In a new post, @JonathanTurley singles out two of my tweets as proof of the "unhinged interpretations" of the Constitution and federal law that have become common among the President's critics. Unfortunately, he mischaracterizes what I said along the way. A short #thread on how:
Turley's first objection is to the third point in this tweet. He claims I wrote that the suggestion in Trump's tweet *itself* is unconstitutional—even though all I said was that Trump had "threaten[ed] *action* that would itself be unconstitutional."
That's a pretty big distinction. Withholding federal funds in retaliation for a specific electoral practice *would,* in my view, be unconstitutional. That hasn't happened yet—hence my focus on action that *would* be unconstitutional. But that nuance seems to be lost on Turley.
Turley doubles down in going after a second tweet of mine, which he describes as arguing that Trump's "tweet was not just unconstitutional but illegal." Again, I think it's clear I was describing the proposed *withholding of funds,* not the tweet itself.
This may seem like semantics, but Turley's bottom-line is that folks like me are seeking to criminalize the President's *speech*, and will reap the consequences in a future administration. I don't think either of the tweets I sent can fairly be read as supporting his claim.
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