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Reuters is reporting that President Donald Trump on Wednesday blasted the U.S. court system as “broken and unfair” after a federal judge blocked his move to end the program protecting young immigrants brought to the United States illegally by their parents, commonly known as “Dreamers.”

He was responding to a Tuesday ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup in San Francisco that DACA must remain in place while the litigation is resolved.

In a post on Twitter on Wednesday morning, Trump wrote, “It just shows everyone how broken and unfair our Court System is when the opposing side in a case (such as DACA) always runs to the 9th Circuit and almost always wins before being reversed by higher courts.”

Read the Reuters article.

Legal experts and historians said the decision by President Trump to threaten “imminent” legal action against a publishing house, a journalist and a former aide represented a remarkable break with recent precedent and could have a chilling effect on free-speech rights, according to Slate.

The threats did not appear to work, at least as far as the scathing book by Michael Wolff. His publisher announced Thursday that publication had been moved forward four days to Friday because of what they described as “unprecedented demand.”

Reporters Ashley Parker and Josh Dawsey talked to Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian at Rice University, who likened Trump’s actions this week to those of Richard M. Nixon.

“Though several presidents — including Jimmy Carter and Theodore Roosevelt — have sued for libel after leaving office, it is uncommon and potentially damaging for a current occupant of the Oval Office to try to use the powers of the presidency to take on personal and political rivals, Brinkley said.”

Read the Slate article.

A Ninth Circuit ruling on President Trump’s “travel ban” case offers the U.S. Supreme Court a clever way to reject the ban without limiting government power over immigration, writes Garrett Epps for The Atlantic.

The court does not question the statute that the administration relies on as the basis for the travel bans, but it denies that the bans conform to it.

Epps explains that “a travel ban is perfectly possible, and the administration is always free to ask Congress for one. Had it done so in January, Congress might have enacted one by now. The Supreme Court may be concerned that a decision against the government in this case may weaken the nation; the Ninth Circuit opinion suggests a way to avoid doing so—while still rejecting Trump’s demand for personal powers that ‘will not be questioned.’”

Read The Atlantic‘s article.

Because of the potentially far-reaching consequences of the FCC’s vote on net neutrality, consumer groups and some state attorneys general have vowed to sue the agency to overturn its decision, writes Brian Fung in an article for The Washington Post.

Some analysts told the reporter that the first suits could be mere weeks away.

“Opponents of the FCC are expected to make two broad categories of arguments, analysts say,” Fung writes. “One thrust is likely to target the FCC’s legal reasoning for undoing the net neutrality rules, and the other will concentrate on the decision-making process that led to the vote, which some critics claim had been ‘corrupted’.”

Read the Post article.

The FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, is being reassigned — one of the first moves by new director Christopher A. Wray to assemble his own team of senior advisers as he tries to fend off accusations of politicization within the bureau, reports The Washington Post.

Reporters Devlin Barrett, Ellen Nakashima and Carol Leonnig write:

Baker told colleagues he will be taking on other duties at the FBI, according to people familiar with the matter. In recent months, Baker had been caught up in a strange interagency dispute that led to a leak probe and attracted the attention of senior lawmakers, but people familiar with the matter said the probe had recently ended with a decision not to charge anyone. The leak issue had not played a part in Baker’s reassignment, these people said.

The report says Baker was close to former FBI director James B. Comey, who asked Baker to be his general counsel.

Read the Post article.

What started seven years ago as a whistleblower lawsuit filed by two Charlotte-area doctors ended Tuesday with two emergency room physicians groups paying federal and state governments more than $33 million to avoid going to court, according to a report by The Charlotte Observer.

“The payments cap off longstanding allegations of a vast medical-fraud conspiracy between a major hospital chain and the physicians groups that bilked federal and state healthcare programs in North Carolina and five other states out of millions of dollars,” writes Michael Gordon.

He explains that prosecutors allege that EmCare physicians took kickbacks and other inducements from Health Management Associates, a now defunct chain of acute-care hospitals, to recommend that their patients be admitted to HMA hospitals rather than receive outpatient care. Then the doctors would order expensive and unnecessary tests, resulting in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements to the hospitals.

Read the Observer article.

Democrat Doug Jones’ victory in the Senate special election is likely to have an immediate effect on the Trump, predicts Jonathan R. Nash in The Hill.

Nash reports that two senators have voiced questions about the qualifications and temperament of some of Trump’s nomination to the courts.

With the Republicans Senate majority reduced to one, the opposition of two senators would leave Republicans without a majority to confirm judges.

In an opinion piece for The Hill, Nash, the Robert Howell Hall professor of law at Emory University School of Law, claims the overall quality of judicial nominees is good, but a few of the more recent nominees have generated controversy.

Read The Hill’s article.

As lawyers for the world’s highest-profile client, John M. Dowd and Ty Cobb have come under scrutiny for their every move and utterance — and the criticism has been harsh, according to a report The Washington Post published on President Trump’s legal team’s representation in the Russia probe.

The report says that, when the president “frets that Mueller may be getting too close to him, they assure him he has done nothing wrong, urge him to resist attacking the special counsel and insist that the investigation is wrapping up — first, they said, by Thanksgiving, then by Christmas and now by early next year.”

The team is derided by some as being indiscreet, error-prone and outmatched, write Philip Rucker, Josh Dawsey and Rosalind S. Helderman.

They quote Alan Dershowitz, a criminal defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor: “These are not the kinds of things that one would expect from the most powerful man in America, who has a choice of anybody to be his defense counsel. Well — almost anybody.”

Read the Post‘s article.

Senate Republicans have declared war on the American Bar Association, according to a report from Politico.

For decades, the ABA has assessed judicial nominees and their fitness to serve on the bench. But now, reporters Seung Min Kim and John Bresnahan write, as the ABA has emerged as a major stumbling block in President Donald Trump’s effort to transform the courts, the GOP is accusing the nonpartisan group of holding a liberal slant and is seeking to sideline it.

“The ABA has deemed at least four of Trump’s judicial nominees ‘not qualified’ — a high number, although other administrations had the ABA evaluate candidates privately before they were nominated,” they write.

Republicans have responded by ratcheting up their attacks to try to discredit the century-old group.

Read the Politico article.

Politico is reporting that morale among many of the Agriculture Department’s legal staff has plummeted since Stephen Vaden, the Trump administration’s nominee to be USDA General Counsel, assumed leadership in March, say several agency attorneys from across the country.

“Vaden, who arrived at USDA in January as part of President Donald Trump’s beachhead team and was appointed principal deputy general counsel two months later, is enforcing workplace changes that have provoked unusually bitter labor negotiations, say the attorneys,” reports Catherine Boudreau. “He also has come under scrutiny for his past work defending state voter ID laws that critics say are discriminatory.

“There is a fair amount of fear right now,” said Jeffrey Streiffer, senior counsel at the USDA OGC’s regional office in San Francisco.

Read the Politico article.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyers told a New York state judge on Tuesday that under the U.S. Constitution she had no jurisdiction over the president and therefore urged her to dismiss a defamation lawsuit by a woman who has accused Trump of sexual harassment, reports Reuters.

Summer Zervos, a former contestant on Trump’s reality show “The Apprentice,” contends that Trump’s denials of her accusations amounted to false and defamatory statements, according to reporter Jonathan Allen. She said she and her business have suffered harm because Trump branded her a liar.

Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz told the judge that “a state court may not exercise jurisdiction over the president of the United States while he or she is in office.”

But the lead lawyer for Zervos pointed out that there is no case holding that a federal official can’t be held to account in state court.

Read the Reuters article.

Thomas McVey, partner and chair of Williams Mullen’s International Practice Group, will lead a complimentary webinar on the latest International Traffic In Arms Regulations (ITAR) developments for government contracts executives.

The event will be Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2017, at 1 p.m. Eastern time.

ITAR is an important area of regulation for government contractors, the firm says on its website. This includes firms in the defense, technical services, information technology, cyber-security, military training and DOD-funded R&D fields. These requirements often apply even if a company is not engaged in any exporting activities – often just performing activities in the U.S. can trigger ITAR obligations. The stakes are high – violations can result in criminal penalties of up to 20 years imprisonment.

The program will provide executives a clear overview of the law and an update on important recent developments.

Who Should Attend: CEOs, CFOs, COOs, in-house counsel, compliance personnel, operations directors and contracts administrators

Topic outline:
• How do I know if my company is subject to ITAR?
• Is my company required to register under ITAR
• Requirements for ITAR-controlled technical data and software
• Controls on defense services and Technical Assistance Agreements
• Requirements for dealing with foreign national employees and other foreign individuals
• Obligations of second- and third-tier suppliers; subcontractors and vendors
• Are we subject to ITAR if we only perform services for U.S. government agencies?
• Contracts with foreign military organizations
• How to develop an effective ITAR compliance program
• Requirements under DFARS §225.79 and 252.225-7048
• Recent data security requirements
• What to do if you discover a violation

Time has been allotted for a brief Q&A for the speakers to address questions from the audience.

Register for the webinar.

Reuters is reporting that a former partner at a major law firm in Washington pleaded guilty on Wednesday to charges that he tried to sell copies of sealed whistleblower lawsuits against corporations that he obtained while working at the U.S. Justice Department.

Reporter Nate Raymond writes that Jeffrey Wertkin was working at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP when he was arrested in January trying to sell an undercover federal agent one of the lawsuits while wearing a wig as a disguise, according to court papers.

As a former employee of the Justice Department, he had access to lawsuits filed by whistleblowers against companies on the government’s behalf to recover taxpayer funds paid out based on fraudulent claims. Prosecutors said he copied several whistleblower complaints and then tried to sell them for a “consulting fee.”

Read the Reuters article.

Twenty-three Trump businesses including his Mar-a-Lago Club must retain records after they receive subpoenas from the attorneys general in Maryland and the District of Columbia as part of a lawsuit accusing the president of profiting from his office, Bloomberg reports.

A U.S. district judge granted the Democratic officials’ request to serve so-called preservation subpoenas, which require the businesses to retain documents but not to immediately produce them, accordingn to reporter Andrew W. Harris.

The AGs claim that the president’s continued ownership of his business empire allows him to make money from foreign and domestic governments.

Read the Bloomberg article.

The Washington Post reports that federal regulators unveiled a plan Tuesday that would give Internet providers broad powers to determine what websites and online services their customers can see and use, and at what cost.

Next month the Federal Communications Commission will vote on the proposal that could reshape the entire digital ecosystem: the undoing of the government’s net neutrality rules.

Reporter Brian Fung explains that Tuesday’s move hands a win to broadband companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast.

“The FCC’s proposal is largely opposed by Internet companies such as Google, which said Tuesday that the net neutrality rules help protect an open Internet,” Fung writes

Read the Post‘s report.

“There is no credible evidence” that AT&T’s proposed $85.4 billion acquisition of media powerhouse Time Warner poses any threat to industry competition or consumer prices, AT&T attorney Dan Petrocelli told CNBC on Tuesday.

Petrocelli is the lead outside counsel for AT&T in the case, in which the Department of Justice has sued to block the deal.

He cited increasing competition for television and video distribution and content as a reason not to block the proposed merger, writes reporter Matthew J. Belvedere.

“Earlier this month, reports circulated that the government had demanded AT&T sell its DirectTV unit or Time Warner’s Turner Broadcasting, operator of the CNN, as a condition of approval,” Belvedere explains. “However, the government had pushed back at those reports, and AT&T said it had no intention of selling CNN.”

Read the CNBC report.

Judge Brett Kavanaugh

President Trump has added five names to his list of potential Supreme Court justices in a move that precedes the possible, but still unannounced, retirement of Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy, reports USA Today.

Reporters Richard Wolf and Gregory Korte write that the biggest new name was that of Brett Kavanaugh, a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“Like Justice Neil Gorsuch of Colorado, who was confirmed to the high court in April, Kavanaugh is a conservative who once clerked for the more moderate Kennedy,” they write. “When Trump selected Gorsuch for the late Justice Antonin Scalia’s empty seat, it was viewed as a move that might entice Kennedy, 81, to step down.”

Read the USA Today article.

While the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission continues its investigation of the notice of proposed rulemaking on deployment of energy storage, state mandates and incentives will likely unfold ahead of federal rules moving toward a more organized market for energy storage, according to a post by Morgan, Lewis & Bockius.

Levi McAllister and Brooke E. McGlinn write:

Read the article.

Now even a pro bono client feels compelled to fire David Boies after revelations of the famed litigator’s role in attempting to hide Harvey Weinstein’s alleged history of sexual harassment and assault.

The Tampa Bay Times reports that the City of St. Petersburg, Florida, is heading toward ending its relationship with Boies.

Charlie Frago writes that Boies and his firm Boies Schiller Flexner had offered their services to the city in a challenge to Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, the 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that removed restrictions on how much outside groups can spend on elections.

One city council member reacted to the revelations of Boies’ actions: “I find this reprehensible and will absolutely NOT vote to accept Boies’ offer to represent the city of St. Petersburg pro bono on the campaign finance issue.”

Read the Tampa Bay Times article.

Jay Clayton

In its latest fiscal year, Wall Street’s top regulator sought the smallest amount of penalties since 2013, a drop that took place as the agency went months without permanent leadership and could show a softer approach to policing wrongdoing, Bloomberg reports.

“The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission tried to obtain $3.4 billion in fines and disgorgement from companies and individuals during the 12 months ended in September, according to data collected by Urska Velikonja, a Georgetown University law professor,” write reporters Matt Robinson and Benjamin Bain. “The SEC filed 612 enforcement cases, also the fewest in four years, Velikonja’s research shows.”

Velikonja points out that since Jay Clayton — the former Wall Street deals lawyer appointed by Trump — took over as SEC chair in May, the agency has pursued just two sanctions against large financial firms. But in the same period a year earlier, more than a dozen big financial companies faced SEC sanctions.

Read the Bloomberg article.