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, University of Chicago, and other schools. He is the author of The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, which will be released in June 2023 by Simon & Schuster (available now for pre-orders).
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 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. 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. 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.
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.
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
It is now possible to pre-order Jonathan Turley’s 2024 book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in the Age of Rage on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target, Books a Million, Bookshop, and other sites
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Darren Smith,
Is the fact that posts are censored on weekend blogs explicable?
To wit,
12/6/15
“We’re talking drugs, when the FBI Director is quashing the recommendation for indictment against Hillary, understanding that there was no hesitation in the case of Petraeus. Priorities, Mr. Smith.”
Note date:
Peltier Art
John
1, November 28, 2015 at 2:11 pm
Darren Smith, is there an explanation for missing posts on your new Peltier art blog?
OK. Thank you.
Do any other posters have a similar problem? The blog looks good in general. I wonder why it is only my system, which I described above.
Thanks again.
forgotwhoiam,
We see this behavior sometimes when we are making articles in the editor, it happens sometimes with copy and past from MSWord or other documents, especially when converting from .PDFs
DS,
P.S. Perhaps cutting and pasting from some specific websites causes the problem. Can you name any?
I thought about it a while and I think I might have an additional way to address this.
When you cut and past from another website that line breaks are probably getting transferred over in what you past into your editor or wordpress’ text box. In doing this there could be paragraphs mangled into it. Editing these can be tricky especially when the paragraph is long. In an ideal situation when you past text into wordpress it will be one solid stream of characters with a paragraph break at the very end. Unfortunately it doesn’t always work that way. If it did wordpress would take the raw, unbroken text and then will only act at the paragraph break.
In the wordpress text box this can be tricky to remove. The only way I know of to easily restore the paragraph to originality would be to manually go into the text box and see where the errant line break happens, that is you will see a lot of whitespace between some seemingly random words, resulting in a lot of blank space and the continuance of the sentence on a new line.
To correct this you will place the cursor one space after the last letter of the last word before the whitespace then hit the back button one or two times (usually two). It will the draw the text back to form a complete sentence on the same line. Note you might have to do this for each errant line break. If the errant line break occurs to the very right side of the text box it can be difficult to see this. Unfortunately in the comment element of submissions there is no way for the user to go back and correct the text once it is sent. Those of us having editor permissions can revise the text but we do not have the time to customize every comment submitted by each user. Doing the aforementioned steps can be tedious but might be necessary when cutting and pasting content from other websites. If you type the text here directly it should not have the formatting issues because in typing directly here you create a stream of text that the system can easily parse.
Another suggestion, don’t hit the [enter] button until you have fully completed typing a paragraph. That might result in line breaks that you did not intend.
Hope this helps, but this probably is the extent of what I can offer for suggestions.
Darren Smith,
A few days later –
The format of many of my posts on the Turley Blog is still random and erroneous. I’m becoming paranoid. All other posts do not appear to suffer this same phenomenon. I have tried notepad, cutting, copying, etc.
I draft, modify, proof, correct and post after I construct the paragraphs as perfectly as I can.
It would seem that the Turley website should publish paragraphs as they are finally configured and posted.
The sentences that result on the Turley site are definitely not the sentences and paragraphs that I write, configure and post.
This happens to my system on the Turley Blog. Perhaps it is a flaw in one of my components.
(Dell Inspiron 2013 All-In-One Desktop – Windows 8.1 – Verizon FIOS)
This does not happen on other websites.
What I post is good. What the site publishes is bad. It is randomly misformated.
Please have that corrected by the site IT technicians if possible.
Thank you very much.
Forgotwhoiam,
Unfortunately, we cannot control what the WordPress software parses and spits out. That is server side coding that we do not have access to. The only thing I can suggest at this point would be to write your comments directly into the wordpress comment window, then copy and paste it into a wordprocessor of some kind–to look for spelling and grammar errors–then manually change any mistakes that the word processor finds and click the [post] button.
One thing that is coming to mind now is that the word press comment text box is set to a different font than that which you are seeing in the final rendition on the resulting webpage. I think I know why this could be happening in one respect. The text box for entering the comment uses fixed-width characters but the resulting webpage rendition will use a font that will compact it. Over the course of many words the difference will be noticeable. Here is an example:
XXXXXXXXXX
iiiiiiiiii
When I typed these series of characters, in the entry text box, the x’ and the i’ are the same length. But when I post the comment they will be different lengths. This is because compressed, the i’ are narrower than the x’. In a fixed pitch system they will be the same, as is the case with the text entry. But they aren’t in the final website. Over the course of a paragraph the difference will be markedly greater. That might be something that is a factor in what you are seeing. Unfortunately what you are seeing, is a design issue of the webpage’s template.
Darren Smith,
Excellent. Above and beyond.
Thank you very much.
“Overly technical,” oh heck no. But I just made an appointment with my psychoanalyst.
Seriously, my system is quite usual, a 2013 Dell Inspiron, All In One Desktop, using Microsoft 8.1.
I type in the website box and click post. On some posts I cut and paste a quotation from another website. Before I post I draft, modify, rearrange, proof and correct.
It might be simpler if you told me which of the steps I’m taking is causing the misformatting or reformatting after posting.
It may just be a random, uncorrectable IT problem.
Thanks again.
I think the cutting and pasting from the other website is the issue. You might try pasting what you cut into Notepad first, highlighting and copying it again while in notepad and then paste it into the WordPress comment text box. That should strip out most of the formatting and provide a more predictable outcome after you post your comment.
Darren Smith,
Thank you. It affected not one but many paragraphs or postings.
I am not doing anything unusual, atypical or extraordinary. I simply draft, modify, proof, correct and post. On many but not all occasions, after I post, the format is entirely changed, different and erroneous.
Presumably, if one readies a text for posting by correcting and rearranging, it should post precisely without modification. Is there a flaw in the website that can be corrected by the site IT technicians?
Forgotwhoiam
The WordPress software converts text that is placed into the comment entry box (where you type in your comments), if necessary, into UTF-8 (allowing simple HTML tags to be rendered). If you are using software that places text into this box that is something other than UTF-8 when the system will attempt to convert this as best it can so that it can be stored into the server’s database as a source to build the webpages that you see here. So if you are using a different character set (other than plain UTF-8) such as by using Microsoft Word and then cutting and pasting into the WordPress text box, the formatting will be lost, as well as what I mentioned before with the pagination and whitespace.
So if you are using an editor that makes say text larger or different colors, it might not necessarily conform to what WordPress uses and as a result when it is parsed to encode into the datatabase it will strip out the unrecognized formatting and leave only the plain text but if it cannot do this correctly, based on its parsing algorithm, sometimes it gets garbled up when rendered as a webpage.
This is however the design of the WordPress software and not likely to change at an architecture level. WordPress has a massive data base system and if it allowed too many text formats and other bells and whistles it causes orders of magnitude more storage requirements. The other consideration is that making it more complicated for the user, it can tend to put the many users off as they will find it confusing and be dissuaded to further participate in the system.
There is not unfortunately for your case much that I can do to help you with preserving the formatting tool that might you might be using. One way that you can try to see what the format likely will be is to take what you have used to type in your comment’s text and (if using windows) copy it and paste it into a “Notepad” window. ([Start button] {All Programs} {Accessories} {Notepad}) then take this and copy and paste it from notepad to the wordpress comment entry window. By doing this it will take the text from what you originally typed in within that editor, strip out formatting, and enable it to be copied into the wordpress text box. (technically notepad uses, in the English version of Windows, ISO-8859-1 as its default character set. It will translate almost character to character to UTF-8)
Sorry if this is overly technical but this is the best way to explain things. If you tell me what device / computer operating system, that you are using and how you go about getting text into the comment text box it might give me a little more information to help.
Webmaster,
My posts always misformat upon final posting. Can you correct that? I write, then correct. When I click “post,” the paragraphs are structured randomly and incoherently. I have tried copying and pasting and cutting and pasting. Nothing causes correct formatting after initial writing then amending/correcting.
Thank you.
forgotwhoiam
I don’t know how the paragraph was structured to begin with so I can only offer you a speculation.
I believe what might be happening is that the system stores the text in such a way that it attempts to left-justify what is written and compress it to save on whitespace. (whitespace is simply defined as spaces and tabs) For instance, if you have typed five spaces between words, the system will concatenate it to just one space and convert tabs into spaces.
It might be possible for you to use a non breaking space character, such as typing (be sure to include the “;” on the end) for each space between words. I haven’t tried this but it is a suggestion. Hope this helps.
Read the article about the family that was attacked in their car while in the wrong neighborhood. If my memory is correct isn’t a hate crime classified as a violation against someone for their race, religion, creed and gender? Well I have a story about another such incident if you would like to hear it sometime concerning myself.
Prof. Turley;
Love your work. If/when you have a chance, please consider sharing your opinion on this case:
http://libertyblitzkrieg.com/2015/06/09/the-war-on-free-speech-u-s-department-of-justice-subpoenas-reason-com-over-comment-section/
Thanks!
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Re the Waco bikers.
170 have been arrested with bail set at $1MM each.
This situation makes the “Speedy Trial Rule” perfect for the defense – there is no way that the prosecution can develop a compelling case in 5 weeks.
How will the prosecution handle the STR demands?
Mr. Turley,
I would like to bring to your attention the plight of DOE Federal Agents .
First I would like to introduce our mission to you. We are Nuclear Material
Couriers (series 0084) we are tasked with the safe and secure transport of
thermonuclear weapons and special nuclear materials via tractor trailers
across the lower 48 states. We operate hundreds of missions each year from
Oak Ridge, TN. The Agents of this command are highly trained and extremely
loyal to the United States of America. One of the processes that insure such
loyalty is human reliability program (HRP). The HRP process is very intense
due to the nature of the cargo carried in the public sector. HRP’s purpose
is to insure that the Agents that are in custody of trucks filled with
thermonuclear weapons won’t give them to terrorist nor tell them the routes
we use to ship the same. However this process is being used as a weapon
against the Agents of this agency. The Psychologists are being told to “dig”
for reasons to not certify individuals into the HRP program. The order that
HRP uses is the 10 CFR 710 Energy. As an example I would like to submit my
personal situation.
On the 7 of December 2013 I was a passenger in a car that was stopped for
suspected DUI by TN State Troopers. I was arrested for Public Intoxication.
Prior to the trial I was instructed to meet with PSD (personal security
division) and by not complying would result in forfeiture of pay. This was a
recorded interview with an investigator. This is a violation of DOE 10 CFR
710.4(a), (b);10 CFR 710.7(a), (b) not to mention the Constitution of the
United States. On the 7 April 2014 the charge was dismissed and later
expunged. During this time I have been paid at the GS-11 step 8 pay grade
($70,000) Senior Agent to sit at home on the tax payers dime. During the
past 10 years of service as a Nuclear Materials Courier the Department of
Energy has over $500,000 in my training and clearance. Along with 5 years of
service in the United States Marine Corps it would cost over $2,000,000 to
bring an agent to my level by the federal government.
I am but one; there are 4 more Agents that are currently in similar
situation at the Eastern Command alone. There are about the same number of
Federal Agents at the Western and Central commands who are in the, “HRP
process.” With no time constraints or deadlines this process will continue
to be used as a weapon. Most of us have been out for OVER A YEAR ( 16 months
in my case). With an annual salary of over $300,000 (for Eastern command
alone) being paid for persons who have NOT been convicted of anything we are
in what is known as the “Black Hole of HRP.” As a result, this agency has
had several large judgments awarded to individuals for gross misconduct, EEO
violations, ect. I have been in contact with the Office of Special Counsel and have a contact there with a case number assigned. I have contacted DOE IG and was told my case will help and be added to their investigation on HRP. Every Congressional and Senators office that have anything to do with nuclear programs. Sen Corker and Congressmen Duncan are currently applying for a foia. I am one of the few black agents (3) that are employed at AOEC, I am not getting a fair shake. The other Agents that were arrested for PI were back to work far under the 17 months that I’ve been out. Some even had felonious arrest. I’ve had multiple meetings with PSD/HRP Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, and investigators with each meeting a new set of issues. As I disputed them and prove their accusations are unfounded more are added. I know that you have had success in the defense of Couriers in the past and plead for your help again.
We are Veterans, Fathers and Patriots that continue to answer the call to duty to insure that America is the safest place on earth to live. Please help us by telling the Department of Energy that the Constitution of the United States of America applies to those who support and defend. Please feel free to contact me and I can give you more details. Innocent until proven guilty, innocent after proven not guilty.
Thank you for your time in this matter
Frederic Brown “Rick”