Versus Trump is a podcast where we discuss how the Trump Administration is breaking the law, and what people are doing about it. Listen in the player below or directly on Soundcloud, and subscribe here with any podcast player or here in iTunes.

Versus Trump is hosted by Jason Harrow, Easha Anand, and Charlie Gerstein.

This Week's Episode: "A New Sheriff In Town" + Zephyr Teachout

On the inaugural episode, we start off with a quick intro and then get right into a discussion of consent decrees [2:54-33:49], debating whether Attorney General Sessions can undo agreements that the Obama administration reached with troubled police departments around the country and whether there is any hope for policing reform if the federal government decides to leave local police departments to their own devices. Take Care’s criminal justice coverage is here.

Next up [starting at 33:54], we have an interview with Zephyr Teachout, counsel to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, about whether President Trump violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution when his businesses receive money from foreign governments. Zephyr explains what an “emolument” is, the purpose of the Constitutional ban on foreign gifts, and at least four ways Trump is violating that prohibition. You can download the amended complaint here. Zephyr’s article, “The Anti-Corruption Principle,” can be found here. All of Take Care’s Emoluments Clause coverage is here.

Please share or provide feedback, and rate us in iTunes. You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at versustrumppodcast@gmail.com.

Here are links to some of the other things we talked about on the first episode of the podcast:

• Chiraag Bains’ Take Care post eating his prediction that the Department of Justice would stick with the Baltimore consent decree is here.

• The Alabama Policy Institute’s report on consent decrees, featuring an introduction by then-Senator Jeff Sessions, is here.

• The Baltimore Sun has been covering the DoJ’s request for more time and the city’s response, and reported on the approval of the consent decree here.

• Here’s a link to Judge Rakoff’s opinion deeming an SEC consent decree too weak, and here’s a link to the Second Circuit opinion saying Judge Rakoff went too far.

• We mentioned Tucson police chief Chris Magnus’ tweet about the hypocrisy of arguing for local control while demanding police officers enforce immigration law.

• The report from Seattle’s independent monitor on the success of that police department’s consent decree is here.

• The text of the Baltimore consent decree is here.

• Check out two of the Fourth Amendment cases we mention, Illinois v. Wardlow and Florence v. County of Burlington.

• We discussed the recent Chicago police union election, which is covered here.

• Here’s a map of all the consent decrees that the Obama administration entered into.

• We close our segment on consent decrees by mentioning some of the things that states can do without federal help. Here’s one pitch, from John Rappaport of the University of Chicago Law School, suggesting insurance regulation might be one avenue for reform.

• Zephyr Teachout recommends John Mikhail’s post about the original meaning of the term “emoluments.”

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