Month: February 2020

So the great affair is over

but whoever would have guessed

it would leave us all so vacant

and so deeply unimpressed

(Full lyrics, that are otherwise not at all apropos.)

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2vM7mAG
via IFTTT

For those who are interested, my colleague Marc DeGirolami and I have recorded a new episode for our Legal Spirits podcast series on last month’s oral argument in the Blaine Amendments case, Espinoza v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue. The episode touches on a couple of issues that I didn’t address in my short VC post on the case last month, including the standing and mootness arguments that some of you mentioned in the comments. I don’t think those arguments will persuade a majority of the Justices, but Justice Kagan’s point about mootness (if that’s what it is) seems more powerful to me now than it did at first. Anyway, listeners can judge for themselves. Here’s the link.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2GZViOQ
via IFTTT

The Senate on Wednesday acquitted President Donald Trump of both impeachment charges, ending a monthslong battle that did little more than clarify the intense polarization between Democrats and Republicans in Congress and around the country.   

Trump was impeached by the House in December for abuse of power over his role in attempting to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy into announcing investigations that zeroed in on Trump’s domestic political foes. The House also charged Trump with obstruction of Congress after he refused to turn over various documents and used executive privilege to prohibit certain witnesses from testifying in the inquiry. 

In a near party-line vote, senators rejected the abuse of power article 52-48 and the obstruction of Congress article 53-47. The only defection was Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah), who broke with the GOP and voted to convict Trump on the former charge, making him the first senator to ever support removing a president from his or her own party. The move undercut Trump’s argument that his impeachment was completely partisan and not supported by anyone in the Republican party.

The saga began with an August whistleblower complaint detailing a July 25 phone call between Trump and Zelenskiy. During that conversation, Trump asked Zelenskiy to “do us a favor” and probe former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter—a request that was widely seen as an attempt to bolster his own 2020 re-election chances. In addition, Trump pushed to have Zelenskiy announce an investigation into a highly criticized theory that Ukraine, rather than Russia, executed widespread election interference in the 2016 presidential race. Also in July, the White House withheld millions of dollars of congressionally authorized security assistance to Ukraine without explanation; it was disbursed on September 11, following the release of the whistleblower complaint.

In September, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D–Calif.) announced the start of an impeachment inquiry. In October, the House passed formal rules for the proceedings. A series of witnesses testified in closed-door depositions and again in public throughout November and December, culminating in the House’s December 18 vote to advance impeachment against Trump.

During the House hearings, members of the GOP accused Democrats of trampling on Trump’s right to due process by collecting the initial testimonies outside of the public eye; Democrats countered that the private setting allowed them to hear from witnesses without allowing them to coordinate their stories. These rules for impeachment inquiry hearings were set by House Speaker John Boehner (R–Ohio) and other Republicans in 2015. 

GOP lawmakers continuously challenged the reliability of witnesses, most of whom painted a consistent story of Trump behaving inappropriately. Bill Taylor, the chargé d’affaires in Ukraine, said that it was “crazy to withhold security assistance for help with a political campaign.” Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, claimed that there was a well-understood quid pro quo between the two leaders in exchange for a White House meeting. 

As the impeachment moved toward a Senate trial, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R–Ky.) referred to the proceedings as “the most rushed, least thorough, and most unfair impeachment inquiry in modern history.” The Kentucky Republican lambasted Democrats for not even attempting to subpoena witnesses and documents by using the courts. It’s a legitimate objection to the second article of impeachment. As Reason‘s Jacob Sullum notes, the House’s case “suffered from an arbitrary, self-imposed deadline,” driven largely by political motivations as opposed to practical ones.

While initially focused on proving Trump’s innocence, his lawyers pivoted to downplay the impeachable nature of the offenses after national security adviser John Bolton claimed that Trump directly tied the security aid to the investigations.

“Nothing in the Bolton revelations, even if true, would rise to the level of an abuse of power or an impeachable offense,” said Alan Dershowitz, the retired Harvard professor turned lawyer for Trump. “Even if everything in there was true, it constitutionally doesn’t rise to that level,” echoed outside lead counsel Jay Sekulow. Dershowitz would go on to argue that a quid pro quo put forward by Trump in attempts to secure his re-election could not be impeachable because politicians believe their electoral success to be in “the national interest.”

Also under scrutiny throughout the trial was whether impeachment requires a violation of a criminal statute. “It certainly doesn’t have to be a crime,” said Dershowitz in 1998—a position he would go on to retract in his 2018 book The Case Against Impeaching Trump. During Trump’s trial, he refined his position further, asserting that the offense must be “crime-like.” Legal consensus heavily favors Dershowitz’s original position, with even McConnell acknowledging that impeachment does not demand the commission of a crime.

Ken Starr, the ex-independent counsel whose report led to the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton, argued that impeachment proceedings are not valid unless they achieve broad bipartisan support. That claim fails to withstand historical evidence: impeachments have always been partisan affairs, including the one Starr helped facilitate.

Democrats throughout the proceedings stuck to a rehearsed script, continuously citing evidence that they say shows Trump leveraged his office for personal benefit. Although the minority party clearly knew that an acquittal was almost certain, impeachment manager Rep. Adam Schiff (D–Calif.) made an appeal to the center during his closing arguments as he tried to rebut claims that the impeachment was wholly partisan. 

“History will not be kind to Donald Trump. If you find that the House has proved its case and still vote to acquit, your name will be tied to his with a cord of steel and for all of history,” he said. “But if you find the courage to stand up to him…your place will be among the Davids who took on Goliath.”

Some Senate Republicans have conceded that the House proved Trump acted improperly. In a statement, Sen. Lamar Alexander (R–Tenn.) provided the argument that is perhaps most emblematic of where many of his colleagues stand.

“There is no need for more evidence to conclude that the president withheld United States aid, at least in part, to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens; the House managers have proved this with what they call a ‘mountain of overwhelming evidence,'” he wrote. “There is no need to consider further the frivolous second article of impeachment that would remove the president for asserting his constitutional prerogative to protect confidential conversations with his close advisers.”

In the end, Trump didn’t have to convince Senate Republicans that he was innocent. He just needed them to say out loud that it doesn’t matter.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2UtAQxu
via IFTTT

The residents of Hillsborough County, Florida, can sleep safely tonight following the arrest of 118 people for performing unlicensed contracting work as part of a Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office sting known as “Operation House Hunters.”

The sting, according to Patch, saw sheriff’s deputies pose as homeowners seeking handymen on social media to do jobs that required licensure. These unsuspecting handymen would be lured to one of five homes, where undercover deputies filmed them performing or agreeing to perform prohibited tasks like painting or installing recess lighting.

The stings were carried out between March and December of last year. The arrests were announced yesterday.

“These 118 con men and women were posing as contractors & preying on innocent homeowners in Hillsborough County, who were just looking to repair or improve their home,” said Hillsborough County Sheriff Chad Chronister at a Tuesday press conference. The mug shots of those picked up in the sweeps were displayed behind him on big posters.

Sheriff: “We have arrested 118 people in an investigation we called, ‘Operation House Hunters.’ These 118 con men & women were posing as contractors & preying on innocent homeowners in Hillsborough County, who were just looking to repair or improve their home.” pic.twitter.com/5TQyb1QteZ

— HCSO #teamhcso (@HCSOSheriff) February 4, 2020

The Sheriff’s Office also released a compilation video of some of the handymen caught up in the sting operation, including several who had past criminal convictions, or who had been caught previously performing unlicensed contract work.

Only eight of the people arrested as part of Operation House Hunter were repeat offenders, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Department. The other 110 were arrested for first-time offenses. The bulk of those charges were for “unlawful acts in the capacity of a contractor,” a misdemeanor offense that can come with a $1,000 fine and a 12-month jail sentence. Repeat violations can result in a felony charge.

That the Sheriff’s sting operation netted few master criminals is not surprising to Leslie Sammis, a criminal defense lawyer in Tampa, Florida, who has represented clients caught up in these sting operations in Hillsborough County.

“The real con men that are trying to trick homeowners are usually too experienced to get caught up in one of these types of sting operations. So the stings tend to catch someone that crosses the line in an unsophisticated way,” Sammis told me in an email.

Frequently, she says, officers will hire a handyman on the pretext of performing work that doesn’t need a license, and then during the course of the job ask them to do something that does, like unhooking a toilet or laying some tiles.

“When the handyman says no, then the undercover detective moves the conversation to something else and then comes back to the question later in a different way,” says Sammis. “By the time the handyman gets to the location, they want to make the homeowner happy and end up agreeing to perform work that they didn’t intend on doing when they first arrived. The undercover detective[s] are just creating a crime that probably wouldn’t occur otherwise.”

Using stings to nab unlicensed contractors isn’t unique to Hillsborough County. Cops and regulators have conducted similar operations in New York and California.

Occupational licensing, whether it’s of contractors or hair braiders, is often much more about protecting incumbent businesses and government licensing revenue than it is about safeguarding the welfare of consumers.

Operation House Hunters is a perfect illustration of this, with cops going to great lengths to manufacture licensing law violations that either wouldn’t have happened or wouldn’t have produced unsatisfied parties.

The more effort law enforcement spends entrapping handymen, the fewer personnel and resources they have to devote to deterring other, more serious crimes. “These sting operations rake in big money in fines and court costs,” Sammis says. “Catching real criminals actually committing a crime is much harder.”

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/2vaJmHq
via IFTTT

When President Andrew Johnson was impeached in 1868, not a single Democratic senator voted for his removal.

When President Bill Clinton was impeached in 1998, his fellow Democrats were similarly unanimous in their support for acquittal.

Those two facts make what Sen. Mitt Romney (R–Utah) announced on Wednesday afternoon pretty significant. In a speech on the Senate floor, Romney said he plans to vote for President Donald Trump’s removal from office.

“The president is guilty of an appalling abuse of the public trust,” Romney said. Trump’s purpose in asking the Ukrainain government to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, was “personal and political,” Romney added.

There are two important caveats here. First, Romney’s vote is highly unlikely to derail Trump’s acquittal by the Senate—the final vote is expected later today.

Second, Romney’s home state of Utah is about as anti-Trump as a red state can be in 2020. When he was elected to the Senate in 2018, Romney promised to be an independent voice within the increasingly Trumpy Republican Party—despite his earlier flirtations with a possible cabinet position in the Trump administration.

In an interview with The Atlantic, Romney talked about relying on his Mormon faith to help make what the senator said was “the most difficult decision I have ever had to make in my life.” That’s certainly an appeal to his constituents, and his vote against Trump is certainly a less risky bet than it would have been for many other GOP senators.

And yet. This is an historic vote, and one that will plant a target firmly on Romney’s back. There is no world in which casting this vote makes it easier for Romney to continue to do his job, or to win another term in office. As tempting as it always is to roll one’s eyes when an elected official talks about “doing the right thing,” this is a rare instance where a senator is doing exactly that—or, at least, believes that he is.

Not surprisingly, the announcement earned Romney some praise from Rep. Justin Amash (R–Mich.), the only other current or former Republican to vote in favor of impeaching Trump.

Thank you, @SenatorRomney, for upholding your oath to support and defend the Constitution. You will never regret putting your faith in God and doing right according to the law and your conscience.

— Justin Amash (@justinamash) February 5, 2020

But the vote is unlikely to win Romney praise from his fellow Republicans. Sen. Josh Hawley (R–Mo.), who is widely regarded as one of the White House’s closest allies in the Senate, told CNN’s Manu Raju that he was “surprised and disappointed” by the announcement. Other rebukes will surely use harsher language.

As he concluded his remarks on Wednesday, Romney tried to downplay the historic nature of the vote he was promising to cast.

“The results of this Senate court will in fact be appealed to a higher court: the judgement of the American people,” he said. “I will tell my children and their children that I did my duty to the best of my ability, believing that my country expected it of me.”

“I will only be one name among many,” he added. “No more, and no less.”

But on Wednesday evening, Mitt Romney’s name will likely stand alone.

from Latest – Reason.com https://ift.tt/396MRNq
via IFTTT