Trump DOJ CAUGHT in “Fishing Expedition” with NEW ATTACKS?!?!

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Hi praggies and welcome back to another episode of Pragmatic Optimist. I'm State Senator Tiara Mack and I'm joined by attorney Rachel Cohen. And today we are going to talk about the Supreme Court's continued contact on one of the most marginalized and one of the smallest populations of Americans, trans kids. We have an immense focus and an intense harassment campaign that is being spearheaded by Donald Trump's DOJ that is attacking trans kids and their families. and it just a few days ago kicked into another gear. As if there were more things that we could say and do to criminalize or to potentially um endanger the lives of trans kids and their families, the fifth circuit in Texas found a new way and the DOJ is embolding them. So Rachel, I am a Rhode Island state legislator as our dear pragies know, but this case in particular has swed a lot of concern for families. And I want to take us all the way back to like September of last year.

[00:01:02]The Department of Justice last year in its like 15th teenth time attacking trans communities decided to subpoena no less than 12 states that have gender affirming care codified or allow gender affirming care in their states. All of those states ignored the DOJ subpoena.

[00:01:22]They're like, "We're not giving you protected healthcare information." The DOJ was fishing fishing for things like names, email addresses, home addresses, healthcare provider, detailed medical information and detailed medical analysis around trans kids and people who are getting gendered care under the age of 18. Obviously, these states are like, "Hey, DOJ, I heard of something called HIPPA?" Absolutely not. So, all of these states ignored it. Recently, there was a new revival because the DOJ knows that the Fifth Circuit will do whatever Daddy Trump wants because they have been doing whatever Daddy Trump wants. And the Fifth Circuit then subpoenaed Rhode Island and Rhode Island Hospital specifically in order to get that protected healthc care information on the care provided to trans kids. That started a stay from and Rachel, you're the lawyer, not me. I'm just a girl who cares a lot and has been trying to follow as quickly as I can because um according to all the lawyers I know this is moving so quickly. So Texas >> everything. So Texas subpoenenaed um Rhode Island Hospital for their data I believe um in early May. So this is all happening in early May. Rhode Island Hospital then goes to the Rhode Island District Court, Circuit One, and says, "We want a motion to stay the subpoena."

[00:02:47]Rhode Island's first circuit that has a Trump appointed judge. Um, she was nominated under Biden, but um, she got in under Trump. So, she is a Trump appointed judge who said, "Actually, Texas, you can't get this information."

[00:03:02]So, they squash quash the motion.

[00:03:06]But then Texas says, "Actually, first circuit, we're the fifth circuit and you can't tell us what to do." And so then they request the data from Rhode Island Hospital. And now there's this jurisdictional question of whether Texas has jurisdiction over Rhode Island Hospital overseen by the First Circuit.

[00:03:23]And unfortunately that has left families in Rhode Island with the um unfortunate circumstance where the data was sent um because no one in Rhode Island including the lawyers over these case want to be held in contempt of court and sent to Texas jails for ignoring a subpoena even though it's unclear if Texas could even send that subpoena for that information.

[00:03:45]But Rhode Island Hospital did send anonymized data not including names, dates, detailed healthcare information or private information. It is all anonymized and not attributable to individuals, families or healthcare providers. But that is going to be held in camera which is basically and Rachel you can do the legal explaining of what in camera means. But none of that information is going to be available to either the first to the DOJ or the fifth circuit until the issue of who's h who has jurisdiction over Rhode Island hospitals data Rhode Island's first circuit or fifth circuit. I think I did a general overview, but Rachel, my questions are, why is Texas being used as the only court to handle the 12 jurisdictions that have trans cases? Is the Donald Trump administration just fishing and finding the most conservative courts that will um kiss up to daddy Trump? And then what does it mean if the courts are beefing and no one knows who actually has the most power to give individuals justice? I think this is such a good case to get through the idea of forum shopping, which is a really common kind of litigation strategy in not just governmental cases and frankly historically wouldn't be used so much in governmental cases where the DOJ is trying to pretend that they are neutral, but is much more likely to be used in like corporate disputes. But the form shopping idea is that you bring a case in the most friendly court to you. for the Trump administration, that is always going to be the fifth circuit, which is the the court of appeals that Texas district courts appeal up to and is stacked with the most Trump friendly judges in the country. We've talked about our number one OP, James Hoe, many times, but there are plenty of other very conservative justice judges on the fifth circuit. And so what that means is that the lawyers are going to bring the cases where they are trying to get Rhode Island data or data from other circuits that are less friendly to the Trump administration through subpoenas that come from Texas fifth circuit courts.

[00:06:00]And that is a common strategy that we're going to see happen more and more. It connects back to other things that we've talked about on our show like the Prairie Land defendants and the terrorism convictions that were obtained for uh anti-ICE protesters. The reason there have been politicized prosecutions in tons of different courts throughout the country and Prairie Land is the one where they ran this kind of domestic terrorism strategy because you have slightly more friendly juries because of the demographics that you're pulling from. You have more friendly appeals courts. You have more friendly, frankly, district attorneys and ADAs and people that are bringing those cases in the first place in like the the DOJ because there are plenty of DOJ offices across the country that are working on skeleton stabs because how the do you get people in Chicago to bring cases like this, right? And so, I mean, we manage it. And we're going to talk about a bunch of these different interconnected things in future videos that we're recording today. Politicized prosecutions in Chicago and what that looks like. We're going to talk about the abuse of subpoena power. And we're also going to talk about right now where those issues go. When there is a disagreement between the two circuits, that almost always goes up to the Supreme Court, particularly when it is an issue that has presidential value.

[00:07:23]Like, can they do this? And so I don't know if this specific case about subpoenas will go up to the court, but eventually something will go up to the court about this question. Can we subpoena this data through a different court? Because we know that the District of Rhode Island is not going to say yes.

[00:07:38]And so where that leaves us is this uncertain territory where the Trump administration, as you said, continues to build out attacks on the trans community. We've seen executive orders that make very clear that Donald Trump is going to frame and perhaps already has and just hasn't got I haven't seen it. Doesn't mean it's not happening. Is going to frame parents who bring their kids out of state for gender affirming care as like human traffickers. Um that there is going to be an attack on attorneys that defend people who are are getting gender affirming care. All of these things have been clearly previewed in executive orders. And so the last thing that I want to draw people's attention to is that sometime in the next couple of weeks, probably by the end of June, we're going to get a decision in the Little Heat Rocks case, which you and I have talked about a number of times somewhere on this playlist a couple of times, is the trans athletes case that is currently in front of the Supreme Court. There hasn't been an opinion on that yet, but it's going to have broad implications for not just trans youth, but likely the LGBTQ community broadly in equal protection claims. That's not what we're seeing exactly in this case, but it will be like a defensive framework as the Trump administration continues to attack trans youth. So, I think you're very right to draw our attention here and we're going to keep tracking it and see what happens. And Rachel, one question before we go, just so I can understand where where this where this country is going and what states have the power to protect. So in Rhode Island, we have protected both gender affirming care and providers of gender- affirming care. But now that a Texas court can subpoena Rhode Island Hospital and the same providers that we have protected and enshrined into state law gender affirming health care. Do we as a state that now has seen a subpoena from a hostile state come to our state have any reason to believe that we have the rights in our states protected in our country? or because we've now seen this court chopping that even if one state has access to legal abortion, access to gender affirming care, protections for gender-based violence, racially based violence, that essentially because we are now in Donald Trump's America, those protections are now out the window.

[00:10:01]It's such a good question and it's going to hinge deeply on what federal law looks like because these kinds of cross-state subpoenas, those are only possible when brought in the federal courts. Not that's that's an oversimplification and of course there are exceptions, but it is going to be the easiest pathway is through federal court when there are things that are being brought under federal law. And so right now we're in a a grayish area where I would still say that the vast majority of state level protections are going to apply here. Um but if we see buildouts of like criminalizing abort if abortion is criminalized at the federal level for example the the states cannot retain protection of abortion. It just doesn't work that way. There's this kind of preeemption.

[00:10:52]And even if we don't get to that point, if Donald Trump is allowing there to be kind of federal level investigations to see if certain things are happening that they might characterize again as like human trafficking or similar, then they can use the federal courts to do that. The federal courts are going to preempt. It's like the the idea of preeemption. The federal courts take take the cake over like state level protections. And that's one of the reasons why it is so important that we continue to engage electorally. I know I'm preaching to the choir here on Legal AF, but we have to retake the House no matter how many kind of things Donald Trump tries to pull related to um maps and similar because if these laws change at the federal level, it goes out of the gray area and very much into the no, those protections don't exist anymore area. So my pragmatic optimism that I will leave people with is that we are seeing incredible electoral mobilization. We're seeing it across the spectrum of the Democratic party and left needing people in this country. And I would encourage everyone to continue to engage, get out and volunteer, phone bank, do that in the primaries, especially because whether or not you think the kind of populist economic left approach is the winning approach, the people that are primary on those grounds also are so energized and younger and willing to take on a fight because they're already doing it. And so there are a lot of electeds across the country that need your assistance or hopeful electeds. Randy Viegas in California 2020 22. We have Will Lawrence who's running in Michigan. We have Milak Cirus who's running in Colorado one. And people from across the country can volunteer, donate, and engage with those campaigns no matter what. So I will leave you all with that. We can make sure that this doesn't happen at the federal level, but it it's not a guarantee unless we really take retake Congress and have like that wall and check on the president. So, keep tuning in here on Legal AF on YouTube, Substack, Instagram, wherever you are consuming your media because we're going to keep talking about it and we'll see you soon.

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