For Law Day (today!), I urged on @just_security "a vision of law that’s about not just skill but also virtue," & I shared concerns about what's missing in the Trump era.
"Kennedy knew it all was fundamentally wrong. Still, he chose to go along, hoping someone else would do the right thing. He made that choice despite knowing he’d soon be stepping down from the court, with this his last chance to do the right thing." /2 justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
"There were lawyers inside the White House who tried to bury the smoking gun record of Trump’s phone call with Ukraine’s president on a server typically reserved for the most highly classified documents." /3 justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
"There were lawyers inside DOJ who tried to bury the whistleblower complaint sparked by that call even though the IC's inspector general had deemed the complaint both 'credible' & 'urgent' &, in turn, required by federal law to be shared with Congress." /4 justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
"There were lawyers inside the White House who declared war on impeachment & refused to share any materials or make available any witnesses as the House exercised a power to consider impeachment explicitly assigned to it in the Constitution." /5 justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
"These incidents, in which legal positions yield unjust results, should concern us this Law Day. In each of these cases, the challenges to the rule of law have been compounded by other lawyers making similarly regrettable choices." /6 justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
"This Law Day, let’s of course cheer the many lawyers fighting for the rule of law in the United States & beyond. But let’s also make clear that the majesty of law is not merely a matter of skill—it’s also a matter of virtue." /END justsecurity.org/69971/law-day-…
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The Justice Department just filed its response to the lawsuit filed by Gohmert & more trying to force Pence to declare Trump the winner at the joint session of Congress on 1/6.
DOJ—the same DOJ that reports to Trump—says the lawsuit should be tossed out of court.
DOJ is right.
DOJ says any conceivable claims should’ve been brought against the House & Senate, not the VP.
That’s not just a technical point. It’s a huge (if obvious) acknowledgement that the VP doesn’t have substantive authority to reject slates of electors on 1/6–the suit’s key claim.
My @GeorgetownICAP colleagues & I, alongside @MikeSigner & more, sued the unlawful militias that had contributed to violence in Charlottesville exactly 2 months earlier.
A few months after filing our Charlottesville suit, we at @GeorgetownICAP published a catalogue of state laws that prevent unlawful, unsanctioned private armies.
There's a very short law that's causing a lot of angst right now.
With @bartongellman@FareedZakaria & more talking about 3 USC 2, let's take a look at why an attempt to use it simply to override voters' will would be unlawful. /1
Here's the whole law:
"Whenever any State has held an election for the purpose of choosing electors, and has failed to make a choice on the day prescribed by law, the electors may be appointed on a subsequent day in such a manner as the legislature of such State may direct." /2
The worry is that "Trump can pressure Republican-controlled legislatures to ignore the popular vote in their Democratic-leaning swing state & instead select an Electoral College slate that supports him," as @tribelaw@jentaub & I said in @TheAtlantic. /3 theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Friday marks exactly 1 year since Americans read the 5 words that will forever define the Trump presidency:
"Do us a favor though."
Here's a quick look at how Trump's quid-pro-quo presidency remains alive & (un)well today. /1 nytimes.com/2019/09/25/us/…
"A president who abused the public trust for his personal benefit" defined what got Trump impeached, as @neal_katyal & I said.
"For a president to exploit for private political gain the tools of national power placed in his or her hands" was appalling. /2 nytimes.com/2020/02/05/opi…
But Trump didn't stop there.
Faced with a deadly pandemic, Trump played "states off 1 another for his affection, rewarding the generally Republican (or swing) states whose governors grovel at Trump’s feet."