toobin, jeffrey

souter secret smoking dissent on CU?

see his book the nine 2007 The Nine (book) - Wikipedia

The book covers the years from 1994 to 2005.^[1]

Publishers Weekly wrote of the book, "Toobin paints not a conservative revolution but a period of intractable moderation. The real power, he argues, belonged to supreme swing-voter Sandra Day O'Connor, who decided important cases with what Toobin sees as an almost primal attunement to a middle-of-the-road public consensus. By contrast, he contends, conservative justices William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia ended up bitter old men, their rigorous constitutional doctrines made irrelevant by the moderates' compromises."

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an 3 26

President Donald Trump’s proposed law to “crack down on rogue judges” and his rhetoric toward judges who rule against him — such as calling them “criminals” and “a disgrace to our nation” — is a “breathtaking” danger to the Constitution, according to an expert.

“Demanding that the legislative branch enact laws that punish the judiciary is a breathtaking breach of the president’s oath to support and defend the Constitution, which creates our three separate — and coequal — branches of government,” lawyer and former US attorney Barbara McQuade wrote in a recent editorial for Bloomberg. “Trump’s recent attacks came after the Supreme Court struck down his tariffs, which he has used to wield economic power against foreign governments, last month. By a 6-3 majority, the Court held that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act did not authorize the president to impose tariffs, a power otherwise reserved for Congress. Among the justices joining the majority were two of Trump’s own appointees, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett.”

Trump, who said Gorsuch and Barrett “sicken” him because they dissented, is doing something “different” with his attempts to cower judges, McQuade wrote.

“His proposed legislation would target the judges themselves for punishment,” McQuade said. “It seems likely that Trump knows he will not get his wish. Even a Congress that has been largely submissive during his second administration would surely not go so far as to retaliate against judges based on their case decisions, a move that would wreak havoc on the separation of powers. But the president’s public statements nonetheless risk the independence of the judiciary, an essential pillar of democracy. By attacking judges and justices who rule against him, Trump is sending a message to the others: Rule my way or else you’ll be next.”

McQuade is not alone in criticizing Trump’s attacks on the judiciary. Earlier this month The New York Times reported that judges themselves are “quietly” saying that it is concerning how much “risk” is involved in speaking out against the president.

"Judges are turning up the volume" in their rulings against Trump, eschewing the judiciary’s traditional “restrained” tone in favor of "an emotive, populist approach" which permits them to give "full vent to the intensity of their concerns about cases flooding their dockets since President Trump returned to office."

The Times added, "One compared her district’s ballooning caseload to a demigod’s battle against a mythological monster. Another sought to buttress his argument against National Guard deployments to U.S. cities with a YouTube link to a 1970 protest song. A third compared the Trump administration’s rewriting of American history to the Ministry of Truth in George Orwell’s novel '1984.'"

Trump’s intimidation of the judiciary extends to the jurists he has appointed in his second term, many of whom have been required to avoid telling the truth about Trump losing the 2020 presidential election while under oath.

Senate Judiciary member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) typically ended each hearing for a judgeship with the question, “Who won the popular vote in 2020?”

He always received variations on the same reply, namely that “President Biden was certified and served four years as president.” By using the word “certified,” they curry favor with the president who nominated them by refusing to flat-out say that Trump lost.

“There is a special peril when federal judges, who serve for life if confirmed, agree to demean themselves in this fashion,” legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said at the time.

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AN 3 26

Over the course of President Donald Trump’s second term, says New York Times legal columnist Jeffrey Toobin, one pattern has stood out in regard to the federal judges he nominates. During their confirmation hearings, when asked who won the 2020 presidential election, they consistently word their responses to leave the door open for election denial.

At each hearing, Senate Judiciary member Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) typically asks the same question: “Who won the popular vote in 2020?”

And every time, he receives some variation of the same response: “President Biden was certified and served four years as president.”

The key word there is “certified.” While it acknowledges that Biden was indeed named president, it doesn’t explicitly state that he outright “won” the election. This, says Toobin, is a blatant attempt to curry favor with Trump, who six years later still denies his loss on a regular basis.

Responses like this are common among Trump nominees to any government position, but according to Toobin, “There is a special peril when federal judges, who serve for life if confirmed, agree to demean themselves in this fashion.”

Blumenthal told Toobin that he always asks judicial nominees about the 2020 election as a “test of whether they are willing to stand up and be independent arbiters of fact, which they are required to be as district court judges, who often have to show some courage and backbone with cases with unpopular causes. The fact that they are so meek and easily cowed speaks volumes about their qualifications for the job.”

These days, such cowed behavior from nominees speaks to a new requirement for Trump approval: absolute loyalty. While during his first term he was content to select judges from a list provided by the conservative Federalist Society — judges who were more dedicated to conservative ideology than any one president — during his second term, he has made it clear that he expects personal loyalty above all else.

As an example for this, Toobin pointed to Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, two Supreme Court justices appointed by Trump who drew his ire after ruling against his tariffs. For Gorsuch and Coney Barrett, the decision was likely motivated by little more than their interpretation of the law. But for Trump, this was an act of betrayal. He didn’t merely express disapproval of their decision, but declared them “an embarrassment to their families.”

To Toobin, this kind of reaction portends that Trump will from now on select only judges he thinks are directly loyal to him above all else.

For his part, Senator Blumenthal says that with each nomination, he will continue to press the question of the 2020 election.

“I keep waiting for one or two of them to stand up and say, ‘I’m not going to say this nonsense. I’ve got plenty of other ways to make a living,’” he said. During one recent hearing, he was blunt with his words to a stonewalling nominee: “Don’t you feel kind of like monkeys or puppets here?”

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an 2 26

Back in 1982, the Federalist Society was founded with the goal of pushing U.S. courts to the right. And their efforts have been successful: Although Democrats have won the popular vote in seven of the United States' last nine presidential elections, six of the U.S. Supreme Court's justices are GOP appointees. Three of them — Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — were championed by the Federalist Society and appointed by Donald Trump during his first presidency.

Not all of the conservatives who have been active in the Federalist Society over the years, however, are pro-MAGA. Attorney George Conway and retired Judge J. Michael Luttig are on the right but very much in the Never Trump camp.

Meanwhile, the American Constitution Society (ACS), founded at Georgetown University in Washington, DC in 2001, was modeled after the Federalist Society, but with the goal of moving the U.S. courts in a more liberal/progressive direction.

In an op-ed/essay published by the New York Times on February 16, legal expert Jeffrey Toobin stresses that the "new leadership" at ACS has "a new goal: to expand the use of the courts to oppose President Trump's agenda."

New ACS President Phil Brest, Toobin notes, helped former President Joe Biden "nominate and win confirmation of 235 federal judges."

"Those judges — and others appointed by Democratic presidents — have proved that the most effective resistance to Mr. Trump has come not from Democratic politicians, but rather, from federal judges," Toobin explains. "In the last several weeks alone, these judges, many of them Biden appointees, have ordered the release from immigration custody of five-year-old Liam Ramos and his father and their return to their home in Minnesota; blocked the Trump Administration from ending temporary protections from deportation that had been granted to thousands of Ethiopians living in the United States; and directed the Trump Administration to allow members of Congress to make unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities."

Toobin adds, "According to a Times analysis of federal appeals court rulings in 2025, judges nominated by Mr. Biden ruled in support of Mr. Trump’s policies 25 percent of the time, while those appointed by Mr. Trump supported him 92 percent of the time.

Toobin notes that when the Federalist Society was created in 1982, the "liberalism of the Warren Court era still influenced the Supreme Court." Chief Justice Earl Warren was a Republican nominee of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, yet many decisions applauded by liberal and progressives — from New York Times v. Sullivan to Griswold v. Connecticut to Stanley v. Georgia — came from the Warren Court.

In 2026, Toobin argues, Democrats need to understand what worked for the Federalist Society and use their methods to move the federal courts to the left.

"The members of the Federalist Society took the risk that Democratic legal thinkers have so far avoided," Toobin observes. "Though the Federalist Society does not as a group take formal positions on issues, the Federalists gave a platform for their clear agenda and absorbed the criticism that came with it. But when they won elections and thus seats on the Supreme Court, they knew what they wanted to do and why, and they changed the face of American law. Democrats can do the same, but first they have to try."

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old wiki version? Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (Citizens United v. FEC)

CU:

Before the Court

During the original oral argument, then-Deputy Solicitor General Malcolm L. Stewart (representing the FEC) argued that under Austin v. Michigan Chamber of Commerce, the government would have the power to ban books if those books contained even one sentence expressly advocating the election or defeat of a candidate and were published or distributed by a corporation or union.^[13] In response to this line of questioning, Stewart further argued that under Austin the government could ban the digital distribution of political books over the Amazon Kindle or prevent a union from hiring a writer to author a political book.^[14]

According to a 2012 article in The New Yorker by Jeffrey Toobin, the Court expected after oral argument to rule on the narrow issue that had originally been presented. At the subsequent conference among the justices after oral argument, the vote was 5–4 in favor of Citizens United being allowed to show the film. The justices voted the same as they had in Federal Election Commission v. Wisconsin Right to Life, Inc., a similar 2007 case, where Anthony Kennedy had cast the deciding vote.^[15]

Chief Justice John Roberts, per the privilege of that office when in the majority, was in charge of assigning the majority opinion, and chose to do it himself. His opinion restricted itself narrowly, holding that the BCRA allowed the showing of the film. A draft concurrence by Kennedy argued that the court could and should have gone much further. The other justices in the majority began agreeing with Kennedy, and convinced Roberts to reassign the writing and allow Kennedy's concurrence to instead become the majority opinion.^[15]

On the other side, John Paul Stevens, the most senior justice in the minority, assigned the dissent to David Souter, who announced his retirement from the Court while he was working on it. The final draft went beyond critiquing the majority. Toobin described it as "air[ing] some of the Court's dirty laundry," writing that Souter's dissent accused Roberts of having manipulated Court procedures to reach his desired result—an expansive decision that, Souter claimed, changed decades of election law and ruled on issues neither party to the litigation had presented.^[15]

:{:{According to Toobin, Roberts was concerned that Souter's dissent, likely to be his last opinion for the Court, could &quotdamage the Court's credibility.&quot He agreed with the minority to withdraw the opinion and schedule the case for reargument. }:

However, when he did, the “Questions Presented” to the parties were more expansive, touching on the issues Kennedy had identified. According to Toobin, the eventual result was therefore a foregone conclusion from that point on, since the same majority had supported it.^[15] Toobin's account has been criticized for drawing conclusions unsupported by the evidence in his article. ^[16]}:find this src/attack?

On June 29, 2009, the last day of the term, the Court issued an order directing the parties to re-argue the case on September 9 after briefing whether it might be necessary to overrule Austin and/or McConnell v. Federal Election Commission to decide the case.^[17] Justice Stevens noted in his dissent that in its prior motion for summary judgment Citizens United had abandoned its facial challenge of BCRA §203, with the parties agreeing to the dismissal of the claim.^[18]

Justice Sotomayor sat on the bench for the first time during the second round of oral arguments. This was the first case argued by then-Solicitor General and future Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan. Former Bush Solicitor General Ted Olson and First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams argued for Citizens United, and former Clinton Solicitor General Seth Waxman defended the statute on behalf of various supporters.^[19] Legal scholar Erwin Chemerinsky called it "one of the most important First Amendment cases in years".^[20]

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125

Toobin, Jeffrey (May 21, 2012). "Annals of Law: Money Unlimited". The New Yorker. Retrieved May 20, 2012.

same?

Toobin, Jeffrey (May 21, 2012). "Money Unlimited: How Chief Justice John Roberts orchestrated the Citizens United decision". The New Yorker. Retrieved October 16, 2012.

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/12/sean-duffy-k-street-069854

of course he did

no lnx

CONGRESS

Sean Duffy heads to K Street after resigning from Congress

The former Wisconsin congressman and Trump defender is joining BGR Group.

Former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy

By THEODORIC MEYER

11/12/2019

Sean Duffy, the former Republican congressman who has aggressively defended President Donald Trump, is heading to K Street after resigning from Congress in September.

Duffy will become a senior counsel at BGR Group, a Republican-leaning lobbying firm that’s also home to former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour. The firm’s lobbyists represent corporate clients such as Comcast and Pfizer, as well as the governments of Bahrain, Bangladesh, India and South Korea, according to disclosure filings.

Duffy, the former chairman of the House Financial Services Committee’s housing subcommittee, will head up BGR’s financial services practice. BGR lobbies for Credit Suisse and MassMutual,among other financial clients. He plans to register as a lobbyist, according to the firm.

The Wisconsin Republican became famous starring on the MTV reality series “The Real World” in 1997. He later became a district attorney in northern Wisconsin and was elected to Congress in 2010 as part of the Republican wave. He left office on Sept. 23, saying that he and his wife were expecting a child in October who “will need even more love, time and attention due to complications, including a heart condition.”

After resigning, he joined CNN as a paid contributor, where he attracted criticism last month for suggesting there’s a missing Democratic National Committee server in Ukraine — an unsubstantiated conspiracy theory that’s been pushed by Trump.

He also questioned on CNN’s “New Day” whether Alexander Vindman, a decorated Army officer and National Security Council staffer who’s become a critical witness in the House impeachment inquiry, might be more sympathetic to Ukrainian interests than American ones.

“It seems very clear that he is incredibly concerned about Ukrainian defense,” Duffy said, referring to Vindman, who immigrated from Ukraine as a child. “I don’t know that he’s concerned about American policy.”

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Jeffrey Toobin, CNN’s chief legal analyst, described Duffy’s remarks as “insanity and, frankly, anti-immigrant bigotry.” Rebecca Kutler, a CNN executive, defended Duffy’s remarks at the time, saying that it was important to have contributors who reflected Trump supporters’ point of view.

Under House ethics rules, Duffy is banned from lobbying Congress for a year after leaving, but he’s allowed to lobby the Trump administration immediately — including former House colleagues such as Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

In a statement, Duffy said he was “eager to grow a financial services practice built on my experience working on behalf of the people with the Administration and federal regulators” as well as Republican and Democrats in Congress. He plans to advise financial services companies, trade associations and their members, he said.

Duffy didn’t start discussions with BGR until after he resigned, according to the firm.