Trump indictment unsealed – a criminal law scholar explains what the charges mean, and what prosecutors will now need to prove

  Federal prosecutors on June 9, 2023, unsealed the indictment that spells out the government’s case against former President Donald J. Trump, who is accused of violating national security laws and obstructing justice.

  The 49-page document details how Trump kept classified government documents – including papers concerning U.S. nuclear capabilities – scattered in boxes across his home at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, long after his presidency ended in 2021 and the government tried to reclaim them.

The Mainstreaming of Trump’s reckless worldviews

  When former FBI Director James Comey testified before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he referred to conversations with President Donald Trump as “a very disturbing thing. Very concerning.” While politicians and pundits characterized the president’s alleged comments as obstruction of justice, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) had another take. He defended the president by saying Trump is “new at this” and “learning as he goes.”

  In Speaker Ryan, the president has an expert partner willing to try to enact his plan to pay for his vision of government and America’s place in the world. Ryan, a former vice presidential candidate, is also a former budget committee chairman famous for his efforts to shred the social safety net while heaping tax breaks on the wealthiest few Americans; he knows a thing or two about writing a budget blueprint. While Trump’s initial budget proposal released earlier this year earned widespread criticism even from Republican lawmakers, the 2018 budget proposal released by House Republican leaders Tuesday reflects the president’s imbalanced approach to national security that slashes critical tools of American power.

The Courts have halted Trump’s bigoted policies, but the Senate wants to confirm all his judges

  The federal courts have proven that they can effectively serve as a check on the Trump administration’s violations of the Constitution, even in the face of President Donald Trump’s attacks on judges. But that may not be true for much longer if the president is allowed to fill a record number of empty seats on the federal courts with judges who will rubber-stamp his agenda.

  The administration has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn two federal appeals courts’ rulings to strike down the president’s travel ban blocking entry of individuals from six Muslim-majority countries. Both courts, one based in Virginia and the other in California, found that the ban targeted a certain religion, citing Trump’s repeated pledges to bar Muslims from entering the United States. Another federal court recently ruled that the administration’s executive order targeting sanctuary cities is unconstitutional because the administration cannot unilaterally withhold funding that Congress has appropriated.

Sharon Shahid: Media soul-searching in store after election

  The history-making 2016 presidential campaign has been handicapped like a horse race, play-by-played like a boxing match, and has the international appeal of a World Cup soccer tournament. With all that running, punching and kicking, it’s no wonder the U.S. electorate is exhausted as the campaign nears the finish.

  This politics-as-sports mentality has been reflected in headlines too numerous to count, essentially turning one of democracy’s most sacred rights into a gaming event. When the postmortem on the presidential election begins Nov. 9, the media’s failure to adequately live up to their reputation as the Fourth Estate, the watchdogs of government, should take up substantial space in the pathology report.

Gene Policinski: Trump, Clinton show value of a free, independent press

  Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton may well be the best things that have happened to a free press in a long time.

  “Best” not in terms of ratings, circulation, advertising or such, though some media will see a temporary bump up.  And it’s certainly not because the pair are singing the news media’s praises.  Far from it. Trump finds time seemingly every day to slam the “corrupt, dishonest, media.” And Clinton hasn’t had a news conference in … well, several reporters covering her campaign said in recent days they have lost track after about 250 on how many days it’s been since she last sat for one.

Gene Policinski: Getting to the ‘core’ of the Apple-FBI iPhone encryption spat

  Make no mistake – the suddenly-white hot debate over whether or not Apple will create a means for the FBI to “unlock” one of its cell phones is a defining moment in the rollout of the 21st century’s mobile, connected world.

  This Silicon Valley-Washington D.C. face-off raises issues of privacy and national security, of freedom of speech, and even foreign policy considerations with respect to repressive regimes and those governments hoping to track journalists’ sources.

Sam Fulwood III: The myth of police reluctance

  FBI Director James Comey seems to believe that a recent uptick in violent street crime plaguing several major U.S. cities can be traced to the reluctance of police officers to do their jobs in the wake of intense public scrutiny.

  Some observers call it the “Ferguson effect,” an anecdote-rich belief that criminals are more brazen and that cowering police officers are declining to fight crime since the death of Michael Brown in August 2014. The Atlantic’s David A. Graham labels such a theory “the Bigfoot of American criminal justice: Fervently believed to be real by some, doubted by many others, reportedly glimpsed here and there, but never yet attested to by any hard evidence.”