The Story About Judicial Dysfunction Behind the Comey Whiplash

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I’ve been home from Europe for less than a day and already I’m thinking of sporting a neck collar for the whiplash I’ve gotten watching the wildly varying Jim Comey opinions.

I’m speaking, of course, of the response to Jim Comey’s highly unusual announcement to sixteen Chairs and Ranking Members of congressional committees (at least some of which Comey did not testify to) that the investigative team — presumably on the Clinton case — briefed him Thursday that FBI discovered additional emails in an unrelated case — now known to be the investigation into Anthony Weiner allegedly sexting a 15 year old — and he approved their request to take the steps necessary to be able to review those emails.

Effectively, the Weiner investigators, in reviewing the content from devices seized in that investigation, found emails from Huma Abedin, told the Hillary investigative team, and they’re now obtaining a warrant to be able to review those emails.

So of course the Republicans that had been claiming Comey had corruptly fixed the investigation for Hillary immediately started proclaiming his valor and Democrats that had been pointing confidently to his exoneration of Hillary immediately resumed their criticism of his highly unusual statements on this investigation. Make up your minds, people!

For the record, I think his initial, completely inappropriate statements made this inevitable. He excuses Friday’s statement as formally correcting the record of his testimony. The claim is undermined by the fact that not all recipients of the letter had him testify. But I think once you start the process of blabbing about investigations, more blabbing likely follows. I don’t mean to excuse this disclosure, but the real sin comes in the first one, which was totally inappropriate by any measure. I’m also very unsympathetic with the claim —  persistently offered by people who otherwise cheer Comey — that he released his initial statement to help Loretta Lynch out of the jam created by her inappropriate meeting with Bill Clinton; I think those explanations stem from a willful blindness about what a self-righteous moralist Comey is.

Of course I’ve been critical of Comey since long before it was cool (and our late great commenter Mary Perdue was critical years before that).

But I’d like to take a step back and talk about what this says about our judicial system.

Jim Comey doesn’t play by the rules

Jamie Gorelick (who worked with Comey when she was in DOJ) and Larry Thompson (who worked with Comey when Comey was US Attorney and he was Deputy Attorney General, until Comey replaced him) wrote a scathing piece attacking Comey for violating the long-standing prohibition on doing anything in an investigation pertaining to a political candidate in the 60 days leading up to an election. The op-ed insinuates that Comey is a “self-aggrandizing crusader[] on [a] high horse” before it goes on to slam him for making himself the judge on both the case and Hillary’s actions.

James B. Comey, put himself enthusiastically forward as the arbiter of not only whether to prosecute a criminal case — which is not the job of the FBI — but also best practices in the handling of email and other matters. Now, he has chosen personally to restrike the balance between transparency and fairness, departing from the department’s traditions. As former deputy attorney general George Terwilliger aptly put it, “There’s a difference between being independent and flying solo.”

But the real meat is that there’s a rule against statements like the one Comey made, and Comey broke it.

Decades ago, the department decided that in the 60-day period before an election, the balance should be struck against even returning indictments involving individuals running for office, as well as against the disclosure of any investigative steps. The reasoning was that, however important it might be for Justice to do its job, and however important it might be for the public to know what Justice knows, because such allegations could not be adjudicated, such actions or disclosures risked undermining the political process. A memorandum reflecting this choice has been issued every four years by multiple attorneys general for a very long time, including in 2016.

If Comey is willing to break this rule in such a high profile case, then what other rules is he breaking? What other judgements has Comey made himself arbiter of? Particularly given Comey’s persistent discussion of FBI’s work in terms of “good guys” and “bad guys” — as opposed to criminal behavior — that seems a really pertinent question.

As with James Clapper, Loretta Lynch can’t control Comey

Gorelick (who has been suggested among potential Clinton appointees) and Thompson go easier on Lynch, however, noting that she didn’t order him to stand down here, but ultimately blaming Comey for needing to be ordered.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch — nominally Comey’s boss — has apparently been satisfied with advising Comey but not ordering him to abide by the rules. She, no doubt, did not want to override the FBI director in such a highly political matter, but she should not have needed to. He should have abided by the policy on his own.

But since John Cornyn confronted Lynch in March about who would make decisions in this case — “Everyone in the Department of Justice works for me, including the FBI, sir,” Lynch forcefully reminded Cornyn — it has been clear that there’s a lot more tension than the org chart would suggest there should be.

The NYT provides more details on how much tension there is.

The day before the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, sent a letter to Congress announcing that new evidence had been discovered that might be related to the completed Hillary Clinton email investigation, the Justice Department strongly discouraged the step and told him that he would be breaking with longstanding policy, three law enforcement officials said on Saturday.

Senior Justice Department officials did not move to stop him from sending the letter, officials said, but they did everything short of it, pointing to policies against talking about current criminal investigations or being seen as meddling in elections.

And it’s not just Lynch that has problems managing FBI.

In a response to a question from me in 2014 (after 56:00), Bob Litt explained that FBI’s dual role creates “a whole lot of complications” and went on to admit that the office of Director of National Intelligence — which is supposed to oversee the intelligence community — doesn’t oversee the FBI as directly.

Because FBI is part of the Department of Justice, I don’t have the same visibility into oversight there than I do with respect to the NSA, but the problems are much more complicated because of the dual functions of the FBI.

Litt said something similar to me in May when we discussed why FBI can continue to present bogus numbers in its legally mandated NSL reporting.

Now these are separate issues (though the Clinton investigation is, after all, a national security investigation into whether she or her aides mishandled classified information). But if neither the DNI nor the AG really has control over the FBI Director, it creates a real void of accountability that has repercussions for a whole lot of issues and, more importantly, people who don’t have the visibility or power of Hillary Clinton.

The FBI breaks the rules all the time by leaking like a sieve

Underlying this entire controversy is another rule that DOJ and FBI claim to abide by but don’t, at all: FBI is not supposed to reveal details of ongoing investigations.

Indeed, according to the NYT, Comey pointed to the certainty that this would leak to justify his Friday letter.

But although Mr. Comey told Congress this summer that the Clinton investigation was complete, he believed that if word of the new emails leaked out — and it was sure to leak out, he concluded — he risked being accused of misleading Congress and the public ahead of an election, colleagues said.

Yet the US Attorney’s Manual, starting with this language on prejudicial information and continuing into several more clauses, makes it clear that these kinds of leaks are impermissible.

At no time shall any component or personnel of the Department of Justice furnish any statement or information that he or she knows or reasonably should know will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding.

Comey, the boss of all the FBI Agents investigating this case, had another alternative, one he should have exercised months ago when it was clear those investigating this case were leaking promiscuously: demand that they shut up, conduct investigations of who was leaking, and discipline those who were doing so. Those leaks were already affecting election year concerns, but there has been little commentary about how they, too, break DOJ rules.

But instead of trying to get FBI Agents to follow DOJ guidelines, Comey instead decided to violate them himself.

Again, that’s absolutely toxic when discussing an investigation that might affect the presidential election, but FBI’s habitual blabbing is equally toxic for a bunch of less powerful people whose investigative details get leaked by the FBI all the time.

[Update: Jeffrey Toobin addresses the role of leaks more generally here, though he seems to forget that the Hillary investigation is technically a national security investigation. I think it’s important to remember that, especially given Hillary’s campaign focus on why FBI isn’t leaking about the investigation into Trump’s ties to Russia, which would also be a national security investigation.]

Warrantless back door searches do tremendous amounts of damage

Finally, think about the circumstances of the emails behind this latest disclosure.

Reports are currently unclear how much the FBI knows about these emails. The NYT describes that the FBI seized multiple devices in conjunction with the Weiner investigation, including the laptop on which they found these emails.

On Oct. 3, F.B.I. agents seized several electronic devices from Mr. Weiner: a laptop, his iPhone and an iPad that was in large measure used by his 4-year-old son to watch cartoons, a person with knowledge of the matter said. Days later, F.B.I. agents also confiscated a Wi-Fi router that could identify any other devices that had been used, the person said.

While searching the laptop, the agents discovered the existence of tens of thousands of emails, some of them sent between Ms. Abedin and other Clinton aides, according to senior law enforcement officials. It is not clear if Ms. Abedin downloaded the emails to the laptop or if they were automatically backed up there. The emails dated back years, the officials said. Ms. Abedin has testified that she did not routinely delete her emails.

Presumably, the warrant to seize those devices permits the FBI agents to go find any evidence of Weiner sexting women (or perhaps just the young woman in question).

And admittedly, the details NYT’s sources describe involve just metadata: addressing information and dates.

But then, Comey told Congress these emails were “pertinent” to the Clinton investigation, and other details in reports, such as they might be duplicates of emails already reviewed by the FBI, suggest the Weiner investigators may have seen enough to believe they might pertain to the inquiry into whether Clinton and her aides (including Huma) mishandled classified information. Moreover, the FBI at least thinks they will be able to prove there is probable cause to believe these emails may show the mishandling of classified information.

Similarly, there are conflicting stories about whether the Hillary investigation was ever closed, which may arise from the fact that if it were (as Comey had suggested in his first blabby statements), seeking these emails would require further approval to continue the investigation.

The point, though, is that FBI would have had no idea these emails existed were it not for FBI investigators who were aware of the other investigation alerting their colleagues to these emails. This has been an issue of intense litigation in recent years, and I’d love for Huma, after the election, to submit a serious legal challenge if any warrant is issued.

But then, in this case, Huma is being provided far more protection than people swept up in FISA searches, where any content with a target can be searched years into the future without any probable cause or even evidence of wrong-doing. Here, Huma’s emails won’t be accessible for investigative purpose without a warrant (in part because of recent prior litigation in the 2nd Circuit), whereas in the case of emails acquired via FISA, FBI can access the information — pulling it up not just by metadata but by content — with no warrant at all.

[Update: Orin Kerr shares my concerns on this point — with the added benefit that he discusses all the recent legal precedents that may prohibit accessing these emails.]

This is a good example of the cost of such investigations. Because the FBI can and does sweep so widely in searches of electronic communications, evidence from one set of data collection can be used to taint others unrelated to the crime under investigation.

All the people writing scathing emails about Comey’s behavior in this particular matter would like you to believe that this issue doesn’t reflect on larger issues at DOJ. They would like you to believe that DOJ was all pure and good and FBI was well-controlled except for this particular investigation. But that’s simply not the case, and some of these issues go well beyond Comey.

Update: Minor changes were made to this post after it was initially posted.

Is Trump’s $915 Million Tax Loss Connected to an Exotic Tax Shelter?

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293015Guest Post by Robert J. Lord

The news is out about Donald Trump’s $915 million of tax losses.

The real question is whether those losses were real economic losses, or just a tax artifice created by a clever planner.

Real estate developers like Trump benefit tax-wise from provisions that allow them to claim losses attributable to borrowed money. But those provisions are not a complete giveaway if the borrowing ultimately is repaid.

If the borrowing is not repaid, as we know to be the case of Trump’s casino debt, the tax law generally requires the person whose debt is forgiven to recognize income, which typically erases the tax benefit of those earlier losses. Even in those situations where debt forgiveness does not result in income, the borrower’s tax attributes are reduced by the amount of debt forgiven, and unused losses are at the top of the list of those tax attributes to be trimmed.

Could Trump have figured out how to have his cake and eat it too – that is, keep his losses for tax purposes, even while being excused from having to repay the borrowed money on which those losses were based? Yes, it is possible!

One possibility is that Trump’s lenders agreed not to expressly forgive Trump’s debt, but instead to sell their rights as lender for pennies on the dollar to an individual or entity close to Trump, such that it would never be enforced. This strategy is referred to as “parking” the debt. Some tax professionals like John Hempton at Bronte Capital and commentators like Josh Marshall at TPM have speculated this is the artifice Trump and his advisors engineered to preserve Trump’s huge losses and thus shelter close to a billion of future income from tax.

Does the tax law permit the parking of debt that effectively has been forgiven? Certainly not by design. If Trump parked the debt with a close relative, the tax code would have treated it as if the debt was forgiven.

Trump could have parked the debt with someone not so closely related or with a friend, but not if had an agreement that said person would not enforce the debt. Which means he’d be at severe risk, as the person could turn on him and enforce the debt. That would have been almost a billion dollar risk. It is hard to imagine Trump, his accountants and attorneys permitting that.

Could Trump have parked the debt with a corporation, trust or partnership he controlled? In a word, yes. Congress tried to prevent debtors from circumventing the law this way as well, but they inadvertently created a small crack in the law, which Trump just may have been able to squeeze through.

The tax code expressly identifies corporations, partnerships and trusts deemed too close to a debtor to purchase his debt without causing the debt to be deemed forgiven for tax purposes. Those rules were well written. After they were written, however, and not long before Trump faced his financial difficulties, Congress created a new type of entity for tax purposes only, the “real estate mortgage investment conduit,” or REMIC. Those rules state, in no uncertain terms, that certain partnerships, corporations and trusts become something else for tax purposes. They are expressly NOT to be treated as partnerships, corporations or trusts. Thus, unwittingly, Congress created a gaping yet little noticed hole in the rules that prevent parking debt with a controlled corporation, trust or partnership.

And Trump may have seized on Congress’ mistake.

The REMIC rules were enacted in 1986 to facilitate investment in mortgage-backed securities (yes, those securities that crashed the economy in 2008). A REMIC is a partnership, corporation or trust under the law of the state in which it is formed (usually, Delaware) that holds almost exclusively interests in mortgage debt, and satisfies a few additional statutory requirements related to the type of ownership interests (for example, corporate stock, partnership interests, or beneficial interests in a trust) it issues.

Congress anticipated that REMICs would hold entire pools of mortgage interests, but never specified a minimum number, which means a REMIC might hold only one mortgage – for example, the mortgage on a Trump casino – and still qualify. Or it could be multiple similar obligations.

A few clever tax lawyers realized that by qualifying a partnership, corporation or trust as a bastardized form of REMIC, they could circumvent the rules that prevent the parking of debt with a controlled entity to avoid debt forgiveness income.

Trump’s situation quite clearly lent itself to this exotic strategy. If he used a REMIC he controlled to purchase the mortgage debt on one or more of his casinos (and/or other properties) at a deep discount, the rules that prevent debt parking would not have applied to him.

The bottom line: Trump indeed could have used a debt parking strategy to preserve close to a billion dollars in losses for tax purposes even though he avoided the economic loss on which those tax losses were based.

Did Trump employ this strategy? Nobody knows yet, but it would explain why those losses still showed up on his tax return in 1995 and how he gamed the system for an enormous tax windfall.

The secretive and shady nature of whatever avoidance scheme Trump has used, which would clearly be on the edge of legality, even if putatively legal as Trump claims, would also very easily explain why Trump steadfastly refuses to make public any more of his tax return information.

It is also exactly why the public is entitled to see his convoluted machinations and judge for themselves his honesty. And, remember, all statutes of limitation, both criminal and civil, have long ago expired as to the 1995 and surrounding years tax returns. There is no legitimate reason whatsoever Trump cannot release them. Other than fear that what he is hiding is exposed.

Robert J. Lord, a tax lawyer and former Congressional candidate, is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob previously served as an adjunct faculty member at the Arizona State University School of Law. Bob’s work focuses on the relationship of tax law to inequality. He contributes to both the Inequality.org website and to OtherWords, the Institute’s national syndicated editorial service. Bob also is a staff member at Blog For Arizona, the leading political blog in Arizona.

Trump Charity A Continuing Fraud On The People Of New York

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scammer419One of the items of breaking news (no, really!) over the last 24 hours is the cease and desist order issued by the New York Attorney General’s Office to Donald Trump’s vaunted “charity”. The full text of the official letter can be found here.

The New York Times described it thusly:

The office of New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman has issued a “notice of violation” to Donald J. Trump’s foundation, ordering it to immediately stop soliciting charitable donations in New York.

The letter, which was sent on Friday and released on Monday morning by Mr. Schneiderman’s office, said its charities bureau had determined that the Donald J. Trump Foundation had been fund-raising in New York this year when it was not registered to do so under state law.

“The Trump Foundation must immediately cease soliciting contributions or engaging in any other fund-raising activities in New York,” wrote James Sheehan, the chief of the charities bureau.

I want to focus on one particular clause in the letter however. The part identifying the “fraud”. To wit:

“The failure immediately to discontinue solicitation and to file information and reports required under Article 7-A with the Charities Bureau shall be deemed to be a continuing fraud upon the people of the State of New York.”

Now, in fairness, that is likely boilerplate/template language for such a cease and desist letter in New York, but that makes it no less true. What has occurred is that the Donald J. Trump Foundation, by not properly registering and being accountable for its activities, has been perpetrating a fraud on the People of the State of New York.

A state government is entitled to regulate, oversee and audit such activity occurring within its borders. As appears to be a pattern with Mr. Trump, he and his organization seemed to think they were simply above such common regulation. The willful non-compliance itself is a fraud, the size of the fraud perpetrated can only further be determined via full registration and full accounting for the multiple years of non-compliant activity the “charity” has engaged in.

There has been a fraud under the statutory and regulatory framework of the State of New York, we are only yet to ascertain the relative scope of it yet. And given the dogged reportage of David Fahrenthold of the Washington Post, which depicts rampant self serving and dealing by Trump as to personal debts via his charity, there is every reason to believe there are very serious issues to be dealt with.

But the ability of the NY Attorney General’s Office to actually deal with these questions depends on the prompt registration and disclosure by Trump of his offending and illegal charity.

Trump and his ill begotten “charity” have 15 days to comply with registration and disclosure. What do you think the odds are he will actually comply in good faith instead of hiding behind some bogus baloney, or submitting patently non-responsive filings, until after the election is over? I’d rate the odds at 100%.

The same odds that exist for Trump turning over his tax returns. Even the one from 1995, that has been beyond the statute of any limitation, whether criminal or civil, for over 15 years.

The Trees Have Fallen and The State of NFL Labor

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As you may recall, this blog has covered the critical labor aspect of #Deflategate from the beginning, from Marcy to me substantively as the 2015 season began:

If you have an iota of concern for fundamental fairness and due process, you ought be offended – even if this is only a civil labor law mess involving millionaires against billionaires. It all matters, and the labor law principles in play here are beyond critical to all union workers and collective bargaining agreements, not just those of rich athletes. So, yeah, don’t kid yourself, this matters. A lot. If Tom Freaking Brady cannot get fundamental fairness and due process on a collectively bargained agreement, how the hell do you think a UAW, Teamster, teacher, or any other union member will? If you haven’t noticed, labor in this country is under direct attack. Don’t be the guy (or girl!) that aids that attack just because this iteration of the conflict involves Tom Brady and/or rich athletes. This matters, both in general as to all workers under labor agreements, and to your hometown sports teams and players too.

The labor law significance of #Deflategate was true then, and it is now. So many people were oh so quick and easy to let their personal pro football prejudices, or their prejudices against pro football, control their framing and thought on #Deflategate, and their opinion as to the usefulness of the protracted litigation. It’s good! It’s bad! Brady is a hero! Brady is a criminal! But that was false framing and thought. Simply as an avatar of fundamental, and critical, labor law, #Deflategate was important and necessary. While it may be over, the ramifications will affect many, if not all, labor unions in the future, and almost certainly for the worse.

Although it will sooner or later seep into all unions and collective bargaining agreements and interpretation, the first one is likely the NFL, where an all powerful and belligerent corporate league treats its employees like meat on a rack to be bought, sold, owned and treated as a perishable commodity. The NFL is a business, and a particularly ruthless one. And there IS a deplorable imbalance between management and players (the labor).

The final takeaway from the #Deflategate litigation is that, in a CBA, management has nearly unfettered discretion to interpret and implement the provisions of a CBA (Collectively Bargained Agreement) and ALL deference and presumption will be given their decisions, whether fair, proper or not. That is very much not a good thing. So, how will that affect labor going forward? The avatar may well, once again, be the NFL, and former executive and agent Andrew Brandt has some very salient thoughts in a two part series at Sports Illustrated. Part One is here. Please give it a read, it is instructive to both NFL fans and others too.

But Part Two of Brandt’s excellent series is where I want to pick up today:

After discussing many important issues in Part I of this midterm look at the 10-year collective bargaining agreement that governs NFL owners and players, this section deals with the all-important issue: where is the money going? With billions of dollars coming into the game, there is always dispute about how much each side should claim as “their share.” The owners, to be sure, achieved their primary goal in this negotiation: to take more of it.

From the beginning of these CBA negotiations, the NFLPA was playing defense against an aggressive push by NFL owners who were intent on reversing the (literal) fortunes from the 2006 CBA extension, a deal that owners voted unanimously to opt out of before the ink was even dry. Having no success in bargaining and facing a lockout imposed by the league, the NFLPA strategy shifted from negotiation to litigation, as the union was dissolved to bring an antitrust lawsuit, Brady v. NFL (the lockout one, not the Deflategate one). Ultimately, after a negative result in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, the NFLPA made a deal to get players into training camp on time.

The league’s top priority was simple: become more profitable by lowering their largest expense, player costs.

And follow the money Brandt does. One thing that really hit home with me is the truth Brandt tells about guaranteed player contracts. Major League Baseball has them. The NBA has them. The only major professional sporting league that does not is the most deadly sport, the National Football League. The league with the most necessity to protect its labor (players) does absolutely the least to do so. More from Brandt:

Although there was much reaction this summer to eye-popping NBA free-agent contracts, many forget that we have similar gawking at NFL free-agent contracts every March (this year’s batch of golden ticket winners included Olivier Vernon, Malik Jackson, Janoris Jenkins and a few others). The difference, of course, is that while NBA contracts are fully guaranteed, NFL guarantees disappear after the early part of the contract (when teams have the lowest risk). NFL management smiles when agents deceive media and fans with reports of illusory guarantees and inclusion of no-risk first-year earnings into total guarantee.

We hear a lot of reasons why the NFL does not guarantee contracts—even from union leadership—that make perfect sense…for management. The primary reason is the high injury risk for NFL players, which, from a player point of view, is exactly the reason for guaranteed contracts. NFL contracts and the allocation of risk they provide have provided incredible value for teams, especially compared to other leagues. It is unfortunate that player contracts are so tenuous in the sport with the 1) most revenue, 2) highest franchise values, 3) greatest injury risk and 4) shortest career lengths.

So, where does that leave the labor in the NFL versus their profit whoring management? It is a complicated answer, and I truly hope you read both parts of Andrew’s series on this subject. The simple answer is with five more years under the current CBA. The better question is really what will happen leading up to, and at, the point of negotiating the next CBA? That is yet to be seen, but, if nothing else, #Deflategate proved, yet again, the incredible inequality that exists in a nation where owners are lionizes and workers are trivialized. Labor, and unions, matter. Their demise over the last few decades is significant in the demise and eradication of the middle class. Don’t let the fact that #Deflategate involved relatively rich players compared to your and my existence, but realize it is a cutout for a much larger problem.

Okay, on to the games! I was out much of yesterday and last night. Which left insufficient time to trash Rosalind and her Stanford Trees. Who proved twigs in a Husky hurricane last night. Ouch. It wasn’t just the leaves that were falling last night, as Van Morrison once described, it was the whole Tree! Today, Wisconsin at the Big House in Ann Arbor looks to be fantastic. But, honestly, I am more excited to see Louisville at Clemson in a battle between the hot ticket QB’s in the country, the Cardinals’ Lamar Jackson and the Tigers’ Deshaun Watson. Now THAT will be a fun game.

Also the deceptively 4-0 (no, they are NOT that good) ASU Sun Devils hope to bring some burning inferno to the Coliseum in LA against the USC Trojans. From my perspective (hey, I’m a lifer AND an alumni) ASU coach Todd Graham sucks. His defense is based on reckless blitzing and is ultra porous. He runs sloppy and undisciplined special teams. And his offense is spread cookie cutter crap. But USC alumni are on the warpath against Clay Helton too. I wonder which fan base prays harder for another tarmac firing?

On the Pro front, can the Patriots go 4-0 without Tom Brady? The bet here is, at Foxborough, yes. Seahawks at Jets may be interesting. Squawks have looked off this year, Wilson is at least slightly hurt, and the Jets not as truly terrible as they looked last week. Could be interesting! The two best games, pretty easily, are Chefs at Steelers Sunday night and Giants at Vikings Monday night. Steelers displayed some serious crake last week against the Eagles. The Chefs are well coached and solid on both sides of the ball. Could be a heck of a game. Giants are better, and more consistent this year. Still some major holes though. I’ll take the Vikes at their new, shiny and VERY loud home.

That is it for this week. Music by the inestimable Van Morrison.

The Questions That Should Be Being Asked About Trump’s Tax Returns

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watch-trumps-tax-evasion[Editor’s Note – this is a guest post by a friend of ours here at the Emptywheel Blog, Bob Lord. Bob is a longtime tax attorney with some very salient thoughts on Trump’s taxes, and lack of production thereof]

By Robert J. Lord

A lot has been said about Trump’s refusal to make his tax returns public. But despite the volume of commentary, it’s not clear the right questions even are being asked.

Trump claims he can’t release his returns because he’s under audit. At some level, that’s a legitimate concern. It would hardly be fair if thousands of tax professionals who oppose Trump politically helped the IRS by publishing their own analyses of the returns. Ultimately, however, it’s a phony excuse.

But rather than challenge the logic behind Trump’s refusal to release returns, a series of questions should be asked:

First, what tax years are under audit? Does it go back beyond 2012? If not, can the 2011 return be released? After all, the statute of limitations on the audit of that year has passed, so there’s no exposure to Trump by releasing that return. If not 2011, how about 2010?

Second, why haven’t the audit notices been released? An audit notice is a short, generic letter from the IRS stating that a taxpayer’s return has been selected for examination. There’s nothing so sensitive in such a generic notice that it could not be made public. At this point, Trump has not even offered up this most basic evidence that he is really even under audit. Why hasn’t proof been demanded?

Third, for the tax returns that are under audit, why can’t the first two pages be released? After all, those first two pages simultaneously contain the information most relevant to the public about a presidential candidate and contain no information that reveals the issues under audit. Although an audit ultimately impacts the numbers that appear on the first two pages of the return, it’s the schedules and other information that the IRS analyzes in an audit. For example, the first page of Trump’s return states the income or loss he received from partnerships and real estate investments, but it’s a schedule attached to the return, and the returns of the partnerships in which Trump is a partner, that contain the information the IRS would scrutinize in an audit.

Fourth, if for whatever reason the first two pages of the returns can’t be released, could Trump at least release five numbers from each of his returns: his gross income, his adjusted gross income, his taxable income, his self-employment tax liability, and his income tax liability? If not, then why not?

Fifth, is the sensitivity of Trump’s IRS audit the only reason behind his refusal to release the returns? Is Trump also under audit by any other tax agency, such as New York State’s Department of Revenue?

These questions would force Trump to take one of two approaches: Either continue to evade or allow the exposure of an uncomfortable (and intuitively obvious) reality – that the sensitivity of his audit is not the real reason for his refusal to release his returns. In all likelihood, he’d take the first approach, probably claiming that his tax advisors have told him not to release any information publicly. But, again, that cannot explain his refusal to release returns up to 2011, for which the statute of limitations have all expired.

What is the real reason Trump does not want to release the returns, even the first two pages? It could be that there’s some embarrassing piece of information in there somewhere and Trump learned from Romney’s refusal to go beyond a limited release of his returns that eventually people forget about a candidate’s refusal to come clean. More likely, however, the problem he’s facing is his own lack of credibility. The tax return of a real estate magnate like Trump paints a very distorted picture. Income will vary wildly from one year to the next. Important items might be buried in the return of a partnership or corporation that can’t be released because of minority partners or shareholders. Taxpayers in Trump’s position tend to bunch their charitable contributions, making them in the years they provide the most tax benefit. Unfortunately for Trump, that practice could make him appear incredibly tight-fisted if his returns over too short a period are seen in isolation.

And that’s where Trump could be trapped by his own lack of credibility. It may well be that there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation for whatever Trump would prefer not to be out there for public comment. Trump’s problem is that if the explanation comes from him, nobody will believe it. And he knows it.

At a minimum, however, the above critical questions must be asked. Even if Trump has to explain a few items on his returns, that is no greater fear or burden than every other previous Presidential candidate has faced. Certainly Trump may have varied financial interests, including charitable trusts. But so have other candidates before, including Hillary Clinton this election, and all have engaged in public transparency but for Trump.

Hopefully the press, including the debate moderators, will force Mr. Trump to answer these basic questions.

Robert J. Lord, a tax lawyer and former Congressional candidate, is an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. Bob previously served as an adjunct faculty member at the Arizona State University School of Law. Bob’s work focuses on the relationship of tax law to inequality. He contributes to both the Inequality.org website and to OtherWords, the Institute’s national syndicated editorial service. Bob also is a staff member at Blog For Arizona, the leading political blog in Arizona.

Blame It On The Bossa Nova: Lochte and Brazilian Police

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The travails of the Ryan Lochte gang of American Swimmers has been playing out for a full week now. The result has been almost universal scorn, if not hatred, for Lochte et. al, and almost complete credulous acceptance of the somewhat dubious, if extremely strident, pushback and claims of the Brazilian Police.

Frankly, neither side’s story ever sat quite right with me. But Lochte’s story, among other exaggeration/fabrication, always, from the start, indicated that the swimmers were pulled from a taxi at gun point, by people in uniform with badges, who pointed guns at them, and took money from them.

And then came the dog and pony show press conference staged by the Brazilian Police for a worldwide audience during mid-day on Thursday August 18. It was a bizarre and rambling presser, that was nearly comical in its staging during its opening portion. It did, however, make clear that there was a lot more to the full story than Lochte had told, and that some of his story was flat wrong. But, if you listened carefully, as I am wont to do with cops making self serving statements, it, along with previous statements made by the police, also pretty much confirmed the swimmers were pulled from a taxi at gun point, by people in uniform with badges, who pointed guns at them, and took money from them.

So, then the question was what “crimes” and/or “vandalism” had Lochte and the swimmers really caused? There was an early news crew, I think NBC, that went to the site and did not really find all that much damage. As the statements by both Lochte and the other swimmers, notably Gunnar Bentz, came out, it was clear that there was a real question as to what, if any, real damage was done. And a question of who engaged in exactly what criminal behavior at that gas station in the early morning of August 15.

Well, now it is starting to come out. And, as expected, the Brazilians have ginned up every bit as much “over-exaggeration” as Ryan Lochte. From today’s USA Today Investigative Team of Taylor Barnes and David Meeks, which confirms some of the work previously seen from (again, I believe) NBC. It is a pretty thorough and convincing report:

But a narrative of the night’s events – constructed by USA TODAY Sports from witness statements, official investigations, surveillance videos and media reports – supports Lochte’s later account in which he said that he thought the swimmers were being robbed when they were approached at a gas station by armed men who flashed badges, pointed guns at them and demanded money.

A Brazilian judge says police might have been hasty in determining that the security guards who drew guns on the swimmers and demanded money did not commit a robbery. A lawyer who has practiced in Brazil for 25 years says she does not think the actions of Lochte and teammate Jimmy Feigen constitute the filing of a false police report as defined under Brazilian law.

An extensive review of surveillance footage by a USA TODAY Sports videographer who also visited the gas station supports swimmer Gunnar Bentz’s claim that he did not see anyone vandalize the restroom, an allegation that in particular heightened media portrayals of the four as obnoxious Americans behaving recklessly in a foreign country. Meanwhile, Rio authorities have declined to identify the guards or offer any details beyond confirming they are members of law enforcement who were working a private security detail.

Now, we can’t compare that with everything the Brazilian police have, because they have been hiding a lot of their material and, apparently, misrepresenting substantial portions of it from the start. But everything within the USA Today piece corresponds with the various videos obtained by the various media outlets, whether Brazilian, American or international, and corresponds with Gunnar Bentz’s statement, which nobody, even, quite notably the Brazilians, including police, seems to contest in the least.

In short, the overall picture of the incident seems to be bigger and more complex, with some outrageous conduct by not just the American swimmers, but also, and substantially, the Brazilians. Oh, and about that “bathroom trashing damage”? That appears to be vapor too:

At a news conference Thursday, Rio police chief Fernando Veloso characterized the athletes’ actions at the gas station as vandalism. He said they also had broken a soap dispenser and mirror inside the restroom. Reports quickly grew that the Americans had trashed the restroom.

A USA TODAY Sports videographer who visited the bathroom Thursday found no damage to soap dispensers and mirrors and said none of those items appeared to be new. Some media accounts suggested the men had broken down a door, which USA TODAY Sports also did not observe.

Bentz said in his statement that he believes there are surveillance videos shot from different angles that have not been released. He also said he did not see anyone damage the bathroom or even enter it.

Oh, and that much ballyhooed “sign” supposedly damaged? Reports are that it was a minor crack in a cheap plastic cover and that the swimmers were made to pay out somewhere between $100 to $400 to cover what appears to be mostly ginned up nonsense. Additionally, irrespective of what the “security guards” extracted from the swimmers at gunpoint, swimmer James Feigan was made to pay the amount of $11,000 as a “donation” simply in order to leave the country and return home. That is not a “donation”, that is a flat out outrageous extortion demand and payment extracted by Brazilian authorities.

I wonder what bloviating sports columnists so full of righteous outrage and apologia will say now? Brazil is to be commended for putting on a great Olympics, and doing so under difficult constraints and conditions. But for the green pools (that affected nothing in the long run), they really pulled off a fantastic, admirable and beautiful show. Even the rain did not phase or slow down the glorious closing ceremonies Sunday night.

But one point on which Brazilian authorities “over-exaggerated”, overreacted, and failed to acquit themselves well on was in relation to the randy American swimmers. According to the USA Today report, even judges in Rio are wondering if they were hoodwinked in the rush of outrage by the authorities.

The distress of the Brazilian authorities over the emerging story from the swimmers is perfectly understandable given the dynamics. But, if an international scandal was created by this incident, it appears as if it is every bit as much the fault of the Brazilan police and authorities as it is the American swimmers.

It took two for this little tango.

Tom Brady Taps Out of Deflategate and Other Trash Talk

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Just posted a few minutes ago on Tom Brady’s Facebook page:

Screen Shot 2016-07-15 at 10.46.18 AM

Frankly, I am stunned. From the jump, Brady seemed to be a guy that would fight to the bitter end because he truly believed he was innocent and that the conduct of Roger Goodell and the NFL was dishonest and oppressive. And, frankly, every bit of research and evaluation of the case indicates that is exactly the case. My early analysis, which I still believe holds up nearly 100% is here. I touched significantly on why the Deflategate litigation was critical not just to Tom Brady, but to all organized labor operating ind a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). That is quite so, and the NFLPA has already indicated they may – may – continue on as a union to litigate this issue. We shall see, though they will be weakened without Brady being involved.

Having said that I am completely stunned Brady has tapped out, there are cognizable reasons for it. His best shot of success was with his petition for wn banc review in the 2nd Circuit, but that was denied Wednesday morning. To go further, Brady would have to file a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court and seek to obtain a stay of his suspension while the cert petition was processed. That would have been a tall order. The first stop would have beed the 2nd Circuit itself, which just dumped him, and then with Ruth Bader Ginsburg as the assigned Circuit Justice for the 2nd Circuit, and lastly to the full SCOTUS (which is not even in session currently).

I have a couple of sports law attorney friends I have found along the Deflategate way that thought Brady had a shot at a stay, maybe even odds as good as 50%. I thought that was probably entirely too optimistic, and not we will never know as the NFLPA does not have any need for a stay without Brady’s suspension hanging in the mix.

Just spitballing here, but I am going to guess that Bill Belichick, Bob Kraft and the interests of the team were the deciding factor for Brady, and not the thin odds. You see, even if Brady had been granted a stay, unless the Supremes granted cert, there is a real chance that the four game suspension rears its ugly head again at the end of the season and/or even the playoffs. If the Patriots are going to lose Tom Brady, it is far better that it be in the first four games, most of which they may have a decent shot at winning even without Brady, than have it be at the end of the year or playoffs. Nathaniel Grow at Sports Law Blog has a good discussion of the timing issue it Brady had actually obtained a a stay. So, dollar to donuts, this was not just the deciding factor, but the only real factor. Money was never an issue.

Just so you know, the Pats open here in Arizona against the Cardinals on Sunday Night Football on NBC, and then are at home in Foxborough against the the Dolphins, Texans and Bills. They can win some, if not most, of those games with Jimmy G at QB.

So, there you go, Deflategate comes to an ignominious end, at least as to Tom Brady. But there are other sports issues in the air, not to mention a boatload of politics and other matters. So feel free to use this thread as an open forum.

On The Passing of David Margolis, the DOJ Institution

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david-margolis-250David Margolis was a living legend and giant at the Department of Justice. Now he has passed. Just posted is the following from DOJ:

Statements From Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates on the Passing of Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch and Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates released the following statements today on the passing of Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis, senior-most career employee at the Department of Justice.

Statement by Attorney General Lynch:

“David Margolis was a dedicated law enforcement officer and a consummate public servant who served the Department of Justice – and the American people – with unmatched devotion, remarkable skill and evident pride for more than half a century. From his earliest days as a hard-charging young prosecutor with a singular sense of style to his long tenure as one of the department’s senior leaders, David took on our nation’s most pressing issues and navigated our government’s most complex challenges. To generations of Justice Department employees, he was a respected colleague, a trusted advisor and most importantly, a beloved friend. We are heartbroken at his loss and he will be deeply missed. My thoughts and prayers are with David’s family, his friends and all who loved him.”

Statement by Deputy Attorney General Yates:

“David Margolis was the personification of all that is good about the Department of Justice. His dedication to our mission knew no bounds, and his judgment, wisdom and tenacity made him the “go-to” guy for department leaders for over 50 years. David was a good and loyal friend to all of us, and his loss leaves a gaping hole in the department and in our hearts.”

I am sure Mr. Margolis was a kind, personable and decent chap to those who knew and worked with him. I can be sure because there have been many voices I know who have related exactly that. He was undoubtedly a good family man and pillar of his community. None of that is hard to believe, indeed, it is easy to believe.

Sally Yates is spot on when she says Margolis’ “dedication to our [DOJ] mission knew no bounds”. That is not necessarily in a good way though, and Margolis was far from the the “personification of all that is good about the Department of Justice”. Mr. Margolis may have been such internally at the Department, but it is far less than clear he is really all that to the public and citizenry the Department is designed to serve. Indeed there is a pretty long record Mr. Margolis consistently not only frustrated accountability for DOJ malfeasance, but was the hand which guided and ingrained the craven protection of any and all DOJ attorneys for accountability, no matter how deeply they defiled the arc of justice.

This is no small matter. When DOJ Inspectors General go to Congress to decry the fact that there is an internal protection racket within the Department of Justice shielding even the worst wrongs by Department attorneys, as IG Glen Fine did:

Second, the current limitation on the DOJ OIG’s jurisdiction prevents the OIG – which by statute operates independent of the agency – from investigating an entire class of misconduct allegations involving DOJ attorneys’ actions, and instead assigns this responsibility to OPR, which is not statutorily independent and reports directly to the Attorney General and the Deputy Attorney General. In effect, the limitation on the OIG’s jurisdiction creates a conflict of interest and contravenes the rationale for establishing independent Inspectors General throughout the government. It also permits an Attorney General to assign an investigation raising questions about his conduct or the conduct of his senior staff to OPR, an entity reporting to and supervised by the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General and lacking the insulation and independence guaranteed by the IG Act.

This concern is not merely hypothetical. Recently, the Attorney General directed OPR to investigate aspects of the removal of U.S. Attorneys. In essence, the Attorney General assigned OPR – an entity that does not have statutory independence and reports directly to the Deputy Attorney General and Attorney General – to investigate a matter involving the Attorney General’s and the Deputy Attorney General’s conduct. The IG Act created OIGs to avoid this type of conflict of interest. It created statutorily independent offices to investigate allegations of misconduct throughout the entire agency, including actions of agency leaders. All other federal agencies operate this way, and the DOJ should also.

Third, while the OIG operates transparently, OPR does not. The OIG publicly releases its reports on matters of public interest, with the facts and analysis underlying our conclusions available for review. In contrast, OPR operates in secret. Its reports, even when they examine matters of significant public interest, are not publicly released.

Said fact and heinous lack of accountability for Justice Department attorneys, not just in Washington, but across the country and territories, is largely because of, and jealously ingrained by, David Margolis. What Glen Fine was testifying about is the fact there is no independent regulation and accountability for DOJ attorneys.

They are generally excluded from the Department IG purview of authority, and it is rare, if ever, courts or state bar authorities will formally review DOJ attorneys without going throughout the filter of the OPR – the Office of Professional Responsibility – within the Department. A protection racket designed and jealously guarded for decades by David Margolis. Even when cases were found egregious enough to be referred out of OPR, they went to…..David Margolis.

In fact, attuned people literally called the OPR the “Roach Motel”:

“I used to call it the Roach Motel of the Justice Department,” says Fordham University law professor Bruce A. Green, a former federal prosecutor and ethics committee co-chair for the ABA Criminal Justice Section. “Cases check in, but they don’t check out.”

If you want a solid history of OPR, and the malfeasance it and Margolis have cravenly protected going back well over a decade, please go read “The Roach Motel”, a 2009 article in no less an authority than the American Bar Association Journal. It is a stunning and damning report. It is hard to describe just how much this one man, David Margolis, has frustrated public transparency and accountability into the Justice Department that supposedly works for the citizens of the United States. It is astounding really.

As I wrote back in 2010:

But just as there is an inherent conflict in the DOJ’s use of the fiction of the OPR to police itself, so too does David Margolis have issues giving the distinct appearance of impropriety. Who and what is David Margolis? A definitive look at the man was made by the National Law Journal (subscription required):

“Taking him on is a losing battle,” says the source. “The guy is Yoda. Nobody fucks with the guy.”
….
Margolis cut his teeth as an organized-crime prosecutor, and he often uses mob analogies in talking about his career at the Justice Department. When asked by an incoming attorney general what his job duties entailed, Margolis responded: “I’m the department’s cleaner. I clean up messes.”

The analogy calls to mind the character of Winston Wolfe, played by Harvey Keitel in the 1994 film “Pulp Fiction.” In the movie, Wolfe is called in by mob honchos to dispose of the evidence after two foot soldiers accidentally kill a murder witness in the back of their car.

“The Cleaner” Mr. Margolis considered himself, while fastidiously sanitizing gross malfeasance and misconduct by DOJ attorneys, all the while denying the American public the disinfectant of sunshine and transparency they deserve from their public servants (good discussion by Marcy, also from 2010).

Perhaps no single incident epitomized Margolis’ determination to be the “cleaner” for the Department of Justice and keep their dirt from public scrutiny and accountability than the case of John Yoo (and to similar extent, now lifetime federal judge Jay Bybee). Yoo as you may recall was the enlightened American who formally opinedcrushing innocent children’s testicles would be acceptable conduct for the United States to engage in. Yoo and Bybee, by their gross adoption of torture, literally personally soiled the reputation of the United States as detrimentally as any men in history.

So, what did David Margolis do in response to the heinous legal banality of evil John Yoo and Jay Bybee engendered in our name? Margolis cleaned it up. He sanitized it. Rationalized it. Ratified it. Hid it. To such an extent architects of such heinous war crimes are now lifetime appointed federal judges and tenured professors. Because that is what “The Cleaner” David Margolis did. “Protecting” the DOJ from accountability, at all costs, even from crimes against humanity, was simply the life goal of David Margolis, and he was depressingly successful at it.

So, less than 24 hours in to the passing of The Cleaner, is it too early to engage in this criticism? Clearly other career officials at the DOJ think discussing the pernicious effects of Margolis on accountability and transparency are out of bounds.

I wonder what the late Senator Ted Stevens would say in response to the “too soon” mandate of Steven Bressler? Because thanks to the efforts of The Cleaner Margolis, Stevens died without the public knowing what an unethical and craven, if not downright criminal, witch hunt attorneys in the Department of Justice ran on him. Even after Stevens was long gone from office and dead, there was Margolis “cleaning” it all up to protect his precious Justice Department when even the internal OPR found gross misconduct:

Following the Justice Department’s agreement in 2009 to vacate the convictions it obtained of former Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, it conducted an internal probe into the conduct of its senior lawyers and—surprise!—exonerated them and itself. It then refused to make the report public. However, at the time the conviction was voided, the presiding judge in Stevens’s case, Emmet Sullivan, appropriately wary of the department’s ethics office, appointed a special prosecutor, Henry F. Schuelke, III, an eminent Washington attorney and former prosecutor, to probe the DOJ’s conduct. Late last week, Schuelke’s 525-page report was released, over the loud objections of DOJ lawyers. The report revealed gross misconduct by the prosecutorial team, stretching over the entire course of the case and reaching into the upper echelons of the department. It concluded there had been “systematic concealment of significant exculpatory evidence which would have independently corroborated [Stevens’s] defense.”

Having laid out the above bill of particulars as to David Margolis, I’d like to return to where we started. As I said in the intro, “I am sure Mr. Margolis was a kind, personable and decent chap”. That was not cheap rhetoric, from all I can discern, both from reading accounts and talking to people who knew Mr. Margolis well, he was exactly that. Ellen Nakashima did a fantastic review of Margolis in the Washington Post last year. And, let’s be honest, the man she described is a guy you would love to know, work with and be around. I know I would. David Margolis was a man dedicated. And an incredibly significant man, even if few in the public understood it.

Say what you will, but Mr. Margolis was truly a giant. While I have no issue delineating what appear to be quite pernicious effects of David Margolis’ gargantuan footprint on the lack of accountability of the Department of Justice to the American citizenry, I have some real abiding respect for what, and who, he was as a man. Seriously, read the Nakashima article and tell me David Margolis is not a man you would love to kill some serious beers with by a peaceful lake somewhere.

But David Margolis, both the good and the bad, is gone now. Where will his legacy live? One of our very longtime friends here at Emptywheel, Avattoir, eruditely said just yesterday:

Focus instead on the institution, not the players. The players are just data points, hopefully leading to greater understanding of the institutional realities.

Those words were literally the first I thought of yesterday when I received the phone call David Margolis had passed. They are true and important words that I, and all, need to take heed of more frequently.

David Margolis, it turns out from all appearances and reports, was a complex man. Clearly great, and clearly detrimental, edges to him. So what will his legacy be at the Department of Justice? Will the closing of the Margolis era, and it was truly that, finally bring the institution of the Department into a modern and appropriate light of transparency, accountability and sunshine?

Or will the dirty deeds of David Margolis’ historical ratification and concealment of pervasive and gross misconduct by Department of Justice attorneys become permanently enshrined as a living legacy to the man?

We shall see.

El Nino Scalia

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Antonin Scalia is dead. Say what you will, there is no rejoicing from me. Was Nino a malefactor in Supreme Court jurisprudence over the decades since his confirmation on September 26, 1986? Yes, and an irascible one as well. Once Bork got Borked, Scalia was the whipping post for all liberals, on the continuity of the spectrum. Did he earn that status? Yes, and maybe then some.

The hagiography of Nino is already quite well underway. I was out shopping for garden/landscaping things and had no idea until called by Marcy. It still took me a while to get back and dive into this. There are a million takes already underway on the net and in the press, such as the press may be these days. If you want a recap of the same old, this ain’t it. And, for now, what I have to say is not all that long or extricated.

First off, let’s talk about Scalia the man and Justice. As said above, once Bork got Borked, there was going to be a piñata for liberals (like me) to pound on. And, over the years, boy have I, and we, done just that. And for, mostly, good reason.

But anybody can blabber about what a prick Nino was. Fairly. But, in the current context, I want to do something different. As loathsome as Scalia often was, he was still somewhat of a hero to people that practice actual criminal law. No, not across the board, but enough that it ought be mentioned and left as a part of his legacy.

Why? Okay, this is a quick take:

Fourth Amendment: There is actually a long thread of Scalia decency on Fourth Amendment issues over the years. I have had occasion to quote him from both majority and dissents frequently. But, most recently, you can probably relate most easily to United States v. Jones, Riley v. California and, significantly, Kyllo v. United States. Now Scalia only penned Jones and Kyllo, but his fingerprints were all over Riley too. This is just my opinion, but I am not sure that a lesser conservative justice on the court would have seen these decisions through, and allowed them to be as consensus as they were.

One law professor, Tim MacDonnell, put it this way:

Since joining the United States Supreme Court in 1986, Justice Scalia has been a prominent voice on the Fourth Amendment, having written twenty majority opinions, twelve concurrences, and six dissents on the topic. Under his pen, the Court has altered its test for determining when the Fourth Amendment should apply; provided a vision to address technology’s encroachment on privacy; and articulated the standard for determining whether government officials are entitled to qualified immunity in civil suits involving alleged Fourth Amendment violations. In most of Justice Scalia’s opinions, he has championed an originalist/textualist theory of constitutional interpretation. Based on that theory, he has advocated that the text and context of the Fourth Amendment should govern how the Court interprets most questions of search and seizure law. His Fourth Amendment opinions have also included an emphasis on clear, bright-line rules that can be applied broadly to Fourth Amendment questions. However, there are Fourth Amendment opinions in which Justice Scalia has strayed from his originalist/textualist commitments, particularly in the areas of the special needs doctrine and qualified immunity.

I do not agree with everything in MacDonnell’s article, but it is quite good and his dubious context is spot on. Scalia has been more than prominent in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence since his time on the court. I have serious issues with many of the “exceptions” he has bought off on in the name of police expediency, but I can, and do, imagine a different justice being far, far, worse on the Fourth (can you say “Alito”? Of course you can). So, there is that. But, by the same token, I remember coming out of court and getting informed of the Kyllo decision. Several drinks were hoisted to Scalia that afternoon and night.

Then, there is the Sixth Amendment. This is an area on which Scalia gets scant attention and credit for. And, yes, if you practice criminal law, it is one of critical importance, whether pundits or the press realize it or not. Because if you happen to actually do criminal jury trials (or bench for that matter), you know the critical importance of being able to confront and cross-examine the witnesses and evidence against your client, the defendant. I have cited Scalia’s words, both successfully and unsuccessfully, for a very long time on confrontation issues. But the successes I, and clients, have had owe in large part due to Scalia. Here is a bit from David Savage, of the LA Times, from 2011 that summarizes Scalia’s Confrontation Clause championing about perfectly:

The 6th Amendment to the Constitution says the “accused shall enjoy the right … to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” To Scalia, this clause not only gives defendants the right to challenge actual witnesses, but also the right to bar testimony from all those “witnesses” who did not or cannot testify in court. He takes this view even if the witness is dead.

Three years ago, Scalia led the court in reversing the murder conviction of a Los Angeles man who shot and killed his girlfriend. A police officer testified the victim had reported that Dwayne Giles threatened to kill her. Scalia said that testimony violated Giles’ rights because he could not confront or cross-examine her.

“We decline to approve an exception to the Confrontation Clause unheard of at the time of the founding,” Scalia said for 6-3 majority. This went too far for liberal Justices John Paul Stevens and Stephen G. Breyer.

Two years ago, Scalia spoke for a 5-4 majority reversing the conviction of an alleged cocaine dealer from Massachusetts because prosecutors did not bring to court a lab analyst whose test confirmed the bags of white powder were indeed cocaine. The dissenters, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy and Samuel A. Alito Jr., said a lab technician who conducts a test is not a “witness” in the ordinary sense of the term.

In June, the court went one step further. The Scalia bloc, by a 5-4 vote, overturned the drunken-driving conviction of a New Mexico man because the lab analyst who testified about his blood alcohol did not actually work on the defendant’s blood sample. He put together an odd-couple coalition with Justices Clarence Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

“This is not a left-right split. This is principle versus pragmatism,” said University of Michigan law professor Richard Friedman.

Frankly, Scalia has only reinforced that since late 2011 when Savage wrote said words. If you practice in a criminal trial courtroom, you owe a debt of gratitude to Antonin Scalia for your ability to still confront and cross-examine witnesses and evidence. I don’t think it is hyperbole to say that, without Scalia, this fundamental procedural right would be totally shit right now.

So, this is but a nutshell of the greater whole, and I am still trying to catch up. But those are my thoughts for now. Do not get me wrong, Antonin Scalia was never, nor will ever be, my favorite, nor even an overall positive Supreme Court Justice in my eyes. There is too much malignancy and caustic history from Scalia, on far too many fronts, for that to ever be the case. But the man is not yet even in the ground, and there were a couple of important positive things to say before the ultimate obituary is written.

And, on one other note, let’s keep in mind that the warm and fuzzy stories of Scalia with Ruth Bader Ginsburg, from court interaction, to opera to shooting at animal trips is not the only history of Nino Scalia and women on the Supreme Court. He was, certainly less famously, in some instances, a frat boy jerk to Sandra Day O’Connor. So, take the lionization of the Kagan relationship with a healthy grain of salt.

Antonin “Nino” Scalia was a flawed, but important man. He is now gone. So, the biggest issue is, what happens now? Republican leadership did not have to announce that they will stall their asses off and try to prevent the confirmation of ANY nominee that Obama would put up. Frankly, that went without saying in today’s Congress.

But, can they do that, will there be no Obama SCOTUS nominee confirmed, no matter what? I would not be shocked if that were not so. By the same token, the longest a confirmation battle has ever taken to confirm a SCOTUS Justice is 125 days (Obama has 361 left).

Obama has already said he will make a nomination, and I believe he will. If I had to bet right now, my bet is that the nominee is Sri Srinivasan. I have long thought this, and Sri, while being a decent guy, is a dead nuts centrist, barely a “liberal” at all kind schlub that Obama loves. But I doubt the crazed GOP led Senate would confirm even a milquetoast centrist like Srinivasan. Let other speculation begin now even though the chances of confirmation of any nominee are close to nil.

Irrespective, the primary, and certainly the general, elections just got FAR more interesting. Frankly, this is the only part of the election I was really worried about from the get go. Now it is squarely on everyone’s plate.

James Orenstein Calls Out Jim Comey on His Prevarications about Democracy

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At a 10 AM Senate Homeland Security hearing on October 8, Jim Comey read prepared testimony that reiterated his claim that encrypted devices are causing FBI problems, but stated that the Administration is not seeking legislation to do anything about it.

Unfortunately, changing forms of Internet communication and the use of encryption are posing real challenges to the FBI’s ability to fulfill its public safety and national security missions.. This real and growing gap, to which the FBI refers as “Going Dark,” is an area of continuing focus for the FBI; we believe it must be addressed given the resulting risks are grave both in both traditional criminal matters as well as in national security matters. The United States Government is actively engaged with private companies to ensure they understand the public safety and national security risks that result from malicious actors’ use of their encrypted products and services. However, the Administration is not seeking legislation at this time.

That statement got the Administration a lot of good press, with the WaPo declaring “Obama administration opts not to force firms to decrypt data — for now” and the NYT, even after this ruling had been unsealed, reporting, “Obama Won’t Seek Access to Encrypted User Data.” In the actual hearing, Comey was more clear that he did intend to keep asking providers for data and that the government was having “increasingly productive conversations with industry” to get them to do so, inspired in part by government claims about the ISIS threat. Part of that cooperation, per Comey, was “how can we get you to comply with a court order.”

Sometime that same day, on October 8, government lawyers submitted a request to a federal magistrate in Brooklyn to obligate Apple to help unlock a device law enforcement had been unable to unlock on their own.

In a sealed application filed on October 8, 2015, the government asks the court to issue an order pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, directing Apple, Inc. (“Apple”) to assist in the execution of a federal search warrant by disabling the security of an Apple device that the government has lawfully seized pursuant to a warrant issued by this court. Law enforcement agents have discovered the device to be locked, and have tried and failed to bypass that lock. As a result, they cannot gain access to any data stored on the device notwithstanding the authority to do so conferred by this court’s warrant.

The next day the judge, James Orenstein, deferred ruling on whether the All Writs Act is applicable in this case (though he did suggest it probably wasn’t) pending briefing from Apple on how burdensome it would find the request. Orenstein released his memo after giving the government opportunity to review his order.

This is not the first time the government has tried to use the All Writs Act to force providers (Apple, in at least one of the known cases) to help unlock a phone. EFF described two instances from last year in a December post. It also reviewed a 2005 ruling where Orenstein refused to allow the government to use All Writs Act to force telecoms to provide cell site location in real time.

Of course, as Lawfare seems to suggest, it has taken a decade for the decision Orenstein made in that earlier ruling — that the government needs a warrant to get cell tracking from a phone — to finally get fully developed into a debate and some Supreme Court (US v. Jones) and circuit rulings. That’s because in the interim, plenty of magistrates continued to compel providers to give such information to the government.

It’s quite possible the same is true here: that this is not just the third attempt to get a court to issue an All Writs Act to get Apple to provide data, but that instead, a number of magistrates who are more compliant with government wishes have agreed to do so as well. Indeed, as Orenstein noted, that’s a suggestion the government made in its application when it claimed “in other cases, courts have ordered Apple to assist in effectuating search warrants under the authority of the All Writs Act [and that] Apple has complied with such orders.”

What Orenstein did, then, was to make it clear this continues to go on, that even as Jim Comey and others were making public claims (and getting public acclaim) for not seeking legislation that would compel production of encrypted data the government — including, presumably, the FBI — was seeking court orders that would compel production secretly. The key rhetorical move in Orenstein’s order came when Orenstein compared Comey’s public statements claiming to support debate on this issue to the attempt to claim the government had to rely on the All Writs Act because no law existed. In a long footnote, Orenstein quoted from Comey’s Lawfare post,

Democracies resolve such tensions through robust debate …. It may be that, as a people, we decide the benefits here outweigh the costs and that there is no sensible, technically feasible way to optimize privacy and safety in this particular context, or that public safety folks will be able to do their job well enough in a world of universal strong encryption. Those are decisions Americans should make, but I think part of my job is [to] make sure the debate is informed by a reasonable understanding of the costs.

Then Orenstein pointed out that relying on the All Writs Act would undercut precisely the democratic debate Comey claimed to want to have.

Director Comey’s view about how such policy matters should be resolved is in tension, if not entirely at odds, with the robust application of the All Writs Act the government now advocates. Even if CALEA and the Congressional determination not to mandate “back door” access for law enforcement to encrypted devices does not foreclose reliance on the All Writs Act to grant the instant motion, using an aggressive interpretation of that statute’s scope to short-circuit public debate on this controversy seems fundamentally inconsistent with the proposition that such important policy issues should be determined in the first instance by the legislative branch after public debate – as opposed to having them decided by the judiciary in sealed, ex parte proceedings.

To be fair, even as the government was submitting its secret request to Orenstein, Comey was disavowing his former pro-democratic stance, and instead making it clear the government would try to find some other way to get orders forcing providers to comply.

But, given Orenstein’s invitation for Apple to lay out how onerous this is on it, Comey might get the democratic debate he once embraced.

Update: When I wrote this in the middle of the night I misspelled Judge Orenstein’s name. My apologies!