Serious point: This is concrete example of Trump/Bondi DOJ's larger problem. They are, I suspect, running low on lawyers who r both competent & willing to sully themselves by bringing meritless cases. Usually DOJ talent exceeds or at worst matches opposition. And DOJ got judicial deference.No more.

Good grief. Comey represented by frmr Dep Solictor Gen Michael Dreeben in this hring. Dreeben is among best DOJ advocates of modern era. Dreeben against Halligan & couple out-of-district AUSAs dragged in because no one in EDVA would touch it is like beating puppies. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/19/u...

It shouldn’t take nineteen clips to prove the point, but here they are anyway.

It's the stupidity, stupid!

I would be surprised if there were any "scrubbing" of Trump's name. Maneuvers to prevent portions w/ his name being released? Very much to be expected. But actual permanent removal or destruction? Unlikely. Too many people have seen these files. "Scrubbing" leaves traces. And it's a crime.

Here’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!

King Lear: I will have such revenges on you ..., That all the world shall—I will do such things— What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be The terrors of the earth!”

A completely empty threat. Neither he nor any federal official has any jurisdiction in the case. And any Colorado official who rolled over for this would be politically dead from that moment forward.

Six Repub senators seeking suspension of Judge Boasberg pending "resolution" of frivolous impeachment petition in House should reflect a bit. Normalizing political impeachment of judges could boomerang sharply post-Trump on genuine thugs like Bove. www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

Halligan-Comey indictment fiasco supports theory that, if we survive Trump, it will be because combination of Trump's psychopathy & sheer incompetence of his enablers will produce so many defeats & so much nat'l pain that, at last, country will reject him & MAGA. But, dang, the costs will be high.

Gobsmacking order by US magistrate judge in Comey case. It paints picture of malice mixed with basic legal incompetence inconceivable before Trump corrupted DOJ. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Absolutely no way to read this and not conclude that the Department of Justice has been deeply corrupted. And this is from a time when career lawyers were in place, pushing back against illegality. With firings and resignations, the politicization will just get worse. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Me on Trump signing pardon docs with autopen & later substituting real signature: “The key to pardon validity is whether the president intended to grant the pardon. Any re-signing is an obvious, and rather silly, effort to avoid comparison to Biden.” apnews.com/article/trum...

Unless Fox News is willing to break down the Epstein emails, their audience will never see any reason to believe that Trump was anything except friendly with Epstein. Much like the Russia investigation, they won’t accept it.

But, but, but ... if we didn't let them keep every penny, then they'd stop working so desperately hard and thinking such innovative thoughts and all entrepreneurship would end and the economy would collapse and Ragnarok or something...

In writing final chptr of my new book on pardon power [covering Trump1-Biden-Trump2], I've been rereading Trump chptrs of my previous book on impeachment. What leaps out is how much Trump1 was constrained by honest public servants in his own admin & how he has now utterly gutted those limits.

Precisely why I can't get too excited about potential Epstein-Trump revelations. Guy got elected 1st time after "grab them by the p---" tape. Got elected 2d time after one jury found he'd committed sexual assault & another jury found he'd paid off porn star. Base will not abandon him.

1) Never listen to congressman who IDs as Dr So-and-so. Anyone who thinks MD is more exalted title than Senator is a fool. 2) But MD makes idiocy of these comments worse. Risk pools including non-sick people makes whole system solvent. 3) I guess fire insurance is rip-off cuz most houses don't burn.

This seems right. At least 5 interlocking risks: 1) AI boom may be bubble 2) crypto infiltration of mainstream finance will be a calamity 3) destruction of regulatory institutions 4) Trump incompetence 5) no competent subordinate govt officials to manage crisis. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/07/o...

I have long argued that the single best thing you could do to improve the functioning of the US government is double the salaries of everyone working on Capitol Hill. Serving Congress shouldn’t involve poverty wages in DC. You could attract a much wider set of perspectives netting a better result.

Pulitzer Prize photo right here.

this is actually impressive, making up a brand new nobel peace prize replacement is a genuine innovation in bribery absolutely nobody does corruption like FIFA

Holy crap. MAGA diehard Danielle Jurinsky lost her city council seat in Aurora, Colorado. She more than anyone is responsible for ginning up the false claim that Tren de Aragua had "taken over" the city. She also repeatedly tried to dissolve the city's groundbreaking public defender office.

On Al Jazeera tonight providing a short, simple (genuine experts might say simplistic) explanation of the issues in the SCOTUS tariff argument. mediaview.aljazeera.com/video/XGI25g...

Despite the grotesque narcissism, he's not entirely wrong on point one. And it should terrify Republicans, including heirs apparent Vance & Rubio. The MAGA phenomenon is, I think, centered on Trump as a personality. Remove his weird gravitational pull & I doubt anyone else can hold it together.

1/2 I've seen claims that Google search algorithm has been compromised to avoid negative portrayals of Trump, but I didn't really believe it. Today I encountered something that makes me wonder. While working on Trump section of my book on pardons, I searched for stories (of which there are tons)...

Welcome to Science Hell 😱

Leaving aside the deranged lunacy of this apocalyptic claim, I doubt that Elon has ever met any natives of rural England, Scotland, or Ireland. Such folks would be unlikely to take being compared to hobbits as either accurate or complimentary.

What he said: 💯 🎯

“Would Americans be so accepting if, instead of observing the detached remoteness of a missile from the clouds, we watched our servicemen board the vessels and simply execute everyone on board without asking a single question? It is, in every way, the same thing.”

Gelber & I were in USAO Miami at same time. I prosecuted these cases, too. I immediately recognized aerial infrared videos Trump's people posted of boats as the kind of EVIDENCE we used to convict those aboard. Our videos ended with interception & arrest. Not flame & death. This is plain murder.

US killed boaters w/ drones. War Powers doesn't apply, Trump lawyers say, because it's not "conflict" if targets can't shoot back. So if we line up unarmed civilians against a wall & machinegun them, that's okeydoke & Congress gets no say. A weight off my mind. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

Halloween from Down Under I love Kangaroos Just had to share (sound up) 🎃🤣

On the left, the refurbished Lincoln bathroom. On the right, picture I took in Saddam Hussein's palace in Basra in 2005.

This is amazing, amazing work. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Remarkable. These guys don't realize that THEY are the orcs.

Strongly recommend this excellent piece comparing current US situation to that in the authoritarian or backsliding countries in which the author managed rule-of-law programs for over 20 years. (Fact that author is my brother is a bonus.) slate.com/news-and-pol...

Much of America is afraid. Afraid of the government. Afraid of their fellow citizens. Afraid America’s legal and judicial institutions will no longer protect them. If Americans don't wake up, organize, and fight harder to defend the rule of law, we'll find ourselves living in an authoritarian system

1/2 My former MU colleague is such a fraud. He votes for every R bill dismantling the social safety net & then finds a way to piously decry some carefully chosen aspect of the overall project to look like a principled man of the people. But Josh has only 1 principle- www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/o...

House Republicans are back on the Biden autopen trail. So I'll re-up the piece I wrote in July debunking their crazier claims, while critiquing some aspects of the Biden pardon process. slate.com/news-and-pol...

Trump has destabilized civilian-military relations more than any president in recent memory, Kori Schake writes. The last comparable crisis ended with Ulysses S. Grant’s historic choice:

1/15 A thread on Trump's renewed teasing of 3d term. First, 22nd Amend is clear no one can be "elected" to presidency 3 times. So he can't (legally) run for the office, meaning appear on the ballot as candidate for the presidency, receive electoral votes & thus be "elected" a third time.

Thx to Lou Jacobson of Politifact for including me in this piece on Trump's teasing of a third term. In a subsequent thread, I'll lay out my thoughts in more detail. www.politifact.com/article/2025...

1/2 I appreciate Goldsmith's careful analysis of effect of OLC opinions, but I am doubtful they can nullify the most basic prohibition of civilian & military law against open murder. Goldsmith's concern abt Trump's post-hoc use of pardon power is, however, persuasive. @jacklgoldsmith.bsky.social

ICE's hiring surge is turning out to be an entirely predictable disaster. It turns out if you’re hiring for a pariah agency using nakedly fascist and racist messaging, America’s best, brightest, and most fit don’t apply. www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/ice-s-hiri...

1. Last week, there were 3 Trump corruption scandals in 4 days that would define any other presidency. Most people are probably not even AWARE of all three scandals. 🧵

Methinks Josh & rest of R Sens doing performative outrage over their call records' inclusion in investigation of Trump effort to steal 2020 election protest too much. They were reasonably suspected of participating in the scheme. As they know perfectly well. www.msn.com/en-us/news/p...

"The Old Issue," the Rudyard Kipling poem from 1899 from which we draw the phrase "No Truce With Kings," might make a good reading for the next #NoKings Day. This is an excerpt, full text at this link (h/t George L.): www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/poem/poems_o...

For my Arabic-speaking friends, here is my appearance on Asharq News (with Paul Pelletier & David Safavian) discussing the indictments of Comey, Bolton & James, as well as some of Trump's outrageous pardons. www.youtube.com/watch?v=JacB...

It took us barely a year from (1) the Supreme Court's saying that a president even after leaving office is protected against prosecution for actions taken while in office to (2) a president's deciding to destroy a big chunk of the White House, on his own say-so, because, well, he wanted to.