Ryan Goodman Profile picture
Aug 3, 2022 6 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Trump White House Counsel Pat Cipollone has no legal leg to stand on.

With news reporting Pat Cipollone is considering invoking executive privilege before grand jury.

PSA: DC Court of Appeals rejected such claims of (incumbent!) Deputy White House Counsel before a grand jury.👇
2. The same goes for Greg Jacob, Pence chief counsel.

DC Court of Appeals - in re Lindsey 1998 - made points that are directly relevant to these Trump White House lawyers.

Most important: A GOVERNMENT lawyer has special duty to expose evidence of potential criminal wrongdoing.
3. What's more, DC Court of Appeals noted the weakness in trying to asserting such privilege WITHIN the executive branch (in contrast to asserting it against Congress).

Case involved DOJ seeking information from WH lawyer before grand jury.
4. This prescient piece by former White House Counsel W. Neil Eggleston drives these points home as well:

"In the grand jury context, it is only more apparent that any assertion of privilege would collapse."

justsecurity.org/82201/the-law-…
5. And yes of course, here the President of the United States has taken a decision not to assert executive privilege.

The attempt for Trump to assert executive privilege over White House documents turned over to Congress was rebuffed by the Supreme Court.

Eggleston again:
6/6. Here's the reporting on Pat Cipollone's considering invoking executive privilege before the grand jury.

@PamelaBrownCNN
cnn.com/2022/08/02/pol…

@KFaulders @Santucci @alex_mallin
abcnews.go.com/US/white-house…

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More from @rgoodlaw

Jul 23
"Under heavy pressure from a federal judge, prosecutors agreed on Thursday to unilaterally withdraw subpoenas issued to New York Times reporters.

... The government called the subpoenas to reporters’ family members a 'mistake.'"

1/
allrisenews.com/p/judge-quashe…
2/ Same day as this:

Trump Administration Drops Subpoena Demanding List of Jews From Penn

nytimes.com/2026/07/23/us/…
3/ Adds to an accumulation of subpoenas withdrawn, rejected by judges and more.

We've kept count of them all here:

justsecurity.org/146665/courts-…
Read 5 tweets
Jul 20
Before "the Iranian attack on Friday that killed two U.S. soldiers and left one service member missing in Jordan, Iran carried out three other strikes ... [that] injured dozens of U.S. service members...

But the Pentagon did not disclose the earlier strikes, nor the casualties." Image
2/ Pentagon Withheld Dozens of U.S. Military Injuries in Iran War

By @EricSchmittNYT

nytimes.com/2026/07/20/us/…
@EricSchmittNYT 3/ "In the past several months, the Trump administration has failed to disclose how the Iran war has drained U.S. supplies of critical, costly weapons, and how Iran retained and rebuilt substantial missile capabilities."
Read 4 tweets
Jul 9
WaPo: @SecRubio, in step with Sebastian Gorka, is tripling down on bad idea.

Trying to enlist foreign states in bogus antifa fight at July 16 ministerial

WaPo: Rubio-Gorka alienating U.S. allies in true counterterrorism efforts

I wrote on threats to American civil liberties⬇️ Image
2/

Rubio Tries to Enlist Other Nations in Antifa Fight, But Some Allies Recoil
washingtonpost.com/national-secur…
(by @nakashimae @John_Hudson @mradamtaylor

Bogus “Antifa” Designations and FBI Warrantless Access to Americans’ Communications
justsecurity.org/136232/antifa-…
@nakashimae @John_Hudson @mradamtaylor 3/ Gorka "has had discussions with colleagues about using foreign terrorism labels for antifa to justify going after Americans ....

A linkage to foreign terrorist groups 'can unlock certain investigative tools,' such as surveillance, said one U.S. counterterrorism official." Image
Read 6 tweets
Jul 8
In this brief video, I put the prosecution of Davey Hearn, former Olympian, in the context of U.S. Attorney Pirro's pattern of abuse of power.

The arraignment (for reflecting pool felony charges) is on Thursday in DC.

1/🧵
2/ Judge Boasberg on Pirro's bid to criminally pursue Federal Reserve Chair:

DOJ "produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual." III. Conclusion A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning. On the other side of the scale, the Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime; indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual. The Court therefore finds that the subpoenas were issued for an improper purpose and will quash them. It will also unseal redacted versions of the Motion to Quash, related briefing...
3/ Magistrate Judge Faruqui:

"Given that there have been an unprecedented number of cases that the U.S. Attorney dismissed in the past ten days ... the Court is left to question if this principle [of DOJ Manual to prosecute only when more likely than not defendant will be found guilty] still applies."Image
Read 4 tweets
Jun 25
"Katie Phang ... brings this action against Todd Blanche ... claiming that he has improperly withheld information and failed to comply with other requirements in violation of the Epstein Act."

"[T]he Court GRANTS Ms. Phang’s motion."

1/🧵 Image
2/ "Ms. Phang identifies five categories of violations of the Epstein Act."

[See 5 in screenshot below.]

"The Attorney General does not respond substantively to any of these arguments."

"Accordingly, Ms. Phang is likely to succeed on the
merits." Image
3/ Corresponding to the five categories, Judge Sullivan states it is "ORDERED that by no later than July 2, 2026, the Attorney General shall" produce the documents or show cause. Image
Read 4 tweets
May 28
🚨Hegseth's Department of War opens up new military campaign in new country: Guatemala

Stephen Miller holds bimonthly "body counts" meetings

Great reporting by Maria Abi-Habib (@Abihabib) and Eric Schmitt (@EricSchmittNYT)
1/🧵 Image
2/ "Guatemala has agreed to carry out joint strikes with the United States military inside its territory to target drug trafficking groups"

President Arévalo "agreed to both airstrikes and other military action in a call with" Hegseth.

Gift link: nytimes.com/2026/05/28/wor…
3/ "Mr. Miller chairs a bimonthly meeting — called a 'wins' meeting — at which various government agencies report on recent successes, with the Pentagon’s death toll from boat strikes regularly highlighted as one of the biggest."
Read 6 tweets

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