In the Press

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How to change the channel on House drama (opens a new window)

  • May 3, 2024
  • If You Can Keep It

On Wednesday, Marjorie Taylor Greene announced she plans to force a vote on ousting Speaker Mike Johnson next week.

It’s the latest development in an ongoing shakeup that began last October, when a House speaker was removed for the first time in congressional history. While her efforts seem likely to fail, the question of how long any speaker will last and how possible it is for the House to function amidst all the circular infighting lingers.

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Workers at far-right site Gateway Pundit feared credibility issues, filing shows (opens a new window)

  • May 1, 2024
  • The Guardian

“Plaintiffs have been attempting to schedule depositions of the defendants for months. On the same day TGP filed for bankruptcy, we had just given notice for the depositions of [Gateway Pundit co-founders] Jim and Joe Hoft to be taken in May,” said Brittany Williams, a lawyer for the non-profit group Protect Democracy, which is representing Freeman and Moss.

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A tipping point for the American presidency (opens a new window)

  • April 26, 2024
  • If You Can Keep It

A wild, pivotal week for our democracy.

We saw the first-ever criminal trial of a former president — and yet, somehow, it wasn’t the most important news story. No, that was the Supreme Court’s hearing yesterday on whether Donald Trump — and the presidency in general — is above the law (either expressly through criminal immunity or by default through procedural delays).

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Trump Is Getting What He Wants (opens a new window)

  • April 25, 2024
  • The Atlantic

“The Supreme Court may be inclined to split hairs, but Donald Trump is not,” Deana El-Mallawany, the counsel for the bipartisan group Protect Democracy, told me after the hearing. “The arguments today made clear that Trump seeks absolute unchecked power. Trying to rein in an imperial vision of presidential power like that with an opinion that draws fine lines would be akin to trying to hold water with a net.”

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Four takeaways from Trump’s SCOTUS immunity hearing (opens a new window)

  • April 25, 2024
  • If You Can Keep It

Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument on former President Trump’s claim that he’s absolutely immune from criminal prosecution.

Although Trump has successfully stymied the federal election interference case for months by raising this defense, both the district court and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals quickly and unanimously ruled that presidents have never been understood to be above the law and have no immunity from criminal prosecution. A clear cross-ideological majority of legal commentators, including Protect Democracy, agreed with those decisions and called for the Supreme Court to affirm them quickly.

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The Speaker (and the United States) has a party problem (opens a new window)

  • April 25, 2024
  • If You Can Keep It

And here we are again.

Last week, the House of Representatives passed a set of foreign aid bills that included aid for Ukraine over the objections of the right wing of the Republican Party. Now, because of that bipartisan victory, members of his own party are threatening to remove Mike Johnson from the speakership. The infighting is only getting worse.

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Presidents don’t need criminal immunity to take bold action (opens a new window)

  • April 24, 2024
  • If You Can Keep It

Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Donald Trump’s immunity case. As I and eighteen other retired four-star generals and admirals and former secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force explained in a friend-of-the-court brief, Trump’s extraordinary claim of presidential immunity threatens our national security and leadership role in the world.

It is also completely unnecessary.