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Posts tagged ‘Jonathan Turely’

Capping Carbon Admissions: The Biden Administration is Accused of Burying Conflicting Climate Change Report


By: Jonathan Turley | March 31, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/30/capping-carbon-admissions-the-biden-administration-is-accused-of-burying-conflicting-climate-change-report/

There is a major story developing on Capitol Hill after House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman James Comer, R-Ky, revealed that a long-withheld report from the Biden Administration directly contradicted the claims of climate change used to limit increased U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. The suggestion is that this was a knowing effort to cap carbon admissions rather than carbon emissions.

The impact that new U.S. LNG exports have on the environment and the economy was reviewed by U.S. Energy Department scientists and completed by September 2023. It appears that neither President Biden nor Secretary Jennifer Granholm liked the science or the conclusions. Rather than “follow the science,” they buried the report while allegedly making claims directly refuted by their own experts.

The report was finished while Biden was still running for reelection and would have likely enraged environmentalists. The draft study, “Energy, Economic, and Environmental Assessment of U.S. LNG Exports,” found that, under all modeled scenarios, an increase in U.S. LNG exports and natural gas production would not change global or U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. It further found that it would not increase energy prices for consumers.

Biden and Granholm reportedly buried the report and then announced a pause on all new U.S. LNG export terminals in January 2024, citing the danger to environmental and economic impacts.

Comer’s office told Fox News Digital that DOE repeatedly declined to provide this study to the House Oversight Committee or comply with other requests for information.

What is most concerning is that our LNG exports help reduce the dependence on Russia and would have decreased the revenues to that country to support its war in Ukraine. However, critics charge that Biden ignored the national security and economic benefits. Supporters note that we still exported a massive amount of LNG.

When the U.S. ramped up exports to Europe, progressive Democrats like Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., went ballistic. This appears to have worked in shelving the study while slowing demands for further increases.

The Biden Administration later released data in December 2024 suggesting that a rise in exports could cause consumer prices to rise by as much as 30%.

There are obviously two sides to this debate. The problem is that it seems that only one side was allowed to be publicly presented by the delay in the release of the study.

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Political

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“Which Country is he Loyal to?”: Democrats Go Full McCarthy in Attacks on Musk


By: Jonathan Turley | March 3, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/03/03/which-country-is-he-loyal-to-democrats-go-full-mccarthy-in-attacks-on-musk/

Below is my column in The Hill on the disgraceful Democratic attacks against Elon Musk over his status as a naturalized citizen. For years, some of us have raised concerns over the adoption of McCarthyite tactics and rhetoric by the left to demonize those with opposing viewpoints, including critics of the massive censorship system under the Biden Administration.  Those attacks are now reaching a dangerous crescendo after the 2024 loss in the presidential election.

Here is the column:

This month, 75 years ago, Sen. Joe McCarthy (R-Wisc.) gave his infamous speech denouncing disloyal Americans working at the highest levels of our government. It was the defining moment for what became known as McCarthyism, which attacked citizens as dangerous and disloyal influences in government.

Some of us have criticized the rising “rage rhetoric” for years, including that of President Trump and Democratic leaders, denouncing opponents as traitors and enemies of the state.

In the 2024 election, the traditional red state-blue state firewalls again collapsed, as they had in 2016. The response among Democrats has been to unleash a type of new Red Scare, questioning the loyalty of those who are supporting or working with the Trump administration in carrying out his promised reforms.

Elon Musk is the designated disloyal American for many on the left. That rage has reached virtual hysteria on ABC’s “The View.” This is the same show before the election on which hosts warned that, if Trump were elected, journalists and homosexuals would be rounded up and “disappeared.”

After the election, democracy seemed to stubbornly hang on, so the hosts had to resort to attacking as disloyal anyone joining the government or supporting Trump’s policies.

This week, co-host Joy Behar followed many others in questioning Musk’s loyalty and attacking him over being a naturalized American citizen: “The guy was not born in this country, who was born under apartheid in South Africa. So, [he] has that mentality going on. He was pro-Apartheid, as I understand it.”

Behar was then forced, perhaps by panicked ABC lawyers, to walk back the comment — such retractions having become a regular feature on “The View“. What came out was the type of jumbled confusion that results when you interrupt a lunatic on the metro in mid-rave.

Behar stated: “I’m getting some flack because I said that Musk was pro-apartheid. I don’t really know for sure if he was … He was around at that time, but maybe he was, maybe he wasn’t—he might have been a young guy, too. So, don’t be suing me, okay Elon?”

This anti-immigrant attack on Musk, however, has worked its way into many Democrats’ talking points, even though their party had previously claimed to defend immigrants against racist Republicans seeking to close the Southern border and deport criminal illegal immigrants.

On Capitol Hill, Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio) launched a xenophobic tirade that should have shocked the conscience of the nation. She warned citizens that Musk could not be trusted because he is an immigrant who has been a citizen for only a couple of decades: “Mr. Musk has just been here just 22 years and he’s a citizen of three countries. I always ask myself the question: With the damage he’s doing here when push comes to shove, which country is he loyal to? South Africa, Canada, or the United States? And he’s only been a citizen, I’ll say again, 22 years.”

Former Republican Rep. Liz Cheney was another joining in to attack Musk for being an immigrant. “You may be unfamiliar with that part of our history since you weren’t yet an American citizen,” she wrote on Musk’s social media platform, X.

These attacks are straight out of McCarthy’s playbook. It was McCarthy who insisted that “there are no degrees of loyalty in the United States — a man is either loyal or he’s disloyal…” Of course, McCarthy (and the earlier Red Scare) attacked government employees, writers and others on the left. It is now the left that is employing the same tactics, including censorship, blacklisting and public vilification.

Throughout the 2024 campaign, the Democrats, including President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, painted Republicans as either aspiring or actual fascists. That continued recently with Minnesota Gov. and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz (D), who referred to Republicans as “fascists and Nazis.”

Even journalists and civil libertarians have been reviled using the same terms. After a hearing on censorship two years ago, MSNBC contributor and former Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) attacked journalists and members who had spoken in favor of free speech. She denounced the member witnesses (Sen. Chuck Grassley, Sen. Ron Johnson and former Rep. Gabbard) as “Putin apologists” and Putin-lovers.

Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the Virgin Islands in the U.S. House, even suggested arresting respected journalist Matt Taibbi, who, along with Michael Shellenberger, testified on their investigation into a massive censorship system developed under the Biden administration.

The attack on Musk is particularly disgraceful, given his contributions to his adopted country. Ironically, filmmaker Michael Moore denounced the deportations of criminal illegal immigrants last week by noting that Trump was deporting someone who might cure cancer or be the next Steve Jobs. Well, this is a naturalized citizen who not only could be the next Elon Musk. He is Elon Musk.

As politicians and pundits question Musk’s loyalty, Space X is moving to rescue two astronauts stranded in space. Musk has volunteered his time and skills to achieving a record reduction in the size and waste in government. One can disagree with his priorities or the means he uses to achieve his goals, but he has nobly stepped forward to serve his country despite death threats from the left.

Musk is also facing such attacks in Canada, where thousands have signed petitions to strip him of his citizenship. The left did not seek to revoke the citizenship of figures who have eviscerated free speech and other individual rights in that country. It is Musk who is persona non grata.

This is nothing new for Musk, whom the left has targeted since he announced an intention to buy Twitter and restore free speech protections on that site.

The concern is not for Musk, who has the intestinal fortitude (and financial means) to stand up to a global mob. Moreover, with polls showing overwhelming support for reducing the size of government and the budget, the campaign to obstruct these efforts is unlikely to resonate with voters.

The danger is more acute for the country as disagreements over policy are transformed into attacks over loyalty. It is the most dangerous form of rage rhetoric, an effort not to debate but to demonize those with whom you disagree.

When you have members of Congress standing in front of the Capitol, denouncing naturalized citizens as untrustworthy after a mere 22 years as a citizen, it is a moment that would have made McCarthy blush.

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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Political

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Jacksonian Obstruction: Smith Explains How He Was Planning to Circumvent the Decision in Fischer


By: Jonathan Turley | January 14, 2025

Read more at https://jonathanturley.org/2025/01/14/smiths-supreme-obstruction-special-counsel-explains-how-he-was-planning-to-circumvent-the-supreme-court-decision-in-fischer/

The release of the first part of Jack Smith’s report at midnight was the special counsel’s version of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision: we had seen it before. Putting aside the public filings where Smith fought to get this information out before the election, there was little new in the report. What the report did not contain is an explanation of how Smith destroyed his own cases against Trump. However, one notable element was Smith’s reliance on a dubious concurrence by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the subject of a prior column on what would be an interpretation that was too clever by half.

Much of the report was vintage Smith in dismissing countervailing precedent and insisting that he could “obtain and sustain a conviction at trial.” He may be right about obtaining a conviction before a D.C. jury and a highly motivated judge against Trump.  However, he would not have been able to sustain any conviction — and this report makes that abundantly clear.

Smith repeats the same conclusory evidence, such as citing how Trump said “fight” ten times in his January 6th speech. He minimized the immunity decision by removing some evidence but kept largely the original indictment. However, the treatment of the obstruction claims was the most telling and indicative of Smith, who has repeatedly lost cases due to overextending constitutional and statutory authority.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer v. United States rejecting the use of obstruction of legal proceedings against January 6th defendants will potentially impact hundreds of cases. For some, it may lead to dismissals or, in the cases with multiple charges, resentencings. One of those cases that will be impacted is the pending prosecution of former president Donald Trump who is facing four charges, including two obstruction counts. It was not clear if Special Counsel Jack Smith would yield to the decision or possibly take the dubious path laid out by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her concurrence.

However, Smith tended to push the law to the breaking point to bag defendants. That was the case when his conviction of former Virginia Governor Robert F. McDonnell was unanimously reversed as overextending another law.

As I wrote previously after the decision, “It is doubtful that [Smith] will go quietly into the night after the Fischer decision.” In most cases, a prosecutor would go back and secure a superseding indictment in light of the loss of the obstruction claims. Those claims were central to the narrative of the government under the Trump indictment. However, I wrote that it “is not Smith’s style” to yield to precedent and that he would likely “take a not-so-subtle hint from Jackson in her concurrence.”

Jackson supported the majority in finding that the obstruction provision, Section 1512(c), was enacted after the Enron case to address the destruction of documents and records.

Section 1512(c)(1) prohibits corruptly obstructing an official proceeding by altering, destroying, mutilating, or concealing a record, document, or other object with the intent to impair the object’s integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding. However, a second provision under subsection (c)(2) allowed for charges that would “otherwise” obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. The Court held that the obstruction cases under Section 1512(c)(2) must be tied to impairing the integrity or availability of evidence.

However, in a single justice concurrence, she added a way that Smith and other prosecutors might still be able to shoehorn January 6th into a Section 1512 offense:

“That official proceeding [Congress’s certification of the Electoral College vote] plainly used certain records, documents, or objects—including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves. And it might well be that Fischer’s conduct, as alleged here, involved the impairment (or the attempted impairment) of the availability or integrity of things used during the January 6 proceeding “in ways other than those specified in (c)(1).” Ante, at 8. If so, then Fischer’s prosecution under §1512(c)(2) can, and should, proceed. That issue remains available for the lower courts to determine on remand.”

Once again, no other justice joined Jackson in the concurrence.

Right on cue, Smith revealed that he was going to do precisely what I feared in taking a position supported by a single justice. In his report, Smith wrote:

“Mr. Trump’s and his co-conspirators’ obstruction involved replacing valid elector certificates from the contested states with false ones they had manufactured-the Office anticipated the possibility of such a result in Fischer and confirmed that the evidence would prove Mr. Trump’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt even under a narrow interpretation of Section 1512(c)(2).”

Just saying that a proceeding involves “certain records” is transparently artificial and forced. Even the submission of an alternative slate of electors is not the destruction of electors certified by the secretaries of state.

The federal law allows for challenges in Congress, which Democrats previously utilized without claims of insurrections or attacks on democracy. J6 Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), voted to challenge the certification of the 2004 results of President George W. Bush’s reelection; committee member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) sought to challenge Trump’s certification in 2016. Both did so under the very law that Trump’s congressional supporters used in 2020. And Pelosi and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) praised the challenge organized by then-Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) in 2004.

Those challenges under the same loose theory could have been viewed as attempting to negate or destroy certifications from the states. It would have likely, in my view, result in another reversal. However, Smith is always about securing convictions more than sustaining appeals. That is why he filed the second case in D.C., where he was given the best possible judge for the prosecution, a judge viewed by many as predisposed against Trump.

In a sentencing hearing of a Jan. 6 rioter in 2022, Chutkan had 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 then brought to her for trial by Smith.

So Smith was going to proceed on the theory of a single justice with the help of a favorable jury and a motivated judge. Little has changed with Smith since his unanimous reversal in the McDonnell case, which seems much of the reason that he was appointed.

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.”

This column also appeared on Fox.com

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