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Eric Columbus Profile picture
Eric Columbus
@EricColumbus
Obama appointee at DOJ/DHS. Litigator for @SpeakerPelosi @January6thCmte. Counsel for Senator @JoeBiden. @YankeeStadium 🌭 vendor. Wannabe historian. Dad joker.
9 subscribers
Jun 6 • 29 tweets • 8 min read
As a lawyer who represented the @January6thCmte, including filing an amicus brief at Bannon's trial, I'll be delighted when Bannon serves his sentence for blowing off the Committee. Not popping the champagne yet until Bannon loses his emergency appeals. A thread. 1/ Bannon was convicted of contempt of Congress under 2 U.S.C. 192. 2/ Image
Mar 29 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Ok now I think I get this motion. DA wants to make crystal-clear that Trump cannot attack his family. Gag order, read fairly, encompasses the DA’s family, but not 100% clear. Judge’s daughter discussed just for optics. Here’s a thread, with caveat that I’m out walking my dog. 1/ Judge’s order gags Trump from attacking, among others, “counsel in this case (other than the DA)” and “family members of any counsel.” Does the parenthetical in the first quote extend to the second? Logic says no. And DA wants judge to so say expressly, to protect his family. 2/
Feb 15 • 17 tweets • 6 min read
In its SCOTUS brief in the immunity case, Trump’s team oddly ignored the limited nature of the DC Circuit’s holding—hoping that SCOTUS won’t take an offramp like it did in Trump v. Thompson, a case I worked on for the @January6thCmte. Jack Smith noticed. Let me explain. 1/
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Image 2. The DC Circuit specified that its holding applies only to where "a former President has been indicted on federal criminal charges arising from his alleged conspiracy to overturn federal election results and unlawfully overstay his Presidential term." 2/
cadc.uscourts.gov/internet/opini…

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Jan 6 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
I was working for Congress on January 6, 2021. The night before, my boss, House General Counsel Doug Letter, asked me to be on House floor with him that day. 1/ Image We had spent months preparing for January 6. In the fall of 2020, anticipating that Trump might not accept defeat, we helped prepare for the House’s role in a contested election. 2/
Sep 27, 2023 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
Some folks seem to be misunderstanding yesterday's Trump civil fraud decision. First, the judge did NOT find that Trump tried to defraud anyone or that anyone was in fact defraud. But he determined that that doesn't matter for liability under the New York law in question. 1/ Image In other words, the judge basically said that if you persistently lie about your assets in your financial dealings, you can't continue to do business. Hence he ordered the cancellation and dissolution of the businesses in question. 2/ Image
Aug 24, 2023 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Mug shots of politicians, a thread. The gold standard is former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Confident and smiling without hamming it up. 1/ Image Former Senator and Vice Presidential candidate John Edwards also smiled, but there's something smarmy about the smile (or maybe just about Edwards himself). 2/ Image
Aug 8, 2023 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Kudos to @stevebenen for remembering Trump’s demands that Biden be indicted a month before the 2020 election. Trump 10/7/20 2:04pm: “BIDEN SHOULDN’T BE ALLOWED TO RUN”
Jun 9, 2023 • 28 tweets • 9 min read
Let’s be clear: the legal process itself is very unlikely to stop Trump from becoming President again. Only the voters—or Trump himself—can do that. 🧵1/ For starters, there’s no guarantee that Trump would be convicted of anything before January 20, 2025. The wheels of justice turn slowly! 2/
May 9, 2023 • 29 tweets • 10 min read
At least 26 women have publicly accused Donald Trump of sexual abuse or sexual harassment. Let's review them all, in rough chronological order of when the abuse/harassment allegedly occurred, using this @eliza_relman piece in @BusinessInsider.
businessinsider.com/women-accused-… 1. Jessica Leeds (who testified at the Carroll trial), alleged that Trump reached his hand up her skirt and groped her while seated next to her on a flight in the late 1970s. She further alleged that he ran into her 3 years later and called her the c-word.
businessinsider.com/women-accused-…
Apr 11, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Very quick thread on Bragg's lawsuit against Jordan, based upon my experience representing House committees (under the previous management!) in lawsuits challenging subpoenas. 1/ Courts typically give Congress *very* broad authority to issue subpoenas seeking information on topics "on which legislation can be had." Jim Jordan can *probably* make a plausible argument that his subpoena to Pomerantz falls into this category. 2/
Apr 6, 2023 • 40 tweets • 12 min read
Starting a thread of takes on the @ManhattanDA Trump indictment that are worth reading — pro, anti, and ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Helps me to have them all in one place (in no particular order). Maybe others will also find it useful. 1. @KFAlegal (alum of the Manhattan DA's office) and @NormEisen (longtime lawyer, former Obama admin colleague, @BrookingsGov fellow) praising the indictment.
nytimes.com/2023/04/04/opi…
Mar 31, 2023 • 6 tweets • 6 min read
Some say the Stormy payment is especially bad because Trump deliberately miscategorized the payment to avoid pre-election disclosure. But @JamesSurowiecki says—as some said in 2018—that disclosure wasn't due until post-election. 1/
Is this correct? I don't know for sure. I'm not an FEC expert and I can't find the FEC filing dates from 2016. But remember that the Stormy payment was very late in the campaign -- October 27, just 12 days before the election. 2/
cbsnews.com/news/donald-tr…
Mar 21, 2023 • 13 tweets • 3 min read
Leaving aside other issues for now, I have serious concerns about indicting Trump over the Stormy payments if—and it's a big if—there's nothing here that wasn’t known in 2018. Trump could have been indicted for this the day he left office. Why indict him now, 26 months later? 1/ Some claim that “the rule of law” demands that Trump be prosecuted for this. But the rule of law includes the concept of prosecutorial discretion: that prosecutors can and should refrain from prosecuting every criminal act. 2/
Feb 17, 2023 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
This thoughtful thread by @judgeluttig regarding Pence's alleged legislative immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause is worth reading. But I disagree with the points he makes in his last two tweets. 1/ Contrary to @judgeluttig's conclusions here, courts have *not* interpreted legislative immunity under the Speech or Debate Clause to "yield to the demands of criminal process." In this sense, legislative immunity, where it applies, is more powerful then executive privilege. 2/
Jan 12, 2023 • 28 tweets • 9 min read
Last week, with the change in House control, I left a great job. I was Special Litigation Counsel in the House Office of General Counsel, litigating on behalf of Congressional committees and @SpeakerPelosi, and handling special projects. A long, self-indulgent thread follows. 1/ We fought at every level of the federal courts to defend House efforts to hold Trump accountable, both during and after his presidency. And we battled efforts by members of the House minority to impede @SpeakerPelosi’s stewardship of the House. 2/
Dec 29, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
George Santos is the most high-profile Black Jewish Republican since Sammy Davis Jr. When Santos' other lies were exposed, he scrubbed from his campaign website a reference to his father's "Angolan roots."
gothamist.com/news/george-sa…
Jun 27, 2021 • 6 tweets • 3 min read
Ahem.

theatlantic.com/politics/archi… Image McConnell is the guy in the old joke who tells his psychiatrist that his brother thinks he’s a chicken but who won’t bring him to see a doctor because he needs the eggs.
May 28, 2021 • 6 tweets • 4 min read
So why did Rand Paul include .140 here? Does he typically include cents-tenths, including where the last digit literally adds nothing? Turns out there's a funny (?) backstory. 1/ As @geoffreyvs noted, Sen. Paul (or his staff) lifted this example from a 2011 report by then-Senator Tom Coburn. This is ancient budgetary history! But wait, it gets better. 2/
Jan 18, 2021 • 46 tweets • 12 min read
46 hours until 46 45 hours left for 45
Feb 11, 2020 • 9 tweets • 7 min read
While Barr hides, JESSIE LIU -- who was US Attorney for DC until 1/31-- will testify on Thursday before @SenateBanking on her nomination for a Treasury post. She should be asked lots of Qs about her last gig -- e.g. why did she quit before confirmation to her new job? 🤔 1/ @SenateBanking To what extent was Liu aware of White House pressure to take specific positions in specific cases? 2/
Jan 10, 2020 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
And there it is. wsj.com/articles/trump… Why would Trump worry about GOP senators and impeachment?
—he wants more than “No” votes: his goal is complete vindication and praise without any “inappropriate but not impeachable” caveats.
—he may fear other shoes dropping
—he’s famously paranoid