Law

A lift too far: The Court of Appeals decision [With Comment by John]

Featured image On the local front, I have sought to draw attention to the case of JaycCee Cooper v. USA Powerlifting in several posts accessible here. Filed in Ramsey County District Court and assigned to Judge Patrick Diamond, the case raises the question whether USAP’s separation of men from women in USAP’s Minnesota competitions must yield to Cooper’s self-identification as a woman. Although a biological male, Cooper seeks to compete with the »

Fani Can Stay

Featured image This morning, Judge Scott McAfee issued his ruling on the motion to disqualify Fani Willis from the Atlanta prosecution of Donald Trump. McAfee ruled that Willis’s romantic relationship with lead prosecutor Nathan Wade did not give rise to an actual financial conflict, but there was an appearance of impropriety that demands a remedy. He was harshly critical of Willis and Wade: This finding is by no means an indication that »

Willfully yours

Featured image Special Counsel Robert Hur found that President Biden willfully mishandled documents subject to the Espionage Act provision set forth in 28 U.S.C. § 793(e). However, Hur clouded the “willfulness” element of the offense by resting his non-prosecution recommendation in part on Biden’s present senility. Hur presents his analysis of the element of “willfulness” under section 793 in Chapter Nine of his report. The relevant question is whether Biden committed the »

Hymn to Hur

Featured image Special Counsel Robert Hur testified for some five hours before the House Judiciary Committee yesterday on his investigation into President Biden’s mishandling of classified documents over his too long career in public life. I have posted the Washington Post’s YouTube video of the hearing at the bottom. At the same time, transcripts of Hur’s interview of Biden in the investigation were released: October 8 (99 pages) and October 9 (157 »

Him or Hur?

Featured image Politico Playbook previews the testimony later this morning of Special Counsel Robert Hur before the House Judiciary Committee. Hur is to testify on the report of his investigation of Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents (i.e., the report submitted to Attorney General Merrick Garland). The Playbookers have obtained and posted Hur’s opening statement here. These are the operative paragraphs: My report reflects my best effort to explain why I declined »

Get a Load of Fani

Featured image Fani Willis’s prosecution of Donald Trump has descended into comedy, currently of the bedroom farce variety. As all the world now knows, Willis carried on a torrid affair with Nathan Wade, whom she hired to lead the Trump prosecution and to whom she paid an extraordinary amount of taxpayer money, and then helped him spend it. That is corruption of the most old-fashioned sort. Willis and Wade have claimed that »

Take a load off me

Featured image This past Thursday I watched Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis testify at the hearing to disqualify her and her former lover from prosecuting President Trump and the other defendants in her “conspiracy so immense” RICO case. Willis was a wild witness. Her testimony was bizarre on its own terms. She also lashed out as though no rules of evidence applied to her testimony. She turned her appearance into a »

It Can’t Happen Here

Featured image Via InstaPundit, re today’s absurd order from rogue judge Arthur Engoron: Between the United States and Russia, one country just arbitrarily seized the assets of an oligarch opposed to the regime, and is trying to jail him The other country is Russia — Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) February 16, 2024 There are obvious differences between our regime and Russia’s, starting with the fact that the Biden Administration has not yet actually »

Fani Takes the Stand [Updated]

Featured image Today, in an Atlanta courtroom, a judge heard testimony on a motion by defendants to disqualify Fani Willis from her prosecution of Donald Trump and others. The hearing was live-streamed, but I didn’t watch it. From all accounts, though, the day went badly for Fani. The issue is being framed as whether Willis had a conflict of interest in her prosecution of Trump et al. The conflict would arise, I »

The uses of Beau Biden

Featured image President Biden hastily called a press event this past Thursday evening to proclaim his mental competence in the teeth of Special Counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s mishandling of classified documents. Having investigated Biden’s retention and disclosure of such documents, Hur recommended no charges. Hur predicated his recommendation on Biden’s incompetence, concluding either that the mental element of potential charges was lacking and/or that a jury would excuse his misconduct »

A genius for friendship

Featured image Abraham Lincoln stands not only as America’s greatest president but also as its greatest lawyer. At the time of his election to the presidency in 1860 he was the most prominent practicing lawyer in the state of Illinois. As a politician and as president, Lincoln was a profound student of the Constitution and constitutional history. Perhaps most important, Lincoln was America’s indispensable teacher of the moral ground of political freedom »

Take a Load Off Fani: Old-Fashioned Corruption?

Featured image Fulton County DA Fani Willis’s stock has been in steep decline ever since it came out that she hired her illicit boyfriend, Nathan Wade, to head the prosecution of Donald Trump on absurd “RICO” grounds, and paid him a lot of money. That revelation came out in Wade’s divorce proceeding, always an unfortunate venue. But it turns out that may not be the worst of it, as some of Willis’s »

What base ingratitude [corrected]

Featured image Winston Churchill held former Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in low esteem. It might not be an exaggeration to say he reviled Baldwin. When asked to send Baldwin an 80th birthday note, Churchill declined. “I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill,” he commented, “but it would have been much better had he never lived.” Four months later, when informed that Baldwin had died, Churchill responded: “Embalm, cremate and bury. Take no chances” »

A Bitterly Disappointing Verdict

Featured image Today the jury returned its verdict in the defamation trial of Michael Mann v. Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn. The verdict was disappointing to those of us who followed the case and thought that Michael Mann presented a pathetically inadequate case. The jury actually agreed: it found that the defendants had defamed Mann, but awarded only a token $1 in damages, since Mann had failed to prove any. But it »

The Jury Is Out

Featured image It often happens that jury trials start slowly, then finish with a rush. That happened in the case of Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg. Evidence wrapped up rather quickly, and today the lawyers delivered their closing arguments. I assume that jury deliberations will begin tomorrow, as the arguments concluded late in the afternoon. John Williams, an elderly lawyer who is Mann’s senior counsel, argued first. I didn’t »

What next?

Featured image A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected President Trump’s claim of absolute immunity from election-related criminal charges deriving from official acts taken as president. The panel’s ruling comes in a 57-page per curiam (i.e., unsigned and unanimous) opinion yesterday. The court’s opinion is posted online here. After a slog through precedent, the court holds: “Former President Trump lacked any lawful discretionary authority to defy federal criminal »

Whereabouts

Featured image I have been mostly AWOL the last few days, so I thought that I owe our readers an explanation. My wife and I have been in Washington, D.C. I have had a few meetings of various kinds, but mostly we are here to spend some time in the D.C. Superior Court, observing the trial of Michael Mann v. Mark Steyn and Rand Simberg, finally before a jury after 12 years »