump’s Newest Immigration Fight To Eliminate States’ Rights

The Trump administration has picked yet another new fight. This time it’s (again) with the states, the dispute is (again) over immigration enforcement, and the threat is (again) to pull federal funding. On Tuesday the DOJ issued a new legal opinion (which sort of has the practical significance of my toddler declaring that brownies are breakfast foods) that contends that any state receiving a specific portion of federal welfare funds has to report to the federal government any known migrants without official legal status inside their borders.

The opinion is based on a 1996 (yes, you read that right) obligation passed by Congress in welfare reform. To be clear, nothing about that bill has changed substantively in the almost 30 years it’s been on the books, but the DOJ has now decided to interpret it differently. Shocker. For almost three decades the gov’t has treated the bill’s reporting requirement (which does exist, hang on) as narrow. The DOJ has now declared it to be much more broad.

It’s a standard legal dispute over the meaning of words, but the consequences are far from textbook for the people it affects. The argument is this: the bill mandates that states receiving what are known as TANF funds report to the federal government anyone it knows is a migrant without legal status. Up until this week, the interpretation of that has always been that “state” means only the agencies actually administering the funds in question. The DOJ has now decided that “states” means any agency in the state, so thus the state itself. That is…much more significant and much more sweeping. Different state agencies have different sets of information, and for obvious reasons. A lot of it is privacy based.

Small change with enormous consequences. If upheld it means that the federal government can essentially weaponize all state agencies to hand over information about migrants that have no connection to the welfare administration requirements that the bill with said requirements is predicated on. Refusal to do so could mean the loss of federal dollars. And the result is yet another culture of fear in which states lose their rights, and the individuals inside those states lose their liberties.

So today in constitutional law, a look at the DOJ’s interpretation and why we’re in this situation, an examination of the practical and legal consequences, and a prediction of what will happen to this in the courts. I’m exhausted of this topic. But I’m in a privileged position to talk about it, rather than have it affect my daily life. So as an attorney, I think we have an obligation to not stop talking about it. Otherwise the people who need a voice are left to advocate for themselves in a system constantly trying to strip them of their ability to talk, much less exist.

Part 1: Why This Matters So Much

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Today’s issue: The Lindsay Clancy Trial: What The Internet Keeps Getting Wrong

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ConLaw Lesson #104: The Lindsay Clancy Trial: What The Internet Keeps Getting Wrong

The Lindsay Clancy trial finished last week. The jury is reportedly deadlocked. America’s obsession with it will be around much longer. The latter shouldn’t be surprising. Yes, there is a natural pull to true crime stories, but there’s something extra going on here. I won’t pretend to be able to articulate it perfectly, both because there isn’t a singular reason for it and because I’m a dad and a not a mom (and that fact matters a lot here). But from where I sit, part of the engagement is because it forces us to confront a reality that’s really hard to believe: that a mom can love her kids and still be the person who does something so horrible to them. I think it’s natural human instinct to search for an explanation that makes two facts mutually exclusive, because accepting that they aren’t means accepting how mental illness, and a medical system that fails to treat it appropriately in women, can entirely dismantle a person. It also means accepting that in truth, if the act and the mental state were as beyond her control as they certainly seem from the facts, it could happen to any one of us.

But there’s also something else we can’t quite reconcile, and it’s less about the substance and more about the procedure. A lot of people don’t actually comprehend what’s on trial here. From the discussions I’ve watched boil up on the internet, it’s clear that there’s a large misconception about what this trial is intended to do, and what it’s not. Part of that is because is confusing. Part of that is because of the desire to find an alternative explanation above. But the biggest part of it is because the media attention hasn’t focused on it. Maybe that’s because it doesn’t draw as many eyeballs, I don’t know. But it matters because it’s the truth.

Mrs. Clancy is not on trial to determine whether she did it. This is inarguable. Her defense has already acknowledged and stipulated that she did it. No amount of dissecting 911 calls, exercise bands, finger prints, tracking data, body temperature, and Mr. Patrick Clancy’s movements will change that. The jury is not being asked to solve a murder mystery. And I say that with complete understanding and acknowledgement that the evidence offered by the prosecution has been…unconvincing as to Ms. Clancy’s guilt on the whole. But my personal opinion does not matter here. This is not a murder mystery. It’s an unfortunate masterclass in criminal procedure.

None of that erases the role the medical system played here. Quite opposite, I think. If Mrs. Clancy committed these acts while suffering from a postpartum psychosis that she repeatedly tried to address, that’s a central question we can’t ignore (both for this case and for the larger cultural context). But the role that said system played is not the question for this court. The effects it had on Mrs. Clancy…absolutely. But the system’s failure is for a civil case that the Clancy’s are already bringing elsewhere.

So today in constitutional law…stepping slightly outside the federal boundaries we typically play in and diving into state law. Here’s what the trial of Mrs. Clancy is actually about, and what it’s not.

Part 1: Her attorneys conceded she did it

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Today’s issue: Is Anthony Fauci Actually in Legal Trouble?

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ConLaw Lesson #103: Is Anthony Fauci Actually in Legal Trouble?

He’s baaaaack. Dr. Anthony Fauci has resurfaced yet again, but this time, it’s not to testify whether mandated lockdowns were proper or whether mask mandates and 6-foot separations were necessary to “stop the spread.” No, instead, Mr. Fauci is in the spotlight for something far more boring, and yet, exponentially more important.

At the end of Biden’s presidential term, Mr. Fauci was one of a handful of controversial presidential pardons, a process we’ve talked about on this Substack before (both in good ways and bad). That pardon raised a lot of eyebrows, but for many, the hair furrowed shortly thereafter amidst a wild newscycle and an even more wild second-term Trump.

That, to many including me, is why Mr. Fauci’s reemergence is so odd. Most of us are beyond the point in our lives where the CDC’s choices half a decade ago are in our list of top 10 most pressing concerns. The economy is in a free fall, monthly groceries are approaching monthly mortgage levels, our basic human rights are seemingly up for debate every other day, and I legitimately have no idea which of my kids’ career aspirations during “what I want to be when I grow up day” will be actual jobs in twenty years.

Yet this past week, when Mr. Fauci went in front of Congress, it was hard for me to not be glued to the action. Not because I have a horse in the race on the pandemic and its handling, although the Trump administration’s general apathy toward the pandemic is what led to my own father’s death (so I guess I do have a horse in the race), but rather, because Mr. Fauci’s presence in Congress…and his invocation of his Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, followed by a Congressional finding of holding him in contempt for refusing to answer said questions…raises one of the more interesting constitutional law questions we’ve examined on this Substack so far.

Can someone who has already received a presidential pardon still refuse to answer Congress on the grounds that his answers might incriminate him?

That’s the constitutional conundrum underneath Fauci 5.0. And of all the reasons he’s been in the media over the years, this one might actually be the most important.

So today in constitutional law: should Dr. Anthony Fauci be worried, and if so, why, how, and what on earth does it all mean?

Part 1: Again?

(Full audio narration by me, as well as the full text, available below for paid subscribers. These lessons take hours to put together, so we’d love to have you on the journey.)

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Today’s issue: Trump’s Substantiated Claims In Tonight’s Address: A Complete List

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ConLaw Lesson #103: Trump’s Substantiated Claims In Tonight’s Address: A Complete List

Today’s issue: Trump Has Fired The Election Umpires: Now What?

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ConLaw Lesson #102: Trump Has Fired The Election Umpires: Now What?

Most Americans had probably never heard of the Election Assistance Commission until the president just emptied it. That is not unusual. Successful government agencies are often a little like competent toddlers: the highest compliment is that nobody is currently screaming and nothing appears to be on fire.

The EAC does not count votes. It does not certify the president. It does not possess a secret federal button that turns Pennsylvania red.

Instead, it does the work underneath American elections: testing and certifying voting systems, distributing federal election money, maintaining the national voter-registration form and helping state and local officials navigate the administrative obstacle course we call democracy.

And last week, Trump cleared out the commission’s remaining leadership: he fired its two Democratic members and allowed its lone Republican member to resign, leaving the four-seat bipartisan agency with zero commissioners just months before the 2026 midterms.

To be clear, this does not mean Trump now controls the voting machines…but it does mean that the president has disabled the governing body of the only federal agency devoted exclusively to election administration…including the voting machines…shortly after that agency resisted his attempt to change the national voter-registration form.

That is, to say the least, concerning.

So today in constitutional law, let’s explore the commission’s history and purpose, why the feud began, and where on earth our elections go from here.

Part 1: The Ghost of the Hanging Chad

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Today’s issue: Mitch McConnell Is (Probably) Dead…Here’s Why They’re (Likely) Hiding It From Us

ConLaw Lesson #101: Mitch McConnell Is (Probably) Dead…Here’s Why They’re (Likely) Hiding It From Us

Slight change in approach today, because I’ve started up a YouTube channel for analysis of issues that aren’t in-depth enough for a full Substack post, but still deserve some time and space. In other words…the YouTube page will be for every issue that can be explained in under 3 minutes. Everything over 3 minutes will be on Substack :)

So today, feel free to check out my breakdown of why the GOP is likely hiding Mitch McConnell’s death from us…and why that’s so problematic for our republic.

Today’s issue: Reviewing The Latest Supreme Court Term

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ConLaw Lesson #100: Reviewing The Latest Supreme Court Term

We may not be a soccer country, but we certainly love a competition…and a scoreboard. It seems like every Supreme Court term, after it ends, turns into just that: a tally of which political side scored more. Because America loves nothing more than making politics into a contact sport.

Trump won this case. Trump lost that one. Conservatives won here. Liberals won there. Someone on cable news says democracy survived. Someone else says it died. Somewhere, a law professor is muttering, “It’s more complicated than that,” which is both annoying and, regrettably, correct. (Sorry, by the way).

This term was complicated.

The president did not get everything he wanted. The Supreme Court rejected some of his biggest claims. It blocked his attempt to limit birthright citizenship by executive order. It rejected his sweeping global tariff theory. It stopped, at least for now, his attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. Those are not small losses.

But the deeper story is not that Trump lost some big cases. The deeper story is that the presidency, and the executive power in general, won. And in many ways, it won big.

As I see it, that is the theme of this term. And it can’t be ignored or stressed enough. The Court took away a few toys and handed over the toy box.

So today in constitutional law, let’s review the whirlwind of the Supreme Court’s latest term: the weird, the expected, the emergency avenues, and the sweeping impacts on immigration, voting, and the future of American rights.

Part 1. Not a Trump Coronation, But Somehow, Weirder

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Today’s issue: Luigi Mangione: This Week’s Backpack Search Ruling, Explained

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ConLaw Lesson #99: Luigi Mangione: This Week’s Backpack Search Ruling, Explained

I’ve seen a lot of questions recently about the evidentiary ruling in the Luigi Mangione case — the man accused of killing former UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Manhattan. It’s probably the most publicized case in America right now, but the ruling this week also provides a helpful glimpse into constitutional and procedural law. Certainly not a typical stop on the Substack Legal roadmap, but here we are anyway.

The latest development is not about whether he is guilty. It is about what evidence the jury may eventually be allowed to hear. That distinction is important, especially in a case this public, where a lot of people made up their minds somewhere between the first headline and the hundredth TikTok explainer.

Mangione has pleaded not guilty. The ruling from this week doesn’t decide the case. It doesn’t tell us what happened. It doesn’t tell us what a jury should conclude. Instead, it tells us something narrow but important: which pieces of evidence prosecutors can use, which pieces they cannot, and why the rules for getting evidence matter.

Criminal trials are not supposed to be akin to the aforementioned TikTok video’s comment section. Prosecutors do not get to use every interesting thing police find. They have to show that evidence was legally obtained, properly handled, and reliable enough for a jury to consider. That is the real story here. And the answer the judge came up with this week is…interesting? To say the least?

So today in constitutional law, let’s look at the recent Luigi Mangione ruling — what happened, why it matters, and what the decision tells us about criminal law and the complicated constitutional and evidentiary requirements in America.

Part 1: What the judge decided

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Today’s issue: Presidential Venmo: How Criminal Is This $1.8B “Victim Fund”?

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ConLaw Lesson #98: Presidential Venmo: How Criminal Is This $1.8B “Victim Fund”

We’ve almost become numb to it at this point.

The president does something insane, lawyers begin speaking in Latin-adjacent gibberish, cable news starts throwing around sentences that end in “norms,” and the rest of us are left standing in the kitchen at 10:47 p.m. (give or take 13 minutes), holding a half-eaten dino nugget, wondering: Is this bad, or is this just government being government?

This, however, is not a moment for numbness.

It was announced on Tuesday that President Trump had come to a “deal” after dropping his absurd $10 billion lawsuit against the IRS. This “deal” (yes, still putting quotation marks) consists of a nearly $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund.” And it is not some obscure administrative footnote. It is not a quirky executive branch experiment. It is not one of those Washington stories where the problem is buried beneath fourteen subcommittees and a PDF with the charisma of the wet cardboard your kids try to make go-carts out of every week. (That might just be my kids.)

This is, quite possibly, the most brazen act of presidential self-dealing in modern American history. And yes, I know that sentence has to compete with a lot of other contestants wearing sequined corruption jackets. Most of whom have walked the proverbial pageant aisle in the last year and a half. But this one deserves a parade float. In the worst way possible.

Here is the basic plot: Trump sued the IRS and Treasury Department for $10 billion over the leak of his tax records. On its face, ridiculous. Then, as president, he settled that lawsuit with the government he controls. On its face, somehow more ridiculous. And then instead of receiving a direct payout, the settlement creates a $1.776 billion fund to compensate people who claim they were victims of government “weaponization” or “lawfare.” On its face, what the actual hell is happening. Reporting indicates the fund may be open to Trump allies, potentially including January 6 defendants, and decisions would be made by a commission appointed by the attorney general. This commission would have full discretion over the funds and who gets them. A reminder: these funds are our taxpayer dollars. Going to people with zero legal claim to them, and most likely to people who have committed some sort of crime or infraction in the name of Trump loyalty.

That is the clean version.

The less clean version is this: the President sued his own government, had his own Justice Department settle the case, converted that settlement into a massive taxpayer-funded pot of money for political allies, and then layered on a waiver that appears to shield him, his family, and affiliated entities from pending tax claims involving returns filed before the settlement date.

For the record, this is not draining the swamp. This is installing a koi pond in the Oval Office and stocking it with alligators and algae and unknown organisms that are probably brain-eating bacteria.

So today in constitutional law, let’s examine the $1.8 billion dollar victim fund. I don’t even have the energy for a full preview because I’m so angry. You should be too.

Part 1: What actually happened?

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Today’s issue: The Voting Rights Act Is Dead: What Happens Now?

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ConLaw Lesson #97: The Voting Rights Act Is Dead: What Happens Now?

For sixty years the Voting Rights Act has been one of the central achievements of American democracy. It was not a decorative statute. It was not a civic aspiration mounted in the hallway next to a faded school portrait. It was a hard-earned intervention against a long and deliberate history of states manipulating election rules to decide not merely who won office, but who meaningfully belonged to the political community in the first place.

The genius of the VRA was that it understood something obvious to anyone who has ever parented more than one child: formal equality and actual fairness are not the same thing. You can give every kid “the same chance” to pick dessert after secretly letting one kid hide all the spoons. You can say every voter has a ballot while drawing districts that make some communities’ ballots functionally meaningless. The Voting Rights Act was Congress saying that democracy cannot survive on technical access alone — it cannot let you hide the spoons. The right to vote must include a meaningful opportunity to elect representatives of one’s choice.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Louisiana v. Callais does not formally repeal that promise. And yet, you’ll notice I referred to the VRA with “was” and not “is.”

That’s because it does something more subtle and, in some ways, more consequential. It makes the promise harder to enforce. It pushes Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, the statute’s most important remaining nationwide protection against minority vote dilution, closer to a regime where plaintiffs must show not only that minority voters have been politically weakened, but that the state did so for the legally forbidden reason rather than under the increasingly protective label of partisan advantage.

That distinction may sound narrow. It is not. In much of the country, especially in the South, race and party are deeply intertwined. So when a legislature redraws a map that weakens Black voters, Latino voters, or other minority communities, the state can often say: we were not targeting race, we were targeting Democrats. And under the Court’s current doctrine, that answer may be enough to move the case from the realm of racial discrimination into the safer harbor of partisan hardball. Which is wild.

This is the post-Callais world. The Voting Rights Act still exists, but the legal terrain beneath it has shifted. The question is no longer simply whether minority voters have been denied an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. The question is whether courts will recognize that harm when it arrives dressed in partisan clothing, carrying a spreadsheet, and insisting it is just here to optimize the map.

Republican officials have understood the invitation. Across multiple states, they are moving to revisit districts that were once drawn or defended under the Voting Rights Act. The goal is not hidden. It is to convert a Supreme Court decision about race-conscious districting into a broader opportunity to dismantle minority-opportunity districts, protect Republican incumbents, and reshape the House map before the next election. The legal vocabulary is constitutional compliance. The political translation is power.

That is why this moment deserves more than the usual redistricting shrug. This is not merely another round of partisan mapmaking, annoying but familiar, like finding a melted crayon in the cupholder. It is a test of whether one of the great civil rights laws of the twentieth century can still do the work it was built to do in the twenty-first: not just preserve the appearance of voting rights, but protect their substance, and in the process, our constitutional system..

So today in constitutional law, let’s examine the state of the Voting Rights Act: what it’s been, what the recent decision changed, how it’s been implemented, and where we go from here.

Part I: The Voting Rights Act Was the Grown-Up in the Room

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Today’s issue: The DOJ Just Changed Marijuana Law

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ConLaw Lesson #96: The DOJ Just Changed Marijuana Law

Every family has the moment.

One parent decides, sometimes out of exhaustion, sometimes out of strategy, that the rules need to loosen. Not because the old rules were wrong, necessarily, but because enforcing them has become…unpopular. Inefficient. Maybe even counterproductive. The kids are revolting and the parents are losing control.

So suddenly, bedtime shifts. Dessert appears more often. The tone softens. And the message, whether spoken or not, is something like: “Let’s just make this work. Let’s keep everyone happy.”

The problem, of course, is that when you change the rules midstream (especially if it’s in a house where the rules already didn’t quite make sense), you don’t always get clarity. A lot of times, you get confusion. You get kids trying to figure out what still applies and what doesn’t. You get a system that feels more flexible, but also harder to understand.

That’s what this latest move from the Department of Justice feels like. Not just a strange legal maneuvering to a structure that many are still trying to comprehend, but also, honestly, like a Hail Mary for voters and polls.

Because on April 23, 2026, the DOJ announced that it would reclassify state-licensed medical marijuana and FDA-approved marijuana products from Schedule I to Schedule III under federal law — a decision that, on its face, looks like long-overdue recognition of reality. Medical marijuana is widely used, widely regulated, and widely accepted. The federal government pretending otherwise was becoming harder to defend by the day.

But timing matters. Context matters. And the way that decision was made and implemented from a practical and regulatory standpoint matters.

And it’s hard to ignore that this shift arrives at a moment when political pressure is mounting, polling is tightening, and both parties are increasingly aware that traditional coalitions aren’t holding the way they used to. Younger voters, independent voters, and voters who don’t fit neatly into old political categories have been moving in ways that are…unpredictable.

Marijuana policy, for years, has been one of the clearest areas where public opinion has outpaced federal law. And the legal guidelines between state and federal law are notoriously confusing.

So this move raises a bigger question. Not just about drug policy, but about governance: Is this a principled legal adjustment that the administration has thought through in terms of how it will work, or is it a strategic one — an attempt to meet people where they already are, even if the underlying system remains messy?

And while the distinction between those two might seem unimportant, it’s the motivation behind each that often dictates how sloppily the policy is implemented.

Like the parent who decides it’s easier to adjust the rules than keep fighting them, the federal government here isn’t rewriting the whole playbook. It’s making a targeted change, one that acknowledges reality just enough to relieve pressure…without fully resolving the contradictions underneath. And it often leads to the household having a whole lot more questions than answers.

And as with parenting, that kind of move can work. Sometimes. It can ease tension. It can buy time. Sometimes. But it can also leave everyone wondering what the rules actually are now — and whether they’re going to change again tomorrow.

I’ve seen a number of articles on this subject attempt to explain the rule change with complicated legalese, usually leaving more questions than answers. That’s not this. But we also need to take it a step further, because this isn’t really about marijuana.

So today in constitutional law, let’s look at the DOJ’s pot rule shifting. Specifically, what actually changed, the dual legal realities, and a series of angles regarding what it all means. Because at least with the parenting equivalent, you never have to question whether the grown-ups will wake up tomorrow still loving and valuing the people they’re making rules for.

Part I: The Rulebook (What Actually Changed)

To understand what just happened, you have to understand the framework the government is working with. The Controlled Substances Act sorts drugs into categories called “schedules.” It sounds clinical, but it determines everything (criminal penalties, medical use, research, business operations). So at a high level:

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Today’s issue: Why Do We Assume These Assassination Attempts Are Fake?

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ConLaw Lesson #95: Why Do We Assume These Assassination Attempts Are Fake?

A little different today. Less law in the strict sense, and more a meditation on politics, perception, and the strange, flickering parallel between reality and the stories we now instinctively build around it.

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Today’s issue: Opinion: The Supreme Court Is Compromised

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ConLaw Lesson #94: The Supreme Court Is Compromised

For most of American history, the Supreme Court has operated on something close to a collective act of faith.

Not blind faith, certainly. And definitely not uncritical faith. But a durable, shared assumption that when the Court speaks, it is doing something different than the rest of us, even when we don’t like it (which, let’s be honest, happens a lot). That faith, even when we see the byproduct as wrong, has relied on a simple ideology for as long as anyone reading this can remember: the justices must be different than we are. And so even when we don’t understand how they could come to some of their conclusions, the wave-away excuse has always been…maybe there’s something I don’t see that they do. After all, the justices’ authority comes not from who they are as people, but from what the institution they inhabit represents.

That assumption has always been a little fragile. The Court has made deeply controversial decisions before. It has been wrong, sometimes profoundly so. But even in those moments, there was still a sense, however strained, that the Court itself was something more than the sum of its members. The disagreement was with the outcome, not with the idea that the institution was supposed to stand above personality.

What is changing now is not just what the Court is deciding, but how it is experienced.

The justices are no longer distant figures whose voices blend into a single institutional tone. They are increasingly distinct, recognizable, and, in some cases, marketable. They write books, build audiences, develop reputations that extend well beyond their opinions. The Court has not abandoned its role, but it is beginning to look less like an institution and more like a collection of individuals who happen to sit on the same bench.

That may sound like a cosmetic shift. It isn’t. It represents a sea change from institutional to individual — being a Supreme Court justice is now big business.

Because the Supreme Court has no army (the Marshals are for limited use). It has no real direct enforcement power. It cannot make people comply in the way other branches of government can. What it has instead is legitimacy, the widespread belief that its decisions are entitled to be followed even when we disagree with them.

And legitimacy is not a given. It is built, maintained, and, if neglected, slowly eroded.

The question, then, is not whether the Supreme Court is corrupt in some obvious, headline-grabbing way. It is whether the conditions that have historically sustained its legitimacy are beginning to change. Whether a Court that increasingly looks like a set of individual voices can still command the kind of institutional trust it has long relied on.

That is a more troubling question. But it is also the one that matters most.

So today in constitutional law, let’s take the microscope and replace the slide with a step back in the process, analyzing those responsible for our country’s collective legal analysis and putting them up to the same scrutiny we expect from them in the subjects they rule on. Specifically, let’s look at the shift from institutional to individual, how that affects perception and decision-making, whether the 2023 code of ethics has any viability, what that says about SCOTUS (and America) moving forward, and where things will go from here. Because I believe we’ve reached an untenable tipping point in the constitutional order. And it’s coming from the top.

Part 1: The Shift

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Today’s issue: With Bondi Fired, the DOJ’s Mission Is Now Terrifyingly Obvious

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ConLaw Lesson #93: With Bondi Fired, the DOJ’s Mission Is Now Terrifyingly Obvious

The President has fired Attorney General Pam Bondi and replaced her with a man who has served as his personal defense attorney. It’s one of the most powerful legal officials in the federal government, now run by an even bigger loyalist than his predecessor (which is saying something, considering she was fired largely because she made that loyalism laughably incoherent). That is not a routine personnel change. It is a decision that sits directly at the fault line between law and politics, and it raises immediate, concrete questions about how the Department of Justice is expected to function going forward — and how that impacts all of us.

Start with the basics. The Attorney General oversees federal prosecutions, sets enforcement priorities, and ultimately decides how the immense power of the federal government is used in criminal and civil matters. At the same time, the Attorney General is appointed by (and can be removed by) the President. That creates an inherent tension: the DOJ is part of the executive branch, but it has long operated under norms that attempt to insulate legal decision-making from direct presidential influence, especially in cases that touch on the President’s personal or political interests.

Those norms are not written into the Constitution. They are not statutes. They are practices built over decades, reinforced after moments of crisis like Watergate, when the dangers of a politically controlled Justice Department became impossible to ignore. Since then, every administration has navigated that tension differently, but the underlying expectation has remained: the Attorney General represents the United States, not the personal legal interests of the President.

So when an Attorney General is fired and replaced by someone whose most prominent recent role has been defending the President personally — and then defending him professionally (he ran the Epstein files “investigation”) — it forces a sharper question than usual:

Is the Department of Justice being repositioned even closer, intentionally or not (although I think we all know), to the President’s personal legal orbit?

That question is not theoretical. It has practical implications that impact the foundations of our democracy and the fundamentals of our daily life.

It affects how prosecutorial discretion is exercised in politically sensitive cases. It shapes how aggressively investigations are pursued or declined. It influences how the DOJ communicates with the public about those decisions. And it determines, in a very real sense, whether the Department is functioning primarily as an independent enforcer of federal law or as a strategic actor managing legal exposure for the administration.

None of this requires assuming bad faith or improper conduct. That’s just a bonus obstacle we’ve seen play out in real time. The issue isn’t even structural; it’s personal. Even well-intentioned actors operate within the incentives and expectations of their roles. Change the expectations, and you begin to change the institution. Change the institution, and you begin to change how we define America.

That is why this moment matters more than a typical Cabinet reshuffle. It is not just about who is in the chair. It is about what the chair is now expected to do — and what it isn’t.

So today, let’s take a look at the new Department of Justice — specifically under Todd Blanche — but also, what happened with Bondi and why it matters, as well as what it could tell us about the future of the DOJ, the administration, and of America.

Part 1: What Actually Happened And What It Means

(Full audio narration by me, as well as the full text, available for paid subscribers. These lessons take hours to put together, so we’d love to have you on the journey.)

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Today’s issue: Birthright Citizenship: How The Court Will Likely Rule After Today

NOTE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

💡As always, paid subscribers can find the embedded audio voiceover below the “Part 1” header of this issue.

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ConLaw Lesson #92: Birthright Citizenship: How The Court Will Likely Rule After Today

There are some constitutional questions that feel less like policy disputes and more like declarations about who we are. Birthright citizenship has long been one of those. For most Americans, it has existed not as a matter of active contemplation but as a civic fact, almost as ambient as the flag in a classroom or the oath at a naturalization ceremony: if you are born here, you are a citizen here.

That understanding did not emerge by accident. The 14th Amendment was written after the Civil War, after Dred Scott, after the country had already demonstrated that it was capable of constructing an entire legal order around the proposition that some people born on American soil did not really belong to America. The Citizenship Clause was meant to close that door and lock it.

“All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens.”

The point was not merely administrative. It was moral and constitutional. It was the nation saying, after its ugliest failure, that belonging could not be withheld on the basis of lineage.

That is why today’s oral argument at the Supreme Court landed with such force. On paper, the case is about the meaning of a phrase in the 14th Amendment and the validity of President Trump’s January 2025 executive order seeking to effectively end birthright citizenship. In reality, the case is about whether a constitutional promise that has been treated as fundamental for more than a century can be narrowed by a new reading of old words — by a branch of government historically unable to redefine constitutional law. The executive order has been blocked in the lower courts (emphatically and swiftly, I might add) and has never taken effect, but the question now sits before a Court that has shown, in recent years, an unsettling appetite for revisiting things many Americans assumed were safe.

So today in constitutional law, birthright citizenship: the theory behind the government’s assertions, what happened at SCOTUS today (and why they agreed to hear the case in the first place), the argumentative and constitutional errors at play, and what the Court will likely do — and, of course, why this matters far beyond the question of citizenship.

Part 1: The Theory the Administration Brought to Court

(Full audio narration by me, as well as the full text, available for paid subscribers. These lessons take hours to put together, so we’d love to have you on the journey.)

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Today’s issue: This Is What A War With Iran Would Look Like

NOTE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

💡As always, paid subscribers can find the embedded audio voiceover below the “Part 1” header of this issue.

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ConLaw Lesson #91: This Is What A War With Iran Would Look Like

Foreign policy often evolves faster than the public can follow it, to the point where most of us only discover a shift in approach when something drastic happens. A strike is launched. A retaliation follows. Leaders speak in measured tones. Markets tremble. Social media fills with certainty before the facts have finished assembling themselves. Within a single news cycle, a long simmering standoff we thought would stay on a low boil forever suddenly crosses into something far more volatile and starts bubbling over onto the stovetop.

That is where we are now. The United States has used significant military force against Iran. Iran has responded. Whatever label officials ultimately prefer, the threshold between confrontation and war has grown perilously thin.

In moments like this, public debate tends to orbit strategy. Who gained leverage? Who miscalculated? Who looks resolute? But beneath that surface level analysis sits a more durable question. Yes, the issue of legality (discussed yesterday) is ever-present. But with an administration that seems increasingly bent on defining the very limits they’re supposedly being held to, it’s perhaps more important to look at the practical: what happens now?

More specifically, what would an actual “war” with Iran look like?

While there can obviously be no crystal ball here, there is a fairly clear reading of where this is headed for anyone who follows foreign policy, understands this administration’s motivations, and has a general pulse on what public pressure could yield in terms of directional shifts.

So today in constitutional law, we’ll do just that. Here’s what an extended conflict with Iran would actually look like, who could be drawn in, what the nuclear risks are, what Congress can do about it, and what it all means for the world.

Part 1: Wishful Thinking

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Today’s issue: The Iran Strikes Are Likely Illegal: Everything You Need to Know

NOTE TO PAID SUBSCRIBERS:

💡As always, paid subscribers can find the embedded audio voiceover below the “Part 1” header of this issue.

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ConLaw Lesson #90: The Iran Strikes Are Likely Illegal: Everything You Need to Know

Every parent knows the feeling. Not the chaotic moments that you know will eventually resolve, or the crash of something expensive hitting the floor. The silent shift — the number of seconds a toddler holds his breath before scream-crying, or the way the air changes in a room when peaceful play turns into something else. They’re often cues unique to each parent, and so you can’t always see it immediately, but you know. The tone lowers. The tempers rise. The anxiety appears. And suddenly you are no longer refereeing a petty squabble. You are standing at the edge of something that could spiral.

Last night our country’s foreign policy hit that shift — and then some — when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran with a not insignificant use of mass force. Iran predictably retaliated. Statements from capitals across the globe have rolled in — and just as predictably, our nation’s Congress responded pathetically with sound bites and strongly worded letters (looking at you, Schumer). But beneath the noise is an even quieter constitutional tremor. The kind that does not trend on social media as much, because the public is understandably focused on the bigger picture at hand, but one that matters just as much as the missiles.

Because whenever the United States uses military force against another sovereign nation, we are not just making a strategic choice. We are testing the architecture of our own government and asking, or at the very least questioning, who gets to decide when America goes to war — or perhaps more jarringly here, who gets to decide when America kills innocent people in the name of spreading democracy.

And to be clear, that is what happened in the last 24 hours. Yes, there is word that Iran’s Supreme Leader is dead, but so are almost 120 innocent girls who had their school bombed, according to the latest reporting.

So to the casual observer, the idea of who gets to decide war can sound abstract. Technical. The sort of law school debate that lives in footnotes and fades once the news cycle turns, and leads to non-lawyers making fun of the performativity of law school (legitimate insult too, btw). After all, presidents have launched strikes before. Congress often complains. The world keeps spinning.

But this is how constitutional shifts happen. Not always with declarations and formal votes. Sometimes with a press conference and a briefing memo. Sometimes with a justification that leans on words like “limited” and “necessary” until they stretch just a little further than before. Each time the line moves, even slightly, the precedent settles in.

The power to initiate war sits at the crossroads of some of the Constitution’s most fragile promises: separation of powers, democratic accountability, and the idea that no single person should be able to commit the nation to sustained conflict alone. It is the legal equivalent of saying, “Before we cross this threshold, we decide together.” Not because it is efficient. Not because it is fast. But because it is serious.

If that sounds procedural, imagine parenting without it — one parent deciding, in a moment of tension, that the family is moving to a different state tomorrow. Bags packed. Schools changed. House listed. The justification might even be sincere. Safety. Opportunity. Urgency. But the scale of the decision demands more than speed. It demands shared judgment.

What is unfolding now with the strikes on Iran is not only about deterrence or regional stability. It is a test of whether the President can initiate significant hostilities without explicit congressional authorization, and whether international law’s guardrails around self defense still have practical force when great powers feel threatened.

And once that logic expands, it does not go back to its previous shape very easily.

So before we argue about geopolitics, or campaign rhetoric, or whether this administration or the last one would have done the same thing, we need to understand the machinery being engaged and the constitutional lines being tested. Because when the temperature rises overseas, the structure at home dictates what happens next.

So today in constitutional law, let’s talk about the strikes on Iran: what happened, what authority the President claims, how this differs from prior uses of force like the Obama era drone campaigns, what Congress can do about it, how international law frames it, and why the answer matters long after the headlines fade.

Part 1: The Constitutional Blueprint

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Thank you for bearing with me the last month and a half. The fight is certainly not over — it even remains to be seen whether the agents will actually be withdrawn in the next few days — but it certainly feels like the tides have shifted significantly.

Feels like we won.

It’s an exhaustive feeling at this point more than anything else. But it’s better than the alternative outcome.

I’ll be moving back into more regular content as I continue to update on what we’re working on here. To that end, obviously today was a big day at the Supreme Court. This weekend I’ll be reading through all the opinions (7 of the 9 justices authored an opinion, which is obviously pretty unusual), and the next issue of ON LAW AND LITTLES will be delving into the majority decision and what it means both practically and legally, the separate opinions and what the administration will likely try to attach to (especially in light of the announcement re: seeking a 10% global tariff using other means), and where things go from here now that the Court’s “untarnished” favor of the president finally has a blemish.

Following that, we’ll do an all-encompassing status check dive into the current legal position of the Epstein files both here and abroad (which we’ve covered before, but the landscape has obviously shifted dramatically).

Talk soon,

Dillon

Another free post because it needs to be.

I apologize again for not being able to record a voiceover. I know that’s an important part of the paid sub and I hope you understand — these update posts are not planned out like typical content, and they’re written quickly during a few moments to breathe. None of the last month has been expected.

Good news:

5-year-old Liam should be coming home for now. A federal judge in Texas issued a scathing ruling demanding Liam and his dad be released by Tuesday. It had all the stereotypical hallmarks of a Texas decision — some Bible quotations, some self-righteousness, a photo below the signature line (the now-ubiquitous one of Liam at the car) — and it’s a pretty wild read.

Bad news:

A federal judge in Minnesota yesterday denied the state’s request to temporarily end the federal government’s ICE operations in the state.

It’s infuriating to say the least.

It’s also, if I’m being honest, not entirely unexpected. Here’s why — analysis below, not because I’m justifying it (I’m not, obviously), but because in times like these, I think it’s important to separate what’s legal from what’s right, so that we can help forge a path forward that’s both.

Why It Happened:

At bottom, Minnesota’s lawsuit is running into a hard constitutional wall that has nothing to do with partisan judges (this judge is a Biden appointee) and everything to do with how federalism functions. The Tenth Amendment (which was the primarily asserted claim here) protects states from being forced to carry out federal law. It does not give states the power to stop the federal government from enforcing its own laws within their borders. That distinction matters. States can say, “We won’t help ICE.” They cannot, under current doctrine, say “ICE must leave.” Immigration enforcement sits squarely within federal authority, and the Supremacy Clause has long meant that valid federal law does not need state permission to operate.

Minnesota tried to push that boundary by arguing that ICE’s “surge” crossed from ordinary enforcement into unconstitutional coercion. Personally, I thought they did a nice job of that — but my opinion is almost certainly obfuscated by the fact that (1) I believe they’re right, since we’re seeing it every day, and (2) I know and respect some of the legal team that argued it.

The theory was that the scale, intensity, and political context of the operation effectively undermined state sovereignty and public safety. Unfortunately, though, courts in cases like this require a limiting principle. If a federal judge accepted the idea that aggressive federal enforcement alone violates the Tenth Amendment, that would hand every state a veto over federal law it dislikes. You could pretty quickly see how that would backfire in both red states and blue states. Federal law would become optional, state by state.

That’s why the injunction request was such a big deal. Granting it would not have been a symbolic pause. It would have meant a federal court ordering the executive branch to stop enforcing federal law in an entire state — one of the requirements of such a decision being a “likelihood to prevail on the merits” when the case is heard in full. Judges are extremely cautious about remedies that restructure the balance of power between states and the federal government, especially at the preliminary stage (which is what what this would have done). Even a judge sympathetic to Minnesota’s concerns would know such an order would be immediately appealed, likely stayed, and potentially detonative for federal authority nationwide. The Eighth Circuit has been particularly clear in how it tends to rule on federal-versus-state issues recently — and it’s not in Minnesota’s favor.

So what happens now is quieter but telling. ICE continues operating. The case moves into slow, merits-based litigation, where Minnesota will face motions to dismiss and a steep uphill climb. The most likely outcomes are either dismissal or a much narrower ruling that protects state resources and property without touching federal enforcement itself. Arguments might place a particular focus on Bondi’s quasi ransom note to get the state to adhere to federal demands in exchange for a drawdown in ICE agents — as well as, in all likelihood, the statements from the federal government that it can only start withdrawing agents if it has the help of state enforcement. That sounds like verbal gymnastics to do a U-turn around anti-commandeering, only to end up in a roundabout and right back where the car started.

And meanwhile, Minnesotans are left on the road without a map or even a car.

It’s an awful realization to feel stranded.

It’s also a familiar one.

We’ve been here before, we’ll be here again.

I like our chances.

And so the larger takeaway from the temporary denial yesterday is sobering but important: our constitutional system allows states to refuse cooperation, not to evict federal power. If change is coming here, it won’t arrive by emergency injunction. It will come, if at all, through Congress or a Supreme Court willing to redraw a line it has guarded for decades. Or, in all likelihood, through the people and our vote — and, yes, I am particularly aware of that delicate sentiment in light of the government’s raid on a Georgia election office.

The piecemeal decisions from the administration are more calculated than the media wants you to believe. It’s “flooding the zone,” but the zone is a singular goal.

We need to be prepared to build as many dams as we can.

Final Thoughts

The attorneys representing Liam have become good friends of mine over the last few weeks. That’s a natural result of being bound by this situation at the start, as we spent an agonizing 4 hours searching for him and trying to track him down 10 days ago.

Most of them cried today.

As lawyers, the cases that are morally right and legally correct are often the scariest. Because we’re so sure of the answer that it worries us to think — “OK, but then if it’s so obvious, why are we here in the first place?”

I find that to be an important parallel right now to the world at large.

There’s so much work left to be done. Don’t let the existence of doubt over circumstance cloud your compass — moral or literal.

The doom and gloom is everywhere if you seek it.

But so is the light.

And the thing about light is…even a little bit can make a darkness disappear.

I’ll end with the last few lines from Liam’s ruling. And, yes, the judge really put this in there:

Philadelphia, September 17, 1787: "Well, Dr. Franklin, what do we have?" "A republic, if you can keep it."

With a judicial finger in the constitutional dike,

It is so ORDERED.

(note: the “rebel loon” design on the image header is inspired by a design released on reddit reportedly originating from u/feral_user_ and then put into the Creative Commons)

Even harder to explain. So I don’t think I’ll try — another free post because it’s important.

Tonight, I feel a glimmer of hope for the first time in weeks.

I’d like to tell you why.

Bovino is out. Demoted and on track for retirement. Banned from posting on his socials. Most HR professionals would tell you this is standard procedure for a forced ouster that attempts to save face.

Noem is reportedly next. Right now it’s just strong rumors. But they’re coming from important places.

The MN police union came out against the administration in about as strong of terms as they can reasonably do. I’m told many police department unions across the country feel similarly.

Same with the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

Bondi sent the equivalent of a ransom note to Minnesota. Secretary of State Steve Simon wrote back the lawyerly equivalent of the finger.

The DOJ continues to lose in lower courts.

Ex-FIFA president backed a complete fan boycott of the World Cup, telling fans to “stay away” due to the administration.

Sixty CEO’s from MN businesses wrote the administration for change. Do I believe it was earnest and not based on financials — of course not. But to an administration that cares about money more than anything else, it matters.

Patel told the world you don’t have a right to a firearm in public. The NRA turned on the administration.

Bovino told the world if you call agents names they don’t like, you will “face consequences.” Republican lawmakers grew a spine. A soft one, but a spine nonetheless.

The Democrats are being called the “Don’t Tread On Me” party. There are even flags. They involve loons.

And of course, more than any of the above:

First, a city of 430,000 people — and those who joined from outside the city limits — stood up to the federal government with whistles and cell phones. And, for now, we won.

I am by no means disillusioned to think this is the end. Far from it. It could even be a decoy to calm the story, ease the anxiety among conservatives freaking out about their party, and then turn into something more sinister and secretive under Homan.

But tonight, I’m choosing to revel in a brief win.

And second, most importantly, an ICU nurse at the VA was murdered. And after, he was degraded and defamed. I won’t write a soliloquy for Alex Pretti — not because I don’t want to, but because I didn’t know him. So instead, I’d like to share that from someone who did.

After 2020, we re-named the area where George Floyd was killed, George Floyd Square. When this is over some day, many of us plan to call on the city — if it’s not already in the works by then — to rename the areas where Renee and Alex were murdered, in the same way.

Tonight, I will go to bed before 3 AM for the first time since January 8.

Renee and Alex gave their lives for change.

Tomorrow, we will wake up and keep fighting for it.

Love y’all.