President Biden seems intent on moving his administration from the odious to the absurd. He just declared that the Equal Right Amendment is ratified: "In keeping with my oath and duty to Constitution and country, I affirm what I believe and what three-fourths of the states have ratified: The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex." ...It is a position based on a long-rejected and frankly ridiculous foundation. It is another curious moment for self-describing champions of democracy...jonathanturley.org/2022/03/11/ame…

The Smith report (part one) is out. At points, the report seems more like a defense than a prosecutorial argument in support of Smith's own decisions. If so, it is a closing argument made long after the jury has left the courthouse... jonathanturley.org/2025/01/13/how… ...Smith insists that political motivations ascribed to him are "laughable" and that he focused on crimes that were "the most flagrant, the public harm the greatest, and the proof the most certain." ...

The report of David Weiss is out. Unlike his highly deferential investigation, the report is hard-hitting and is directed in part against the President. A couple of line are hardly subtle: “Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations."... ...That is precisely the objection that Biden has leveled against Trump. Neither the Weiss nor Smith reports will detail the most pressing questions of how these special counsels undermined their own investigations... jonathanturley.org/2025/01/13/how…

Merchan appears to be making the case in his own defense and insisted that this case is no different from any other case in New York. It is a case being made long after the jury has left the courthouse... ...This is like Dr. Frankenstein telling his creature that he is just like any other man. Stitching together this case from a dead misdemeanor and declined federal charges is anything but ordinary....

The denial of the Supreme Court on the Trump stay played out as expected. Nothing in the effort would have appealed to Chief Justice Roberts. He is the ultimate institutionalist who not only prefers regular order but a minimal role of the Court in political matters... ......There is an overriding preference among appellate judges for the finalizing of cases with sentencing so that the entire case can be reviewed. Justice Amy Coney Barrett also joined the liberal justices in the 5-4 decision...

Judge Merchan just set Trump for a sentencing shortly before his inauguration. As some of us predicted, he is indicating that he will impose an unconditional discharge without jail or probation... ...The sentence will finalize the case and allow for an appeal. However, it would also label the President-elect a convicted felon just before he is sworn into office. It is the final cathartic act for lawfare warriors...

President Biden is offering lessons on what presidents could learn from the late President Carter. He is certainly right about setting the standard for civility and decency, but here is one that Biden missed: Carter did not pardon his brother Billy in a corruption scandal... ...While criminal charges were not brought, there were lingering questions about the $200,000 "loan" from Libya and allegations that he paid back only $1000. There were also allegations of other payments in influence-peddling allegations. Sound familiar?...

The media is still struggling to ignore the corruption of the Biden scandal by insisting that there is no evidence Joe Biden directly received money: ABBY PHILLIP: “I’m still waiting to see the proof of Joe Biden enriching himself. I take his brother and his son, perhaps.”... ...It is not only factually wrong but legally irrelevant. As I stated in my testimony in the Biden impeachment hearing, enriching your family is treated the same under corruption statutes...jonathanturley.org/2023/12/15/the…

Fani Willis was just disqualified by the Georgia Court of Appeals. Trump appears to be running the table in these lawfare cases. It will now be up to another prosecutor as to whether to continue the case... ...The Georgia case did have some viable criminal charges against other defendants for offenses like unlawful access to restricted areas. However, in attempting to bag Trump, she created an absurdly attenuated RICO theory that should not be embraced by the new prosecutor.

As predicted, Judge Merchan has rejected the challenge to the Bragg charges under the recent immunity decision of the Supreme Court. He tossed the challenge entirely but also found that any possible violations would be harmless error. Here is the opinion: nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFs/pre… ...Merchan created layers of findings to ironplate the case for appeal. He ruled that (1) this was entirely unofficial conduct, (2) if it was official conduct, and (3) if it was official and within the protections of the Constitution, it was harmless error ...

The new IG report on January 6th may raise more questions than answers. It confirms that confidential sources did indeed enter the Capitol and restricted areas. The question is whether the presence of these sources were revealed to the defense in the hundreds of prosecutions... ...Moreover, there is a question of why the three sources who entered the Capitol were not charged as part of an operation that the Justice Department described as an effort to "shock and awe" targeting everyone involved on that day...

So now the judge has dismissed the first count on second-degree manslaughter and is allowing the jury to consider the second count after the weekend. This is precisely what Bragg was hoping for in setting up a possible compromise verdict... ...With the Allen charge, the prosecutors hoped to pressure the jury into voting on the low standard of criminal negligence. Outside of New York or a few other cities, this case would likely either have not been brought or would have collapsed quickly before the jury...

The jury just sent a note to the court that it is deadlocked on the first count, the second-degree manslaughter charge. The court will likely now issue an Allen charge to get them to resume deliberations... ...The question is whether the court will instruct the jury to consider the second charge of the criminal negligence charge. The judge expressed doubt over whether, in the absence of a unanimous verdict on the first charge, he could tell them to move on to the second charge...

The Sisyphean effort to spin the President's unethical act into moral triumph continues in Washington. Rep. James Clyburn defended the Biden pardon, insisting that Hunter wouldn’t have been convicted but for the fact that Joe Biden was "the object of a lot of unfair untruths."... ...It is not clear what those "unfair untruths" were given the fact that the President repeatedly lied to the public about his never meeting his son's clients, knowing of the business deals, or any intention to pardon him. Those just seem garden-variety Biden untruths...

The Hill posted my column on the implications of the Biden pardon and how it might not achieve as complete immunity from prosecution as President Joe Biden may have hoped for. What it does achieve is the final and total corruption of the Biden presidency. thehill.com/opinion/white-… ...It is also the final corruption of the media with many responding with the usual uncomfortable shrug despite the litany of lies. It is a measure of what you can call “Biden ethics.” In the curious world of Joe Biden, a lie that no one believes is treated the same as the truth.

Joe Biden: “I hope Americans will understand why a father and a President would come to this decision." Americans may have a more difficult time understanding how a president could repeatedly and adamantly deny that he would issue this pardon when he was running for reelection. ...It is also notably that, after insisting that these cases were politically motivated, Biden also pardoned for ANY crimes that may have been committed " from Jan. 1, 2014 to Dec. 1, 2024...

If Trump wanted to defibrillate the Justice Department, the Matt Gaetz nomination is the 100,000-volt option. The President-elect clearly wants an outsider without cultural or professional ties to DOJ. However, securing confirmation will be a monumental challenge... ...The nomination may have a curious effect on the nomination fights. It will likely draw fire and resources from other nominees. Indeed, other nominees may appear less controversial by comparison. However, it will also serve as a rallying point for a party left in disarray...

The Manhattan case is delayed for a week. My friend Andy McCarthy has suggested that the delay could lead to a suspension for the next term. If so, that would hardly be welcomed by the Trump team. It would be a curious resolution to keep it unresolved... ...The other possibility is that in roughly a week, the court could dismiss the case. That would be warranted in my view. In any case, whatever the ruling, the ability of the Trump team needs to be able to appeal any case that is not dismissed. This case is riddled with reversible errors in my view. The one option that should be rejected, in my view, is suspending during the pendency of the new administration...

Roughly ten minutes ago, the "end of the filibuster" movement suddenly went silent. In the morning, the rights of the minority will suddenly become the cause célèbre of Washington... ...At the same time, the push to expand the Supreme Court fell silent as pundits and politicians embraced the nine-member court as sacrosanct.

Musk appears to have prevailed in the litigation in Philadelphia against Larry Krasner. He will be allowed to continue his promotion to get people to sign petitions to support the first and second amendment rights... ... As I stated earlier, I do not believe that Musk's promotion violates federal law as paying for votes or registrations. Krasner seemed eager to pull Musk into court, but appears to have failed to convince the court. We are awaiting an order.

We are having a repeat from the Biden-Harris campaign in 2020 as Harris refused to say whether she voted for Proposition 36 in California for tougher criminal sentencing. In 2020, Biden refused to say how he felt about court packing before the election... dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1… ...Crime is one of the top issues this election, but Harris insisted that it was too close to the election to make her views known. That rather counterintuitive argument flips the entire point of an election to hash out the positions on major issues...