OA78: Jeff Sessions, “Preemptive Executive Privilege,” & More on Emoluments

If it’s Friday, it’s a current events episode, and if it’s current events, we’re probably talking about Donald Trump.

We begin, however, with Breakin’ Down the Law, in which Andrew answers the question raised by every single person in the universe this week: can Jeff Sessions really do that?

In our main segment, we look at the recent emoluments lawsuit brought by the Attorneys General for Maryland and Washington DC.

After that, Yodel Mountain returns with a look at the Washington Post’s breaking news that Donald Trump is under investigation by the FBI, as well as the GOP’s purported talking points as to why this is no big deal.

Finally, we end with a brand new Thomas Takes the Bar Exam question #28 about a malicious pizza store owner. Remember that TTTBE issues a new question every Friday, followed by the answer on next Tuesday’s show. Don’t forget to play along by following our Twitter feed (@Openargs) and/or our Facebook Page and quoting the Tweet or Facebook Post that announces this episode along with your guess and reason(s)!

Recent Appearances

Andrew was a guest on today’s (6/16/2017) episode of This Week in Law, as well as on Episode 24 of the Scenic City Skeptics show. Check ’em out!

Show Notes & Links

We first discussed obstruction of justice in Episode #70, and analyzed the status of Executive Order 13780 in Episode #51.
You can read the text of U.S. v. Nixon, 418 U.S. 683 (1974) here.
Here is a link to the Maryland/DC complaint against Trump.
And here is a link to Trump’s motion to dismiss the CREW lawsuit.
This is the Washington Post story breaking news of the investigation by the FBI into Trump.
Here are the ostensible (and terrible) GOP “talking points” about the investigation.
And this is the text of the Rosenstein order appointing Mueller as special counsel.