Category Archives: Law
Anthony Kennedy Departs on Free Speech Note
The Supreme Court ruled against a California law that required crisis pregnancy centers to offer abortion advice. The centers are mostly run by religious organizations and they claimed the requirement was a violation of their right to free speech. Anthony Kennedy thought so too.
A pregnant lady, a nun and a supreme court justice walk into a bar…
Here’s The Atlantic:
The California legislature had noted that the fact Act was part of its legacy of “forward thinking,” Kennedy wrote. He strongly disagreed:
It is forward thinking to begin by reading the First Amendment as ratified in 1791; to understand the history of authoritarian government as the Founders then knew it; to confirm that history since then shows how relentless authoritarian regimes are in their attempts to stifle free speech; and to carry those lessons onward as we seek to preserve and teach the necessity of freedom of speech for the generations to come.
No FBI Bias Here
Inspector General Michael Horowitz looked into the FBI investigation of Hilary Clinton’s email server. He released his report on Friday and testified before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday.
Some of his more interesting findings included text messages from lead FBI agent Peter Strzok. He referred to Hillary as the “future prez.” Strzok also said he would “stop Trump.” Still, the IG found no FBI bias in the investigation results.
No FBI Bias Here
Here’s Trey Gowdy asking how Jim Comey could draft an exonerating press release six weeks before the FBI’s interview with Hillary took place.
If you’ve got some time on your hands watch the entire I.G. hearing here on C Span:
Mueller’s Boundaries
Federal Judge T.S. Ellis said on Friday that Robert Mueller has exceeded his boundaries.
He also gave the Justice Department two weeks to come up with an unredacted copy of Deputy AG Rosenstein’s memos authorizing the special counsel. So far the Justice Department has kept most of the memo explaining the boundaries of Mueller’s investigation under wraps.
Boundaries
The Daily Caller thinks this could be a nightmare for Mueller.
Or not so much says Judge Napolitano.
Rocky Rudy Defense
In a kind of weird series of events Rudy Giuliani took over President Trump’s legal defense. And he allowed that Trump knew Michael Cohen paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels. Not only that, Trump paid him back.
Rocky Rudy Defense
Rudy apparently was attempting to show the payment was personal and not a campaign contribution. But yesterday Trump tried to walk back his comments.
Rosenstein Extortion
Deputy A.G. Rosenstein is finally getting tough about the Mueller investigation. He’s not going to let the House Intelligence Committee extort him. Here’s how he responded when the committee’s demands for more information this week:
“There have been people making threats privately and publicly against me for quite some time,” Mr. Rosenstein said. “They should know by now the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted, and that any kind of threats that anybody makes are not going to affect the way we do our job.”
Rosenstein Extortion
So here’s what former Bill Clinton advisor Mark Penn has to say about that:
I suppose he meant to say, “Only we here at the Justice Department do the extorting, with special counsels, daylight raids of people’s attorneys, bankrupting people with legal fees, threats to prosecute family members, and questionable wiretapping of Americans.”
Finally, the WSJ’s Kimberly Strassel wants Paul Ryan to get tough with kingpin Rosenstein:
Mr. Ryan’s committee chairmen have done remarkable work exposing FBI behavior, and they deserve backup. The quickest way to get Justice and FBI to comply with these legitimate requests is for Mr. Ryan to state strongly and publicly that he has zero qualms about proceeding down the road of contempt or impeachment if House demands are not met. This is the people’s government, not the Justice Department’s.
