Media Mentions

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. Former FBI Director Robert Mueller’s appointment by the Department of Justice as special counsel on Wednesday puts him in charge of investigating ties between Russia and the Donald Trump campaign. But if history is any guide, that won’t be the most important part of his inquiry. The letter appointing Mueller also authorizes him to examine and prosecute “any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation.” The key words are “any” and “arise” -- remember them. Together they confer exceedingly broad authority, more than enough to let Mueller follow his investigation wherever it leads. Don’t forget Ken Starr’s investigation of President Bill Clinton, which began with the dud lead of the Whitewater scandal and ended with Monica Lewinsky and impeachment.

Kristin Turner [`17] knows that her graduation from Harvard University will be an exciting, emotional moment not just for her, but for her entire family — and luckily, they’ll get the chance to see her cross the stage twice. Two days before the school’s official commencement, Turner will participate in Harvard’s first universitywide Black Commencement for graduate students...The event on May 23 may even be more emotional and meaningful than Harvard’s 366th Commencement on May 25, she said, because it’s truly an event for her family. “For the older members of our family, there’s this idea of having a lineage that connects themselves to slaves, but also having descendants now coming out of Harvard,” she said. “That’s more meaningful than we can really grasp in words.”

Under pressure from advocacy organizations that had threatened a lawsuit, the Wolf administration said Tuesday that it would expand Medicaid coverage for treatment of hepatitis C, a major change that many states have put off over fear of spiraling costs. “Today’s announcement means that thousands of vulnerable Pennsylvanians will soon have easier access to pharmaceuticals that can cure" hepatitis C, Department of Human Services Secretary Ted Dallas said in a statement...In his statement, Dallas thanked several organizations, including Harvard Law School's Center for Health Law and Policy Innovation, for their help "on finding a path forward."...Kevin Costello, the center's litigation director, said that the “overt threat of a lawsuit” had kept the pressure on Harrisburg to approve the change. Costello said it was not likely to be nearly as costly as some have predicted.

Democrats and even some Republicans are warning that President Donald Trump may be in jeopardy if reports prove accurate that he allegedly interfered with an FBI investigation....Alex Whiting, a Harvard law professor and former federal prosecutor, told NBC News that the account of the Comey meeting was a "game changer" because it could show that Trump not only acted inappropriately but also tried to block an ongoing probe. "It's quite hard to find a proper purpose for that conversation," Whiting said.

Reports that Donald Trump asked former FBI director James Comey to shut down a federal investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn have added weight to a possible obstruction of justice case against the president, law professors say..."It was hard to make the obstruction of justice case with the sacking alone," said Alex Whiting, a Harvard Law professor and former federal prosecutor. "The president had clear legal authority and there were arguably proper, or at least other, reasons put forward for firing him. But with this development, that argument becomes much harder to make."

An op-ed by Laurence Tribe. All Spider-Man fans will recognize the line, “With great power comes great responsibility.” We need to act now on that maxim’s converse: When great power is placed in the hands of one who cannot be trusted to act responsibly, we must take that power back. That means starting now to trim President Trump’s power to do irreparable harm to the nation and, ultimately, the world. That’s why I’ve previously raised 25th Amendment questions about Trump’s ability to “discharge the powers and duties of his office” and have recently called for immediate initiation of impeachment investigations — akin to convening a grand jury to consider returning a criminal indictment.

The revelation that Donald Trump allegedly urged former FBI Director James Comey to drop a probe into former adviser Michael Flynn fueled speculation the president may have obstructed justice, but any penalty would likely come from Congress and not the criminal justice system, lawyers said Tuesday..."It's the longstanding position of the executive branch that the president cannot be indicted while in office," said Harvard law professor Jack Goldsmith, a top Justice Department official under President George W. Bush. "The remedy for a criminal violation would be impeachment."

Long before a person arrested and charged is found guilty or innocent, they face a choice with myriad consequences: Find a way to post bail, the median of which the Justice Department pegs at $10,000, until they show up to court to get their money back, or wait in jail, making a post-trial sentence an estimated three or four times likelier. There is another option for the generally low-income and disproportionately African American or Hispanic people who make up the 467,000 pre-trial detainees in the U.S., and a few global corporations are raking in billions from it...“In reality, taxes do pay for it — we spend billions of dollars to incarcerate people,” said Chiraag Bains, a senior fellow at Harvard Law School’s Criminal Justice Policy Program. Either way, he added, “we should have a justice system that we are morally comfortable with paying for.”

An op-ed by Noah Feldman. If President Donald Trump asked FBI Director James Comey to stop investigating National Security Adviser Mike Flynn and his ties to Russia, that’s obstruction of justice. But let’s be clear: It’s the impeachable offense of obstruction. It’s probably not the criminal version of that act. With the evidence now available, it’s extremely unlikely that an ordinary prosecutor could convict Trump. This is an outstanding example of a crucial distinction that Americans badly need to keep in mind. High crimes and misdemeanors, to use the Constitution’s phrase, aren’t the same as ordinary crimes. What makes them “high” is their political character. High crimes and misdemeanors are corruption, abuse of power, and undermining the rule of law and democracy.

One question is now gripping much of the U.S.: Did President Donald Trump commit a crime in his first month in the Oval Office? Democrats say reports that the president asked former FBI Director James Comey to drop a criminal investigation into one of his former top aides amount to obstruction of justice, if true. Some legal experts aren’t so sure...Laurence Tribe, Dershowitz’s Harvard colleague, is among those who view Trump’s request for Comey to end the probe as potentially criminal. When asked by email if Trump’s comments amounted to obstruction of justice Tribe said, “I believe it does, quite strongly.”

An interview with Jack Goldsmith. The executive has a lot of legal power vested by the Constitution and Congress but what happens when the executive is careless with information, overreaches that authority or no longer has the full trust of the rest of the government?

An op-ed by Mark Tushnet...Designing investigations into high-level misconduct is extremely difficult. Every nation has tough choices to make, and none has come up with a perfect solution — though it’s clear that the US system is uniquely bad. The problems Donald Trump has created for himself have put into motion the US version of the investigations in Brazil and South Africa. We are watching our political system contort itself as politicians and bureaucrats search for a credible way to investigate the depth and nature of his campaign’s connection with the government of Russia...Perhaps because we wrote our Constitution more than two centuries ago, it doesn’t set out principles for investigating high-level corruption...Modern constitutions have drawn upon two centuries of experience. We should do what we can to draw on that experience, too.

Every day, American families throw out tons of spoiled food — or food they think is spoiled because they misunderstand “sell by” labels. Restaurants dispose of usable leftovers, and farmers toss imperfect produce. In the United States, about 30 to 40 percent of all food is not eaten. About 95 percent of that wasted food, 38 million tons in 2014, ends up in landfills or incinerators, where it produces methane, a gas that is one of the most potent contributors to climate change...The Food Waste Reduction Alliance, which represents the food industry and restaurant trade associations, recently worked with Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic to simplify and standardize “use by” and “sell by” labels, which befuddle many consumers. People toss a lot of edible food because they misunderstand the difference between the two terms. “There has been an enormous amount of change over the past two or three years,” said Emily Broad Leib, director of the clinic.

Black students at Harvard University are organizing a graduation ceremony of their own this year to recognize the achievements of black students and faculty members some say have been overlooked. More than 700 students and guests are registered to attend Harvard's first Black Commencement, which will take place two days before the school's traditional graduation events. It isn't meant to replace the existing ceremony, student organizers say, but rather to add something that was missing...Organizers of the Black Commencement say it's partly meant to highlight racial disparities on campus. But ultimately it's a celebration of achievement, said Jillian Simons [`18], a law student and president-elect of the Harvard Black Graduate Student Alliance. "We want to acknowledge how far we've come," Simons said.

Nearly 40 years after the world was jolted by the birth of the first test-tube baby, a new revolution in reproductive technology is on the horizon -- and it promises to be far more controversial than in vitro fertilization ever was. Within a decade or two, researchers say, scientists will likely be able to create a baby from human skin cells that have been coaxed to grow into eggs and sperm and used to create embryos to implant in a womb...Three prominent academics in medicine and law sounded an alarm about the possible consequences in a paper published this year. “I.V.G. may raise the specter of ‘embryo farming’ on a scale currently unimagined, which might exacerbate concerns about the devaluation of human life,” Dr. Eli Y. Adashi, a medical science professor at Brown; I. Glenn Cohen, a Harvard Law School professor; and Dr. George Q. Daley, dean of Harvard Medical School, wrote in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

An op-ed by Samuel Garcia `19. I am from the Rio Grande Valley, an area in South Texas defined by its blue collar, hardworking citizens and its close connection with Mexico. Positioned right on the U.S.-Mexico border, the Rio Grande Valley has many of the low-cost labor benefits that Mexico offers, with access to the full contract enforcement and specialized labor market that the U.S. offers. As a result, economic growth in the RGV has been explosive, and even endured through the 2008 recession. However, that robust growth may now be in serious peril since Texas may have ceded its advantage of easy access to cheap labor. How did this happen? It is a result of the state’s recent enactment of Senate Bill 4, a law meant to secure borders by abolishing sanctuary cities.

An interview with Alex Whiting. The Washington Post broke the story: US intelligence has been sent into a mad scramble after Donald Trump gave the Russian foreign minister and ambassador intel about the IS group that came courtesy of an ally of Washington. Does the most powerful nation on the planet have a president who can't keep a secret?

...Legal and national security experts, including Harvard Professor Jack Goldsmith, say violating this oath of office alone is grounds for impeachment...Impeachment is a constitutional process by which Congress removes a president from office for "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours". "It's very hard to argue that carelessly giving away highly sensitive material to an adversary foreign power constitutes a faithful execution of the office of President," they wrote on the blog Lawfare. "Legally speaking, the matter could be very grave for Trump even though there is no criminal exposure." They suggested Mr Trump could feasibly face "a hybrid impeachment article alleging a violation of the oath in service of a hostile foreign power".

An op-ed by Bruce Schneier. Ransomware isn’t new, but it’s increasingly popular and profitable...The ransomware that has affected systems in more than 150 countries recently, WannaCry, made press headlines last week, but it doesn’t seem to be more virulent or more expensive than other ransomware...The lessons for users are obvious: Keep your system patches up to date and regularly backup your data. This isn’t just good advice to defend against ransomware, but good advice in general. But it’s becoming obsolete.

An op-ed by Bruce Schneier. The Department of Homeland Security is rumored to be considering extending the current travel ban on large electronics for Middle Eastern flights to European ones as well. The likely reaction of airlines will be to implement new traveler programs, effectively allowing wealthier and more frequent fliers to bring their computers with them. This will only exacerbate the divide between the haves and the have-nots -- all without making us any safer.

...Because every error is someone else’s fault, President Trump — who went through three campaign leaders — is reportedly thinking about a major shake-up — or at least threatening a shake-up in his already shell-shocked White House...If the president is engaged in obstruction of justice, partially through his lies to the public, then aides who knowingly lie are implicated as well. At the very least, close aides may need to lawyer up before they enter the White House. Harvard Law School professor and constitutional law expert Laurence H. Tribe warned, “Unlike POTUS, they’re all subject to federal prosecution, indictment, trial, criminal conviction and ordinary sentencing for conspiring with, aiding and abetting, or helping cover up federal crimes.”