Insights < BACK TO ALL INSIGHTS
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
FEATURED
December 6, 2024
How Thick is the Blanket? – Preemptive Pardons as a Presidential Power
By: James Trusty
As the presiding judge scolded Hunter Biden’s attorneys this week, “The Constitution provides the President with broad authority to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, U.S. Const. art. II, § 2, cl. 1, but nowhere does the Constitution give the President the authority to rewrite history.”[1] But what exactly is that history he claims is being re-written? Judge Scarsi was challenging the largely academic issue of whether a pardon signed at noon, for instance, protects against crimes committed on the same day at dinnertime. That is a very limited run at the notion of “preemptive” pardons, and it seems to be strictly a question of chronology. The judge did not seem to question the idea of…
Supremely Improbable
July 30, 2024
Supremely Improbable
By: James Trusty
President Biden’s pronounced objectives for Supreme Court “reform” are improbable, politically lifeless under a particularly lame duck presidency, and motivated by transparently November-driven calculations. But even if the proposed changes are doomed from the start, they push public discourse on a couple of issues that are red meat for the democrats. The stated reforms are superficially simple ones: 1) to “clarify” that “there is no…
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
July 5, 2024
Presidential Immunity Ruling Stirs Sound and Fury
By: James Trusty
The immediate and eventual impact of the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in Trump v. United States is both considerable and dramatically misrepresented. The initial consequences include likely delay to the January 6 prosecution out of D.C. and the setting of hearings—in D.C., Georgia and south Florida—where the judges will be required to make factual findings as to whether the evidence supporting the indictments reflect “official…
EFF Challenges Subpoenas to ISPs for Identities of Anonymous Posters
July 22, 2010
EFF Challenges Subpoenas to ISPs for Identities of Anonymous Posters
By: Ifrah Law
On July 14, 2010, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a group that defends the privacy and online rights of computer and Internet users, served a motion to quash two dragnet subpoenas issued by the plaintiffs in a high-profile New York state court case to Internet service providers (ISP’s) Google and Yahoo. The subpoenas demanded the identities of a wide range of anonymous online critics who posted…
DOJ Official Seeks to Clear Her Name After Contempt Charge
July 19, 2010
DOJ Official Seeks to Clear Her Name After Contempt Charge
By: Ifrah Law
A recent filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia uncovered a sidelight to the story of the botched prosecution of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). In April 2009, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan set aside the verdict in the criminal case against Stevens and dismissed the case on the grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. He commenced criminal contempt proceedings against six U.S….
Defense Wants Information on Informant in Dramatic FCPA White-Collar Sting Case
July 16, 2010
Defense Wants Information on Informant in Dramatic FCPA White-Collar Sting Case
By: Ifrah Law
January 2010 saw the dramatic arrests of 22 individuals in the military and law enforcement equipment industry – in several companies and at various levels of responsibility – for alleged Foreign Corrupt Practices Act violations involving payments to an alleged sales agent for an unnamed African nation, later identified as Gabon. The arrests took place at a gun show in Las Vegas. The arrests, in…
Arizona Immigration Statute: DOJ Raises Law Enforcement Issues
July 12, 2010
Arizona Immigration Statute: DOJ Raises Law Enforcement Issues
By: Ifrah Law
On July 6, 2010, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit seeking to prohibit the enforcement of the controversial new anti-immigration law passed by the state of Arizona in April. See, for example, the helpful summary in the blog of Legal Times. DOJ is seeking declaratory and injunctive relief to prohibit the enforcement of the law, known as S.B. 1070. Among other things, S.B….
Poker, as a Game of Skill, Is Beyond Reach of Gaming Laws
July 9, 2010
Poker, as a Game of Skill, Is Beyond Reach of Gaming Laws
By: Ifrah Law
The highly regarded British publication The Economist has just published an interesting article that strongly makes the case that poker is a game of skill, not a game of chance. The article notes that poker is, of course, big business these days, pointing to a consultant’s estimate that the online poker market amounts to $4.9 billion worldwide, with $1.4 billion of that being spent in…
