Hidden legal fees on your dime | Morning Newsletter

Good morning.

We’re bringing you an investigation into the $10 million the Pennsylvania legislature spent on private lawyers. We found that lawmakers routinely shielded the purpose of the legal expenses. Meanwhile, we’re also taking you on a wild bird’s WILD ride.

OK, let’s get into it. And if you have thoughts about how to make this email speak more directly to you, send me one back.

— Ashley Hoffman (@_AshleyHoffman, morningnewsletter@inquirer.com)

Over the last two years, the Pennsylvania legislature spent nearly $10 million on private lawyers for reasons that are (in many cases) impossible to identify.

It routinely shielded the purpose of those expenses, hiding which lawmakers and their staffs required representation — and why, according to our investigation. A review of thousands of pages of legal invoices and engagement letters from 2019 and 2020 by The Caucus and Spotlight PA shows the cases ranged from public records fights to secret personnel problems to attempts to overturn last year’s presidential election.

In many instances, Republicans and Democrats in both chambers made the reason for hiring lawyers invisible, flouting case law that requires them to make those critical details public. Other records were so vague it was impossible to identify the reason for the representation.

Keep reading for Angela Couloumbis and Sam Janesch’s full investigation into the money.

An objectively gorgeous falcon is soaring into our lives on the wings of a truly interesting story.

Last month, the Pennsylvania Game Commission decided that a reclusive forest dweller needed to be moved from a threatened species list to endangered.

And that’s not really flying with Mike Dupuy, a falconer who’s raised the bird-celebrity since it was a chick. Now that the species is officially endangered in the state, it’s unclear whether any of the state’s 200-plus licensed falconers like Dupuy would be allowed to take one to raise and fly.

But Dupuy’s a self-professed rebel of the falconry world who believes the study was insufficient, and he comes from “a long line of troublemakers,” he tells reporter Jason Nark.

Keep reading for this wild bird’s wild ride.

🥩 Peep Craig LaBan’s video on one of Philly’s top ten restaurants of 2021.

🍳 And while Rihanna found love in a broken place, our very own deputy food editor Joseph Hernandez was out here finding self-love in an egg sandwich. Read his beautiful essay on self-eggceptance.

📀 We talked to Meek Mill about his new album, which he used as therapy. It’s called Expensive Pain, so keep going for the must-read interview.

🏋️ Check out these exercises that activate your core.

☕ Philly’s first Vietnamese coffee roaster, Càphê, has opened a cafe in Kensington.

“At least a handful of residents emerge from their homes just before 8 each evening and walk to the corners at the intersection of Emlen Street and West Mount Airy Avenue for the observance,” — columnist Jenice Armstrong writes about how Mount Airy residents gathered to lift George Floyd’s name.