250 Years of Bad Decisions Pt. 2: The Law Was Never Neutral [TEASER]

In honor of America’s birthday, join Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael for part two of their Supreme Court retrospective. This time they track how the myth of judicial neutrality has haunted America for centuries. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5 to 4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Allison Rodgers. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Speaker 00

  Hey, everyone. This is Leon from Prologue Projects. On this week's episode of Five to Four, Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael are continuing the series they started this past summer, looking back at key moments in the history of the Supreme Court in honor of the country's 250th birthday. Today's episode tackles the idea of judicial neutrality and how right-wing actors on and around the court have weaponized the supposed neutrality of the law to launder what has always been a fundamentally political project. This is Five to Four, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court has always sucked.

• 0:51Peter Shamshiri?

  Welcome to Five to Four, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have humiliated our nation, like Eric Schmidt humiliating himself during a congressional hearing. I'm Peter. I'm here with Rhiannon.

• 1:02Speaker 02

  Hey, y'all.

• 1:03Peter Shamshiri?

  And Michael.

• 1:04Michael Liroff?

  I actually enjoyed that. I rarely enjoy a congressional hearing, but I thought that one was pretty fun.

• 1:09Peter Shamshiri?

  Do you want to explain it for the folks at home?

• 1:11Michael Liroff?

  Yeah, Eric Schmidt, Republican from Missouri, was questioning Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who had investigated Donald Trump and prosecuted him, for that matter, and was trying to imply or outright state that Jack Smith had colluded with Fannie Willis, the district attorney in Atlanta, to imprison Donald Trump and then had perjured himself at this hearing about it. And his evidence for this were internal communications and text messages showing that Jack Smith had been at an Atlanta Hawks game in Atlanta the day after a big scandal with Fannie Willis broke about her sleeping with another prosecutor who had been prosecuting Trump and all that.

• 1:56Speaker 04

  What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced their affair?

• 2:06Speaker 02

  And surely he got this right. I mean, it's text messages.

• 2:10Michael Liroff?

  He had a big poster board he pulled up.

• 2:12Peter Shamshiri?

  With the text messages on them.

• 2:13Michael Liroff?

  Yeah. And he's like, "I believe you just perjured yourself," and then they hid the poster board and immediately tried to move on as they realized Jack Smith had no idea what the fuck they were talking about.

• 2:23Speaker 04

  It's possible I flew through the Atlanta airport on the way to Florida, but I do not have a recollection of going to Atlanta. I definitely did not go to a Hawks game.

• 2:34Michael Liroff?

  Turns out he had been at the Iowa Hawkeyes game to see Kaitlyn Clark play college basketball.

• 2:41Peter Shamshiri?

  In College Park, Maryland.

• 2:42Michael Liroff?

  Yes.

• 2:43Speaker 02

  Not in Atlanta.

• 2:44Peter Shamshiri?

  There's like a long pause in the room where everyone's like, "What's going on? Like, what is this accusation?" And then Amy Klobuchar, I think, is the one who's like, coming out as a ball knower.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  Could it then be that University of Iowa's Hawkeyes? Could that be it?

• 3:01Michael Liroff?

  Yes.

• 3:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:03Peter Shamshiri?

  Like, a Midwestern lady, obviously, she knows all the college mascots, you know what I mean?

• 3:07Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 3:08Peter Shamshiri?

  She's like Hawkeyes, right? And then Schmidt gets like angry.

• 3:11Speaker 04

  Who's questioning is this, by the way, Jeremy? Are you using your time, Senator? Is this what this is?

• 3:16Speaker 02

  You're using your time to be illiterate, so...

• 3:18Peter Shamshiri?

  Right.

• 3:19Michael Liroff?

  Yeah.

• 3:20Peter Shamshiri?

  Pretty good stuff, politics, very stupid, just an embarrassment.

• 3:24Michael Liroff?

  Yeah, the pulling out of the poster board and then hiding it, and then Democrats being like, "Can we see the poster board? Can you bring that back out?" And then being like, "We don't have to show you our poster board."

• 3:34Peter Shamshiri?

  It's so weird.

• 3:36Michael Liroff?

  Just absolute clowns, just absolute clowns.

• 3:40Peter Shamshiri?

  All right, folks. Earlier this year, we dropped the first episode in our 250 Years of Bad Decisions series, a short series reflecting the court's role in our nation's trials and tribulations thus far. Now, we're going to continue that today. Will there be a third episode? Probably. Who knows? We're sort of just vibing this out over the course of the year, frankly. One of the primary thesis statements of this podcast from the beginning has been the idea that the law is not neutral, that it can never be neutral, that the court uses the perception of neutrality to obscure its politics and its ideology.

• 4:18Speaker 06

  Hey, folks, if you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe. This episode is one of our premium Patreon-only episodes. Membership starts at just $5 a month. If you want to hear the rest, join us at patreon.com/54pod. That's 54pod, all spelled out. Members get a bunch of stuff. Not only do you get access to the premium episodes, but access to subscriber-only events, discounts on merch, and at the $10 a month level, you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy Five to Four Slack. So again, that's patreon.com/54pod, 54pod, all spelled out. Become a member today.