For the last year, I have been criticizing over-wrought and at times irresponsible legal analysis proclaiming “slam dunk” criminal cases and long-sought “smoking gun” discovery sealing the fate of President Donald Trump or his close associates. This includes months in which legal analysts referred to the crime of collusion despite there being no such crime. Unfortunately, this trend continues with the recent interview of Jill Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor, who told MSNBC that Trump’s recent tweets can constitute “obstruction of justice, witness intimidation, and it’s obstructing justice by saying to agents you better not dig too deep, you better not find anything because I will attack you.” I can see little support for such a position in the criminal code or past cases.
Category: Media
President Donald Trump recently entered into the national debate over the NFL protests by criticizing football players taking a knee before games during the national anthem. Some were enraged and called for his impeachment — a call that I previously discussed as unfounded and dangerous. I saw no reason why the President was out of line in giving his opinion on the controversy. There is however an even more pressing matter involving an American professional athlete that would warrant a strong and public statement from President Trump. He is New York Knicks player Enes Kanter who is the subject of an abusive charge in Turkey for allegedly insulting its blood-soaked authoritarian leader President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. President Trump should publicly support Kanter and his right to exercise free speech — a right that Erdogan has curtailed in Turkey in his crackdown on dissidents and journalists alike.
Below is my column in The Hill Newspaper on the email seizure by Special Counsel Robert Mueller from the General Services Administration. As discussed yesterday, many supporters of Mueller are not contesting that this material did not constitute agency records or property, but rather that there was some type of express or implied waiver of privacy and confidentiality. While I consider this an ambiguous area, I obviously disagree with such dismissive positions.
Here is the column:
CNN guest commentator Hilary Rosen has long been something of a live wire on television as when she attacked the wife of Mitt Romney — comments that David Axelrod called “offensive” and President Obama apologized for during the campaign. She has been criticized for her sometimes no-holds-barred approach to advocacy for Democrats. We had such an exchange on NPR where she was quick to take offense as a lesbian to a discussion on Hillary Clinton’s record. She is again in the midst of a controversy and could well be sued for defamation (though I think such a lawsuit would be unwarranted). Rosen (who is Jewish) went on social media to condemn Georgetown student Michael Bakan as an anti-Semitic after he appears in a bacon outfit in this picture. She appears to have missed the fact that his name resembles (and is pronounced) “Bacon.”
There is a rumor of more members being axed in the coming week over sexual harassment as Washington prepares for the final tax vote. Ok, it was just an excuse to show this incredible picture from a Leningrad gas mask drill in 1939.
The GW Hatchet, our award-winning student newspaper, has another interesting article this week on the establishment of a new group on campus, the Internationalist Students’ Front, an anti-fascist, anti-nationalist organization. They are advocates of internationalism, a position similar to the prior world socialist movement. The addition of such groups are a good thing for our university in bringing diverse and passionate views to our campus debates. However, it is worrisome that the first organized effort of the group is reportedly to ban a book on campus.
I recently criticized Gloria Allred for giving Roy Moore a badly needed boost in her belated admission that her client wrote some of the words that she attributed to Moore in the now infamous yearbook press controversy. Now CNN and other media outlets have given critics the most compelling evidence that they are seeking to allege that our media is rife with “fake news.” Trump himself pounced on the false report. CNN went all in on a report from Congressional reporter Manu Raju that Wikileaks gave the Trumps early access to undisclosed hacked emails before they were made public. The story was wrong on the key date and failed to note that the source was just some unknown character encouraging the campaign to look at the publicly available material. Brookings Institution’s Ben Wittes and others joined in the spasm of “bombshell” reporting, as detailed by Glenn Greenwald. This follows the Washington Post reporter David Weigel tweeting a false image of empty seats at a recent rally to contradict Trump’s latest crowd assertions — a picture that was found before Trump spoke. Trump called for Weigel’s firing, which I have said would be excessive (even though Weigel has made past controversial statements against conservatives before the Post hired him). Weigel withdrew the tweet and apologized. I think that that is sufficient and the Trump Administration should be the most sympathetic with wayward tweets. The more serious issue is the CNN coverage of the Wikileaks story and the eagerness to pounce on any story damaging to the Trump Administration. That is a legitimate basis for criticism and review. If this were not Trump, would CNN have run with the “bombshell” without more scrutiny? The alleged lack of circumspection and caution on the story has been raised as characteristic of much of the Trump coverage. (Notably, Fox was also criticized for a headline on the yearbook disclosure, though the objection was to the use of “forgery” in the headline not the content of the reporting).
Continue reading “Boom or Bust: How The Media Fulfilled Trump Narrative On “Fake News””
Actress Lena Dunham has gone public with an allegation that she warned Hillary Clinton’s campaign that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein was a known rapist and saying that it was wrong to use him as a core fundraiser for Clinton. Dunham accused Clinton campaign deputy communications manager Kristina Schake and Clinton campaign member spokeswoman Adrienne Elrod of being expressly warned about Weinstein. Given the renewed questions over the treatment of women allegedly assaulted by Bill Clinton, the allegation fulfilled a perception of Clinton as claiming to fight for women while giving campaign interests priority in dealing with sex offenders within her inner circle. Clinton is still haunted by her reference to women accusing her husband as “bimbo eruptions.” Schake and Elrod have basically called Dunham a liar and said that she never made such a warning.
This week the National Football League (NFL) owners finally confirmed what was long understood but never concretely confirmed: their utter contempt for football fans. Despite the open hatred shown by fans for Commissioner Roger Goodell for years, the owners agreed to a five-year contract extension worth nearly $40 million a year. It has long been assumed that Goodell was a handy shill for the owners in taking actions that were distinctly anti-fan. Goodell has taken the criticism while the owners kept their distance. Now however they have established that they were behind Goodell’s unpopular actions all along and cemented the NFL as the most hostile business toward its own customers in the world. As a lifelong football (Bears) fan, I have been torn between my growing dissatisfaction with the NFL and my love for the game. Like many fans, this move at least brings clarity to the position of the owners.
Continue reading “Goodell Gets His Contract And NFL Owners Give Fans The One-Finger Salute”
Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn) will resign in light of the increasing number of women alleging sexual harassment and assault. It is the end of a remarkable career that took Franken from Saturday Night Live to the most exclusive club in Washington.
The resignation reminded me of a column that I wrote when Franken first ran. I wrote about the striking difference between Franken and Peter Agre, a nobel prize winning humanitarian respected around the world. As I discussed in the column, the result seemed inevitable in American politics as voters decided between the cheap shot celebrity and the world renown scientist. Franken would respond to my column and went on to trounce Agre who would have doubled the IQ of the Senate by simply joining it.
As the governor of Minnesota looks for a replacement, it is worth noting that Agre is still available and still the more qualified candidate. In case Gov. Mark Dayton has lost his number, here is his academic email and site.
The 2007 column is below:
Below is my column in USA Today on the ethical and practical implications of the controversial tweet sent out by Trump counsel John Dowd. In my view, Dowd should now remove himself from the litigation. Notably, the failure to remove or fail Dowd will likely fuel theories that he is covering for Trump. If Trump did not know that Flynn had lied to the FBI before speaking with Comey, the Dowd tweet would usually result in a quick and rather angry response to a lawyer compromising his client in this fashion. However, various media sources are reporting that White House Counsel Don McGahn did inform Trump that Flynn likely misled the FBI in his interview before Trump spoke with Comey. Whatever the truth of the matter, the Dowd tweet could not be worse in its timing and content.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “Death By Tweet: Questions Linger Over Flynn Tweet and the Role of Trump Counsel”
Below is my column in the Hill on the latest twitter controversy. While Trump counsel John Dowd has insisted that he merely used “sloppy” drafting, news organizations are reporting that White House Counsel Don McGahn told Trump (before the firing of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn) that Flynn had misled FBI agents in his interview. In yesterday’s press conference, Sarah Sanders refused to say when Trump first learned that Flynn had lied to the FBI. That brings us back to Dowd and the breathtakingly dumb mistake in sending out a tweet to millions with an admission against interest under the President’s name.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “TwitterGate: What Did Trump Tweet And When Did He Tweet It?”
As spokesperson for Roy Moore, Janey Porter may have hit on a brilliant strategy to distract people from the bizarre statements of your candidates . . . make even more bizarre statements. Porter was on CNN this week when she told pregnant anchor Poppy Harlow that Moore’s opponent Doug Jones basically wanted to kill her eight-month old unborn baby. Now there’s a catchy campaign slogan: Vote Moore Or Jones Will Kill Your Baby.
She also shocked many by calling all of the women accusing Moore “criminals.” That’s right, criminals for alleging sexual assault or molestation.
Continue reading “Moore Spokesperson To CNN Anchor: Jones Support Killing Your Unborn Baby”
Roy Moore has been dodging media in his race to finish the Alabama campaign without a minimum of discussion of the allegations from nine women about his pursuit of him as young girls as young as 14 while he was a prosecutor in his 30s. Former neighbors, colleagues, and security staff have also come forward with similar accounts. The allegations in The Post included those of Leigh Corfman, who said she was sexually assault at 14. Moore initially admitted that he knew some of the women and called women like Debbie Wesson Gibson a “good girl.” (He also remembered Gloria Thacker Deason). Then recently he abruptly did a 180 turn and said that he did not know any of the women. Gibson has been quiet since coming forward but has grown tired of the attacks and denials from the Moore camp. Thus, when he suddenly said that he did not know her, she searched her attic and produced a graduation card signed “Happy graduation Debbie. I wanted to give you this card myself. I know that you’ll be a success in anything you do. Roy.” She says that More gave her the card personally at the Etowah High School graduation ceremony in Attalla, Ala.,
We recently discussed the controversy at Evergreen State College where Biology Professor, Bret Weinstein, was essentially forced off the faculty after objecting to a planned “Day of Absence” in which white people were asked to stay off campus. Despite Weinstein being subject to abuse by students on campus for merely stating his view of the implications of the proposal, the faculty sided with the students and shunned the academic. He and his wife, fellow biology professor Heather Heying, were eventually given a $500,000 settlement. The school preferred not to litigate the issue and pay the settlement rather than defend a point of obvious academic freedom and free speech on campus. Now the student newspaper is under fire for creating an opinion section where white students are excluded. The Cooper Point Journal is funded by all students but its editors have not responded to calls about the segregation of its pages by race.