How Cheney’s Presidential Power Push Paved the Way for Trump to Go Further Donald J. Trump and Dick Cheney became adversaries, but the former vice president set the stage for Mr. Trump’s bid to expand his executive authority. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/u...

My first book, Takeover, was about Dick Cheney's quest to expand presidential power (or "restore" it, as he saw it, to the level it had reached when Nixon was president, before Watergate). First two chapters, including Cheney's rise, free here: charliesavage.com/books/takeov...

War Powers Law Does Not Apply to Trump’s Boat Strikes, Administration Says The stance deepened the idea that a Vietnam-era law, which says congressionally unauthorized deployments into “hostilities” must end after 60 days, does not apply to airstrike campaigns. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/u...

Why Trump’s Boat Killings Would Be Hard to Prosecute Even if critics who call President Trump’s boat attacks “murder” are right as a matter of law, it would not be easy to get the matter into a court. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...

After Law Firm Deals With Trump, D.C. Bar Warns of Ethical Jeopardy The bar group’s ethics committee says firms that make a deal with the government may need to get waivers from clients with opposing interests. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/28/u...

U.S. Military Kills Six People in Latest Boat Strike in the Caribbean The Trump administration has acknowledged 10 strikes on suspected drug-smuggling boats from South America, which have killed 43 people. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

Gift link The Peril of a White House That Flaunts Its Indifference to the Law The White House has made no legal argument explaining its bald claim that the president has wartime power to summarily kill people suspected of smuggling drugs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

U.S. Strikes Boat in Pacific, Expanding Operation Against Drug Running Suspects It was the eighth known strike, and the first outside of the Caribbean, in the Trump administration’s campaign against what it says are boats carrying drugs bound for the United States. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/22/u...

U.S. Attacks More Boats as Tensions With Venezuela Rise: What’s Happened So Far The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, while striking vessels that it says are trafficking drugs. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

Ecuador Rejects Prosecution of Survivor of U.S. Strike on Vessel The country has freed the man, one of two survivors of a U.S. military strike on a submersible vessel last week, defying President Trump’s claim that he would be held and prosecuted. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/21/u...

U.S. Detains 2 Survivors of Latest Military Strike in Caribbean The capture of prisoners presents a major new set of legal and policy problems for the Trump administration in its escalating campaign. w/ Eric Schmitt, h/t @reuters.com www.nytimes.com/2025/10/17/u...

How the Bolton Indictment Compares to Trump’s Classified Documents Case Some charges against the onetime national security adviser resemble the dropped case against President Trump, but there are also differences. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/16/u...

U.S. Military Kills Another 6 People in 5th Caribbean Strike, Trump Says In a social media post, the president said the people aboard a boat were suspected of smuggling drugs for an unspecified group his team had labeled terrorists. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/14/u...

The Mortgage Fraud Case Against Letitia James, Explained An indictment brought by a novice prosecutor and Trump loyalists against one of the president’s foes centers on a 2020 house purchase. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

Trump Baselessly Claims He ‘Took the Freedom of Speech Away’ From Flag Burners www.nytimes.com/2025/10/09/u...

Comey’s Two Legal Challenges to His Indictment, Explained A lawyer for the former F.B.I. director said he would accuse the Justice Department of malicious and selective prosecution and contend that a U.S. attorney was illegally appointed. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/08/u...

Trump, Drug Cartels, Venezuela and War: What We Know The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, while attacking boats in the Caribbean Sea. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

C.I.A. Deputy Director Has Replaced Agency’s Top Legal Official With Himself It is not clear what is behind the move by Michael Ellis, a Trump loyalist. A legal ethics specialist said it could raise conflict-of-interest issues. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/06/u...

I turned on Alexa+, Amazon's new AI enhanced voice assistant, yesterday. While eating dinner a few minutes ago, asked for an update on the Cubs-Padres game and it said this. In real life, the Cubs were up 2-0 in the bottom of the fifth. So Alexa+, like other AIs, hallucinates and is unreliable.

Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told A notice calls the people the U.S. military recently killed on suspicion of drug smuggling in the Caribbean Sea “unlawful combatants.” www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...

In case useful, I made a chart (with CourtListener links) of the newly disclosed attorney-client privilege material from the Trump J6 and docs grand jury investigations, and how they compares to the executive privilege-focused files that became public last October. charliesavage.com/2025/09/newl...

Top Trump Aides Push for Ousting Maduro From Power in Venezuela An opposition movement whose figures have met with U.S. officials says it is communicating with Washington on plans to dismantle Nicolás Maduro’s “criminal structure.” www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/u...

Fight Over Hidden Report on Trump Documents Case Goes to Appeals Court Meanwhile, previously secret passages in court filings over grand jury fights in two cases against the president have been revealed. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/30/u...

The Testimony at the Heart of the Comey Indictment, Examined The charges against the former F.B.I. director center on an appearance he made before a Senate committee in September 2020. Here’s a closer look. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/u...

The Daily did an episode today w/ me on Trump's ordering the US military to summarily kill drug smuggling suspects in the Caribbean, including why this has raised legal alarms & what it may portend for Venezuela. w/ Natalie Kitroeff www.nytimes.com/2025/09/25/p...

I appreciate that Tom Brady is resisting the NFL sportscaster fad of clownishly garish men’s suits

I experienced this last week & refused, saying I had never before been asked to provide the names of any analysts I was planning to quote to get a comment. Spox replied that maybe they were D donors. (In that case, it was 3 retired top military JAG officers.) I guess that was not a weird oneoff.

A draft Authorization for Use of Military Force, circulating in exec branch & on the Hill, would grant Trump the power to kill people he deems narcoterrorists and to attack any nations he says are aiding/harboring them (e.g. a Venezuela regime change war). www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/u...

Can Trump Actually Designate Antifa a Terrorist Group? Here Are the Facts. The president made the same declaration in 2020, but nothing came of it. His new declaration came amid broader threats against liberals after the Charlie Kirk killing. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/u...

Congratulations to my friend and colleague David Gelles on his new book “Dirtbag Billionaire: How Yvon Chouinard Built Patagonia, Made a Fortune and Gave It All Away”

Boat Suspected of Smuggling Drugs Is Said to Have Turned Before U.S. Attacked It The Trump administration has argued that the summary killing of 11 people it accused of running drugs was legal under the laws of war. w/ Helene Cooper www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/u...

Congratulations to JJ McCarthy for throwing his first career touchdown to his hometown Chicago Bears! The stuff dreams are made of!

When Congress Should Be Notified About National Security Operations, Explained The Trump administration failed to tell lawmakers about a 2019 SEAL Team 6 incursion into North Korean territory that went awry. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/05/u...

Trump se atribuye el poder de hacer ejecuciones sumarias contra presuntos narcotraficantes www.nytimes.com/es/2025/09/0...

Military Lawyers Wanted as Immigration Judges, No Experience Required Emails sent out call for volunteers to take six-month assignments hearing asylum and deportation cases www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...

Trump Claims the Power to Summarily Kill Suspected Drug Smugglers The move to treat criminals as if they were wartime combatants escalated an administration pattern of using military force for law enforcement tasks at home and abroad. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/04/u...

news analysis L.A. Ruling Complicates Trump’s Threats to Send Troops to More Cities As Democratic cities brace for possible military deployments, Democratic governors see in a lower-court ruling the potential for legal protections. gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/u...

White House Counsel Eases Trump’s Path on Aggressive Agenda David Warrington, the top lawyer inside the West Wing, focuses on “the art of the possible,” as one Trump adviser said. gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/09/02/u...

Gift link Trump Administration Weighs Having Military Lawyers Work as Immigration Judges No final decision has been made, but the proposal comes as President Trump increasingly uses the military in various aspects of domestic life. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/29/u...

Trump Again Escalates Power Grabs in Bid to Fire Fed Member President Trump claimed he has cause to remove a member of the independent board who has not obeyed his demands to vote for lower interest rates. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/26/u...

AFRICOM reported today that the US conducted an airstrike three days ago in Somalia on 23 August. But only on AFRICOM's website. Not on Twitter. Not on BlueSky. Only on AFRICOM's website.👇 www.africom.mil/pressrelease...

Trump vows to prosecute protesters who burn American flags to the maximum extent permitted by the Constitution — so, not much www.nytimes.com/2025/08/25/u...

Is the Trump Administration Building Up to a Military Confrontation With Venezuela? A major increase in U.S. naval forces in the south Caribbean Sea has been underway since President Trump signed a directive targeting some cartels. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/22/u...

Anyone know why the Key Bridge into DC has been shut down during morning rush hour?

The push alert people at @wsj.com are drunk and it is only 9 a.m.

Judge Boasberg: Judicial records must be unsealed from attorney-client privilege fights re grand jury in Trump J6 and documents investigations. (But not attorney work privilege, and names will be redacted.) storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Trump incorpora al ejército de EE. UU. en la campaña contra los cárteles de la droga El presidente ordenó al Pentágono utilizar a las fuerzas armadas contra determinados cárteles latinoamericanos que su gobierno ha calificado como organizaciones terroristas. www.nytimes.com/es/2025/08/0...

Trump has secretly signed a directive ordering the Pentagon to use the US armed forces to target some of the Latin American drug cartels his administration has labeled "terrorist" organizations. w/ Helen Cooper, Maggie Haberman and Eric Schmitt www.nytimes.com/2025/08/08/u...

Durham’s Debunking of the ‘Clinton Plan’ Emails, Explained Trump allies have fixated on a purported message about Hillary Clinton and Russia. John H. Durham, the special counsel, found evidence that it was likely a fake assembled by Russian spies. gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/08/01/u...

It is amazing how many reports - in partisan outlets mostly, but even so - are reporting on the "emails" discussed in the annex at face value as if they were real. Can people read? (Putting aside that the "Clinton approved a plan" claim has been out there since Sept 2020 anyway - that's not news.)