How Bad Is Trump's Attorney General Pick?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. It's everywhere right now, the celebration of America's 250th, and we're in the thick of it this month. Christian nationalists are using this milestone birthday not to unite us, but to divide us. They're pushing the lie that America was founded to be a quote unquote Christian nation, where just one religious movement gets to decide who fully belongs, instead of the truth that America was founded as a democracy committed to liberty and justice for all.
The idea that America is a Christian nation is propaganda. It's not patriotism. It's a dangerous lie that's meant to justify censorship, discrimination, attacks on our public schools, assaults on LGBTQ plus rights, restrictions on reproductive freedom and government favoritism toward one extremist version of Christianity.
Americans United for Separation of Church and State is here to fight back against this dangerous and egregious misrepresentation and misinterpretation of our founding documents. AU fights daily for everyone's ability to live as themselves and to believe as they choose so long as they don't harm others. It's a novel idea in a day and age when almost every day we're seeing Christian nationalism weaponize a faith to attack individual freedoms across the country. So do something patriotic this summer, truly patriotic. As you're dodging the propaganda flying at you from all angles, you can step up and become a member of Americans United. By supporting AU, you're committing to standing up and protecting church-state separation in every area of life. You can learn more about how you can sponsor and how AU protects everyone's rights at au.org/crooked.

**SPEAKER_2** (1:40)
Mr. Chief Justice, please support. It's an old joke, but when an argument against two beautiful ladies like this, they're going to have the last word.

**SPEAKER_3** (1:53)
She spoke, not elegantly, but with unmistakable clarity. She said, I ask no favor for my sex.
All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.

**Kate Shaw** (2:23)
Hello, and welcome back to Strict Scrutiny, your podcast about the Supreme Court and the legal culture that surrounds it. I am your lone regular host today, Kate Shaw, but fear not, while Leah and Melissa are of course irreplaceable, I do have some great guests lined up to join me today. First, I will be joined by friend of the show, Katie Phang, independent journalist, trial lawyer, and host of the Katie Phang channel on YouTube. You can also find Katie on Substack at katiefang.substack.com.
Next, I'm gonna talk to Amanda Litman, founder of the indispensable organization Run for Something. She's been identifying and helping young leaders run for state and local and federal office for almost a decade. And we're gonna talk about how courts and the court figure in her work these days. And finally, I will bring you a conversation I recently had about a critically important election happening much sooner than the midterms. And that is an effort to fundamentally change the Kansas Supreme Court in response to that court's protection of individual rights, including the right to abortion. The fight to preserve that court's current character through the Vote No campaign is under way right now.
And I talked to two people working on the ground on it, who can explain what is driving it and why it is just so important. Up first is Legal News with guest host, Katie Phang. Katie, welcome back to Strict Scrutiny. It is always so great to have you with us.

**Katie Phang** (3:39)
I feel like I'm cheating on Leah, though. So I'm just letting you know. I love all of you equally, but I feel like I'm cheating on my Leah right now.

**Kate Shaw** (3:46)
Because you have been a guest host for Leah a couple of times now. First time, the two of us, but hopefully not the last.

**Katie Phang** (3:52)
My long time, just letting you know.

**Kate Shaw** (3:54)
Awesome. Well, so happy to have you. And especially happy that you're willing to do this from abroad. You're in France.
I am deep in the woods of upstate New York, actually battling right now this insane haze from the Canadian wildfires. It's pretty intense. But I know. The news gods, though, stop for no one. And I'm really happy to have you here for this conversation because it was very much not a sleepy summer week on the legal news front. And so we have a couple of really big topics to cover. And I want to start with last week's opinion out of a Miami Federal Court in the case I know you're very familiar with involving Trump's request for 10 billion with a B dollars from the federal government, a lawsuit that he leveraged into a quote unquote settlement that produced both the 1.776 billion dollar slush fund and the grant of tax immunity. So, Katie, I'm going to ask you to talk us through the opinion, but let me just remind everyone of a little bit of the background first. So the suit was filed back in January. It was ostensibly filed in Trump's personal capacity. And it grows out of this IRS contractor's disclosure of Trump's tax documents to some news outlets, including the New York Times back in 2019 and 2020 The contractor, to be clear, has already been sentenced to prison. But this federal civil suit filed by Trump six years later, when he just happened to be back in the Oval Office, maintained that the IRS's failure to properly protect this confidential tax information injured him. And to kind of redress that injury, he demanded once again, the IRS, he controls $10 billion.