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...

DA Mike Mancuso has confirmed that suspicious registrations have been traced to "Field and Media Corps” of Fieldcorps. facebook.com/MikeMancusoDis… Fieldscorps is reportedly linked to Democratic campaigns, though this is a developing story. wgal.com/article/pennsy… ...Local media reported that the company's "website listed a number of Democratic campaigns as clients including Biden-Harris, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Arizona Democrats."...

Judge Chutkin, as expected, has ordered the release of the Smith filing weeks before the election. Smith fought unsuccessfully to try Trump before the election but has now been allowed to release this scathing report. ...Smith was clearly eager to get this out before the public despite Justice Department policies that encourage prosecutors to avoid acts that would be viewed as trying to influence an election...

Here is the new indictment of former President Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith, which is to indictments what shrinkflation is to products -- same package just less content...
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.usco… ...Smith simply re-indicted on same four criminal counts with less evidence. He removed factual claims that clearly would trip the wire on the recent presidential immunity ruling of the Supreme Court...

After years to refusing to release documents on censorship, Mark Zuckerberg has finally come clean and admitted that the Biden-Harris Administration pressured Facebook to censor Americans. I discuss that government-corporate alliance in my new book. amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS… ...Zuckerberg's belated admission () that Facebook yielded to the pressure to censor comes after years of concealing such coordination and even a commercial campaign to get the public to embrace censorship. Remember this? shorturl.at/WVlNI
jonathanturley.org/2021/05/03/lea…

The Washington Post is reporting that "the 81-year-old had shown signs of slipping for a long time, but his inner circle worked to conceal his decline." That is a rather curious and belated observation. The Post leaves the obvious implications unstated... ...First, Kamala Harris was part of that "inner circle," something that she is emphasizing on the campaign trial . That would mean that she also concealed his decline but denying it publicly...

President Biden is citing a series of cases with which he disagrees as the basis for seeking to fundamentally change the Court. The message is clear. If the Court ruled as he demanded, it would not have to be changed... ...Biden states that we need to chance the court with "regularity". He appears to be saying that this would be done legislatively. Then why not 8 years or 2 years instead of 18 years? If Congress has that authority, it could the occupants faster than a South Beach time share...

The decision of Joe Biden to withdraw from his reelection bid raises the obvious question of how he can continue as president if he is incapable of running for that office. The Democratic Party seems to have created its own 25th Amendment, but ... ...there remains the "other" 25th Amendment. This is a type of 25th-lite option where you lack capacity to run but not to serve for an office...

The conviction of Sen. Menendez in Washington is monumental. He was one of the untouchables. Despite long being viewed as corrupt, Menendez wielded power with abandon for his own benefit... ...The problem was the defense theory. Menendez tried to convince the jury that this was a "Cuban thing." They clearly viewed it as a "corruption thing"...

The dismissal of the classified documents case is a seismic development. From the beginning of all of these cases, I have said that the Mar-a-Lago case was the greatest threat to the former president. It is now dismissed. ...This was the three-point shot for Trump. The easier basket was the D.C. case despite a far more favorable judge for Jack Smith. That case is inundated with presumptively privileged evidence and challenged charges...

President Biden just referred to "former Trump" but said that he is doing well... ...The address hit the right tone to bring the temperature of the country down. It was the right message at the right time...

Karine Jean-Pierre has the makings of a full riot in the press room as she tries to explain misleading past statements... ...KJP is continuing to read the same two lines over and over again rather than answer if the reports are true that Parkinson's specialists have been consulted with repeatedly...

The exodus continues. Rob Reiner who just dismissed critics of Biden has called for him to step aside while adding "It’s time to stop f***ing around." At this rate, even Commander will looking for a local dog shelter for adoption.
jonathanturley.org/2024/07/07/get… ...The question is how the establishment is planning to thread this needle if it is successful in pushing Biden out. There is the federal election laws governing past contributions but also state laws on changing ballots that must be addressed...

President Biden just refused to take a neurological test and instead repeated his call for people to watch him. The public could do so if he waived his meritless privilege assertions over the Hur videotape... ...The refusal to take a neurological test is troubling and will only reinforce calls for initiating a 25th Amendment process. I have long questioned the necessity or viability of a 25th Amendment effort. It is designed to be difficult and demanding... jonathanturley.org/2024/02/12/can…

We are at the ten minute window. Immunity may come after two other cases, particularly if Chief Justice Roberts is the author. We still have Corner Post (a technical case on when a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act "first accrues") and Moody (content moderation standard for social media)... ...Five minute warning...Buckle up...

I expect that Smith will push for a trial on the remaining counts rather than seek a superseding indictment. The court might allow it. Yet, there still remains the immunity decision for Monday. If the immunity decision is sent back, he may have ample time to seek an superseding indictment given the need for further proceedings... ...Smith has made a trial before the election an overriding priority. The court has pushed to achieve that result. However, they are fast running out of runway and this decision rips the wings off the plane for Smith in my view...

We are within minutes of the release of the new opinions. The Supreme Court has reduced the docket to a roux of huge cases touching on the authority of federal agencies (Loper) to the 2024 election (Trump) to the J6 defendants (Fischer) to the right to be homeless (City of Grants Pass)... ...As I mentioned yesterday, we still do not have certainty that all of the decisions will be released today. If they are, Roberts has decided to hold the World Series, the World Cup. and the Super Bowl on the same day...