Media Mentions

“Drain the swamp!” was one of those memorable Donald Trump campaign promises that remains unfulfilled, much like “Mexico will pay for the wall!” and “Repeal and replace Obamacare!” with “something terrific!” Unlike the latter two promises, there’s little debate about the need to establish strong ethical standards for government. That makes President Trump’s failure to keep his swamp-draining pledge — highlighted by the Senate confirmation hearing Wednesday for a former coal industry lobbyist nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency — all the more disturbing. ... After more than a decade working for the Senate’s premier denier of human-caused climate change, James Inhofe of Oklahoma, Wheeler joined a consulting firm working against environmental restrictions on behalf of his top client, coal magnate Robert Murray. “He’s spent his career carrying out someone else’s agenda,” Joseph Goffman, executive director of Harvard Law School’s environmental law program, says of Wheeler.

Two couples in the wedding announcements, Hannah Diamond and Sam Feldman, and Lindsay Church and Andrew Ellis, who were all in the same Harvard Law School section, were married this weekend. Two other classmates, Habin Chung and Mark Jia, were also married (in 2017) after connecting in the class. The couples were in the same first-year section (similar to a homeroom period) called 1L, Section 6. Jon D. Hanson, their torts professor, who is also responsible for supervising and orchestrating intellectual and social activities, leads the section. Professor Hanson, who has taught at the university for 26 years, weighed in on the romances with three theories. “One, there is nothing to see here,” he said, explaining that 560 students in 1L are divided into sections of 80 students each. “It’s just probability. They are arriving at a certain stage of their life. They are thinking of long-term plans and are young enough not to be committed. Love connections emerge from interaction. It happens to everyone in every section.”

It’s not just the collusion. It’s the conspiracy. Thursday evening, BuzzFeed News dropped a bombshell, reporting that President Donald Trump told Michael Cohen, his former personal attorney, to lie to Congress about the Trump Organization’s pursuit of a real-estate project in Moscow during the 2016 election, during a period in which the Russian government was seeking to aid Trump’s presidential campaign. ... “If it is true, and can be proven, that Trump directed Cohen to lie to Congress, then he has no wiggle room,” said Alex Whiting, a law professor at Harvard and a former federal prosecutor. “There has been some debate about whether acts by the president to curtail a criminal investigation can be obstruction, since he is the head of the executive [branch] … but instructing or encouraging another person to lie under oath to Congress falls outside of that debate. There is no question that it was a crime for Cohen to lie to Congress, and Trump’s role in soliciting or directing that lie makes him criminally liable as well.”

The practical realities of building new physical barriers along the US-Mexico border are bringing two cherished conservative principles into conflict — loyalty to Donald Trump and the sanctity of private property. ... Laurence Tribe, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School, told me that when a private landowner is approached by a government agency that wants their land, that agency“typically gives them a deadline by which they must either sell the designated parcel of land to the federal government at the price offered by the government, or have it involuntarily taken by eminent domain at fair market value.”

An op-ed by Megan Liu '19: Comedian Hasan Minhaj dedicated the premiere episode of his Netflix show “Patriot Act” to villainizing the Asian American plaintiffs in the Harvard anti-Asian bias lawsuit. He closes out the episode by calling them “the worst kind” of American for potentially jeopardizing affirmative action. I was alarmed and dismayed at this hostile critique from one of the few politically outspoken Asian Americans in Hollywood. Minhaj’s depiction of the plaintiffs perfectly highlights how Asian Americans still struggle to find a collective voice in America’s black-and-white racial discourse.

An op-ed by Ari Peskoe, Director of the Electricity Law Initiative at the Harvard Law School Environmental and Energy Law Program: Last week, power generation companies asked the Supreme Court to review a pair of lower court decisions upholding states' Zero Emission Credit (ZEC) programs. Nearly identical ZEC programs enacted by New York and Illinois require utilities to compensate certain nuclear plants for their emission-free power by purchasing credits that represent the environmental benefits of zero-emission energy.

From tax return processors to food inspectors, the Trump administration this week ordered tens of thousands of federal employees back to work – many without pay – at agencies involved with the most politically sensitive of issues. More than 40,000 IRS employees were told to report for work after criticisms that tax returns would not be processed in time – a development that assuredly would have sparked outrage among taxpayers. ... "There's nothing in the statute that I'm aware of, or any regulations that have interpreted the terms of the emergency exception, to include a 'Really Important Things That We Think the Government Should be Doing and Would be Really Unpopular if They Don't Do Them' exception," says Richard Lazarus, law professor at Harvard University. "I don't know how that possibly fits – but they know there will be hell to pay if people don't get their tax refunds."

An op-ed by Noah Feldman: There’s no such thing as a perfectly bulletproof judicial opinion. But the 277-page decision blocking the Trump administration from asking about citizenship on the 2020 census comes close. The opinion, issued Tuesday by Judge Jesse Furman of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, is a masterpiece of factual and legal analysis, both detailed and duplicative, that is designed to withstand an expedited appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit and potential blocking or review by the Supreme Court. Its bottom line is clear: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross broke the legal rules when he ordered the citizenship question to be added to the census. Whatever his real motive was, it wasn’t to find out how many noncitizens live in the U.S.

Harvard Law School Professor Laurence Tribe talks to Ari Melber about what Bill Barr must do as attorney general if he follows the 2000 OLC policy against indicting a sitting president.

The General Services Administration “ignored” concerns that President Trump’s lease on a government-owned building — the one that houses his Trump International Hotel in Washington — might violate the Constitution when it allowed Trump to keep the lease after he took office, according to a new report from the agency’s inspector general. . .  The report does not recommend that Trump’s lease be canceled. Instead, the inspector general recommends a new legal review of the deal. ... Constitutional scholar Larry Tribe finds that “It’s notable and admirable that GSA has recognized, however belatedly, that all public officials and agencies — from the president on down — are bound by Article VI to follow the U.S. Constitution.” He tells me: “That GSA should have addressed the constitutionality of the lease itself, given that the president was both landlord and tenant, is true, but I wouldn’t let the perfect be

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and presidents of three colleges in the city are lining up against a Trump administration proposal to offer more protections to students accused of sexual assault. ... "The single-investigator model ... is a star chamber," said former federal Judge Nancy Gertner, who's now a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School. "[It] is an enormously unfair model. It doesn't offer any protections to either side. It's not the way you get at the truth."

... Larry Tribe, professor of Constitutional law at Harvard Law School, says that as long as Pelosi is opposed to the State of the Union happening, as scheduled, on Jan. 29, it won’t happen. “Pelosi was basically uninviting the President, but doing it diplomatically,” Tribe tells Fortune. “The form in which the State of the Union address is delivered isn’t constitutionally specified, but if it’s to be delivered as a Joint Session of Congress as has become the custom, the House and Senate must jointly adopt a resolution to schedule it. Without that, he can’t come. Neither chamber has adopted such a resolution yet, and as long as Pelosi opposes it, it’s DOA.”

Attorney general nominee William P. Barr generally acquitted himself well during the long day of testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. He gave the impression of someone who is his own man, unlikely to comply with the president’s orders, if any, to interfere with investigations. He stood up for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, contradicting President Trump’s characterization of him and his investigation. However, in one regard, his answer was off-target and worrisome. ... “Bill Barr seemed to be channeling the awkward experience Justice Gorsuch had when he commented, as a not-yet-confirmed Supreme Court nominee, that the president’s attacks on ‘so-called judges’ were troubling to him,” says constitutional expert Larry Tribe. “Trump’s musings about pulling the Gorsuch nomination in the wake of that comment may have led Barr to avoid criticizing Trump’s intemperate and destructive attacks on the Department of Justice.”

Former Attorney General William Barr underwent his confirmation hearing on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee under the new chairmanship of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and emerged without a scratch, scrape or bruise. He came across as a consummate professional and a deeply knowledgeable, capable, and very experienced attorney – someone former Attorney General Michael Mukasey has called “probably the best-qualified nominee for U.S. attorney general since Robert Jackson in 1940.” ... Barr did not back down during the hearing in explaining his view on this issue, which former Justice Department Assistant Attorney General and Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith says has “significant support in Supreme Court case law and executive branch precedent.”

CFA Society India, in collaboration with CFA Institute, the global association of investment professionals, hosted its 9th India Investment Conference in Mumbai with the theme being Investing Insights for Uncertain Times. ... Speaking in his session on 'The Wisdom of Finance', Mihir Desai, Mizuho Financial Group Professor of Finance, Harvard Business School; Professor of Law, Harvard Law School said, "The gulf between finance and the humanities is a real loss. Finance can use the humanisation provided by humanities. Investors are fearful of uncertainties around capitalism. However, they forget how capitalism has benefitted economies around the world. Let's improve practice of finance by reconnecting practitioners with elements of humanity."

Three weeks of no pay and lots of uncertainty has changed how aerospace engineer Robert Sprayberry thinks about his job. He joined the Federal Aviation Administration a decade ago because it promised him a stable career with steady hours. He might not earn as much money as he could in the private sector, but he could be home more to help raise three young children. ... Others are avoiding the federal government from the start. Jim Tierney, who teaches at Harvard Law School, said he’s noticed a spike in interest in his state attorneys general law clinic under Trump. He attributed the change to Trump’s frequent attacks on the federal Justice Department and drastic curtailment at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The internet revolution changed American political, social and cultural life. But as Harvard Law School professor and author Susan Crawford argues, the United States is still far behind other countries in taking that change to the next level, with a nationwide fiber optic network similar to other public utilities. As a result, she writes, we are missing out on upgrades in our education system, civic life and economy that we need to truly compete in the 21st century.

... Nominee Andrew Wheeler became acting EPA administrator after his predecessor and former boss, Scott Pruitt, resigned in July amid a cloud of self-serving ethics scandals. Wheeler, 54, doesn't carry Pruitt's ethical baggage, but he has devoted himself to a disciplined rollback of environmental safeguards. Wheeler is one of 188 former lobbyists working in the administration, according to ProPublica, and a fox-guarding-the-hen-house example of someone regulating an industry that once paid him handsomely. ... "He's spent his career carrying out someone else's agenda," Joseph Goffman, executive director of Harvard Law School's environmental law program, says of Wheeler.

There is an actual art (and science) to deal making. And after three-plus weeks of government shutdown, it should be clear by now ― if it wasn’t already― that President Donald Trump is uniquely terrible at the practice.  Trump is so out of the ordinary when it comes to negotiation, in fact, that the quarterly published by the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, devoted its latest issue to him. For the first time in the Negotiation Journal’s 35-year history, it’s used a whole issue to talk about a U.S. president.

... Remy, an orange tabby, wanders the school in search of patches of sunlight, snuggly boxes, and friendly interactions. He’s wildly popular — a Facebook page dedicated to “Remy the Humanities Cat” has more than 2,500 followers. He was featured in a Harvard Gazette article in the fall that was among the campus news site’s best-read stories of 2018. And he recently was the star of his own Twitter moment. ... Still, not everyone is familiar with Remy. Law professor Annette Gordon-Reed tweeted a photo Tuesday of Remy slinking along a hallway at the law school and said this was the first time she had seen the feline on campus. Remy’s many fans and supporters quickly spoke up to let Gordon-Reed know that the kitty is well-traveled and a Remy appreciation fest promptly began.

More than 25 years after serving as attorney general under George H.W. Bush, William Barr is set to return to the role this week. What should we expect? And what should the senators at the confirmation hearing be asking? Guest: Noah Feldman, professor of constitutional law at Harvard University and columnist at Bloomberg.