Rudy Giuliani has tapped Miami-based veteran attorney Jon A. Sale, of counsel with Nelson Mullins, to represent him before the congressional inquiry into whether President Donald Trump improperly pressured Ukraine’s president for a political favor.

The Miami Herald reports that “Sale is also no stranger to navigating the ways of Washington, having served as an assistant special Watergate prosecutor looking into the secret White House tapes of President Richard M. Nixon. Sale worked under two special prosecutors — Archibald Cox and Leon Jaworski.”

Giuliani and Sale are former classmates at New York University law school.

Read the Miami Herald article.

Goldman Sachs and Dell Technologies will pay a combination of almost $17 million to settle separate Labor Department allegations of pay bias based on gender and race, reports Bloomberg Law.

“Both Goldman Sachs and Dell-EMC agreed to nationwide ‘early resolution’ agreements, whereby their compliance will be routinely monitored in exchange for five years free of random OFCCP audits,” explains Bloomberg’s Paige Smith. “These are at least the fourth and fifth ‘early resolution’ agreements with the agency, joining those with Bank of America, Performance Food Group, Cintas Corp., and US Foods Inc. ”

Read the Bloomberg Law article.

Over the past few decades, Republican and Democratic administrations have increasingly leaned on deferred prosecution agreements in corporate criminal cases and non-prosecution agreements to settle allegations against corporations, according to a Washington Post report.

For example, JPMorgan Chase, the country’s largest bank, has repeatedly resolved federal investigations over the last eight years by striking a deal: It wouldn’t be prosecuted as long as it stayed out of trouble, writes the Post‘s Renae Merle.

“This comes at a time when the Trump administration is prosecuting fewer white-collar crimes,” she explains. “The number of cases brought against corporations fell to 99 last year, compared with 181 in 2015, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Most were against small companies, 62.9 percent employed fewer than 50 workers, the commission reported.”

Read the Post article.

Taxpayers lose billions each year in royalties generated from oil and gas leases on public lands while fossil fuel developers reap profits at their expense, but Democrats have pushed legislation that would overhaul leasing laws that have not been updated in a century, reports Courthouse News Service.

For the eighth consecutive year, the Government Accountability Office placed the Interior Department’s oil and gas leasing program on its high risk list of federal programs mottled with waste, fraud and abuse.

That report found that “Interior’s methods to determine and collect royalties hasn’t been updated since 1920, and with the coal, gas and oil industry in far different shape today than it was a century ago, the time to develop a system that meets energy needs while delivering fair market returns is long overdue,” writes Courthouse News’ Brandi Buchman.

Read the Courthouse News article.

A group of 23 states on Friday sued to block the Trump administration from undoing California’s authority to set strict car pollution rules, one of the biggest U.S. battles over climate change, reports Reuters.

“The legal fight pits a Democratic majority state that has become the U.S. environmental champion against a Republican president who wants to boost the economy by cutting regulation,” writes Reuters’ David Shepardson. “The debate already is playing out ahead of the presidential election next year.”

Friday’s lawsuit takes aim at a U.S. Transportation Department conclusion that federal law preempts state and local regulation of vehicle fuel economy, including California’s rules.

Read the Reuters article.

Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana warned that he could oppose President Trump’s nominee for an influential appeals court, saying Steven Menashi wouldn’t answer questions during a hearing.

The Hill reports that Kennedy, when asked about Menashi’s nomination for the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, warned, “I’m not going to vote for him until I understand how he approaches legal issues.”

Kennedy told HuffPost: “I’m real doubtful. My thought is, look, if he’ll treat a United States senator the way he treated us, I wonder how he would treat the people.”

Some other senators have expressed frustration with Menashi’s unwillingness to discuss his work for the Trump administration on immigration.

Read The Hill article.

The New York Times reports that the White House on Tuesday fired John Mitnick, the general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security, after months of shake-up at an agency responsible for carrying out President Trump’s immigration agenda.

A Trump administration official said Tuesday evening that Chad Mizelle, an associate counsel to the president, would replace Mitnick. But a Department of Homeland Security official said later that Joseph B. Maher, the department’s principal deputy general counsel, would be taking over, write the times‘ Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman.

Mitnick was the fifth general counsel for the Department of Homeland Security.

Read the NY Times report.

A federal appeals court on Friday revived an ethics lawsuit against President Donald Trump that argues his business interests are conflicts of interest and violate the US Constitution, reports CNN.

Plaintiffs, including a hotel operator and a group of restaurants, claimed Trump’s “vast, complicated and secret” business arrangements violate a constitutional provision, the Emoluments Clause, which bars the president from accepting gifts from foreign governments without the permission of Congress, writes CNN’s Erica Orden.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that a lower-court judge improperly threw out the lawsuit in December 2017. Now, plaintiffs are hoping this victory will allow them to seek detailed records on Trump’s transactions with foreign officials, according to a Washington Post report.

Read the CNN article.

Senators from both parties criticized a nominee for a federal appeals court for declining to answer questions Wednesday about his work in the Trump White House and Education Department, according to an Associated Press report.

Trump has nominated Steven Menashi, an associate White House counsel, to a seat on the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Senators from both parties at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing complained as Menashi refused to answer questions about his work on immigration issues, including a policy to separate migrant children from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This isn’t supposed to be a game,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Menashi.

Read the AP report.

Politico is reporting that Sen. Ted Cruz will oppose President Donald Trump’s nominee for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Halil Suleyman “Sul” Ozerden, a major setback for the embattled nomination.

The report says conservative opposition places in doubt the future of Ozerden, who is a close friend of acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and whose nomination Mulvaney pushed over the objections of the White House Counsel’s office.

“Unlike most other Trump judicial nominees, Ozerden lacks explicit backing from conservative judicial groups like the Judicial Crisis Network,” Politico reports. “Carrie Severino, the group’s chief counsel, wrote last year that ‘we could do better than Judge Ozerden’ in Mississippi.”

Read the Politico article.

The Washington Post reports that state attorneys general  are initiating sweeping antitrust investigations against Silicon Valley’s largest companies, probing whether they undermine rivals and harm consumers.

More than 40 attorneys general are expected to announce their plan to investigate Google, delivering a rare rebuke of the search-and-advertising giant — and its efforts to maintain that dominance — from the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court, writes the Post‘s Tony Romm.

Romm explains that the states are potent actors in their own right, with the power to invoke local laws on antitrust and consumer-protection and to tap Washington’s antitrust statutes on behalf of their residents.

Read the  Post article.

Photo by Kārlis Dambrāns

Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith says the way the U.S. government is treating Huawei is un-American, reports Bloomberg Businessweek.

He said China’s leading maker of networking equipment and mobile phones should be allowed to buy U.S. technology, including software from his company, according to Businessweek’s Dina Bass.

“U.S. President Donald Trump has said Huawei, run by a former Chinese army technologist, is a national security threat, and his Department of Commerce has added the company to an export blacklist scheduled to take full effect in November,” Bass writes.

Read the Bloomberg Businessweek article.

A looming legal brawl over a new Federal Energy Regulatory Commission order will trigger a fresh round of judicial scrutiny focused on the line between state and federal authority in wholesale power markets, reports E&E News.

“Power producers and state regulators last month sued in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit over Order No. 841, a FERC directive that opens the door for batteries and other energy storage technologies to participate in wholesale electricity markets — even if they are behind a retail meter,” according to E&E News’ Pamela King.

She quoted Ari Peskoe, director of Harvard Law School’s Electricity Law Initiative: “This is a big deal because potentially we’ll see whether FERC has the authority to invite distribution-level resources into the market.”

Read the article.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims has issued a major decision that could restore billions of dollars in Post-9/11 GI Bill and other educational benefits to military service members of the Post-9/11 era, according to a release from Hunton Andrews Kurth.

The firm’s release describes the case:

Since World War II, Congress has provided veterans with different GI Bill benefits for different periods of qualifying service. Nevertheless, since 2009, the Department of Veterans Affairs has required veterans with more than one period of separately qualifying service to relinquish or exhaust their entitlement to Montgomery GI Bill benefits before utilizing their Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits, thereby capping most veterans’ combined GI Bill benefits at 36 months.

In BO v. Wilkie, the court on Aug. 15 rejected this practice, declaring that the law “require[s] neither relinquishment nor exhaustion” and determined that the law allows veterans with separately qualifying service “to receive entitlement under both programs subject to a 36-month cap on utilization of each of the two separate programs and a 48-month cap overall.”

The court reversed a decision by the VA’s Board of Veterans’ Appeals and ordered the board to recalculate BO’s entitlement to GI Bill benefits. Attorneys from Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP and Dominion Energy, the appellant’s pro bono counsel, estimate that the decision impacts millions of veterans affected by the VA’s illegal practice and those who would have been affected.

“BO” is the identifier given to the veteran in this case, which is sealed to protect national security and BO’s service as a federal counterterrorism agent. BO is also a highly decorated Army combat veteran of the pre- and post-9/11 eras. After an initial period of enlisted military service, he attended college on the Montgomery GI Bill, then returned to the Army as a commissioned officer. In 2015, he applied for post-9/11 benefits based on his commissioned service so that he could attend Yale Divinity School and then become an Army chaplain.

But based on its misreading of the law, the VA forced BO to forfeit his remaining Montgomery benefits and limited his Post-9/11 benefits to the amount of the forfeited benefits. The VA rejected his repeated calls to correct its error, forcing him to appeal its decision. During the lengthy appellate process, BO had to give up his Yale admission and became ineligible to return to the Army because of his age, but he continued to press his appeal to receive the correct amount of benefits, and, more importantly to him, for the benefit of all veterans.

“BO urges the VA to take immediate, affirmative action not only to correct his educational entitlements, but also to identify the many veterans impacted by the court’s decision and notify them of the restoration of their hard-earned benefits,” said Hunton Andrews Kurth lawyer Timothy L. McHugh, who represented the appellant.

The legal team also included Dominion Energy senior counsel David J. DePippo, as well as lawyers and staff with Hunton Andrews Kurth’s Veterans Pro Bono Program.

The Dallas Morning News reports that career Fort Worth defense contractor is in trouble for allegedly making false claims about the type of aluminum he provided under a contract for aircraft landing gear, court records show.

Ross Hyde, 63, has been charged in federal court and faces up to five years in prison, if convicted, writes the News‘ Kevin Krause.

Hyde’s company, Vista Machining Co., has supplied the Pentagon with parts for tanks, aircraft and other military equipment, but inspectors said many of his products were cheap replacements, some illegally obtained from China, which he tried to hide from the government.

Read the  Morning News article.

The Houston Chronicle reports the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Houston-based SAExploration Holdings for allegedly providing “material misstatements” and misleading financial information to its investors and to the federal agency over the past four years, according to documents filed by the company with the SEC.

In the new SEC documents, the Houston-based international oilfield services company reported that it has fired its general counsel, who also served as its chief financial officer, and has removed its chairman and chief executive officer.

The ex-GC is Brent Whiteley, who had been an executive at SAExploration since March 2011 and also held the title of chief financial officer. Long-time chairman and CEO Jeff Hastings has resigned from the board and has been placed on administrative leave.

Read the Houston Chronicle article.

Breaking with eight other circuits, the Seventh Circuit ruled Wednesday that the Federal Trade Commission lacks authority to seek restitution from companies that defraud consumers, and vacated a $5 million judgment against a credit-monitoring company, reports Courthouse News Service.

The case involves a lower court’s imposition of $5 million in restitution from the target of an FTC action. Regulators said Michael Brown and his company, Credit Bureau Center, offered consumers “free” credit reports and then automatically enrolled them in a $29.94 monthly membership to a credit-monitoring service without notice.

Section 13(b) of the Federal Trade Commission Act authorizes the FTC to seek restraining orders and injunctions, but not specifically restitution, writes Courthouse News’ Lorraine Bailey.

Read the Courthouse News Service article.

The company that was the target in a sweep of workers allegedly living in the country illegally had a history of “knowingly hiring and employing illegal aliens,”  according to allegations in an unsealed affidavit for a federal search warrant.

The Chicago Tribune reports that “Six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided were ‘willfully and unlawfully’ employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States, including workers wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, the affidavit alleges.”

The sworn statements supported the search warrants that led a judge to authorize the raids, and aren’t official charges.

A spokesman for the company, Koch Foods, denied that the company knowingly or willfully employed any unauthorized workers at its Morton, Miss., plant.

Read the Chicago Tribune article.

The Associated Press is reporting that sworn statements supporting search warrants allege that six of seven Mississippi chicken processing plants raided last week were “willfully and unlawfully” employing people who lacked authorization to work in the United States.

Some of the workers were wearing electronic monitoring bracelets at work for previous immigration violations, according to unsealed court documents.

“The statements unsealed Thursday allege that managers at two processing plants owned by the same Chinese man actively participated in fraud,” writes the AP’s Jeff Amy. “They also show that supervisors at other plants at least turned a blind eye to evidence strongly suggesting job applicants were using fraudulent documents and bogus Social Security numbers.”

Read the AP article.

The U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California held that it has exclusive jurisdiction over the rejection of wholesale power-purchase agreements, reports Holland & Hart in an article written by Risa Wolf-Smith.

The court also found that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has no such jurisdiction and any determinations by FERC to the contrary would be void.

“While the decision might not be surprising to most bankruptcy practitioners, the proposition that FERC has no jurisdiction over the breach or modification of a power-purchase agreement is not only shocking to energy practitioners, but contrary to well-established authority in the energy arena,” writes Wolf-Smith.

Read the article.