Thread by @TimInHonolulu

1. There is an early phase in law school where if you can't disregard your personal views and analyze a fact pattern you may not make to 2L. We all want @ejeancarroll to prevail over TFG. And we don't want to be told that the law is not on her side. Let the process go forward.

2. @TheJusticeDept defends the "presidency" not the "president" along with all federal employees who may become a target for defamation litigation if the lower court decision stands. Presidents' power is vast but this law applies equally to a guard standing watch.

3. It a bright line test. The validity of the claim is not relevant. It's the status of the speaker. 2nd Circuit may affirm but the #SCOTUS will make short work of the case. That's my opinion. But that's where the issue should be addressed. In court. Not by ad homonym attacks.

4. I have not read the briefs and the related case law, the slow laborious work of actual litigation. But this statement in the DOJ Reply Brief tells me they will win. Quoted in @washingtonpost. “Courts have thus consistently and repeatedly held that allegedly

5. defamatory statements made in that context are within the scope of elected officials’ employment — including when the statements were prompted by press inquiries about the official’s private life,” the Civil Division lawyers argued, later noting that when White

6. House reporters requested comment on Carroll’s allegations, “their questions were posed to him in his capacity as President.”

As I said, I have not read the briefs nor cases cited but this is consistent with my understanding of this law, noting that the first legal brief I

7. penned in law school as a 1L was on the Federal Tort Claims Act.

We withstood four years of a person allied with our most threatening adversary hell-bent on destroying our very system of governance. People with a bully pulpit should work towards rebuilding the tattered US

8. system and not immediately throw a bucket of gasoline in dumpster left by 45 that is already smoldering.