While COVID-19 is the Administration's main focus, they continue to build on one of their most important and long-lasting accomplishments: nominating judges who respect and uphold the rule of law.  Today yet another great nomination was made with Judge Justin Walker to the DC Circuit:

Today, President Donald J. Trump announced his intent to nominate:

Justin R. Walker of Kentucky, to serve as Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Justin Walker currently serves as a United States District Judge for the Western District of Kentucky. Judge Walker is also a part-time Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Ordered Liberty Program at the Brandeis School of Law at the University of Louisville. Before taking the bench in 2019, Judge Walker was Partner of Counsel at Dinsmore & Shohl, LLP in Louisville, Kentucky, where his practice focused on commercial and appellate litigation. Previously, Judge Walker was an appellate attorney in the Washington, D.C. office of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, LLP. Judge Walker served as a law clerk to United States Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy and to then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Judge Walker earned his B.A., summa cum laude, from Duke University, and his J.D., magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School, where he served as Notes Editor on the Harvard Law Review.

RNLA Betty Murphy Award Winner Mike Davis and the Article III Project released a letter signed by conservative leaders in response to Senate Democrat Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s threats on Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh last week:

In a better world, this episode would mark the end of Chuck Schumer’s political career.  But even in America in 2020, it should be a permanent blot on Schumer’s record. We therefore strongly support a resolution to censure Schumer on the Senate floor.

The Department of Labor under Secretary Eugene Scalia and President Trump issued a final rule on Sunday clarifying what situations qualify as conferring joint employer status under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). While this may seem like an arcane area of law, it is yet another example of how the Trump administration is promoting the rule of law through providing clear legal rules in areas of confusion. Unclear legal standards not only undermine the rule of law but also stifle economic growth and innovation among American businesses:

In a series of two blog posts, RNLA will detail our top 10 blog posts of 2019.  Today Numbers 10-6.  

10.  May 1: TOP MOMENTS OF BARR HEARING

Attorney General Bill Barr drives it home -"How did we get to this point? The President was falsely accused of colluding with Russians - the evidence shows those allegations are false. To listen to some of the rhetoric you’d think the Mueller Report had found the opposite."

Carter Page served as foreign policy advisor to the 2016 Trump campaign and also as a CIA asset.  He is exhibit one in the abuse (or worse) of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act by the FBI in their efforts to investigate the Trump campaign. Don’t take our word for it- Judge Rosemary Collyer, the Presiding Judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, is furious. 

In our continued focus on Democrats who oppose impeachment, today we focus on famous lawyer and law professor Alan Dershowitz, who makes a strong case against impeachment, again.  We say again because he also wrote a book about the first quasi-impeachment effort which became the Mueller report.  Dershowitz details how Maxine Waters' interpretation of Congress' impeachment power is wrong and dangerous.

There are those like Congresswoman Maxine Waters who argue that Congress can impeach on any ground a majority wishes. “There is no law,” she has asserted, because then power to impeach is vested solely in the House and there is no judicial review of its actions. Even if that were true — and it is debatable —Waters’ lawless and reductionistic view confuses what Congress can get away with, as distinguished from what the Constitution obliges its members to do: namely to apply the criteria set out in the Constitution.

President Trump continues to tighten the reigns of executive agencies, this time by issuing two Executive Orders designed to prevent agencies from improperly using guidance documents. Together, these orders reinforce agency adherence to the rule of law and due process and also provide meaningful restraint to regulatory overreach.

Yesterday, President Trump celebrated the 158th judge nominated by him confirmed by the Senate. Here are some statistics:

President Obama appointee Beryl A. Howell cleared the way for House Democrats to further leak and try to politically damage the President when she authorized the release of grand jury materials from the Mueller investigation. This violates one of the fundamental principles of grand juries: that their proceedings must be kept secret.  As Margot Cleveland wrote in the Federalist:

Access to the grand jury materials won’t transform the House’s proceedings into a “full and fair impeachment inquiry”—it will just give the Democrats more information to selectively leak to the press. . . .

[T]here’s no need to look beyond the closed doors of the committees to conclude that the Democrats aren’t requesting the grand jury materials to avoid an injustice—but to avoid a reelection.

Today, the Supreme Court vacated the lower court's decision in Chatfield v. League of Women Voters (League of Women Voters v. Benson below) and remanded for further consideration in light of Rucho v. Common Cause.  There was nothing unexpected or even very newsworthy in this, but what is newsworthy is the hand-wringing among Democrats and in the mainstream media.  The misleading headlines and stories that gave the impression that the Supreme Court had ruled in favor of Michigan Republicans.