We've got a lot for paid subscribers this week: Updates on several removal cases, a look at the arrest of Judge Hannah Dugan, our first look at the litigation over Trump's tariffs, a cautionary tale about what happens when you accidentally file your internal deliberations about the weakness of your case on the public court docket, some forecasts for George Santos's time in federal prison, a discussion of why Sarah Palin lost (again) in her case against The New York Times, and more. If you want to upgrade to hear all of that, go to https://www.serioustrouble.show.

This week, Ken and I have a discussion of Harvard’s lawsuit fighting the Trump Administration’s effort to punish the university for failing to submit to what amounted to a demand to place the university in a kind of federal receivership. We look at the Supreme Court's middle-of-the-night, weekend rebuke to the Trump administration, ordering a halt to Alien Enemies Act removals from the Northern District of Texas. The subtext of this order is that four of the court’s conservatives have noticed the administration’s nose-thumbing over the orders in the Abrego Garcia case and aren’t pleased about it. In other cases, Trump is trying to use his position as president to get out of paying the larger of the two judgments E. Jean Carroll won against him. The AP is learning that the relief it obtained in theory from Trump’s retribution means little in practice. And Nadine Menendez will soon be relieved of the need to take her Mercedes C-Class to the dealership for servicing.

The Supreme Court is getting increasingly involved in the sprawling litigation over Donald Trump’s many aggressive executive orders. In J.G.G. vs. Trump — the case seeking to prevent removals under the Alien Enemies Act — the high court issued an emergency ruling saying detainees are entitled to due process but they must seek it through petitions for habeas corpus in the jurisdictions where they are actually being held. Is this a rebuke to the administration, relief, or neither?

We also discuss the Abrego Garcia case, the ACLU trying for a national injunction against AEA removals under a habeas approach, and a Trump-appointed judge prohibiting removals from his South Texas district under the AEA, for now. Plus: in the Mahmoud Khalil case, the federal government is broadly asserting its power to revoke green cards because it doesn’t like their holders’ speech — setting up a likely Supreme Court confrontation over the extent of non-citizens’ First Amendment rights.

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