Category Archives: legal news

legal news, national news, political news

Trump team continues to ‘unify’ Congress

Donald Trump’s effort to “unify” Congress is continuing to produce a bumper harvest.

For instance, the U.S. House Oversight Committee chairman, Republican Jason Chaffetz of Utah, has called for an investigation into senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway’s apparent shilling for Ivanka Trump’s line of clothing. Ranking Democratic committee member Elijah Cummings of Maryland joined Chaffetz in seeking to know whether Conway violated federal ethics laws.

The lawmakers sent a letter to the head of the Office of Government Ethics, Walter Shaub, Jr., suggesting that Conway’s appearance on “Fox and Friends” could have crossed the line that bans federal officials from promoting private business endeavors.

Chaffetz and Cummings have recommended punishment for Conway.

Trump, quite naturally, is standing by Conway, who has told the media that the president is “100 percent behind me.”

Ethics just keep getting in the way.

The president’s myriad business interests — along with those of his grown children — are likely to continue dogging the administration until all of the Trumps decide to divest themselves of all that lucrative activity.

Meanwhile, I will give the president a left-handed compliment. He vowed to “unify” the country. He is keeping that pledge by unifying some of our elected representatives — although clearly not in ways he envisioned.

legal news, State news

Texas AG deserves to stand trial at home

My jaw dropped. My mouth is gaping. I cannot believe what I have just read.

Prosecutors seeking to convict Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is set to stand trial for an alleged securities fraud matter, have asked for a change of venue because they say they cannot get a fair trial in Collin County, a suburban region just north of Dallas.

Why the jaw-drop?

Well, Paxton represented Collin County in the Texas Legislature before he was elected AG in 2014. That’s what made his indictment by a Collin County grand jury all the more remarkable, the way I saw it. This wasn’t a group of liberal activists seeking revenge against a conservative statewide politician. The grand jury was a panel of Paxton’s peers.

Prosecutors need not seek a change of venue, given that a Collin County grand jury brought the charges against Paxton in the first place.

The grand jury indicted Paxton on allegations that he misled investors in a company; the alleged crime occurred before he became attorney general.

I don’t know about you, but I find this allegation of bias against them to be soaked in irony.

As the Texas Tribune reported: “Ken Paxton, like all Texans, has the right to be tried in the County he was charged in,” Paxton lawyer Dan Cogdell said in a statement. “The Special Prosecutors have filed a 60-page pleading trying to thwart that right. That these prosecutors are somehow painting themselves as ‘victims’ of some nonexistent conspiracy is extremely telling.”

I believe the trial court will be able to seat a jury that can determine this case fairly and without bias. Just look at what the grand jury did to bring this case to trial.

The case is set to go to trial on May 1. Let it take place in Collin County.

International news, legal news, national news

Mammoth court fight awaits Trump

Here is where we stand regarding that ill-considered ban on refugees.

It appears headed for the U.S. Supreme Court, thanks to a unanimous ruling this afternoon by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld a lower court’s suspension of Donald Trump’s executive order banning refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

Clear as mud, yes?

The 9th Court ruled 3-0 to uphold the suspension ordered by U.S. District Judge James Robart, whom Trump called a “so-called judge” in criticizing his decision.

What about the politics of the court? Judge Robart is a George W. Bush appointee; the three appellate court judges were picked by Presidents Carter, Bush 43 and Obama. It looks like a bipartisan rejection to me.

Now the highest court stands ready to ponder this controversial executive order. It has a vacancy, meaning that eight justices are on the job. Four conservatives and four liberals. What happens if the Supremes issue a tie vote? The 9th Court ruling stands. Trump’s executive order is negated.

The 9th Court ruling takes aim at the provision in the order that bars people with visas from re-entering the United States, which the judges ruled is unconstitutional.

According to The Associated Press: “The appeals panel said the government presented no evidence to explain the urgent need for the executive order to take effect immediately. The judges noted compelling public interests on both sides.

“‘On the one hand, the public has a powerful interest in national security and in the ability of an elected president to enact policies. And on the other, the public also has an interest in free flow of travel, in avoiding separation of families, and in freedom from discrimination.'”

Trump, of course, responded with a tweet. “SEE YOU IN COURT,” the president said via Twitter.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat, whose state has sued the president over his executive order, responded: “Mr. President, we just saw you in court, and we beat you.”

The fight has just begun.

International news, legal news

9/11 mastermind tells the Mother of all Lies

Khalid Sheik Mohammed blames the United States of America for the terrorist attacks that killed roughly 3,000 innocent victims on Sept. 11, 2001.

Imagine that.

The 9/11 mastermind says it’s our fault.

We are to blame because 19 madmen boarded jetliners and flew them into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon — and struggled with passengers before crashing a third plane into a Pennsylvania field.

Mohammed wrote this fantasy in a length letter to President Barack Obama.

According to the Miami Herald: “‘I will be happy to be alone in my cell to worship Allah the rest of my life and repent to Him all my sins and misdeeds,’ he says in the letter that he wrote at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

“‘And if your court sentences me to death, I will be even happier to meet Allah and the prophets and see my best friends whom you killed unjustly all around the world and to see sheik Osama bin Laden.'”

They’ll both rot in hell.

He said in his letter that U.S. “tyrants” have brought death to the Middle East. The letter had been hidden from the public until just this week.

In truth, Mohammed’s case is another one of those that tests my opposition to capital punishment.

This guy isn’t a U.S. citizen. He’ll go on trial — eventually! — for the plot he concocted and the terrible act of war he committed against this country.

I’d be willing to bet my last dollar that he’ll get a one-way ticket to the death chamber whenever a jury gets around to convicting him.

Yes, I still oppose capital punishment — even for monsters such as this one. When Mohammed checks out of this world, though, I won’t shed a tear.

If only our nation’s judicial system would get busy and dispose of this heinous killer.

legal news

Gorsuch stands up for his judicial peers

I am beginning to think more highly of Neil Gorsuch.

The man whom Donald J. Trump has nominated for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court has put the president on notice, saying that Trump’s tweets about the federal judiciary are “disheartening” and “demoralizing.”

It’s tempting — for me at least — to wonder if Trump is going to withdraw Gorsuch’s nomination because he had the gall (and the integrity) to speak in favor of his federal judicial peers.

Of course Gorsuch is correct. The president’s petulance performance via Twitter has been beyond the pale and below the high standards of respect the presidency should demand.

Trump clearly demands that others respect the office. I submit that he should respect it, too. Perhaps he should respect it more, given that his behavior — or misbehavior — reflects directly on the office to which he was elected.

Trump’s tweets have been in response to a federal judge’s decision to strike down the president’s temporary refugee ban. The president has chosen to demonstrate his anger through this social medium — acting like, oh, a teenager who’s just been told his car isn’t as cool as the other guy’s.

Now a judicial gentleman has taken the president to task.

Good for you, Judge Gorsuch.

legal news

Founders got it right, as Trump is demonstrating

Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison … wherever they are, must be enjoying what they are witnessing in the country they helped create.

They are possibly witnessing a supreme test of checks and balances as they intended for them to be used.

Donald J. Trump, the nation’s 45th president, is setting up a yuuuge fight with the federal judiciary. That would pit two of the three co-equal branches of government against each other.

Trump issued an executive order that bans refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries. He cited national security as his reason. He seemingly wants to ban Muslims from entering the country and is using “extreme vetting” procedures to find the bad guys among the refugees who are fleeing their native lands for the Land of Opportunity and Freedom.

A federal judge has ruled that the executive order is discriminatory on its face. A federal appeals court is considering whether to uphold the ban or side with the judge.

Trump, meanwhile, is embarking on a social media campaign to blast the judge who issued the order staying the president’s order, thus possibly enraging other federal judges — namely the eight individuals who sit on the U.S. Supreme Court who might be asked to issue the final ruling on the president’s order.

Thus, a showdown may be born.

The founders established an “independent judiciary” for the best reason possible: to protect federal judges from political coercion. They serve as judges for life. They are supposed to interpret the U.S. Constitution without pressure or coercion from politicians.

But wait! Trump is seeking to apply that very pressure by badgering the judges. He called the federal jurist who struck down the ban a “so-called judge”; he said the nation should “blame” him and the federal court system if a bad guy sneaks into the nation.

Trump is using Twitter to make his specious case against the federal judiciary.

All the while, the founders are looking down while patting each other on the back. “Yep,” they might say to each other, “this is precisely what we had in mind.”

legal news, national news, political news

Trump vs. The Judges: Pulling for the folks in the robes

Donald J. Trump’s fight with the federal judiciary could be shaping up to be a donnybrook.

The president instituted a temporary restriction on travelers seeking to enter the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries; then U.S. District Judge James Robart in Washington state struck it down, prompting Trump to call Robart a “so-called judge” and said the nation should blame him if a terrorist sneaks into the country and does harm.

There’s more. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing the Trump administration’s appeal and the three-judge panel that heard the case is sounding skeptical of the president’s order.

The plot thickens. If the 9th Court rejects the appeal, then it goes to the U.S. Supreme Court, which at the moment stands at eight members. Suppose, then, that the high court deadlocks — with the four conservative justices voting in favor of the ban and the five liberals oppose it. The lower-court ruling stands.

There’s some chatter now about whether the Supreme Court will be affected in some manner by the untoward things the president has said about the federal judiciary.

Has Trump crossed a serious line? Some scholars believe the president’s Twitter tirades against Robart in particular and the federal bench in general crosses the separation of powers line between the judicial and executive branches of government.

Get a load of this from The Hill:

“The criticism extends beyond judicial scholars.

“Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) warned that Trump’s attacks, if they continue, threaten not only to undermine the separation of powers but also the president’s own policy agenda.

“’We’re a nation of laws and not men, and this idea of ‘follow me because I say so’ is completely at odds with the Founding Fathers’ intent,’ said Sanford, a Trump supporter who has also criticized the president on certain issues.

“’I learned a long time ago in politics [that] attacking the person or the group that will decide your fate on a given issue generally doesn’t work out that well,’ he added.”

This is yet another matter of governance that the brand new president just doesn’t seem to understand.

legal news, national news, political news

Trump draws bead on another federal judge

Let me see a show of hands: Has anyone out there ever seen or heard a president of the United States attack individual members of the federal judiciary?

I didn’t think so. Me neither.

Donald “Smart Person” Trump is setting a new — lower — standard for behavior.

A judge in western Washington state, James Robart, has stopped the president’s ban on refugees from certain countries. The Department of Justice is seeking an injunction against Robart’s ruling. That’s all normal reaction.

What is quite abnormal has been the president’s Twitter tantrum, calling Robart a “so-called judge” and saying if “anything happens” because a criminal sneaked into the country, we should blame the judiciary for it.

You’ll recall how as a candidate for president, Trump took on U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel because of his Mexican heritage. Curiel is presiding over a case involving Trump University. Trump said the judge couldn’t adjudicate the matter fairly because “he’s a Mexican, OK?” Actually, the Indiana-born jurist is as American as Trump.

Trump needs lesson on presidential behavior.

Trump as a candidate behaved disgracefully. Now that he’s president, he is expected to conduct himself with dignity and decorum. He isn’t. Trump continues to launch into these Twitter-borne tirades against a duly appointed federal judge.

Indeed, it is reasonable to question whether the president is trying to coerce another member of a co-equal branch of government into doing his bidding.

I believe such activity — if it’s ever alleged — would be illegal. As in against the very laws the president took a solemn oath to defend and protect.

legal news

Who’s POTUS calling a ‘so-called judge’?

Donald J. Trump, meet your newest nemesis, U.S. District Judge James L. Robart.

The president has called Robart a “so-called judge” because he had the nerve to halt the president’s ban on refugees entering the United States from Muslim-majority countries.

If I might be so brazen, my inclination is to wonder aloud — given Trump’s love of Twitter as his primary attack medium — whether he could be labeled a “so-called president.”

Nah … I won’t go there.

There’s not a damn thing “so-called” about Robart, who was appointed to the federal bench in western Washington state by President George W. Bush.

According to NBC News: “He (Robart) suggested in court that Trump’s 90-day entry ban on people from the countries of Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen was not ‘rationally based,’ since no one from any those countries had been arrested in the U.S. on terrorism-related charges since 9/11.”

There’s more: “‘I’m sorry, there’s no other way to put it,’ Robarts said from the bench. ‘It’s Keystone Cops. It really is. And that’s not just me speaking, that’s Republican members of Congress.'”

The president doesn’t like being criticized by anyone. Not by the media, or political foes or by judges who disagree with his decisions. His mode of response? Twitter! He tweeted: “The opinion of this so-called judge, which essentially takes law-enforcement away from our country, is ridiculous and will be overturned!”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/who-is-the-so-called-judge-trump-rips-over-ruling/ar-AAmCbUO?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Judge Robart is doing what he believes his oath requires him to do, which is to interpret federal law to see if it squares against the U.S. Constitution.

Robart is a Seattle native, he received his undergraduate degree in Walla Walla, Wash., got his law degree at Georgetown and practice law in Seattle from 1973 until 2004, when President Bush tapped for him for the federal bench; the Senate approved his nomination.

There’s nothing “so-called” about this fellow, Mr. President.

Pipe down and let the system play out.

legal news, national news, political news

Catfight over Gorsuch? Wait until the next justice leaves the court

“So, are you ready for the catfight that’s going to erupt over this guy Trump has picked for the Supreme Court?”

That was the question posed to me today by a colleague of mine.

The reference, of course, was to Donald Trump’s nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the highest court in the land.

“Catfight? Over this? Naw. The earth is going to open up and quake when the next justice leaves the court,” I said, referring to the possibility that either Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer or Anthony Kennedy might leave the court.

That, I said, will produce the “mother of all catfights.”

Gorsuch’s nomination doesn’t change a thing on the court. The president is seeking to place a judicial conservative on the court to replace another conservative’s seat, that of the late Antonin Scalia, who died in February 2016.

Yes, Senate Democrats are enraged. Not at the selection of Gorsuch, necessarily, but over the treatment that President Obama got when he nominated Merrick Garland this past year to succeed Scalia.

My own thought is that Gorsuch is likely to be as good a choice as Democrats are going to get, given Trump’s insistence on picking a conservative judge.

No, the real donnybrook will occur when one of the liberals or swing justices decides to leave … or is unable to serve.

My own advice to Democrats would be to pick their fights carefully. Sure, they battle Gorsuch’s nomination. They’ll insist on keeping the 60-vote majority required to approve a Supreme Court nomination. Republicans might decide to invoke the “nuclear option” and allow a 51-vote majority.

I have no real clue as to which way this fight will go.

It might serve Democrats better to hold their fire for the next vacancy when — or if — it occurs during Trump’s time in office.

Given the tenuous ideological balance of the court, with its slim conservative majority, I sincerely doubt that Justices Ginsburg and Breyer — both picked by President Clinton in the 1990s — are going to resign amid the political climate that has fallen over Washington.

As for Justice Kennedy, one of President Reagan’s picks, well, that might be another matter.

Whatever happens, the serious political bloodletting is yet to occur.