On a new episode of Versus Trump, Jason, Easha, and Charlie tackle an unexpected new lawsuit against the Trump Administration by, of all people, former campaign chair Paul Manafort. And they discuss the President's threats to sue the publisher of Fire and Fury for defamation. As usual, you can listen online below, and subscribe here with any podcast player or here in iTunes.

They begin the discussion by summarizing the Manafort v. DOJ lawsuit. While everyone agrees it's an unusual and likely meritless lawsuit, Jason wonders why more people aren't a little bit more sympathetic to a novel attempt to check the power of federal prosecutors. That leads into a discussion—somehow—of the nature of sanctionable legal filings, and whether or not lawyers can be sanctioned for asserting legal claims on behalf of non-human animals (it's a fun issue!). Next, they move on to a discussion of a letter sent on behalf of the President that threatened a defamation lawsuit against the publisher of the controversial book Fire and Fury—and Charlie again finds something potentially sanctionable. Finally, the group has a few Trump nuggets.

You can find us at @VersusTrumpPod on twitter, or send us an email at versustrumppodcast@gmail.com.

Links

• The Complaint in Manafort v. DOJ is here.
• Commentary on the case abounds. A nice post on Take Care is here, and Andy McCarthy of the National Review has thoughts here.
• The letter from President Trump's counsel to the publisher of Fire and Fury is here.
• After we recorded, the publisher's outside counsel (Davis Wright Tremaine, Jason's former law firm) sent the President a response. That's here.
• The Politico article that Jason mentioned about the repercussions of Attorney General Sessions' actions for marijuana legalization is here.
• The New York Times report that a White House lawyer named Uttam Dhillon failed to correct an incorrect legal memo to the President about his authority to fire Comey is here.

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