Now that the House of Representatives has impeached Donald Trump for Incitement of Insurrection, he will stand trial in the Senate. In light of Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s refusal to hold the trial before January 20, the question arises whether Trump can be tried after he leaves office. The answer is yes. Expect Trump’s legal team… Read more »
Donald Trump claims that while he is president, his pre-presidency financial records can’t be subpoenaed and he can’t even be investigated for criminal conduct. The Supreme Court will decide by the end of June whether Trump is indeed beyond the reach of the law. On May 12, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments about whether… Read more »
We’re headed for a separation of powers showdown between Congress and the president that will ultimately end up in the Supreme Court. The Constitution gives Congress the “sole Power of Impeachment.” Yet President Donald Trump has ordered all of his current and former senior advisers to defy congressional subpoenas to testify in the impeachment inquiry. Trump is… Read more »
On February 26, the House of Representatives adopted a resolution overturning Donald Trump’s trumped-up “national emergency” proclamation, in which he claims authority to fulfill his campaign promise to build a wall at the southern border. The National Emergencies Act requires Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to bring the House resolution to a vote within 18 days. In order… Read more »
This coming Monday, April 23, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to review a bill that would virtually give President Donald J. Trump a blank check to wage war anywhere in the world any time he pleases. The Constitution places the power to declare war exclusively in the hands of the Congress. However, for… Read more »
When Donald Trump plunged a dagger through the hearts of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio’s victims and all justice-loving people by pardoning the racist serial lawbreaker, many threw up their hands in resignation. The president’s constitutional pardon power is absolute, they thought. Not so, argue lawyers and legal scholars in two proposed amicus briefs filed… Read more »
In 2012, the bin Ali Jaber family gathered in Khashamir, Yemen, for a wedding celebration. Ahmed Salem bin Ali Jaber (Salem) was asked to deliver a guest sermon, which challenged al Qaeda to justify its attacks on civilians. In response to his sermon, three strange men arrived to see Salem. Fearing trouble, Salem asked Waleed bin Ali Jaber (Waleed), a police officer, to accompany… Read more »
Seven newly released memos from the Bush Justice Department reveal a concerted strategy to cloak the President with power to override the Constitution. The memos provide “legal” rationales for the President to suspend freedom of speech and press; order warrantless searches and seizures, including wiretaps of U.S. citizens; lock up U.S. citizens indefinitely in the… Read more »
To bolster his argument that the Guantánamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: “At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantánamo have returned to the battlefield.” It turns out that statement is false. According to… Read more »
After the Supreme Court handed down its long-awaited opinion, upholding habeas corpus rights for the Guantánamo detainees, I was invited to appear on The O’Reilly Factor with guest host Laura Ingraham. Although she is a lawyer and former law clerk for Justice Clarence Thomas, Ingraham has no use for our judicial branch of government, noting… Read more »