We recently discussed the students who conducted a protest inside the home of Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky and his wife, law Professor Catherine Fisk. The students, including UC Berkeley law student Malak Afaneh, refused to stop disrupting the dinner as Chemerinsky and Fisk reminded them that this is their home, not a public forum. Now Afaneh is claiming a First Amendment right to enter a private home and protest and she is citing legal advisers with the National Lawyers Guild. Chemerinsky was told to expect protests and student groups demanded that the dinners be cancelled. Once at the di ..read more

While some legal analysts continue to boost Hunter Biden’s legal claims, the reviews in actual courts are far less glowing. Recently, we discussed a federal judge rejecting all eight motions of Hunter Biden to dismiss his tax charges in a stinging opinion citing a conspicuous lack of actual evidence to support their claims. Now, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika has also rejected those claims in the gun case in Delaware, calling Hunter’s arguments “nonsensical.” Legal experts like MSNBC’s Andew Weissmann have slammed the gun charges as “an abuse.” Hunter Biden’s counsel has argued selecti ..read more

D.C. Circuit Judge Reggie Walton recently caused a stir in Washington after doing an interview with CNN in which he rebuked former President Donald Trump for his criticism of judges and their family members. Now, Judge Walton has been criticized by the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia for a surveillance order of the computer of a January 6th defendant to detect any spreading of “disinformation” or “misinformation.” Critics charged that Walton’s interview with CNN ran afoul of Canon 3A(6) of the Code of Conduct for United States Judges, which states: “A judge should n ..read more

In a city of flacks, Ian Sams is prototypical. Quotable, punchy, and fast on social media, he stays ahead of the news cycle. Those traits are greatly valued by clients in this city where losing control of a narrative can allow a controversy to metastasize into a full fledge scandal. What is different is the client. Sams, a well–known Democratic operative, is not working for a Democratic campaign, but a Democratic president and speaks for the White House Counsel. That position continues to raise eyebrows, as it did this week when Sams issued insulting and taunting postings after the House Overs ..read more

Below is my column in the Hill on the return of the Comstock Act to the national debate. The controversial law came up in oral arguments over the access to the abortion pill in the Supreme Court. The history of the Act, and its namesake, remains a blot on our legal system. The repeal of the Comstock Act is long overdue. Here is the column: For the free speech community, the recent oral arguments over the expanded access to the abortion pill, mifepristone, contained a chilling jump-scare as two justices raised the applicability of the Comstock Act. That 151-year-old law banned the mailing of ma ..read more

There is a curious resolution of a civil right complaint against University of Minnesota Law School over a diversity fellowship sponsored by the law firm of Jones Day. Despite being created by a law firm and administered by a law school, the fellowship violated federal law in excluding white and male applicants. The law school finally threw in the towel, but there remains an uncertainty over whether the school is engaging in a subterfuge by opening up the scholarship while retaining its original purpose. The Jones Day Diversity Fellowship launched in December 2022 to extend full tuition for th ..read more

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has blocked border enforcement by the state under Texas’s SB 4.  Many of us had predicted this result given the prior precedent of the Supreme Court on the federal preemption of state immigration laws. However, the opinion also rejected the invasion theory made by states under Article 1, Section 10 and the “State War Clause.” I also previously discussed how this interpretation would fail due to the text, intent, and history of the underlying constitutional provision. The lawsuit had a good-faith basis in challenging the scope of fed ..read more

New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan this week became the latest court to impose a gag order on former president Donald Trump with a stinging order that found a history of Trump attacks that threatened the administration of justice. The order will bar public criticism of figures who are at the center of the public debate over this trial and the allegation of the weaponization of the legal system for political purposes, including former Trump counsel Michael Cohen, former stripper Stormy Daniels, and lead prosecutor Matthew Colangelo. Trump is still able to criticize Manhattan District ..read more

Below is my column on Fox.com for the hearing this week on the corruption scandal involving the Biden family. For years, the Democrats have opposed any effort to investigate the Bidens, including as part of the current impeachment inquiry. Various members misrepresented my earlier testimony during the hearing on the basis for the impeachment inquiry. Members like Rep. Jamie Raskin (D., Md.) stated that I joined other witnesses in saying that there was nothing that could remotely be impeachable in these allegations. That is demonstrably untrue. My testimony stated the opposite. I refused to pre ..read more

We previously discussed New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s effort to effectively ban guns (both open carry and concealed) with a flagrantly unconstitutional public health emergency order last year. After triggering a court fight, Grisham backed down and scaled down her order to ban concealed weapons in parks and playgrounds. The park ban was enjoined by U.S. District Kea W. Riggs as presumptively unconstitutional, leaving only a small fraction of Grisham’s original effort. Now, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has rejected her bid to lift that injunction in a ke ..read more