JONATHAN TURLEY
BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION
Professor Jonathan Turley is a nationally recognized legal scholar who has written extensively in areas ranging from constitutional law to legal theory to tort law. He has written over three dozen academic articles that have appeared in a variety of leading law journals at Cornell, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, and other schools. He is a New York Times best-selling author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage (available here) and “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution” (#2 on NY Times Bestseller List).
After a stint at Tulane Law School, Professor Turley joined the George Washington faculty in 1990 and, in 1998, was given the prestigious Shapiro Chair for Public Interest Law, the youngest chaired professor in the school’s history. In 2024, a G.W. alum endowed a fellowship after him, “The Professor Jonathan Turley Public Interest and Public Service Summer Fellowship.”
In addition to his extensive publications, Professor Turley has served as counsel in some of the most notable cases in the last two decades including the representation of whistleblowers, military personnel, judges, members of Congress, and a wide range of other clients. He is also one of the few attorneys to successfully challenge both a federal and a state law — leading to courts striking down the federal Elizabeth Morgan law as well as the state criminalization of cohabitation.
In 2010, Professor Turley represented Judge G. Thomas Porteous in his impeachment trial. After a trial before the Senate, Professor Turley (on December 7, 2010) argued both the motions and gave the final argument to all 100 U.S. Senators from the well of the Senate floor — only the 14th time in history of the country that such a trial of a judge has reached the Senate floor. Judge Porteous was convicted of four articles of impeachments, including the acceptance of $2000 from an attorney and using a false name on a bankruptcy filing.
In 2011, Professor Turley filed a challenge to the Libyan War on behalf of ten members of Congress, including Representatives Roscoe Bartlett (R., Md); Dan Burton (R., Ind.); Mike Capuano (D., Mass.); Howard Coble (R., N.C.); John Conyers (D., Mich.); John J. Duncan (R., Tenn.); Tim Johnson (R., Ill.); Walter Jones (R., N.C.); Dennis Kucinich (D., Ohio); and Ron Paul (R., Tx). The lawsuit was before the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
In November 2014, Turley agreed to serve as lead counsel to the United States House of Representatives in its constitutional challenge to changes ordered by President Obama to the Affordable Care Act. The litigation was approved by the House of Representatives to seek judicial review of the claims under the separation of powers. On May 12, 2016, the federal court handed down a historic victory for the House and ruled that the Obama Administration violated the separation of powers in ordering billions to be paid to insurance companies without an appropriation of Congress.
Other cases include his representation of the Area 51 workers at a secret air base in Nevada; the nuclear couriers at Oak Ridge, Tennessee; the Rocky Flats grand jury in Colorado; Dr. Eric Foretich, the husband in the famous Elizabeth Morgan custody controversy; and four former United States Attorneys General during the Clinton impeachment litigation. In the Foretich case, Turley succeeded recently in reversing a trial court and striking down a federal statute through a rare “bill of attainder” challenge. Professor Turley has also served as counsel in a variety of national security cases, including espionage cases like that of Jim Nicholson, the highest ranking CIA officer ever accused of espionage. Turley also served as lead defense counsel in the successful defense of Petty Officer Daniel King, who faced the death penalty for alleged spying for Russia. Turley also served as defense counsel in the case of Dr. Tom Butler, who is faced criminal charges dealing with the importation and handling of thirty vials of plague in Texas. He also served as counsel to Larry Hanauer, the House Intelligence Committee staffer accused of leaking a classified Presidential National Intelligence Estimate to the New York Times. (Hanauer was cleared of all allegations).
Among his current cases, Professor Turley represents Dr. Ali Al-Timimi, who was convicted in Virginia in 2005 of violent speech against the United States. (He was ultimately cleared of all charges in 2026). In 2020, the federal court found that there was merit in the challenges raised by Professor Turley and his co-counsel Tom Huff. Accordingly, the judge ordered his release to protect him from Covit-19 while the Court prepared a decision on the challenges. Pursuant to a court order, Dr. Al-Timimi was released from the Supermax in Colorado and the two drove across the country so that he could be placed into home confinement. He also represented Dr. Sami Al-Arian, who was accused of being the American leader of a terrorist organization while he was a university professor in Florida. Turley represented Dr. Al-Arian for eight years, much of which was in a determined defense against an indictment for criminal contempt. The case centered on the alleged violation of a plea bargain by the Justice Department after Dr. Al-Arian was largely exonerated of terrorism charges in Tampa, Florida. On June 27, 2014, all charges were dropped against Dr. Al-Arian. He also represented pilots approaching or over the age of 60 in their challenge to the mandatory retirement age of the FAA. He also represented David Murphee Faulk, the whistleblower who disclosed abuses in the surveillance operations at NSA’s Fort Gordon facility in Georgia.
Professor Turley also served as an expert defense witness in the extradition proceedings of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in London. Turley was asked to testify on the likely pre-trial, trial, and appellate issues facing Mr. Assange as well as the prison conditions that he could expect upon extradition to Northern Virginia for trial.
Professor Turley also agreed to serve as lead counsel representing the Brown family from the TLC program “Sister Wives, a reality show on plural marriage or polygamy. On December 13, 2013, the federal court in Utah struck down the criminalization of polygamy — the first such decision in history — on free exercise and due process grounds. On September 26, 2014, the court also ruled in favor of the Browns under Section 1983 — giving them a clean sweep on all of the statutory and constitutional claims. In April 2015, a panel reversed the decision on standing grounds and that decision is now on appeal.
Professor Turley was also lead counsel in the World Bank protest case stemming from the mass arrest of people in 2002 by the federal and district governments during demonstrations of the IMF and World Bank. Turley and his co-lead counsel Dan Schwartz (and the law firm of Bryan Cave) were the first to file and represented student journalists arrested without probable cause. In April 2015, after 13 years of intense litigation, the case was settled for $2.8 million, including $115,000 for each arrestee — a record damage award in a case of this kind and over twice the amount of prior damages for individual protesters. The case also exposed government destruction and withholding of evidence as well as the admitted mass arrest of hundreds of people without probable cause.
Professor Turley also served as the legal expert in the review of polygamy laws in the British Columbia (Canada) Supreme Court. In the latter case, he argued for the decriminalization of plural union and conjugal unions. In 2012, Turley also represented the makers of “Five Wives Vodka” (Ogden’s Own Distillery) in challenging an effective ban on the product in Idaho after officials declared the product to be offensive to Mormons. After opposing the ban on free speech and other grounds, the state of Idaho issued a letter apologizing for public statements made by officials and lifting the ban on sale for “Five Wives Vodka.”
Turley has served as a consultant on homeland security and constitutional issues, including with the Florida House of Representatives. He also served as the consultant to the Puerto Rico House of Representatives on the impeachment of Gov. Aníbal Acevedo Vilá.
Professor Turley is a frequent witness before the House and Senate on constitutional and statutory issues as well as tort reform legislation. He has testified over 100 times in the House and the Senate. That testimony includes the confirmation hearings of Attorney General nominees Loretta Lynch and William Barr as well as Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch. Professor Turley is also a nationally recognized legal commentator. Professor Turley was ranked as 38th in the top 100 most cited “public intellectuals” in the recent study by Judge Richard Posner. Turley was also found to be the second most cited law professor in the country. He has been ranked in the top five most popular law professors on Twitter and has been repeatedly ranked in the nation’s top 500 lawyers in annual surveys (including in the latest rankings by LawDragon) – one of only a handful of academics. In prior years, he was ranked as one of the nation’s top ten lawyers in military law cases as well as one of the top 40 lawyers under 40. He was also selected in the last five years as one of the 100 top Irish lawyers in the world. In 2016, he was ranked as one of the 100 most famous (past and present) law professors.
Professor Turley is one of only two academics to testify at both the Clinton and Trump impeachment hearings. In December 2019, Professor Turley was called as the one Republican witness in the House Judiciary Committee impeachment hearings. He appeared with three Democratic witnesses. Professor Turley disagreed with his fellow witnesses in opposing the proposed articles of impeachments on bribery, extortion, campaign finance violations or obstruction of justice. He argued that these alleged impeachable acts were at odds with controlling definitions of those crimes and that Congress has historically looked to the criminal code and cases for guidance on such allegations. The committee ultimately rejected those articles and adopted the only two articles that Professor Turley said could be legitimately advanced: abuse of power, obstruction of Congress. Chairman Jerrold Nadler even ended the hearing by quoting his position on abuse of power. However, Turley opposed impeachment on this record as incomplete and insufficient for submission to the Senate. He argued for the House to wait and complete the record by seeking to compel key witnesses like former National Security Adviser John Bolton. His testimony was later relied upon in the impeachment floor debate by various House members and he was cited by both the White House and House managers in their arguments before the United States Senate in the Trump impeachment trial, including videotaped remarks played at the trial.
Professor Turley’s articles on legal and policy issues appear regularly in national publications with hundreds of articles in such newspapers as the New York Times, Washington Post, USA Today, Los Angeles Times and Wall Street Journal. He is a columnist for USA Today and writes regularly for the Washington Post. In 2005, Turley was given the Columnist of the Year award for Single-Issue Advocacy for his columns on civil liberties by The Aspen Institute and the Week Magazine. Professor Turley also appears regularly as a legal expert on all of the major television networks. Since the 1990s, he has worked under contract as the on-air Legal Analyst for NBC News, CBS News, BBC and Fox News. Professor Turley has been a repeated guest on Sunday talk shows with over two-dozen appearances on Meet the Press, ABC This Week, Face the Nation, and Fox Sunday. Professor Turley has taught courses on constitutional law, constitutional criminal law, environmental law, litigation, and torts. He is the founder and executive director of the Project for Older Prisoners (POPS). His work with older prisoners has been honored in various states, including his selection as the 2011 recipient of the Dr. Mary Ann Quaranta Elder Justice Award at Fordham University.
In 2024, the Washingtonian recognized Turley as one of the most influential persons in shaping policy. His award-winning blog is routinely ranked as one of the most popular legal blogs by AVVO. His blog was selected as the top News/Analysis site in 2013, the top Legal Opinion Blog in 2011 as well as prior selections as the top Law Professor Blog and Legal Theory Blog. It was also ranked in the top 20 constitutional law blog in 2018. It has been regularly ranked by the ABA Journal in the top 100 blogs in the world. In 2012, Turley was selected as one of the top 20 legal experts on Twitter by Business Insider. In 2013, the ABA Journal inducted the Turley Blog into its Hall of Fame. In addition to teaching a course on the Supreme Court and the Constitution, he is on the board of the Supreme Court Historical Society.
Professor Turley received his B.A. at the University of Chicago and his J.D. at Northwestern. In 2008, he was given an honorary Doctorate of Law from John Marshall Law School for his contributions to civil liberties and the public interest.
Twitter: @jonathanturley
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.” and “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
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Hi Jonathan,
Carol Decker gave a donation in memory of Molly. We are sorry to hear of the accident. We typically send a card to the person who had a donation made in their (or their dog) name. If you would like to provide a land mail address, I will send that to you.
The generous gift will be used to help us spay/neuter dogs here at our all breed dog/cat rescue in Columbus Ohio. We have a mobile clinic that travels throughout the state doing low cost spay/neuter surgeries.
Our heart is heavy for your loss.
Kind Regards,
Kellie DiFrischia
ColumbusDogConnection.com
kdifrischia@gmail.com
Professor Turley,
As much as I enjoy “your” articles, I only enjoy them when “you” write them.
I am neither a writer nor a journalist but when I compare the article below (released March 17, 2013) to your article headlined: Holder Tells Senator That Obama Does Have Authority To Kill Citizens With Drones On U.S. Soil Without Criminal Charge or Conviction I’m left wondering who wrote the article? Am I mistaken or confused about the similarities? If not, then did someone forget to source and link attribute?
This really concerns me because I feel that any semblance of the truth I got from the alternative news is fading away.
One person can damage the credibility of an entire organization but I’m sure you are aware of that. Maybe I’m overeating. Could you please shed some light on this situation? Thank you for your input.
A dedicated follower of “YOUR” blog,
Stacey
Holder Confirms Obama Can Murder US Citizens By Drone Attack in America
Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
March 6, 2013
Attorney General Eric Holder wrote a letter to Senator Rand Paul that states: “It is possible, I suppose, to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
Holder explained to Paul that it is legal for US citizens to be murdered in a drone strike on American soil.
To answer Paul’s question of whether Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil and without trial”; Holder went on to assert that Obama “has the power to authorize lethal force, such as a drone strike, against a U.S. citizen on U.S. soil, and without trial.”
Holder went on to say: “[The Obama administration] reject the use of military force where well-established law enforcement authorities in this country provide the best means for incapacitating a terrorist threat. The question you have posed is therefore entirely hypothetical, unlikely to occur, and one we hope no President will ever have to confront.”
However, Holder does acknowledge that “it is possible, I suppose to imagine an extraordinary circumstance in which it would be necessary and appropriate under the Constitution and applicable laws of the United States for the President to authorize the military to use lethal force within the territory of the United States.”
Holder postulated that “the President could conceivably have no choice but to authorize the military to use such force if necessary to protect the homeland in the circumstances of a catastrophic attack. Were such an emergency to arise, I would examine the particular facts and circumstances before advising the President on the scope of this authority.”
A leaked document from the Department of Justice (DoJ) revealed guidelines of the Obama administration’s legal reasoning for conducting targeted assassinations. The document asserts that the government may lawfully kill a United States citizen if “an informed, high-level official” decides that the target is a high-ranking Qaeda figure or affiliate who poses “an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States” and that capturing him is not feasible.
Without the definitive threat of attack that could be construed as inevitable, the power of executive order is all that is needed to have a targeted assassination initiated.
The white paper includes redefinitions and expansions of self-defense and imminent attack with the ideology of a “broader concept of imminence” without the necessity of actual intelligence to support those assumptions. If the American is thought to be a threat to the US, they could become eligible of these targeted assassinations.
The document also states that Congress would be circumvented while Congressional committee’s intelligence could be considered classified legal advice which would justify the killing.
The Obama administration, through the DoJ, are attempting to create a legal explanation for their targeted assassinations of US citizens without proof of terroristic activities. Now they have it.
Armed with a secret kill-list and several US citizens already murdered by the US government.
According to anonymous sources, Obama has drawn up a guidebook that sets forth the circumstances by which targeted assassinations using drones can be carried out. This document seeks to justify the use of unmanned aircraft for the use of a CIA-operated targeted-killing program which is still officially classified.
The Obama administration is deciding whether or not drone killings should be the first response to terroristic suspicions in order to “help allied governments attack their enemies or to prevent militants from controlling territories.”
Thanks to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), 6 national drone test sites were established to coincide with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announcement that by 2015 at least 30,000 drones will be in American skies surveying US citizens in the name of safety, according to Janet Napolitano.
DHS is requiring that Predator B drones be equip with surveillance capabilities that can determine if a human target is armed or not.
Through a solicitation posted in 2005, DHS initiated the process of obtaining drones to be specially equipped to become encompassing surveillance tools to use against the American people.
These specific drones are used to monitor US southern and northern borders; yet are now being utilizes by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), the Secret Service (SS), the Texas Rangers, and local law enforcement to identify citizens carrying firearms and tracking them through cell phone use.
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems (GAAS) explain that DHS specified that these drones “shall be capable of identifying a standing human being at night as likely armed or not”; including “signals interception” technology that can syphon communications in frequency ranges used by cell phones, as well as “direction finding” technology that can pin-point the locations of mobile devices or two-way radios.
GAAS provide “tactical reconnaissance radars, and surveillance systems” to the US government. Their CLAW and LYNX technology collaborate “multi-mode radar” and “sensor payload control and image analysis software “to enhance surveillance and intelligence gathering that can be downloaded into “ultra-wideband data links for government applications.”
These drones are “capable of intercepting electronic communications . . . [and] the capacity to recognize and identify a person on the ground.”
Posted by Susanne Posel on March 6, 2013. Filed under Police State. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
Noticed “Res ipsa loquitur” Interesting, I had a prof who used to write
Dear Professor Turley; Do you know of any discussion that relates the 2nd Amendment to the events of the Civil War: 1) States in armed rebellion against the Federal Government and, 2) Individuals (freed slaves) in armed rebellion against oppressive State governments. Thanks
Quite a few excellent ideas on this page and really didnt have a clue
regarding almost any of this before so with thanks for your
information
Professor Turley a perennial favorite of mine.A Constitutional Scholar that probably could answer a good question,”Is subcutanious rfid implants on an individuals person,beyond thier knowledge Constitutional?”
I recently made a video of how the CIA created Al Qaeda and used it to attack Egypt. Here it is, in case you are interested:
Prof Turley – Please read my blog for such stories about the rampant corruption of judges in Cook County Illinois and help spread the word. If you can help to encourage pro bono attorneys and celebrities to take up our cause against corruption in Cook County Courts please contact me. http://cookcountyjudges.wordpress.com
Permission to quicklink to OpEdNews. I don’t know where to ask. Thanks,.
zrants@gmail.com
hello admin nice forum . i am a new user and i will be actively participating .. 😎
Dear George Washington University Law School Professor Turley,
Of course as many Americans, I have heard some of your commentary on major media, yet today, I found your blog entry on Father James Manship of East New Haven. Sharing the same name, I had the pleasure of meeting the Father on New Year’s Day 2008. I posted on your blog a bit about that meeting.
I see you practice “Public Interest Law”, and as a “Journalist for Justice”, and “Minister for Justice”, I try to help Citizens and thus advance the Public Interest. On 16 September 2011, on behalf of 8 children, as “Next Friend”, I filed in Alexandria Federal Court against Arlington County, copying the pleading of a successful case in Massachusetts. A week later five children were returned to their parents (“victory” at least in part), but my case was dismissed because I am not a lawyer, so could not “represent” the children.
On 6 December 2011, at the JDR Courtroom, during a recess, I was eye-witness to the oldest of the 8, Ashlie Mae O’Brien, then age 12, become the victim of an unprovoked, bloody assault by Arlington Deputy Neptuno Mendez-Ventura. I asked Theo Stamos, the local prosecutor, to bring charges against Ventura, and she snapped at me, “You must be delusional if you think I am going to prosecute a deputy.” I tried to make a presentment before the Arlington Grand Jury for them to investigate and indict, but Chief Judge Newman blocked my access to the Grand Jury.
I asked for the Courthouse videos, and was denied. After earlier in the day being threatened four times by retired judge Kendrick with Contempt of Court, on my third written request to the Sheriff, on 20 June 2012, with about ten Arlington Citizens in the Sheriff Office reception area, I again asked for the videos, that were “prepared” later that same day.
I received the videos from the Arlington Sheriff on a “thumb drive” on 2 July 2012, and with an MIT engineer, “opened” the videos. We discovered some of the videos had been “video compressed” to reduce their quality, and all of them had been “cut”, to remove the scene where the deputy bloody assaulted Ashlie O’Brien, or evidence tampering; but there still was MUCH valuable video.
Ashlie’s wrote a letter in August 2011 to Judge Varoutsos to replace Guardian Ad Litem, Karen Grane, who is not representing Ashlie’s interests. When questioned in court about Ashlie’s letter, judge Varoutsos mocked Ashlie’s letter saying, “I’ve seen her scrambles.”
As a former Navy Crypto Inspector General staff officer, I saw GAL Grane’s expense vouchers, and perceived “padding” or fraud. I helped the Maryland Court Ordered Guardian, Grandmother, prepare a Petition for Writ of Mandamus for the clerk to make a copy of those expense vouchers. Instead Judge Varoutsos in an Order specifically “sealed” the Grane Expense Vouchers, but months later, a whistleblower in the clerk’s office made a copy that I now have. Two vouchers’ totals have been lined out and reduced by $1000, or $2000 total, the amount I read on this blog that Judge Porteous allegedly received from a lawyer in his impeachment trial in the U.S. Senate.
The sad saga continues, but I share this hoping that either you or some lawyer you may recommend might be able to represent Ashlie, who after she saw another older foster girl run away from the foster home in Mount Vernon, Ashlie ran away in April 2012 to her grandmother in Montgomery County, MD, and I went to do a “Video Deposition” of her that I have posted on Vimeo.
Within a week or so, Ashlie was “captured”, after Fairfax Police gave a false report to the local TV stations (that after I contacted the Police investigator, they changed, but the correct story only got a small “correction” in the Washington Post), and Ashlie has now been sent to a “juvenile jail” near Richmond, that is known for “drug therapy”, in an abuse of Medicare funding.
The Attorney General of Virginia has recently sent a letter, 5 November 2012, saying it will not get involved because it is a “private facility”. There was a hearing in Arlington on Friday, where the judge denied the Grandmother’s Motion for Default Judgment because the government did not file a reply within the required 60 days on her Habeas Petition.
My name is James Manship. One email is StatesManship@me.com, and my phone is 703-672-1776. I hope to hear from you, Sir.
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Trial, noun. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors. In order to effect this purpose it is necessary to supply a contrast in the person of one who is called the defendant, the prisoner, or the accused. If the contrast is made sufficiently clear this person is made to undergo such an affliction as will give the virtuous gentlemen a comfortable sense of their immunity, added to that of their worth. In our day the accused is usually a human being, or a socialist, but in mediaeval times, animals, fishes, reptiles and insects were brought to trial. A beast that had taken human life, or practiced sorcery, was duly arrested, tried and, if condemned, put to death by the public executioner. Insects ravaging grain fields, orchards or vineyards were cited to appeal by counsel before a civil tribunal, and after testimony, argument and condemnation, if they continued in contumaciam the matter was taken to a high ecclesiastical court, where they were solemnly excommunicated and anathematized. In a street of Toledo, some pigs that had wickedly run between the viceroy’s legs, upsetting him, were arrested on a warrant, tried and punished. In Naples and ass was condemned to be burned at the stake, but the sentence appears not to have been executed. D’Addosio relates from the court records many trials of pigs, bulls, horses, cocks, dogs, goats, etc., greatly, it is believed, to the betterment of their conduct and morals. In 1451 a suit was brought against the leeches infesting some ponds about Berne, and the Bishop of Lausanne, instructed by the faculty of Heidelberg University, directed that some of “the aquatic worms” be brought before the local magistracy. This was done and the leeches, both present and absent, were ordered to leave the places that they had infested within three days on pain of incurring “the malediction of God.” In the voluminous records of this cause celebre nothing is found to show whether the offenders braved the punishment, or departed forthwith out of that inhospitable jurisdiction.
Will you please just write your legal opinion that even though the best option is to have a good lawyer, when people need to appear in Federal Court and can’t afford or find a good lawyer, that they have a right to represent themselves and get the same written rules of procedure as anyone else? Your legal bloggers agree that that is the case. Please just write it without sticking in any comments about my character or myself.
Dear Professor Turley,
I watched with great interest your “Electoral College’ program on C-Span and I am in total agreement with your position.
I wonder if you could shed some light on the the application of the two English systems: That of parliamentary democracy 1189-1638 interruption civil war, 1660-present, and the one initiated by Oliver Cromwell which lasted in England for six years 1654 1660. The latter being the one seemingly endorsed by by the founding fathers in 1787 Cromwell/President, Comander in Chief of military, two party system.
Thank you
John Hullican
Please contact me back via email when you can–just have a quick question!
B