Attention to the Unseen

The Guardian reports: Upset by the surge in union drives, several of the best-known corporations in the US are seeking to cripple the country’s top labor watchdog, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), by having it declared unconstitutional. Some labor experts warn that if those efforts succeed, US labor relations might return to “the law of the jungle”. In recent weeks, Elon Musk’s SpaceX as well as Amazon, Starbucks and Trader Joe’s have filed legal papers that advance novel arguments…

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David A. Graham writes: The danger posed to Donald Trump’s finances by two recent judgments against him has been, if anything, underappreciated. The size of the awards, the structure of the former president’s business empire, and the condition of the real-estate market combine to create a truly perilous moment for the former president’s company and, by extension, for Trump’s personal finances. Trump must put up the $83.3 million awarded to the writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation by March 9….

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David French writes: As of Monday, March 4, 2024, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution is essentially a dead letter, at least as it applies to candidates for federal office. Under the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling that reversed the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision striking Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot, even insurrectionists who’ve violated their previous oath of office can hold federal office, unless and until Congress passes specific legislation to enforce Section 3. In the…

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Richard L. Hasen and Dahlia Lithwick write: The latest decisions out of the Supreme Court, first on when to hear former President Donald Trump’s immunity appeal, then on how to deal with his Colorado ballot disqualification, have made one thing very clear: We need to stop deluding ourselves that a majority of the Supreme Court sees the same political emergency that many of us do in terms of the threat Trump poses to American democracy. Whether it understood or even…

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Ankush Khardori writes: The Supreme Court seemed to drop a bomb this week when the justices agreed to hear Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution for trying to overturn the 2020 election. But the fallout may not be as clear-cut as it seems. Almost immediately after the court’s order, a consensus seemed to form among the pundit class: that it will now be impossible for Trump’s trial in Washington to take place before the election. Here is…

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The New Republic reports: Amid an ongoing spar over when Donald Trump’s classified documents case will begin, the Justice Department has clarified once and for all that he cannot continue to delay his legal trials by claiming that he has to focus on the election. On Friday, Judge Eileen Cannon asked about the DOJ’s “60-day rule” against taking actions that might affect an upcoming election. But the DOJ said that the “60-day rule” does not apply to Trump’s actual trials,…

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The New York Times reports: The Supreme Court that former President Donald J. Trump helped to shape tossed him a legal lifeline on Wednesday night, making a choice that substantially aided his efforts to delay his federal trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. By deciding to take up Mr. Trump’s claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and…

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Mark Joseph Stern writes: The Supreme Court has all but guaranteed that Donald Trump will not face trial for his efforts to subvert the 2020 election before this November’s presidential election. On Wednesday, after more than two weeks’ delay, the court issued an order refusing to lift the stay that’s preventing the Jan. 6 trial, prosecuted by Special Counsel Jack Smith, from moving forward. Instead, the court took up the case, scheduling oral arguments for the week of April 22—nearly…

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CNN reports: Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers see a major opportunity this week to use his criminal document mishandling case in Florida to create an impasse on his calendar for the two federal judges overseeing his major criminal cases. Juggling his campaign and court calendar and playing his cases off one another is a key part of Trump’s legal strategy. The ultimate goal, his team has said openly, is to prevent Trump from being tried in federal court before voters…

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The Daily Beast reports: The increasingly-discredited star witness for the GOP-led impeachment inquiry into president Joe Biden admitted to federal authorities that he had ties to high-ranking Russian officials, according to a memo from special counsel David Weiss filed on Tuesday. “[Alexander] Smirnov’s contacts with Russian officials who are affiliated with Russian intelligence services are not benign,” the memo said. “During his custodial interview on February 14, Smirnov admitted that officials associated with Russian intelligence were involved in passing a…

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Jennifer Rubin writes: Fulton County, Ga., District Attorney Fani Willis took the stand last week under attack from Michael Roman, former henchman 0f four-times-indicted former president Donald Trump, and many in the media and legal community. At issue was whether her romantic relationship with a special counsel, Nathan Wade, was grounds for disqualifying her from the sprawling RICO case she brought against Trump and nearly 20 co-defendants (some of whom struck plea deals). What was legally at issue — the…

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David Cay Johnston writes: The news about the eye-popping $355 million judgment against Donald Trump Friday minimized or even missed the real story in the judge’s richly detailed ruling. In justifying his findings of fact, New York Judge Arthur Engoron’s analysis of testimony in Trump’s seven-week civil fraud trial in Manhattan showed how everything Trump does is based on consistent and shameless cheating, deceiving, falsifying documents, and lying. The 92-page ruling establishes that Trump isn’t a business genius, a modern…

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