Democracy & Rule of Law
Elections
875 Articles
Campaign Finance Law: When “Collusion” Becomes a Crime: Part II
As a potential crime under the campaign finance laws, the Trump campaign collusion with the Russians is well documented. As I contended in a recent essay, there is substantial…
Could Trump Have Obstructed Justice if a Grand Jury Hadn’t Convened Yet?
Helen Klein Murillo and Ben Wittes over at Lawfare have done a terrific deep dive into whether an FBI investigation constitutes a “pending proceeding” under the federal obstruction…
Could the White House Invoke Executive Privilege to Block Comey Testimony?
The White House confirmed Friday that it is reviewing whether to invoke executive privilege to prevent former FBI Director James Comey from testifying before the Senate Intelligence…
Norms Watch: Democracy, the Trump Administration, and Reactions to It (May 26-June 2)
Editor’s Note: Welcome to the latest installment of Norms Watch, our series tracking both the flouting of democratic norms by the Trump administration and the erosion of…
Campaign Finance Law: When “Collusion” with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime
Commentary on Russian intervention in the 2016 elections has included one confidently expressed and perhaps growing view: that there may be a scandal there, but no conceivable…
Q & A With Citizen Lab on “Tainted Leaks” and Russia’s Disinformation Campaign
On Thursday, the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab published evidence of a dangerous new twist in the war against truth. Russia-linked hackers, dubbed CyberBerkut, have…
Russia and a Divided United States: What Comes After Trump?
While the United States, along with its Western allies, became preoccupied with post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, global counterterrorism operations, and the aftermath of…
Can Flynn Assert a Fifth Amendment Privilege to Withhold Documents?
The news that retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security advisor and campaign aide, has refused to comply with a Senate Intelligence Committee subpoena…
The Drip, Drip of Obstruction News
The news yesterday that Donald Trump asked the Director of National Intelligence, Daniel Coats, and the director of the National Security Agency, Adm. Michael Rogers, to publicly…
Trump’s Disclosure Did Not Break the Law
Since the Washington Post revealed that President Trump had provided “classified” information to Russian diplomats, there have been three rounds of reactions. The first comments…
Politicians Keep Buying Kris Kobach’s Ideas Despite Track Record of Failure
Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State for Kansas and an anti-immigrant and vote-suppressing activist, has been angling for a job in the Trump administration since the election. But…
Connecting the Dots: Political Microtargeting and the Russia Investigation
In many respects, we’re all in the dark when it comes to the ongoing Russia investigations. Behind closed doors, what are congressional and FBI investigators learning? What new…