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Dec 5, 2024 | 
thebulwark.com | Philip Lacovara
KASH PATEL FLUNKS BOTH OF THE TESTS that I set for myself when I was being considered for FBI director years ago. If Trump plunges ahead with his threat to sack the incumbent FBI director, Christopher Wray, whose term still has three years left, and to nominate Patel in his place, the Senate should apply these tests to sink Patel. Congress decided in 1968 that, once the bureau’s legendary founding director, J.
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Nov 26, 2024 | 
thehill.com | Philip Lacovara
President-elect Donald Trump’s latest gambit is likely to confront a problem that is unusual for him. The Supreme Court, dominated by usually-pliant conservatives, will balk — at least if they still have any senses of decency and consistency remaining. Trump is threatening to pack his Cabinet with candidates who may not be able to survive the Senate’s role to decide whether to “advise and consent” when presented with nominees by the president.
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Oct 26, 2024 | 
thebulwark.com | Donald B. Ayer |Philip Lacovara |Dennis Aftergut
WE’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE. The pre-election public record is full of clues—flashing red lights, really—that Donald Trump is preparing to try to steal the vote again if he loses. The Justice Department should be investigating it now. Any legitimate, fact-based court challenges to particular vote counts are not the problem.
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Oct 7, 2024 | 
slate.com | Philip Lacovara |Dennis Aftergut
Jurisprudence Last week, after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed special counsel Jack Smith’s redacted motion laying out his evidence in the Jan. 6 prosecution of Donald Trump, the former president resorted to one of his go-to distractions: accusing Smith of interfering with the election. But Trump’s accusations are, as usual, projection—election interference has long been his own political brand.
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Sep 30, 2024 | 
news.bloomberglaw.com | Philip Lacovara
The nosedive in public opinion about the US Supreme Court isn’t just the normal debate about whether the court is too conservative or too liberal. The issue isn’t, as one commentator put it, that the Roberts court is simply “a conservative Warren court,” referring to the progressive court that released landmark civil rights and liberty decisions while Earl Warren was Chief Justice. The current public dismay about the court reflects that something more fundamental is underway.
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Aug 13, 2024 | 
thehill.com | Philip Lacovara
Fifty years ago last week, Richard Nixon resigned from the presidency. His resignation was compelled by the impending release of the infamous White House tape recordings, which the Supreme Court, in a case that I argued, had just ordered disclosed. The batch of subpoenaed tapes included the “smoking gun tape,” proving that Nixon himself had been a chief architect of the criminal coverup of responsibility for the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic Party.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
thebulwark.com | Philip Lacovara
WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIFTY YEARS MAKES: Half a century ago, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the president was subject to the laws of the United States that apply to every other citizen. But a week ago, a splintered Court voted 6–3 to create a unique prerogative for presidents to commit federal crimes with impunity. Fifty years ago today, on July 8, 1974, I walked up the steps of the Supreme Court along with Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski to present oral arguments.
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Jul 8, 2024 | 
open.substack.com | Philip Lacovara
WHAT A DIFFERENCE FIFTY YEARS MAKES: Half a century ago, a unanimous Supreme Court ruled that the president was subject to the laws of the United States that apply to every other citizen. But a week ago, a splintered Court voted 6–3 to create a unique prerogative for presidents to commit federal crimes with impunity. Fifty years ago today, on July 8, 1974, I walked up the steps of the Supreme Court along with Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski to present oral arguments.
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Jul 2, 2024 | 
thebulwark.com | Dennis Aftergut |Philip Lacovara
AND NOW THE DEED IS DONE. The Supreme Court has put a torch to the first principle of constitutionalism—that no person, no matter how powerful, is above the law. Monday’s ruling in Trump v. United States holds that so long as presidents operate within their “core” responsibilities, and often when they are at the outer edge of their duties, they are immune from prosecution.
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Jun 13, 2024 | 
thebulwark.com | Philip Lacovara
Dear Justice Alito,The drip-drip-drip of reports about the roles that you and your wife are playing in partisan controversies has risen to a torrent. You must reconsider your decision not to recuse yourself from pending and future cases that come before the Supreme Court involving former President Donald Trump or participants in the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Compliance with governing law and public respect for the integrity of the Court’s process require this result.
