While some legal experts have insisted such concealment is clearly a criminal matter that must be charged, they were conspicuously silent when Hillary Clinton faced a campaign concealment allegation...thehill.com/opinion/judici…
...Last year, the FEC fined the Clinton campaign for funding the Steele dossier as a legal expense. The campaign had previously denied funding the dossier and buried the funding in the campaign’s legal budget. jonathanturley.org/2022/03/31/fec…
...Here Trump is accused of hiding what was really a campaign election donation at a legal cost. However, Bragg will need to show that he did not have other obvious motives such as avoiding a scandal as a celebrity.
...In the Clinton case, the issue was not the use of personal funds as a donation. However, the campaign insisted that funding this effort was a legal matter -- a view clearly rejected by the FEC.
...I did not view the dishonesty of the Clinton campaign to be a criminal matter. However, defining such payments as election rather than personal or legal matter has long been a point of contention, including in the failed prosecution of John Edwards. jonathanturley.org/2018/02/18/doe…
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Edwin Kneedler is arguing for the United States. The Biden Administration wants a remand for further findings. Kneedler is arguing that the record is insufficient for an eighth amendment claim...
...Gorsuch just told Kneedler "don't mess with my hypothetical" as he pressed the Administration's confusing position in the case. Gorsuch pushed Kneedler into extreme positions. The Gorsuch hypotheticals are famously precarious for counsel and this shows why...
...He reduced the government's position to "the alcoholic has an eight amendment right even though there is a bed available" under one of his hypotheticals.
The fact that Bragg is starting with David Pecker to discuss an affair not directly involved in the alleged crimes is telling. With a dubious criminal theory, defuse facts, and delayed charges, the case will focus on a different alleged affair and hush money payment...
.....It is reminiscent of the old story about a man who comes upon another man in the dark looking for his wedding ring. Sympathetic, the man joined the stranger on his knees and looked for almost an hour until he asked if the man was sure that he dropped it here. “Oh, no,” the stranger admitted, “I lost it across the street but the light is better here.”
...Justice Kagan is hitting counsel hard on whether you can criminalize being homeless. Kagan is being very active in questioning to box the city into a corner that it is inherently arguing that it could criminalize being homeless...
The District Attorney has told the court that it will not release the names of expected witnesses due to the alleged violation of the gag order by the former president. Judge Merchan did not order them to do so...
...The defense is aware of the potential witnesses but not necessarily the order. Courts allow prosecutors to hold that information to the very last minute. However, there was a troubling aspect about Bragg's position...
...Bragg is saying that he may have given the names but will not do so due to the alleged violations. The court should have been clear that any witness who may be called in the next 24 hours or so must be disclosed. That is not one of the sanctions for a violation of the order...
...Justice Sotomayor was quick out of the gate to pursue a tough line of questioning for the defense counsel on why the broader meaning is warranted...
...Justice Barrett continued the tough questioning by asking if the defendant can still be convicted for seeking obstructing by seeking to stop the certificates themselves. In this way, the Court could adopt a narrower meaning but still allow for possible prosecution...
Just when you thought higher education could not be more bizarre . . . Students are accusing Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky's wife, law professor Catherine Fisk, of assault after students refused to leave a dinner at their home and staged a protest...
...Both Fisk and Chemerinsky were objecting that this is their home as Fisk sought to grab the microphone from one of the protesters. ...
...Ironically, I have my students over to my house each term and often use the class party in my torts discussion on trespass. I explore the legal ramifications of what would happen if one of them just refused to leave. Erwin just supplied next year's example though at a ridiculous cost to him and his wife.
...I have previously criticized the Disney litigation as short-sighted and costly for the company. The costs of Disney's political agenda were magnified by its ill-considering litigation efforts. ...jonathanturley.org/2023/11/27/hap…
...The shareholders should have answers on what was achieved by this stubborn and confrontational campaign against Florida. Some of us said at the outset that it would lose in this effort and lacked a winning strategy. It seemed more cathartic than strategic...