"When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." — Richard M. Nixon (1913-94)
Legal scholars have been fascinated for two centuries about whether an American president can break the law and remain immune from prosecution. During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln ordered troops to arrest, without warrant, and incarcerate, without due process, many peaceful, law-abiding journalists and newspaper editors — and even a member of Congress — in the Northern states. Wasn't that kidnapping?
During World War I, Woodrow Wilson ordered federal agents to arrest people who sang German beer. . .
"Emergency does not create power. Emergency does not increase granted power or remove or diminish the restrictions imposed upon power granted or reserved. The Constitution was adopted in a period of grave emergency. Its grants of power to the federal government and its limitations of the power of the States were determined in the light of emergency, and they are not altered by emergency." — Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes (1862-1948)
This week, the United States Senate will take a historic vote known as a negation, a statutory procedure whereby Congress nullifies an act of the president. . .
In an ideal world, the president of the United States would succeed in negotiating a nuclear arms treaty with a foreign government — and do so with full congressional support; his lawyer would respect the attorney-client privilege and not reveal confidences publicly; Congress would abide the old adage that politics ends where the water's edge begins and lie low when the president is overseas on a delicate mission; the president would not engage in a grievous constitutional overreach that provokes a congressional negation; no one in his administration would have a top-secret security clearance who failed. . .
Earlier this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a group of supporters and journalists that in her view, gun violence is the real emergency. Such a statement, in the context in which she made it, should send shivers down the spines of all who believe in personal liberty protected by the Constitution.
Notwithstanding the terrifying analogy she made about gun violence — terrifying to those who believe in the individual right to keep and bear arms as articulated by the Second Amendment and interpreted and upheld by the Supreme Court — Pelosi wasn't really speaking about guns. She. . .
Last week, President Donald Trump followed through on a threat he had been making for months. It was not a blistering or insulting tweet. It was not an attack on the press or congressional Democrats. It was an attack on the Constitution.
Here is the back story.
In 2015, Trump began offering that as president, he would build a "big, beautiful wall" along the border of the United States and Mexico and that Mexico would pay for the wall. His stated purpose throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and beyond was that a wall is necessary to stop the. . .
While the public discourse has been consumed over the realization that abortion physicians actually let viable babies who survive late-term abortions die — as well as whether President Donald Trump or House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will blink first over the issue of congressional authorization for building a wall at the country's southern border, to say nothing of the race- and sex-infused mess at the top of the government in Virginia — a profound free speech issue has been bubbling below the radar.
A former White House communications aide and former Trump campaign adviser who has written. . .
Much has been made lately of language in a recently enacted New York state statute that permits abortion up to the time of birth if necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother. New Jersey has had the same provision for two generations via a regulation of the Board of Medical Examiners.
Sadly, when New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the new legislation into law two weeks ago, he did so in a joyful and celebratory atmosphere. What moral person could find joy in this?
The joyless debate over the issue of how late in a pregnancy is. . .
Last Friday, on a quiet residential street at 6 in the morning, the neighborhood exploded in light, noise and terror. Seventeen SUVs and two armored vehicles arrived in front of one house. Each vehicle had sirens blaring and lights flashing. The house, which abutted a canal, was soon surrounded by 29 government agents, each wearing military garb, each carrying a handgun and most carrying high-powered automatic rifles.
In the canal were two amphibious watercraft, out of which more heavily armed government agents came. Circling above all this was a helicopter equipped with long-range precision weaponry and high-powered. . .
Last week, the investigative arm of BuzzFeed sparked a media frenzy with a report claiming that two federal law enforcement sources had informed its reporters that Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former lawyer and confidant, had told special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump counseled him to lie to Congress about the status of Trump's attempts to build Trump Tower Moscow.
The BuzzFeed piece also claimed that the sources revealed that Mueller's folks had received documentary evidence from Cohen to back up his allegations.
The reason for the media frenzy was the realization by House. . .
Last weekend, The New York Times reported that senior FBI officials were so concerned about whatever President Donald Trump's true motivation for firing FBI Director James Comey was that they immediately initiated a counterintelligence investigation of the president himself.
The Times reported that these officials believed that Trump may have intentionally or unwittingly played into the Kremlin's hands by firing Comey so as to impair the FBI investigation into what efforts, if any, Russian intelligence personnel undertook in attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election and what role, if any, the Trump campaign played in facilitating. . .