Attention to the Unseen

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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David Corn writes: Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s indictment-o-rama, the politerati have considered the criminal case filed in New York City against the former president by District Attorney Alvin Bragg to be a sideshow. Though this case has key elements of a bona fide scandal—porn star! hush money! alleged extramarital affair!—pundits and politicos have struck a dismissive attitude toward Trump’s Stormy Daniels mess and the legal peril it poses him. Perhaps because it’s not as weighty a matter as…

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NBC News reports: The controversy over special counsel Robert Hur’s characterization of President Joe Biden’s memory has obscured one of the most surprising findings in his report: evidence that Biden knowingly kept classified materials at home for years and failed to turn them in. After a yearlong investigation, Hur found that the evidence of “willful retention” — the language in the criminal statute — wasn’t strong enough to justify a prosecution. And he explained in detail why the criminal charges…

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The New York Times reports: Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country. Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a…

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