The litigation brought by Stormy Daniels against Donald Trump has had its day of reckoning. The adult-film star who sued the president for defamation not only lost a portion of her lawsuit but was ordered to pay the president's legal bills. All this was a resounding victory for the freedom of speech. Published October 17, 2018
What if we have a right to insist that judges be neutral and open-minded rather than partisan and predisposed to a particular ideology? What if presidential candidates promise to nominate judges and justices who they believe will embrace certain ideologies? Published October 10, 2018
Harsh winds are blowing on Capitol Hill. The hoped-for and feared clash between Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh and his principal accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, has come and gone, with all of its calculated and spontaneous outbursts, as well as gut-wrenching emotion. Published October 3, 2018
Until two weeks ago, President Donald Trump's nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court seemed a sure thing. He ably handled more than 1,200 questions put to him by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He demonstrated even to his adversaries a masterful command of constitutional jurisprudence. The FBI had completed six background investigations of Judge Kavanaugh throughout his career in government, and it found no blemishes. Published September 26, 2018
If you have been following the serious destruction brought about by Hurricane Florence in North Carolina and the political turmoil caused by the allegations of teen-age sexual misconduct made by Christine Blasey Ford against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, along with his firm and unbending denials, you might have missed a profound event in a federal courtroom in the nation's capital late last week. Published September 19, 2018
Last week, The New York Times published a scathing critique of Donald Trump — the man and the president. The Times said the critique was written by a senior Trump administration official who insisted on remaining unnamed. This bitter and harsh opinion piece, which portrays the president as dangerous to the health of the republic and his White House as slouching toward dysfunctionality, has understandably infuriated him. Published September 12, 2018
Last week, I was intrigued by all the fanfare attendant upon the national farewell to the late Sen. John McCain. I have written in this space that Mr. McCain and I were friends who spoke many times, but generally only about the issues upon which we agreed — abortion, immigration and torture. Published September 5, 2018
About four years ago, I was browsing through one of Manhattan's last remaining independent bookstores, when my cellphone rang. I didn't recognize the incoming telephone number, with its 202 area code, but I assumed it was a Fox News colleague from our Washington bureau. Published August 29, 2018
When federal prosecutors are nearing the end of criminal investigations, they often invite the subjects of those investigations to speak with them. Published August 8, 2018
In the past week, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, now the chief lawyer and principal spokesman for President Donald Trump's legal team, has offered arguments more harmful to Mr. Trump than helpful. In a series of combative, disjointed and logically challenged television rants, Mr. Giuliani has essentially argued that Mr. Trump did not engage in any conspiracy with the Russians for them to provide help to his campaign and that even if he did, it wasn't criminal. Published August 1, 2018
Last week, in Ridgewood, New Jersey, a 92-year-old unsung American patriot lost his battle with congestive heart failure. He had been surrounded by his wife and children and their spouses and their children. He left this vale of tears in his wife's arms, peacefully and with dignity. Published July 25, 2018
As a trial judge in New Jersey during the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush years, I spent much of my time trying to settle cases. This process involved bringing into my chambers the lawyers for the disputants and asking them in the absence of their adversaries to lay their cards on the table. Published July 18, 2018
When Donald Trump started running for the Republican nomination for president in June 2015, he began by attacking the Republican establishment in Washington, and he began his attack by calling the establishment "the swamp." Published July 11, 2018
The Declaration of Independence — which was signed on July 3, 1776, for public release on July 4 — was Thomas Jefferson's masterpiece. Jefferson himself wrote much about the declaration in the 50 years that followed. Published July 4, 2018
Last weekend, President Trump argued that those foreigners who enter the United States unlawfully should simply be taken to the border, escorted across it and let go. According to the president, this would save precious government resources, avoid the business of separating children from their parents and free up the Border Patrol and other federal assets to do their jobs. Published June 27, 2018
When President Donald Trump appointed Atlanta lawyer Christopher Wray to succeed James Comey as the director of the FBI, my initial reaction was not positive. Mr. Wray is a veteran of the Department of Justice and is part of that good-old-boy DOJ network that knows how to protect its own. Indeed, when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a former U.S. attorney, needed a good criminal defense lawyer — whose millions in fees were paid by New Jersey taxpayers — he hired Mr. Wray. Published June 20, 2018
Amid all the happy hoopla over President Donald Trump's trip to Singapore, where he began the process for what he hopes will be the normalization of relations between the United States and North Korea and the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, has come an effort by the House Intelligence Committee to interfere with the criminal investigation of the president. Published June 13, 2018
Last weekend, the White House leaked a copy of a letter sent by President Donald Trump's legal team on Jan. 29 to special counsel Robert Mueller. The letter set forth the president's legal strategy, arguing essentially that he is immune from prosecution for any crime. Published June 6, 2018
This past weekend, President Trump and the most visible member of his legal team, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, fired up their campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller. They attacked people at the Department of Justice (DOJ) whom Mr. Trump appointed. They smeared career DOJ lawyers and FBI agents by offering allegations without showing any supporting evidence. And they purported to challenge the legitimacy of Mr. Mueller's office itself. Published May 30, 2018
This past weekend, President Trump suggested that his presidential campaign may have been the victim of spies or moles who were FBI informants or undercover agents. He demanded an investigation to get to the bottom of the matter. Published May 23, 2018
