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…
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Hallie Biden has just been named as the third Biden who received money from Chinese interests in the initial "suspicious activity reports." The inclusion of Hallie with Hunter and James Biden reaffirm the view of a family influence peddling enterprise... jonathanturley.org/2022/11/10/was…
...Apologists are already objecting that influence peddling is perfectly legal. Indeed, it is a virtual cottage industry in D.C. However, it is also a raw form of corruption that is being largely ignored by the media...
...Moreover, the steps used to carry out influence peddling or to hide its proceeds can be crimes. The Biden family business has long been influence peddling and the extent of these transactions is breathtaking.
Ranking member Plaskett is attacking the witnesses in today's Twitter Files hearing. It is part of an overall scorched Earth strategy against anyone who testifies on censorship The two witnesses were given access to the Twitter Files but Plaskett is dismissing them.
...While opposing any effort to determine the scope of censorship efforts by the government. Plaskett is launching a diatribe against Musk. He is getting off light. At my hearing, witnesses were called "Putin lovers" and insurrectionists sympathizers. jonathanturley.org/2023/02/12/is-…
...Plaskett has now denounced the two witnesses as a direct threat to others who disagree with them. It is breathtaking in the level of abuse being directed at witnesses seeking to disclose government censorship.
The second case is before the Court and Roberts is pressing Prelogar on why the two students are not injured and whether, if the program is struck down, it could help them with a rewrite of the program.
...Gorsuch agreed with Prelogar and hit the use of the universal vacatur by the lower court. Eventually, with some audible laughter, the Chief Justice and others noted that this was an argument outside of the merits.
...Gorsuch was taking a peevish dig at this colleagues who have supported such injunctive relief.
Solicitor General Prelogar is doing (as usual) an excellent job in oral argument on the Biden loan forgiveness. However, she is facing considerable skepticism from Chief Justice Roberts that this was ever intended by Congress...
...Roberts is a key vote for the Biden Administration. Even Justice Sotomayor has noted that the size of the giveaway would seem to favor the Court looking at it as "major question", triggering the major question doctrine...
...Prelogar is fighting hard to avoid that framing because it would require greater clarity on the use of the HEROES Act for this type of massive giveaway.
In anticipation of today's arguments on the Biden loan bailout, CNN reporter Devan Cole questioned the role of a Court composed of "nine relatively wealthy people" who "didn’t live the experiences of the people that benefit from the president’s debt relief program"...
...I suppose that is why we should insist on courts composed of lumberjacks to rule on forestry regulations and death row inmates to rule on capital punishment cases...
...The premise of the CNN coverage is that the standing and statutory issues would be treated differently due to the life experiences of justices. Statutory interpretations are supposed to be based on the legislative intent of Congress, not the personal experiences of a justice.
The decision stop funding of the GDI is laudable, but many questions remain on efforts to combat "disinformation." jonathanturley.org/2023/02/20/the… We are engaged in a game of Whac-a-Mole with the Administration where we hit a disinformation board and a disinformation index pops up.
...NED insists that they were not directed to fund the Index and had other donors but it is unclear if the Administration was informed of the grant. It is also unclear whether federal money went to other disinformation efforts...
...We still know little of these details. While Democrats are opposing investigations into these programs on censorship efforts, we need greater transparency on the full range of government efforts targeting speech from the FBI efforts to grants through groups like NED.