law

Fight Trump or 'finish that kitchen rehab': Obama tears into law firms

Business Insider reports former president Barack Obama counts himself among the group ripping law firms for surrendering to President Donald Trump.

Obama was addressing a private Friday fundraiser in New Jersey when he expressed disappointment that some of the country's top law firms had "set aside the law" in the face of Trump's attacks.

“Not because, by the way, that they’re going to be thrown in jail, but because they might lose a few clients and might not be able to finish that kitchen rehab at their Hampton house,” Obama told his audience at a fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee. “I’m not impressed.”

Since February, Trump has issued executive orders targeting big law firms like Paul Weiss, Perkins Coie, and Covington & Burling. Trump stripped companies of their security clearances and ordered reviews of each firm's government contract.

Some law firms, such as Paul Weiss and Kirkland & Ellis, struck deals with Trump, in what critics called a “shakedown,” promising pro bono legal work for conservative causes. Others, including Perkins Coie and WilmerHale, chose to fight back and filed lawsuits against the administration over First Amendment violations.

Business Insider reports Obama has his own “ties to Big Law,” going back to his Harvard Law School days. After his first year of law school, the former president worked as a summer associate at Sidley & Austin. Later, Obama worked as a civil rights attorney at the litigation firm Miner, Barnhill & Galland, before entering politics.

The New York Times reports Obama scolded Democrats for failing to speak out against Trump, and he mocked the seemingly menial amount of risk required to fight back compared to the fallout people suffered in the past for standing up for what’s right. The Times reports Obama referenced the nine-by-nine-foot prison cell in which the South African government sentenced Nelson Mandela for 27 years.

“Nobody’s asking for that kind of courage,” Obama said.

Read the full Business Insider report at this link.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Don’t know 'what the Constitution is': Why Chief Justice Roberts says rule of law is 'endangered'

Speaking at Georgetown Law, Chief Justice John Roberts denounced “ad hominem” criticism of the justices and argued for more civics classes for U.S. students.

Roberts suggested recent verbal attacks on the justices had gone too far, but was careful to provide no specific examples.

“The Court has obviously made mistakes throughout its history, and those should be criticized, so long as it is in terms of the decision, really, and not ad hominem against the justices. I just think that doesn’t do any good,” Roberts said.

Roberts said “the harshest critics are usually colleagues,” but in the past he has warned against the administration of President Donald Trump threatening to “impeach” judges like U.S. District Judge James Boasberg after Boasberg ruled against Trump’s decision to deport of hundreds of men to a notorious prison in El Salvador.

“Impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” said Roberts at the time.

Without mentioning Trump directly at Georgetown, Roberts advised U.S. schools to train students to have a better understanding of civics because people have no concept of American law, how it works or what it means to them.

“One area where it’s most endangered is with young people," he said. "They’re focused on high school and 8th grade, and how many people really have no real understanding what the role of courts are what the different branches have to do with one another or a notion of what law is or what the Constitution is."

“That’s really too bad,” the chief justice told graduating Georgetown students. “We’re developing a situation where a whole group of … people is growing up having no real sense about how our system of justice works.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

'Letting him get away with murder': How Trump turned the DOJ into his personal law firm

NOTUS reports President Donald Trump has remade the U.S. Dept. of Justice in his own image, and that image is: "Delay, obstruct, confuse."

Justice Department attorneys have adopted the same litigation strategies Trump’s defense team often used when battling tax charges, sexual abuse and stolen classified documents cases. Currently, for example, the DOJ is “ignoring federal judges, claiming privileges to refuse turning over records and toying with the clock to disrupt the normal pattern of court cases” — all straight from the playbook Trump’s personal defense team used between Trump’s first and second presidencies.

“We know that Trump views the DOJ as his lawyers,” George Washington University Law School professor emeritus Catherine J. Ross told NOTUS. “And it almost seems as if the client is telling them, ‘Do what I did in the civil cases and earlier criminal cases: delay, obstruct, confuse, be obtuse, appeal every little possibility and just stall forever.’ That’s the strategy.”

The new strategy coincides with Trump hiring two personal lawyers to man the Justice Department, including deputy attorney general Todd Blanche and principal associate deputy attorney general Emil Bove.

Judges are now having to adapt to these unfamiliar new stances. This week U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis chided the DOJ for refusing to hand over documents proving the administration was following Supreme Court orders to “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia from a Salvadoran prison. Suddenly judges are having to tell the attorneys of a 150-year-old agency not to “mischaracterize” a Supreme Court’s order.

“For weeks, defendants have sought refuge behind vague and unsubstantiated assertions of privilege, using them as a shield to obstruct discovery and evade compliance with this court’s orders. Defendants have known, at least since last week, that this court requires specific legal and factual showings to support any claim of privilege. Yet they have continued to rely on boilerplate assertions,” she wrote.

What administration lawyers are delivering in lieu of court-mandated updates are snide comments, say critics.

“Please refer to my prior declarations for the foundation of my personal knowledge,” Department of Homeland Security acting general counsel Joseph N. Mazzara wrote in response to Xinis’ demand for updates on Garecia’s return, “There are no further updates.”

“The judges are letting Trump get away with murder,” said Pamela Keith, a lawyer who represents current FBI agents and support personnel in their effort to stop the DOJ from retaliating against them over their work in the aftermath of Jan. 6. “The judges are going to extremes to give the DOJ chances to explain the inexplicable. And this is just more indication of how successful the Trump team has been at perverting our legal system.”

Read the full NOTUS story here.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

'Untethered to the law': Ex-prosecutor sounds alarm about Trump’s latest 'egregious' move

Attorney and author Shan Wu is writing in the Daily Beast that Trump is demanding the power to prosecute individuals and whole groups of people alike without either the benefit of court or legal language.

Trump is using executive orders at “a record-breaking” pace to “further personal grievances” that are untethered to the law,” says Wu. This includes his presidential memoranda accusing his own former officials, Miles Taylor and Chris Krebs, of crimes including, in the case of Taylor, treason — which carries a potential death sentence.

The president, who is himself a convicted felon, accused Taylor of treason in an order entitled “Addressing Risks Associated with an Egregious Leaker and Disseminator of Falsehoods.” According to Trump, Taylor “illegally published classified conversations,” and claims it is forbidden for “a government employee to improperly “discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness" to sow chaos and distrust in Government.

Trump adds this sort of conduct “could properly be characterized as treasonous and as possibly violating the Espionage Act,” although Wu claims Trump’s use of the word “treason” has “about as much legal precision as someone flipping off another driver in a fit of road rage.”

The definition of treason “shall consist only in levying War against [the United States], or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort,” which Wu says is nowhere near the way Trump wants to use it. But when government authorities refuse to address the abuse of the Presidential office to press personal grievances, they’re saying the president “is free to indict, adjudicate and impose punishments for criminal accusations against a group of people—or a single person like Taylor or Krebs—through a mere decree.”

To be specific, Taylor wrote an opinion piece for a newspaper, like many New York Times and local newspaper guest writers. Wu says this does not count as “levying War,” however badly Trump may want it to.

“Trump’s accusations against (Taylor and Krebs) appear nonsensical because they don’t fit the law. But maybe that’s the very point, namely that the Trump administration wants to change the law by any means possible,” Wu warns.

Read Wu's full op-ed in the Daily Beast here (subscription required).

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Elon Musk to cut X election integrity team by half: report

Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, reportedly plans to gut its election integrity team and dump the group’s boss — a decision that has caused concern as the United States and countries around the world prepare for major elections. X’s worldwide cuts will reduce the team’s staff by roughly half, according to The Information. The platform promised to expand that team less than a month ago, but may now have no more than six members, the Messenger reports. Speaking Tuesday during a press conference, the EU’s European Commission Vice President Vera Jourova dubbed X “the...

Michigan false elector compares stress of indictment to cancer diagnosis

LANSING, Mich. — Marian Sheridan, one of the 16 Michigan false electors facing felony charges, compared the stress of her indictment to a cancer diagnosis in a video that was included in a Tuesday fundraising telethon. The telethon, organized by conservative groups, was attempting to raise $800,000 for the legal defense of the Republicans who signed a certificate in December 2020, falsely claiming that former President Donald Trump had won Michigan's 16 electoral votes. In July, Attorney General Dana Nessel announced eight felony charges, including forgery, against each of the Republican elect...

American Legion removes post commander from national leadership role over Proud Boys affiliation

ESCONDIDO, Calif. — An American Legion post commander in Escondido has been removed by the veterans service organization from two national leadership roles after he bragged on social media about participating in a street brawl and joining the Proud Boys, the California state commander said. Photos shared on two social media accounts show J.B. Clark Post 149 Cmdr. Michael Sobczak, 56, wearing a Proud Boys jacket and marching along with other Proud Boys during a Dec. 12 pro-Trump rally in Washington, D.C., that turned violent. In a video shared on a personal Facebook account under the name “Mick...

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Will Bunch: A self-pardon would fit Trump's raging narcissism — and prove need for clemency reform

Donald Trump is probably the world's worst Monopoly player — all his steel hotels on Boardwalk are already mortgaged to the hilt even before he passes "Go," right? — but it sure was a lucky roll of the dice when he scooped up the ultimate get-out-of-jail free card, which works for his pals, his kids, and maybe even himself. The Founding Fathers who designed this board game on the streets of Philadelphia in 1787 left a giant flaw, a Constitutional ticking time bomb that wouldn't go off for roughly 229 years. Now, with President Trump reportedly planning to blow up the board by issuing preemptiv...

From Your Site Articles

Ivanka Trump distances self from dad's election fraud claims as her own legal jeopardy grows

Ivanka Trump is among a growing number of President Donald Trump’s close advisers who want nothing to do with his legal efforts to subvert the results of the Nov. 3 election, according to a new report.These advisers may publicly act as though they believe Trump and his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani can pull some kind of courtroom miracle to prove widely debunked claims of election fraud, Axios reported.“But talk to them privately, and many say Rudy Giuliani and his team are on a dead-end path,” Axios writers Jonathan Swan and Alayna Treene said.“Even Jared and Ivanka think this is going nowher...

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

From hanging chads to deadlocks, presidential elections that took weeks and months to decide

PHILADELPHIA — For the nation’s overwrought nervous system, the 2020 presidential campaign was akin to a punitive marathon. And now the finish line has been moved back.In most presidential elections, the results become clear within hours of the polls closing, the losers graciously concede, the winners thank everyone and then celebrate, and the public accepts the results long before the Electoral College formalizes them in December.That obviously hasn’t been the case in 2020.Ballots are still in question, legal challenges are underway, and it’s not clear yet when the outcome in the race between...

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Will Bunch: Trump's politicized Supreme Court has lost legitimacy. 2021's Dems, do something!

We’ve just seen one of the worst weeks in the 230-year-plus history of the U.S. Supreme Court. And that is really saying something, when you think about its other low points including the 1857 Dred Scott ruling, which held Black people as inferior and denied them U.S. citizenship, or 1896’s Plessy v. Ferguson that allowed segregation, or the high court’s more recent jags that have prized corporate citizenship and eroded voting rights.And yet it is becoming increasingly difficult to have faith in the Supreme Court’s independence — and, thus, its legitimacy — after a day that should be known as ...

From Your Site Articles

The Supreme Court just threw out the election case Trump called 'the big one' in a humiliating blow - Alternet.org ›

Contact Advertise with AlterNet Privacy Policy Writer Guidelines Press Information About AlterNet Meet the AlterNet Staff Debug Logs