Law, Courts & Regulations
How the U.S. government regulates its secrets. The ongoing legal battle over former National Security Adviser John Bolton’s book is in large part a fight over classification. The Department of Justice...
“Do your job!” is just one small step removed from “Lock him up!” which is no different at all from “Lock her up!”—even if it feels entirely different and altogether more righteous. Editor ’ s Note: T...
A recent Justice Department filing offers clues about why Peter Navarro faces prosecution for contempt of Congress but Mark Meadows and Dan Scavino do not, and it also raises questions about the depar...
The current risk of document destruction warrants an explanation of an outgoing administration’s legal obligations to preserve government records and what happens to one administration’s records after...
From a detached legal perspective, Trump’s actions are not terribly controversial or worrisome. In context, they are. On Feb. 15, President Trump took a number of legal steps, including declaring a na...
President Trump has been merciful lately. In April, he pardoned Scooter Libby, the former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney who was convicted of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false stat...
The ruling ends the legal saga of the former national security adviser who was accused of lying to the FBI about his interactions with Russian agents before Trump took office. Judge Emmet Sullivan of ...
The acting attorney general’s past statements about the Russia probe raise genuine concerns about his service overseeing it. The firing of Jeff Sessions and his replacement on an interim basis by a ma...
Although Attorney General Jeff Sessions has reportedly expressed no inclination to resign, President Donald Trump’s evident and quite public “ disappointment ” over Sessions’s ( clearly correct ) deci...
President Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions today and replaced him on an interim basis with the attorney general’s own chief of staff, a man named Matt Whitaker. Whitaker has made repeated pu...
Trump seeks to reduce the size of the federal workforce using a complicated and arcane process. On Feb. 11, President Trump signed an executive order instructing agencies to begin reductions in force ...
The administration’s misguided attempt to lay off employees who aren’t excepted from shutdowns. The first months of President Trump’s second term have been defined by firings of government workers, as...
A reduction in force (RIF) is the process by which a federal agency reduces the size of its workforce due to a lack of funds, a lack of work, or a reorganization. Although a noun, “RIF-ed” has become ...
The Trump administration released its latest escalation in the budding trade war with China on July 10: a 195-page list of $200 billion worth of Chinese goods that may soon be subject to a 10 percent ...
The United States is in a state of emergency: 28 national ones and many more local. This might come as a surprise, but it isn’t new—this month marks the start of our 39th year in a continuous emergenc...
New movement may be afoot on a sanctions bill designed to deter Russian election interference. The bill, the Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines Act of 2018 (Deter Act) , was int...
President Trump issued Executive Order 13848 on Sept. 12 declaring election interference a national emergency. The order also sets up a protocol for applying sanctions to persons who conduct cyberatta...
The other day, Benjamin Wittes and Will McCants questioned whether the Trump administration could lawfully designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (“FTO”). In the days sin...
In two important cases currently before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, the state of Texas has advanced the argument that illegal migration and drug smuggling qualify as an “invasion”...
When Capitol riot defendant Guy Reffitt goes to trial before a federal jury in Washington, D.C., prosecutors plan to present a shock-and-awe campaign of video, audio and other digital evidence. “The r...