Law professor, legal analyst, columnist, best-selling author of "The Indispensable Right." https://t.co/HQgpqop7DW
346 subscribers
Dec 17 • 7 tweets • 2 min read
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 ...
Dec 12 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Dec 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Dec 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Dec 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Dec 2 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Dec 2 • 6 tweets • 2 min read
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...
Nov 14 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Nov 12 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Nov 6 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Nov 4 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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.
Nov 4 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Nov 1 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
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."...
Oct 2 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Aug 27 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Aug 27 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
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…
Aug 21 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Jul 29 • 5 tweets • 1 min read
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...
Jul 21 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
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...
Jul 16 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
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"...
Jul 15 • 10 tweets • 2 min read
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...
