Sarah Isgur and David French discuss the legal battle between the Trump administration and the East Potomac Golf Course, a certiorari grant on race-neutral admissions, and another on distilling booze at home. Finally, David asks Sarah about the Department of Justice’s hiring standards.
The Agenda:
–Listener question on child sexual abuse material and the First Amendment
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Add Us as a Preferred SourceSarah Isgur is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in northern Virginia. Prior to joining the company in 2019, she had worked in every branch of the federal government and on three presidential campaigns. She’s also an ABC News contributor and the New York Times bestselling author of Last Branch Standing, a deep dive into the inner workings of the Supreme Court. When Sarah is not hosting podcasts or writing newsletters, she’s probably sending uplifting stories about spiders to Jonah, who only pretends to love all animals.
David French is a columnist for the New York Times. He’s a former senior editor of The Dispatch. He’s the author most recently of Divided We Fall: America's Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation.
The podcast transcription below was generated using artificial intelligence and may include occasional errors or misspellings.
Music
[metal clinking] Ready?
Music
I was born ready. [upbeat music]
Sarah Isgur
Welcome to "Advisory Opinions." I'm Sarah Isgur. That's David French. We've gotta start with the breaking news, the constitutional crisis, if you will, about the East Potomac Golf Course happening in Judge Reyes' courtroom. So we are gonna start with that, even though that's a little bit outside of AO's comfort zone. We've got some legal points to make. Then we've got cert grants out of the Supreme Court. AO prayers were answered, and the magnet school neutral admissions policy case was granted, along with that circuit split on home distilleries. Then the Supreme Court sent out a few interesting opinions, some double jeopardy, some FCC again, as well as then the Eleventh Circuit. It's Newsom concurring with Newsom, you guys. We're gonna have to spend some real time on best friend of the pod, Judge Newsom's concurrence in a social media age restriction case. And then David's got a question for me about what you do with hires that were made for political reasons in the next administration. All this and more on "Advisory Opinions." David, I just wanna start with something that is going on while we're recording this podcast, which is the hearing in Judge Reyes' chambers about the Potomac East Golf Course, where the Trump administration took down some 400-plus mature trees. Judge Reyes believed that violated one of her orders to the Department of Justice and the administration. The Department of Justice then files a motion to have her recuse herself because of bias, and we're off to the races. Um, the word constitutional crisis is being thrown around, and frankly, someone texted me and was like, "Of course the constitutional crisis would involve a golf course when it finally came." Fair enough. Uh, normally, again, we talk about things when they're up on appeal because of factual disputes and everything else, but you say constitutional crisis, and I'm a moth to the flame, man. So I wanna read you what President Trump Truthed the morning of the hearing and a few things from the hearing as it was unfolding and go from there. Okay, here's the president. "The United States Department of Interior wants to take a terrible and very unsafe golf course and make it into a great, safe, and prestigious golf course. They have an absolute right to do so. It's as simple as that. The judge on the case is a crazed lunatic whose courthouse tapes will reveal may be insane. The tapes have been blocked from usage by the judge. The random golfer bringing the ridiculous lawsuit has zero standing." Um, that's all caps, if you're worried about my intonation. "The experts at, quote, 'Interior,' are allowed to do this first-class renovation, quote, 'as of right,' end quote. They do not need a- an approval. Work is scheduled to begin immediately. The finished product will be world-class and bring income and great prestige back to DC. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT." Okay, David, first things first. As a very wise deputy attorney general once told me and the entire Department of Justice circa 2017, tweets are not orders. There's a whole lot of legal reasons why tweets can't be orders, but this, David, is definitely not an order because, for instance, the president says, like, the golfer has zero standing. Well, that's not a legal conclusion. He is saying-
David French
Right
Sarah Isgur
... that as an argument, and so I take the rest of the tweet, including the part where work is scheduled to begin immediately and does not need approval. Again, he's making an argument. He is not giving an order to ignore a court order, and even if he were, he would not be able to do that over Truth, Twitter, or anything else. He would need to give that order directly to his subordinates.
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