You might wonder what legal basis might have existed for the United States Navy to bomb and destroy ships in international waters off Venezuela. You might also have taken comfort in the claims that these were “narco-terrorists” bringing shipments of drugs, which somehow causes people to ignore any legalities in favor of high seas murder since “narco-terrorists” is doubly bad and who could possibly not favor stopping them with extreme prejudice.

Of course, we can’t know that these were drug smugglers, or terrorists, since they were neither captured nor searched to ascertain what, if anything, was on those ships. Instead, we took Trump’s word for it. After all, he said he was certain that they were “narco-terrorists” and it’s not as if Trump would ever tell a lie or be wrong about anything. Continue reading →

I’ve never been a fan of federal judges writing cute or gimmicky opinions. Much as I may enjoy them on occasion, federal cases are serious matters and the court’s decisions should be serious as well. So I join the chorus of those who question why radical left lunatic Reagan appointee, Judge William Young of the District of Massachusetts, began his very lengthy decision in AAUP v. Rubio like this.

But from there, Judge Young got down to business. Continue reading →

After another United States Attorney appointee, wholly lacking in any qualification other than loyalty, failed to get Senate confirmation, she was flipped from “interim” to “acting” in an effort to circumvent the law and give the president what he wanted. Another judge ruled against her.

The A problem is that this administration isn’t like the old one. One of the hallmarks of Trump 1.0 was his stunning ignorance of law and governance was somewhat constrained by others in the administration who told him he couldn’t do some of the things that popped into his head because they were unlawful. In Trump 2.0 (or 3.0, as he informed a clearly impressionable group of generals who flew into Quantico at great expense and disruption, too rapt by the gravitas of Pete Hegseth’s warnings about “beardos” and fatties to utter a sound), he is surrounded by others bent on overcoming the limits of law and governance to accomplish Trump’s and Stephen Miller’s goals of hegemony. Continue reading →

A basic premise of First Amendment law is that the government can’t censor protected speech, but a private entity can for the simple reason that it’s not the government. Sure, the government can coerce a private entity to act, thus making it an agent of the government, but that’s a separate issue. If I choose to trash your comment, tough nuggies. The same is true for social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

So why did YouTube just pay Trump, personally, $24.5 million for a facially frivolous claim?

YouTube agreed to pay a $24.5 million settlement to President Trump and others who were suspended by the video streaming platform in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol, according to a legal document filed on Monday. Continue reading →

Some guy shot up a Mormon Church and another guy shot up seaside bar. They murdered people.

More FBI agents were fired by Ka$h Patel for not being believed to be sufficiently Trumpian.

Trump thinks former FBI Director Christopher Wray should be investigated because “he did a terrible job.”

BLA Joanne Chesimard, convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper and later escaping to Cuba, is dead. The Democratic Socialist Party and Chicago Teachers Union pay their respects. Continue reading →

Does the Impoundment Control Act get your heart pumping? Not likely, and yet another ruling without rational on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket makes it a far bigger deal than one might imagine. At issue was $4 billion that Congress allocated to foreign aid, but that Trump decided not to spend because it didn’t fit his agenda. The funds were impounded, pursuant to 2 USC Chapter 17B, which would otherwise put the question back to Congress to decide whether to rescind its earlier allocation, as the president requests, or to tell the president to spend it as Congress determined.

Except Congress did nothing with the recission request, because that’s what this Congress does best, and when the fiscal year expires, the money will disappear, mooting the question. See how sexy this is? Continue reading →

About two months ago, my son came to me expressing a desire to quit karate. My wife and I had him in martial arts since kindergarten and we’d honestly thought he’d enjoyed it this entire time. Apparently the kindest ten-year-old boy in the world doesn’t share his father’s joy at either punching people in the face during sparring or getting hit in the face during sparring. Go figure.

Anyway, he wasn’t getting off without going into some other form of physical activity. Enter my son’s friend Charlie (not his real name) who’s one of the popular neighborhood kids and something of a self-styled protector. Putting his arm around my boy, Charlie told him “Relax, you should join my church’s soccer league! You can probably even be on my team! My dad’s best friends with the director!” Continue reading →

To the extent one took pride in serving as a prosecutor, it was grounded in the integrity of the duty. With neither fear nor favor, a prosecutor followed the evidence and, when the evidence warranted, prosecuted crimes. It didn’t make a prosecutor infallible, or even right, but it did allow her to perform her duty with integrity. As Justice Jackson admonished, “do justice.” And justice was what United States Attorneys and their assistants could take comfort in doing.

That is over.

But the two-count indictment against Mr. Comey is the most far-reaching and public example of the second Trump administration’s efforts to co-opt the criminal justice system. And while Mr. Trump’s allies see it as an overdue and legitimate effort to hold Mr. Comey accountable for what they consider an abuse of power, it could well go down as a moment when a fundamental democratic norm — that justice is dispensed without regard to political or personal agendas — was cast aside in a dangerous way.

Continue reading →

While many of us tend to focus on the Supreme Court’s acquiescence to the Trump administration’s actions on its shadow docket, lawprof Steve Vladeck argues that the courts have been more effective in keeping Trump’s usurpation of power than we realize.

For all of the attention that is (understandably) being paid to the unprecedented number of cases the Trump administration is rushing to the Supreme Court (we’re up to 28), and to the Court’s (troubling) behavior in those cases, they represent only a small subset of the broader universe of legal challenges to Trump administration behavior. In the majority of cases in which the government is losing in the lower courts, it is (1) not seeking emergency or expedited intervention from above; and (2) otherwise complying with the adverse rulings while the cases move (very slowly) ahead.

Because this reality doesn’t make for quite as attractive headlines, it’s one to which too many folks are largely oblivious. That’s a problem worth fixing—not only because it’s important to tell both sides of the litigation story, but because including these cases paints a more complicated (and, in my view, far less nihilistic) picture of the role of the courts—and of the law, more generally—as a check on the Trump administration.

Continue reading →

After a three day hiatus, Jimmy Kimmel returned to ABC. Whether you love him or hate him, a lot of people watched him to see what he would have to say. Apparently, this did not please Trump.

While Trump and his surrogates claimed that his “indefinite suspension” had nothing to do with FCC chair Brendan Carr’s threatening ABC that “we can do it the easy way or we can do it the hard way,” or Trump’s saying mean things about him is illegal and ABC’s license should be taken away, Trump cut them off at the knees by his twit making clear that Kimmel’s “cancellation” was all about late night comedians being mean to him. Continue reading →