I’m confused: How can Trump be so sure that he declassified the evidence that the FBI planted?
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Steve Vladeck
@steve_vladeck
’s husband; father of daughters; C.A. Wright Chair in Federal Courts ; #SCOTUS nerd ; NYT bestseller: tinyurl.com/shadowdocket; #LGM
Steve Vladeck’s posts
Oxford commas matter.
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How about we keep the Party of Lincoln, Reagan and Trump and the traitors leave. twitter.com/catturd2/statu…
It's not that Chief Justice Roberts is a closet progressive. He's not.
It's that the Trump administration is *really bad* at administrative law.
Key point in AG Garland's statement: DOJ was willing to do this quietly, *without* making a public spectacle of the search.
It was *President Trump's* decision to make it public that turned this all into a spectacle (and is leading DOJ to move to unseal part of the application).
If you think it was "classless" for to confront Governor Abbott at a press conference but don't think it was classless for the Governor to attend a fundraiser last night after the shooting, or to say today that "it could have been worse," well, that's pretty telling.
It sure would be nice to know to whom the President of the United States owes upwards of $421 million...
For anyone complaining about the "late" shift in totals toward Democrats in MI, PA, and WI, most of those votes actually came in *first.*
It's only because those states' Republican-controlled state legislatures wouldn't allow "pre-canvassing" that they're now being counted last.
"The President appears to have used an unsecured burner phone for over seven hours while in the White House in the midst of an attempted insurrection, the goal of which was to unlawfully overturn the result of the democratic election removing him from power."
"But her e-mails."
1. She's testifying to conversations in which *she* participated. That's not hearsay.
2. Party admissions are an exception to hearsay.
3. She's testifying under oath and under penalty of perjury; you're just whining under neither.
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It’s literally all hearsay evidence. What a joke.
I look forward to hearing the same folks who have been insisting that teachers just can’t be trusted to decide how/what to teach their students now argue that the solution to school shootings is for those same teachers to be armed.
Three huge differences between a 50-50 and 51-49 D majority:
1) Having a majority on each Committee versus power sharing/deadlocks requiring discharge petitions;
2) No single D Senator can hijack/block nominations; and
3) Ds can have *two* members absent and still hold votes.
The D.C. National Guard is not controlled by the Mayor; it’s controlled by the President.
The lack of a military response right now is a failure by the *federal* government to respond to an assault on one of its most important institutions engaging in its most important duty.
“The American people should have a voice in the selection of their next Supreme Court Justice. Therefore, this vacancy should not be filled until we have a new president.”
— Mitch McConnell, March 2016.
Musk has the right to suspend whichever account he wants to suspend — including this one.
But his behavior should conclusively put to rest the tiresome canard that he’s pro-“free speech.”
He isn’t.
He’s pro-free-speech-he-supports — and nothing more.
It's almost like "LIBERATE MICHIGAN" was a dangerously indefensible message for the President of the United States to send...
If President Trump loses the election on November 3, he’s going to be a lame duck—with the full powers of the office—for 11 full weeks.
Even for those—like me—who think that the alternative would be worse, it’s still scary to think about just how ugly those 11 weeks could be...
By insisting that his lawyers argue to the Senate that the election really *was* “stolen,” Trump isn’t just refusing to contest the *actual* ground on which he was impeached (that he incited the violence on January 6); he’s effectively arguing that the violence was *justified.*
I can’t believe this needs to be said out loud, but the Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee calling the Chief Justice personally and asking him to “look into” how a lower federal court handled a series of cases is so wildly inappropriate as to almost defy description.
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! Lindsey Graham says he will call Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts and ask him to look into the use of the FISA court in the 2016 election.
He said he wants to preserve FISA and right now "Trump is down on FISA" because he thinks it was used to spy on his campaign.
Stop calling them “alternate” electors. It’s not like Hawaii in 1960 when two slates were duly certified.
These were random-ass people who met in a room and declared themselves to be something they weren’t, then fraudulently tried to get counted as representing what they didn’t.
Senate Republicans: It's not our job to hear any evidence as part of an impeachment trial.
Also Senate Republicans: It's 100% our job to introduce our own evidence to second-guess slates of electors that were duly certified by the states.
In case you’re wondering why none of these Trump lawsuits are going to go anywhere:
Rudy will soon be appealing all of these adverse rulings to the Supreme Courtyard by Marriott.
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Breaking News: President Trump is said to have put his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in charge of campaign lawsuits related to the outcome of the election. nyti.ms/2UrLzre
A lot of folks are probably reacting to Kanye with a shrug — it’s just Kanye; it’s not like he’s in a position to act on his anti-Semitism; etc.
Don’t. His behavior isn’t harmless. Normalizing hate moves the Overton window on what’s acceptable for people under far less scrutiny.
The eeriest thing to me about the federal government’s response to Wednesday is the silence.
A lot’s happening on the ground—investigations; arrests; charges. But no press briefings from DOJ; FBI; DoD; DHS; Capitol Police; or any other relevant agency.
The silence is deafening.
Ted Cruz is many things, but he’s not oblivious enough (and even if he is, his *staff* certainly isn’t) to think that no one would notice him on a commercial flight to Cancun or in the airport on either end.
And he went *anyway.* That, to me, is the truly revealing piece here.
Just a reminder that 147 different Republican members of Congress voted on January 6 to reject duly certified Biden electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania — even though there was no dueling slate of electors from either state and no viable evidence of fraud. This is on them, too.
Dear :
Until you admit that you've had a massive conflict of interest in bashing the Cohen searches and trying to discredit the warrants that gave rise to them, I don't think you get to criticize other people for having a potential conflict of interest.
Ever.
Just when you thought the President of the United States couldn’t sink any lower on Twitter, there’s his Saturday night retweets of offensive material the amplification of which should be disqualifying for candidates for any public office—let alone the highest office in the land.
Note the date: November 10 was two days after Election Day and the day after the *media* (and not the states or the courts) called the election for Trump and Pence.
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I just met with @VP-elect Pence at the @WhiteHouse to offer our support for a smooth, seamless transition of power: go.wh.gov/Gi53Jr
It’s almost like we should prioritize electing state officials who actually show some interest in *governing,* rather than just fighting culture wars that do nothing to help keep the lights on...
As increasingly troubling and alarming as ’s behavior has become in recent days (which sure is saying something), what’s far, far scarier is the absence of _any_ voice of authority from within his own party condemning it—to say nothing of doing something about it.
We said he’d abuse his power to protect his own interests; you called us “deranged.”
We said he’d make us weaker; you called us “paranoid.”
We said he’d subvert our democracy; you called us “unhinged.”
We warned you that this would happen; you enabled him—and called us names.
The “hardest working President in history” has sent 36 tweets so far today—zero of which were about how we’re going to recover from this pandemic or memorialize the > 55,000 Americans who‘ve died.
He is a disgrace—to the office he holds and the country he purportedly represents.
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The people that know me and know the history of our Country say that I am the hardest working President in history. I don’t know about that, but I am a hard worker and have probably gotten more done in the first 3 1/2 years than any President in history. The Fake News hates it!
We’re going to be hearing a lot from Republicans who’ve spent the last 3.5 years enabling all of Trump’s worst behavior now claiming that they “broke from him,” that they “quietly stood up to him,” or that they didn’t *really* support him in private.
All I can say is, bollocks.
Pennsylvania has filed its response in #SCOTUS to Texas's overturn-the-election suit.
It does not mince words:
supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/22/2
It's worth not losing sight of the fact that the Attorney General of the United States out-and-out *lied* in a written statement—and in a context in which there could have been little question to him that Berman would publicly call him out for doing so.
And he did it anyway.
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Some SDNY news... the U.S. Attorney for N.J. is taking over SDNY on an acting basis as Geoffrey Berman steps down.
One day, someone will figure out what happened to Lindsey Graham.
The problem with the coup attempt (and Republicans’ refusal to denounce it) is not that it’s going to *succeed* this time; it’s that it’s going to normalize all kinds of anti-democratic behavior that will make it easier to pull off in the future — especially in a closer election.
"It's really annoying that we're not hearing anything new in this impeachment trial," they say less than one day after voting to ... not hear anything new in this impeachment trial.
Pulling a bunch of threads together, the fact that the search warrant was based on §§ 793, 1519, and 2071, but *not* 1924, suggests that DOJ was worried about affirmative *misuse* of materials in President Trump’s possession — and not just that he was wrongfully *retaining* them.
So much for the hope that Judge Cannon was bending over backwards to look like she was accommodating Trump. This is twisting the law into a pretzel in ways that are as unsupported in precedent as they are unlikely to be followed in any future cases. Just a sad day for the courts.
In less than a day, the number-two House Republican and one of the President's closest advisors have separately tweeted different doctored videos trying to make look bad.
Such misconduct is inexcusable. But it's also telling, for if you have to *doctor* the videos...
To me, the most alarming tidbit in the ' story isn't the $750 bill or the dubious refund; it's that a President running for re-election would be on the hook for upwards of $421 million in loans during his second term. It's not hard to imagine the incentives that'd create.
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He is personally responsible for loans and other debts totaling $421 million, with most of it coming due within four years. Should he win, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of whether to foreclose on a sitting president.
nytimes.com/interactive/20
Today is day 470 without a Senate-confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security.
There has *never* been a longer vacancy in *any* Cabinet position.
And there hasn't even been a nominee at any point during that time—even though the President's party controls the Senate.
That's nuts.
Imagine if this headline read: “Over 97% of active-duty servicemembers have been fully vaccinated.”
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Vaccine holdouts in U.S. military approach 40,000 even as omicron variant fuels call for boosters wapo.st/3DT5fZu
When Congress reassembles:
1. Republicans should immediately withdraw their remaining objections and allow for expeditious certification of Biden's victory.
2. The House should immediately proceed to vote on Articles of Impeachment against President Trump.
In that order.
I got an e-mail today from a county official in Texas who had some choice words about my analysis of the Texas #SCOTUS case and my responsibility as a law professor to fairly present "both sides."
I hope he enjoys reading my 1,336-word reply half as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Portland:
A federal official who may not have been lawfully appointed is using camouflaged, anonymous officers who aren't trained for domestic policing under a statute that doesn't authorize shows of force to arrest protestors under a standard that violates the Fourth Amendment.
In 2000, Florida — the winner of which would win the *entire election* — was separated by 537 votes.
Biden’s *smallest* lead right now is more than *10,000* votes in Georgia — a state he doesn’t need to win.
Neither these recounts nor these lawsuits are going to go anywhere.
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Election Day was November 7 in the year 2000. The Supreme Court issued its opinion in Bush v. Gore on December 12, resolving the legal challenges.
It took 36 days for the process to resolve one issue in one state.
We are on day 5 with issues in at least 5 states.
Buckle up.
Imagine thinking that the problem with that call is that it was (lawfully) recorded.
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Imagine calling yourself a “Republican” and secretly & maliciously recording a call with the leader of your party & President of the United States THEN leaking it to The Washington Post
Georgia’s Brad Raffensburger is a total disgrace and he should immediately resign in shame
The United States of America has no legal authority to designate *any* domestic entities as “terrorist organizations.”
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The United States of America will be designating ANTIFA as a Terrorist Organization.
The problem with the “Trump declassified everything by unwritten fiat” argument is not just the absence of any contemporaneous evidence that it happened; it’s that, if presidents had that kind of power, Biden could just reclassify everything Trump declassified in one fell swoop.
Imagine if these texts had been in the record of Trump’s second impeachment trial…
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—@Liz_Cheney reads texts sent by Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Brian Kilmeade, and Donald Trump Jr. to Mark Meadows during the insurrection, imploring him to get Trump to do something.
The Woodward tapes and the DHS whistleblower complaint might each have been enough *on their own* to sink any prior incumbent two months before an election.
But for Donald Trump's Republican Party, it's just another day that ends in "y."
I'm angry—but also just very, very sad.
Just had to close my DMs because of all of the people who decided to come tell me that I have no idea what I'm talking about with respect to ... the areas of law that I've been writing about and teaching for 15 years.
“The bombing of Pearl Harbor took place during the Roosevelt Administration. Heck—I wasn’t even Vice President then. So I see no need to continue this war with Japan. Blame that Roosevelt guy.”
— Harry S Truman, never.
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The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?
If you supported or participated in efforts to challenge Biden’s clear electoral college victory either in the courts or in Congress (or both), I really don’t think you get to lecture those supporting Trump’s removal because you think that it would “divide the country.”
Just a reminder that, before today, only one Senator had ever voted to convict a President from his own party (Romney, 374 days ago).
Progression:
1. Nothing happened.
2. Nothing bad happened.
3. Nothing illegal happened.
4. The Constitution protects the President even if something illegal happened.
5. The Constitution is wrong.
What's next?
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Dersh: "The President wasn't wrong when he said he wants his Attorney General to be loyal. It's the constitution that's wrong for allowing that kind of division to occur."
Never in my life did I think that I’d see elected officials in the United States acting in such nakedly, indefensibly anti-democratic ways — and blatantly lying about why.
It’s not going to matter, but this is insane — and anyone not condemning this nonsense is complicit in it.
This isn't anywhere near the most important point, but it's *fascinating* to me that neither Acting Secretary Miller nor Chairman Milley seemed to have raised any hackles about taking instructions from Vice President Pence — who's not *anywhere* in the chain of command...
AP FACT CHECK: Germany’s invasion of Poland is one reason why World War II began. But Poland’s refusal to accept occupation and annexation is another.
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AP FACT CHECK: Democrats put the blame for the shutdown on Trump. But it takes two to tango. Trump's demand for $5.7 billion for his border wall is one reason for the budget impasse. The Democrats refusal to approve the money is another. apne.ws/Ar1Kxzw
I’m old enough to remember when John McCain literally took the microphone away from a supporter at a 2008 campaign rally after she called “an Arab.”
How far we’ve fallen...
I get the dunking on . But I’m just angry. Angry about his refusal to respect the voters (72% favor school mask mandates). Angry about the terrible position in which he’s left parents/schools. Angry about “freedom” meaning only *some* people get to make choices. Angry.
No state has ever been represented by two Black Senators at the same time.
It sure would be something if *South Carolina* becomes the first...
“In a fiery speech, Hitler made the case that the Sudetenland was by history and makeup an integral part of Germany.”
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In a fiery speech, President Vladimir Putin made the case that Ukraine is by history and makeup an integral part of Russia.
nyti.ms/3LPCZvS
The insurrectionists were attempting to kill the first and second people in line to succeed the President and to prevent Congress from certifying the President’s electoral defeat.
Sorry Republicans, but we’re not “moving on” from this anytime soon.
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BREAKING: Feds arrest Cleveland Meredith for his role in the US Capitol chaos. Investigators allege Meredith texted others that he would be "putting a bullet" in Speaker Nancy Pelosi's head
Dear Texas State Government:
I know you’re busy trying to throw out other states’ election results, force the Biden administration to deport people, and overturn the Affordable Care Act. But if you have a minute, you might consider regulating the energy industry in *your* state.
Judge Jackson has 8.9 years of prior judicial experience. That’s more than four current Justices (Thomas, Roberts, Kagan, & Barrett) had *combined.*
It's also more than 4 of the last 10 Justices had at their confirmations; 9 of the last 17; and 43 of the 58 appointed since 1900:
Dear Republicans:
Your party is now actively supporting the leader of your party’s efforts to subvert the result of a democratic election removing him from power.
Silence at this point, or “faith in the judicial process,” or similar pablum is no longer neutral; it’s complicity.
138 House Republicans — 65.4% of the GOP caucus — voted to disenfranchise Pennsylvania notwithstanding what happened on Wednesday.
The fact that *no* U.S. President attended any of the seven coronations since 1789 tells you everything you need to know about the right-wing outrage machine.
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Biden planning to snub the coronation of King Charles III tells you everything you need to know about how one of the worst presidents in modern history feels about the United Kingdom.
Shame on him.
Readers added context
“No US president in history has attended the Coronation of the British monarch. However, the Telegraph reports that Biden plans to send a representative for the occasion, either his wife Jill Biden or vice president Kamala Harris.”
deadline.com/2023/04/joe-bi…
For those preposterously arguing that Republicans are just doing what Democrats have done in the past, I must've missed when John Kerry in 2004 got on the phone to try to threaten state officials into "finding" votes for him, or when President Obama did that for Hillary in 2016.
I know I'm a broken record on this, but one more time:
The entire reason why the Constitution's Founders wrote a narrow and specific definition of treason into Article III was to prevent those in power from using it to attack their political opponents.
nbcnews.com/think/opinion/
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I never thought I’d see the day when influential voices of one of America’s major political parties would actively celebrate an indefensible—and unlawful—act of aggression by an authoritarian strongman against one of the United States’ *democratic* partners.
There’s no bottom.
Article II of the Constitution gives the President the power to adjourn Congress if—and only if—the House and Senate cannot agree on a date for ending the current session.
But they have agreed—January 3, 2021.
There’s a reason why this power has *never* been exercised before.
I really shouldn't have taken "one last look" at Twitter at 10:10 p.m. tonight before going to bed...
Don't be distracted by claims of "hearsay." That goes to whether evidence can be admitted in *court,* not Congress.
The key is that Hutchinson testified *under oath.* If she was lying, she faces felony charges. The same can't be said for those trying to discredit her testimony.
Legal action in the form of ... what, exactly?
Governors have the power under their state constitutions to take these measures, and the federal Executive Branch doesn’t have the power to stop them.
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US Attorney General says he’s considering legal action against governors who continue to impose stringent rules to deal with the pandemic. bloomberg.com/news/articles/
#BREAKING: #SCOTUS throws out Texas's suit attempting to challenge presidential election results in four battleground states, granting Texas leave to file its complaint but summarily dismissing its suit for lack of standing:
supremecourt.gov/orders/courtor
There are going to be some ... interesting ... motions filed in a bunch of criminal cases in S.D.N.Y. between now and Monday morning...
No provision of the Uniform Code of Military Justice subjects a servicemember to discipline for complying with a congressional subpoena.
There _is_, however, a statute (10 U.S.C. § 1034) protecting a servicemember’s right to communicate with Congress—and barring retaliation.
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Trump says the military should look at disciplinary action against Lt. Col. Vindman, who gave testimony in impeachment hearings about the president
The problem with this fraud nonsense—and Republicans’ refusal to denounce it—is not that it’s going to *succeed* this time; it’s that it’s going to normalize all kinds of anti-democratic behavior that will make it more likely to work in the future, especially in a close election.
I’m not exactly sure that you really want to be helping to set a precedent in which former Presidents can and should be called to testify before Congress under oath...
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If I were a Senator or Congressman, the first person I would call to testify about the biggest political crime and scandal in the history of the USA, by FAR, is former President Obama. He knew EVERYTHING. Do it @LindseyGrahamSC, just do it. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more talk!
A highly regarded reporter (@TexasTribAbby) from the highly regarded reached out to the Texas Republican Party for a comment on yesterday’s bus incident along I-35.
Their response is ... something:
It's too bad that that the U.S. Attorney's Manual doesn't have an entire section devoted to how the government should conduct duly obtained search warrants of attorneys' offices to ensure that the search protects all relevant privileges.
Oh wait—it does:
justice.gov/usam/usam-9-13
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If by raiding the office of @realDonaldTrump’s attorney, the @fbi violated Trump’s attorney-client privilege, this is about to get really ugly.
The Attorney General of the United States testified today that there’s no such thing as peaceful resistance of law enforcement.
There’s a lot going on, but we ought not to lose sight of how incredibly offensive a statement that is from the nation’s chief law enforcement officer.
Romney and Sasse should publicly commit to caucusing with the Democrats going forward if a single Republican Senator joins an electoral challenge on Wednesday.
What’s happening in Detroit isn’t going to change the election outcome, but it still matters a great deal. Republicans are trying to prevent hundreds of thousands of lawful votes from being counted based on nothing more than normal variations.
That’s not democracy — it’s a coup.
Just a reminder that the President of the United States fired the head of the federal agency responsible for the government's (civilian) cybersecurity last month for having the temerity to tell the truth about the election — and hasn't replaced him. twitter.com/Bing_Chris/sta
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He interfered in the Gallagher case to protect an accused war criminal; he retaliated against the Vindmans for telling the truth; he exerted undue influence over Bergdahl’s prosecution.
It’s *long* been clear that Trump has no respect for the military—except as a political prop.
If you’re calling on the Justice Department to publicly discuss — and defend — an ongoing criminal investigation, but not calling on former President Trump to publicly disclose a copy of the search warrant, you’re telling on yourself.
It’s stunning how casually folks are reducing the flaws of Trump’s presidency to his “mean tweets.”
It’s like the insurrection, the impeachments, the botched COVID response, the foreign policy fiascos, the corruption, and the general incompetence at governing all never happened.
Greg Abbott has been the Governor of Texas since January 20, 2015.
Over/under 12 hours before Trump starts publicly criticizing/attacking Judge Dearie.
I’m taking the under.