Covering the Supreme Court, lower courts, and the law

In a rare act of national government unity, the Supreme Court on Friday joined the other two branches in a historic effort to protect tens of millions of Americans from having vast amounts of their private data stolen when they use a hugely popular social media platform, TikTok. TikTok is a six-year-old, Chinese-owned online venue… Read More

The judge who has repeatedly aided Donald Trump’s legal defense is now in position to do another big favor: bar public disclosure of a new report spelling out the most serious criminal charges against him – mishandling highly sensitive secret documents at his Mar a Lago private club. U.S. District Judge Aileen M. Cannon of… Read More

(NOTE TO READERS: This post has been revised to correct an error about the elements of the crime under the 1862 federal law at issue.  Thanks to a helpful reader with a keen eye to history.) For much of the time that a special federal prosecutor was pursuing Donald Trump, scholars and other legal observers… Read More

President-elect Donald Trump’s multi-pronged legal efforts to avoid a sentence for his New York crimes ended quietly in defeat Thursday evening in a short 5-to-4 order by the Supreme Court in Washington. The majority did not decide any of Trump’s legal arguments, saying that all of those could be considered during appeals that he is… Read More

Just as the Supreme Court created new constitutional law last year when it gave Presidents broad immunity to criminal prosecution, it would have to do that again if it can be persuaded to give President-elect Donald Trump what he now seeks. In last July’s 5-4 ruling, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., insisted that the… Read More

Donald Trump, long obsessed with his public image, is intensifying his efforts to enter the Presidency this month without a criminal record. His lawyers moved on three legal fronts Monday and opened another today, seeking to prevent further damaging government actions against him. The first of those efforts occurred on the day that a joint… Read More

Not since the age of the personal computer dawned in the early 1970s has the Supreme Court faced a more challenging Information Age task. Back in session this week, the Justices will try to figure out whether 14 words written into the Constitution 234 years ago allow the government to regulate the Internet of today…. Read More

Donald Trump will be sworn into office as President this month with 34 guilty verdicts still intact, unless he can persuade higher courts to erase those convictions swiftly. That is the result that could follow a scathing new ruling Friday by a New York state trial judge. In addition, Trump may be inaugurated after being… Read More

A state judge in New York, becoming the first court in the nation to apply the Supreme Court’s historic grant of presidential immunity to criminal prosecution, ruled on Monday night that Donald Trump cannot apply that ruling to his 34 guilty verdicts, reached by a Manhattan jury last May. In a 41-page opinion, Judge Juan… Read More

New York prosecutors have urged a state judge to adopt a plan that would keep intact the 34 guilty verdicts against Donald Trump, and allow him to be sentenced after he leaves office in the future, maybe in January 2029 at the end of his new term as President. They did not ask for prison… Read More