Attention to the Unseen

Politico reports: A year after Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court, the boutique Indiana firm SouthBank Legal opened its first-ever Washington office in Penn Quarter, a move the firm hailed in a 2021 press release as an “important milestone.” The head of the office, Jesse M. Barrett, is the justice’s husband, whose work is described by the firm as “white-collar criminal defense, internal investigations, and complex commercial litigation.” SouthBank Legal — which lists fewer than 20 lawyers — has…

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The Guardian reports: On Monday, the nine justices of the US supreme court will take their seats at the start of a new judicial year, even as the shock waves of the panel’s previous seismic term continue to reverberate across America. In their first full term that ended in June, the court’s new six-to-three hard-right supermajority astounded the nation by tearing up decades of settled law. They eviscerated the right to an abortion, loosened America’s already lax gun laws, erected…

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The Washington Post reports: After attorney Christopher Kise accepted $3 million to represent Donald Trump in the FBI’s investigation of government documents stored at Mar-a-Lago, the veteran litigator argued that Trump should adopt a new strategy. Turn down the temperature with the Department of Justice, Kise — a former Florida solicitor general — counseled his famously combative client, people familiar with the deliberations said. Federal authorities had searched Trump’s Florida residence and club because they badly wanted to retrieve the…

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The Daily Beast reports: A judge has warned that former President Donald Trump is building a legal shield that could block him from being held accountable for inciting the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, pointing to the bizarre move by the Department of Justice to side with Trump in a rape defamation case last year. The DOJ’s legal stance—that anything a president does is part of his official duties, and therefore makes him a federal employee immune to lawsuits—was widely criticized…

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Politico reports: A federal judge delivered a blistering rebuke of Republican Party leaders Tuesday for what she said was a cynical attempt to stoke false claims of election fraud of the kind that fueled the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson said former President Donald Trump had turned his lies about the election into a litmus test for Republican candidates and that “high-ranking members of Congress and state officials” are “so afraid of…

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The Washington Post reports: Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have endorsed a bipartisan electoral count reform bill in the Senate, all but cementing its passage and giving the legislation a boost as Congress seeks to prevent future efforts to subvert presidential election results. The endorsements followed House passage of a similar bill last week. Both measures aim to stop future presidents from trying to overturn election results through Congress and were driven by…

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The Washington Post reports: Republicans across the country have embraced an aggressive tactic this year as they seek to tout baseless claims that voter fraud is a serious threat: arming state agencies with more power and resources to investigate election crimes. Virginia’s Republican attorney general earlier this month announced a new election integrity unit staffed with more than 20 attorneys and investigators “to increase transparency and strengthen confidence in our state elections.” Georgia legislators recently empowered the statewide police agency…

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In an editorial, the New York Times reports: In the weeks after the 2020 presidential election, Donald Trump and his allies were unable to get far in their attempts to prove widespread voter fraud. There were two reasons for that. First, there wasn’t any, as numerous investigations by journalists, expert reports and court rulings showed. But second, Republican election officials in multiple states repeatedly said that their counts and recounts were accurate, and they defended the integrity of the election….

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Johanna Berkman writes: On a foggy January night in 2017, several hundred of the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people gathered at a black-tie, $8000-per head dinner at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C. They were there to celebrate the coming of a new world order and their host for the evening was an almost 70-year-old Republican real estate billionaire known for buying and selling extravagant hotels. No, not Donald Trump. In fact, Trump, whose inauguration was just…

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Renato Mariotti writes: New York Attorney General Tish James raised eyebrows when she refused last-minute settlement overtures from former President Donald Trump. Her 222-page lawsuit filed Wednesday doubles down, asking for wide-ranging penalties against Trump, including $250 million and various bans that would bar Trump and his three oldest children from selling or acquiring real estate or applying for loans in New York for five years — potentially devastating measures for a company that depends on plastering the family name…

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The Washington Post reports: The Mar-a-Lago special master on Thursday ordered Donald Trump’s lawyers to state in a court filing whether they believe FBI agents lied about documents seized from the former president’s Florida residence in a court-authorized search last month, or claimed to have taken items that were not actually in Trump’s possession. In a Thursday afternoon filing, U.S. District Judge Raymond J. Dearie — the special master — told Trump’s legal team to state by Sept. 30 whether…

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Aaron Blake writes: As U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon ruled twice in the Mar-a-Lago documents case for the former president who nominated her to the bench, many legal experts — including conservatives and executive-power advocates — have strained to understand how she could have reached such conclusions about Donald Trump’s claims. On Wednesday night, two fellow Trump nominees joined with another judge to provide the rebuke of Cannon’s jurisprudence that those experts suggested might be coming. A three-judge panel…

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E. Danya Perry, Joshua Stanton and Norman L. Eisen write: In the last month, the array of investigations involving Donald J. Trump and many of Trump’s associates and family members has reached an intense pitch. Today another bombshell detonated—one that may prove to be the most devastating. New York Attorney General Letitia James has announced the filing of a monumental civil enforcement action against Trump, Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Ivanka Trump, the Trump Organization and many other Trump affiliates….

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Politico reports: When Donald Trump flooded the federal bench with judicial appointments, a leading critique was that they were Federalist Society clones who favored muscular executive power and rejected what some perceive as meddling by the courts in executive branch affairs. Judge Aileen Cannon’s recent orders in the fight over the classified records the former president is accused of keeping at Mar-a-Lago have turned that perception on its ear. A 41-year-old former federal prosecutor and Trump nominee, Cannon issued a…

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Politico reports: The senior federal judge tasked with reviewing the materials seized by the FBI from Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate sharply questioned the former president’s attorneys Tuesday during their first hearing in his courtroom. Judge Raymond Dearie repeatedly challenged Trump’s lawyers for refusing to back up the former president’s claim that he declassified the highly sensitive national security-related records discovered in his residence. “My view of it is: you can’t have your cake and eat it,” said Dearie, the “special…

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