Week In a Nutshell, 1/28/22

January 28, 2022 | Updated Feb 22 2023

Week In a Nutshell, 1/28/22

U.S. President Joe Biden looks on as U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer speaks about his coming retirement. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

By Jake Kaplan

Here are some of the legal news stories making headlines this week:

Justice Stephen Breyer announced that he is retiring from the Supreme Court.

By the time he retires, Justice Breyer will have spent nearly 28 years on the Supreme Court bench. The Senate confirmed Breyer to the Court in 1994 by a vote of 87-9.
Breyer will leave a legacy as the dealmaker behind many high-profile cases. For example, Breyer wrote the opinion in the 2021 ruling that upheld the Affordable Care Act. He also authored opinions in favor of protecting reproductive rights.
Over the years, Breyer has also delivered emphatic dissents in which he argued that the death penalty is unconstitutional. In one recent case, Breyer wrote, “A modern system of criminal justice must be reasonably accurate, fair, humane, and timely. Our recent experience with the Federal Government’s resumption of executions adds to the mounting body of evidence that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with those values.”
President Joe Biden now faces the tough question of nominating Breyer’s replacement. While campaigning for president in 2020, Biden pledged to appoint the first Black woman to serve on the Court. “I’m looking forward to making sure there’s a Black woman on the Supreme Court, to make sure we, in fact, get every representation,” Biden said.
Preet and Joyce discussed Breyer’s legacy and the forthcoming political battle over his replacement on a special episode of CAFE Insider.

The Department of Justice is investigating the fake slates of electors that purported to declare former President Donald Trump the winner of multiple states he lost in the 2020 presidential election.

In an interview with CNN, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said, “We’ve received those referrals. Our prosecutors are looking at those and I can’t say anything more on ongoing investigations.” She added that prosecutors would “follow the facts and the law, wherever they lead, to address conduct of any kind and at any level that is part of an assault on our democracy.”
Recent reports detailed a scheme by Trump allies to send fake slates of electors to the National Archives in December 2020 from seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.
It remains to be seen whether DOJ is investigating Trump campaign leadership. At a recent Republican Party event, Meshawn Maddock, a fake elector from Michigan, said “We fought to seat the electors. The Trump campaign asked us to do that.”
Meanwhile, former Trump campaign advisor Boris Epshteyn recently said that former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani directed the fake electors operation. “Everything that was done was done legally by the Trump legal team…under the leadership of Rudy Giuliani,” Epshteyn said. Last week, the January 6th Committee issued subpoenas to both Giuliani and Epshteyn. Preet and Joyce discussed the subpoenas this week on the CAFE Insider podcast.