President Trump’s decision to commute the sentence of Roger Stone has brought renewed attention to the pardon power. This pardon is egregious, perhaps even corrupt, but it is perfectly lawful. The President’s power to issue pardons is fairly absolute. The President has the unilateral authority to issue pardons. and this power cannot be constrained by […]
The Supreme Court issued its final decisions of the term today, resolving the long-running dispute over Donald Trump’s financial records and the status of eastern Oklahoma. The Court resoundingly rejected claims of Presidential immunity, but also roundly rejected the House of Representatives’ claims of unlimited investigatory authority. The Court also ruled in favor of Native […]
Today, on what appears to be the penultimate day of the current Supreme Court term, the justices handed down two decisions supportive of religious liberty and conscience, both by lopsided margins. Tomorrow the Court is scheduled to release the remaining opinions of the term, and may also issue additional orders. The first case released this […]
In 1970, President Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency. Running for President in 2016, called the EPA a “disgrace,” and a Republican member of Congress introduced legislation to eliminate the agency altogether. What explains the dramatic change in the Republican Party’s approach to environmental protection? One recent effort to answer this question is The […]
What is up with Chief Justice Roberts? Is he moving left? Cowing to political pressure? Trading off liberal and conservative votes? Perhaps it is none-of-the-above, as I explain in this New York Times op-ed. From the beginning: The chief justice has sided with the Supreme Court’s liberal justices on some of the biggest cases of […]
Today the Supreme Court decided Barr v. American Association of Political Consultants, in which the Court invalidated a provision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) exempting calls to collect on government debt from a broader prohibition on robocalls. Eugene described the basic holding, particularly with regard to the First Amendment issues below. In this […]
On Tuesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued an en banc decision that is good news for landowners and environmental advocates se eking to challenge decisions by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approving the construction of energy infrastructure. In Allegheny Defense Project v. FERC, the court voted 10-1 to reject a procedural […]
Before the U.S. Court of Appeals decided to grant Michael Flynn’s petition for a writ of mandamus ordering the dismissal of the charges against him for lying to the FBI, former federal judge Michael Luttig offered his thoughts on what the court should do. Now that the D.C. Circuit has granted the petition, Judge Luttig […]
The Supreme Court handed down three big opinions today, each of which was closely divided. Here is a quick run down, with more to follow on these cases in later posts by various VC contributors. First, the Court decided Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, upholding a limitation on USAID grant […]
Today the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decided U.S. Postal Service v. Postal Regulatory Commission. In an opinion for the court, Judge Thomas Griffith resolved a dispute between these two agencies, holding that the PRC could order disclosure of certain financial data related to the sending of mail from foreign countries to the […]
