>> "washington journal" continues. >> welcome back. we are joined now by chris geigner, the author, an

award-winning journalist who started writing as a blog in 2003. why did you decide to start it guest: well, i had been a journalist before law school. i had worked as a number in ohio the tribune chronicle, and had been an editorial writer before law school. and after one year of law school as i was getting to the end of law school i told a friend that law school was going to lose, take away my ability to write well. and he suggested starting a blog and this was way back in 2003, it was in the early days of blogging. and i was like, ok, sure, whatever. and so sort of did that on the side would just do little three, 200 word stories on what i was thinking about in the legal news that day.

and that sort of continued throughout that point, it continued once i was a lawyer, it was something that i, when i was a practicing lawyer in columbus, ohio, that i had. and then i got rid of it as i went in to sort of full-time journalism here in d.c., and eventually decided two years ago basically right as we were awaiting the dobbs decision that it was it time if i was ever going to try to take a moment to try to do it for myself and see if i could make it work. >> and now you have 33,000 subscribers. guest: yeah. host: who is your audience? guest: i don't know. i think it's a combination of what it sounds like law dork would have. it's a few audiences. i think there are people who are very focused on the supreme

court and want to know what the court's decisions are day in and day out. but i also over the course of my career in journalism have garnered some expertise in lgbtq issues and crypto issues that certainly from the start of law dork brought me a pretty large segment of my audience. and then as circumstances have wasn'ted for better or worse i've gotten a good number of subscribers that i think are there for the post roe land scape and landscapes, and cases that we had this term. and then immigration cases, and sort of what i term democracy

issues which verge all the way from donald trump to voting rights to just questions about the course themselves and there have been a few ethical questions surrounding the supreme court since i launched law dork that readers have been really interested in. >> host: so let's talk about the court this session. what cases are still left? guest: we've got the big one the trump immunity decision. we still have not heard from the court on that. it's been more than two months since they held argument in late april. we are expecting that on monday. we also have two cases challenging texas and florida's content moderation laws that they are purporting to tell social media companies what they can and cannot have on their sites and the supreme court is expected to issue those decisions. and then there's another

decision that actually in light of friday's chevron decision could become more important that is about when you can bring a challenge under the administrative procedure act, which sounds very law dorky and it is, but basically the rule in most of the country right now is that you have six years to bring an administrative claim. and that would normally be from when the rule is created. but in one circuit in the sixth circuit they've said that it is when you are injured that you can bring the claim. and so basically if the challenger corner post would win, you would be able to bring a challenge to any rule no matter how long it's been in place if you formed your company within six years. so you could have gotten rid of chevron, so now -- host: i'm going to stop you there because i think we'll need

to explain about the chevron and the case that brought this up whfs loper bright enterprises and ro manado of the department of congress. can you explain this case? guest: since 1984 we've had this thing called chevron deference. and basically what it is is that when there's so many laws out there, there's so many things that agencies are doing, that when a law has some ambiguity in it, so chevron only came into play when you found there was ambiguity. what chevron said is that courts will defer to a reasonable interpretation of that law by an agency. with that gone, which is what the supreme court did on friday, the court doesn't have to defer to that agency judgment. there are a few situations if the statute specifically says

that you are to defer, but generally they wouldn't. and with that, if you combine that with this corner post basically the courts would not have to defer to the agencies rules. and, there would be no time limit for a rule to have been a law so you wouldn't be able to challenge it. so that six-year rule would be out the window. if you formed a new company on monday, that would be the first day that you could be injured by the rule because the company didn't exist. host: i think a lot of people might wonder why a rule on deference matters in our day to day lives. how is that going to show up? guest: anything that you do that the federal government has an agency that does anything with, clean air, whether it be

the ftc, all of the abbreviations of agencies when they get laws there are what justice kagen referred to as gaps. there's no matter how long a lot is there are going to be thing that is it doesn't account for. and the idea behind chevron deference is that we wanted to defer to those agencies because they have the expertise. they are the ones who are dealing with this issue in and out as opposed to judges who literally need to deal with everything. they don't get to specialize. they have to deal with all of the agencies. and so what we're going to have now is that any issue from any agency is just going to be up to what the judge says. and right now we have a very conservative court and we have a lot of judges as we've seen who

if you file your case in the northern district of texas you get a judge who i believe had another ruling last night about ronny jackson having standing to bring a lawsuit. he issues a ruling that isn't deferring to an agency, that strikes down an agency rule. that gets appealed to the conservative fifth circuit and gets upheld. host: there have been so many big cases this session. can you talk about the one that you think that we've at least received so far? i know we still have the trump immunity case coming. which case has been the most consequential? guest: i do think it could be loper bright. as it falls out and as we see how courts -- it's going to be

difficult on courts because in some ways it was something that made it easier for courts because they were able to sort of say like ok, i don't need to get into the nitty-gritty of everything behind this if it looks like the agency is being reasonable. so in some ways that made particularly district court judges. it might be easy for the supreme court to say we'll take this on ourselves because we only take 50, 60 cases a year. but if you're a district court judge who has 300 cases on their docket this could make it difficult for you. it makes it difficult for industry who is now figuring out what rules apply, what rules don't. maybe they're happy about it because they'll be able to challenge more of them. but in the interim at least in this transition period that will be difficult and then it's going to be more difficult for consumers and for people who counted on those agencies to be

able to use their expertise to create rules that would protect them. host: some of the other big cases that they heard this or they made decisions on this session preserving access to the abortion pill, striking down a ban on bump stock which surprised a lot of people, tossing out the claims president biden forced social media companies to remove content. upholding a law on guns. reducing the profarma settlement. how would you rate this session? guest: i think in some ways loper was an exception to the rule this term. three of those cases that you mentioned, medication abortion,

the biden administration's social media case, and obviously this weak with the emergency abortion care case. the court didn't really decide the underlying issue in both cases the court said that the challengers didn't have standing. that they didn't bring a real claim that was able to be before the courts. and so they didn't even reach the underlying legal question about the permissibility of metdzle priston through the f.d.a.'s process and in the social media case for the biden administration it was about whether they had improperly coerced facebook and twitter to remove certain content. and so they didn't decide those decisions and they could as justice s said in the case this

can come back. >> the idaho abortion case. host: they've been loathe to make interpretive decisions. what does that tell us about monday? guest: i think that's why the trump immunity case took so long. they know they have to reach some resolution there. i think that we're also going to see as i said this question of how corner post, this case about when you can bring an e.p.a. thin the question about what states are able to do to restrict content on what are generally speaking national,

global, web-based services and whether or not they are going to be able to free those companies, like companies as opposed to what the companies say you need to treat us like "the new york times." our content decisions are no different than "the new york times" deciding which letter to the editor to publish. host: we want to get to calls in just a moment. for folks that want to call in with a question about the supreme court this session or what's coming up on monday or any of the cases that have been decided so far republicans can call in, democrats can call in, independents can call in on the numbers listed on the screen. before we get to the calls, i want to ask you about one of the other cases that's been decided about the january 6th defendants and what exactly how they can be charged. can you tell us about that decision?

>> yeah. this was the decision that was -- you had to obstruction law that was related to the other part of the law related to evidence specifically. and the question was whether or not this decision allowed for prosecution of any obstruction or whether or not -- host: of an official proceeding. of. >> of an official proceeding. or whether or not it had to relate back to the first provision in the law talking about evidence. the court sort of found a middle ground that said that it has to relate to the evidence. you don't have to have the evidence in your possession. you don't have to have taken it. but your action to obstruct had to relate to evidence and in the case of the january 6th prosecutions, i don't think it is going to make a huge difference. it does appear that the ruling

will still count prosecutions, if anybody who entered the capitol because you did have this issue of the actual documents, the actual electoral certificates, certainly in trump's prosecution, there are the charges related to those false certificates of electors that can and would be the sort of evidence. >> because the original law that they are referring to about financial fraud. >> enron. host: right. it had the financial sort of -- official document. and documents related to -- >> i think shredding documents, anything official. reporter: host: i think they have to do the same. >> the government documents.

it is a fair -- it is a fair reading. it is a fair reading of the way that courts and prosecutors normally read laws. if the law doesn't put a limit, we're able to charge as ebbing tensively as the text of the law will let us. host: and the supreme court putting a limit. >> and the supreme court. i often say that -- that the supreme court we saw this in another case. if it is a corruption case, the supreme court narrowly interprets it. there was a case about whether or not under a law that criminalized state or local officials from receiving bribes, whether or not the way that statute was worded which had -- literally had the word. i forget the first word. it was or rewarded. which to me sounds like after. you are rewarded after. you are not rewarded before you do something. whether or not that law covers

bribery and gratuities which you would receive afterwards which is the nice word for post action bribery. and the court said, no, because both the law looks more like the federal bribery statute relating to federal officials. we're just going to say it has to do with bribery. when you have a corruption case, the court interrupts the law narrowly. other criminal cases, they often interpret them broadly. the one exception that i have written about is if justice neil gorsuch had a question about it and is able to get one of the other conservatives to join him. this, however, was a mix and match. you had justice barrett joining with kagan and sotomayor.

they had the upholding of the narrowing reading of the statute. her concurring opinion did explain sort of what i was saying. that she said, yes, what happened on january 6th bad. yes, it should be prosecuted. as permitted. that's not what i'm here to talk about. i'm here to talk about what the law saws and how because of the fact that it is part two of a law we have to read it in conjunction with part one. and that means it has to relate to evidence. host: all right. let's get to some calls with questions. mary is in las vegas, nevada on the line for democrats. good morning, mary. caller: good morning. citizen united really opened up the flood gates for bribery and corruption allowing all of the big money people to, you know, lobby. hobby our congress and our

politicians. and it has affected our supreme court. now protecting justice thomas who made $4 million over 20 years, giving the likes of leonard leo and harlan crow. the guy has a garden of evil filled with dictators. i don't know how. chevron deference is really a bad, bad decision. the supreme court can't decide on an immunity chase they shouldn't have taken. they have taken thousands upon thousands of lawsuits that are going to evolve. you know, it is just a jolt. they are destroying the country.

host: i want to give our guest a chance to respond. i want to point to the article in the associated press that points out that seven in ten americans think that supreme court justices put ideology over impartiality. that's in the ap poll. only about three in ten u.s. adults think the justices are more likely to provide an independent check on other branches of government being fair and impartial. you can see how it breaks down, democrats in particular are, you know, think that the justices are more likely to try to shape the law to fit their own ideologies. >> i mean it is definitely coming out of this past year almost two years of stories about the ethical questions underlying the justices, the facts that neither justice

thomas or alito are recusing themselves from cases where it appears that they should have accused themselves from. -- recused themselves from. it certainly leads me to feel there needs to be continued scrutiny. i do think that the public pressure, the public attention, the media attention, the legislative attention, even if they aren't passing legislation is important. because we saw most recently when there was the call from two senators, including senator whitehouse and chair durbin of the judiciary committee to meet with roberts over the justice alito ethics questions, as opposed to in other times where we might have not heard anything from the court.

we did get a response. even though it was a response we didn't want, we got a response from justice alito and chief justice roberts. while we're not necessarily getting the results that we want from the court, i think that attention on these issues does lead to responses from the court that means that as long as we keep showing them that we're paying attention, they will know it. hopefully keep spondeing. host: kate is in new york city. she's on the line for the republicans. good morning, kate. >> hi, chris. this is about whether or not -- you mentioned that in chevron the judges were directed to the defer to the state agencies. i'm just curious now are they prohibited from doing that or if the judge were so inclined could they still use the agency that's the soundingboard? and my second question is could you elaborate a little bit more about how it will affect the timing to make the decisions?

i know you already hit on the case volume already being quite high. i was curious to know if perhaps by bypassing and not including the state agency in the process that it could speed things up a bit. >> yeah. we talked about the fall agency. >> yeah. this is federal agencies. because it is a separation of powers issue allegedly. and so what we're talking about is whether or not when a federal agency passes rules how a challenge is looked at. it is what 90% of these sort of cases are. and so what will happen is there are a few circumstances. one of the things that they talked about in their opinions was some laws specifically saying that this area of the law is to be interpreted by the agency. this provision is to be decided by the agency. and in those situations, there

will still be deference to the agency. even that i should note that in chief justice roberts decision, he says within the institutional limits and in a concurrence from justice thomas, he suggests that those limits could be -- could be quite stark. in addition to that, there's a general overarching deference you are going to hear more about in the future. another is skidmore deference. it is another watered down. it is the pre-chevron agency deference. it basically just says you should look at agency and their designatures. that's where we're going to be back to now. in answer to your question,

courts should look at agency's actions. they just are not going to be -- they are not going to be determinative even if they are reasonable if a judge decided that they are not the best in interpretation. >> what about kate's question regarding the timing? because if you are sort of changing the way that you consider an agency's input, how does that affect the timing of cases? >> yeah. i think that -- the biggest issue with timing that i can see right coming out of this is that they are going to be more complicated issues that a judge feels under the rules they are obligated to make all of the determinations about it themselves. even if they look at something and see that an agency put time

into it, they are going to need to basically start over and do the work themselves. host: does that answer your question, kate? caller: yes, thank you so much. i appreciate it. host: all right. thanks. let's go to terry in vanita were oregon on the line for the democrats. good morning, terry. caller: yes, good morning. i'm concerned about the -- real concerned about the immunity case that's going to be coming and revealed to us on monday. but the ones that just broke my heart was the homelessness. and how they can be arrested for not having a home and for living in your car. could have a blanket rolled up and you could be arrested. we're losing the county. i mean most of of the homeless people are veterans, people that fought for the country. and the other one is how, you

know, how senator whitehouse has been really calling on the hiding -- hidden gifts that the leader has been taking. thomas is revealing they are not too bold. we find out more. all of the sudden they come down with a decision where if you -- it is a bribe if you take money before you make a decision or say a governor, you know. and it is not -- it is legal now if that govern say allows a company to ruin our water or, you know, i'm having trouble articulating. i apologize. but did it -- did the supreme court justin -- just give them and cover themselves to take gifts vacations from the rich

billionaires to protect themselveses? did that happen? i'm having a nervous anxiety attack just being on the phone. thank you very much. host: thank you for your questions, terry. >> i'll start with the last one. i think it is important. the law was affecting state and local officials. the law did not do anything to the federal officials rights. it didn't have anything to do with the justices. but it is important to note the decent made it very clear that the concerns that justice jackson expressed really sounded like if you read them it was hard to not think that she did see this was at one point she said this was a decision that only this course could love. it was hard not to imagine what

she was suggesting there. in terms of the homelessness decision, grants passed, i just strongly agree with you. i wrote about chevron yesterday. i will be writing at today about the grant's past decision. if you read justice sotomayor's descent, we talked about the fact that what happened here was you have the city that essentially wanted to get rid of homeless people. they had been doing things. they had been talking in city council meetings about how we get rid of homeless people. they had previously tried to give them money to take a bus out of town. i mean this is -- this is as cartoonishly evil as you think it could be. what they have passed was a law that basically said if you -- if

you camp, you are not allowed to on public lands. the way they defined camping essentially involved two things, any covering on yourself. as you mentioned, a blanket, or a rolled up coat, used to protect yourself from the cold and if you don't have another place to live. that is -- that is a distinction that subjects you to this law. justice gorsuch on behalf of the conservative justices said that that law was legal. that was not classifying people based on status, but rather actions. and justice sotomayor in descent said the action was blanket and

sleeping. that was the equivalent of you could just add to a law breathing. it could be a status that you then add breathing to and under the majority's reasoning, that no longer becomes a status-based law. host: lots of questions coming in for you. next up is karen in the alabaster line. caller: good morning. a couple of things i want to discuss real quick then a question. please don't cut me off. the chevron case. i think it was a good thing it was overfunder. it allowed a fourth branch of government. you had federal agencies unelected bureaucrats saying to do x, y, and z, enforcing the regulations that were passed by congress at all. you can take the idaho case. they try to cut off of the farmer's water. and finally the farmers work with the governor and the state

agency to come up with a plan. we don't need the unelected bureaucrats coming in and telling us what to do. number two on the fisher case, there are a lot of -- there are several -- january 6th plaintiffs or defendants, i guess, that were charged with this particular ruling. now the cases have to be dropped. now the department of justice is trying to find other crimes to charge them with. my final question is how do you feel about joe biden's administration ignoring the supreme court ruling? for example, on the student debt loan. they told him you do not have the authority to pay off student loans. you have to take it through congress. he's ignoring it. he's using the defense budget to pay off the student loan debits. thank you. host: all right. first of all, she was saying that chevron it was good it was over turned.

there were unelected bureaucrats effectively making new laws. >> yeah. i think that's the basic argument against any agency action. part of the issue there is congress needs to pass laws. often times they don't. that was a point that justice hagan made in descent. you often aren't able to pass legislation that has all of the details worked out. just because it is sometimes members of congress don't know the specifics of certain scientific questions or certain technical questions. this isn't always controversial things. sometimes it is, like, how long can a truck be when it is safe on the road. do you want congress deciding that or do you want an agency that can do testing to decide that?

host: i'll follow up on karen's other two points. first you want to rsection from the full descent. congress knowsdoes not and cannot w pfectly complete regulatory statutes. it knows t statutes will contain ambiguities that some her actor will have to resolve and gaps some other actor will hafill. they would prefer it the responsible agency not the court. th agency gives itself exclusive powerr every issue involving the meanin of regulatory laws. as it if it does not have enough on itslate, the majority turns itself into the country's administrative czar. it defent move as one suddenly required by the nearly 80-year-old administrative procedure act, but the act m no such demand. today's decisn not one

congress directed. it is entirely the majority's choice. that's from the descent. karen's second question was about -- or second point was about the fisher case. the case related to the january 6th defendants and the idea that the department of justice is now looking for new charges for many of those folks. >> yeah. we're not quite at new charges. there might be some new charges. there's also the issue of interpreting -- not interpreting, but going through all of the indictments and seeing if they fit the new standard, and the defendants can now go back and question their -- either convictions or their -- if they are still at trial and try to make the justice department re-prove its case. we could have some cases that need to go back. and if there are other charges,

they will do that. that's also again -- i mean this is a situation where this is how prosecutors work. it is great if the january 6th treatment of criminal defendants has gotten more people paying attention to criminal law. i just hope they keep doing it after the cases. host: then just very quickly. the idea about joe biden ignoring the supreme court and president biden ignoring the court on the student loan's argument. >> that's the one we're okay. the fact of the matter is the supreme court turns down one way of the biden administration trying to under the hue row's act get -- hero's act get rid of student debt. they've looked for other authorities. they directed the administration

to find other authorities that would authorize lesser amounts. they haven't got the same amount. i'll tell you that because i'm still paying my student loans. host: all right. in the few minutes we have left, let's see if we can get a few more people in. bill on the independent line. caller: good morning. chris, my question goes back to the eloper decision. you go back to the founding -- soon after the founding of march -- marberry versus madison where they decided the supreme court. going back further, the illinois supreme court answered the question. how often should a person have their eye pressure checked for glaucoma. and the decision was court was -- the court is ultimately has

the power to decide that. the court should not be the decision maker. it is good. people can go to the courts. even though the courts could not be expert on each subject. once the court is breached, i think it is a very healthy thing that people in the administration state in the experts that you have a political agenda and have a -- i mean they have an intent to direct the regulations in certain ways. i think it is a -- really a positive thing that the court is saying -- host: i think we have your idea. i'm going to let chris respond. >> yeah.

i certainly think that one of the concerns that chevron raised is that you did have this possibility. there were some limits on it. you had the possibility of administration's shifting and changing how laws were interpreted. and that obviously leads to some instability. and a main goal of law to provide stability. in theory, there was stability in the sense. but the concern on that front is that -- to the extent there was instability, it was instability that reflected the election. it reflected what voters wanted. and if you get rid of that and you have a court system that is not balanced, like we have now, then you do risk having court rulings that end up creating

regulations that are totally out of line. >> i'll just point out if you would like to go back and hear the oral arguments for any of the cases that we're discussing, we have them on the web site, c-span.org. go back and listen to how the court came to the decisions. last caller for today, kim from albany, new york on the line for the independents. caller: thank you. this is interesting. i'm just looking at it. i just wanted to ask about the chevron case. and make comments that it -- if trump took a big endowment, which he asked for, and decided to drill for oil up in alaska or in the gulf of mexico, he could likely do that for the reverse of the chevron ruling.

>> there are still limits. depends on how cynical that you are. if you think that the supreme court will just give him a free pass, the answer is yes. the answer would have been yes under chevron too. so i mean you still do have this -- under the apa you have -- under the administrative procedure act the challenges that people bring to rules. you have the arbitrary and capricious standard that rules can be tossed out if they are bound to be arbitrary and capricious. you'll have courts reviewing that and not needing to defer to agencies. in theory and independent judiciary, there would be a greater chance without chevron of a trump administration action like that, a hypothetical trump

administration, hypothetical action like that being struck down. but i'm not sure -- i'm not sure we have that exact situation. and i'm not sure how it will play out. host: all right. that's all of the time we have for calls today. thank you to chris geidner who is the writer of the "law dork." i appreciate your expertise this morning. >> thank you, kimberly. we don't like expertise anymore. host: well, we appreciate the expertise