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Posts tagged ‘courts’

“Race-Based Remedies Should Have an End Point”: Justices Appear Poised to Issue Historic Ruling on the Voting Rights Act


By: Jonathan Turley | October 16, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/10/16/race-based-remedies-should-have-an-end-point-justices-appear-ready-to-pull-the-plug-on-race-based-districting-under-the-voting-rights-act/

Yesterday, the Supreme Court held the long-awaited argument in Louisiana v. Callais, considering an appeal of Louisiana’s congressional map. The two majority-black districts are being challenged under the 15th Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment as unconstitutionally gerrymandered on the basis of race. The case could result in a rejection of race-based congressional districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

Notably, the Louisiana case was previously argued, but on the last day before the summer recess, the court issued an order setting the case for a second oral argument in the 2025-26 term. It later directed the litigants to file briefs addressing:

“whether the State’s intentional creation of a second majority-minority district violates either the 14th Amendment or the 15th Amendment, which bars the government from denying or restricting voting rights based on race.”

On Wednesday, I was addressing the annual conference of chief judges, speaking on the Supreme Court. I discussed some of the current cases, including Louisiana v. Callais. I noted that there may now be a majority in favor of a significant change on Section 2, but that some of us would be listening for Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett as indicators of the Court balance.

We did hear from Kavanaugh and Barrett and the challengers could take heart in the skepticism that they expressed over the indefinite use of race in such districting.

The oral argument took an interesting turn when Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sought to push back on the need to show a discriminatory intent. She interjected:

“I guess I’m thinking of it, of the fact that remedial action, absent discriminatory intent, is really not a new idea in the civil rights laws. And my kind of paradigmatic example of this is something like the ADA. Congress passed the Americans with Disabilities Act against the backdrop of a world that was generally not accessible to people with disabilities.‘

“And so, it was discriminatory in effect because these folks were not able to access these buildings. And it didn’t matter whether the person who built the building or the person who owned the building intended for them to be exclusionary. That’s irrelevant.‘

“Congress said the facilities have to be made equally open to people with disabilities if readily possible. I guess I don’t understand why that’s not what’s happening here. The idea in Section 2 is that we are responding to current-day manifestations of past and present decisions that disadvantage minorities and make it so that they don’t have equal access to the voting system.’

“They’re disabled. In fact, we use the word disabled in Milligan. We say that’s a way in which you see that these processes are not equally open.”

Justice Jackson appears to be referring to this paragraph in Allen v. Milligan:

“Individuals thus lack an equal opportunity to participate in the political process when a State’s electoral structure operates in a manner that “minimize[s] or cancel[s] out the[ir] voting strength.” Id., at 47. That occurs where an individual is disabled from “enter[ing] into the political process in a reliable and meaningful manner” “in the light of past and present reality, political and otherwise.” White, 412 U. S., at 767, 770. A district is not equally open, in other words, when minority voters face—unlike their majority peers—bloc voting along racial lines, arising against the backdrop of substantial racial discrimination within the State, that renders a minority vote unequal to a vote by a nonminority voter.” (emphasis added)

The court was not making an analogy to the ADA (though, in fairness to Justice Jackson, she was not suggesting that it made that point). It is also worth noting that Chief Justice John Roberts wrote:

“We have understood the language of §2 against the background of the hard-fought compromise that Congress struck. To that end, we have reiterated that §2 turns on the presence of discriminatory effects, not discriminatory intent.”

Milligan was deeply fractured and the question is whether five justices would now elect to set aside or reframe some of these former rulings.

During the oral argument, Roberts seemed to do precisely that in the use of Milligan, remarking “That case took the existing precedent as a given, it was a case in which we were considering Alabama’s particular challenge based on … what turned out to be an improper evidentiary showing.”

Moreover, Justice Kavanaugh (who was one of the concurrences in Milligan) suggested that we might have reached “the end point” on such race-based districting: “[T]his Court’s cases in a variety of contexts have said that race-based remedies are permissible for a period of time, sometimes for a long period of time, decades in some cases, but … they should not be indefinite and should have a[n] end point.”

Now, back to the ADA analogy.

The disabled face permanent and ongoing physical disabilities in accessing buildings and spaces. While Jackson was stressing that intent does not matter when it comes to discrimination against the disabled, the question of the other justices is whether the use of race-based districts will continue indefinitely.  The ADA is permanent because the disabilities are permanent.  The analogy plays into the very point of justices like Kavanaugh on whether race-based districting would continue ad infinitum.

If the oral argument is a reflection of the eventual votes of the justices, there now seems to be a working majority of justices willing to bring “an end point” to race-based districting. The result would have tremendous legal and political impact.

Legally, one of the most litigated areas of elections would be largely curtailed. The Voting Rights Act would still be used to prevent measures to inhibit voting and to protect the right to vote for every citizen. However, the constant districting controversies over guaranteeing majority black districts would come to an end.

The move would also be a major additional move of the Roberts court to eliminate the use of race-based classifications in society from college admissions to election districting. In a 2007 case, Chief Justice John Roberts stated that position most succinctly by declaring that the “way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”

Politically, any loss of such gerrymandering on the basis of race could impact the Democrats who hold the vast majority of these districts.

Of course, the Court could again fracture as it did in Milligan on the rationale for any opinion. What was notable about the oral argument is that there appeared to be at least five justices considering a threshold rejection of race-based districting under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.

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Law

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Federal Judge Rules for Parents in Case Involving Concealment of Child’s Gender Changes


By: Jonathan Turley | September 19, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/09/19/federal-judge-rules-for-parents-in-case-involving-concealment-of-childs-gender-changes/

There is a major ruling, Mead v. Rockford Public School Dist., a potentially precedent-setting case on parental rights in our public schools. Judge Paul Maloney (W.D. Mich.) ruled that Plaintiffs Dan and Jennifer Mead could move forward with their claims that the Rockford Public School district concealed changes to the gender identification of their biological daughter, identified as G.M. As I have previously written, parental rights are shaping up as a major battleground for the Supreme Court after years of decisions in the lower court undermining parental controls and disclosures.

A recent legal decision captured this growing divide. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit ruled last month that parents had no protected right to be informed when their children change their gender identity in public school.

In Foote v. Feliciano, Marissa Silvestri and Stephen Foote sued Baird Middle School in Ludlow, Massachusetts, after they learned that school administrators did not inform them that their 11-year-old child had self-declared as “genderqueer” and that teachers and staff were using a new name and new pronouns for the student.

The parents were initially told only that their child was experiencing mental health difficulties, including depression. Silvestri said they would seek mental health support for their child and asked that administrators “not have any private conversations with (the Student) in regards to this matter.”

The parents later learned that the school’s staff had continued to meet with their child without their knowledge, implemented the change in gender identity and took active measures not to reveal the change to them (including using the student’s birth name in communications with the parents). The school, without the parents’ knowledge, arranged for changes in everything from the use of male bathrooms to the exclusive use of the child’s new name in class.

The district court in Massachusetts denied the parents’ request for a trial and granted a summary dismissal in favor of the schools.

A century ago, the nation’s highest court ruled in Pierce v. Society of Sisters that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”

In its 2000 Troxel v. Granville decision, the court recognized “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.”

There is no greater natural right than the right to control the upbringing of our children. This right was not granted to us by the grace of the state. It rests with us as human beings. It is part of a panoply of natural rights embraced by the framers − a commitment made nearly 250 years ago in our Declaration of Independence.

The right prevailed in Michigan in this critical threshold ruling. While denying a free exercise claim, the court agreed that there was a viable Fourteenth Amendment claim:

The right of parents to direct their children’s upbringing originated from three Supreme Court cases: Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925), and Farrington v. Tokushige (1927)…. The Court affirmed the life of this right in Troxel v. Granville (2000). There, the Court held that “the interest of parents in the care, custody, and control of their children [] is perhaps the oldest of the fundamental liberty interest recognized by this Court.” … In addition, parents have a fundamental right to control their child’s health. See Parham v. J.R. (1979). “The law’s concept of the family rests on a presumption that parents possess what a child lacks in maturity, experience, and capacity for judgment required for making life’s difficult decisions.” So “[s]urely, [a parent’s right] includes a ‘high duty’ to recognize symptoms of illness and to seek and follow medical advice.” …

The court noted that the parents were alleging a key element in the case that the district intentionally deceived them and found that these “allegations show some amount of coercion or interference from the district, which implicates Plaintiffs’ right to make fundamental decisions for G.M.”

Bravo, Judge Maloney.

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Political

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Justice Department Files Complaint Against Board Members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Accused of Usurping Office


By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor | July 17, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/17/justice-department-files-complaint-against-board-members-of-the-corporation-for-public-broadcasting-accused-of-usurping-office/

On Tuesday the Justice Department petitioned for a writ of Quo Warranto against three individuals having served as board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting who were fired by President Trump yet allegedly continued to hold and exercise their office.

The complaint states “[s]ince April 28, 2025, Defendants Laura G. Ross, Thomas E. Rothman, and Diane Kaplan have been usurping and purporting to exercise unlawfully the office of board member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the “CPB”)… President Donald J. Trump lawfully removed each Defendant from office on April 28, 2025. As recent Supreme Court orders have recognized, the President cannot meaningfully exercise his executive power under Article II of the Constitution without the power to select—and, when necessary, remove—those who hold federal office. Personnel is policy, after all.”

According to Defendants, they “received an email from Trent Morse, the Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel for the Executive Office of the President, purporting to notify the board members that their positions on the Board of Directors for CPB were terminated… The Correspondence stated, in full:

‘On behalf of President Donald J. Trump, I am writing to inform you that your position on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is terminated effective immediately. Thank you for your service.’”

Immediately after President Trump’s effort to remove the board members from their positions, the three “immediately sought a preliminary injunction against the president and other officials, seeking to enjoin the government from completing their firing. See Corp. for Pub. Broad. v. Trump, Civ. A. No. 25-1305 (RDM) (D.D.C. Apr. 29, 2025). Their effort was unsuccessful as the court held that their claim the president lacked authority to remove them from office was unlikely to succeed.’

“The Justice Department’s complaint accused the three defendants of continuing to usurp the office of Board Member of the CPB by “participating in board meetings, voting on resolutions and other business that comes before the board, and presenting themselves to the public as board members. All of this [was] manifestly unlawful.”

The board members’ original complaint, argued that the CPB was created by Congress to be “a private corporation [to] be created to facilitate the development of public telecommunications and to afford maximum protection from extraneous interference and control.” They specifically argued the following:

  • CPB is not a federal agency subject to the President’s authority, but rather a private corporation. See Id. at § 396(b) (“[CPB] will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government. The Corporation shall be subject to the provisions of this section, and, to the extent consistent with this section, to the District of Columbia Nonprofit Corporation Act.”);
  • CPB’s Board members are not officers of the United States, and thus are not within the removal provisions of Article II of the Constitution. See Id. at § 396(d)(2) (“The members of the [CPB] Board shall not, by reason of such membership, be deemed to be officers or employees of the United States.”);
  • CPB Board members cannot be affected, controlled, or disturbed by the actions of the government. See Id. at § 398(c) (forbidding “any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] …”);
  • CPB Board members forfeit their membership in only one scenario, not present here. See Id. at § 396(e)(7) (“Members of the Board shall attend not less than 50 percent of all duly convened meetings of the Board in any calendar year. A member who fails to meet the requirement … shall forfeit membership.”);
  • The Act omits the typical statutory provision when creating a federal agency that the Board members serve at the pleasure of the President.

The board members sought in their complaint declaratory relief, and alleging “Violation of the Administrative Procedure Act Not in Accordance with Law/In Excess of Statutory Authority, Violation of Separation of Powers/Ultra Vires Presidential Action, Violation of the Presentment, Appropriations, and Take Care Clauses.” They also sought relief in having the court declare the e-mail terminating their position to have no legal effect and a temporary restraining order “prohibiting the Defendants from taking any action which gives effect to the Correspondence or otherwise seeks to interfere with or control the governance and operations of CPB” along with legal fees and any other relief the court might grant.

In its quo warranto filing, the Justice Department countered, “Although the Public Broadcasting Act provides that “[t]he members of the Board shall not, by reason of such membership, be deemed to be officers or employees of the United States,” 47 U.S.C. § 396(d)(2), and that the CPB “will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government,” id. § 396(b), the Act and other statutes provide many levers of government control and influence over the CPB:

[in partial list for brevity]

  • As noted above, all CPB board members are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. Id. § 396(c)(1).
  • Congress set forth specific qualifications for board members, including that no more than 5 members will be of the same political party, that board members must be “eminent in” relevant fields, and that the Board contain members who represent licensees and permittees of public television stations and public radio stations. Id. § 396(c)(1)-(3).
  • Congress restricted the compensation of CPB officers and employees based on a federal employee pay scale. Id. § 396(e)(1).
  • Congress authorized the CPB to take various actions “[i]n order to achieve the objectives and to carry out the purposes of” the Act. Id. § 396(g); see also id. § 396(a) (listing those objectives and purposes). The CPB funds “public telecommunications . . . programs,” assists “in the development . . . of interconnection systems” and “public telecommunication entities.” 47 U.S.C. § 396(g)(1). And the CPB is empowered to make grants, hire staff, make payments, and to “take any other actions” necessary to support its congressional purposes. Id. § 396(g)(2). Congress also “prohibited” the CPB from owning or operating broadcast stations or producing its own programming. Id. § 396(g)(3).
    The CPB is primarily funded through annual Congressional appropriations. Id. § 396(k)(1). For example, in 2024, Congress appropriated $535 million to the CPB for fiscal year 2026. See Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024, Pub. L. No. 118-47, 138 Stat. 460, 696, § 407.
  • […]
  • Congress imposed various requirements on recipients of grants from the CPB, including that they hold open meetings, that public broadcast station grant recipients establish a community advisory board, and that employees of the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio cannot “be compensated in excess of reasonable compensation” while those organizations receive grants. Id. § 396(k)(4), (8), (9).
  • […]
  • The CPB is a “designated Federal entity” under the Inspector General Act, 5 U.S.C. § 415(a)(1)(A), which means it has an Inspector General who conducts investigations and audits of CPB operations and issues reports to Congress, the CPB Board and management, and the public, see Office of the Inspector General, Corporation for Public Broadcasting, https://perma.cc/AAD4-G5DL (the CPB’s Office of the Inspector General “conduct[s] independent audits, evaluations, and investigations” and “report[s] to Congress and the public about our activities”).
  • Congress holds oversight hearings regarding the CPB. See, e.g., House Committee on Energy & Commerce, Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee Hearing: “Examining Accusations of Ideological Bias at NPR, a Taxpayer Funded News Entity,” https://perma.cc/W284-W8GW (May 8, 2024).

Specific allegations against the board members, state the three held board meetings on May 2nd, 13th and June 10th and 11th where they voted in their official capacity, adopted resolutions, and acted as if the preliminary injunction they sought had been held in their favor. Also, the President under his Article II powers has:

“[a]mple authority, both longstanding and recent, [to] establish that the power to appoint someone to a position presumptively carries with it the incident power of removal, absent a clear restriction on that removal authority. “ citing also Lebron v. National Railroad Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374 (1995). The Supreme Court held that the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (commonly known as Amtrak) was “an agency or instrumentality of the United States for the purpose of individual rights guaranteed against the Government by the Constitution,” even though the federal statute creating Amtrak structured it as a corporation and provided that Amtrak would not be a government agency. The Supreme Court held “that where, as here, the Government creates a corporation by special law, for the furtherance of governmental objectives, and retains for itself permanent authority to appoint a majority of the directors of that corporation, the corporation is part of the Government for purposes of the First Amendment. Lebron involved a First Amendment claim, but the Supreme Court later applied similar analysis to hold that Amtrak is also “a governmental entity for purposes of the Constitution’s separation of powers provisions.” Dep’t of Transp. v. Ass’n of Am. R.Rs., 575 U.S.43, 53-54 (2015).”

The government requested the court “enter judgment that Defendants “be ousted and excluded” from the office of board member of the CPB. The Court should also grant appropriate ancillary relief, including return of any salary or payment Defendants have unlawfully taken by virtue of their usurpation of office” and that any official actions taken by the Defendants since their termination be nullified

Judge Randolph Moss of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, who presides over both the Board Member’s and the Justice Department’s complaints found it “difficult to fathom that Congress intended to provide the members of the Corporation’s Board with essentially irrevocable tenure.”

By Darren Smith

The views expressed in this posting are the author’s alone and not those of the blog, the host, or other weekend bloggers. As an open forum, weekend bloggers post independently without pre-approval or review. Content and any displays or art are solely their decision and responsibility. – JonathanTurley.org

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“Shameful”: Federal Judge Rules in Favor of Trump Administration but Adds His Own Personal Condemnation


By: Jonathan Turley | July 9, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/07/09/shameful-federal-judge-rules-in-favor-of-trump-administration-but-adds-his-own-personal-condemnation/

The Trump administration notched another victory this week when U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta in Washington granted a motion to dismiss a case brought by five organizations to stop the cancellation of more than 360 grant awards by the Justice Department. However, in reaching this relatively straightforward conclusion, Judge Mehta opted to follow a pattern set by other judges in adding his own personal commentary on the wisdom of the policy change. Judge Mehta easily found that he lacked jurisdiction over such questions. However, he then vented his own personal views on the policy:

“Defendants’ rescinding of these awards is shameful. It is likely to harm communities and individuals vulnerable to crime and violence. But displeasure and sympathy are not enough in a court of law.”

Actually, neither the court’s displeasure nor sympathy should be part of the decision of a court of law. With all due respect to Judge Mehta, some of us find it shameful that judges are using these opinions to express their political viewpoints. I previously wrote about this pattern of extrajudicial commentary, particularly among the judges of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who previously presided over Trump’s election interference case, was criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then, “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was still under investigation at the time and, when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go.

Later, Chutkan decided to use the bench to amplify her own views of the pardons and Jan. 6. Like Judge Mehta, she conceded that she could not block the pardons but used the cases to express her personal disagreements with President Trump and his policies. She proclaimed that the pardons could not change the “tragic truth” and “cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

Judge Mehta has also been criticized for conflicted rulings in Trump cases and a bizarre (and ultimately abandoned) effort to banish January 6th defendants from the Capitol.

I fail to see how being assigned this case gives a judge license to hold forth on their own views of the merits of these grants or the implications of their suspension. He is tasked with deciding the legal questions in the case, which he did so correctly.

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Law

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Ninth Circuit Rules for Trump on National Guard Deployment


By: Jonathan Turley | June 20, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/20/ninth-circuit-rules-for-trump-on-national-guard-deployment/

California Gov. Gavin Newsom just lost a major ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which ruled that President Donald Trump is likely to prevail in his deployment of National Guard troops. Newsom and various Democratic politicians have insisted that Trump’s order is unlawful and that Newsom has to agree to any request for deployment. The Ninth Circuit ruled on Thursday that Newsom does not have such a veto over deployments.

The Ninth Circuit blocked the injunction of District Court Judge Charles Breyer who suggested in open court that Trump was acting like another “King George.” He then wrote an opinion that included many Democratic talking points — suggesting, for example, that Trump was creating disorder by calling out the National Guard to deal with disorder. Breyer further indicated that the violence in Los Angeles was relatively minor, despite potentially deadly attacks on law enforcement, arson, and looting.

Breyer gave the Administration little time to appeal his ruling, but it was enough for the Ninth Circuit.

Title 10 provides:

Whenever—

(1) the United States, or any of the Commonwealths or

possessions, is invaded or is in danger of invasion by a

foreign nation;

(2) there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the

authority of the Government of the United States; or

(3) the President is unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States;

the President may call into Federal service members and units of the National Guard of any State in such numbers as he considers necessary to repel the invasion, suppress the rebellion, or execute those laws. Orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States or, in the case of the District of Columbia, through the commanding general of the National Guard of the District of Columbia.

10 U.S.C. § 12406.

In his decision, Judge Breyer took the extreme position that Trump could not use subsection 3 if there was any possibility of executing federal laws absent the use of the National Guard troops:

[T]he statute does not allow for the federalizing of the National Guard when the President faces obstacles that cause him to underperform in executing the laws. Nor does the statute allow for the federalizing of the National Guard when the President faces some risk in executing the laws. . . . The statute requires that the President be “unable” to execute the laws of the United States. That did not happen here.

In its decision, the court rejected this premise and held that “Section 12406 does not have as a prerequisite that the President be completely precluded from executing the relevant laws of the United States in order to call members of the National Guard into federal service, nor does it suggest that activation is inappropriate so long as any continued execution of the laws is feasible.”

It concluded that “it is likely that the President lawfully exercised his statutory authority” in federalizing control of the guard. It also rejected Newsom’s claim of a veto on deployment.

Here is the opinion: 25-3727_order-for-pub

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Crime, Law, political violence

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More Heat Than Light: New York Judge Blocks ICE Access to Rikers Island Over Alleged Adams Conflict


By: Jonathan Turley | June 17, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/17/more-heat-than-light-new-york-judges-blocks-ice-access-to-rikers-island-over-alleged-adams-conflict/

This week, New York Judge Mary Rosado issued an opinion in Council of City of N.Y. v. Adams. The court is blocking the city from allowing the federal government to maintain office space at Rikers Island. The reason is that Rosado agreed that Mayor Eric Adams had a conflict of interest and likely bargained away the access as part of a quid pro quo arrangement to get the Justice Department to drop criminal charges against him.  The opinion is quite extraordinary and, in my view, fundamentally flawed. The opinion generated more heat than light on the proper handling of a conflict of interest.

The court recounts the testimony of Danielle R. Sassoon, Esq., Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, regarding a January 31, 2025, meeting with President Donald J. Trump’s Deputy Attorney General, Emil Bove, and the mayor’s criminal defense counsel. She claimed that “Adams'[] attorneys repeatedly urged what amounted to a quid pro quo, indicating that Adams would be in a position to assist with [immigration] enforcement priorities only if the indictment were dismissed.”

After that meeting, on February 3, 2025, Mayor Adams’ criminal defense attorney, Alex Spiro, wrote to Bove that the prosecution of the mayor will “become increasingly problematic as the Trump administration seeks to aggressively enforce immigration laws and remove undocumented immigrants …. [T]he federal government cannot possibly rely on Mayor Adams to be a fully effective partner in all situations in ongoing public-safety missions while he is under federal indictment ….”

One week later, on February 10, 2025, Bove directed federal prosecutors to dismiss with prejudice the pending criminal charges against Mayor Adams. The plaintiffs allege that these negotiations traded away city policies or privileges in exchange for the dropping of the charges, a charge that Adams vehemently denies. On February 13, 2025, after meeting with the Administration’s “Border Czar,” Thomas Homan, Mayor Adams announced that he would issue an executive order allowing federal immigration authorities to be present on Rikers Island. The next day, the Department of Justice filed a motion to dismiss all pending criminal charges against Mayor Adams.

After the announcement, a number of deputy mayors resigned in protest. Adams then appointed Randy Mastro as First Deputy and delegated to him the authority to “[p]erform any function, power or duty of the mayor in negotiating, executing and delivering any and all agreements, instruments and any other documents necessary or desirable to effectuate any of the matters” related to public safety.

On April 8, 2025, Mastro issued Executive Order No. 50, authorizing the Department of Corrections to enter a Memorandum of Understanding with federal law enforcement agencies allowing them to maintain office space on Department of Corrections property, specifically Rikers Island.

The timing of these actions raised objections from many, both inside and outside City Hall. That included United States District Judge Dale Ho, who agreed to dismiss the criminal charges with prejudice, but not after lashing out at the administration. Ho wrote that “[e]verything here smacks of a bargain: dismissal of the [i]ndictment in exchange for immigration policy concessions.” He further warned that the suggestion “that public officials may receive special dispensation if they are compliant with the incumbent administration’s policy priorities … is fundamentally incompatible with the basic promise of equal justice under law.”

I disagreed with Judge Ho’s use of the order to opine on an alleged quid pro quo that was not established in the record or even material to his decision. Ho agreed that he could not “force the Department of Justice to prosecute a defendant” and agreed to dismiss the matter with prejudice. That was the correct and only decision that he could make. However, he further strongly suggested the need for an investigation but lamented that he “did not have the authority to appoint an independent prosecutor.”

I do not question Judge Ho’s sincere objections or the good-faith basis of many in raising this allegation. However, I do not believe that judges or justices should use their positions to opine on political or ethical issues that are not clearly before them. The issue before Judge Ho was solely the dismissal of a criminal case and he had no record, or in my view license, to hold forth on his unsupported suspicions in the case.

The matter, however, was raised and litigated directly before Judge Rosado by the city council, which sought to nullify the Executive Order as being violative of city ethical rules. Specifically, the city council cited New York City Charter § 2604(b)(3), which provides in pertinent part that “[n]o public servant shall use or attempt to use his or her position as a public servant to obtain any … privilege or other private or personal advantage, direct or indirect, for the public servant or any person or firm associated with the public servant.”

Judge Rosado found a likelihood of prevailing on the merits, citing Baker v. Marley, 8 NY2d 365, 367 (1960), that an action must be declared null and void when the action “directly or immediately affects him individually.” She specifically found:

Plaintiff-Petitioner has shown a likelihood of success in demonstrating, at a minimum, the appearance of a quid pro quo whereby Mayor Adams publicly agreed to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) back to Rikers Island in exchange for dismissal of his criminal charges. This showing is grounded in (1) Mayor Adams’ public statements; (2) Mayor Adams’ criminal defense attorney’s written overtures to the Department of Justice; (3) the temporal proximity between these overtures and Mr. Bove’s directive to dismiss the criminal charges against Mayor Adams; (4) statements from former Acting United States Attorney Danielle R. Sassoon and Assistant United States Attorney Hagan Scotten; (5) Mr. Homan’s statement that he will “be in [Mayor Adams’] office, up his b ___, saying, ‘Where the hell is the agreement we came to?’” and (6) the written findings by United States District Judge Dale Ho.

Although Defendants-Respondents deny any quid pro quo in conclusory fashion, this is insufficient and almost expected. As wisely stated by Justice Anthony Kennedy, the quid pro quo need not be stated in express terms “for otherwise the law’s effect could be frustrated by knowing winks and nods. The inducement from the official is [violative] if it is express or if it is implied from his words and actions ….” Based on the record, Plaintiff-Petitioner has made a sufficient showing of an implied, if not an express quid pro quo based on Mayor Adams, Mr. Spiro, Mr. Bove, and Mr. Homan’s words and actions.

In my view, the decision is wrong on a number of key elements.

Who decides?

First, Judge Rosado heard this case despite the fact that there is a process for such allegations to be raised and adjudicated before the Conflict of Interest Board. Rosado recognizes the obvious problem and admits that

“[t]o be clear, the Conflicts of Interest Board is the preferred and proper forum for many garden variety conflict of interest disputes, such as those involving improper gifts, failures to disclose financial interests, and other financial conflicts.‘

“However, the Conflicts of Interest Board is not equipped with the powers and tools to grapple with the case, which involves the promulgation of an Executive Order at lightning speed, upending a decree of New York policy barring federal law enforcement authorities from maintaining a presence on Department of Corrections property.”

I found the court’s logic on this portion of the opinion to be conclusory and counterintuitive. There is nothing in the law or regulations that defines the Board as focused on “garden-variety” conflicts. It is the system created by the city council to address conflict allegations and, while Judge Rosado believes that she can do better than the board, that is hardly a convincing basis to circumvent the process for the adjudication of such claims. Rosado ignores that this is a specialized body expressly tasked with such conflicts. It is unclear how the court is “better equipped” with its own limited staff to address such matters, other than having the ability to issue judicial injunctions.

Deception or Delegation?

Putting aside this act of judicial overreach, there is also the problem that the order was ultimately issued not by Adams but by Mastro. There are very compelling public policy reasons for taking this action. The city is struggling with the massive demands of its undocumented immigrant population. Before he was ever charged, Adams was viewed as a moderate on such questions who was open to greater federal enforcement. Many states and cities cooperate with federal authorities in this way as a matter of public policy.

Judge Rosado admits that there is a valid question of whether the delegation constituted a type of recusal or cleansing of the decision. However, she maintained that Mastro is not independent because he was appointed by Adams and reports to him. Moreover, she cited New York City Charter § 2604(b)(3), which states that delegating oversight or management does not necessarily erase a conflict of interest. She notes that Adams said publicly that he did not recuse himself and found:

“The Defendants-Respondents’ hyperbolic argument that if Mayor Adams cannot delegate to First Deputy Mayor Mastro, then there is nobody he can delegate to, is without merit. First Deputy Mayor Mastro, although an accomplished and highly educated attorney, is not independent of Mayor Adams and therefore cannot be considered impartial and free from Mayor Adams’ conflicts. First Deputy Mayor Mastro reports directly to Mayor Adams, is appointed by Mayor Adams, and can be fired by Mayor Adams. He is Mayor Adams’ agent.”

It is not clear, however, who would be sufficiently free of Adams’ authority to allow for them to make the myriad of decisions vis-a-vis federal authority. In this matter, Mastro and the Mayor’s office are arguing that he made an independent judgment on the merits of the policy. More importantly, Judge Rosado ignores the implications of her order. She never explains how the city is to function if any order dealing with the federal government could be viewed as part of a quid pro quo. There are a host of joint operations and programs with the federal government. Where does one draw the line and who then makes these decisions ranging from housing to prisons to voting? Rosado seems to shrug and say that anyone reporting to the Mayor or subject to his authority is not sufficiently independent.

The Order

Judge Rosado ultimately finds against Adams, but includes rhetoric exulting the prior pro-immigration policies that further undermines the opinion:

The Court finds that Plaintiff-Petitioner has demonstrated imminent and irreparable harm for purposes of obtaining a preliminary injunction. The harm to intangible assets such as damage to reputation, loss of goodwill, and brand tarnishment are routinely found sufficient to grant injunctive relief. New York City, which thrives as a global hub due in large part to its reputation as being a welcoming home for immigrant communities from around the world, risks having this goodwill and invaluable reputation irreparably damaged as a result of an Executive Order borne out of Mayor Adams’ alleged conflict of interest. New York City, through legislation and decades of policy, has established a reputation as a “Sanctuary City.” This reputation, and the goodwill built from decades of policy decisions, and which have provided New Yorkers with numerous intangible cultural and economic benefits, risks being irrevocably tarnished. The harm to New York City’s reputation as a Sanctuary City, and the goodwill with numerous communities that flows from that reputation, is best preserved through a preliminary injunction prohibiting Defendants-Respondents from acting on Executive Order No. 50.

…

The Court is also cognizant of threat of irreparable harm in a more concrete sense—that is the threat to detained New York State and City residents and their dignity. There is ample evidence that there is already a serious, imminent and ongoing risk that immigrant New Yorkers, and even foreign tourists to New York City, are being wrongfully detained. There are documented reports of individuals being deported to stranger third-countries, and New York City residents are taken into custody for expressing political views contrary to the federal government’s agenda. Residents who are here seeking asylum are being deported to countries they claim to have previously faced persecution for their sexuality, politics, or religion. And this concrete harm flows to the Plaintiff-Petitioner…

I was frankly astonished by the direct discussion of the mayor’s criminal charges in the conjunction with negotiations over enhanced federal enforcement. While I understand the defense counsel’s job to seek any lawful avenue for relief, I would have immediately cut off such discussions as inappropriate from the perspective of the Justice Department. If such discussions occurred, there is a legitimate concern over a quid pro quo. However, this is not how courts should address such allegations. I believe both Judge Ho (who ruled correctly) and Judge Rosado (who did not) exceeded the parameters for their opinions with extraneous commentary. That is particularly the case with Judge Rosado. More importantly, I believe that Judge Rosado is simply wrong in circumventing the designated board for addressing conflicts of interest and issuing this sweeping opinion.

This is not an easy matter for any board or court. These meetings and the timing of these decisions raise obvious concerns. However, courts are not allowed to engage in conjecture. It is not just plausible but likely that Adams would have extended the access to Rikers Island even without any change in his criminal case.

I do not see the limiting principle in this decision. Adams is still the mayor and may have independent and good-faith reasons for orders that are favorable for the federal government. Indeed, his order was the correct one on the merits. While Judge Rosado never explores the countervailing benefits while writing at length on the costs to a city of immigrants, they are obvious and cannot be ignored. In other words, Adams had every reason to support federal enforcement as a Mayor who ran on making New York a safer city.

This matter should have been left to the Conflicts of Interest Board, and the decision itself is ill-considered and incomplete.

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Second Circuit to Hear Trump Appeal from New York Criminal Case


By: Jonathan Turley | June 11, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/11/second-circuit-to-hear-trump-appeal-from-new-york-criminal-case/

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit will hear oral arguments on a threshold issue in the criminal case against President Donald Trump in New York. The case is still pending in the New York court system after his sentencing, but  President Trump wants the case removed to federal court. He is relying on last year’s presidential immunity decision and arguing that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg tripped a wire by calling former White House aides as witnesses.

Last year, the Supreme Court issued a historic decision in Trump v. United States defining the scope of presidential immunity.

The Court found that there was absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority,” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions.

The Court has often adopted tiered approaches in balancing the powers of the branches. For example, in his famous concurrence to Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952), Justice Robert Jackson broke down the line of authority between Congress and the White House into three groups where the President is acting with express or implied authority from Congress; where Congress is silent (“the zone of twilight” area); and where the President is acting in defiance of Congress.

Here, the Court separated cases into actions taken in core areas of executive authority, official actions taken outside those core areas, and unofficial actions.  Actions deemed personal or unofficial are not protected under this ruling.

Trump is arguing that he is protected by presidential immunity and that this matter should be heard in federal court. He is citing Bragg’s calling of former White House Communications Director Hope Hicks and former executive assistant Madeleine Westerhout as witnesses to discuss matters occurring in the White House and during Trump’s first term.

Bragg is arguing that it is too late for such removal. Trump’s prior efforts at removal have failed.

The argument will be heard before Judges Raymond J. Lohier, Susan L. Carney, and Myrna Perez.

This is a difficult case to make at this stage of the case. If Trump loses, the criminal case will continue through the state system and may eventually find its way to the Supreme Court.

I have long been a critic of the case and there are strong grounds to appeal.

For example, Judge Juan Merchan effectively guaranteed a conviction by telling jurors that they did not have to agree with specificity on what had occurred in the case to convict Trump. The only way to get beyond the passage of the statute of limitations on the dead misdemeanor for falsifying business records had been to allege that the bookkeeping violation in question occurred to conceal another crime. Bragg did not bother to state clearly what that crime was, originally alluding to four different crimes.

It was not until the end of the case that Merchan would lay out three possible crimes for the jury. All the way up to the final instructions in the case, legal analysts on CNN and other outlets expressed doubt about what the actual theory of the criminal conduct was in the case.

Despite spending little time on these secondary crimes at trial, Merchan told the jury that they could convict if they believed that invoices and other documents had been falsified to hide federal election violations, other falsification violations or a tax violation.

Those are very different theories of a criminal conspiracy. Under one theory, Trump was hiding an affair with a porn actress with the payment of hush money before the election. Under another theory, he was trying to reduce a tax burden for someone else (that part was left hazy). As a third alternative, he might have falsified the documents to hide the falsification of other documents, a perfectly spellbinding circular theory.

If those sound like they could be three different cases, then you are right. Yet Merchan told the jurors that they did not have to agree on which fact-pattern or conspiracy had occurred. They could split 4-4-4 on the secondary crime motivating the misdemeanors and just declare that some secondary crime was involved.

Many of us are eager to see the New York system move this case, as well as the equally grotesque case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. The cases, however, continue to move forward at a glacial pace in the notoriously slow New York legal system.

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Is DEI DOA? Supreme Court Unanimously Rejects Added Burden for Whites in Discrimination Lawsuits


By: Jonathan Turley | June 6, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/06/06/is-dei-doa-supreme-court-unanimously-rejects-added-burden-for-whites-in-discrimination-lawsuits/

Yesterday, the Supreme Court handed down three major cases with unanimous decisions. One, Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services, raises additional questions over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs that have been widely used in higher education and businesses. There is no reason to believe that DEI measures are DOA, but the decision is likely to accelerate challenges based on reverse discrimination after the Court rejected the imposition of an added burden for members of any “majority group” including straight, white males.

The immediate question before the Court was a circuit split over the standard that applies to a member of a “majority” group who claims that he or she was treated unfairly based on majority characteristics. The Sixth Circuit, along with four other circuits, held that such litigants must shoulder additional pleading burdens under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

Many of us have long argued that this long-standing rule was itself discriminatory and at odds with both constitutional and statutory authority. It was a bizarre interpretation of a law that barred employees from discriminating based on “race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.”  That would ordinarily require a plaintiff to support a claim of disparate treatment by showing that she applied for a position for which she was qualified but was rejected under circumstances giving rise to an inference of unlawful discrimination. However, judges began to add their own burden of white, male or straight litigants in requiring them to show additional “background circumstances” that show the defendant is an “unusual employer” that discriminates against majority groups.

In this case, Marlean Ames, a heterosexual woman, claimed that she was demoted at the Ohio Department of Youth Services after Ginine Trim, a gay woman, replaced her supervisor. Trim hired a younger gay man allegedly based on sexual orientation. Both the district court and the Sixth Circuit dismissed the complaint because Ames failed to identify any other “background circumstances” that demonstrated her employer discriminated against heterosexual women. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote for a unanimous Supreme Court that reversed the Sixth Circuit and rejected the “additional circumstances” test as at odds with the plain text of Title VII.

“As a textual matter, Title VII’s disparate-treatment provision draws no distinctions between majority-group plaintiffs and minority-group plaintiffs. Rather, the provision makes it unlawful “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” The “law’s focus on individuals rather than groups [is] anything but academic.” Bostock v. Clayton County (2020). By establishing the same protections for every “individual”—without regard to that individual’s membership in a minority or majority group—Congress left no room for courts to impose special requirements on majority-group plaintiffs alone.”

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Gorsuch, filed a concurrence that chastised lower courts and “judges creating a textual legal rules and frameworks.”

The opinion has broader implications for businesses and higher education where DEI has been used to brush aside such reverse discrimination claims. Often such claims are mocked as suggesting that members of a majority group are “victims.” While not imposing this specific “add-on,” these controversies involve much of the same bias against reverse discrimination claims. Litigants complain that they often face greater demand and resistance to their claims as opposed to employees who are part of minority groups.

Various legal groups insisted that the Sixth Circuit was correct and that majority-group litigants should shoulder an added burden, including the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, National Women’s Law Center, Latino Justice, National Employment Law Project and Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund.  The views of these groups could not garner a single vote on the Court.

The Ames decision is a welcome development in bringing greater uniformity in the treatment of discrimination claims. It is also a shot across the bow of businesses and universities that have used DEI to dismiss the countervailing interests and claims of majority-group employees.

Here is the decision: Ames v. Ohio Dep’t of Youth Services

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A Judge of Her Peers? Judge Dugan Assigned a Judge Previously Rebuked for Political Comments


By: Jonathan Turley | May 21, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/05/21/a-judge-of-her-peers-judge-dugan-assigned-a-judge-previously-rebuked-for-political-bias/

Five years ago, I wrote about a federal judge who, in my view, had discarded any resemblance of judicial restraint and judgment in a public screed against Republicans, Donald Trump, and the Supreme Court. The Wisconsin judge represented the final death of irony: a jurist who failed to see the conflict in lashing out at what he called judicial bias in a political diatribe that would have made MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell blush.

His name is Lynn Adelman.

I was wrong in 2020. Irony is very much alive.

This week, a judge was randomly selected to preside at the trial of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan. A critic of Trump’s immigration policies, Dugan is accused of obstructing federal law enforcement and facilitating the escape of an unlawful immigrant.

The judge assigned to the Dugan case? You guessed it. Lynn Adelman, 85.

A judge is expected to come to a case like this one without the burden of his own baggage. Judge Adelman is carrying more baggage than Amtrak in Wisconsin.

The selection of Adelman shows how political commentary by judges undermines the legitimacy of the court system. Now, in a case that has divided the nation, the public will have to rely on a judge who discarded his own obligations as a judge to lash out at conservatives, Trump, and conservative jurists.

Adelman was a long-standing Democratic politician who tried repeatedly and unsuccessfully to run for Congress during his 20-year tenure in the Wisconsin Senate. For critics, Adelman never set aside his political agenda after President Bill Clinton nominated him for the federal bench. Adelman was sharply rebuked for ignoring controlling Supreme Court precedent to rule in favor of a Democratic challenge over voting identification rules just before a critical election.  Adelman blocked the law before the election despite a Supreme Court case issued years earlier in Crawford v. Marion County Election Board, 553 U.S. 181 (2008), rejecting a similar challenge.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a stinging reversal, explaining to Adelman that in “our hierarchical judicial system, a district court cannot declare a statute unconstitutional just because he thinks (with or without the support of a political scientist) that the dissent was right and the majority wrong.”

Adelman, however, was apparently undeterred. In 2020, he wrote a law review article for Harvard Law & Policy Review, titled “The Roberts Court’s Assault on Democracy.”

Adelman attacked what he described as a “hard-right majority” that is “actively participating in undermining American democracy.” He also struck out at Trump as “an autocrat… disinclined to buck the wealthy individuals and corporations who control his party.”

Adelman was later admonished by the Civility Committee for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals for his public political attacks as “inconsistent with a judge’s duty to promote public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary and as reflecting adversely on the judge’s impartiality.”

The costs of such extrajudicial commentary became vividly clear this week. Judge Dugan is being called a “hero” by Democratic politicians and pundits for helping an individual evade federal arrest. At least one judge has pledged to do the same in her courtroom. On the other side, many are appalled by Dugan’s conduct as fundamentally at odds with the role of a jurist in either the state or federal system.

There are weighty issues in the case and the public has a right to expect a fair trial with a judge who will not be swayed by his own political viewpoints. Dugan already had the advantage of a trial before a jury taken from one of the most liberal districts in the country. She will now have a judge who was himself sanctioned for political statements and reversed for ignoring controlling precedent.

This problem is growing within our courts, including at the Supreme Court. I recently wrote about public commentary by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan that created distractions this month in cases before the Supreme Court.  The public has a right to expect more from jurists. The price of the ticket to the bench is to set aside one’s political agenda and political commentary. When you don that robe, you must discard your politics. Some, however, seem to cling to both the bias and the bench.

The message for the public could not be worse this week. In a case involving a Democratic judge accused of discarding basic judicial principles, a random selection produced a Democratic judge reversed for discarding basic judicial principles.

For conservatives, these cases reaffirm a view of a dual-track legal system. Lawfare has been raging in blue cities like New York where President Trump faced judges denounced for their political associations or past commentary. In Washington, Trump was assigned a federal judge who previously appeared to lament that Trump was not a criminal defendant in her courtroom. She was then randomly assigned Trump’s case after he was charged by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

We have the greatest legal system in the world, but it cannot survive long without the faith and support of the public. That is why judicial ethics rules bar not just conflicts of interest but the appearance of a conflict of interest. The perception of political bias robs our courts of their inherent legitimacy and authority for citizens.

Just as Adelman lashed out at most of the Supreme Court as lacking credibility, he can hardly expect conservatives and Republicans to find him a credible choice in the Dugan case. That is why I was wrong five years ago. Irony is not entirely dead. It is just uniformly ignored.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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“A Modest Request”: The Supreme Court Hears Challenge to National or Universal Injunctions


By: Jonathan Turley | May 15, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/05/15/a-modest-request-the-supreme-court-hears-challenge-to-national-or-universal-injunctions/

Today, the United States Supreme Court will hear three consolidated cases in Trump v. CASA on the growing use of national or universal injunctions. This is a matter submitted on the “shadow docket” and the underlying cases concern the controversy over “birthright citizenship.” However, the merits of those claims are not at issue. Instead, the Trump Administration has made a “modest request” for the Court to limit the scope of lower-court injunctions to their immediate districts and parties, challenging the right of such courts to bind an Administration across the nation.

The case is the consolidation of three matters: Trump v. CASA out of  Maryland; Trump v. Washington out of Washington State, and Trump v. New Jersey, out of Massachusetts. These cases also present standing issues since the Administration challenges the argument that there is a cognizable “injury” to individuals who may travel to the states bringing the actions.

However, the main question is the scope of injunctions.

As I have previously written, district court judges have issued a record number of injunctions in the first 100 days of the Trump Administration. Under President George W. Bush, there were only six such injunctions, which increased to 12 under Obama. However, when Trump came to office, he faced 64 such orders in his first term.

When Biden and the Democrats returned to office, it fell back to 14. That was not due to more modest measures. Biden did precisely what Trump did in seeking to negate virtually all of his predecessors’ orders and then seek sweeping new legal reforms. He was repeatedly found to have violated the Constitution, but there was no torrent of preliminary injunctions at the start of his term.

Yet, when Trump returned to office, the number of national injunctions soared again in the first 100 days and surpassed the number for the entirety of Biden’s term.

This is a rare argument. First, it is a shadow docket filing that usually results in summary decisions without oral argument. Moreover, this matter came after what is commonly viewed as the final day for oral arguments. The Court granted a rare late oral argument, reflecting that multiple justices view this matter sufficiently serious to warrant a break from standard operating procedures.

Rather than arguing a “question presented” on birthright citizenship, the Administration is solely looking for limits on the district courts as appeals continue on the “important constitutional questions” raised by birthright citizenship.

The Administration argues that the Constitution does not give judges the power to issue universal injunctions and that courts are limited to addressing the cases before them in a given district. The Administration acknowledges that class actions can create the basis for universal injunctions, offering a moderate resolution to the Court. In such cases, if the parties can meet the standard for a national class, they can seek a national or universal injunction.

In today’s arguments (which I will be covering for Fox and on X), we can expect to hear from justices who have previously been critical of universal injunctions, including Justice Clarence Thomas, who, in his concurring opinion in Trump v. Hawaii, called them “legally and historically dubious.”

Likewise, Justices Gorsuch and Alito have criticized such injunctions. In a prior dissent to an emergency filing in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Alito was joined by Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh in stating that the government “has a strong argument that the District Court’s order violates the principle that a federal court may not issue an equitable remedy that is ‘more burdensome than necessary to’ redress the plaintiff’s injuries.”

Many of us will be watching three members the most closely: Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justices Elena Kagan and Amy Coney Barrett. Roberts is the ultimate institutionalist, and we should see in his argument how he views the impact of such injunctions on the court system as a whole. He is very protective of the courts’ inherent authority but may also have misgivings about the scope of these orders.

During the Biden Administration, Justice Kagan has previously criticized universal injunctions. In an interview at Northwestern University Law School, Kagan flagged the “forum shopping” by litigants in filing cases before favorable courts:

“You look at something like that and you think, that can’t be right. In the Trump years, people used to go to the Northern District of California, and in the Biden years, they go to Texas. It just can’t be right that one district judge can stop a nationwide policy in its tracks and leave it stopped for the years that it takes to go through the normal process.”

Justice Barrett previously joined with Kavanaugh in stating that the power of district courts to enter a universal injunction “is an important question that could warrant our review in the future.”

The argument today will start at 10 am and I will be doing a running review of the arguments on X.

U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer will argue the government’s case.

Jeremy Feigenbaum, New Jersey’s solicitor general, will argue for the state and local governments and  Kelsi Corkran, the Supreme Court director at Georgetown’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection, will argue for the private individuals and groups.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University where he teaches a course on the Supreme Court and the Constitution.

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Federal Judge Halts Trump Administration’s Deportation of Half a Million Biden “Parolees”


By: Jonathan Turley | April 15, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/04/15/federal-judge-halts-trump-administrations-deportation-of-half-a-million-biden-parolees/

The intense struggle between the Trump Administration and federal judges continued this week with another court ordering a halt to a nationwide program. In Massachusetts, District Judge Indira Talwani is preventing President Donald Trump from canceling a Biden program granting parole and the right to work to immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela (CHNV). Judge Talwani’s order would require individual hearings for the half of a million individuals allowed into the country under this program by President Joe Biden.

Under the announcement published in the Federal Register, the Department of Homeland Security officially moved to terminate the CHNV Program. The announcement followed an Executive Order, signed on Trump’s first day in office, entitled “Securing Our Borders,” directing the DHS to end the CHNV program. Under the notice, DHS said that the parole status would expire in 30 days “unless the Secretary makes an individual determination to the contrary.” It further mandated that parolees who had not obtained a legal basis to be in the United States, such as a green card or other visa, must depart the United States before their parole expires.

In the prior hearing, Judge Talwani indicated that she would not allow that to happen, stating that the Administration’s interpretation of the law was “incorrect” and that “[t]he nub of the problem here is that [Homeland Security Secretary Krisit Noem], in cutting short the parole period afforded to these individuals, has to have a reasoned decision.”

In her opinion, Judge Talwani wrote:

“If their parole status is allowed to lapse, plaintiffs will be faced with two unfavorable options: continue following the law and leave the country on their own, or await removal proceedings. If plaintiffs leave the country on their own, they will face dangers in their native countries, as set forth in their affidavits.”

The court also noted that leaving would cause family separation and jeopardize their ability to seek a remedy based on the Administrative Procedure Act.

The Administration argued that it did have a “reasoned decision” to end the CHNV program and weighed the cost to the parolees. It noted that the parolees were always going to face family separation and costs since this was just a temporary, two-year program. It asserted that it did weigh alternative periods for winding down the program. While the court may disagree with its conclusions, it asserts that it has the same discretion used by President Biden in creating the program.

There was another pressing reason for the change. If the parolees were allowed to run the course of the full period, those who did not obtain legal status could force formal removal proceedings rather than the expedited removal under the program.

The Justice Department maintained:

“DHS’s decision to terminate the CHNV program and existing grants of parole under that program is within this statutory authority and comports with the notice requirements of the statute and regulations,” they wrote. “Additionally, given the temporary nature of CHNV parole and CHNV parolees’ pre-existing inability to seek re-parole under the program, their harms are outweighed by the harms to the public if the Secretary is not permitted to discontinue a program, she has determined does not serve the public interest.”

All of this presents another novel legal question. Parole is not a legal status under immigration laws. It is a status created by executive action and is now being curtailed under that same authority. However, these individuals came to the country under the promise of a two-year period. The question is whether a temporary program created by executive fiat can be treated as creating a type of vested right.

If Judge Talwani prevails, individual determinations of half a million cases would be an overwhelming burden on the Administration and easily run out the time granted under the program for these individuals. Indeed, for many of the individuals, the appellate process could exceed that period.

The court is not weighing the harshness of the decision but the president’s discretion in making such a decision. Judge Talwani suggests that, once created by President Biden, the program cannot be curtailed or shortened by President Trump. That question could very well find itself on the Supreme Court’s ever-lengthening docket.

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Harvard Polling: Majority Supports DOGE Measures to Reduce the Size of Government


By: Jonathan Turley | February 25, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/02/25/harvard-polling-majority-supports-doge-measures-to-reduce-the-size-of-government/

As the courts hash out the legalities of the orders supporting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the public appears to support the effort despite the almost universal condemnations in the media. Despite the prediction from James Carville that the Trump Administration will collapse within 30 days, a recent Harvard CAPS/Harris poll shows that most citizens support the cutting of government spending and size. While the courts must rule on the legal basis for these executive orders, the polling shows continued support for both Trump and his agenda after the election.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.) also has declared that “remorse” was growing among voters who were souring against the Trump Administration. Yet, the Harvard poll shows Trump with a 50% approval rating, (43% expressing disapproval). That is consistent with the RealClearPolitics polling average, giving Trump a 49.3% approval rating.

What was interesting amid the ongoing judicial and legislative fight is that 83% of voters preferred cutting government spending to raising taxes. Some 77% also supported a broad review of government spending. A massive 70% believe government spending is rife with waste and fraud and 69% support cutting spending by $1 trillion. Sixty percent of voters said that DOGE is carrying out the need of the government to make significant cuts.

Once again, our courts are designed to resist popular demands when they contravene legal or constitutional authorities. However, courts are also sensitive to what is called the “countermajoritarian difficulty.” As Alexander Bickel discussed in his 1962 book, The Least Dangerous Branch, the courts straddle this line between protecting constitutional values and not becoming a type of super-legislature. The political question doctrine and other judicial rules are designed to remove federal judges from making policy or political judgments.

Voters are allowed to bring about significant, even radical, changes in government policies and programs. They are allowed to elect “change agents” to use existing powers to achieve those goals.

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“Blood, Feces and Terror”: The Trump Pardons Trigger Judicial Rage


By: Jonathan Turley | January 27, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/27/blood-feces-and-terror-the-trump-pardons-trigger-judicial-rage/

Below is my column in The Hill on the furious response of some judges in Washington over the Trump pardons. One judge, however, may have ventured too far in effectively banishing commuted defendants from Washington, D.C. without his prior approval.

Here is the column:

Even though President Trump had made it a campaign pledge to pardon those involved in the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, the roughly 1,500 pardons Trump issued on his first day produced familiar reactions from politicians and pundits.

In Philadelphia, District Attorney Larry Krasner pledged to pursue those pardoned or commuted with new charges on the state level — eclipsing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in repackaging federal crimes as state offenses. Others cited the pardons as evidence of an even greater plot or purpose. On MSNBC, former NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund head Sherrilyn Ifill declared that the pardons were all part of a plan to build an army of “brownshirts.”

Not to be outdone, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) warned that Trump was issuing pardons to create a “reserve army of political foot soldiers to act on behalf of MAGA and Donald Trump.”

Such hyperbole, particularly the Nazi references, is now commonplace. Indeed, the left jumped the shark on the Nazi-mania and death-of-democracy mantra months ago. This week, however, some of the most strident comments seem to be coming from the federal bench itself. Indeed, some judges used dismissal hearings to launch into what seemed at points like cable-ready commentary. Take District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee who had previously presided over Trump’s election interference case.

Chutkan had been criticized for failing to recuse herself from that case after she made highly controversial statements about Trump from the bench. In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan said that the rioters “were there in fealty, in loyalty, to one man — not to the Constitution.” She added then, “[i]t’s a blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day.” That “one person” was still under investigation at the time and, when Trump was charged, Chutkan refused to let the case go. She then pursued Trump with a vigor second only to Special Counsel Jack Smith.

In the latest hearing, Chutkan again decided to use the bench to amplify her own views of the pardons and Jan. 6. She proclaimed that the pardons could not change the “tragic truth” and “cannot whitewash the blood, feces and terror that the mob left in its wake. And it cannot repair the jagged breach in America’s sacred tradition of peacefully transitioning power.”

In fairness, judges often express the gravity of offenses at sentencing, and most of us certainly share the strong revulsion over what occurred on Jan. 6. However, these cases are being dismissed after an election whose winner explicitly pledged to close the prosecutions through executive clemency.

The defendant in her courtroom was there to have a required dismissal entered in his case, not to hear Judge Chutkan speaking truth to power. In this case, she is the power. It is the power to rule dispassionately on the specific case before her. It is not the power to hold court on the merits of presidential decisions.

Down the hall, Chutkan’s colleague Judge Beryl Howell, also an Obama appointee, lashed out at Trump’s actions, writing, “[T]his Court cannot let stand the revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement.”

Yet, all of that paled in comparison to what their colleague U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, also an Obama appointee, did with his Jan. 6 cases. He ordered J6 defendants to seek prior approval before going to Capitol Hill or even coming within any of the 69 square miles of the nation’s Capital. Thus, Mehta practically banished Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes and seven other defendants. It does not appear that the Trump Justice Department requested such restrictions, but Mehta was able to impose them because those defendants had received commutations rather than pardons. A commutation does not require the dismissal of a case, and courts are generally allowed to set conditions for released defendants.

However, these are new conditions imposed after presidential commutations. More importantly, they could affect the exercise of First Amendment rights from free speech to free association to the right to petition the government. For example, Rhodes and others would have to disclose intended meetings with members of Congress or participation in political events. Rhodes previously asked to speak to the House committee that investigated the riot, but the Democrat-controlled committee refused to allow it. (A Yale law graduate, Rhodes insisted that the hearing be conducted in public, the very condition Hunter Biden made with the support of some of these same members.)

What if Rhodes now wants to meet privately with members to supply his testimony? He would need Mehta to approve it and potentially make such plans public.

In my book, “The Indispensable Right,” I discuss the J6 cases and serious concerns over what a top Justice Department official called the “shock and awe” campaign to make an example of the defendants by throwing the book at them.

Nevertheless, even though I opposed the seditious conspiracy charges on legal grounds, I did not support the pardoning of violent offenders who attacked police officers.

The court system plays a key role in either tamping down or fueling rage in society. The book details how “rage rhetoric” often became state rage during periods of crackdowns on free speech. Over the last two centuries, some judges used their courtrooms to lash out at political opponents, anarchists, unionists or communists.

I was particularly concerned in these cases with sentences that seemed visceral, even gratuitous, in denying free speech rights. In Washington, judges-imposed limits on what political views defendants could read or share. For example, Judge Reggie B. Walton, a Bush appointee who had previously called Trump a “charlatan,” had before him a typical Jan. 6 case — that of Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas. Goodwyn pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. It is a minor offense that generated little jail time.

However, Walton faulted Goodwyn for appearing on Fox News and spreading “disinformation,” and so he ordered the government to monitor what he was viewing and discussing. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rebuked Walton for that surveillance order, but he doubled down. On remand, the Biden Justice Department insisted that Goodwyn was unrepentant and still viewing “extremist media.”

Walton, therefore, determined that the risk was too great in Goodwyn spreading “false narratives” when we are “on the heels of another election.”

Now, his colleague is similarly ordering that those freed under Trump’s commutations will disclose and seek approval to go to the Capitol to speak with members or other citizens.

Many of us have long viewed the Jan. 6 riot as a desecration of our constitutional process. Few people want to defend Rhodes or either the Oath Keepers or the Proud Boys. However, the First Amendment was not written to protect popular speech or popular individuals.

The Mehta order should not push President Trump toward converting these commutations into pardons. It should also not prevent us from questioning the court’s authority to regulate the exercise of First Amendment rights.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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Merchan’s Monster: Judge’s Attempt to Calm the Townspeople Fails Spectacularly in Trump Trial

By: Jonathan Turley | January 13, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/11/merchans-monster-judges-attempt-to-calm-townspeople-fails-in-trump-trial/

Below is my column in the New York Post on the statement by Acting Justice Juan Merchan in the sentencing of President-elect Donald Trump. Merchan’s effort to justify the handing of the case sounded like the second defense argument made in the hearing. It likely changed few minds in the court of public opinion.

Here is the column:

This week, the sentencing of President-Elect Donald Trump saw one of the most impassioned defense arguments given at such a hearing in years . . . from the judge himself. Acting Justice Juan Merchan admitted that the case was “unique and remarkable” but insisted that “once the courtroom doors were closed, the trial itself was no more special, unique, and extraordinary than the other 32 cases in this courthouse.”

If so, that is a chilling indictment of the entire New York court system. Merchan allowed a dead misdemeanor to be resuscitated by allowing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg to effectively prosecute declined federal offenses. He allowed a jury to convict Trump without any agreement, let alone unanimity, on what actually occurred in the case. Merchan ruled that the jury did not have to agree on why Trump committed an alleged offense in describing settlement costs as legal costs. Neither the defendant nor the public will ever know what the jury ultimately found in its verdict.

I once described this case as a legal Frankenstein: “It is the ultimate gravedigger charge, where Bragg unearthed a case from 2016 and, through a series of novel steps, is seeking to bring it back to life…Bragg is combining parts from both state and federal codes.”

Even liberal legal experts have denounced the case and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) recently called it total “b—s–t.”

Now, Merchan seemed to assure this Frankenstein case that he was just like any other creature of the court. It did not matter that he was stitched together from dead cases and zapped into life through lawfare.

Merchan knows that there is a fair chance this monstrosity will finally die on appeal, and he was making the case for his own conduct. The verdict, however, is likely to last far longer than the Trump verdict. It is a judgment against not just Merchan but the New York legal system, which allowed itself to be weaponized against political opponents.

In the Mary Shelley novel, Frankenstein says “I am thy creature: I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.”

Trump can now appeal the case as a whole. Prior appeals in the New York court system were unsuccessful, and hopes are low that the system will redeem itself. However, Trump can eventually escape the vortex of the New York court system in search of jurists willing to see beyond the rage and bring reason to this case.

Notably, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass cited Chief Justice John Roberts in his argument before Merchan, noting that Roberts recently chastised those who attack the courts. (Roberts just the night before joined liberal justices and Justice Amy Coney Barrett in refusing to stay the sentencing). Steinglass portrayed Trump as an existential threat to the rule of law.

Roberts, however, is everything that Merchan is not. You can disagree with him, but he has repeatedly ruled against his own preferred outcomes in cases, including rulings against President Trump and his campaign and Administration. For his part, Trump declined to criticize the court and declared that “This is a long way from finished and I respect the court’s opinion.”

Indeed it is. Merchan’s monster will now go on the road and work its way back to the Supreme Court. Outside of New York this freak attraction will likely be viewed as less thrilling than chilling.

The election had the feel of the townspeople coming to the castle in the movie. In this case, however, the townspeople were right about what they saw in the making of a creature that threatened their very existence. Lawfare is that monster. It threatens us all, even those who hate Trump and his supporters. Once released, it spreads panic among the public which can no longer rely on the guarantees of blind and fair justice. That includes businesses who view this case and the equally absurd civil case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James as creating a dangerous and even lawless environment. Many are saying “but for the grace of God go I” in a system that allows for selective prosecution.

In the sentencing proceeding, Merchan was downplaying his hand in creating this Frankenstein. However, the case is the fallen angel of the legal system. While heralded in court by Bragg’s office as the triumph of legal process, it is in fact the rawest and most grotesque form of lawfare. Many will be blamed as the creators of this monster but few will escape that blame, including Merchan himself.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster, June 18, 2024).

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Three Reports from Jonathan Turley


January 6, 2025

The Trump Sentencing: Curtain to Fall on Merchan’s Hamlet on the Hudson

Below is my column in the Hill on the sentencing this week of President-Elect Donald Trump in Manhattan. Judge Juan Merchan waited to schedule the hearing for just ten days before the inauguration, limiting the time available to appeal. His order suggests that, if there is any interruption or delay in his sentencing, he might follow the advice of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and suspend sentencing for four years, a terrible option that we previously discussed. One could call that passively aggressive, but it seems quite actively aggressive.

Here is the column:

At 9:30 a.m. on Jan. 10, 2025, the curtain will fall on the longest performance of “Hamlet” in history. Acting Justice Juan Merchan will finally decide whether “to be or not to be” the judge to sentence Trump to jail. (Spoiler alert: He appears set to avoid a jail sentence and likely reversal.)

Since Trump’s conviction in May 2024, Merchan has contemplated his sentencing options. This was to be the orange-jump-suit moment many longed for over years of unrequited lawfare. They will likely be disappointed. As some of us noted after the verdict, this type of case would often result in an unconditional discharge or a sentence without jail time. That prediction became more likely after Trump was reelected in November. Limits on Trump’s freedom or liberty would likely result in a fast reversal, and Merchan knew it.

While various pundits predicted that Trump “will go to jail” after the trial, more realistic lawfare warriors had other ideas. The next best thing was to suspend proceedings and leave Trump in a type of legal suspended animation. Merchan would hold a leash on the president as a criminal defendant awaiting punishment. But the whole point of a trophy-kill case is the trophy itself. Merchan will not disappoint. While indicating that he is inclined to a sentence without jail or probation, he will finalize the conviction of Trump just 10 days before his inauguration. In so doing, he will formally label the president-elect a convicted felon.

It will be punishment by soundbite. Trump will become the first convicted felon to be sworn into office, a historical footnote that will be repeated mantra-like in the media. Merchan seems at points to be writing the actual talking points for the talking heads. In his order, he states grandly that the jurors found that this “was the premediated and continuous deception by the leader of the free world.” He then adds that he could not vacate the conviction because it would … constitute a disproportionate result and cause immeasurable damage to the citizenry’s confidence in the Rule of Law.”

Of course, this did not work out as many hoped. That apparently includes President Biden. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Biden was irate over the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute Trump more quickly to secure a conviction before the election. He also reportedly regretted his appointment of Attorney General Merrick Garland as insufficiently aggressive in pursuing Trump. It appears Garland was not sufficiently Bragg-like for Biden’s lawfare tastes.

The sentencing, however, will have another impact. Trump will finally be able to appeal this horrendous case. It has always been a target-rich opportunity for appeal, but Trump could not launch a comprehensive appeal until after he was sentenced.

Those appellate issues include charges based on a novel criminal theory through which…..

Continue reading “The Trump Sentencing: Curtain to Fall on Merchan’s Hamlet on the Hudson”→

“Does the Gentlelady Have a Problem?” : Yes, Delegate Plaskett Most Certainly Has a Problem

“This body and this nation has [sic] a territories and a colonies problem.” Those words from Del. Stacey Plaskett echoed in the House chamber this week as the delegate interrupted the election of the House speaker to demand a vote for herself and the representatives of other non-states. The problem, however, is not with the House but with Plaskett and other members in demanding the violation of Article I of the Constitution.

After her election in 2015, Plaskett has often shown a certain disregard for constitutional principles and protections. Despite being a lawyer, Plaskett has insisted in Congress that hate speech is not constitutionally protected, a demonstrably false assertion. Where there is overwhelming evidence of a censorship system that a court called “Orwellian,” Plaskett has repeatedly denied the evidence presented before her committee.  When a journalist testified on the evidence of that censorship system, Plaskett suggested his possible arrest. (Plaskett suggested that respected journalist Matt Taibbi had committed perjury due to an error that he made, not in testimony but in a tweet that he later corrected).

However, ignoring the free speech or free press values pales in comparison to what Plaskett was suggesting this week in nullifying critical language in Article I.

Article I, Section 2, states:

“The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch in the States Legislature.”

The ability to vote in the House is expressly limited to the elected representatives of “the several states.” Nevertheless, as the vote was being taken on the eventual election of Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.), Plaskett rose to demand recognition and to know why she was not allowed to vote:

“I note that the names of representatives from American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia were not called, representing, collectively, 4 million Americans. Mr. Speaker, collectively, the largest per capita of veterans in this country.”

The presiding member asked a rather poignant question in response: “Does the gentlelady have a problem?”

The answer was decidedly “yes.”

Plaskett responded, “I asked why they were not called. I asked why they were not called from the parliamentarian, please.”

The response was obvious:

“Delegates-elect and the resident commissioner-elect are not qualified to vote/ Representatives-elect are the only individuals qualified to vote in the election of the speaker. As provided in Section 36 of the House rules and manual, the speaker is elected by a majority of the members-elect voting by surname.”

Plaskett then declared “This body and this nation has a territory and a colonies problem. What was supposed to be temporary has now, effectively, become permanent. We must do something about this.”

As Plaskett’s mike was cut off, she objected “But I have a voice!” as Democrats gave her a standing ovation………

Continue reading ““Does the Gentlelady Have a Problem?” : Yes, Delegate Plaskett Most Certainly Has a Problem”→

MSNBC’s O’Donnell: Veterans are a Greater Threat of Terrorism Than Those Crossing Over Border

MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell is under fire this week for using the terrorist attack on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to attack the United States Army as a greater threat than those crossing our Southern border. The statement is a vintage example of why many are turning away from legacy or mainstream media, including MSNBC (which has lost nearly half its audience since the election).

O’Donnell has long maintained his show as something of a safe space for the left, including declaring that no Trump supporter would be allowed to speak on his show because they are all “liars,” a label that now applies to a majority of American voters in the last election.

Yet, this statement stands out for many in its unhinged effort to spin the tragedy into a more favorable liberal talking point.

O’Donnell declared:

“The simple fact is, this country has suffered more deadly terrorism at the hands of American-born citizens who are veterans of the United States military than people who have crossed into this country at the southern border. It is very clear from the evidence that if you want to worry about terrorism in this country, the United States Army is a much bigger problem than the southern border.”

There are two curious elements to O’Donnell’s comment. The first is that Army training somehow makes veterans greater threats of terrorism. The military also tends to instill patriotism and public service in its members. Moreover, O’Donnell was referencing the fact that Shamsud-Din Jabbar served in the Army, even though he was largely trained as a human resources and information technology expert. His attack was not a McVeigh-like truck bomb, but the use of the truck itself — an unfortunately common terrorist method that hardly speaks to any Army training.

Second, O’Donnell makes reference to those crossing the Southern Border as opposed to others who have either crossed any border or have entered this country legally. Again, the suggestion is that there is something about military training worthy of special concern. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Zacarias Moussaoui, Richard Colvin Reid, James T. Hodgkinson, Thomas Matthew Crooks, Darrell Edward Brooks Jr., and others may beg to differ.

O’Donnell made specific reference to Timothy McVeigh, the domestic terrorist behind the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995:

“Timothy McVeigh parked a truck outside that building loaded with explosives in an act of homegrown American terrorism. Timothy McVeigh’s hatred of the American government was not tamed in any way by his service in the American military. So, too, with America’s latest terrorist attack in New Orleans on New Year’s Eve, with an American military veteran driving a pickup truck through a crowd to murder 14 people.”

Ok, McVeigh and Jabbar became extremists after they served in the military. However, all terrorists make such ………

Continue reading “MSNBC’s O’Donnell: Veterans are a Greater Threat of Terrorism Than Those Crossing Over Border”→

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The Second Resistance Movement: Why the Campaign Against Trump This Time is Different


By: Jonathan Turley | November 12, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/11/11/the-second-resistance-movement-why-the-campaign-against-trump-this-time-is-different/#more-225265

Below is my column in The Hill on the growing calls for an organized resistance to the Trump Administration by Democratic governors and prosecutors. They may find, however, that the resistance movement this time around will be facing significant legal and political headwinds.

Here is the column:

The single most common principle of recovery programs is that the first step is to admit that you have a problem. That first step continues to elude the politicians and pundits who unsuccessfully pushed lawfare and panic politics for years. That includes prosecutors like New York Attorney General Letitia James and politicians like Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, who affirmed this week that they will be redoubling, not reconsidering, their past positions.

For its part, The Washington Post quickly posted an editorial titled “The second resistance to Trump must start now.” They may, however, find the resistance more challenging both politically and legally this time around.

It is important to note at the outset that there is no reason Democratic activists should abandon their values just because they lost this election. Our system is strengthened by passionate and active advocacy. Rather, it is the collective fury and delirium of the post-election protests that was so disconcerting. Pundits lashed out at the majority of voters, insisting that the election established that half of the nation is composed of racists, misogynists or domination addicts who long to submit to tyranny.

Others blamed free speech and the fact that social media allows “disinformation” to be read by ignorant voters. In other words, the problem could not possibly be themselves. It was, rather, the public, which refused to listen.

That does not bode well for the Democratic Party. As someone raised in a liberal politically active family in Chicago, I had hoped for greater introspection after this election blowout. Ordinarily, recovery can begin with “a terrible experience” when someone hits rock bottom. After a crushing electoral defeat and the loss of the White House and likely both houses of Congress, one would think that Democrats would be ready for that first step to recovery. However, those hoping for a new leaf on the left do not understand the true addictive hold of rage.

In my recent book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I explore rage and our long history of rage politics. There is a certain release that comes with rage in allowing people to do and say things that you would never do or say. People rarely admit it, but they like it. It is the ultimate high produced by the lowest form of political discourse.

Over the course of the last eight years, the U.S. has become a nation of rage addicts. For months, Democratic leaders denounced Donald Trump and his supporters as fascists and neo-Nazis. President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and others suggested that democracy itself was about to die unless Democrats were kept in power.

Just before the election, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul called those voting for Trump “anti-American.” By Hochul’s measure, over half of the American electorate is now “anti-American.”

James is the face of lawfare. She may have done more to reelect Trump than anyone other than the president himself. She ran on nailing Trump on something, anything. In New York, she was joined by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in this ill-conceived effort. They fulfilled the narrative of a weaponized legal system. Every new legal action seemed to produce another surge in polling for Trump. Yet there James was, soon after the election, with another press conference promising again to unleash the powers of her office to stop Trump’s policies.

Then there was Pritzker, doing the community theater version of “The Avengers” and declaring, “You come for my people, you come through me.” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) added that he too will “fight to the death” against Trump’s agenda. Rather than lower the rhetoric, these rage-addicts ran out for another hit.

Our prior periods of rage politics were largely ended by the public in major election shifts like the one this month. Things, however, are different this time around both politically and legally. The problem for the resistance is the very democracy that they claimed to be saving. Democrats lost after opposing policies supported by an astonishing share of the public at a time of deep political division. That effort included opposing voter ID laws favored by 84 percent of the public, among other things. They are now committed to opposing policies central to this election blowout, including deportations of illegal immigrants, which is favored in some polls by two-thirds of Americans.

Likewise, Democrats have already doubled down on attacks on free speech, including blaming their loss on the absence of sufficient censorship. On MSNBC, host Mika Brzezinski blamed the loss in part on “massive disinformation.” Yet, according to some polls, free speech ranked as high as second among issues on Election Day.

According to CNN, Trump’s performance was the best among young people (18-29 years old) in 20 years, the best among Black voters in 48 years, and the best among Hispanic voters in more than 50 years. Harris actually lost a bit of support with women, and Trump won handily among some groups of women.

None of that seems to matter this time. We have an alliance of political media and academic interests wholly untethered to the views of most of the public. Yet, with both houses of Congress under Republican control, the investigations and impeachment efforts that hounded Trump throughout his first term will be less of a threat in his second term. For that reason, the center of gravity of the “second resistance” will shift to Democratic prosecutors like James, Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was just reelected. Various Democratic governors are also pledging to thwart Trump’s policies despite the results of the election.

The “second resistance” will try to use state power to oppose the very issues and policies that led to this historic political shift. That means that there will be a legal shift in the focus of litigation to inherent federal powers versus state powers. That battle will favor the Trump administration. In fairness to these Democratic politicians, they are certainly free to go to the courts, as Republicans did under Biden to argue for limitations on federal powers. But the promise of California Gov. Gavin Newsom to “Trump-proof” the state is easier to make rhetorically than it will be to keep legally.

Indeed, Trump will be able to cite a curious ally in this fight: Barack Obama. It was Obama who successfully swatted down state efforts to pursue their own policies and programs on immigration enforcement. Obama insisted that state laws were preempted in the area and the Supreme Court largely agreed in its 2012 decision in Arizona v. U.S.

Congress may even seek to tie the receipt of federal funds to states cooperating with federal mandates. For this reason, Democrats, who campaigned on the promise to end the filibuster for the good of democracy, suddenly became firm believers in that Senate rule right around 2:30 a.m. last Wednesday.

As the majority of the country walks away from the party shaking their heads, many activists are left only with their rage. Instead of reappraising the years of far-left orthodoxy and intolerance, some are calling to tear down the system or take drastic individual actions, including for women to break up with their boyfriends and husbands or to cut off their hair.

They will actually keep their rage and dump their relationships. Now that really is an addiction.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” 

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Panic Politics: The Press and Pundits Face Devastating Polls on the Threat to Democracy


By: Jonathan Turley | October 24, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/24/selling-the-apocalypse-the-press-and-pundits-face-devastating-polls-on-the-threat-to-democracy/

Below is my column in the New York Post on the growing hysteria among press and pundits proclaiming the imminent end of democracy if Kamala Harris is not elected. The predictions of mass roundups, disappearances, and tyranny ignore a constitutional system that has survived for over two centuries as the oldest and most stable democracy in the world. More importantly, the public appears to agree that democracy is under threat but appear to hold a very different notion of where that threat is coming from.

Here is the column:

“Democracy dies in darkness” is the Washington Post’s slogan, but can it handle the light?

The Post has been doggedly portraying the election between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris as a choice between tyranny (Trump) and democracy (Harris). Yet when it commissioned a poll on threats to democracy shortly before the election, it did not quite work out.

Voters in swing states believe that Trump is more likely to protect democracy than Kamala Harris, who is running on a “save democracy” platform. The poll sampled 5,016 registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. When asked whether Trump or Harris “would do a better job” of “defending against threats to democracy,” 43% picked Trump while 40% picked Harris.

Notably, this was the same result when President Biden was the nominee. While over half said that threats to democracy were important to them, the voters trusted Trump (44%) more than Biden (33%) in protecting democracy.

Even with the slight improvement for Harris, the result was crushing for not just many in the Harris campaign but the press and pundits who have been unrelenting in announcing the end of democracy if Harris is not elected.

Former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has declared with authority that either you vote for Harris, or this “may well be the last real vote you ever get to cast.”

I have long criticized the apocalyptic, democracy-ending predictions of Biden, Harris and others as ignoring the safeguards in our system against authoritarian power. Nevertheless, Harris supporters have ratcheted up the rhetoric to a level of pure hysteria. Recently, Michael Cohen, a convicted felon and Trump’s disbarred former lawyer, told MSNBC that if Trump wins the election, he will “get rid of the judiciary and get rid of the Congress.”

Recently, MSNBC host Al Sharpton and regular Donny Deutsch warned viewers that they will likely be added to an enemies “list” for some type of roundup after a Trump election. MSNBC host Rachel Maddow also joined in the theme of a final stand before the gulag: “For that matter, what convinces you that these massive camps he’s planning are only for migrants? So, yes, I’m worried about me — but only as much as I’m worried about all of us.” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was quick to add her own name to a list that seems to be constantly updated by the media. She told podcast host Kara Swisher, “I mean, it sounds nuts, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this guy threw me in jail.”

On ABC’s “The View,” the hosts are becoming indistinguishable from tinfoil-hatted subway prophets. Whoopi Goldberg even explained how Trump is already committed to being a dictator who will “put you people away … take all the journalists … take all the gay folks … move you all around and disappear you.”

Of course, assuming that Cohen is wrong that there will be no courts after a Trump victory, this would require federal judges to sign off on the rounding up of MSNBC personalities, all gay people, all reporters, and, of course, Whoopi Goldberg. All that is required is for over two centuries of constitutional order to fail suddenly, and for virtually every constitutional actor in our system to suddenly embrace tyranny.

Those pushing this hysteria often curiously cite the January 6 riot as proof that the end is near. Yet that horrible day was the vindication, not the expiration, of our constitutional system. The system worked. The riot was put down. Congress, including Republicans, reassembled and certified Biden as the next president. In the courts, many Trump-appointed judges ruled against challenges to the election. Our system was put through a Cat 5 stress test and did not even sway for a moment. Nevertheless, the same voices are being heard on the same media outlets with doomsday scenarios.

Former Acting US Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” ominously, “We are looking at a very possible constitutional crisis and one that’s going to make January 6, 2021, look like a dress rehearsal. And this year, the rogues have had four years to go pro and perfect the big lie.”

In other words: Be afraid, very afraid.

Then, in a New York Times column, Katyal lays out scenarios premised on a complete breakdown of the oldest and most stable democratic system in history. It is like telling passengers on an ocean liner that we will all drown and then whispering that this is “assuming the crew intentionally scuttles the ship, all bulkheads and sealed departments fail, and every lifeboat and life preserver is discarded.”

But then we are all going to die. The only way to avoid that watery grave (with the death of democracy itself)? Vote Democratic.

There is, however, some good news in all of this: Despite years of alarmist predictions from Biden, Harris, the press, and pundits, the public is not buying it. It is not because they particularly like Trump. Many of his supporters seem poised to vote for him despite viewing him as polarizing and, at times, obnoxious.

No, it is because the American voter has a certain innate resistance to being played as a chump. Many of the same figures claiming that democracy is at stake supported ballot cleansing to remove Trump and others from the ballots. They supported the weaponization of the legal process in New York against Trump. Likewise, as Harris insists that she is the only hope for fundamental rights, many cannot fail to notice that she is supporting an unprecedented system of censorship that one court called “Orwellian.”

None of this means that the choice between Trump and Harris is easy. However, Harris’ claim to be the only hope for democracy is proving as tin eared as running on pure “joy.”

Voters are clearly demanding more than a political pitch of abject fear mixed with illusive joy.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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Colorado Supreme Court Dismisses Another Lawsuit Against Masterpiece Cakeshop

By: Jonathan Turley | October 10, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/10/10/colorado-supreme-court-dismisses-another-lawsuit-against-masterpiece-cakeshop/

In prior columns, academic articles, and my book, “The Indispensable Right, I discuss the never-ending litigation targeting Jack Phillips, the Christian baker who declined to make cakes that violated his religious beliefs. Phillips continues to be the subject of continuing lawsuits despite the Supreme Court upholding his right to decline to make expressive products for ceremonies or celebrations that he finds immoral. Now the Colorado Supreme Court has dismissed an action brought by a transgender lawyer against the cake shop and its owner.

Phillips has been the target of an unrelenting litigation campaign for over a decade.

In 2012, Charlie Craig and David Mullins asked Phillips to make a cake for their same-sex marriage. As a devout Christian, Phillips declined. He would sell any pre-made cakes to customers, but said that he could not morally make a cake for same-sex marriages.

That refusal turned Phillips’ tiny bakery into ground zero for the long-standing battle between religious rights and anti-discrimination laws. The Colorado Civil Rights Commission found that Phillips must make the cakes under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act (CADA).

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court in what many of us hoped would be a final resolution of this conflict. I had long criticized the framing of the case (and other cases) under the religious clauses as opposed to taking this as a matter of free speech. In the end, the Supreme Court punted in a maddening 2018 decision that technically ruled in favor of Phillips based on a finding that the Commission showed anti-religious bias against Phillips.

As a result, Phillips was thrown back into an endless grind of litigation as activists targeted his bakery for additional challenges by demanding cakes with other messages that Phillips found offensive.

In 2023, the Supreme Court delivered a major victory for free speech in 303 Creative v. Elenis when it ruled that Lorie Smith, a Christian website designer, could refuse service to a same-sex marriage. Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote “the framers designed the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment to protect the ‘freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think.’ … They did so because they saw the freedom of speech ‘both as an end and as a means.’”

The decision was not just a vindication for Smith but Phillips. However, Phillips continued to languish in the Colorado system, spending over a decade in non-stop challenges and lawsuits. Because the Supreme Court could not reach a clear resolution, it left Phillips to the continued pursuit of activists targeting his bakery.

The latest dispute began when Autumn Scardina spoke to the wife of Phillips and requested a pink cake with blue frosting to celebrate her gender transition. When the shop declined, Scardina filed an anti-discrimination claim with the Colorado Civil Rights Division (“the Division”) under section 24-34-306, C.R.S. (2024).

In her complaint, Scardina suggested that this was not a targeting of the famous cake shop but merely an effort to get a birthday cake.

In the complaint, Scardina wrote: “Ms. Scardina repeatedly heard Defendants’ advertisements that they were “happy” to sell birthday cakes to LGBT individuals. Hopeful that these claims were true, on June 26, 2017, Ms. Scardina called Masterpiece Cakeshop from Denver to order a birthday cake for her upcoming birthday.”

The shop said that they could make such a cake. However, “Ms. Scardina then informed Masterpiece Cakeshop that the requested design had personal significance for her because it reflects her status as a transgender female.” When the shop noted that it did not make cakes for gender transitions, Scardina insisted that it was for her birthday.

Having established the basis for the lawsuit, she then filed an administrative action. Eventually, however, she jumped from the administrative process into the courts. That would prove the procedural problem for the Colorado Supreme Court.

Scardina prevailed in the lower courts but the case was dismissed by the Colorado Supreme Court on technical grounds.

Justice Melissa Hart wrote in the Colorado Supreme Court’s majority opinion that

“The underlying constitutional question this case raises has become the focus of intense public debate: How should governments balance the rights of transgender individuals to be free from discrimination in places of public accommodation with the rights of religious business owners when they are operating in the public market? We cannot answer that question.”

The most notable aspect of this opinion is that, after a decade, Phillips is still being dragged through the courts despite the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized his free speech right to decline such contracts.

Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) has defended Phillips and Jake Warner, ADF senior counsel, stated “Enough is enough. Jack has been dragged through courts for over a decade. It’s time to leave him alone.”

It is doubtful that activists will heed that request.

Here is the opinion: Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Scardina

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”

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Sixth Circuit Hands Down Major Free Speech Win for Professor Against the University of Louisville


By: Jonathan Turley | September 13, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/09/13/sixth-circuit-hands-down-major-free-speech-win-for-professor-against-the-university-of-louisville/

The United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit handed down a major victory for free speech this week in favor of a professor challenging his treatment by the University of Louisville. In Josephson v. Ganzel, a unanimous panel ruled for Dr. Allan Josephson who was subject to adverse actions after he publicly expressed skepticism over some treatments for youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The decision is important because it deals with qualified immunity and reaffirms liability for the denial of free speech protections.

Writing for the panel (including Senior Judge Ronald Lee Gilman and Judge Allen Griffin), Judge Andre Mathis found that university officials could not claim immunity in the denial of free speech protections for faculty.

We previously discussed this case. Josephson was a professor of psychiatry at the medical school and had success at the school after serving as the Division Chief of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology at the University of Louisville for nearly 15 years. He has 35 years of experience in the field. His apparent good standing at the school changed dramatically when he participated in a discussion of the treatment of childhood gender dysphoria at an event in October 2017 sponsored by a conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation.  He expressed his reservations with some treatments and his public comments were reported back to his colleagues.

Dr. Josephson argued that children are not mature enough to make such major, permanent decisions and that 80-95 percent of children claiming gender dysphoria eventually accept their biological sex over time without such treatment. Those views are widely shared by others and have been cited as the basis for states adopting bans on conversion treatments for young children.

His commentary triggered a backlash at the school, which led to a decision not to renew his contract. When sued, the school invoked the Eleventh Amendment and claimed qualified immunity. The district court correctly rejected that claim, and the Sixth Circuit just affirmed that denial.

The university was seeking protection that would have insulated anti-free speech practices from liability, a dangerous prospect that could have dramatically accelerated the growing intolerance on campuses. The University of Louisville was arguing that they could punish faculty for public statements without fear of liability as state officers.

Judge Mathis and his colleagues made fast work of this insidious and dangerous claim:

Defendants argue that they are entitled to qualified immunity for two main reasons. First, they argue it was not clearly established that each Defendant’s conduct, in isolation, was an adverse action sufficient to show retaliation against a professor because of his protected speech. Second, they argue it was not clearly established that the First Amendment protected statements like those Josephson made in October 2017.

Resolving Defendants’ first argument is not complicated. Defendants argue that Josephson’s rights were not clearly established because no court had specifically addressed whether isolated actions against a professor because of his speech were adverse actions. In other words, Defendants believe they can act as they choose until there is a case on all fours. We disagree. As we have explained, “we do not require an earlier decision that is ‘directly on point.’” McElhaney v. Williams, 81 F.4th 550, 556–57 (6th Cir. 2023) (quoting Mullenix v. Luna, 577 U.S. 7, 12 (2015)). At the same time, “‘existing precedent’ must place the contours of the right ‘beyond debate.’” Id. (quoting Mullenix, 577 U.S. at 12).

During the relevant period, it was beyond debate that “the First Amendment bar[red] retaliation for protected speech.” Crawford-El v. Britton, 523 U.S. 574, 592 (1998). By the fall of 2017, both the Supreme Court and this court had held that, absent a disruption of government operations, a public university may not retaliate against a professor for speaking on issues of social or political concern. Pickering, 391 U.S. at 574; Hardy v. Jefferson Cmty. Coll., 260 F.3d 671, 682 (6th Cir. 2001). And we had established that a retaliatory “adverse action” is one that “would deter a person of ordinary firmness from continuing to engage in that conduct.” Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 394. We had further established that campaigns of harassment, when considered as a whole, may amount to adverse actions. See Fritz, 592 F.3d at 724; Thaddeus-X, 175 F.3d at 398; Bloch, 156 F.3d at 678. It was also established that legitimate threats “to the nature and existence of one’s ongoing employment is of a similar character to the other recognized forms of adverse action—termination, refusal to hire, etc.—even if perpetrated by a third party who is not the employer.” Fritz, 592 F.3d at 728. We have, moreover, “repeatedly held that ‘[a]n act taken in retaliation for the exercise of a constitutionally protected right is actionable under § 1983 even if the act, when taken for a different reason, would have been proper.’” Wenk v. O’Reilly, 783 F.3d 585, 595 (6th Cir. 2015) (alteration in original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting Bloch, 156 F.3d at 681–82). Thus, a reasonable university official during the relevant period would have understood that he could not lawfully terminate or threaten the economic livelihood of a professor because of his protected speech.

Defendants’ second argument does not fare much better. That is because the protected nature of Josephson’s speech was also clearly established. “To be clearly established, a legal principle must have a sufficiently clear foundation in then-existing precedent.” District of Columbia v. Wesby, 583 U.S. 48, 63 (2018). The principle “must be settled law.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Settled law “means it is dictated by controlling authority or a robust consensus of cases of persuasive authority.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).

In the First Amendment retaliation context, “we ask whether any reasonable official would have understood that [Josephson’s] speech was protected, and thus that the official could not retaliate against him.” McElhaney, 81 F.4th at 557. The answer: It is, and has been, clearly established that public employees have a right to speak “on a matter of public concern regarding issues outside of one’s day-to-day job responsibilities, absent a showing that Pickering balancing favors the government’s particular interest in promoting efficiency or public safety.” Ashford, 89 F.4th at 975 (first citing Buddenberg v. Weisdack, 939 F.3d 732, 739–40 (6th Cir. 2019); then citing Westmoreland v. Sutherland, 662 F.3d 714, 718–19 (6th Cir. 2011)).

It can no doubt be difficult to determine if speech is public or private. See DeCrane, 12 F.4th at 599 (“[W]e have recognized that it can be ‘challenging’ to distinguish public from private speech.” (citation omitted)). Even so, by 2012, “[w]e had held that employees speak as private citizens (not public employees) at least when they speak on their own initiative to those outside their chains of command and when their speech was not part of their official or de facto duties.” Id. at 599–600 (citing Handy-Clay v. City of Memphis, 695 F.3d 531, 542–43 (6th Cir. 2012)). “Would this ‘firmly established’ rule have ‘immediately’ alerted a reasonable person No. 23-5293 Josephson v. Ganzel, et al. Page 22 that” Josephson spoke in his private capacity? See id. at 600 (quoting Wesby, 583 U.S. at 64). We think so.

Defendants also argue that Josephson’s Heritage Foundation panel remarks were a part of his official duties. Even if that were the case, it was clearly established that such speech is protected. See Meriwether, 992 F.3d at 505; Hardy, 260 F.3d at 680; Bonnell v. Lorenzo, 241 F.3d 800, 823 (6th Cir. 2001) (“[A] professor’s rights to academic freedom and freedom of expression are paramount in the academic setting.”).

After a recent blow to academic freedom and free speech by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, this is a heartening opinion. It is particularly important because, as I have previously written in columns and my new book, public universities will be key to any effort to restore free speech values to higher education.

Higher education has already plunged in trust among citizens under the current administrators and faculty at our colleges and universities. They are destroying the very institutions that sustain them. Public universities can be a strong line of defense for free speech, offering students not just free speech environments but the direct protection of the First Amendment. Not surprisingly, the annual survey of free speech on campuses tends to have public universities at the top of the list of the most protective institutions with a few private standouts.

As shown by the University of Louisville’s medical faculty, administrators and faculty are not necessarily any more inclined to protect diversity of thought at public universities. However, the applicability of the First Amendment subjects them to greater accountability in the courts. In this case, the University of Louisville was seeking to reduce that accountability.

I have written about how taxpayers and legislators can exercise their own power to demand more diversified and tolerant environments at these schools. In the meantime, faculty and students can turn to state schools for greater protections for speech and more diverse environments. This case will help in that effort.

Here is the opinion: Josephson v. Ganzel

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).

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Poetic License: How Press and Pundits are Reframing Personalities to Fit Our Politics


By: Jonathan Turley | August 26, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/26/poetic-license-how-press-and-pundits-are-reframing-personalities-to-fit-our-politics/

Below is my column in The Hill on the sudden embrace of bipartisanship in Washington … by some of the most partisan figures in our political system. Press and pundits are suddenly reframing Vice President Kamala Harris as a moderate while heralding Justice Amy Coney Barrett for her independence. It is enough to give you vertigo from the media and political spin.

Here is the column:

The late New York Gov. Mario Cuomo once famously observed that “you campaign in poetry; you govern in prose.“ One of the greatest poetic licenses in this election has been the claim of bipartisanship from some of the most rigid partisans in our politics.

Many in the media are reinventing history to appeal to citizens who want more moderation in government. This theme was picked up by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz in his speech before the Democratic National Convention, when he claimed that Vice President Harris was not just a moderate but “never hesitated to reach across that aisle if it meant improving your lives, and she’s always done it with energy, with passion and with joy.”

Harris was one of the most liberal members of the Senate and was never viewed as someone likely to form a compromise on key votes. She was not one of the Democrats commonly referenced as moderates in that body on close votes. Harris was even rated to the left of socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). After her ranking by GovTrack was cited widely in the media as showing her as the most liberal member of the Senate, the site took down the page, which had been up for years. Harris is now to be portrayed as a moderate, whether it is true or not.

What was so striking is that Harris was valued by supporters precisely for being so uncompromising and consistently voting with the left. In her prior unsuccessful presidential run, she moved even further left. Harris was the only candidate other than Sanders to say that she wanted to abolish private insurance plans, a position which, like so many others, she has now recanted.

These same advocates of bipartisanship are lionizing Republicans who support Harris while demonizing Robert Kennedy Jr. for doing the same for Trump. To them, one is a profile of courage, the other a profile of corruption.

The poetry of politics was also evident this week after Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the three liberal justices in voting in dissent in a case involving Arizona’s voter identification law. Barrett was praised for opposing the ruling to set aside a lower court order blocking enforcement of a 2022 law requiring registered voters to provide proof of citizenship. The majority (with the liberal justices) also blocked a provision that would have prevented tens of thousands of prior voters in Arizona from voting.

Conservatives were irate at Barrett, particularly after Virginia claimed to have found hundreds of non-citizens on its voting rolls. Other states such as Georgia found a smaller number of non-citizens registering to vote, but polls show widespread support for voter ID laws. None of that seemed to matter to Barrett, who ruled based on her conscience and understanding of the law. The left’s response to Barrett’s vote was the most telling. Her willingness to cross the ideological divide was celebrated. These are some of the same voices who denounced Barrett in her confirmation hearing as a robotic conservative stooge.

Few Democrats were willing to vote for this obviously qualified nominee. That included the newly minted moderate Harris, who voted “nay.”

While some of us at the time challenged this media narrative, given Barrett’s impressive scholarship and proven independence, she was denounced by senators, and her home was even targeted by protesters. Bloody dolls were thrown on her lawn with her young children inside after the location was revealed by activists. Some of these activists might even take credit for Barrett’s repeated votes with the left of the court. But it is not their coercion, but Barrett’s convictions that led to these votes. She has always been a jurist who shows a willingness to follow her principles wherever they take her.

Barrett continues (with Justices Roberts and Kavanaugh) to moderate many decisions with three colleagues on both ends of rulings. Roberts and Kavanaugh routinely rank as the most likely to vote with the majority of the court. This brings us back to the poetry. In her confirmation hearings, senators such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) attacked her nomination in the same way that they attacked the nomination of Justice Neil Gorsuch. Whitehouse portrayed both nominees as adding guaranteed votes for a conservative agenda, reading off the many decisions where conservatives voted as a block.

As I stated in my own testimony in the Gorsuch confirmation hearing, Whitehouse and his colleagues often seem to ignore that the liberal justices in those cases also voted like a block. Justice Sotomayor shows the same low percentage of voting with the opposite end of the court as do her colleagues Justices Alito and Thomas. Yet in her case, the pattern of voting was not viewed as partisan, but as simply getting cases right.

Both Gorsuch and Barrett have routinely voted with their liberal colleagues in major cases, despite the attacks of critics on their independence and integrity.

Most cases before the Supreme Court do not break along ideological lines, despite the portrayal in the media. Indeed, most are resolved unanimously (roughly half) or nearly unanimously by the court.

Take the 2023 cases. Only half of the 6-3 splits featured the six conservative and three liberal justices on opposite sides. Only eight percent (five of 57 cases) were decided 6-3 with the six Republican appointee/three Democratic split. The rest mixed up alliances. The least likely to join the majority of their colleagues were the three liberal justices, Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson.

The liberal justices, however, are rarely portrayed as ideologues in the media, which consistently portrays the court as controlled by a six-conservative block of rigid partisans. In reality, they are all conscientious jurists trying to get cases right from their jurisprudential viewpoints. The consistency in voting reflects their adherence to their fundamental principles.

Politicians and pundits, ignoring the facts, continue to claim that the court is dysfunctional and ideologically divided. When elections or nominations come along, Democrats attack those on the other side as refusing to compromise or “cross the aisle.”

Many value the poetry of bipartisanship in politics but demand the prose of strict partisanship in governance. Calling Harris a moderate and Barrett a partisan is just part of the poetic license of American politics.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).

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Combatting “False Narratives”: D.C. Circuit Refuses to Block Judge Limiting the Speech of Jan. 6th Defendant


By Jonathan Turley |

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/11/combatting-false-narratives-d-c-circuit-refuses-to-block-judge-limiting-the-speech-of-jan-6th-defendant/

We have previously discussed controversial sentences handed down in cases involving rioters on January 6th, including sentencing orders that, in my view, violate First Amendment rights. That included the case of Daniel Goodwyn, who pleaded guilty to a single misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building. That crime would ordinarily not involve any jail time for a first offender. However, Judge Reggie B. Walton  of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia decided that he would use the case to regulate what Goodwyn was reading and communicating with a chilling probation order. After the case was sent back by the D.C. Circuit, Walton doubled down on his extraordinary order. Now the D.C. Circuit has refused to hear an emergency appeal.

Judge Walton has attracted controversy and criticism over his public comments about former President Donald Trump and the other issues. He caused a stir in Washington after doing an interview with CNN in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump for his criticism of judges and their family members. Walton previously called Trump a “charlatan,” and said that “I don’t think he cares about democracy, only power.”

Critics charged that Walton’s public statements ran afoul of Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states: “A judge should not make public comment on the merits of a matter pending or impending in any court.”

Walton then triggered criticism over his handling of the Goodwin case. The case involved Daniel Goodwyn, 35, of Corinth, Texas, who pleaded guilty on Jan. 31, 2023, to one misdemeanor count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds without lawful authority. That is a relatively minor offense, but Walton imposed a 60-day jail sentence in June 2023 with these ongoing conditions on his online reading and speech.

Walton reportedly noted that Goodwyn spread “disinformation” during a broadcast of “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on March 14, 2023, and ordered that Mr. Goodwyn’s computer be subject to “monitoring and inspection” by a probation agent to check if he spread Jan. 6 disinformation during the term of his supervised release.

After accepting the plea to a single misdemeanor, Walton expressed scorn for Goodwyn appearing “gleeful” on Jan. 6 and his “egging on” other rioters. He asked his defense counsel “why I should feel that he doesn’t pose a risk to our democracy?”

As a condition for supervised release, DOJ pushed the monitoring conditions and found a judge who seemed eager to impose it.

The order reflects the utter impunity shown by the Justice Department in its pursuit of January 6th defendants.  Justice Department official Michael Sherwin proudly declared in a television interview that “our office wanted to ensure that there was shock and awe … it worked because we saw through media posts that people were afraid to come back to D.C. because they’re, like, ‘If we go there, we’re gonna get charged.’ … We wanted to take out those individuals that essentially were thumbing their noses at the public for what they did.”

Sherwin was celebrated for his pledge to use such draconian means to send a message to others in the country. (Sherwin has left the Justice Department and is now a partner at Kobre & Kim).

Walton was rebuked by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a surveillance order of Goodwin to detect any spreading of “disinformation” or “misinformation.”

In my new book, “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage,” I discussed concerns over the cases like Goodwyn’s and their implications for free speech. I participated in the coverage on January 6th and criticized President Trump’s speech while he was giving it. I disagreed with the legal claims made to oppose certification. However, the “shock and awe” campaign of the Justice Department, in my view, has trampled on free speech rights in cases that range from Goodwyn to the prosecutions of Trump himself.

Many of us were relieved when appellate judges (Gregory Katsas, Neomi Rao, and Bradley Garcia) rebuked Walton and held that “[t]he district court plainly erred in imposing the computer-monitoring condition without considering whether it was ‘reasonably related’ to the relevant sentencing factors and involved ‘no greater deprivation of liberty than is reasonably necessary’ to achieve the purposes behind the sentencing.”

They sent the case back but, to the surprise of few, Judge Walton proceeded to double down on the monitoring while implausibly declaring “I don’t want to chill anyone’s First Amendment rights.”

For some reason, Walton believes that barring an individual from reviewing and engaging in political speech does not “chill” his First Amendment rights.

Most of us were appalled by the riot and the underlying views of figures like Goodwyn, who is a self-proclaimed member of the Proud Boys. He was rightfully arrested and should be punished for his conduct. The question is not the legitimacy of punishment, but the scope of that punishment.

Prosecutor Brian Brady detailed how the Justice Department has in place a new system using artificial intelligence to monitor the reading and statements of citizens like Goodwyn. The Justice Department brushed aside the free speech concerns since Goodwyn remains under court supervision, even though he pleaded guilty to only a single misdemeanor.

Brady described a virtual AI driven thought program. The justification was that Goodwyn refused to abandon his extreme political views:

“Throughout the pendency of Goodwyn’s case, he has made untruthful statements regarding his conduct and the events of the day, he has used websites and social media to place targets on police officers who defended the Capitol, and he has used these platforms to publish and view extremist media. Imposing the requested [monitoring] conditions would protect the public from further dissemination of misinformation… [and] provide specific deterrence from him committing similar crimes.”

So now federal courts can use a single misdemeanor for unlawful entry in a federal building for less than 40 seconds to “protect the public from … dissemination of misinformation” on the government.

That was all Walton needed to hear. Relying on a record supplied by the Justice Department, Walton said in the hearing that Goodwyn is still engaging “in the same type of rhetoric” that fomented the Jan. 6 violence. He added that he was concerned about Goodwyn spreading “false narratives” when we are “on the heels of another election.”

Walton merely added the DOJ record to his renewed sentencing conditions.

Defense counsel then returned to the D.C. Circuit to seek an emergency stay but Judges Florence Pan and Bradley Garcia denied the motion, holding that “Appellant has not satisfied the stringent requirements for a stay pending appeal” to prevent further “false narratives.”

That drew a pointed dissent from Judge Gregory Katsas who stated:

Daniel Goodwyn pleaded guilty to one count of knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted building or grounds, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1752(a)(1). Goodwyn entered the Capitol and remained inside for a total of 36 seconds. He did not use force to enter, did not assault police officers, and neither took nor damaged any government property. When police instructed Goodwyn to leave the building, he did so.

…

On appeal, this Court vacated the condition … We further instructed the district court, if it wished to impose a new computer- monitoring condition on remand, to “explain its reasoning,” to “develop the record in support of its decision,” and to ensure that the condition complies with section 3583(d) and with the Constitution.

The district court reimposed the same condition on remand. In an oral hearing, the court said that Goodwyn had made statements on social media that “can be, it seems to me, construed as” urging a repeat of January 6, particularly “on the heels of another election.”  In its written order, the court elaborated on what it called Goodwyn’s “concerning online activity.”  This included posting exhortations to “#StopTheSteal!” and “#FightForTrump,” soliciting donations to fund his travel to Washington, posing for a livestream while inside the Capitol, confirming his presence there by text, and tweeting opinions such as: “They WANT a revolution. They’re proving our point. They don’t represent us. They hate us.” Id. at 3–4. In addressing what the court described as Goodwyn pushing “false narratives” about January 6 after-the-fact, the court, quoting from the government’s brief, led with the fact Goodwyn “sat for an interview with Tucker Carlson on Fox News Channel.” Id. at 4. Finally, in concluding that computer monitoring was reasonably related to Goodwyn’s offense, the court reasoned that monitoring would prevent Goodwyn from raising funds to support potential future crimes and would separate him “from extremist media, rehabilitating him.”

Judge Katsas stated that Goodwyn was likely to prevail on the merits and that his colleagues allowed the denial of First Amendment rights to continue in the interim.

The Walton order reflects the erosion of support for the First Amendment, even on our courts. It is reminiscent of our previous discussion of how courts have criminalized “toxic ideologies” as part of the crackdown on free speech in the United Kingdom.

Here is the D.C. Circuit order: United States v. Goodwyn

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Don’t Mess with Texas: Fifth Circuit Rules Against the Biden Administration in Buoy Dispute on Southern Border


By: Jonathan Turley | August 1, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/08/01/dont-mess-with-texas-fifth-circuit-rules-against-the-biden-administration-in-buoy-dispute-on-southern-border/

Texas won a big victory in the United States Court of Appeals in the long struggle over floating buoy barriers in the Rio Grande River to help block unlawful migration. In United States v. Abbott, the court ruled 11-7 in an en banc decision against the Biden Administration over the barrier. It is an interesting decision that included a sharp disagreement over the claim that the large numbers of migrants across the border constitute an “invasion” under Article I, Section 10, Clause 3 (“[n]o state shall, without the Consent of Congress, . . . engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay”).

In its challenge, the Biden Administration claimed the placement of the buoys  violated the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899. The appellate panel and trial court previously  ruled in favor of the federal government. However, both were overturned. The majority found that the specific stretch of the Rio Grande that was chosen by the state is not covered by the Rivers and Harbors Act because it is not “navigable.” The definition of navigable waters has long been a matter of dispute in the courts.

Yet, it was the invasion issue that had many of us watching for this decision. I have previously expressed doubts over this theory. I agree with Texas on its criticism of the Biden Administration’s disastrous handling of the border. The impact on Texas is devastating. However, I do not believe that it qualifies as an invasion under Article I.

The opinions deal with this issue in dicta rather than the central holding. Some judges felt that the court should have addressed the issue.

What is interesting is the concurring opinion of Judge James Ho that the meaning of “invasion” is a “political question.” As such, he believes that courts must defer to the Texas governor’s assertion that there is an invasion, at least so long as the governor is acting in “good faith.”

In his concurring opinion, Judge Andrew Oldham maintains that Ho is wrong about the necessity of the court in taking up the issue.

In her dissenting opinion, Judge Dana Douglas objects that this approach would have sweeping and destabilizing effects and “would enable Governor Abbott to engage in acts of war in perpetuity.”

Here are the opinions: United States v. Abbott

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Law, Political

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Worth Reading: The Eighth Circuit Finds Bar on 18-20 Year Olds Violates the Second Amendment

By: Jonathan Turley | July 23, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/23/worth-reading-the-eight-circuit-finds-bar-on-18-20-years-old-violates-the-second-amendment/

The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit has handed down a major ruling in Worth v. Jacobson in favor of the Second Amendment. The opinion by Judge Duane Benton upholds a lower court in striking down a Minnesota law limiting gun permits for persons 21 years old. It is a question that could find its way to the Supreme Court once splits among the circuits develop.

As noted by scholars such as Stephen Halbrook, it is also the first appellate court to rely on the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Rahimi, which gun rights advocates argued might be a break in the dam of Second Amendment protections. That dubious claim is even less compelling after reading this opinion.

Minnesota has joined states like New York and Illinois in advancing weak arguments to the benefit of gun rights advocates. It argued that, since the Founding, states have restricted guns in the hands of “irresponsible or dangerous groups, such as 18 to 20-year-olds.” That proposition was left virtually unsupported as was the suggestion that 18 to 20-year-olds are a public danger.

Moreover, the court ruled that it would not matter:

“Minnesota states that from the founding, states have had the power to regulate guns in the hands of irresponsible or dangerous groups, such as 18 to 20year-olds. At the step one ‘plain text’ analysis, a claim that a group is ‘irresponsible’ or ‘dangerous’ does not remove them from the definition of the people.”

Minnesota also argued that the plaintiffs were required to shoulder their burden in showing that they are covered by the Second Amendment. It noted that they “did not submit expert reports or facts about the Second Amendment’s text.” That argument is meritless. They are clearly “people” under the Constitution. The court held:

“Ordinary, law-abiding, adult citizens that are 18 to 20-year-olds are members of the people because: (1) they are members of the political community under Heller’s “political community” definition; (2) the people has a fixed definition, though not fixed contents; (3) they are adults; and (4) the Second Amendment does not have a freestanding, extratextual dangerousness catchall.”

The Worth decision by Judge Benton is a tour de force on the Second Amendment. It is well-reasoned and, in my view, right on the law.

Here is the opinion: Worth v. Jacobson

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Crime, Law, Political

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“This is How Republics Collapse”: Another Adverse Decision Sends the Press and Pundits into a Hair-Pulling Meltdown


By: Jonathan Turley | July 16, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/07/16/this-is-how-republics-collapse-another-adverse-decision-sends-the-press-and-pundits-into-a-hair-pulling-meltdown/

Below is my column in the New York Post on the opinion of Judge Aileen Cannon. Once again, Democracy is “under attack” because a judge ruled against the prosecution in a Trump case. Indeed, law professors and legal experts are demanding the removal of Cannon for having the temerity to adopt an opposing view of the underlying constitutional claim.

Here is the column:

“This is how republics collapse.” Those ominous words captured the hand-wringing, hair-pulling reaction to the dismissal of the Florida case against Donald Trump by Judge Aileen Cannon. It was not just that she reached a conclusion long supported by some conservative lawyers and a Supreme Court justice. To rule in favor of Trump in such a dismissal is, once again, the end of Democracy as we know it.

The 93-page order methodically goes through the governing cases and statutes for the appointment of prosecutors. There has long been a debate over how an attorney general like Merrick Garland can circumvent the constitutional process for the appointment of a U.S. Attorney and unilaterally elevate a citizen to wield even greater power.

With the expiration of the Independent Counsel Act in 1999, attorneys general have long relied upon their inherent authority to appoint “inferior officers” to special counsel investigations. The issue has never been conclusively ruled upon by the Supreme Court, even though lower courts have rejected this challenge.

The Trump ruling is certainly an outlier and the odds favor prosecutor Jack Smith on appeal. Many point to a challenge in 2019 in the D.C. Circuit to the appointment of Robert Mueller. The court found that “binding precedent establishes that Congress has ‘by law’ vested authority in the Attorney General to appoint the Special Counsel as an inferior officer.”

That is the view of many lawyers and judges. However, Judge Cannon disagreed and found a lack of clear authority for both the appointment and the appropriations used for Smith. Nevertheless, legal experts were incredulous and irate. Jed Shugerman, a Boston University Law professor, is quoted as expressing shock that Judge Cannon is essentially saying, “I’m not bound by the DC Circuit, and I think they misinterpret this.”

He added that it showed an “astonishing level of dismissiveness.”

However, in point of fact, Judge Cannon is not bound by the D.C. Circuit. As a federal judge in Florida, she is bound by the 11th Circuit and, of course, the Supreme Court. She is allowed to reach a different conclusion on a matter of law.

Laurence Tribe, a law professor at Harvard University, declared that “Judge Cannon just did the unthinkable,” He added, “This finally gives Jack Smith an opportunity to seek her removal from the case. I think the case for doing so is very strong.” (Tribe previously declared that he was certain “without any doubt, beyond a reasonable doubt, beyond any doubt” that Trump could be charged with the attempted murder of former Vice President Michael Pence).

It does not matter to these critics that other lawyers and judges agree with Judge Cannon.

Justice Clarence Thomas recently expressed the same view in the Trump immunity decision in his concurrence. He did not view this as a settled question and wrote “if this unprecedented prosecution is to proceed, it must be conducted by someone duly authorized to do so by the American people. The lower courts should thus answer these essential questions concerning the special counsel’s appointment before proceeding.”

Yet these experts believe that a judge without a direct controlling case on the question should be removed for reaching the same conclusion as a member of the Supreme Court and at least two former U.S. Attorneys General.

Of course, these experts would be aghast at any suggestion that D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan should be removed after being reversed by the Supreme Court in the recent immunity opinion.

Such experts are not raising questions of bias over Chutkin’s rulings in favor of Smith or the similar pattern of Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan.

Yet Cannon is viewed as not simply wrong, but partisan in ruling for Trump.

How do republics collapse?

When judges are pressured or removed for ruling against favored parties.

When the system is undermined by leading political leaders who go to the steps of the Supreme Court to threaten justices that they “will pay the price” for ruling against one side.

When law professors call the courts the “enemy” and push to cut off air conditioning to coerce them to resign.

Alexander Hamilton once said that the Republic is preserved “through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”

That does not mean that the trial courts are always right. That is why we have appellate courts. However, conflicting decisions are the norm in cases that make it to the Supreme Court. Indeed, the justices often wait for such divisions to occur before they finally resolve long-standing questions.

These demands for the removal of Judge Cannon are simply extensions of the same group think culture of the “defenders of Democracy.”This Republic will not “collapse” if Judge Cannon is right or if she is wrong. It is safe as long as judges are able to rule according to their understanding of the law, regardless of the demands of the perpetually and emphatically enraged.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon & Schuster).

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Cannon Fodder: The Media Piles on Federal Judge After Lionizing Manhattan Judge


By: Jonathan Turley | June 25, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/25/cannon-fodder-the-media-piles-on-federal-judge-after-lionizing-manhattan-judge/

Below is my column in the New York Post on the vicious attacks being directed at Judge Aileen Cannon as she addresses pre-trial motions in the Florida prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The sheer hypocrisy in the media is overwhelming after denouncing any criticism of Judge Juan Merchan in the Manhattan prosecution. For Cannon, it is nothing short of a press pile-on.

Here is the column:

The politicians, the press, and pundits are in a feeding frenzy around Judge Aileen Cannon, the federal judge presiding in the Florida case against former President Donald Trump. There is a torrent of hit pieces and petty attacks on virtually every media platform. What is impressive is the complete lack of self-awareness over the hypocrisy of these attacks. Just a few weeks ago, the New York Times and other media outlets went into vapors when anyone uttered criticism of Manhattan Justice Juan Merchan in another Trump case.

In 2020, Judge Cannon was confirmed in a bipartisan vote, with the support of liberals such as Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Cal.). Now she is being denounced as a “partisan, petty prima donna, “wacko, crazy, loony, nutty, ridiculous, and outlandish,” and a “right-wing hack.” From the descriptions in the Washington Post, New York Times and virtually every mainstream media outlet, you would think that Cannon was a freak in the courtroom, raving uncontrollably at any passerby.

These critics often stress that she is an appointee of Trump, even though many Trump appointees have ruled against the former president on 2020 election issues. And these same figures denounced Trump for attacking the perceived political bias of Democratic nominees in some of his cases.

Cannon was randomly selected, as opposed to Merchan, who was hand-picked to try Trump even though he is a political donor to President Joe Biden and has a daughter who is a major Democratic operative. Yet these same figures denounced those who questioned Merchan’s refusal to step aside or criticized his rulings against Trump throughout the trial.

In reality, the “loose Cannon” spin is utterly disconnected with her actual rulings.

She has ruled for and against both parties on major issues. That includes the rejection of major motions filed by the Trump team and most recently challenged Trump counsel on their claims that the Special Counsel is part of “a shadow government.”

Notably, when Cannon recently rejected the main motion for dismissal by the Trump team, the Washington Post buried that fact in an article titled “Judge Cannon Strikes Paragraph in Trump Classified Document Indictment.” The suggestion was that the striking of a single paragraph was more newsworthy than insisting that Trump go to trial on these counts. (Also buried in the article is a recognition that the removal of this one paragraph “does not have a substantive effect on the case.”)

Most recently, the left expressed nothing short of horror that Judge Cannon allowed the Trump team to argue a point of constitutional law in a hearing. Scholars and former prosecutors (including former attorneys general) have argued that the appointment of special counsels like Smith are unconstitutional. This is a novel and intriguing constitutional objection that is based on the text of the Constitution, which requires that high-ranking executive officers like U.S. Attorneys be appointed under statute or nominated by the president (and confirmed by the Senate).

Yet after the expiration of the Independent Counsel Act in Jun 1999, the Justice Department asserts the right to take any private citizen like Smith and effectively give him greater authority than a U.S. Attorney. This glaring inconsistency has led to a number of challenges. Thus far, they have been unsuccessful, but none have gone to the Supreme Court. Cannon wanted to hear oral arguments before ruling on the question. That decision has sent the politicians and reporters into another frenzy of faux outrage and indignation.

MSNBC legal analyst and NYU law professor Melissa Murray went on with host Chris Hayes to tell Judge Cannon to “stay in her lane” and mock her consideration of constitutional claim:

“Girl, stay in your lane. Stay. In. Your. Lane. So, yes, not only has the issue of whether the special counsel comports with the structures of constitutional law, that’s been settled. That’s been addressed in multiple courts. Settled. We don’t have to rehash that … If this were an actual issue it would ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court, not by a district court judge in Fort Pierce, Florida.”

It is a baffling lecture. Cannon is precisely in her lane in hearing a claim without controlling authority. The fact is that the Supreme Court has not ruled on the issue and many lawyers have objected to the summary treatment given the claim by other courts. The point of creating a record is to allow a full review that could well end up at the Supreme Court.

Who isn’t staying in their lane? Cannon’s colleagues.

The New York Times recently reported that two judges attempted to get Cannon to hand off the case when it was randomly assigned to her. So, the suggestion is that two of her colleagues breached any sense of collegiality and confidentiality to contribute to a hit piece on Cannon.

It is worth noting that there was no reason for Cannon to decline the selection, particularly not due to her appointment by Trump. A variety of Trump appointees have ruled against Trump on matters without a hint of objection from the left.

While it is true that Cannon was just put on the bench a couple years ago, that did not seem to bother these same pundits in the Georgia case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee was put on the bench only shortly before being assigned the Georgia case against Trump and associates.

Cannon is a true American success story and, if she were only to rule in favor of the left, she would certainly be the subject of glowing stories of how she went from being born in Cali, Colombia to joining the federal bench. Her mother escaped Cuba after the revolution, and she grew up with a deep-seated faith in the rule of law. She graduated from Duke University and, after a stint as a journalist, graduated from Michigan Law School magna cum laude.

Yet there will be no “American dream” stories for Cannon like the ones that ran for Sonia Sotomayor after her nomination.

Cannon is a Republican and has the temerity to follow a conservative jurisprudence. For the media, that makes her unworthy (much like the lack of coverage on Justice Clarence Thomas’ incredible life story).

There is little chance that the scorched Earth campaign against Cannon will work. When your family escapes Communist Cuba and then the drug-ravaged city of Cali, partisan media hit pieces are hardly intimidating. That may be frustrating for many in the media, but she is fulfilling the purpose of Article III of the Framers. She will rule and she will not yield.

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University School of Law. He is the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” (Simon and Schuster, 2024).

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Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules Sidewalks are Not “Pedestrian Ways” to Allow for Eminent Domain Seizures


By: Jonathan Turley | June 20, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/20/wisconsin-supreme-court-rules-sidewalks-are-not-pedestrian-ways-to-allow-for-eminent-domain-seizures/

In Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, a court informs the irascible character of Mr. Bumble that it assumes a level of control of his wife’s conduct. Mr. Bumble responds that “if the law supposes that, the law is a ass – a idiot.” The scene came to mind with a decision yesterday when the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted 4-3 in Sojenhomer v. Village of Egg Harbor that a sidewalk is not a “pedestrian way.” Lawyers in Wisconsin are already sending around Bumble-like harrumphs to the decision, which is a testament to the ability of judges to ignore plain meaning to achieve desired results.

Where the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland asked, “why is a raven like a writing-desk?” the Wisconsin Supreme Court asked why a sidewalk is not like a pedestrian way. The result is equally maddening.

At issue was the effort of the state to create more sidewalks. Faced with resistance from homeowners, the state was using eminent domain to simply condemn the land and claim it for sidewalks. However, Wisconsin has strong protections for homeowners, including statutes expressly stating that the power of eminent domain must be “strictly construed” against the government.

Moreover, there is a statute that expressly bars the use of eminent domain to take property for “pedestrian way[s].” It defines a “pedestrian way” as “a walk designated for the use of pedestrian travel.”

To every Bumble and non-Bumble alike, that would seem to describe a sidewalk, which is defined by Merriam-Webster as “a usually paved walk for pedestrians at the side of a street.”

Not so says Justice Rebecca Frank Dallet:

Reading the text of this section as a whole, we find several indications that the definition of pedestrian way does not include sidewalks. For starters, both § 346.02(8)(a) and (b) use the terms “sidewalk” and “pedestrian way” in ways that signify that each term has a separate, non-overlapping meaning. … Section 346.02(8)(b) states that pedestrian ways shall be treated ‘as if’ they were sidewalks for utility installation and assessment purposes. The phrase “as if” signals that one category (pedestrian ways) should receive the same treatment as a different category (sidewalks). That is the same way the legislature used “as if” in, for example, Wis. Stat. § 53.03, which states that Wisconsin courts “may treat a foreign country as if it were a state” in guardianship proceedings. Just as foreign countries are not states but should be treated as if they were for guardianship purposes, pedestrian ways are not sidewalks, but should be treated as if they were for utility-installation and assessment purposes.

The analogy is a poor one, in my view. The treatment of a foreign state like a domestic state captures the fact that both are governing units with similar inherent functions and powers. That is a far cry from saying a “pedestrian way” is NOT a “sidewalk.”

Justice Dallet then adds:

The language of § 346.02(8)(a) also suggests that sidewalks are not pedestrian ways. That paragraph makes the rules of the road pertaining to sidewalks also applicable to pedestrian ways. But if sidewalks are pedestrian ways, then the rules of the road applicable to sidewalks would already apply to pedestrian ways. The point here, to be clear, is not that reading the term “pedestrian way” to include sidewalks would result in surplusage….

However, that may indicate that “pedestrian ways” are a broader category than just sidewalks. It does not suggest that sidewalks are not pedestrian ways.

That seems to be the point of the dissent by Chief Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler:

The plain language of the statute demonstrates that the term “pedestrian way” is broadly defined, and includes sidewalks. A sidewalk——that portion of the highway created for the travel of persons on foot——is clearly a subset of pedestrian ways——walks set apart or assigned for the use of pedestrian travel. It is a straightforward, common-sense interpretation of the statutory language that a “walk designated for the use of pedestrian travel” necessarily includes that part of the highway “constructed for the use of pedestrians…”

[I]n other words, a closer look at the plain meaning of the statutes reveals that all sidewalks are pedestrian ways, but that not all pedestrian ways are sidewalks….

What is particularly galling about the decision of the majority is that they avoid the required strict construction of the law against the government as inapplicable by simply declaring that there is no ambiguity in the language of the statutes, a preposterous claim that requires a level of willful judicial blindness.

The creative effort to ignore the obvious is reminiscent of the fictional Canadian case where a horse was declared a bird. Though sometimes cited as a real case, it appears to be an opinion written to show how legal interpretations can take on absurd dimensions to result in desired ends.

In Regina v. Ojibway (8 Criminal Law Quarterly 137 (1965-66)), a Canadian indigenous tribe member puts down a suffering horse but is then charged under a criminal provision for shooting a bird under the Small Birds Act (R.S.O.). Blue, J., delivers the opinion for the court, granting the appeal, saying:

For the purpose of the Small Birds Act, all two-legged, feather-covered animals are birds. This, of course, does not imply that only two-legged animals qualify, for the legislative intent is to make two legs merely the minimum requirement. The statute therefore contemplated multi-legged animals with feathers as well.

Counsel submits that having regard to the purpose of the statute only small animals “naturally covered” with feathers could have been contemplated. However, had this been the intention of the legislature, I am certain that the phrase “naturally covered” would have been expressly inserted just as “Long” was inserted in the Longshoreman’s Act.

Therefore, a horse with feathers on its back must be deemed for the purpose of this Act to be a bird, a fortiori, a pony with feathers on its back is a small bird.

In Wisconsin, it appears that the Supreme Court would have simply said that the pony, since a pony can be treated “as if” it is a horse, it is not a horse.

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Capitol Vapors: The Faux Outrage Over the Alito Flags and Tapes


By: Jonathan Turley | June 14, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/14/capitol-vapors-the-laughably-fake-outrage-over-justice-alito/

Below is my column in The Hill on the renewed attacks on Justice Samuel Alito after a liberal activist secretly taped a dinner conversation with him and his wife. The feigned outrage of pundits and politicians is absurdly unconnected to anything even remotely surprising or unethical in the comments.

Here is the column:

In a world of moral relativism, Lauren Windsor may reign supreme. The Democratic activist recently lied to justices in order to record answers at a dinner.

In an interview with CNN, the filmmaker (who has been lionized by many in the media for her dishonesty) cheerfully explained that she lies to “elicit truths that serve the greater public good.” The “greater good” is to contribute to a campaign of harassment and attacks on Supreme Court justices by academics, the media and Democratic members. The chief target of these efforts lately has been the author of the decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, Justice Samuel Alito.

For years, the left has maintained a well-funded, unrelenting campaign against the court and its conservative majority. This has included an effort by such figures as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) to pack the court immediately with a liberal majority. Warren declared that the court must be packed because it is daring to oppose “widely held public opinion.”

The statement, of course, ignores that the court was designed to resist public pressure (and even members of Congress) in order to protect the constitutional rights and liberties of minority groups.

Unsurprisingly, the usual suspects have assembled again to call for resignations and impeachments after Windsor’s surreptitious taping of both Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. That includes Warren, who declared that “Alito is an extremist who is out of touch with mainstream America. His rising power on the Supreme Court is a threat to our democracy.”

It did not matter that what Windsor captured on her secret recording was neither surprising nor unethical. Pretending to be a religious conservative at a dinner of the Supreme Court Historical Society, Windsor successfully induced the deeply religious Alito to say . . . wait for it . . . that he believes the country should return to a place of “godliness.”

It was an otherworldly moment as this notoriously anti-conservative activist asked an unsuspecting Alito why the nation was so filled with rage. In the recording, Alito laments the divisions in the country, stating, “I wish I knew. I don’t know. It’s easy to blame the media, but I do blame them because they do nothing but criticize us. And so, they have really eroded trust in the court…American citizens in general need to work on this to heal this polarization because it’s very dangerous.”

When pushed on what the court can do, Alito again answered honestly: “I don’t think it’s something we can do. We have a very defined role, and we need to do what we’re supposed to do. But this is a bigger problem. This is way above us.”

There is nothing even slightly controversial there. But the quote being repeated, often in isolation, was when Alito acknowledged that, while “there can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully…it’s difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can’t be compromised. They really can’t be compromised. So, it’s not like you are going to split the difference.”

Warren and others already prove that very point on the left, as do many on the right. Again, this is not at all controversial. We are divided because people hold irreconcilable beliefs on which they are unwilling to compromise.  Imagine the reaction of liberals if Justice Sonia Sotomayor suddenly “compromised” on abortion rights.

But pundits and politicians have since lined up, feigning vapors at the thought of a justice saying privately that he believed in “godliness” and had little hope of “compromise” on many issues.

Warren seemed beside herself with shock, acting as if Alito’s bland, obvious observation were some clear sign of political bias: “I am most concerned about the appearance that Justice Alito has prejudged cases that will come before him. That is one of the biggest sins that a judge or justice can commit.” Bear in mind, these are the words of a senator seeking to pack the court with an ideological majority to give predictable rulings on major cases.

Likewise, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) declared the tape to be proof that Alito is “a movement activist,” while Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D.-Conn.) denounced Alito’s “outrageous” behavior. Of course, the lying democratic activist was not outrageous, but the justice was outrageous in sharing his observation in a private conversation that the nation is irreconcilably divided on major issues.

Warren, Whitehouse, Blumenthal and many of the same pundits were strangely silent when liberal justices such as Ruth Bader Ginsburg engaged in actual partisanship, as when she openly opposed the election of Donald Trump and discussed cases and controversies that might come before her. There was no demand for a resignation when Justice Sonia Sotomayor called upon students to politically oppose pro-life laws after acknowledging, “they tell me I shouldn’t.” There were no vapors at the thought of justices expressing their political sentiments from the left.

Media even cleaned up interviews for liberal justices. Katie Couric famously deleted disparaging comments made by Ginsburg about players kneeling during the National Anthem at NFL games, even though that matter could have ended up before the Supreme Court.

What is most galling is the pile-on over not just this manufactured controversy, but the earlier controversy over flags. Years ago, one of the best reporters at the Washington Post investigated a report that the Alitos had flown an upside-down American flag, to see if it was a political statement associated with Trump. Robert Barnes interviewed neighbors and concluded that it was not Justice Alito but his wife Martha-Ann who had hoisted the flag. Mrs. Alito, he learned, was responding to an ongoing spat with a neighbor.

Barnes and the Post responsibly decided not to run the story. That type of journalistic restraint is now anathema in our age of rage, with reporters denouncing the Post for failing to run a “blockbuster” story.

This was then amplified when the public was told that Mrs. Alito had also hoisted at one of their properties the Revolutionary War-era “Appeal to Heaven” flag, which has enjoyed something of a revival since it featured in the introductory sequence of the acclaimed 2008 miniseries on the career of President John Adams.

It is not clear how that story was a “blockbuster” — that a justice has a wife with a flag fetish, which includes flying the historic Pine Tree Flag. (Tellingly and amusingly, after the left added that flag to its list of Alito’s transgressions, Democratic politicians suddenly had to scramble to remove it from their own buildings to clear the way for the outrage.)

Of course, Windsor also targeted Mrs. Alito in her secret recordings at the dinner. The media again pounced on a line where she complained of “feminazi” critics and added, “Don’t get angry. Get even!”

That statement followed her suggestion that they may sue for defamation, and that “there’s a five-year defamation statute of limitations.” She also added that her husband had tried to keep her from flying her flags and getting into neighborhood spats, but that “he never controls me.” Indeed, she said he had prevailed on her not to fly a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag, but that she was not giving up the ghost even on that flag.

Windsor generously allowed that a Supreme Court spouse “certainly” has a right to speak, before adding that expected “but!” Such liberty, she asserted, may not apply to Mrs. Alito “when your spouse is one of the most powerful men in the country, you know, with his fingers on the scale, literally, of justice. I mean, are we going to say that we are going to do away with impartiality, the bedrock principle of our democracy, of our jurisprudence? Is it okay?”

Well, the answer is yes, Miss Windsor. It is okay.

We do not require justices to divorce outspoken or irascible spouses. We do not punish them for speaking freely in private conversations with bottom-feeding gotcha activists who secretly record them at dinners. Justices are even allowed to have strong opinions about controversial issues in dinner conversations. Strong personal opinions do not on their own constitute conflicts of interest.

None of this will matter, of course. Democrats will continue to chase Alito around the Beltway like a scene out of Lord of the Flies. The absurd demands for meetings with justices and threats of subpoenas will continue to thrill liberal voters. It is all part of the threats made by Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the steps of the Supreme Court. Schumer threatened the conservative justices, “You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

It is an extension of the pledge by activists to change the court “by any means necessary.” While thankfully denouncing the attempted assassination of Justice Bret Kavanaugh, liberals have proposed “more aggressive” targeting of justices at their homes, bribing conservatives to retire, and literally cutting off the justices’ air conditioning.

As Windsor explained, it is all just for “the greater good.”

Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at the George Washington University Law School. He is the author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (Simon & Schuster 2024)

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Laptop Deniers in Delaware: The Media Shrugs as the Biden Laptop is Authenticated in Federal Court


By: Jonathan Turley | June 7, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/06/07/laptop-deniers-in-delaware-the-media-shrugs-as-the-biden-laptop-is-authenticated-in-federal-court/

Below is my column in Fox.com on the authentication of Hunter Biden’s laptop in the Delaware trial. The government has denounced the Russian disinformation claims as a “conspiracy theory” and put on evidence that there is no evidence of tampering with the laptop. The FBI declared the laptop to be “real” and “authentic” and the court agreed. It was introduced as evidence before many reporters who previously embraced the debunked “conspiracy theory.” As discussed below, Houdini’s elephant was just revealed on stage and most of the audience looked away.

Here is the column:

Watching the coverage this week out of Delaware was like finding oneself in a parallel universe. There were ABC, NBC, CBS, the Washington Post and other news outlets reporting matter-of-factly that the Hunter Biden laptop showed no evidence of tampering and was both real and authentic.

These are the same outlets, and some of the same reporters, who eagerly spread the false claims that the laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

Yet, what followed the testimony of FBI agent Erika Jensen was absolute crickets. There was no effort to track down the signatories of the now-debunked letter from former intelligence officials just before the election. In the letter, figures such as Leon Panetta, former CIA director in the Obama administration, claimed that the laptop had all the markings of a Russian disinformation effort by intelligence services. (Panetta continued to make the assertion even in late 2023 in pushing what the federal government is now calling a “conspiracy theory.”)

  • There was no attempt by the media to confront associates of the Biden campaign (including now Secretary of State Antony Blinken) who pushed a long effort to get former intelligence officials to sign a letter.
  • There was no attempt to question President Joe Biden, who made this false claim in the presidential election to deflect any questions about the evidence of corrupt influence peddling on the laptop.

Years ago, I wrote that the Biden campaign had pulled off the single greatest political trick in history. As I wrote back then, the key to this Houdini-esque trick was to get the media to invest in the deception like audience members called to the stage.

Houdini used to make his elephant Jennifer disappear on stage every night because he knew that the audience wanted her to disappear. They were part of the act. The Bidens made the media part of the act, and these reporters have to back the illusion or admit that they were part of the deception. They are all laptop deniers, but they know that there are few who will call them to account for their conspiracy theory. Rather, it is social media where readers can see videos of leading media claiming that the laptop is the work of Russian intelligence.

In 2020, CBS News’ Lesley Stahl literally laughed mockingly at then-President Donald Trump when he raised the Hunter Biden laptop and what it revealed about the Bidens.

Figures like former Chief of Staff at the CIA and Department of Defense Jeremy Bash, who told MSNBC that the laptop “looked like Russian intelligence” and “walked like Russian intelligence.” He dismissed the relevance of the laptop before the election by declaring that “this effort by Rudy Giuliani and the New York Post and Steve Bannon to cook up supposed dirt on Joe Biden looks like a classic, Russian playbook disinformation campaign.”

Bash added that it made Trump an effective agent of Russian intelligence since he kept referencing the laptop: “[when] Rudy Giuliani suddenly comes forward with these mysteriously created emails, probably hacked through a Russian intelligence operation, we have to acknowledge the fact that the President of the United States is supporting, is condoning, is welcoming a Russian intelligence operation in 2020. … This is collusion in plain sight.”

Bash, like others behind the conspiracy theory, was later given an intelligence position by Biden.

The New York Times and The Washington Post both eventually verified Hunter Biden’s laptop after big tech dismissed the New York Post’s bombshell reporting during the 2020 presidential election. The Post reporting was famously censored by Twitter ahead of the 2020 election.

CNN’s Alex Marquardt told viewers, “We do know it is a very active Russian campaign.”

Indeed, the Washington Post has continued to suggest that this reporting was accurate. One of the leading purveyors of this false story was the Post’s Philip Bump, who slammed the New York Post for its now proven Hunter Biden laptop story.

In 2021, when media organizations were finally admitting that the laptop was authentic, Bump was still declaring that it was a “conspiracy theory.” Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Bump continued to suggest that “the laptop was seeded by Russian intelligence.”

After Bump had a meltdown in an interview when confronted over past false claims, I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims. The Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that they stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including the laptop conspiracy theory. That was in August 2023.

Of course, this trick would not have been possible without the assistance of 50 former intelligence officials who were reportedly organized through Clinton campaign associates to issue the infamous letter. These figures then continued to spread the false claim.

  • Former CIA Director John Brennan, one of the 50 who signed the letter, also claimed that the laptop bore “the hallmarks of Russian disinformation.”
  • James Clapper, a former director of National Intelligence and CNN analyst, said the laptop was “classic, textbook Soviet, Russian tradecraft at work.”
  • Members of Congress also repeated the false claims, including Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, D-Ill., who told the media not to join Giuliani as a “vehicle for Russian disinformation.” 
  • Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, insisted that the laptop was clearly “Kremlin propaganda.”
  • This long-debunked claim was even recently repeated in Congress by Rep. Dan Goldman, D-N.Y., who claimed that the laptop could not be authenticated even though it was just authenticated and introduced in a federal prosecution.

All of those who pushed what the U.S. government is now calling a false “conspiracy theory” have flourished in the wake of Biden’s victory. Intelligence officials like Bash received plum positions while others like Clapper were given media contracts. Schiff is expected to be elected to the Senate and is running, ironically enough, on his record with intelligence investigations of Trump.

Conversely, the New York Post and reporters like Miranda Devine have received no recognition for their work in disclosing the contents and defying attacks from politicians and media alike. While reporters were given a Pulitzer for reporting the now debunked Russian collusion story, Devine and others will never receive a Pulitzer for uncovering the true story behind the laptop.

Devine, the New York Post, and others simply refused to get in on the trick. As is often said, there are some facts simply “too good to check” in the media. The Hunter Biden laptop disappeared from the stage like Houdini’s elephant because the media wanted it to disappear.

The reappearance of the laptop in a Delaware courtroom might be awkward for most people, but not the media or intelligence officials or politicians who pushed the conspiracy theory. After all, they were all in on the trick. It was the voters who were played for chumps.

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Democrats Attack Judge for Delaying Trump Florida Trial


By: Jonathan Turley | May 9, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/05/09/democrats-attack-judge-for-delaying-trump-florida-trial/

While pundits, politicians and the press have long expressed outrage over attacks on judges by former President Donald Trump, many are now attacking any judge who delays any trial of Trump before the election. Democrats have accused Judge Aileen Cannon of being politically compromised, if not conspiratorial, in her delay of the Florida trial over the mishandling of classified documents. Yet, there is ample reason for the delay that many of us anticipated in this type of case when it was filed.

For months, many of us have said that we doubt that this type of trial could be held on the rapid schedule demanded by Special Counsel Jake Smith. Smith has repeatedly sought to curtail trial review and even appellate rights of Trump to advance his schedule.

His office has made convicting Trump before the election the overriding objective of its motion — a sharp departure from past Justice Department efforts to avoid trials to influence elections.

As a criminal defense counsel, I have handled classified material cases, and they are notoriously slow. Smith could have prosecuted this case in the shorter time frame if he simply charged obstruction. That would have also eliminated the glaring contrast with the handling of the Biden investigation into the current president’s retention and mishandling of classified material.

Smith decided to charge an array of document charges related to classified material. The defense must have access, review, and can appeal issues related to the classified procedures. Yet, Smith wanted both the array of document charges and a fast track to trial. The Supreme Court has agreed with Cannon that Smith’s desire to secure a conviction before the election is not the overriding consideration.

Judge Cannon is faced with recent admissions that the government mixed up files in the boxes and staged the famous photos of documents strewn over a floor with classified jackets. Most importantly, disputes over the relevant documents continues as expected in the case. Nevertheless, leading democrats are denouncing Cannon as a partisan hack.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on federal courts and oversight, accused Cannon of “deliberately slow-walking the case.” Ignoring the fact that similar cases have taken much longer to go to trial, Whitehouse simply declared “it is hard for me not to reach the conclusion that this [judge] is deliberately slow-walking the case to put it into a position where should [Trump] be elected, he can order that the investigation and prosecution be terminated.”

His colleague Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) insisted that Cannon was “managing this case in a way that is making it highly unlikely that it will be resolved in a timely fashion.”

Coons added “Justice deferred is often justice denied.” It is a bizarre statement. Classified documents cases routinely take longer to go to trial. The alternative is to cut off the ability of the defense to fully review the documents and review objections for resolution before trial. Yet, because the defendant is Trump and these Democrats want the trial to influence the election, such defense protections are now evidence of judicial bias. They, of course, ignore that Cannon has ruled repeatedly against major Trump motions in the case.

Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), a member of the Judiciary Committee, said Cannon’s “at it again, doing everything she can to delay.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), offered the most telling line. He said, “I question whether this judge understands the magnitude or the legal import of this trial.”

Indeed, it is the timing as much as the charges that makes this so important to the Justice Department and the Democrats. Smith has crafted this case to impact the election and the failure of the court to support that effort is apparently grounds for recusal.

Blumenthal called for such a motion before the window is lost before the election: “It’s a classic dilemma for justice that a particular judicial officer may be conducting a trial that could be better done by somebody else.”

Despite the statement of his colleague Coons, this is a case where justice delayed is justice.

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The Constitutional Abyss: Justices Signal a Desire to Avoid Both Cliffs on Presidential Immunity


By: Jonathan Turley | April 26, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/04/26/free-fall-or-controlled-descent-justices-signal-a-desire-to-avoid-both-cliffs-on-presidential-immunity/

Below is my column in the New York Post on yesterday’s oral arguments on presidential immunity. As expected, with the exception of the three liberal justices, the Court appears to be struggling to find a more nuanced approach that would avoid the extreme positions of both parties. Rather than take a header off either cliff, the justices seem interested in a controlled descent into the depths of Article II.

Here is the column:

Writer Ray Bradbury once said, “Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.”

In Thursday’s case before the Supreme Court on the immunity of former President Donald Trump, nine justices appear to be feverishly working with feathers and glue on a plunge into a constitutional abyss. It has been almost 50 years since the high court ruled presidents have absolute immunity from civil lawsuits in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. The court held ex-President Richard Nixon had such immunity for acts taken “within the ‘outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.”

Yet in 1974’s United States v. Nixon, the court ruled a president is not immune from a criminal subpoena. Nixon was forced to comply with a subpoena for his White House tapes in the Watergate scandal from special counsel Leon Jaworski. Since then, the court has avoided any significant ruling on the extension of immunity to a criminal case — until now.

There are cliffs on both sides of this case. If the court were to embrace special counsel Jack Smith’s arguments, a president would have no immunity from criminal charges, even for official acts taken in his presidency. It would leave a president without protection from endless charges from politically motivated prosecutors.

If the court were to embrace Trump counsel’s arguments, a president would have complete immunity. It would leave a president largely unaccountable under the criminal code for any criminal acts.

The first cliff is made obvious by the lower-court opinion. While the media have largely focused on extreme examples of president-ordered assassinations and coups, the justices are clearly as concerned with the sweeping implications of the DC Circuit opinion.

Chief Justice John Roberts noted the DC Circuit failed to make any “focused” analysis of the underlying acts, instead offering little more than a judicial shrug.

Roberts read its statement that “a former president can be prosecuted for his official acts because the fact of the prosecution means that the former president has acted in defiance of the laws” and noted it sounds like “a former president can be prosecuted because he is being prosecuted.”

The other cliff is more than obvious from the other proceedings occurring as these arguments were made. Trump’s best attorney proved to be Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

If the justices want insight into the implications of denying any immunity, they just need to look north to New York City.

The ongoing prosecution of Trump is legally absurd but has resulted in the leading presidential candidate not only being gagged but prevented from campaigning.

Alvin Bragg is the very personification of the danger immunity is meant to avoid.

With cliffs to the left and the right, the justices are looking at a free-fall dive into the scope of constitutional and criminal law as they apply to presidential conduct. They may be looking not for a foothold as much as a shorter drop.

Some of the justices are likely to be seeking a third option where a president has some immunity under a more limited and less tautological standard than the one the DC Circuit offered. The problem for the court is presidential privilege and immunity decisions are meant to give presidents breathing room by laying out bright lines within which they can operate. Ambiguity defeats the purpose of such immunity. So does a test that turns on the motivation of an official act.

The special counsel insists, for example, Trump was acting for his personal interest in challenging certification and raising electoral fraud since he was the other candidate. But what if he wasn’t on the ballot — would it have been an official function to raise such concerns for other candidates?

When pressed on the line between official and nonofficial conduct, the special counsel just dismissed such concerns and said Trump was clearly acting as an office-seeker not an officeholder.

Likewise, the special counsel argued the protection for presidents must rest with the good motivations and judgment of prosecutors.

It was effectively a “Trust us, we’re the government” assurance. Justice Samuel Alito and others questioned whether such reliance is well placed after decades of prosecutors’ proven abuses.

Finally, if there is no immunity, could President Barack Obama be prosecuted for ordering the killing of a citizen by drone attack and then killing his son in a second drone attack? The government insisted there is an exception for such acts from the murder statute.

In the end, neither party offers a particularly inviting path. No immunity or complete immunity each holds obvious dangers.

I have long opposed sweeping arguments of immunity from criminal charges for presidents. The devil is in the details, and many justices are struggling with how to define official versus nonofficial conduct.

The line-drawing proved maddening for the justices in the oral argument. The most they could say is similar to the story of the man who jumped off a building. As he passes an office window halfway down, another man calls out to ask how he’s doing. The jumper responds, “So far so good.”

As the justices work on a new set of legal wings, anything is possible as the nation waits for the court to hit ground zero in the middle of the 2024 presidential election.

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Supreme Court Takes Up Obstruction Case Affecting J6 Defendants


By: Jonathan Turley | April 16, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/04/16/supreme-court-takes-up-obstruction-case-affecting-j6-defendants/

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will take up Fischer v. United States, a case that could fundamentally change many cases of January 6th defendants, including the prosecution of former president Donald Trump. The case involves the interpretation of a federal statute prohibiting obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations.

The case concerns 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), which provides:

“Whoever corruptly—(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding; or (2) otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.”

Joseph Fischer was charged with various offenses, but U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia dismissed the 1512(c)2 charges. Judge Nichols found that the statute is exclusively directed to crimes related to documents, records, or other objects.

The D.C. Circuit reversed and held that Section 1512(c)(2) is a “catch all” provision that encompasses all forms of obstructive conduct. Circuit Judge Florence Pan ruled that the “natural, broad reading of the statute is consistent with prior interpretations of the words it uses and the structure it employs.” However, Judge Gregory Katsas dissented and rejected “the government’s all-encompassing reading.”

The Court will now consider the question of whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit erred in construing 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c), which prohibits obstruction of congressional inquiries and investigations, to include acts unrelated to investigations and evidence.

The law itself was not designed for this purpose. It was part of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and has been described as “prompted by the exposure of Enron’s massive accounting fraud and revelations that the company’s outside auditor, Arthur Andersen LLP, had systematically destroyed potentially incriminating documents.”

Oral argument is today and I will be covering the arguments on X (Twitter).

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“Patently False”: Special Counsel Files Blistering Reply to Hunter Biden Motion to Dismiss


Jonathan Turley | March 10, 2024

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/10/patently-false-special-counsel-files-blistering-reply-to-hunter-biden-motion-to-dismiss/

Special Counsel David Weiss has filed a blistering opposition to the motion to dismiss by Hunter Biden in California that cites his own book and conflicting statements as creating “nothing more than a house of cards.” The filing (below) shows how Hunter’s claims (repeated by many in the media) collapse under even cursory review in court.

Weiss’s filing bulldozes through arguments of selective prosecution and political influence in the case. He specifically notes that Biden repeatedly makes statements without any proof or support in his filings.

The filing begins by outright accusing Hunter Biden and his counsel of lying to the court about what occurred after the earlier plea agreement fell apart in court after the judge in Delaware asked about a sweeping immunity clause in paragraph 14. Notably, Weiss said that it was Hunter Biden’s legal team that inexplicably shut down negotiations by playing hardball in seeking to preserve the original agreement:

“The government proposed changes to the agreements that addressed only the issues identified during the hearing. Exh. 3. The defendant rejected these counterproposals on August 7, 2023. Id. Instead, the defendant began insisting that the proposed Diversion Agreement had bound both parties, even though it had not been approved by the Chief U.S. Probation Officer, a condition precedent to formation that would have brought it into effect. Moreover, by taking this position, he chose to shut down any further negotiations that could address the issues raised at the hearing.”

It then accuses Biden and his counsel as outright lying to the court:

“In his motion, in multiple places, the defendant falsely states that DOJ ‘inexplicably demanded Mr. Biden plead guilty to felonies with jail time.’ He cites nothing in support of his false claims, which is a consistent theme across his motions. The government attaches as Exhibit 3 a redacted letter from the defendant’s counsel which confirms the defendant understood that the government had proposed changes to only those paragraphs that were at issue during the hearing, not paragraphs regarding the charges the defendant must plead to or any “jail time” the defendant must serve. As shown in Exhibit 3, the government proposed changes to Paragraphs 14, 15 and 17 of the Diversion Agreement, and Paragraph 5(b) of the Plea Agreement. The government proposed no changes to Paragraph 1 of the Plea Agreement, which required the defendant to plead guilty to two misdemeanors. Nor did the government propose any changes to Paragraph 6 of the Plea Agreement, in which the United States had agreed to recommend a sentence of probation. The defendant rejected these counterproposals and refused further negotiations…His newly invented claim in his motion that the government “inexplicably demanded Mr. Biden plead guilty to felonies with jail time” is patently false, unsupported by evidence, and belied by his own letter and representations in his filings in the Delaware case.”

The rest of the filing is equally devastating.

Weiss notes that Biden repeatedly misrepresents facts or claims authority that does not exist. He notes that Biden does not cite any cases of similarly situated individuals who were not prosecuted. For example, it notes:

“The only attempt the defendant makes to link animus directly to prosecutors is his claim that “reports indicate Mr. Weiss himself admitted [the charges] would not have been brought against the average American.” Motion at 13. However, his citation does not include a reference to reports (plural), rather it includes a single New York Times citation, which includes a denial immediately after the quoted excerpt: “A senior law enforcement official forcefully denied the account.” An anonymous account that is “forcefully denied” is not evidence that can satisfy the defendant’s burden of producing “clear evidence” of discriminatory intent and animus by prosecutors.”

In rejecting the two cases that he references, Weiss takes a swipe at Hunter’s book. When he published the book, some of us noted that he was making statements against his own interest in possible prosecutions. Weiss just made that a reality:

“The defendant compares himself to only two individuals: Robert Shaughnessy and Roger Stone, both of whom resolved their tax cases civilly for failing to pay taxes. Shaughnessy failed to file and pay his taxes, but he was not alleged to have committed tax evasion. By contrast, the defendant chose to file false returns years later, failed to pay when those returns were filed, and lied to his accountants repeatedly, claiming personal expenses as business expenses. Stone failed to pay his taxes but did timely file his returns, unlike the defendant. Neither Shaughnessy nor Stone illegally purchased a firearm and lied on background check paperwork. And neither of them wrote a memoir in which they made countless statements proving their crimes and drawing further attention to their criminal conduct. These two individuals are not suitable comparators, and since the defendant fails to identify anyone else, his claim fails.”

The brief even takes a shot at the use of public statements by former Attorney General Eric Holder to prove selective prosecution, noting that Holder seems hopelessly conflicted in his own claim of selective prosecution:

“The defendant cites media commentary by former Attorney General Eric Holder, who acknowledged that the defendant is not similarly situated to other individuals: ‘This isn’t some kind of ordinary run-of-the-mill tax case, [] this was an abuse of the tax system . . .’”

The filing annihilates the public claims of Hunter and his allies. It is the difference between making a case in the court of public opinion and making a case in an actual court of law.

Special Counsel Opposition

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More Courts Uphold Bans on ‘Gender-Affirming’ Care for Minors. Is Supreme Court Next Stop?


By: Sarah Parshall Perry / @SarahPPerry / August 28, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/08/28/more-courts-uphold-bans-gender-affirming-care-minors-divisions-abound-is-supreme-court-next-stop/

Young girl in denim T-shirt with rainbow Pride symbol and backpack outdoors

Twenty-two states have restricted “transgender” medical interventions for minors. With courts reaching different conclusions regarding legality, a final decision seems destined for the Supreme Court. (Photo: IURII KRASILNIKOV, iStock/Getty Images)

Activist judges who believe the propaganda on “lifesaving” “gender-affirming” care for minors are weeping into their lattes this month as a second federal appellate court has just upheld a duly enacted state law banning these practices for children.

A few short weeks after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld Tennessee’s law banning “gender-affirming” care for minors in the state, the 11th Circuit followed suit and upheld Alabama’s law prohibiting the same. In an opinion for the unanimous three-judge panel written by Judge Barbara Lagoa, the court overturned a lower court order that had enjoined a portion of Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act. The act makes it a felony, punishable to up to 10 years in prison, to administer “gender-affirming care” to minors—including chemical castration and radically transformative body modification procedures.

The state’s appeal from the lower court’s decision halting the law centered specifically on section 4(a)(1)-(3), the portion of the law banning the administration of puberty blockers or “cross-sex hormones.”

But as the 6th Circuit did in its decision upholding the Tennessee law, the 11th Circuit wasted no time in both overturning the lower court decision and going so far as to hold that the lower court had abused its discretion in applying the wrong standard of judicial review.

Lagoa wrote, “The plaintiffs have not presented any authority that support the existence of a constitutional right to ‘treat [one’s] children with transitioning medications subject to medically accepted standards.’ Nor have they shown that [the law] classifies on the basis of sex or any other protected characteristic. Accordingly, section 4(a)(1)-(3) is subject only to rational basis review.”

There are three standards for judicial review when a court must determine the constitutionality of a particular law:

The intermediate and strict scrutiny tests are more restrictive standards of review than rational basis, and more difficult for a state to satisfy. Rational basis, however, is used when no fundamental right (such as free speech, voting, or religion) or suspect classification (such as race or national origin) is at issue. Under this standard, the state must simply show that the law is rationally related to a legitimate governmental interest.

This standard, the 11th Circuit held, was easily satisfied by the state of Alabama, and the state’s regulation of the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormone treatments for minors was to be afforded a “strong presumption of validity.” The court continued with a discussion of whether the right to treat one’s children with puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones could be found within the more general 14th Amendment right to direct the upbringing of one’s children—as plaintiffs had claimed.

The court found it did not.  

Citing the Supreme Court’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision of last June, the court noted that in order to determine whether a claimed right is one of the “substantive rights” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, “Courts must look to whether the right is ‘deeply rooted in [our] history and tradition’ and ‘essential to our Nation’s scheme of ordered liberty.’” But, it continued, “the use of these medications in general—let alone for children—almost certainly is not ‘deeply rooted’ in our nation’s history and tradition.”

Because the judges were being asked to break new ground in the field of substantive due process under the 14th Amendment, the court wrote that it was bound to exercise the “utmost care.” This, Lagoa wrote, the lower court had not done. In fact, she pointed out that the lower court had “grounded its ruling in an unprecedented interpretation of parents’ fundamental right to make decisions concerning the ‘upbringing’ and ‘care, custody, and control’ of one’s children,” and then applied the wrong judicial review standard of this new “right,” to boot.

As far as the plaintiffs’ argument that the Alabama law was subject to intermediate scrutiny because it made sex-based classifications (relative to “gender nonconformity”), the court was unconvinced. While the lower court had applied the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision, Bostock v. Clayton County, to equate “gender nonconformity” with “sex,” the appellate court disagreed, noting that the Alabama law treated both sexes equally. Because it “classifie[d] on the bases of age and procedure, not sex or gender nonconformity, [it was] therefore not subject to any heightened scrutiny.”

The court also slapped down the lower court’s application of Bostock—a case with a limited holding, and one that solely concerned the prohibition against sex discrimination in employment found in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Lagoa wrote, “The Equal Protection Clause contains none of the text that the Court interpreted in Bostock. It provides simply that ‘[n]o State shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’”

She added, “Because Bostock therefore concerned a different law (with materially different language) and a different factual context, it bears minimal relevance to the instant case.”

Within a few short days of the 11th Circuit’s decision, a Missouri state court upheld that state’s own SAFE (Save Adolescents from Experimentation) Act—the first trial court victory to date in cases interpreting laws that ban the mutilation of children in the name of “gender-affirming” care.

In declining the plaintiffs’ request to halt the law, Judge Stephen R. Ohmer ruled, “The science and medical evidence is conflicting and unclear” and that “the evidence raises more questions than answers.”

Nearly simultaneously, however, a Texas state court halted the operation of that state’s “transgender” medical procedures ban. The state immediately filed an appeal to the Texas Supreme Court, which temporarily halts the trial court’s ruling. The Texas attorney general’s office responded to the trial court’s decision by saying that it would “continue to enforce the laws duly enacted by the Texas Legislature and uphold the values of the people of Texas.”

Still pending before a federal trial court in Florida is a challenge to that state’s “gender-affirming” medicine ban for minors as adopted by the Florida boards of Medicine and Osteopathic Medicine. That case should now be relatively easy to decide since that ban is nearly identical to the Alabama law that the 11th Circuit just upheld.

In a previous case, Adams v. St. Johns County School Board, the 11th Circuit determined (again in an opinion written by Lagoa) that a school’s sex-segregated bathroom policy was not a violation of the Constitution because, just as the Alabama law does, it treated all students equally, regardless of sex. This is good news for the state of Florida as officials chart a path forward in defending their “gender-affirming” medical ban.

With 22 states having enacted restrictions on “transgender” medical interventions for minors, and with courts in different states and different federal circuits reaching different conclusions in terms of upholding or overturning such laws, the battle to protect the minds and bodies of adolescent children seems ultimately destined for the Supreme Court.

COMMENTARY BY

Sarah Parshall Perry@SarahPPerry

Sarah Parshall Perry is a senior legal fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

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No, Appointing A ‘Special Counsel’ Is Not a License for DOJ To Obstruct Congress


BY: TRISTAN LEAVITT AND JASON FOSTER | AUGUST 21, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/21/no-appointing-a-special-counsel-is-not-a-license-for-doj-to-obstruct-congress/

Merrick Garland and Joe Biden

Author Tristan Leavitt and Jason Foster profile

TRISTAN LEAVITT AND JASON FOSTER

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The need for more public scrutiny of the Justice Department’s improper handling of the Hunter Biden case was already high following whistleblower revelations, the collapse of the sweetheart plea deal, and Attorney General Merrick Garland’s appointment of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss as “special counsel.” Now, the Biden legal team has apparently released a trove of its emails with prosecutors to friendly press. These new revelations about Justice Department collusion with Biden family lawyers make it clear the two sides acted essentially as allies to kill the case, and it almost worked.

It is now more important than ever that Congress get serious about obtaining answers from the DOJ. Our client, IRS supervisor Gary Shapley, and IRS case agent Joe Ziegler both blew the whistle to Congress regarding five years’ worth of political favoritism, pulling punches, and conflicts of interest in the Biden case on Weiss’s watch. Since then, they’ve been threatened, retaliated against, and removed from the case.

On March 1, 2023, Garland swore to Congress that the buck stopped with Weiss alone in the Hunter Biden case. But the Justice Department’s actions directly undercut his claims. Just weeks later, DOJ headquarters officials granted an audience for Biden lawyers to appeal above Weiss’s head, and soon an unprecedented generous plea deal with the president’s son was offered as the whistleblowers were removed from the case. Only after that plea agreement fell apart in open court on July 26 did Garland finally give Weiss the “special” authority they both claimed this year he did not need.

U.S. Attorney Weiss was obviously the wrong choice for special counsel because IRS whistleblowers had already credibly alleged that his own office and he himself had given Biden preferential treatment and provided misleading information to Congress. With his appointment as special counsel, many across the political spectrum (including perhaps Garland) seemed to think that move somehow insulated the Justice Department from congressional questioning about the growing controversy. But it shouldn’t. 

Nothing in the Constitution grants prosecutors or “special” or “independent” counsels immunity from congressional oversight — especially in this unprecedented situation where the special counsel himself is alleged to have committed wrongdoing. No matter how many insiders in the modern D.C. establishment assume otherwise, that does not make it true. Prosecutors wield immense power, and there must be a check against the abuse and selective use of that power.

Just because Congress chooses to defer to the Justice Department’s “ongoing criminal inquiry” excuse on some oversight inquiries does not mean it always must, or that the objection is based on any constitutional limit to the congressional power to investigate. Congress has frequently made the opposite judgment and successfully obtained information about ongoing criminal cases when needed for its oversight function.

In our previous combined 30-year careers on Capitol Hill, we personally led congressional probes related to ongoing law enforcement matters, including the Anthrax attacks, Operation Fast and Furious, Secret Service scandals, the Clinton email server, the Parkland school shooting, the Trump-Russia allegations, and many more. We have conducted transcribed interviews of officials from line attorneys and line agents up to the deputy attorney general. We obtained sensitive law enforcement information about ongoing matters in official briefings from senior officials, including the then-FBI director, as well as lawfully from executive branch whistleblowers without the knowledge or consent of their agency management.

And that’s just our personal experience. There’s also a long, well-documented history of extensive federal law enforcement oversight by Congress, even in ongoing cases. So it is simply uninformed and untrue to claim that constitutional oversight interest must yield to ongoing criminal matters. The truth is quite the opposite — especially when government misconduct is involved.

The Justice Department doesn’t even believe its own rhetoric on the sanctity of information about ongoing criminal cases. Its senior officials routinely leak information about ongoing cases to friendly media outlets with no consequence whenever it suits them — as they no doubt have done in this case. The same officials simultaneously and hypocritically claim they must stiff-arm legitimate congressional oversight to preserve the “integrity” of pending criminal matters. In reality, more forceful congressional oversight is exactly what’s needed to restore public faith in the integrity of how the DOJ handles high-profile criminal cases. 

The appointment of Weiss and the controversies that led to it raise serious questions about Justice Department misconduct, and those questions need not be sidelined indefinitely in deference to the very process in need of scrutiny right now. 

An Inadequate Regulatory Solution

The current “special counsel” designation is rooted in Justice Department regulations adopted under Attorney General Janet Reno in 1999 after Congress allowed the old “independent counsel” statute to lapse. That law had fueled sprawling inquiries from Iran-Contra to Whitewater by prosecutors overseen by a court rather than by the attorney general. Although that law ensured more independence than the current regulations, it led to excesses that eventually generated bipartisan opposition to renewing the statute.

The DOJ recognized conflicts of interest would still arise and threaten public confidence in its integrity. The special counsel regulations were meant to address that problem. However, attorneys general have only selectively followed portions of the regulations, choosing to ignore certain provisions when it suits them because there is no enforcement mechanism. For example, by appointing the current U.S. attorney from Delaware who has already been handling this case for five years, Garland chose to ignore the portion of the regulations that would require a special counsel be someone from outside the government. In light of the whistleblower testimony and the failed plea deal, that decision undermines public confidence in the inquiry rather than enhancing it.

Without any binding force of law, this type of special counsel status isn’t actually all that special. The named prosecutor actually just exercises the attorney general’s own statutory authority as delegated and described in the appointment order. Since Congress defines the scope of the attorney general’s statutory authority, it has every right to investigate how that authority is being used and whether the DOJ’s procedures are effective in preventing conflicts of interest.

Spoiler alert: They aren’t.

Studying whether to resurrect some form of the independent counsel statute or impose some portions of the special counsel regulations as a statutory requirement would be more than enough of a legislative purpose to justify enforcing subpoenas to the Delaware prosecutors. Add to that evidence of misleading testimony and letters to Congress about the scope of Weiss’s authority, and the case for compelled testimony and document production is already very strong — even without any formal impeachment inquiry into the officials involved.

Statutes Recognize Congressional Access

To hear some people talk, you’d think Congress must inevitably yield to the interests of any criminal inquiry and defer to any prosecutor’s discretionary whim with no public accountability. This is the unstated assumption of those who eagerly embrace lawfare against domestic political opponents through the criminal process. It is uncritically adopted too often by people who should know better.

The law recognizes, however, that insulating ongoing criminal cases from public scrutiny by elected officials is not the prime goal of government. The presidential pardon power is the ultimate example of this principle, but it can also be seen in several statutory provisions that recognize: The congressional need for information to fulfill its constitutional duties can trump the interests of preserving a criminal case.

As Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh noted:

The legislative branch has the power to decide whether it is more important perhaps to destroy a prosecution than to hold back testimony they need. They make that decision. It is not a judicial decision, or a legal decision, but a political decision of the highest importance.

He should know. Oliver North’s famously immunized testimony before Congress eventually led to Walsh’s conviction of North being overturned on appeal.

The statutory procedure for Congress to obtain an order granting immunity for witness testimony is set out at 18 U.S.C. § 6005 and implicitly anticipates sharing information about ongoing criminal matters with Congress. The law requires that the attorney general receive 10 days prior notice of the request and allows a delay of up to 20 days, but it does not allow the attorney general to block the order. The notice and delay period merely enable consultation, during which the attorney general would presumably need to share information about any ongoing criminal inquiry if there were any hope of persuading Congress to abandon its plan to immunize the witness.

Similarly, statutes like 26 U.S.C. § 6103(f)(5) (“Disclosure by whistleblower”) explicitly authorize protected disclosures of otherwise confidential tax return information to certain committees of Congress without regard to whether it’s related to an ongoing criminal inquiry. If not for this provision, Congress may never have learned about improprieties in the Hunter Biden case reported by the IRS whistleblowers. Whistleblower statutes such as 5 U.S.C. § 2302 and § 2303 also protect disclosures to Congress by law enforcement personnel at other agencies, including the FBI.

A Long History of Precedents

Congress has many times obtained testimony and documents from prosecutors involved in active probes, including deliberative prosecutorial memoranda. Below are just a handful of the dozens from the past century.

Palmer Raids: In 1920 and 1921, Congress investigated Attorney General Mitchell Palmer’s raids on suspected communists, and Palmer testified in public House and Senate hearings regarding deportation cases open on appeal.

Teapot Dome: The next year, Congress opened investigations into the Teapot Dome scandal. After Congress investigated for approximately a year and a half suspicious financial transactions surrounding the Interior Department’s disposition of oil and gas leases, it eventually became clear that an equally big problem was the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute wrongdoers.

When Congress began discussing the need for a special counsel to take prosecutions out of the hands of the Justice Department, President Calvin Coolidge attempted to get ahead of the issue by indicating on Jan. 27, 1924, his intent to nominate two such special counsels (a Republican and a Democrat). Congress adopted a joint resolution requiring that the president appoint the special counsels — subject to confirmation by the Senate. After rejecting the first two nominees, the Senate confirmed two others in mid-February 1924.

Congress did not wait for the newly confirmed counsels to finish their work. On March 1, 1924, the Senate established its own select committee to investigate the same prosecutorial decisions for which the special counsel now had jurisdiction. Its goal was to probe the Justice Department’s prosecutorial decisions and find cases that could still be prosecuted. It interviewed dozens of Justice Department attorneys — including about open cases — and obtained investigative records and prosecutorial memoranda. 

When Attorney General Harry Daugherty’s brother refused to testify on the grounds that he was a private citizen, the case rose to the Supreme Court. The 1927 decision in McGrain v. Daugherty “sustain[ed] the power of either house to conduct investigations and exact testimony from witnesses for legislative purposes.” In this case, it noted, “[T]he subject to be investigated was the administration of the Department of Justice — whether its functions were being properly discharged or were being neglected or misdirected, and particularly whether the Attorney General and his assistants were performing or neglecting their duties in respect of the institution and prosecution of proceedings to punish crimes and enforce appropriate remedies against the wrongdoers, specific instances of alleged neglect being recited.”

But what legislative purpose could come from investigating open cases? The court answered:

The functions of the Department of Justice, the powers and duties of the Attorney General, and the duties of his assistants are all subject to regulation by congressional legislation, and … the department is maintained and its activities are carried on under such appropriations as, in the judgment of Congress, are needed from year to year.

The Supreme Court also reaffirmed in this case Congress’s inherent power to punish witnesses who refused to provide testimony. The court noted in Daugherty:

The power of inquiry — with process to enforce it — is an essential and appropriate auxiliary to the legislative function. … Mere requests for … information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete, so some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed.

Two years later, another subject of the investigation, Harry Sinclair, argued before the Supreme Court that because the joint resolution signed into law on Feb. 8, 1924, gave a special counsel jurisdiction to investigate his affairs, Congress has ceded its own such jurisdiction to the courts. The court held in Sinclair v. United States: “Neither [the] Joint Resolution … nor the action taken under it operated to divest the Senate or the committee of power further to investigate. … The authority of that body, directly or through its committees, to require pertinent disclosures in aid of its own constitutional power is not abridged because the information sought to be elicited may also be of use in [the prosecution of pending] suits.” The court upheld Sinclair’s punishment for contempt of Congress.

Special Subcommittee to Investigate the Department of Justice: In early 1952, the House established a select committee of the Judiciary Committee to investigate (among other things) the Justice Department’s failure to enforce federal tax fraud and bribery laws. Around the same time, the attorney general appointed a “Special Assistant to the Attorney General,” Newbold Morris, to investigate the same matters.

Morris was fired by the attorney general just 63 days later and thus did not testify before the subcommittee until a week after his removal. However, in its overall review of the Justice Department’s failure to prosecute cases, the subcommittee went on to interview a sitting assistant U.S. attorney and the appellate chief of the Justice Department’s Tax Division, as well as several members of a St. Louis grand jury. 

Church Committee: In January 1975, revelations emerging from Watergate — that the executive branch has used intelligence agencies to conduct domestic operations — led to the Senate establishing a select committee that came to be known for its chairman, Sen. Frank Church. The 800-plus witnesses interviewed over the next year included a host of Justice Department officials, from the attorney general down to an assistant section chief at the FBI. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights also held hearings with sitting DOJ officials.

Billy Carter: In July 1980, the Senate established a select committee of its Judiciary Committee to investigate the relationship between President Jimmy Carter’s brother, Billy Carter, and the government of Libya, as well as whether the Justice Department had properly handled an investigation into that relationship and a decision to proceed civilly rather than with criminal prosecution.

The attorney general, the assistant attorney general over the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and three deputy assistant attorneys general all provided testimony to the subcommittee. The department also provided prosecutorial memoranda, correspondence with the defendant, and other investigative reports and interview summaries.

ABSCAM: In late-March 1982, the Senate established a select committee to study Justice Department domestic undercover operations. The committee conducted interviews of a host of department witnesses, including line-level attorneys on Brooklyn’s Organized Crime Strike Force.

Recognizing that their preferences had to bow to constitutional oversight realities, Justice officials wrote to the select committee on July 15, 1982: “[T]he Department does not normally permit Strike Force attorneys to testify before congressional committees. … [W]e have traditionally resisted questioning of this kind because it tends to inhibit prosecutors from proceeding through their normal tasks free from the fear that they may be second-guessed, with the benefit of hindsight, long after they take actions and make difficult judgments in the course of their duties.”

In a statement that applies to all investigative interviews, the DOJ added that it would produce line-level attorneys “because of their value to you as fact witnesses and because you have assured us that they will be asked to testify solely as to matters of fact within their personal knowledge and not conclusions or matters of policy.” The department also produced more than 20,000 pages of documents, including prosecutorial memoranda. The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights conducted a similar investigation, also receiving access to confidential DOJ documents.

E.F. Hutton: In 1985 and 1986, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime investigated the Justice Department’s conclusion of a plea agreement with stock brokerage firm E.F. Hutton. Hutton pleaded guilty to 2,000 counts of felony mail and wire fraud in May 1985, yet the department immunized a number of witnesses and ultimately charged none, instead simply requiring the payment of a $2 million fine and other conditions. The Justice Department produced a prosecutorial memorandum to the subcommittee.

Iran-Contra: On Jan. 6 and 7, 1987, the Senate and House, respectively, established select committees to investigate arms sales to Iran and the diversion of funds to Contras in Nicaragua. The two chambers then merged their investigations and hearings. The investigators had approximately 500 depositions and other interviews, from the attorney general down to the lowest-level Justice Department officials with knowledge of the case. Despite initial protests by the department that producing documents might prejudice pending or anticipated litigation by the independent counsel, the 1 million-plus pages of documents obtained by the committees included the documents they sought from the DOJ.

Ruby Ridge: In 1995, the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Government Information investigated the Justice Department’s conduct preceding and during the siege of Randall Weaver’s home at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. The subcommittee interviewed line witnesses and agents, the U.S. attorney for the District of Idaho, and other department officials.

Operation Fast and Furious: Beginning in 2011, we led Sen. Chuck Grassley’s investigation for the Senate Judiciary Committee into the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Operation Fast and Furious, where the gunwalking of more than 2,000 firearms contributed to the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. We interviewed line officials, the U.S. attorney for the District of Arizona, and the chain of command in ATF and into the Justice Department, all while the prosecutions and appeals of various individuals charged in the operation were ongoing.

Congress Must Act

Given all this history and our personal experience in congressional oversight of federal law enforcement, it is frustrating to see even some members of Congress uncritically assume that their authority ends where a criminal inquiry begins.

It does not.

While it is clearly not a prerequisite to obtaining Justice Department testimony or documents in pending matters, several of the investigations above began with the body voting to establish a select committee. The current House has the added advantage of having already empaneled the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government and tasked it with looking into the expansive authority vested in the executive branch to investigate citizens of the United States, “including ongoing criminal investigations.” Surely an example like this where that expansive authority was not used against the president’s son in the same aggressive ways it has been used in others is worthy of investigation.

By providing hundreds of emails between the Biden camp and the Justice Department to friendly press outlets, either Hunter Biden’s legal team or the Justice Department has waived any claim of confidentiality. Congress should subpoena those communications immediately and let the public read them in full rather than relying on selected snippets chosen for curated narratives.

We aren’t suggesting that enforcing Congress’s constitutional right to information on pending criminal inquiries will be easy. It will take work and a shift in mindset away from relying on the executive branch or the courts to vindicate legislative branch oversight prerogatives. Congress must rely on its own constitutional powers — inherent contempt, the power of the purse, and impeachment — to be an effective check and balance on executive power once again. 

Tristan Leavitt is the president of Empower Oversight. Jason Foster is the founder and chair of Empower Oversight.

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Dick Morris to Newsmax: Biden Social Media Ruling ‘Most Important’


By Sandy Fitzgerald    |   Wednesday, 05 July 2023 03:11 PM EDT

Read more at https://www.newsmax.com/newsmax-tv/dick-morris-joe-biden-social-media/2023/07/05/id/1126058/

A federal judge’s order for an injunction barring President Joe Biden’s administration from contacting social media companies and requesting censorship of some users may be “the most important decision of this year,” political strategist Dick Morris told Newsmax Wednesday.

“Certainly [it is] more important than even affirmative action,” Morris, the host of Newsmax’s “Dick Morris Democracy,” said on “John Bachman Now.”

Morris explained that the administration was using rules under the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), which former President Donald Trump set up in 2018 to protect the United States grid against cyber attacks.

“Biden has completely changed it and made it an instrument for domestic surveillance,” said Morris. “CISA monitors all social media posts in the country and the world, and calls social media vendors to account and says on your platform, ‘You’re now running a statement that says that the COVID vaccine doesn’t work,’ or … what they’ll say is ‘You’re running something factually wrong that we want to change, that is not the administration line.'”

As a result, CISA has become a “muscle arm for social media censorship,” as have the CDC, the FBI, and the DOJ, said Morris.

Morris also responded to news that former GOP Rep. Denver Riggleman of Virginia has been working with Hunter Biden’s legal team while helping it with data analysis.

“Obviously he’ll assemble a legal team and obviously he has to say something,” said Morris. “The tax deal that he did was absolutely absurd … it completely misrepresents what Biden did.”

He also raised questions about the income the president and first lady reported in 2017 and 2018, when they reported income of $15 million and another $8 million from the sale of Biden’s book about his son who died.

“To do that, he would have had to sell 15 million books, and they sold 300,000,” said Morris. “Now there’s $10 million of income rattling around Biden’s tax return that nobody knows where it’s from. He claims it’s from the book, but it couldn’t be. And it’s not from his pension. It’s not from his vice presidential salary. It’s from unnamed sources. And that $10 million very possibly was the money that he got from Ukraine and from China that he dressed up as income from his book.”

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Merrick Garland’s J6 Juries Prove Durham’s Point: Conservatives Can’t Get A Fair Trial In D.C.


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MAY 22, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/22/merrick-garlands-j6-juries-prove-durhams-point-conservatives-cant-get-a-fair-trial-in-d-c/

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Special Counsel John Durham breached neither ethics nor etiquette when he highlighted the difficulty of obtaining a conviction in a politically charged case when the jury holds opposing partisan views. He merely stated the reality on the ground in D.C.-area federal courts. And by his own actions prosecuting the J6 defendants solely in the nation’s capital, Attorney General Merrick Garland has confirmed that assessment by proving the corollary: Criminal cases against individuals viewed by the local populace as political pariahs make for easy convictions. 

“Did the Durham Report’s Criticism of Juries Go Too Far?” The Washington Post’s headline from last week asked rhetorically. It was quite an ironic concern coming from the legacy outlet serially guilty of publishing fake news to propagate the Russia-collusion hoax. A better question for the “democracy dies in darkness” rag would be: Did Clinton and Democrats’ Dirty Politics Go Too Far?

But no, instead of focusing on the substantive content contained in the 300-plus pages of Durham’s report detailing malfeasance by the Department of Justice and FBI and the Clinton campaign’s responsibility for the scandal, The Washington Post focused on Durham’s introductory remarks explaining the “special care” the special counsel’s office used in making criminal charging decisions — decisions Durham stressed were “based solely on the facts and evidence developed in the investigation and without fear of, or favor to, any person.”

After noting the high burden the Constitution places on the government in criminal cases, Durham explained why, in numerous instances, he did not seek criminal charges even though the conduct deserved “censure or disciplinary action.” 

“In examining politically-charged and high-profile issues such as these, the Office must exercise — and has exercised — special care,” Durham explained. “First, juries can bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters,” Durham continued, “and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction, separate and apart from the strength of the actual evidence and despite a court’s best efforts to empanel a fair and impartial jury.”

Those taking umbrage at Durham’s remarks, claiming they erode faith in our justice system, seem to have missed that the Justice Department’s manual, “The Principles of Federal Prosecution,” quoted in the special counsel report, makes the same point. Sometimes while “the law and the facts create a sound, prosecutable case,” the manual explained, there is still “the likelihood of an acquittal due to unpopularity of some aspect of the prosecution or because of the overwhelming popularity of the defendant or his/her cause…” It continues:

For example, in a civil rights case or a case involving an extremely popular political figure, it might be clear that the evidence of guilt viewed objectively by an unbiased factfinder would be sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction, yet the prosecutor might reasonably doubt, based on the circumstances, that the jury would convict.

Prosecutors in such cases, the manual explained, might assess a guilty verdict unlikely “based on factors extraneous to an objective view of the law and the facts.”

In other words, biased juries and politics, rather than an “objective view of the law and the facts,” may dictate whether a defendant is convicted or acquitted. These are not merely the sentiments of Durham or Republicans, but the Department of Justice. So it isn’t Durham’s words that erode trust in the legal system, but rather insular juries.

It also isn’t merely the unsuccessful cases Durham brought against Michael Sussmann in the D.C. federal court and Igor Danchenko in the nearby federal court in Virginia that foster Americans’ distrust of the justice system. It is also the DOJ’s insistence that the scores of J6 prosecutions remain in the nation’s capital.

D.C. Jury Pool Is Biased

Following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, the Department of Justice has charged hundreds with federal crimes. Because the alleged offenses occurred in D.C., federal law provides that “venue,” meaning the physical location for the criminal proceedings, is proper in the federal D.C. district court. 

Congress, however, has provided two bases to change venue. First, a federal court must transfer the criminal proceedings if the defendant requests a change of venue and “so great a prejudice against the defendant exists … that the defendant cannot obtain a fair and impartial trial there.” 

While many J6 defendants have moved for a change of venue based on such prejudice, the DOJ has uniformly opposed the transfers. And because the “so great prejudice” standard is nearly insurmountable, the federal D.C. district court has denied the change of venue requests, even against evidence that 90 percent of D.C. voters cast their ballots against Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Furthermore, while almost everyone in D.C. knows about the indictments, polls show more than 70 percent of them — which is 15 percent higher than the national average — have formed an opinion about guilt or innocence.

Nor have the D.C. federal courts granted a change of venue “for convenience” — a second statutory basis Congress provided — which would allow the J6 defendants to be tried in their home states for their convenience, the convenience of witnesses, and “in the interest of justice.” Given that the DOJ farmed out the J6 cases to field offices throughout the United States, tasking local agents with surveilling and arresting the defendants, and that there are U.S. attorney offices in every state, trying the defendants across the country is also no inconvenience to the federal government. 

So even if the prejudice is not “so great” that it is mandatory to change the venue of the case, why does the DOJ oppose the discretionary transfer for convenience? 

Because Garland — like Durham — knows D.C. juries “bring strongly held views to the courtroom in criminal trials involving political subject matters and those views can, in turn, affect the likelihood of obtaining a conviction.” In fact, so great is the concern of a pro-DOJ bias that several defendants have made the nearly unheard-of decision in a criminal case to waive their right to a jury trial and have the judge decide their fate.

Americans likewise recognize the effect biased juries have on case outcomes. The attorney general ignoring the public perception of Lady Justice peaking from behind her blindfold will further erode respect for the judicial system and likely prompt future jurors to convert the trial process to a payback system — convicting the innocent or acquitting the guilty in a misguided attempt to right the scales of justice.

What Courts and Congress Should Do

The courts and Congress can and should respond. When faced with discretionary venue changes for “convenience,” courts should weigh more the “convenience” of the defendants and “the interest of justice.” When a question of mandatory transfers based on “great prejudice” arises, the courts should stop pretending our partisan divide is passable based on jurors’ promises.

Congress has several options too. While it has authorized the Supreme Court to promulgate rules governing federal criminal procedures, it retains the power to enact its own rules. At a minimum, in high-profile criminal cases, Congress should grant both the prosecution and the defense more “peremptory challenges” — challenges to members of the jury pool that can be used for any reason (except invidious discrimination). This will eliminate some of the most concerning situations. 

For instance, in Durham’s trial against Hillary Clinton’s former lawyer, Sussmann, the federal judge rejected several of Durham’s “for-cause” challenges against jurors who had contributed to the Clinton campaign. When for-cause challenges fail, attorneys must rely on a limited number of peremptory challenges, six for the special counsel’s legal team and 10 for Sussmann. Expanding the number of peremptory challenges would allow for the removal of more potentially prejudiced jurors, and without a venue change, this represents the best mechanism for ensuring an unbiased jury.

More significantly, though, Congress should amend the venue rules to give defendants a better opportunity to relocate highly politicized cases to less partisan locales. While the courts already have that power, they have proved themselves too parsimonious to date. 

But what about when partisanship prejudices the prosecution? Here, the Sixth Amendment places limits on venue, providing that in “all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law…”

In other words, while a defendant may consent to a change of venue, he can also demand a trial in “the State and district wherein the crime” was committed. 

However, the Constitution also gives Congress the authority to “ascertain” the districts. To counter the overwhelmingly parochial D.C. populace, redrawing the borders of the district to limit venue there to the physical Capitol buildings, and then have the rest of D.C. subsumed by the surrounding districts in Virginia and Maryland, would ensure a broader jury pool.

Only so much can be done, however, to ensure juries don’t supplant the rule of law with their political passions, acquitting the guilty because they prefer the defendant’s politics to the prosecutor’s. But that’s the reality that comes from a constitutional system that protects individual rights against government abuse and believes “that it is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.”

That’s a good thing, especially as the current DOJ frames pro-lifers and parents as domestic terrorists. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing to remind Americans that juries may not convict because of strongly held political passions rather than actual innocence. Nor is it a bad thing to push Congress to ensure the venue statutes counter bias to the largest extent possible.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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Court Rulings Give North Carolina And Florida Republicans Major Wins For Election Integrity


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MAY 01, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/01/court-rulings-give-north-carolina-and-florida-republicans-major-wins-for-election-integrity/

People voting on Election Day

North Carolina and Florida Republicans chalked up major wins last week after a series of court rulings upheld their respective election integrity efforts.

On Friday, the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned its previous decision banning gerrymandered districting in the state. Last year, the court’s then-Democrat majority (4-3) “threw out a state Senate map from the Republican-led state legislature and maintained congressional boundaries that had been drawn up by trial judges.” After Republicans won the state’s two Supreme Court races during the 2022 midterms, the high court’s new conservative majority (5-2) opted to rehear the case earlier this year.

“In its decision today, the Court returns to its tradition of honoring the constitutional roles assigned to each branch,” wrote Chief Justice Paul Newby in Friday’s decision. “This case is not about partisan politics but rather about realigning the proper roles of the judicial and legislative branches. Today we begin to correct course, returning the judiciary to its designated lane.”

In December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in Moore v. Harper, a case pertaining to the North Carolina redistricting fiasco. As The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland reported, the justices will ultimately decide whether a state court has the ability to usurp the constitutional power of state legislatures and “impose its own map for congressional districts drawn after the decennial census.”

[READ: In Moore v. Harper, SCOTUS Could Decide Who Gets The Final Say In A 2024 Election Dispute]

In addition to gerrymandering, the North Carolina Supreme Court also issued separate rulings upholding a previously passed voter ID law and overruling a trial court decision that permitted convicted felons on probation or parole to vote. In December 2018, the GOP-controlled General Assembly passed a bill mandating citizens show a form of valid ID when voting several weeks after North Carolina voters approved a photo ID constitutional ballot initiative.

In September 2021, a trial court struck down the 2018 statute, repeating the false claim that such laws discriminate against racial minorities. The then-Democrat-controlled Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s ruling in December. Much like with its prior gerrymandering ruling, the high court’s new Republican majority decided to rehear the case.

According to The News & Observer, a local news outlet, acceptable forms of valid voter ID include a U.S. passport, an unexpired North Carolina driver’s license, a local or state government employee ID card, or a state voter identification card.

Legal Victory for Florida Republicans

Meanwhile, Florida Republicans scored a major victory for election integrity last week after a federal appeals court upheld a 2021 law aimed at enhancing security procedures regarding the use of mail-in ballots and ballot drop boxes. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled in a 2-1 decision that the March 2022 ruling by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker — an Obama appointee — was severely flawed.

In his decision, Walker alleged that Florida lawmakers demonstrated “intent to discriminate against Black voters” and asserted that the statute is “the stark result[] of a political system that, for well over a century, has overrepresented White Floridians and underrepresented Black and Latino Floridians.” The appeals court disagreed, writing that “the findings of intentional racial discrimination rest on both legal errors and clearly erroneous findings of fact.”

The court further admonished Walker’s faulty legal analysis, particularly his error in claiming that “a racist past is evidence of current intent.”

“Under our precedent, this history cannot support a finding of discriminatory intent in this case. Florida’s more recent history does not support a finding of discriminatory intent,” wrote Chief Judge William Pryor.

Notably, Walker is also the judge tasked with overseeing Disney’s ongoing lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Judge’s Abortion Pill Opinion Tells The Truth About ‘Unborn Humans,’ And The Left Can’t Stand It


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | APRIL 10, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/04/10/judges-abortion-pill-opinion-tells-the-truth-about-unborn-humans-and-the-left-cant-stand-it/

abortion pill protest after Roe v. Wade was reversed
In his 67-page straight-talking opinion, Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk stuck to the facts — something Americans desperately need to hear after decades of euphemistic discussions about abortion.

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“Unborn humans.” “Eugenics.” “Head, hands, and legs, with defined fingers and toes.” “Shame, regret, anxiety, depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts.”

Federal Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk’s Friday decision freezing the FDA’s approval of the abortion-pill combination, mifepristone and misoprostol, included these phrases and more. And while the left is already attacking Kacsmaryk’s 67-page straight-talking opinion in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA by framing it as filled with anti-abortion rhetoric, the Trump appointee stuck to the facts — something Americans desperately need to hear after decades of euphemistic discussions about abortion.

After a brief introduction in which Kacsmaryk highlighted the FDA’s two decades of stonewalling that delayed a legal challenge to the 2000 approval of the abortion drugs, the court opened with the basic facts. The plaintiffs — doctors and medical associations that provide health care to pregnant and post-abortive women and girls — sued the FDA, challenging several administrative actions related to the approval of the chemical abortion drugs. 

‘Unborn Humans’

The court then explained the drugs and their functioning: “Mifepristone — also known as RU-486 or Mifeprex — is a synthetic steroid that blocks the hormone progesterone, halts nutrition, and ultimately starves the unborn human until death.” But “because mifepristone alone will not always complete the abortion,” the court continued, “the FDA mandates a two-step drug regimen: mifepristone to kill the unborn human, followed by misoprostol to induce cramping and contractions to expel the unborn human from the mother’s womb.”

Calling an unborn human an “unborn human” immediately triggered abortion activists, but as Kacsmaryk explained in a footnote, such terminology is scientifically correct, whereas the lawyers and courts “often use the word ‘fetus’ to inaccurately identify unborn humans in unscientific ways.”

“The word ‘fetus,’” Kacsmaryk explained, “refers to a specific gestational stage of development, as opposed to the zygote, blastocyst, or embryo stages.” And because the FDA’s approval of the abortion drugs applies at multiple “gestational stages,” the word “fetus” would be inaccurate.

It is understandable that abortion activists want to hide the humanity of unborn humans, but that doesn’t make the science less real: It just means girls and women who have bought the “clump of cells” narrative will suffer when faced with the truth, which chemical “at home abortions” force. 

“The mother seeing the aborted human ‘appears to be a difficult aspect of the medical termination process which can be distressing, bring home the reality of the event and may influence later emotional adaptation,’” the court wrote, based on the record evidence. “For example, one woman was surprised and saddened to see that her aborted baby ‘had a head, hands, and legs’ with ‘[d]efined fingers and toes.’” 

Another woman alleged that “she did not receive an ultrasound or any other physical examination before receiving chemical abortion drugs from Planned Parenthood.” According to the record, “The abortionist misdated the baby’s gestational age as six weeks, resulting in the at-home delivery of a ‘lifeless, fully formed baby in the toilet,’ later determined to be around 30-36 weeks old.” 

Harm to Women

Beyond exposing the reality that abortion kills an unborn human, Kacsmaryk’s opinion also refuted the “popular belief and talking points” that using the abortion pill is “as easy as taking Advil.” Here, the federal judge detailed the factual evidence. Among other things, “bleeding from a chemical abortion, unlike surgical abortion, can last up to several weeks,” and by being done at home, “without physician oversight,” it can lead “to undetected ectopic pregnancies, failure of rH factor incompatibility detection, and misdiagnosis of gestational age — all leading to severe or even fatal consequences.” 

The opinion also countered the claim that side effects are rare by highlighting evidence that “over sixty percent of women and girls’ emergency room visits after chemical abortions are miscoded as ‘miscarriages’ rather than adverse effects to mifepristone.” 

The evidence also shows emotional and psychological injury, Kacsmaryk stressed, with 77 percent of women who underwent a chemical abortion reporting “a negative change” after the at-home abortion, and 38 percent of women reporting issues “with anxiety, depression, drug abuse, and suicidal thoughts because of the chemical abortion.” 

While the abortion industry prefers to cite its own evidence, as Kacsmaryk noted, those studies are flawed both because of the miscoding of chemical abortions as miscarriages and because the FDA stopped requiring the reporting of non-fatal adverse reactions.

Eugenic Roots

The left also didn’t like Kacsmaryk exposing the eugenic beliefs of the Population Council, which had sought FDA approval for the abortion drugs. John D. Rockefeller founded the Population Council in 1952, “after he convened a conference with ‘population activists’ such as Planned Parenthood’s director and several well-known eugenicists,” the court wrote. Attendees of that conference discussed “the problem of ‘quality,’” and concluded that “[m]odern civilization had reduced the operation of natural selection by saving more ‘weak’ lives and enabling them to reproduce,” thereby resulting in “a downward trend in … genetic quality.”

“[m]odern civilization had reduced the operation of natural selection by saving more ‘weak’ lives and enabling them to reproduce,” thereby resulting in “a downward trend in … genetic quality.” …….. “Natural Selection”????? Can you say, “disciples of Margarete Sanger”?

Many Americans remain oblivious to the historical backdrop eugenics played to the abortion movement, and activist groups prefer they remain in the dark. The sunlight Kacsmaryk shined upon that truth infuriates them.

Political Pressure

Judge Kacsmaryk also exposed the political pressure placed on the FDA to approve the abortion drug — something Americans are likely to appreciate more today in the aftermath of the FDA’s hasty approval of the Covid mRNA shots. 

In the case of the abortion pill, the FDA took the unprecedented step of arranging a meeting between the French pharmaceutical company that owned the patent rights and the eventual drug sponsor, the Population Council. “The purpose of the FDA-organized meeting was ‘to facilitate an agreement between those parties to work together to test [mifepristone] and file a new drug application.’” 

Evidence further shows the Department of Health and Human Services “initiated” another meeting to determine how the Clinton administration “might facilitate successful completion of the negotiations” between the French firm and the Population Council to ensure the group secure patent rights and eventual FDA approval.” In fact, Clinton’s HHS secretary “believed American pressure on the French firm was necessary.”

Then after the Population Council submitted a new drug application, the FDA proposed detailed restrictions to address safety concerns, including that the drug be administered by doctors “trained and authorized by law” to perform surgical abortions; trained in administering mifepristone and treating adverse events; and able to provide treatment at a medical facility that had the equipment necessary to perform surgical abortions, resuscitation procedures, and blood transfusion, within one hour’s drive. The FDA’s restrictions were leaked to the press, prompting a political firestorm. 

So Much for Safety

The FDA later abandoned the above safety mandates and approved the drug for use to kill unborn humans aged seven-weeks gestation or younger. The FDA further required three “in-person office visits: the first to administer mifepristone, the second to administer misoprostol, and the third to assess any complications and ensure there were no fetal remains in the womb.” All adverse events were also required to be reported. 

In 2002, the FDA removed even more of the safety restrictions, increasing the maximum gestational age from seven-weeks gestation to 10-weeks gestation, reducing the number of office visits from three to one, increasing the drug dosage, allowing non-doctors to prescribe and administer chemical abortions, and eliminating the requirement for non-fatal adverse reactions to be reported. Then in 2019, the FDA approved a generic version of the abortion pills, and on April 12, 2021, the FDA announced it would allow abortion pills to be dispensed through the mail. 

“Whether FDA abandoned its proposed restrictions because of political pressure or not,” the court wrote, “one thing is clear: the lack of restrictions resulted in many deaths and many more severe or threatening adverse reactions.” But “due to FDA’s lax reporting requirements, the exact number is not ascertainable,” Kacsmaryk stressed. 

Straight Facts

But it was not on politics that Kacsmaryk based his decision to freeze the FDA’s approval of the abortion pill. Rather, in his methodical opinion, the federal judge explained that the FDA lacked the authority to accelerate approval of the drug under what is called “Subpart H” of the FDA. That subpart only allows for accelerated approval of drugs that treat “serious or life-threatening illnesses” — something pregnancy is not. 

Kacsmaryk also concluded the evidence the FDA supposedly relied upon to approve the abortion drugs failed to support the conclusion that they were “safe and effective under particular conditions of use.” And finally, Kacsmaryk held the FDA’s approval of mail distribution violated the 1873 Comstock Act, which makes it illegal to use the mail to deliver any “article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for producing abortion.” 

The Biden administration has already filed a notice of appeal with the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, and in issuing his opinion in Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine v. FDA, Kacsmaryk entered a temporary stay, which he or the court of appeals will likely make permanent pending resolution of the case. Thus, abortion pills will remain available for now. 

How the Fifth Circuit and eventually the Supreme Court will rule remains to be seen, but what is clear now is the abortion-loving left is desperate to keep the truth about abortion from the public and is furious that Kacsmaryk dared to expose the reality: Abortion kills unborn humans.

Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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How Safe Are Your Parental Rights? It Increasingly Depends on Your Politics


BY: PAULA RINEHART | NOVEMBER 07, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/11/07/how-safe-are-your-parental-rights-it-increasingly-depends-on-your-politics/

Mom and daughter holding hands on a porch bench
If the issue at hand is your child’s confusion about his sex, then your parental rights can be bargained away in court far too easily. 

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Michigan voters will decide Tuesday whether children in that state can obtain puberty blockers at Planned Parenthood facilities without parental consent. Proposal 3 would also give Michigan children a constitutional right to be castrated or surgically sterilized — again, without the consent of a parent.  

Parental rights have become a fiercely contested battleground. Historically, your right to determine what’s in the best interest of your child has gone without question. It’s the oldest, most fundamental liberty we know, enshrined in legal doctrine since 1690.

But too often today, ideology determines whether your parental rights will actually stand in court. If a parent opposes her child’s desire to pretend to be the opposite sex, courts increasingly treat that parent’s rights as expendable. The sexual confusion of children overshadows parents’ rights to remain in their children’s lives as a potent force. 

In a courtroom down the hall, however, the rights of neglectful or drug-abusing parents are treated with kid gloves, under the theme of family preservation. Activist courts stand ready to protect your parental rights, but only when your narrative matches their own.  

‘I’m God in this Case’

Less than a year ago, Abigail Shrier shocked readers with her story of a California judge who stripped a father of his parental rights because he showed insufficient support for performing irreversible medical procedures on his sex-confused son. These cases are popping up all around the country. Sexual ideology is becoming the governing factor in a child’s placement, trumping the will and the voice of a parent. In a state whose governor was elected on a parental rights platform, Virginia Del. Elizabeth Guzman brazenly introduced a bill that would charge a parent who fails to affirm a child’s “sexual orientation or gender identity” with a felony. In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom recently signed legislation that makes his state a “refuge” for trans-identifying minors who seek irreversible medical procedures. Just make it to the Golden State … and there is nothing your objecting parents can do.  

One case in the sleepy university town of Charlottesville, Virginia, provides some insight into how a parent can suddenly get framed as “the bad parent” in a custody battle, merely for questioning a child’s sexual confusion.  

Sarah Schultz told me she spent more than a half-million dollars trying to retain joint custody of her 15-year-old daughter who first claimed she was bisexual and then began to question her sex. Schultz pled for a “wait and see” approach and for the right to have an influence in her daughter’s maturing adolescence. Despite Sarah’s ex-husband’s earlier fentanyl overdose, she says, a judge gave primary custody of the daughter to her dad, who permitted both bisexual and heterosexual sleepovers. In the past four years, Schultz has seen her daughter fewer than five times. 

Schultz said the appointed guardian ad litem viewed her faith as a threat to her daughter’s emerging sexuality. “I’m God in this case,” Schultz recalled her daughter’s guardian ad litem saying. The court saw her daughter as a girl in an “authentic process to discover her identity,” Schultz explained, while the father was commendable because he was “allowing her sexuality to blossom.”  

Courts often use the “safety of the child” as a guise to award custody to a parent who mirrors the left’s narrative. Note the irony here. How can you be a good parent unless you are willing to oppose something harmful your child thinks she wants at the time? A teenager sees hormones and irreversible surgeries as a mirage of liberation. A concerned parent sees what a disfigured body and the inability to have children will mean 10 years from now.

A Pernicious Double Standard

Treatment of parental rights in the world of foster care and adoption, meanwhile, is a vastly different story.  

A mother can give birth to a baby who spends two months in the NICU, crying for endless hours as he detoxes from the heroin his mother ingested during pregnancy, and she or her mother can still take the baby home. Parental rights are treated as sacrosanct, even though most of the maltreatment of children actually occurs at the hands of parents or their paramours.  

 “Family preservation” is the holy grail courts and welfare agencies pursue, often at the expense of the actual safety of children. As Naomi Schaefer Riley explains in her book, “No Way To Treat A Child,” “child welfare workers and family-court judges … believe that foster care, to the extent that it should be used at all, is an endless holding pattern for a child while parents get their affairs in order.” Sadly, many never do.  

In an effort to preserve parental rights, children languish in care for years. The common complaint in foster care is “the clock.” Though a child is legally eligible for adoption after roughly two years in care, drug-abusing parents can play out the clock, attend a few recovery meetings, fulfill a requirement or two on the reunification plan — and the clock starts over. Many children age out of the possibility of adoption because the court favors parental rights over children’s attachment needs.  

The Use and Abuse of Parental Rights

Given the current capricious approach of many courts, the question to ask is: Just how safe are your parental rights? If the issues at hand are related to your child’s confusion about his sex, then your parental rights can be bargained away in court far too easily. But if the court frames those rights as a matter of “family preservation,” they are nearly carved in stone.

The contrast between how parental rights are viewed, depending on the left-wing bias of courts and state agencies, should disturb everyone. The right of conscientious parents to shape their child’s life is among the most cherished of all human freedoms. That right is increasingly threatened, as the militancy of transgender ideology invades the private realm of parent and child. 

 How safe are your parental rights then? Only as safe as the left wants them to be.  

Paula Rinehart, LCSW, is a therapist in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the author of the book “Sex and the Soul of a Woman.” She writes about family and culture.

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Pennsylvania Court Strikes Down Mail-In Voting Law As Unconstitutional


REPORTED BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | JANUARY 31, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/31/pennsylvania-court-strikes-down-mail-in-voting-law-as-unconstitutional/

hands holding paper mail in ballot

On Friday, a Pennsylvania court declared the state’s statute authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting was unconstitutional. Within hours, Pennsylvania officials filed a notice of appeal with the state Supreme Court, putting on hold the lower court decision and thereby leaving in place the vote-by-mail option until the state’s high court rules.

With Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices elected on a partisan ticket and Democrats currently holding a 5-2 majority on the state’s high court, Democrats are predicting the no-excuse mail-in voting law will be upheld. That forecast seems accurate given the hyper-partisan approach to legal analysis seen since the 2020 election. It’s unfortunate because yesterday’s opinion in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania reached the proper conclusion as a matter of constitutional analysis and controlling precedent.

The McLinko case consisted of two lawsuits consolidated by the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court. Both cases challenged the constitutionality of no-excuse mail-in voting. Doug McLinko, a member of the Bradford County Board of Elections, was the plaintiff in one case, and Timothy Bonner and 13 additional members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives were the plaintiffs in the second case.

At issue in the consolidated case was Act 77, which, as the court explained in Friday’s opinion, “created the opportunity for all Pennsylvania electors to vote by mail without having to demonstrate a valid reason for absence from their polling place on Election Day.” The plaintiffs argued that provision violates Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

Article VII, Section 1 of the Pennsylvania Constitution provides (emphasis added):

Every citizen 21 years of age, possessing the following qualifications, shall be entitled to vote at all elections subject, however, to such laws requiring and regulating the registration of electors as the General Assembly may enact.

1. He or she shall have been a citizen of the United States at least one month.

2. He or she shall have resided in the State 90 days immediately preceding the election.

3. He or she shall have resided in the election district where he or she shall offer to vote at least 60 days immediately preceding the election, 10 except that if qualified to vote in an election district prior to removal of residence, he or she may, if a resident of Pennsylvania, vote in the election district from which he or she removed his or her residence within 60 days preceding the election.

The key language in Section 1, the plaintiffs argued, and the court held, was “shall offer to vote,” which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had previously interpreted in Chase v. Miller, a case from 1862. At issue in Chase was whether 420 votes received from Pennsylvania soldiers fighting in the Civil War, who had cast their ballots by mail, were valid. While Pennsylvania’s legislature had authorized absentee ballots for military members, the state Supreme Court held the Military Absentee Act of 1839 violated the state’s constitution because “offer his vote” required in-person voting, explaining:

To ‘offer to vote’ by ballot, is to present oneself, with proper qualifications, at the time and place appointed, and to make manual delivery of the ballot to the officers appointed by law to receive it. The ballot cannot be sent by mail or express, nor can it be cast outside of all Pennsylvania election districts and certified into the county where the voter has his domicile.

We cannot be persuaded that the constitution ever contemplated any such mode of voting, and we have abundant reason for thinking that to permit it would break down all the safeguards of honest suffrage. The constitution meant, rather, that the voter, in propria persona, should offer his vote in an appropriate election district, in order that his neighbours might be at hand to establish his right to vote if it were challenged, or to challenge if it were doubtful.

In other words, “to offer his vote,” required a qualified elector to “present oneself. . . at the time and place appointed” and to make “manual delivery of the ballot.” The fuller discussion in Chase, however, provides a helpful reminder of the long-understood danger of absentee voting: “a break down” of “the safeguards of honest suffrage.”

Pennsylvania’s constitution was later amended to permit electors in military service to vote by absentee ballot. Then in 1923, the state legislature again attempted to expand absentee voting to allow non-military citizens, “who by reason of his duties, business, or occupation [are] unavoidably absent from his lawfully designated election district, and outside of the county of which he is an elector,” to cast an absentee ballot in the presence of an election official.

Another election dispute, however, resulted in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 1924 In re Contested Election of Fifth Ward of Lancaster City, declaring the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional. The Lancaster decision again concluded that the “offer to vote” language of the Pennsylvania state constitution requires in-person voting. Because at that time the constitution only authorized absentee voting for individuals absent by reason of active military service, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court held the 1923 Absentee Voting Act unconstitutional.

“However laudable the purpose of the [1923 Absentee Voting Act], it cannot be sustained,” the Pennsylvania Supreme Court explained, adding: “If it is deemed necessary that such legislation be placed upon our statute books, then an amendment to the Constitution must be adopted permitting this to be done.”

In Friday’s decision in McLinko v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the three-judge majority opinion found Chase and Lancaster City controlling and struck down Act 77’s authorization of no-cause mail-in voting. In holding Act 77 unconstitutional, the McLinko court rejected the acting secretary of state’s argument that Article VII, Section 4 of the Pennsylvania Constitution granted the state legislature authority to allow mail-in voting for any reason. That constitutional provision provides: “All elections by the citizens shall be by ballot or by such other method as may be prescribed by law: Provided, That secrecy in voting be preserved.”

The court rejected Pennsylvania’s argument, noting that when Lancaster City was decided, the Pennsylvania high court had quoted the entire text of Article VII, Section 4, and yet held that the “offer to vote” language required in-person voting unless the constitution expressly authorized absentee voting. Friday’s decision explained that Section 4 merely authorized the state to allow mechanical voting, as opposed to voting by ballot. (Two judges dissented from the McLinko decision, reasoning that mail-in voting is not a subset of absentee voting but a new method of voting the legislature may be approved under Section 4.)

Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state’s argument that Section 4 of the state constitution authorizes the legislature to permit no-fault mail-in voting defies logic. As the McLinko court explained, if Section 4 gave the legislature that power, then there was no need for the state’s constitution to be amended in 1997, to add as a permissible basis for absentee voting, “observance of a religious holiday or Election Day duties.”

While concluding it was bound by Chase and Lancaster City, the majority in Friday’s decision in McLinko added that “no-excuse mail-in voting makes the exercise of the franchise more convenient” and that, “if presented to the people, a constitutional amendment to end the Article VII, Section 1 requirement of in-person voting is likely to be adopted.” “But a constitutional amendment must be presented to the people and adopted into our fundamental law,” the court in McLinko concluded, “before legislation authorizing no-excuse mail-in voting can ‘be placed upon our statute books.’”

The majority’s detailed analysis in McLinko was correct, both as a matter of constitutional interpretation and precedent. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, however, will not be bound by its decisions in Chase and Lancaster City, even though the principal of stare decisis should caution the justices against overturning that precedent.

That prudential principle is especially relevant here, where the “offer to vote” language “has been part of the Pennsylvania Constitution since 1838 and has been consistently understood, since at least 1862, to require the elector to appear in person, at a ‘proper polling place’ and on Election Day to cast his vote.”

A decision by the Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania Supreme Court abiding by that precedent and reminding its citizens that the constitution controls notwithstanding the passions of the day would also go a long way toward healing a divided populace.

Further, striking Act 77 now, when no votes have been cast and no citizens would be disenfranchised, would do no harm to Pennsylvanians. That was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s justification in Kelly v. Commonwealth, for refusing to consider the constitutionality of Act 77 as part of a challenge to the results of the November of 2020 based on the equitable doctrine of “laches.”

“At the time this action was filed on November 21, 2020, millions of Pennsylvania voters had already expressed their will in both the June 2020 Primary Election and the November 2020 General Election,” the state Supreme Court explained in Kelly v. Commonwealth and striking the state statute at that point, “would result in the disenfranchisement of millions of Pennsylvania voter.”

There is no such danger, now, however. So, will the constitution control or will the partisan interests of the Democratic-majority of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court supplant the rule of law? Sadly, that latter danger is everpresent.

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BREAKING: Federal Judge Rules Obama’s DACA Program Illegal, Blocks New Enrollments


Reported By Cristina Laila | Published July 16, 2021

Read more at https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/07/breaking-federal-judge-rules-obamas-daca-program-illegal-blocks-new-enrollments/

Wendolynn Perez, 23, second from left, a DACA recipient who is now a permanent resident and is originally from Peru, chants with other supporters of immigration reform, Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2017, at the White House in Washington. The protesters want to preserve the Obama administration program known as Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. The Trump administration has said it still has not decided the program’s fate.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

A federal judge on Friday ruled the Deferred Actions for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program is illegal and blocked new enrollments.

Recall, Barack Obama granted illegal aliens protection in 2012 when he established the DACA program. According to reports, more than 800,000 illegal aliens are currently protected under Obama’s illegal DACA program.

Judge Hanen ordered the DHS to stop approving new DACA applications. A coalition of states, with Texas leading the way, filed a lawsuit arguing DACA is unconstitutional.

Cristina Laila

Cristina began writing for The Gateway Pundit in 2016 and she is currently the Associate Editor.

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A Short History Of Democrats’ Vicious Tactics For Controlling The Judiciary


Reported by Frank Scaturro DECEMBER 4, 2020

As the courts have become hyper-politicized over the past few decades, the judicial nomination process has deteriorated. With this presidential term drawing to a close, we should note the new depths of obstruction that have become a part of the Senate Democrats’ playbook these past four years.

Origins of Obstruction

Matters were already bad when a Democratic Senate rejected Robert Bork for the Supreme Court in 1987 with such notorious vilification that “bork” was added to the dictionary as a verb denoting such unfair and harsh tactics. Four years later came personal vilification for Clarence Thomas before he squeaked by the Senate on a 52–48 vote.

Thomas nonetheless made it through a Democratic Senate that had not entirely shaken a long tradition of bipartisanship on judicial nominations. In fact, from the government’s establishment in 1789 through 2000, 97 percent of Senate-approved judges faced no recorded opposition, and 96 percent were confirmed by voice vote or unanimous consent as opposed to roll-call votes.

Recorded votes tended to be lopsided. When President Bill Clinton nominated Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer to the Supreme Court, instead of Republicans retaliating for past treatment, the nominees were confirmed respectively by margins of 96–3 and 87–9. This was despite a number of known controversial positions Ginsburg had taken during her career that Republicans chose not to highlight.

During George W. Bush’s administration, Democrats engaged in wholesale filibusters of circuit court nominees, a tactic that resulted in the defeat of several. Previously, only one judicial nomination fell apart after coming up short on a vote on cloture — the procedure by which senators, with a supermajority vote, could end debate and force a confirmation vote. That was the fate of Justice Abe Fortas, whom Lyndon B. Johnson tried to elevate to chief justice in 1968.

Whether Fortas could garner the simple majority of senators required for confirmation was unclear. His unusual case included bipartisan opposition and ethical questions — he actually resigned from the Supreme Court the following year — and did not leave even the most strident opponents of Bork and Thomas with a sense that they had the filibuster in their procedural toolbox.

In 2005, early in Bush’s second term, Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist proposed to change the supermajority requirement for cloture on nominations (then at 60 votes) to a simple majority, an idea known as the “nuclear option,” which would have effectively ended judicial filibusters. Democratic Minority Leader Harry Reid threatened to retaliate with an unprecedented level of obstructionism that would freeze most Senate business. This scenario did not play out after a compromise, engineered by the “Gang of 14,” derailed any change to cloture.

Eight years later, however, Reid was majority leader, and with the shoe on the other foot, he orchestrated by parliamentary maneuver the very rule change that had once evoked his threats of senatorial Armageddon, essentially ending the filibuster for all nominations other than for the Supreme Court in 2013.

Unprecedented Partisanship During the Trump Era

Gorsuch Filibuster

That exception for filibusters on Supreme Court nominations was quickly put to the test after Donald Trump became president in 2017 and Democrats launched a filibuster of the new president’s first judicial nominee to reach the floor, Neil Gorsuch. Thanks to Reid’s handiwork in 2013, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell garnered support for adding Supreme Court nominations to the others that were subject to simple majorities to invoke cloture.

Abuse of Cloture Motions

Although Democrats were in the minority in the Senate throughout Trump’s term, they used the tools in their arsenal more than any Senate minority before them. While the simple majority threshold made it easier than before to invoke cloture, even when a cloture motion succeeded, a confirmation vote was not immediate but subject to a limit of 30 hours of further consideration.

That time notoriously went by with little-to-no actual debate on the nomination at issue, but of course, actual deliberation was not the goal. By forcing votes on cloture, Democrats could take up more of the Senate’s time and make it that much more difficult to process nominations, not to mention other business.

This the Democratic minority did indiscriminately. All three of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees — Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett — were subjected to cloture votes. Adding Samuel Alito (a George W. Bush appointee) to those three, four of the six sitting Republican-appointed justices have faced cloture votes, in contrast to all four of the justices nominated by Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.

Senate Democrats have also regularly forced cloture votes for even noncontroversial nominees to circuit courts, district courts, and even the non-life-tenured courts of federal claims. Eight district court nominees who had previously been nominated by Obama before Trump renominated them were subjected to cloture votes despite a lack of meaningful opposition; five of them received between 95 and 100 votes for confirmation and zero against, and another was confirmed by a voice vote.

It was only after the cloture rule was broadened in 1949, during Harry Truman’s presidency, to cover any pending matter that nominations could be subject to a cloture motion. Since then, there were a total of 136 cloture votes on judicial nominees through the end of the Obama administration. Trump’s nominees have considerably more than that entire total, at 192 and counting.

The Disintegration of Bipartisanship

The bipartisanship that used to attend most judicial nominations is also falling apart. According to the Heritage Foundation, more confirmed judges received more than 30 percent opposition votes during the Trump administration than during all previous administrations combined, from George Washington to Obama. Moreover, the majority of negative votes cast against judicial nominees in American history were against Trump nominees.

The three Trump-appointed Supreme Court justices were confirmed with almost total Democratic opposition. Only three Democrats voted to confirm Gorsuch, one to confirm Kavanaugh, and none to confirm Barrett, making her the first Supreme Court nominee to be confirmed without any votes from a major minority party since 1869.

In Kavanaugh’s case, Democrats employed kitchen-sink tactics of obstruction that included repeated interruptions during his hearings and deluging him with more written questions for the record than the combined number of such questions to prior Supreme Court nominees in American history. All other tactics were eclipsed by the disgraceful last-minute attempt to destroy Kavanaugh, when Christine Blasey Ford’s sexual-assault allegation, after being buried for six weeks by ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein, was sprung on the committee after the initial hearings, a desperate tactic that flouted the process for handling sensitive matters.

Weaponization of the Blue Slip

On top of everything else, Democrats tried, in the words of long-serving Senate Judiciary Committee member (and former chairman) Orrin Hatch, to “weaponize the blue slip” tradition for circuit and district courts. That was the courtesy established in approximately 1917 in which a nominee’s home-state senators receive blue pieces of paper on which they could express their views about the nomination to the committee. It was a tradition (as opposed to a rule) intended to encourage pre-nomination consultation, but Democrats during this administration routinely withheld positive blue slips, especially for circuit nominees, as a workaround in the absence of a true filibuster.

“Today, Democrats are trying to turn the blue-slip process into a de facto filibuster,” Hatch charged in 2017. “They want a single senator to be able to do in the Judiciary Committee what it once took 41 senators to do on the Senate floor.”

Sen. Chuck Grassley, who chaired the committee during the first two years of the Trump administration, noted that only two of 19 Judiciary Committee chairmen who served over the span of a century treated the blue slip as a strict veto that would preclude a hearing in the absence of two positive blue slips, and he was not going to allow Democratic obstructionism to prevent him from proceeding with hearings for circuit nominees. Still, the blue slip has impeded the advancement of district court nominations through committee, and many trial court judgeships in states with Democratic senators remain vacant due to the withholding of blue slips or the threat of doing so.

It is thanks to current Republican leadership in the Senate and specifically the Judiciary Committee that so many nominees have been processed and made their way to confirmation. As the repeated operation of the 30-hour rule took its toll on nominations, McConnell garnered a majority to reduce the post-cloture clock to two hours for district court nominations.

To date, the Senate has confirmed 229 Article III (life-tenured) judges nominated by Trump. That total includes 53 circuit court judges, which ranks second among all four-year presidential terms to that of Jimmy Carter, who, boosted by the creation of 35 new seats on the courts of appeals in 1978, holds the record at 56. For several months this year, there was no room for Trump to increase his appointments to the courts of appeals because every vacancy had been filled.

Historical Support for Lame-Duck Confirmations

There are now two more appellate nominees, Thomas L. Kirsch II for Barrett’s former seat on the Seventh Circuit and Raúl M. Arias-Marxuach to fill the First Circuit vacancy created by the death of Juan Torruella on Oct. 26. There is no reason they cannot be confirmed before Inauguration Day. Kirsch already had his hearing before the Judiciary Committee, as have 11 pending nominees to district or federal claims courts.

While any nomination that is not processed by Jan. 3, the end of the current congressional term and beginning of the next, is automatically returned to the president, it can be resubmitted and processed without the need for a new hearing. There is ample precedent for lame-duck judicial confirmations, from John Adams’ appointment of John Marshall as chief justice after his re-election defeat, to Carter’s appointment of Breyer to the First Circuit after his loss to Ronald Reagan.

There is an unmistakable dissonance between Joe Biden’s calls for national unity and his party’s judicial obstructionism over the past four years. As a Judiciary Committee chairman, Biden helped to lay much of the groundwork for this sorry state of affairs. For his Democratic successors in the Senate, obstructionism is an ongoing project that seems to find no limit.

Consider the exception that proved the rule: When leftist interest groups criticized Feinstein after she praised Graham’s handling of Barrett’s Supreme Court nomination hearings and gave the chairman a hug — never mind that every Democrat voted against the nominee — Feinstein’s party compelled her to step down as the Judiciary Committee’s top Democrat. Is there any level of malevolence toward judicial nominations that would satisfy today’s Democratic leadership?

Frank Scaturro served as counsel for the Constitution on the staff of the Senate Judiciary Committee between 2005 and 2009, in which capacity he worked on the nominations of John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court and Neil Gorsuch to the Tenth Circuit. He is the author of, among other titles, “The Supreme Court’s Retreat from Reconstruction” (Greenwood Press, 2000). Follow him on Twitter at @FrankScaturro.
Photo PBS Newshour/YouTube

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Why President Trump Has A Strong Supreme Court Case To Contest Pennsylvania


Reported by Matt Beebe By NOVEMBER 13, 2020

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2020/11/13/why-president-trump-has-a-strong-supreme-court-case-to-contest-pennsylvania/

As arguments about voter fraud have escalated across the country, it’s time to recognize that despite what an unmitigated disaster widespread expansion of absentee balloting has been, concerns about its abuse aren’t the most important argument in the ongoing fight over the legitimacy of this election. Sure, the media and Big Tech’s widespread white-washing and censoring of very real voter fraud concerns are damaging to the social fabric in existential ways, just as ignoring norms (and in some cases laws) requiring transparency destroys public trust and confidence in the outcome.

The Pennsylvania lawsuit isn’t yet proof that election-altering fraud occurred, although it does present compelling evidence that if proved shatters the media narrative on election security. A closer look at the allegations of direct fraud weighed against the likelihood of proving that enough occurred to alter the outcome — on a shortened timeline — reveals a daunting task for the president’s legal team.

President Trump’s lawyers, however, aren’t making the same argument as your uncle on Facebook; they’re playing for keeps. Some Republicans have been content to publicly call for the “process to play out” while privately predicting losses or maybe a few favorable rulings on some esoteric technicalities. But the president is not tired of winning yet.

Shortly after the filing, Jenna Ellis, a senior legal adviser to the Trump campaign, put it succinctly: “Pennsylvania is irredeemably compromised.”

The thrust of their legal argument doesn’t hinge on the numbers of fraudulent ballots cast, but on the inconsistent and illegal application of Pennsylvania election law, which dilutes legally cast votes — so-called disparate treatment, from which the U.S. Constitution is supposed to protect us.

The other key legal argument is that those changes in the election law, which were implemented by an unelected appointee of Pennsylvania’s executive branch, namely Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, were an impermissible usurpation of the legislature’s prerogative even if Pennsylvania’s judicial branch approved them.

Bush v. Gore Already Wrestled with These Concerns

Underlying the president’s legal argument is the recognition that the Pennsylvania legislature implemented an imperfect regime that rationally valued security of the election as more important than avoiding disenfranchising any voters. Even amid a pandemic, the Pennsylvania legislature understood that their expansion of ballot-by-mail increased risks to election security, and thus sought to mitigate that as best they could. It was partisan state courts that unilaterally overrode those determinations in the middle of a presidential campaign in an unconstitutional way.

The discussion about what types of fraud, and how much, is important because it goes to the very heart of election integrity, and our system cannot stand without trust in the outcome. That argument, however, won’t decide the Pennsylvania case from a legal standpoint. It will come down to whether a ministerial appointee of Pennsylvania’s executive branch can work with Pennsylvania’s judicial branch to subvert the expressed will of the legislature, and hastily put in place an election process wherein citizens who chose to vote differently had their votes disparately treated.

Recall that in 2000, the legal argument that eventually carried the day was equal-protection grounds; by implementing different methods for recounts and different scrutiny for different counties, voters were receiving unequal treatment. The Supreme Court held 7-2 that “Upon due consideration of the difficulties identified to this point, it is obvious that the recount cannot be conducted in compliance with the requirements of equal protection and due process without substantial additional work.”

Twenty years is a long time as far as the public attention span goes, and most have allowed the “selected not elected” mantra to pervade our consciousness. Contra the prevailing narrative, however, Justices William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, and Clarence Thomas framed their decision as one of judicial restraint that saw a key part of the court’s role was in protecting the Florida legislature from impermissible interference by the Florida courts:

In most cases, comity and respect for federalism compel us to defer to the decisions of state courts on issues of state law. That practice reflects our understanding that the decisions of state courts are definitive pronouncements of the will of the States as sovereigns. Of course, in ordinary cases, the distribution of powers among the branches of a State’s government raises no questions of federal constitutional law, subject to the requirement that the government be republican in character. But there are a few exceptional cases in which the Constitution imposes a duty or confers a power on a particular branch of a State’s government. This is one of them. … Thus, the text of the election law itself, and not just its interpretation by the courts of the States, takes on independent significance.

A significant departure from the legislative scheme for appointing Presidential electors presents a federal constitutional question.

If we are to respect the legislature’s Article II powers, therefore, we must ensure that postelection state-court actions do not frustrate the legislative desire to attain the ‘safe harbor’ provided by §5. (Rehnquist concurring, but writing separately; Citations and dicta omitted)

Admittedly, this “Article II view” was a more expansive view on why the ongoing Florida recount was suspect than the Supreme Court ultimately held, but clearly, at least three justices believed that the courts — even state courts, which usually receive great deference to interpreting state law — don’t have a right to tweak the express will of the state legislature about presidential electors.

To be sure, the equal-protection claims also present differently, so they aren’t a slam-dunk here, and the Rehnquist concurrence isn’t controlling precedent (two of the three justices who signed on to the opinion are no longer on the court), so it might not carry the day.

Three of the young lawyers on the Bush team advocating this view of the law in 2000 have received pretty notable promotions since that time, however, and three other guys likely to have a say have signaled their belief in exactly this interpretation, stating recently, “The provisions of the Federal Constitution conferring on state legislatures, not state courts, the authority to make rules governing federal elections would be meaningless if a state court could override the rules adopted by the legislature simply by claiming that a state constitutional provision gave the courts the authority to make whatever rules it thought appropriate for the conduct of a fair election.”

It’s anyone’s guess how the Supreme Court would rule if it gets to that point, but when three current justices (Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch) have signaled they’re sympathetic to the basic legal argument, and three other justices (John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett) were part of the team that advanced very similar legal arguments in Bush v. Gore, the president and his team must like their chances.

The Changes Disproportionately Helped Biden

Pundits and some Trump supporters have engaged in navel-gazing and resigned themselves to the line of reasoning that “maybe Trump shouldn’t have down-talked absentee voting.” We know in addition to increased risk of fraud, however, voters who cast absentee ballots have historically had a significantly greater likelihood of being disenfranchised than in-person voters.

For Trump to push his supporters to vote in ways that were more likely to count isn’t irrational. It instead raises the question of why former Vice President Joe Biden wasn’t concerned with his voters being disenfranchised if they voted absentee, given the historical risks.

Both the potential for fraud and increased probability of disenfranchising voters sound intuitively like things we should fix, but the Pennsylvania legislature didn’t. They saw fit to keep the bar high to offset the risk of fraud and associated effects to public confidence in the election that unrestricted mail balloting would cause.

There’s a rational basis for that, and the entire saga has played out nationally. With the non-legislative changes, absentee voters were significantly less likely to be disenfranchised than before — indeed, Boockvar’s unilateral changes in Pennsylvania removed nearly every barrier the duly elected state legislature had put in place.

This created an environment where the constitutional guarantee of one person, one vote was tilted significantly in the direction of a voting modality (mail balloting versus in-person balloting). Not only was this ripe for greater abuse, but that tilting of the playing field disproportionately benefited the voters of one presidential candidate. Making this even more obvious are new revelations that show how the larger Democratic strongholds were equipped to quickly pre-sort potentially invalid ballots, and Democratic operatives were gearing up to capitalize on the eventual changes to the statutory pre-canvass period before Boockvar’s office even announced them.

What if the Supreme Court Invalidates a State’s Election

For conservatives, an intellectual challenge now presents itself: If you were OK with the Supreme Court stopping the Florida recount in 2000, you need to prepare yourself to be comfortable with the same court invalidating the Pennsylvania electors. Indeed, you should want them to, whether or not there was underlying direct fraud sufficient enough to affect the outcome. Alternatively, you should start working on your tortuous rationale for why, on constitutional grounds, what was legitimate in 2000 is not legitimate in 2020.

Whether you’re persuaded by the equal protection reasoning in the Bush v. Gore holding or in the minority’s separate concurrence emphasizing the plenary powers of the Pennsylvania legislature under Article II, Section 1, Clause 2, if the case makes it to the Supreme Court it won’t hinge on some threshold level of fraud that tipped the scales against Trump, nor will it be about the raw power of a conservative court to hand the election to Trump (which will certainly be the media narrative if it gets to that point). It will be, and always has been, about the rule of law.

Where the actual fraud becomes important — an actual measure of it, and whether it delivered an illegitimate win to Biden — is in how the Pennsylvania legislature, and potentially Congress, should react to the Court prohibiting the certification of the November election with respect to presidential electors. There is nothing wrong or abhorrent to our constitutional system if the elected representatives of the citizens of Pennsylvania are required to weigh in and clean this up on behalf of their voters. They need to be prepared to make their case to their voters if the predominant media narrative remains that the fraud wasn’t significant enough to affect the election outcome in Pennsylvania.

Regardless of how the Pennsylvania case gets resolved, it won’t change the overall outcome on its own. The 20 electoral votes wouldn’t be enough to swing the election to Trump if existing media projections for Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Wisconsin, and Michigan stay in Biden’s column. If any of those changes, whether through ongoing canvassing efforts or other simultaneous legal challenges — such as the president’s filing Wednesday in Michigan making similar constitutional claims — well, Katy, bar the door.

Our way of government is strong enough to endure this. The only way through is through.

For nearly twenty years, Matt Beebe served as a countermeasures engineer in the Air Force and a contractor in the intelligence community before launching an IT and computer security firm in San Antonio, Texas. He is active in Texas politics and can be found on Twitter @theMattBeebe.
Photo Mark Thomas/Pixabay

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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report Monday, November 4, 2019


 

Having problems reading this email? To read the news, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Joe Biden Claims Pope Francis Gives Him Communion Even Though He’s Pro-Abortion
• Women Want Democrat Lawmaker to Resign After Calling Miscarried Babies a “Mess on a Napkin”
• Actress Elizabeth Banks Will Head Pro-Abortion Group, Wants to “De-Stigmatize” Killing Babies in Abortion
• Trump Admin Keeps Pro-Abortion Language Out of United Nations Resolution on Women

More Pro-Life News
• Largest-Ever 40 Days for Life Prayer Campaign Ends After Saving 454 Babies From Abortion
• New Congressional Bill Would Ban Abortions Nationwide on Babies With Down Syndrome
• Man in Wheelchair Arrested Just for Praying Outside Abortion Facility
• Pro-Abortion Candidate Beto O’Rourke Drops Out of Democrat Presidential Race
• Scroll Down for Several More Pro-Life News Stories

 

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Joe Biden Claims Pope Francis Gives Him Communion Even Though He’s Pro-Abortion

Joe Biden told PBS News Hour that his support of abortion has not stopped Pope Francis from giving him communion.

 



Women Want Democrat Lawmaker to Resign After Calling Miscarried Babies a “Mess on a Napkin”

A Pennsylvania Democrat lawmaker is receiving calls for her resignation after she referred to a miscarried baby as a “mess on a napkin” last week.

Actress Elizabeth Banks Will Head Pro-Abortion Group, Wants to “De-Stigmatize” Killing Babies in Abortion

As if pro-abortion propaganda isn’t shoved down our throats enough…

Trump Admin Keeps Pro-Abortion Language Out of United Nations Resolution on Women

The Trump administration’s life-affirming priorities are making an impact across the world.

Largest-Ever 40 Days for Life Prayer Campaign Ends After Saving 454 Babies From Abortion

The largest 40 Days for Life campaign ever has come to an end…and we have 454 confirmed reports of babies saved from abortion–with reports continuing to come in!

In an effort to stop discrimination-based abortions, a group of U.S. senators introduced a bill this week to prohibit abortions on unborn babies with Down syndrome.
anf

Man in Wheelchair Arrested Just for Praying Outside Abortion Facility

A British man recently was arrested simply for praying for women and unborn babies outside of an abortion facility in West London, England.

 

MORE PRO-LIFE NEWS FROM TODAY

Biased Judge Ban Key Pro-Life Witness From Planned Parenthood Aborted Baby Parts Trial

Twitter Censors Pro-Life Group’s Ads, But Allows Abortion Activists to Advertise

It’s One Thing to Say You’re Pro-Life. But Do You Vote Pro-Life?

Court Rules Man’s Ex-Wife Can Kill Their Unborn Children, Destroying Their Frozen Human Embryos

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Missouri May be Abortion Free if Health Department Shuts Down Shoddy Planned Parenthood Clinic

She Weighed 2 Pounds at Birth and Had a 50% Chance to Survive, Now She’s Saving Premature Babies

Virginia Residents Must Vote Pro-Life, Reject Push for Abortions Up to Birth and Infanticide

Pennsylvania Governor Promises to Veto Bill Banning Abortions on Babies With Beating Hearts

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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Monday, October 30, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Newborn Baby Girl Found in Dumpster With Umbilical Cord Still Attached
• Kim Kardashian Claims Planned Parenthood is “Nothing Like” an Abortion Clinic
• Student Body President Impeached After Canceling Abortion Ads in Student Newspaper
. Congressional Committee Will Hold Hearing on Bill to Ban Abortions After Baby’s Heart Begins Beating

More Pro-Life News
• Amazing Photo Shows an Unborn Baby Carved Into a Pumpkin
• Planned Parenthood Sex-Ed Program for 12-Year-Olds on Hold After Hundreds of Parents Protest
• Google Removes False Reviews Slandering Pro-Life Centers as “Fake Abortion Clinics”
• Awesome Photo Shows Flowers Signaling New Life Outside Closed Abortion Center
• Billionaire Activist George Soros Donates $85 Million to Sponsors of Pro-Abortion “Women’s March”
• Pregnancy Centers Ask Supreme Court to Overturn California Law Forcing Them to Promote Abortions
• NAACP Should Issue Travel Advisory for Racist Planned Parenthood, Which Kills Black Babies in Abortions
• Congresswoman Tries to Stop ?New Abortion Clinic From Opening in Notre Dame’s Hometown
• Abortion Activists Celebrate 50 Years of Abortions in Britain
• Judge Blocks Alabama Law Prohibiting Abortion Clinics Near Schools
• Wisconsin Committee Passes Bill Banning University of Wisconsin Doctors From Doing Abortions
• 11 Reasons to Oppose Legalizing Assisted Suicide in Australia
• Government in Scotland OKs Dangerous Do-It-Yourself Abortions at Home Without a Doctor

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Newborn Baby Girl Found in Dumpster With Umbilical Cord Still Attached
A newborn baby girl found in a dumpster in Texas is doing well in an Austin hospital two days after passers by saved the infant’s life.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


Kim Kardashian Claims Planned Parenthood is “Nothing Like” an Abortion Clinic
America’s largest abortion provider recently acquired new “big fans” from the reality TV world because, they discovered, it’s “nothing like” an abortion clinic.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Student Body President Impeached After Canceling Abortion Ads in Student Newspaper
University College of Dublin student body president Katie Ascough was impeached last week after she removed potentially illegal abortion information from a student handbook.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Congressional Committee Will Hold Hearing on Bill to Ban Abortions After Baby’s Heart Begins Beating
A U.S. House subcommittee is scheduled to consider a bill Wednesday to protect unborn babies from abortion once they have a detectable heartbeat.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Amazing Photo Shows an Unborn Baby Carved Into a Pumpkin
The tradition of Halloween pumpkin carving brought out the creative side of one pro-life advocate.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Planned Parenthood Sex-Ed Program for 12-Year-Olds on Hold After Hundreds of Parents Protest
North Carolina parents expressed outrage this week after learning that the abortion chain Planned Parenthood was scheduled to teach sex education their middle school children.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com

Google Removes False Reviews Slandering Pro-Life Centers as “Fake Abortion Clinics”
The more abortion absolutists peddle the fiction that pro-life pregnancy centers and medical clinics are “fake abortion clinics” that lie to women, the more they’re finding—or would find if they were paying attention, anyway—that nobody’s buying the lies they’re selling…

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

Awesome Photo Shows Flowers Signaling New Life Outside Closed Abortion Center
A curious photo made the rounds of Facebook the other week. It depicted a multi-colored bouquet of flowers, propped up outside the door of the Hillcrest Women’s Medical Center.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Judge Blocks Alabama Law Prohibiting Abortion Clinics Near Schools

Wisconsin Committee Passes Bill Banning University of Wisconsin Doctors From Doing Abortions

11 Reasons to Oppose Legalizing Assisted Suicide in Australia

 
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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Monday, October 2, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Mother Wishes She’d Had an Abortion, Says She Hates Her Son and Wants Him to Die in His Sleep
• Over 100,000 Americans Take to the Streets to Tell People “Abortion Kills Children”
• 40 Days for Life Pro-Life Prayer Campaign Saves 26 Babies From Abortion, So Far
. By 20 Weeks, Unborn Babies Have “All the Physical Structures Necessary” to Feel Pain During Abortions

More Pro-Life News
• Why is Banning Late-Term Abortions on Babies After 20 Weeks So Controversial?
• CBS Executive “Not Sympathetic” for Las Vegas Shooting Victims Because “Country Music Fans are Republicans”
• Ohio Abortions Hit 40-Year Record Low as More Babies are Saved From Abortion
• Planned Parenthood Loses Bid to Stop Waiting Period Before It Can Kill Babies in Abortions
• Abortion Clinic That Killed This Women in a Botched Legal Abortion Injures Another Woman
• Brain Cancer Patient Given 6 Months to Live Planned to Kill Himself in an Assisted Suicide. That Was 2 Years Ago
• Cosmo Can’t Handle the Truth, Wants People to Stop Using the Phrase Late-Term Abortion
• Catholic Bishop: Governor Rauner Lied to Me, He Promised Not to Force Taxpayers to Fund Abortions
• ISIS Terrorists Rape and Impregnate Teen Girls and Force Them to Have Multiple Abortions
• Abortion Activists Want Unlimited Abortions Throughout Pregnancy: “We’re Not Looking for a Little Bit of Abortion”
• Even Partial Repeal of 8th Amendment in Ireland Would Allow Killing Unborn Babies in Abortions

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Mother Wishes She’d Had an Abortion, Says She Hates Her Son and Wants Him to Die in His Sleep
A mother’s shocking admission about wishing her toddler would die in his sleep caught the attention of several media outlets and online forum moderators this week.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


Over 100,000 Americans Take to the Streets to Tell People “Abortion Kills Children”
Standing on busy sidewalks and town squares across the country, more than 100,000 Americans urged their communities to recognize the value of unborn babies’ lives.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

40 Days for Life Pro-Life Prayer Campaign Saves 26 Babies From Abortion, So Far
During 40 Days for Life, we actually look forward to Mondays! That’s the day we share the great news of lives saved from abortion.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

By 20 Weeks, Unborn Babies Have “All the Physical Structures Necessary” to Feel Pain During Abortions
On Tuesday, the members of the House of Representatives will assemble in the U.S. Capitol Building to cast their votes yea or nay on the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act–H.R. 36.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Why is Banning Late-Term Abortions on Babies After 20 Weeks So Controversial?
Despite the public outcry against abuse of children once they are born, many members of society turn a blind eye to the violence that children suffer at the hands of abortionists.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

CBS Executive “Not Sympathetic” for Las Vegas Shooting Victims Because “Country Music Fans are Republicans”
Will Ricciardella at the Daily Caller reports the senior counsel for strategic transactions at CBS named Hayley Geftman-Gold spewed on Facebook.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com

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Ohio Abortions Hit 40-Year Record Low as More Babies are Saved From Abortion
On Friday, the Ohio Department of Health released the 2016 Ohio Abortion Report, revealing a decrease in the number of abortions last year.

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

Planned Parenthood Loses Bid to Stop Waiting Period Before It Can Kill Babies in Abortions
The abortion chain Planned Parenthood lost a legal challenge to Iowa’s 72-hour waiting period law Monday when a judge upheld the law.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

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ISIS Terrorists Rape and Impregnate Teen Girls and Force Them to Have Multiple Abortions

Abortion Activists Want Unlimited Abortions Throughout Pregnancy: “We’re Not Looking for a Little Bit of Abortion”

Even Partial Repeal of 8th Amendment in Ireland Would Allow Killing Unborn Babies in Abortions

 
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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Thursday, September 28, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg: People Voted for Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton Because They’re Sexist
• NFL Players Protest Racism, But What About the 270 Black Babies Planned Parenthood Kills Every Day?
• Illinois Governor Signs Bill to Force Taxpayers to Fund Abortions Through All 9 Months of Pregnancy
. Judge Lets Abortion Clinics Deny Women Ultrasound of Their Baby Before Abortion

More Pro-Life News
• Cecile Richards: Pro-Lifers “Who Mischaracterize Planned Parenthood Have Never Had to Worry About Being Pregnant”
• MSNBC Host Claims Conservative Is Ignorant of the Constitution for Saying Rights Come from God
• Congressman: “Abortionists Decapitate, Dismember and Chemically Poison Babies to Death Every Day”
• Abortion Activist: We Need to “Normalize” Killing Babies in Abortions
• Alabama Democrat Senate Candidate Doug Jones: Rights for an Unborn Baby Don’t Begin Until Birth
• Congressional Resolution Slams Assisted Suicide: “It Puts the Most Vulnerable of Our Society at Risk”
• She Had an Abortion to Save Her Career: “I Don’t Regret the Decision”
• If Legalized Abortion is So Safe, Explain These Women Who Died in Botched Abortions
• Abortion Supporters Claim Abortions are Unsafe. Their Solution? Kill More Babies in Abortions
• Pro-Life Congressman Steve Scalise Returns for the First Time Since a Liberal Activist Shot Him
• Planned Parenthood Said Pro-Lifers Would “Go Back to Their Normal Lives” Once Abortion Clinic Opened. 10 Years Later…
• Court Allows Arkansas to Limit the Dangerous Abortion Pill That Kills Unborn Babies

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September Life News Special:

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: People Voted for Donald Trump Over Hillary Clinton Because They’re Sexist
One of the common themes on Hillary Clinton’s blame list for losing the 2016 election is the sexist nature of the American electorate.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


NFL Players Protest Racism, But What About the 270 Black Babies Planned Parenthood Kills Every Day?
Finally! NFL players across the country took a knee to protest the systemic racism and unjustified deaths that have plagued black communities for decades.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Illinois Governor Signs Bill to Force Taxpayers to Fund Abortions Through All 9 Months of Pregnancy
Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner today signed a bill to keep abortion on demand up to birth legal and establish the Land of Lincoln as a “safe haven” for women seeking abortions.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Judge Lets Abortion Clinics Deny Women Ultrasound of Their Baby Before Abortion
Kentucky abortion facilities will not have to provide women with basic information prior to an abortion after a federal judge struck down a state informed consent law Wednesday.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Cecile Richards: Pro-Lifers “Who Mischaracterize Planned Parenthood Have Never Had to Worry About Being Pregnant”
According to the head of America’s largest abortion provider, women understand Planned Parenthood. But she’s forgetting a few numbers in her calculation.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

MSNBC Host Claims Conservative Is Ignorant of the Constitution for Saying Rights Come from God
Chuck Todd thought he had caught Roy Moore in a hot mic moment and sought to expose his ignorance of the Constitution.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

Abortion Activist: We Need to “Normalize” Killing Babies in Abortions
Abortion activists have been tacking the word “care” next to abortion lately as if the word will make the killing of unborn babies seem less horrible.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Pro-Life Congressman Steve Scalise Returns for the First Time Since a Liberal Activist Shot Him

Planned Parenthood Said Pro-Lifers Would “Go Back to Their Normal Lives” Once Abortion Clinic Opened. 10 Years Later…

Court Allows Arkansas to Limit the Dangerous Abortion Pill That Kills Unborn Babies

 
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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Wednesday, September 27, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• President Donald Trump Will Sign Pro-Life Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks
• What if the NFL Players Were Protesting Abortion Instead?
• Abortion Activists: No, Unborn Babies Don’t Feel Pain in Dismemberment Abortions
. Congressman Slams Painful Late-Term Abortions: “What About the Humanity of the Unborn?”

More Pro-Life News
• Only Seven Countries in the World Allow Abortions After 5 Months, Including the U.S.
• Liberals Reject Woman to Head Committee on Women Simply Because She’s Pro-Life
• Children’s Minister Aggressively Pushes to Legalize Abortions Killing Children
• As Babies Die in Abortion, Law School Will Hold Symposium on the “Rights of Nature”
• Doctors Caught Doing Illegal Sex-Selection Abortions, But No Action Taken
• Abortion Clinic That Killed Woman in Botched Abortion Wants to Avoid Health and Safety Standards
• Biggest 40 Days for Life Pro-Life Prayer Campaign Ever Begins in 375 U.S. Cities and 24 Countries
• Pro-Life Judge Roy Moore Defeats Luther Strange as Republicans Voice Their Displeasure With Congress
• MP Plans to Exploit Bill Combating Domestic Violence to Ban Pro-Life Vigils
• Pro-Life Advocate Ends 10-Day Hunger Strike After Politicians Refuse to Watch Video of an Abortion
• Liberals Hijack Miss America Pageant, If You’re a Pro-Life Conservative You Probably Won’t Win
• Indiana Will Appeal Ruling Overturning Ban on Abortions of Babies With Down Syndrome

Respect Life Month Resources
20+ Bulletins, 200+ Brochures, 10+ Fundraising bottles,
30+ Pro-Life Magnets, Notecards, Stickers, Banners & Signs.
September Life News Special:

President Donald Trump Will Sign Pro-Life Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks
A bill proposing to ban late-term abortions is a “high priority” for President Donald Trump, according to one pro-life leader who met with him recently.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


What if the NFL Players Were Protesting Abortion Instead?
NFL players across the country are refusing to stand and put their hand on their heart during the national anthem.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Abortion Activists: No, Unborn Babies Don’t Feel Pain in Dismemberment Abortions
Of all the indefensible claims made by abortionists, there are some that apparently even they can’t bring themselves to take seriously — or argue in court.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Congressman Slams Painful Late-Term Abortions: “What About the Humanity of the Unborn?”
One U.S. politician is challenging the media to accurately report on a bill he hopes will show the “humanity of the unborn.”

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Only Seven Countries in the World Allow Abortions After 5 Months, Including the U.S.
While Senate Republicans may as well have embarked on a suicide mission after this week’s health care debacle, House conservatives are doing all they can to salvage the party’s reputation.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Liberals Reject Woman to Head Committee on Women Simply Because She’s Pro-Life
Canadian Liberal MPs walked out of a meeting Tuesday in protest of a pro-life woman who was nominated to lead a committee on women’s issues.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Children’s Minister Aggressively Pushes to Legalize Abortions Killing Children
Ireland’s Children’s Minister has been pushing aggressively to strip unborn children of their right to life – the opposite of what her title suggests.

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

As Babies Die in Abortion, Law School Will Hold Symposium on the “Rights of Nature”
The movement to grant “nature” human type rights continues with insufficient pushback.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Pro-Life Advocate Ends 10-Day Hunger Strike After Politicians Refuse to Watch Video of an Abortion

Liberals Hijack Miss America Pageant, If You’re a Pro-Life Conservative You Probably Won’t Win

Indiana Will Appeal Ruling Overturning Ban on Abortions of Babies With Down Syndrome

 
Daily Pro-Life News Report
Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report
Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
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Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com.
Copyright 2003-2017 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved.

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Family, Health, Law, Personal, Political, Religion, Society, Spiritual

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LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Tuesday, September 26, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Senate Pulls Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood as John McCain, Rand Paul and Susan Collins Oppose It
• Cecile Richards Celebrates Defeat of Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood: “It Would Have Caused Suffering”
• Hillary Clinton: Any Woman Who Voted for Donald Trump “Disrespected Themselves”
. Trump Admin Defunds Planned Parenthood: Abortion Biz Loses Millions to Push Obamacare

More Pro-Life News
• Catholic Church Leader: “All Other Rights” Flow From the Right to Life
• Man in So-Called “Persistent Vegetative State” for 15 Years Shows Signs of Consciousness
• Woman Cut Pregnant Mom’s Throat So She Couldn’t Scream While She Cut Out Her Baby From Her Womb
• Former Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic Managers Tell Pro-Lifers to Pray and End Abortion
• Ireland Will Vote Next Year on Legalizing Abortion, Overturning Law Saying Unborn Baby Has a Right to Life
• Planned Parenthood Defends Doing Dismemberment Abortions as One of the “Safest” Abortion Procedures
• Rape Survivors Who Rejected Abortion Forced to Move Event After Abortion Activists Threaten Violence
• Buddhist, Muslim and Christian Religious Leaders United to Oppose Legalizing Abortion in Sri Lanka
• 3,800 Babies Will Die in Abortions if Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner Signs Bill for Taxpayer Funding
• Abortion Practitioners Often Suffer From Mental Disorders. Here are Some Examples

Respect Life Month Resources
20+ Bulletins, 200+ Brochures, 10+ Fundraising bottles,
30+ Pro-Life Magnets, Notecards, Stickers, Banners & Signs.
September Life News Special:

Senate Pulls Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood as John McCain, Rand Paul and Susan Collins Oppose It
Senate Republicans have officially pulled the plug on the reconciliation bill that would defund Planned Parenthood and repeal portions of Obamacare.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


Cecile Richards Celebrates Defeat of Bill to Defund Planned Parenthood: “It Would Have Caused Suffering”
Cecile Richards today celebrated the defeat of the bill to defund Planned Parenthood.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Hillary Clinton: Any Woman Who Voted for Donald Trump “Disrespected Themselves”
Hillary Clinton suggested last week that husbands pressured their wives to vote for her opponent in the 2016 election.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Trump Admin Defunds Planned Parenthood: Abortion Biz Loses Millions to Push Obamacare
President Donald Trump’s administration has been cutting off various streams of taxpayer funding to the abortion chain Planned Parenthood.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Catholic Church Leader: “All Other Rights” Flow From the Right to Life
A Catholic Church leader urged the United Nations on Monday to recognize that the right to life is the most fundamental of all human rights.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Man in So-Called “Persistent Vegetative State” for 15 Years Shows Signs of Consciousness
A 35-year-old man who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 15 years has shown signs of consciousness after receiving a pioneering therapy involving nerve stimulation.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Woman Cut Pregnant Mom’s Throat So She Couldn’t Scream While She Cut Out Her Baby From Her Womb
Two years ago, a New York woman who was nearly 9-months pregnant died after a childhood friend cut her unborn baby from her womb in an attempt to pass the infant off as her own.

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

Former Planned Parenthood Abortion Clinic Managers Tell Pro-Lifers to Pray and End Abortion
I want to share words of encouragement from two former Planned Parenthood managers in this brand-new video!.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Pro-Life Student Leader: “Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Speak for This Generation. This Generation is Pro-Life”

Abortion Practitioners Often Suffer From Mental Disorders. Here are Some Examples

 
Daily Pro-Life News Report
Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report
Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.

Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com.
Copyright 2003-2017 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved.

Category:

Family, Health, Law, Personal, Political, Religion, Society, Spiritual

Tagged with:

LifeNews.com Pro-Life News Report


Monday, September 25, 2017

For pro-life news updated throughout the day, visit LifeNews.com.

Top Stories
• Republican Susan Collins Will Vote No on Defunding Planned Parenthood, Likely Killing the Bill
• Judge Strikes Down Indiana Ban on Abortions of Babies With Down Syndrome
• Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Church of Christ Groups Tell Senate to Fund Planned Parenthood
. Mother in Coma Heard Everything, Including How Doctors Shut Off Her Life Support and Said She’d Die

More Pro-Life News
• House Will Vote on Pro-Life Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks
• “Catholics for Choice” Launches Campaign to Force Americans to Fund Abortions
• Perez Hilton Says Kylie Jenner Should Kill Her Baby in an Abortion
• WATCH: Abortion Activists Shout Down Woman Sharing How She Regrets Her Abortion
• What Jimmy Kimmel May Not Know About The Healthcare Bill
• Woman Dies After Husband Pressures Her to Abort Four Girl Babies Hoping for a Son
• Illinois’ Governor May Sign Bill to Make Taxpayers Fund Abortions Through All 9 Months of Pregnancy
• Sidewalk Counselors Save 8 of 11 Babies From Abortion in One Afternoon at Planned Parenthood
• Planned Parenthood Wins Battle to Continue Killing Babies With Down Syndrome in Abortions
• Pro-Life Student Leader: “Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Speak for This Generation. This Generation is Pro-Life”

Respect Life Month Resources
20+ Bulletins, 200+ Brochures, 10+ Fundraising bottles,
30+ Pro-Life Magnets, Notecards, Stickers, Banners & Signs.
September Life News Special:

Judge Strikes Down Indiana Ban on Abortions of Babies With Down Syndrome
A federal judge struck down an Indiana law on Friday that protected unborn babies from discrimination based on their sex, race or abilities.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.


Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian and Church of Christ Groups Tell Senate to Fund Planned Parenthood
More than a dozen religious groups joined national organizations this week in opposing a U.S. Senate bill to defund the Planned Parenthood abortion business.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Mother in Coma Heard Everything, Including How Doctors Shut Off Her Life Support and Said She’d Die
Three little words changed an Arizona family’s entire outlook as they stood at their mother’s deathbed.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

House Will Vote on Pro-Life Bill Banning Late-Term Abortions After 20 Weeks
The House of Representatives will vote in the coming days on a pro-life bill that bans abortions from after 20-weeks of pregnancy up to the day of birth.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Perez Hilton Says Kylie Jenner Should Kill Her Baby in an Abortion
What Perez Hilton did to Kylie Jenner and her unborn baby over the weekend serves as a strong example of just how often women are pressured to abort their unborn babies.

Cl i ck to Read at LifeNews.com

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

WATCH: Abortion Activists Shout Down Woman Sharing How She Regrets Her Abortion
In their never-ending quest to normalize and de-stigmatize abortion, leftists may want to do a bit more listening than their fellow combatants, who spent the better part of 10 minutes trying to drown out a woman sharing her own abortion story .

Cli ck to Read at LifeNews.com.

What Jimmy Kimmel May Not Know About The Healthcare Bill
Every time that a new health care reform bill is introduced, it causes panic.

Click to Read at LifeNews.com.

Looking for an inspiring and motivating speaker for your pro-life event? Don’t have much to spend on a high-priced speaker costing several thousand dollars? Contact LifeNews at news@lifenews.com about having LifeNews Editor Steven Ertelt speak at your event.

Pro-Life Student Leader: “Planned Parenthood Doesn’t Speak for This Generation. This Generation is Pro-Life”

Comedy Central Show “Broad City” Celebrates Abortion, Depicts Pro-Lifer Holding “Jesus Hates You” Sign

 
Daily Pro-Life News Report
Twice-Weekly Pro-Life
News Report
Receive a free daily email report from LifeNews.com with the latest pro-life news stories on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.
Receive a free twice-weekly email report with the latest pro-life news headlines on abortion, euthanasia and stem cell research. Sign up here.

Comments or questions? Email us at news@lifenews.com.
Copyright 2003-2017 LifeNews.com. All rights reserved.

Category:

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Tagged with:

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