Daily Update | October 20, 2017
DOJ appealed a federal district court’s order to permit an undocumented teenager in federal custody to get an abortion. Democratic senators asked the GAO to investigate President Trump’s voting fraud commission. President Trump suggested that the FBI may have fabricated the dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. Officials from President Trump’s campaign pushed tweets containing Russian propaganda in the days before the 2016 election.
IMMIGRATION
The third travel ban, now blocked by federal district courts in Maryland and Hawaii, is vulnerable to most of the same legal challenges as its predecessors, writes Ilya Somin at The Volokh Conspiracy.
- Chad is on the list because it didn’t have the passport paper necessary to send a sample passport to Homeland Security (Slate).
DOJ appealed a federal district court’s order to permit an undocumented teenager in federal custody to get an abortion (WaPo).
- The D.C. Circuit halted the District Court’s order until oral arguments on Friday.
- This is a test of the Trump administration’s policies on abortion and immigration (LA Times).
- DOJ is evoking Dred Scott, the worst Supreme Court decision of all time, write Perry Grossman and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate.
A section of the Immigration and Naturalization Act that criminalizes encouraging a non-citizen to “come to, enter, or reside” in the U.S. violates the First Amendment (ACLU).
CIVIL RIGHTS
California is leading the U.S.’s climate change efforts for a range of reasons, writes Dan Farber at Legal Planet.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein is attempting to normalize a narrow definition of privacy, writes Riana Pfefferkorn at Just Security.
Congressional action is necessary to close the loophole in the Firearms Owners Protection Act related to bump stocks, writes Senator Dianne Feinstein at The Hill.
The Senate Judiciary Committee voted to send Thomas Farr’s nomination for a seat on the District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina to the Senate floor for a vote over objections by civil rights groups (The Hill).
DEMOCRACY
Bipartisan legislation to require social media companies to provide data on campaigns that spend at least $500 on political ads a year and to clearly depict the funders of the message was introduced in Congress (The Hill).
- The tech industry is mobilizing lobbyists and lawyers to challenge the legislation (NYT).
Wisconsin offers a perfect example of how voter suppression efforts helped President Trump in the 2016 election (Mother Jones).
Democratic senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Cory Booker (D-NJ) asked the GAO to investigate President Trump’s voting fraud commission (Talking Points Memo).
Attorney General Jeff Sessions confirmed that DOJ has communicated with the commission (Mother Jones).
President Trump has complained about Democratic senators obstructing his judicial nominees, but he has had more judicial nominees confirmed than President Obama by this point in his term (AP).
JUSTICE & SAFETY
President Trump met with Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosello at the White House (WaPo).
- President Trump rated the federal response to Hurricane Maria as “a 10” (WaPo).
The concentration of most guns in the United States in the hands of supporters of President Trump should not raise any special concerns about impeachment attempts, writes Neil Buchanan at Verdict.
Prison guards at Guantanamo Bay seized court-approved, non-networked computers and hard drives issued to the accused 9/11 attack plotters to prepare for their death-penalty trials (Miami Herald).
The U.S. Army has stopped enlisting some immigrants who are legal permanent residents while mandating lengthy delays for others (WaPo).
The Trump Administration was correct to withdraw from UNESCO, argues Representative Ken Calvert at The Hill.
Climate change will impact national security and the military in three key ways, writes Mark Nevitt at Just Security.
On Tuesday, the Senate Intelligence Committee will debate a bill that would revise the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act without imposing new restraints (WaPo).
- Ending the sunset provisions would be detrimental to national security and personal privacy, writes Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.).
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that the White House had prevented White House Cyber Coordinator Rob Joyce from testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee (The Hill).
Former Mossad Director Tamir Pardo has said that recent leaks of Israeli intelligence by the United States should not affect the U.S.-Israel relationship (The Hill).
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson warned China that the U.S. has many economic weapons to address trade imbalances and Chinese action in the South China Sea (WSJ).
Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) threatened to subpoena Trump administration officials for information on the attack in Niger that killed four U.S. service members (WaPo).
- Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that the attack is under investigation (Politico).
CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Coverage continues of the SDNY emoluments oral argument (NY Mag, Vanity Fair).
Attorney General Jeff Sessions tells lawmakers that he will not discuss his conversations with President Trump regarding the firing of former FBI Director James Comey (WaPo).
REGULATION
Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) has placed a hold on two of President Trump’s EPA nominees (The Hill).
The St. Regis Mohawk Tribe has filed patent lawsuits against Amazon and Microsoft (Ars Technica).
Judges Jed S. Rakoff and Richard A. Posner discuss whether the Chevron doctrine makes sense (Slate).
The VA is experiencing a shortage of anesthesiologists due in part to an earlier decision to reverse its own proposal to grant full practice authority to nurse anesthetists (The Hill).
The Amber Alert program should extend to tribal lands, write Representative Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Mark Brnovich at The Hill.
The bipartisan bill to preserve health care subsidies for low-income Americans under the Affordable Care Act must win over more Republicans and President Trump to succeed (WaPo).
- Health insurers say their predominant concern is confusion regarding enrollment (WaPo).
- Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Lamar Alexander (R-TN) encouraged President Trump to support the bill (Politico).
RULE OF LAW
One in four emails from a federal .gov email account is fraudulent (The Hill).
REMOVAL FROM OFFICE
The Twenty-Fifth Amendment is not the way to remove President Trump from office, writes Jonathan Turley at The Washington Post.
RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE
President Trump suggested that the FBI may have fabricated the dossier alleging ties between the Trump campaign and Russia (WaPo).
Officials from President Trump’s campaign pushed tweets containing Russian propaganda in the days before the 2016 election (Daily Beast).
Russian internet trolls ran a Twitter account that claimed to represent the Tennessee Republican Party (The Hill).
Google has spoken to investigators on the House and Senate Intelligence committees ahead of hearings on Russian influence (The Hill).
President George W. Bush gave a speech in which he warned about the effects of Russia’s intervention (WaPo).
- The speech was seen as an implicit criticism of President Trump (NYT; LA Times; Politico).
- This is what a president is supposed to sound like, writes Jennifer Rubin at The Washington Post.
- President Bush’s speech displayed the difficulty in criticizing President Trump while courting his supporters (WaPo).
CIA Director Mike Pompeo distorted U.S. spy agency findings when he claimed that U.S. intelligence agencies had determined that Russian interference did not affect the outcome of the 2016 election (WaPo; Politico).