Remember Katie Zacharia? She was White House press secretary for a few days last week and was fired while we were recording this episode. One of her big offenses was claiming to be a lawyer, despite never passing the bar. But what is a lawyer anyway? Is a lawyer different from an attorney?

Also this week: the raid on Rep. Ilhan Omar’s home, the White House’s effort to use antitrust as a new tool against the press, and updates about East Potomac Park and the Cornell Seven.

Premium subscribers will hear about:

* JPMorgan plaintiff Chirayu Rana has irreconcilable differences with another set of lawyers.

* A teenager who was arrested for riding an unlicensed e-bike (and then released without charge) sues CBS News for implying he vandalized the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

* A Haverford College religion professor is charged with cyberstalking a Jewish colleague by harassing him with anti-Semitic sock puppet accounts.

* D.J. Byrnes is guilty (and fined $200) in the Shrek’s penis case.

* Kimberly Guilfoyle faces a bizarre defamation lawsuit.

President Trump said he’d stop using taxpayer money to air what certainly look like campaign ads, but then he kept doing it, so now, the Democratic National Committee is suing. Also this week: a Minnesota teenager arranged to buy an assault rifle to carry out an ISIS-inspired attack on the Mall of America — of course, it turned out the seller of the rifle was an undercover FBI agent, and the teen was arrested. Also in Minnesota, the government is mad at Patrick Schlitz and other federal judges for their public remarks criticizing the government’s disregard for their orders.

That’s for all listeners this week. Paying subscribers also hear about some particularly weird cases:

* A manslaughter case in Arizona where the victim was allowed to give an impact statement despite being dead — his sister wrote a script for an AI-generated avatar to read in court.

* An IRS whistleblower who says the IRS maliciously leaked the fact that he paid his taxes late once, and an FBI whistleblower who says the government opened an unconstitutional investigation into anti-ICE protestors because the president saw a TikTok he didn’t like.

* The UK’s explanation of why it wants the Tate brothers extradited.

* A fight over Dolly Parton’s estate, and

* The “Shrek’s penis” trial.

To hear the whole episode, upgrade your subscription at www.serioustrouble.show.

A former Cornell University student has filed a Jane Doe lawsuit accusing seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity of sexual misconduct, including rape, in an incident that occurred in October 2024. We discuss this case, and the actions and conclusions of the local district attorney, who Governor Kathy Hochul has replaced with a special prosecutor (Letitia James, the attorney general).

We also discuss the continued unraveling of President Trump’s pet “grand conspiracy” investigation in south Florida, Sen. Marsha Blackburn’s lawsuit over the review of her phone records, and a lawyer who came at Andrew Weissmann and missed.

That’s for all listeners. For paying subscribers this week, we also cover:

* The very unfair judge who is thwarting President Trump’s heroic efforts to prosecute that Olympic canoeist who wantonly destroyed the lining of his favorite reflecting pool. (Sad!)

* Sheri Mecklenburg’s self-serving, but also partially convincing, resignation letter, saying she’s been made into the fall-woman for failures by US Attorney Andrew Boutros in Chicago in the botched “Broadview Six” prosecution related to anti-ICE protests.

* A DC Circuit loss for Anthropic.

* A new defamation lawsuit against Candace Owens.

* A bribery mistrial for DC Councilman Trayon White, and

* An update in the Kyrsten Sinema alienation-of-affection case.

Upgrade your subscription at www.serioustrouble.show.