I have previously expressed my skepticism over the claims of James Comey that he had a right to remove memos from the FBI and leak them to the media through a friend. As I have previously written, Comey was in clear violation of FBI rules and may have knowingly removed classified material. According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, there is growing evidence to suggest that Comey not only violated FBI guidelines (which is clear) but that he violated federal law in the removal and disclosure of classified material. Indeed, it may come down to simple math. Four of the memos that Comey removed are now believed to be classified. He reportedly gave four memos to his friend to leak to the media. That would suggest that at least one memo given to Columbia University Professor Daniel Richman was classified.
Category: Society
There is an interesting controversy brewing at Fordham University, which has been sued by students over the failure of the school to recognize their pro-Palestinian group. The group is called the Students for Justice in Palestine and the university overturned the student government in recognizing it. Fordham has fought the students for more than two years. Now that the university is in court, it has made a curious offer: it will recognize the group if they use a name other than “Students for Justice in Palestine.”
Continue reading “Fordham Sued By Students Over Refusal To Recognize Pro-Palestinian Group”
Attorney Charles Harder has issued a “cease and desist” letter on behalf of his client President Donald Trump. The letter is addressed to author Michael Wolff and the president of the book’s publisher, but is clearly putting Steve Bannon on notice of a possible defamation action for his statements in the forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House.” The letter alleges violation of confidentiality rules and defamation in the forthcoming book, “Fire and Fury” by Michael Wolff. The threat of legal action is highly dubious and the suggestion of a prior restraint order or injunction would go against decades of precedent. It also leaves the worst possible optics of trying to stop the release of a book (and suggesting that Bannon is releasing bona fide confidential information).
Continue reading “Trump Lawyer Hits Author With Cease and Desist Letter Over Bannon Comments”
For free speech advocates, there was another chilling development last week in the expanding censorship of social media and the criminalization of speech in the West. The government is investigating Beatrix von Storch (the deputy leader of far-right party AfD) for a tweet posted on New Year’s Eve in which she accused police of appeasing “barbaric, gang-raping Muslim hordes of men.” The statement was barred on Twitter and Von Storch and others were barred on Twitter and Facebook. Once again, raising the free speech concerns is not an endorsement of such offensive posts. Rather, the Germans have taken their controversial speech regulations and have extended them to social media — forcing these companies to become active players in the censoring of political speech. People may have no objection (and even relish) the crackdown on the AfD but the implications for speech is far greater than these individuals.
We have previously discussed the controversial writings of George Ciccariello-Maher, a former Drexel University professor who was pushed to resign after a national outcry. Ciccariello-Maher has blamed the Las Vegas massacre on “Trumpism” and declared that “All I want for Christmas is white genocide.” He has insisted that some of his prior tweets have been”satirical,” though he appears to court controversy on social media. He has now announced to have been hired as a visiting scholar by New York University’s Hemispheric Institute of Performance and Politics.
Continue reading “Drexel Professor Who Called For “White Genocide” Hired By New York University”
Sherwin Shayegan, 34, may be one of the truly creepiest individuals to make it on a police blotter, if New Jersey prosecutors are correct. Shayegan gave a 14-year-old boy a spontaneous massage at the Newark International Airport last Friday as he sat near a luggage carousel. He then gave the boy a note with a $10 bill. It turns out that Shayegan has a long, bizarre, and deeply disturbing history.
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the status of the Russian investigation and a look back at the various crimes alleged over the year. A brief search of mainstream media found roughly 5000 stories referring to “bombshell” developments. However, the status has changed little over the year. That could, of course, change. We do not know what Special Counsel Robert Mueller had in terms of new evidence. That did not stop many from declaring conclusive evidence supporting charges over the year despite the paucity of evidence. While we have had four indictments or pleas, but the charges are been notably removed from the core purpose of the Russian collusion investigation. The point of the column is not that new charges are unlikely but that there is little public evidence supporting such charges at the end of 2017. CNN reported yet another “bombshell” discovery this week: George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had “political dirt” on Hillary Clinton in May of last year. However, there has to be more than knowledge of such hacking (or even a desire to use the results of hacking) to support even a collateral criminal charge. We could certainly reach that point in 2018 but the evidence remains sketchy on specific criminal acts tied to Trump or his closest aides related to Russia.
Here is the column:
Continue reading “A Year Later, An Investigation In Search Of A Crime”
Tonight we will ring in 2018 at home in McLean, Virginia with my in-laws from North Carolina. New Year’s eve is also my wedding anniversary. Twenty years ago, Leslie and I decided to walk across the street in Old Town Alexandria and get married. Since we dated for eight years, I count the anniversary as our 28th while Leslie insists on counting this year as our 20th anniversary. We will toast our anniversary and the New Year (as we did 20 years ago) with a bottle of Schramsburg Cremant.
Like many football fans, Republican Rep. Milo Smith is fed up with the protests by NFL players during the anthem. However, while many fans are staying away from games (setting record low attendance numbers), Smith wants to require NFL owners to reimburse fans who object to the protests. While I have expressed my own opposition to any demonstrations during the national anthem, I have previously stated that the ultimate decision rests with the team owners. Like any business owner, a NFL owner can insist that employees refrain from protests during employment hours and activities. However, this legislation would raise serious legal concerns and would likely not survive a legal challenge.
It has long been known that China has helped North Korea evade international sanctions while professing faithful compliance with United Nations resolutions. Now, U.S. spy satellites reportedly captured photos of Chinese ships illegally selling oil to North Korean boats on dozens of occasions. China has again professed innocence.
Continue reading “US Spy Satellite Captures Chinese Ships Illegally Selling Oil To North Korea”
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.
Many of us are excited to see the new biopic “Darkest Hour” on the towering historical figure of Winston Churchill. What is less welcomed is a truly ridiculous warning added to the move that “the depictions of tobacco smoking are based solely on artistic consideration.” It is not even clear what smoking “based solely on artistic consideration” means but is clearly meant as a gesture to those who would immediately run from the film in shock at the scene of a twentieth century leader smoking. It turns out that while, “History is written by the victors,” it is rewritten by cringing Hollywood producers.
Continue reading “Churchill Biopic Features Warning Against Second Hard Smoke”
Best wishes to everyone celebrating Christmas.
I am in Chicago with the family for Christmas with my 90-year-old mother Angela. We got our wish this year for a white Christmas with a few inches on Christmas Eve. The Chicago Bears completed the perfect Christmas by winning on Sunday. Even though the Browns are the worst team in the country without a single win this year, none of us made any assumptions given the record this year.
Below is my column in the Hill Newspaper on an annual list of Christmas torts and mishaps. Santas feature prominently this year.
Continue reading “Christmas Torts: The 2018 Listing Of Holiday Mishaps and Madness”
Cornell University’s Black Students United presented the University president with a list of demands with one particularly surprising addition: a call to reduce the admission of African and Caribbean students in favor of African Americans. The demand would define true African American students as those who are at least second generation Americans.