Ian Eppler  //  10/16/18  //  Daily Update

The “Watergate Road Map” will be largely unsealed after a lawsuit, improving public understanding a potential report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. With the midterms less than a month away, federal agencies have not yet finalized plans for countering foreign interference in the 2018 election. The Department of Homeland Security has noted an increasing number of attempts to hack US election systems in the leadup to the midterms, but all attacks have been unsuccessful. Despite his ongoing rhetorical conflicts with President Trump, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has reshaped the military. The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation that would require the agency to use only publicly available data in cost-benefit analysis is a boon for transparency and scientific rigor.

TRUMP: INVESTIGATIONS AND LITIGATION

The “Watergate Road Map” will be largely unsealed after a lawsuit, improving public understanding a potential report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, write Stephen Bates, Jack Goldsmith, and Benjamin Wittes at Lawfare.

A lawyer representing Concord Management, a Russian company indicted by the Special Counsel for crimes related to interfering with the 2016 election, asked a federal judge to dismiss the indictment, contending that the Special Counsel was “prosecuting a ‘made-up crime’” (WSJ). 

A legal defense fund for Trump associates raised about $150,000 during the third quarter of 2018, nearly all of it from a single member of President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club (WSJ).

IMMIGRATION

The struggles of Infosys, a large technology company that relied heavily on Indian guest workers, demonstrate the effects of the Trump administration’s crackdown on the use of H-1B visas, reports Steve Lohr in the New York Times.

DEMOCRACY

The precedential value of the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County v. Holder should rightly be understood as limited, argues Travis Crum at Take Care.

With the midterms less than a month away, federal agencies have not yet finalized plans for countering foreign interference in the 2018 election, reports Erin Banco in the Daily Beast.

• The Department of Homeland Security has noted an increasing number of attempts to hack US election systems in the leadup to the midterms, but all attacks have been unsuccessful (NBC News).

The Trump administration is a harbinger for an era of minority rule over an increasingly diverse American majority, writes Joseph Fishkin at Balkinization.

JUSTICE & SAFETY

Despite his ongoing rhetorical conflicts with President Trump, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has reshaped the military, report Paul Sonne, Dan Lamothe, and Josh Dawsey in the Washington Post.

Since President Trump’s inauguration, the Guantanamo Bay Periodic Review Board has recommended only continued detention, suggesting political interference, notes Benjamin R. Farley at Lawfare.

REGULATION

The Department of Health and Human Services proposed regulations that would require pharmaceutical companies to include the list price of medicines in TV advertisements, report Amy Goldstein and Carolyn Y. Johnson in the Washington Post.

The Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed regulation that would require the agency to use only publicly available data in cost-benefit analysis is a boon for transparency and scientific rigor, contends Jason S. Johnston at The Regulatory Review.

RULE OF LAW

Democrats should pack the Supreme Court when they return to power, suggests Michael Klarman at Take Care.

A cycle of reciprocal radicalization in response to President Trump’s threats to the rule of law poses the greatest threat to the survival of democracy, argues Sidney Tarrow at Dorf on Law.

REMOVAL FROM OFFICE

Professor Alan Dershowitz’s new book, The Case Against Impeaching Trump, invokes “far-fetched” excuses and “fringe constitutional argument[s]” in making its case in defense of President Trump, writes Dean Falvy at Verdict.

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