Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the decision to investigate the alleged informant targeting Trump associations and the criticism from former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates. As noted below, I believe that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein did the right thing in referring this issue to the Inspector General for investigation. That does not mean that a finding of wrongdoing is likely. To the contrary, my expectation is that the use of the informant will be viewed as appropriate absent additional unknown facts. However, as this piece discusses, there is a strong public interest in resolving this question either way.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “The Third Option: Rather Than Pick Sides, The Public Can Pick The Truth” →
I have been a long critic of President Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen for over a year for his thuggish and often incompetent practice of law. He has matched his lack of legal skills with an abundance of greed, including blatant efforts to sell access to Trump to foreigners and private companies. Now people can listen to Cohen in his own voice as he performed his signature function for Trump: threatening a reporter for the Daily Beast and his acquaintances with ruin if he ran a negative story about a 1993 Trump biography.
The resignation of Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens is little surprise given the myriad of criminal charges brought against him for sexual misconduct and campaign violations. This resignation comes after St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner dismissed a felony charge accusing Greitens for allegedly tampering with computer data involving the donor list of a veterans’ charity he founded. What stood out in the agreement with Gardner was a condition that I have always found problematic and should be barred under state law: 
The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously decided to disbar attorney Anthony Wayne Blackburn this week and the result would seem inevitable given the accusations against Blackburn of trading lower fees for sex with two incarcerated women. What is surprising is that the Florida bar actually wanted only to suspend Blackburn for the misconduct, a shockingly low penalty for an attorney accused of a shocking abuse of the attorney-client relationship. 
George Washington University is embroiled in a federal challenge against its handling of a case by one of our students accused of sexual assault. The case raises troubling questions of the school’s actions following the disclosure of alleged false statements by an accuser. Many years ago, I wrote a letter to the GW faculty objecting to changes in our rules governing the investigation and adjudication of sexual harassment and assault cases. Like many universities during the Obama Administration, GW was reducing protections for students accused of such misconduct under pressure from the Department of Education (
It appears that Dashawn Webster, 22, may have been more concerned with complying with copyright laws than the criminal code. Webster is accused of 
Ron Charles really wanted a prison jumpsuit and now he will get one. In Prestonsburg, Kentucky, a witness called police that a man was running away with an orange jumpsuit. Police say that, after being arrested, Charles said that he thought the jumpsuit would be “cool.”
Connecticut was the scene of a bizarre physical demonstration in a criminal case where Desmond James, 26, was accused three counts of sexual assault. Since his accuser said that the rapist was a black man whose member was lighter than the rest of his skin, James elected to expose himself to the jury to show that he was not the man despite being picked out in a lineup by the victim. It worked. 
Dr. Windell Davis Boutte loves to post videos of herslf dancing around patients to hip-hop tunes like the video below. Patients however are suing over what they say is her lack of attention and expertise in doing cosmetic surgeries once the dancing stops. Indeed, one such tummy tuck left a bride with permanent brain damage. 
There is an old joke among criminal defense attorneys that “justice delayed is justice,” a twist of the old adage that “justice delayed is justice denied.” The joke reflects that fact that the defense almost always benefits from the passage of time and it is the prosecution that often pushes for earlier trial debates to deny the defense enough time to absorb and address evidence. That is not the case with Special Counsel Robert Mueller who has asked federal Judge Dabney L. Friedrich to deny a speedy trial motion and delay any trial of 13 Russians and three Russian companies for efforts to influence the 2016 election. The effort reflects problems in Mueller’s matinee case, including 
Multiple defendant cases often resemble a lethal form of musical chairs as targets grab deals — leaving the loser still standing to face a full array of charges and cooperating witnesses. Trump former counsel Michael D. Cohen must be feeling like the music is about to stop after his close business associate Evgeny A. Freidman decided to take a deal from prosecutors. Freidman may be the only figure who could compete with Cohen on the higher Richter scale of sleaze. Update: 