There is an interesting disclosure in the filing this week by Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein last August expanded the mandate for Mueller in allowing him to pursue collusion allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort as well as criminal conduct linked to his controversial dealings with Ukraine. The expansion shows not only the close supervision by Rosenstein but the care taken by Mueller not to exceed his mandate, which was already quite broad. The disclosure comes in the week with the first scheduled sentencing of a Mueller defendant. Warning: the story below contains foul language.
Continue reading “Filing: Rosenstein Expanded Mueller’s Mandate in 2016”
We have previously discussed the alarming rollback on 
There is a new controversy in Great Britain over the expanding criminalization of speech. An arrest has been made after an intensive investigation of napkins left at a Chinese restaurant containing racist language. The 
Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the push for new legislation to Robert Mueller. I supported the appointment of a Special Counsel and still believe that Mueller must be allowed to complete his work. However, this legislation would do little in terms of real protection while putting at risk a major piece of precedent from the Supreme Court.
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, who is a member of the House Oversight Committee, revealed late last week that former Deputy FBI Director was 
There is an interesting controversy in New York where people are irate that Brooklyn Museum selected a distinguished academic as curator over its African art collection. Kristen Windmuller-Luna, 31, holds a Ph.D. in African art history from Princeton University and has been a lecturer at Columbia University and Metropolitan Museum of Art. That is a pretty stellar resume but people are focused on one other aspect about Windmuller-Luna . . . she is white. Rather than respond that it does not select curators or artists on the basis of the race, the Museum issued a pleading response that it is seeking to address the complaints. However, the complaint is that, no matter how qualified Windmuller-Luna may be, she should have been barred due to her race from consideration.
We have repeatedly debated the optimal choices for a mugshot from looks of contrition to smiling confidence. Amber Legge, 32, went with a different option after being arrested for DUI in Ohio.
After a year of blaming sexism for her defeat, Hillary Clinton argued this week that people begging her to stop her public appearances are themselves sexist despite former supporters among those objecting to the negative impact that she is having on efforts to regain power. Even her most passionate supporters 
Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on why a separate and independent investigation of the FBI’s conduct is warranted. My support for the investigation is not because I believe that criminal charges will likely be brought. Rather, I have never seen our country more divided and I cannot imagine any way for us to get beyond this poisonous political environment without full and complete investigations with public disclosure of the findings. 
In Long Island, 
Faith Linthicum, a labor and delivery nurse at Kaiser Permanente Roseville Medical Center in California, has been forced on leave for writing on Facebook that Stephon Clark, the unarmed black man who was fatally shot by police, “deserved it for being stupid.” This is the latest example of employees being fired for expressing their views outside of work, 
Bates College is one of the oldest colleges in New England (and the first to grant a degree to a woman). It has a great legacy and reputation. As is unlikely to surprise many on this blog, one of my favorite things about Bates is its annual AESOP experience, or the Annual Entering Student Outdoor Program. The Outing Club takes first-year students into the gorgeous Maine wilderness for a 4-day, 3-night trip. I was saddened therefore to see an editorial by Justice Geddes in The Bates Student, where he attacked the tradition as an exercise of “white privilege. The 
Below is my column in USA Today on the call of former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens for the repeal of the Second Amendment. It was a moment of honestly that young protesters should heed in fighting for real change. So long as this is a protected individual right, there are serious limits on how much that right can be curtailed. It is time for an honest debate in this country. Stevens called the right a “relic of the 18th Century.” Of course, one person’s relic is another person’s rifle.
Former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe has launched an online fundraiser on GoFundMe to raise $150,000 to cover the legal costs for McCabe. Money has poured in with adjustment of the “goal” upward to $250,000. It has now surpassed that goal. What is interesting is that McCabe is moving to tap into the contributions before the public learns what caused career Justice officials to seek the unprecedented termination of the former acting FBI Director.