Fourteen years later, I *still* think one of the best ways for us to repudiate Cheney's legacy of torture would be to recognize and honor the courageous soldiers and public servants who exposed the torture policies and tried to end them. www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/o...

Summer legal internships at @knightcolumbia.org. Send us the best people! knightcolumbia.org/page/summer-...

This message from @schiff.senate.gov is well done and well worth watching.

Six Degrees of Separation, but for the Jus Ad Bellum.

I wrote about Trump’s missile strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, and about the secret Justice Department opinion that underwrites them. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

HASC Ranking Smith: "The orders to blow up those six boats, in my view and in the views of most legal scholars, are absolutely illegal. It is an extrajudicial killing. There is no possible Article II justification for that, and there has been no congressional authorization for the use of force."

Questions: --Are the survivors actually being detained? --If so, military detention or law enforcement detention by USCG? If military detention, no AUMF as legal authority, so bare Article II seems only theory. A problem I flagged when I was first made aware of this scheme to attack boats.

My latest on the possibility of conducting counter-drug strikes into the territory of other States.

Key questions for press: What is the president’s legal authority to detain? (There is none.) Given the claim that this is armed conflict, will the ICRC have access to these people? What are the conditions of confinement? What is your plan here — prosecute, release, endless detention? And where?

"Does the President have the authority, under Article II of the Constitution, to order these killings?" "The short answer is: no." Spoke with @tessbridgeman.bsky.social, @becingber.bsky.social, and Rachel Goldbrenner about the lawless killings in the Caribbean. www.youtube.com/shorts/EDHH8...

Reposting this important @nycbarassociation.bsky.social statement on the illegality of the President's attacks against Venezuelan vessels, in light of today's news.

The City Bar has issued a statement on the indictment of NY AG Letitia James, in defense of our independent justice system, and calling on all members of the legal community and the public at large to stand up for our legal systems and institutions. Read it here: bit.ly/4oik2ED

Seems like if the administration had a strong legal theory for killing people in the Caribbean, they’d be willing to share it publicly.

News of the DOJ OLC memo justifying these strikes broke just after we wrapped. But we already knew the govt’s legal theory — and carefully debunked it:

The Senate Judiciary Committee needs to get a copy of this OLC memo publicly released. www.cnn.com/2025/10/06/p...

Notable statement from @nycbarassociation.bsky.social.

It's a pretty big deal that the NYC Bar Association--one of the most prominent and respected bar associations in the country--is accusing the President of ordering the "unlawful summary execution," i.e. murder--of civilians in violation of US and international law. www.nycbar.org/press-releas...

Only by acting promptly can Congress bring our nation into compliance with the Constitution and international law, reduce the risk of hostilities with neighboring countries and assure that similar abuses of Presidential power do not expand to American shores. bit.ly/3KVqX84

Proud to endorse this @nycbarassociation.bsky.social statement condemning the unlawful summary executions carried out by the U.S. Government. The attacks on Venezuelan vessels violate U.S. and international law. www.nycbar.org/press-releas....

It's worth examining this alongside the 2001 AUMF authorizing force against al Qaeda. Note the 2001 explicit tie to the actual armed attacks of 9/11. And note the lack of any tie to an armed attack in the proposal to give POTUS power to wage war against drug cartels and nations he claims harbor them

This appears to be the 3rd lethal US strike in the Caribbean. Once again, the specific "terrorist" entity targeted is not identified. No legal justification is offered for this premeditated killing. President Trump is asserting a license to kill outside of the law. 1/n

I know people are overwhelmed by too much news from every angle, and maybe people are distracted by the "terrorist" language, or just plain exhausted. But this is the President of the United States saying he is going to go around killing people because he thinks they're criminals. And already did.

Today's purging of State Dept. employees is a blow to our global influence. The impact will echo for years. AFSA stands with the workforce & Americans who know that professional, non-partisan diplomacy is not expendable. We won't stop fighting to defend it. Read our statement: afsa.org/press

The fired employees are getting separation notices with info about resources on things like pensions. The notices end with the statement: “Thank you for your work at the Department of State.”

Heartbreaking but vital thread on the human, political and moral costs of the reckless (and likely unlawful) slashing of career FSO and civil service positions and vital diplomatic functions at the State Department. This from DRL hits hard.

Well look here: A USDC taking "judicial notice" of a state (El Salvador) submission to @wgeid.bsky.social - a special procedure mechanism of the UN Human Rights Council. The international human rights system at work in U.S. courts!

STAGGERING: This new study of 133 countries is the first to estimate the impact of all USAID’s work. In 2 decades, it has saved *92M* lives. Current cuts, if not reversed, are forecast to cost up to *14M* lives thru 2030. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Fantastic news!

1. Three reactions to today’s oral argument involving “nationwide” injunctions against Trump’s birthright citizenship order. www.npr.org/2025/05/15/n...

Happening now: From the bench, Judge Alvin Hellerstein indicates he’ll extend a TRO barring removals of Venezuelans detained in SDNY under the Alien Enemies Act. Detailing horrific conditions at CECOT, he partly cited the likelihood of irreparable harm. “What way is that to treat a (human) being?”

This description of 50-yrs of bipartisan human rights diplomacy is bonkers: The bureau for democracy, human rights and labor, Mr. Rubio said, had become a “platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas” against conservative foreign leaders, including those in Poland, Hungary and Brazil.

Trump Administration Live Updates: Rubio Announces Major State Dept. Overhaul www.nytimes.com/live/2025/04...

Let's go! bit.ly/43YVdqh

The AALS is speaking out. Yes. More of this. All of civil society, all of the formerly neutral institutions, are under attack by an authoritarian. It's time to stick together aals-nfe2015test.informz.net/informzdatas...

We internationalists have aways felt this way, just more so now with the gross illegalities in trade and migration practices. It brings back a sort of jurisprudential PTSD from the Bush era debates over international law restraints on the President and the GWOT.

"the president defied a Supreme Court ruling to return a man mistakenly sent to a gulag... and spoke of sending Americans to foreign concentration camps. This is the beginning of an American policy of state terror, and it has to be identified as such to be stopped" snyder.substack.com/p/state-terror

🚨🚨 Just out - a letter from almost 900 Yale profs to our leaders, urging them to stand with us to defend the values of higher ed - and to resist and legally challenge any unlawful demands: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F.... Please share!

👀 Hey lawyer/law prof friends who are licensed/members of the D.C. Bar, time to vote! DC Bar is one of the key orgs responsible for professional discipline of government lawyers. Now's an essential time to reinforce it. You should have an email w/a voting link, or go straight to my.dcbar.org.

Harvard will not comply. “No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue.” — Harvard President Alan M. Garber www.thecrimson.com/article/2025...

Proud to be among sixty-nine faculty members at Rutgers Law School who signed on to the Harvard letter (h/t @beidelson.bsky.social) affirming our commitment to the rule of law. And I want to highlight something unique our school is doing that I hope will become a model for other schools.

THIS THIS THIS. Universities MUST band together and use the collective weight of their institutions to stop students being snatched off the streets for speaking their minds. Among many other thing, it makes Americans less safe!

I feel this in my bones today. Completely depressing.

The four law firms that it was announced are now Trump collaborators -- Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins, Simpson Thacher, and A&O Shearman Sterling -- ALSO agreed today to "Disavow DEI" as part of a settlement with EEOC. Why would any new associate join such a place? Why would any partner stay?

The fear among academics and lawyers now talking on the record on just about any topic that involves the federal government or the White House is really extraordinary and worrisome, and getting worse, it seems to me, every week. Dissent by an establishment figures becoming verboten in the US

I appreciate that Sotomayor, Jackson, & Kagan point out: 1) the govt has *chosen* to fight this case rather than seek the release of a man it admits it wrongfully detained (not to mention sent to a foreign gulag), and 2) under the govt theory, if they can do this to him, they can do it to you

Thirty faculty groups, including seventeen AAUP chapters, organized to join an amicus brief urging a preliminary injunction against ideological deportations of students and scholars

Looking forward to this conversation with a real mix of folks (including GWBush's White House Ethics Counsel) -- all of us focused on the current attacks on the rule of law. In easy access webinar form, deets below.

A group of 346 former federal and state judges have filed a proposed amicus brief in Perkins Coie's challenge to the Trump EO targeting it. The order "undermines the constitutional role of the courts as independent forums for adjudicating disputes." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The Bar issues another statement sharply condemning Trump's efforts to extort money and free legal services from law firms and calls on law firms to resist these predatory tactics. www.nycbar.org/press-releas...