Abraham Lincoln had two careers; one as a lawyer and one as a politician—professions known for severe moral and ethical dilemmas. Given the events of the time, Lincoln faced new levels of dilemmas as he made decisions that helped start the Civil War and those that would finally end the conflict—and slavery with it.

All along the way, Lincoln had to navigate slippery gray areas where no simple right and wrong existed.

His moral struggles remind me of moments in my expert witness career where I have faced ethical crossroads. It’s never easy to decide when every option may have unintended consequences.

Lincoln’s character

Like most countries, we in the United States teach schoolchildren tall tales about our founders and national heroes, such as the myth of George Washington’s honest confession to cutting down a cherry tree. The perplexing thing about many Honest Abe legends is that they can be verified.

Lincoln was truly honest—to a fault for a lawyer or politician. His reputation for integrity spread throughout his community when he was a boy. The story about him walking miles to return six cents to a customer he accidentally overcharged while minding a store was, in fact, true.

Lincoln had a hard life as a child, much of it in poverty, with his family moving numerous times. He had only one year of formal education. His mother died when he was 9, his sister died 10 years later, and he never got along with his father. These experiences may have helped foster Lincoln’s sense of sympathy for others, a trait that attracted clients when he was practicing law but also heightened the moral questions he faced in representing some defendants.

For all his lack of schooling, Lincoln became known for his broad knowledge. Like other self-taught communicators of the day—such as the abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the poet Walt Whitman—Lincoln learned through personal reading. He absorbed values from the Bible and Aesop’s Fables and read about role models like George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. This was the sort of schooling he would turn to throughout his two careers.

Growing up as a first-generation American in a tight-knit community, I often saw how adversity could bring out both the best and worst in people. So, I find it inspiring how Lincoln’s hardships shaped his empathy and sense of justice.

Lincoln the lawyer

Today, attorneys have years of training and detailed codes of professional conduct that examine the ethics of representing clients who might be culpable. But this was not the case in 1840s Illinois. No rules existed then, and as mentioned, Lincoln was largely self-educated.

When he began practicing law, Lincoln refused to take cases when he thought a prospective client was guilty or was pushing a false claim or defense. And when that belief arose after he began representing a client, problems arose with it.

In one oft-cited example, Lincoln lost all interest in a murder case after hearing testimony from a witness who convinced Lincoln his client was responsible. Lincoln’s longtime law partner William Herndon, who took over the case, admitted that the client’s behavior was “atrocious. The client was found guilty of manslaughter and imprisoned. And here, Lincoln’s sympathy set in. The honest lawyer felt so guilt-ridden, he petitioned the governor for a pardon and got it.

Herndon once famously said that two things were needed for Lincoln to succeed in defending a client: one was time and the other was belief that the cause was just. If either one was lacking, the case was lost.
In my work as an entrepreneur at the intersection of business litigation and being an expert witness and economic consultant, I have faced situations that promised profits but could compromise my integrity. There have been times I’ve had to turn away opportunities that didn’t align with my values, even if it meant taking a professional risk.

For example, one time an individual approached us seeking to sue another, and it seemed they wanted to litigate out of personal vendettas rather than legitimate claims. They even said, “We don’t care about whether we win or not, we want to cause them harm.” They hadn’t tried arbitration or having a conversation. I always feel that if somebody is pursuing litigation or wants to engage us for the wrong reasons, we have a moral obligation to explore other solutions. This brings to mind Lincoln’s saying: “Just because it’s legally right doesn’t make it morally right.”

Lincoln the president

By the 1850s, the United States was far from united—one side demanded an end to slavery and the other defended it. Anyone entering the White House or Congress was walking into the center of the biggest debate in U.S. history. Abraham Lincoln proved up to the task.

Upon taking office, Lincoln moved slowly and cautiously toward abolishing slavery. He didn’t have the constitutional authority to do so when he took office and trying to would have sparked a backlash. More importantly, Lincoln had an additional goal: keeping the nation from splitting into two. Allowing such a division would end slavery only in Northern states. An independent Confederacy, he believed, would prolong and expand slavery in the American South and potentially elsewhere by example. And even if or when an independent American South did eventually end slavery, the legal rights afforded to Black people would likely have been far less than in the North.

Other dilemmas Lincoln faced included debate over the Union’s treatment of Confederate civilians. Lincoln personally authorized harsher treatment than some Union leaders thought appropriate, but Lincoln was balancing one ill against another.

Lincoln as a model

What was Lincoln’s moral compass in treading through these gray areas? That answer has to be his sense of sympathy and belief in honesty. The combination of the two goes a long way.

In politics, common gray areas range from pushing campaign promises we know we can’t keep to conflicts of interest. In finance, they range from maintaining one’s fiduciary relationships to self-dealing and investing using insider knowledge. In real estate, they range from simple honesty to pushing a home sale that’s not right for the buyer.

What is our moral compass in such gray areas? I often ask myself, what would Abraham Lincoln do?

One Golden Rule was central to Lincoln’s moral philosophy: “As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.” For Lincoln, the Golden Rule may have been more about being than doing.

Adam Ludwin, a business and maritime trial attorney based in Palm Beach, Florida, shared this perspective on Lincoln in correspondence with me:

“The ethical obligations that contemporary lawyers face today parallel similar ethical dilemmas faced by Abraham Lincoln in the 19th century. Regretfully, legal professionals may misrepresent or omit case facts to favor their clients rather than submitting the best possible legal argument. Like Lincoln, I believe that honesty and integrity are required characteristics of any attorney. In our oath of office, we pledge to ‘employ to maintain the causes confided to me such means only as are consistent with truth and honor, and will never seek to mislead the judge or jury by any artifice or false statement of fact or law.’ Abraham Lincoln’s adherence to the Golden Rule guided how he best represented his clients through an earnest lens of moral, legal, and ethical considerations.”

As Lincoln wrote in notes for a law lecture: “If in your own judgment, you cannot be an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being a lawyer. Choose some other occupation, rather than one in the choosing of which you do, in advance, consent to be a knave.”

People in every profession should consider this advice.

Sameer Somal is the CEO of Blue Ocean Global Technology and the author of CLE programs for the New York State Bar Association. He is an active litigation consultant and testifying subject matter expert witness on economic damages, intellectual property, mergers and acquisitions, and internet defamation.

ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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3. Forget originalism; some conservatives back…

Legal Theory

Forget originalism; some conservatives back ‘common-good constitutionalism,’ its embrace of strong rule

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 19, 2025, 11:37 am CST

Adrian Vermeule, a professor at Harvard Law School, is an “ideological lodestar” among conservatives who are impatient with originalism—the idea that the Constitution’s meaning can be determined by its text and the founders’ intent, according to a story by the New York Times.

Vermeule, dubbed “the godfather of post-originalism” by the New York Times, argued in a March 2020 essay in the Atlantic that originalism has “outlived its utility.”

Vermeule instead embraced an approach that he called “common-good constitutionalism” that goes beyond originalism in incorporating conservative values. Common-good constitutionalism is based on the idea that government helps direct society generally “toward the common good, and that strong rule in the interest of attaining the common good is entirely legitimate,” he wrote.

The main aim of common-good constitutionalism “is certainly not to maximize individual autonomy or to minimize the abuse of power,” Vermeule wrote. Instead the aim is “to ensure that the ruler has the power needed to rule well,” Vermeule wrote.

Critics on the left side and the right side of the political spectrum criticized Vermeule’s essay. On the liberal side, Garrett Epps, then a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, said in an April 2020 article in the Atlantic Vermeule was arguing for “authoritarian extremism.”

Some judges are also expressing interest in Vermeule’s theory, the New York Times reports. Two federal appeals judges attended a 2022 conference on common-good constitutionalism. They are Judge James C. Ho of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at New Orleans and Judge Paul B. Matey of the 3rd Circuit at Philadelphia.

In addition, some footnotes in federal appellate decisions have referred to Vermeule’s book on common-good constitutionalism, according to the New York Times.

Vice President JD Vance is familiar with Vermeule. Earlier this month, Vance shared a social media post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Vermeule that read: “Judicial interference with legitimate acts of state, especially the internal functioning of a co-equal branch, is a violation of the separation of powers.”

The next day, Vance posted: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.”

According to the New York Times, Vance is hinting at “wholesale ultra vires executive-branch impunity,” an idea that “is increasingly part of the Republican mainstream.”

Vermeule didn’t think that Vance went that far when he defended his comments in a Feb. 11 article in the Wall Street Journal.

Vance appeared to be referring to legal doctrines used by courts to determine whether they have jurisdiction to review executive action, Vermeule wrote.

“Judges often invoke the separation of powers to limit their own authority, to put certain classes of executive action off-limits from judicial review, or to shape and constrain the remedies they provide,” Vermeule wrote.

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3. Trump’s firing of NLRB member could lead…

Labor & Employment

Trump’s firing of NLRB member could lead to reconsideration of 1935 Supreme Court precedent

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 30, 2025, 12:09 pm CST

A challenge to a 1935 U.S. Supreme Court precedent could be brewing, after President Donald Trump fired a Democratic member of the National Labor Relations Board.

Fired board member Gwynne Wilcox has said she is “pursuing all legal avenues,” which could lead the administration to argue that Humphrey’s Executor v. United States should be overruled, report Law.com, the Volokh Conspiracy and Bloomberg Law.

The Supreme Court held in Humphrey’s Executor that Congress can prevent a president from removing without cause members of the Federal Trade Commission, a multimember independent agency.

The statute governing the NLRB says its members can be removed “upon notice and hearing, for neglect of duty or malfeasance in office, but for no other cause.” The Trump administration has said Wilcox and NLRB general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo were fired because they were “far-left appointees with radical records of upending long-standing labor law.”

Daniel Wolff, a partner at Crowell & Moring, told Law.com that he thinks that a lawsuit by Wilcox would be “a great vehicle for reconsideration of Humphrey’s Executor.”

“There’s already several Supreme Court justices that have signaled a desire to get the right case to revisit Humphrey’s Executor,” Wolff told Law.com. “I think the day of reckoning is coming.”

The administration could also argue that Humphrey’s Executor doesn’t protect Wilcox because of structural differences between the NLRB and the FTC, said Steve Swirsky, co-chair of Epstein Becker & Green’s labor management relations practice group, in an interview with Law.com.

Members of the NLRB don’t have to be balanced along partisan lines, while the FTC can’t have more than three commissioners from the same political party on its five-member board, Swirsky said.

In tension with Humphrey’s Executor is the June 2020 decision Seila Law v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, wrote Jonathan H. Adler, a professor at the Case Western Reserve University School of Law, at the Volokh Conspiracy.

The Supreme Court held in Seila Law that Congress can’t constitutionally impose a for-cause requirement for the removal of the director of the CFPB.

The high court distinguished Humphrey’s Executor, however, noting that the CFPB was headed by a single director, rather than a multimember board, and the single director had significant administrative and enforcement authority.

The administration nonetheless cited Seila Law in its letter justifying Wilcox’s firing, according to Bloomberg Law. The letter argued that NLRB members can be removed because they exercise executive power, and the board isn’t balanced along partisan lines.

Would the Supreme Court overrule Humphrey’s Executor? Administrative law professors interviewed by Bloomberg Law were divided on the likely outcome.

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3. Justice Jackson wore cowrie shell collar…

Judiciary

Justice Jackson wore cowrie shell collar to inauguration; was it ‘a sartorial expression of her dissent’?

By Debra Cassens Weiss

January 22, 2025, 12:03 pm CST

Was there a deeper meaning behind U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s neckwear choice at the inauguration for President Donald Trump?

Atop her judicial robe, Jackson wore a large, distinctive collar made of rows of cowrie shells—which come from sea snails and have long been part of African culture, according to HuffPost and Ebony.

As a fashion statement, there was some disagreement. Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law in Houston, initially called the cowrie shells a “fashion faux pas,” while fashion historian Shelby Ivey Christie said the piece had undeniable visual impact.

The shell collar “brilliantly reinterprets the traditional judicial jabot through an African American cultural lens,” Christie told HuffPost. The shell pattern suggests “ceremony and significance” along with “importance and intentionality,” she said.

But there may have been a deeper meaning, according to HuffPost, Vogue, Ebony, the Root, Parade, Above the Law and a Volokh Conspiracy post by Blackman.

The shells once served as currency in Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands, and they convey prosperity, Christie said. They are sometimes thought to have protective properties, including protection from enslavement, and to be conduits of ancestral wisdom. They are also associated with womanhood and fertility.

Those multiple meanings led Vogue to see the collar as possibly “a sartorial expression of her dissent,” with a nod to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The late justice was known for her dissent collars, worn when she dissented and when she arrived at the court the day after Trump’s first election in 2016.

Blackman is troubled by the possibility of a talisman meaning. Even if Jackson didn’t intend to convey a message that she was protecting herself from evil, “there is clearly the (literal) appearance of impropriety,” he wrote at the Volokh Conspiracy.

I love this so much!

At the inauguration, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wore a distinctive collar adorned with cowrie shells, which are believed to offer protection from evil in African traditions.

This choice mirrors the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s practice of using… pic.twitter.com/BX6WzvwVt5

— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) January 21, 2025

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The American Bar Association’s Cornerstones of Democracy Commission, on which I am privileged to serve, encourages the legal profession to lead the way in promoting civics, civility and collaboration—the cornerstones of American democracy—to restore confidence in democratic institutions and the judicial system, and to promote the rule of law.

As we examine the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we can see Dr. King employing these three cornerstones of democracy as he challenged our nation to live up to its ideals.

First, Dr. King mastered the initial cornerstone of democracy which is civics. Dr. King had a clear understanding of how the three branches of our government worked, and how the separation of powers provided the necessary checks and balances needed for a diverse, stable and just society.

Dr. King knew that our constitutional democracy had the ability to deliver justice for every citizen. What was lacking was the willingness of those empowered to control our government to have it work for the mutual benefit of all citizens. For that reason, Dr. King met with Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, as leaders of the executive branch, to make sure our nation’s civil rights agenda was also a presidential priority.

Dr. King also met with congressional leaders in order to work with them to fashion the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act that, in combination, eliminated many of the significant barriers to full and free participation in our society by women, people of color and other underrepresented groups in our nation.

Dr. King also enlisted the third branch of our government, the federal judiciary. With the help of talented lawyers such as future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Dr. King petitioned our federal courts to strike down laws that denied equal treatment to all citizens.

Dr. King was also very skilled at deploying the second cornerstone of democracy, which is collaboration. While Dr. King was the head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, in many respects the SCLC was a loose confederation of churches and other organizations dedicated to ending government sanctioned segregation and discrimination. Many of these other organizations had their own view of how to proceed. Fortunately, Dr. King was able to find the common ground around which all of these distinct groups were able to coalesce and collaborate.

And then there is the third cornerstone of democracy, which is civility. In the face of vicious and false accusations, Dr. King did not respond in kind. He made the conscious decision to remain peaceful in his conduct and in his rhetoric. This decision prevented the messages of the civil rights community from being transformed into shouting matches. Instead, by conducting himself at all times in a respectful and civil manner, Dr. King was able to nullify the vitriol that was directed at him by those who opposed equal treatment for all citizens under the law.

As Dr. King harnessed the power of our cornerstones of democracy to advance a national civil rights movement, I am confident we can attack other social problems using these same tools.

Robust civics education, focused collaboration and intentional civility: These three cornerstones of our democracy can also be marshaled to address other major societal problems. On that list of other major societal problems, I would include the following three areas that need urgent attention.

First is homelessness and the lack of affordable housing. Second is gun violence in our schools, in our places of worship and on the streets of our communities. And third is poverty and the lack of economic opportunity. A renewed emphasis on the three cornerstones of our democracy will allow us to mobilize to address these burdens on our society.

The opening line of our U.S. Constitution begins with the words, “We the people.” For over 200 years, we the people have endeavored to make the promises of our constitution available to all by doing these three things: (1) Making sure each successive generation received the necessary civics education to effectively engage our system of governance; (2) Making sure we understood that by collaborating we could achieve the common good without sacrificing the rights of any group; and (3) At all times remembering our fellow citizens are our neighbors and not our enemies, and therefore we should treat them in a respectful and civil manner.

As we begin this new year, this is a time for action. We have the three cornerstones of democracy available for our use to meet the challenges of our time.

Dr. King showed us how to use these tools to bring about significant positive social change. Now it is our turn to do the same.

Michael E. Flowers is a member of Steptoe & Johnson, where he practices general corporate and commercial real estate law within the law firm’s business law department. He is also the firm’s director of diversity and inclusion. Flowers also is a former chair of the ABA Business Law Section and a former member of the ABA Board of Governors. He currently serves as a member of the ABA Cornerstones of Democracy Commission and as a member of ABA House of Delegates.

ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

Educators and students preparing to begin a new semester can make good use of lessons about leadership and purposeful service that can be gleaned from the beautiful life of former President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter. That is especially so for law school communities for at least two reasons.

First, although lawyers are a tiny fraction of the population (0.4% nationally according to the ABA, four for every 1,000 people), they have always achieved a disproportionately large presence in public and private sector leadership roles. Accordingly, U.S. law schools are focusing on how best to prepare students for leadership roles. Carter’s life is a rich case study of the virtues of civility, collaboration and cooperation that the ABA has identified as hallmarks of professionalism.

Second, with the privileges of our honorable profession come public responsibilities. We can use our knowledge and skills to do well, but we a requirement of our law licenses is to strive to do good, as well, through pro bono work and other selfless service. Carter’s relentless determination to make the world better for others is a shining beacon for aspiring lawyers to follow.

Amid a constant barrage of disturbing news, even the gloomiest short days and long dark nights of this new year are brightened by remembering Carter.

Understandably and appropriately, people everywhere are discussing the lessons of Carter’s life. He deserves recognition for being a good and decent man committed to unwavering public service to his country and people all over the world. Perhaps he will be remembered most and longest for what he taught us about how to work and live.

In retrospect, the restless striving that helped clear his improbable untrod path—from the farmland of a small town in Georgia to commanding a nuclear submarine, from the statehouse in Georgia as a contrarian anti-segregation governor to the White House, followed by four decades as the most stubbornly impactful humanitarian on the planet—was driven by hard work, perseverance in the face of setbacks, strength of character, and virtue grounded in the universal code of conduct that he drew from his faith. These are qualities that serve any law student and lawyer well.

Historians, in my opinion, are likely to agree with former first lady Rosalynn Carter, who chaffed when people described her husband as the greatest former president. She often would correct them by pointing out that he was an excellent president, as well. Actually, we got two terms of work out of Carter during his single term.

A few days after he was sworn in, Carter moved to heal old wounds. He granted complete amnesty to Vietnam draft evaders, and his daughter Amy began fourth grade in a historic Black public elementary school a few blocks from the White House. He successfully pursued the Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt (which stand to this day), the Panama Canal treaties and the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty II.

Working with Congress, he established the Department of Energy and the Department of Education, sought and signed legislation limiting strip mining, and created the vast Arctic Refuge while doubling the land dedicated to national parks and wildlife preserves. Carter wrestled with “stagflation;” energy crises; the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster; the Nicaraguan revolution; the end of détente and the renewed Cold War over the Soviets invasion of Afghanistan, which precipitated embargoes and the boycott of the 1980 summer Olympics in Moscow; and, of course, the Iranian hostage crises and disastrous failed rescue attempt.

Nicholas W. Allard.

On Jan. 20, 1977, during Carter’s inauguration, my wife, Marla, and I somehow wormed our way into the front row of the enormous crowd lining the Pennsylvania Avenue parade route. Unabated patriotism and pride from the recent bicentennial observances bolstered the collective sense of relief and expectation for Carter’s presidency in those post-Watergate days, when the country also was still pained by the fractures of the Cold War, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.

Suddenly, the new president’s long black bullet-proof limousine stopped right in front of us. Carter and his beloved, Rosalynn, got out and a started walking hand in hand toward the White House. He flashed his signature toothy grin and waved, and the crowd roared its delighted approval. Every single person among the thousands there felt as if Carter was waving and smiling at each of them. Now, an inaugural stroll has become an obligatory (and carefully orchestrated) ritual, like routinely recognizing special guests in the balcony seats at the State of the Union speech. In 1977, it was a spontaneous joyful brave gesture.

Carter was then, and always, an American original, an uncommon man with an innate genuine common touch. A teacher.

After Carter lost the 1980 presidential election in a landslide to former President Ronald Reagan, the Carters devoted themselves energetically to a life of service to others, including work in communities building housing for less-advantaged Americans; humanitarian and social good works at home and abroad, such as monitoring elections; and advocating for environmental protection, peace and world health causes. He even is credited with eradicating a 3-foot-long Guinea worm parasite that each year preyed on millions of people in Africa and Asia.

The Carters remained true to their humble mission, even as accolades like the Nobel Peace Prize piled up, along with unusual honors, such as having a naval ship and a fish species named after Carter. Throughout it all, he taught Sunday school deep into his 90s. Practicing what he preached, he leveraged his fame not for profit but to advocate human rights and love for his neighbors in hot spots all over the world courageously and often controversially.

On Aug. 25, 2009, news of the death of my former boss, U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, reached us on our mobile phones just before the flight attendants secured the door for a long flight home from a trip to Israel. We had been talking about Kennedy’s failing health the previous evening at dinner in the lovely gardens of the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem.

At that dinner, Carter and Rosalynn were, to our surprise, enjoying a quiet meal a few tables away. We asked the headwaiter to deliver a note thanking them for their continuing public service. Carter’s unexpected return note was extraordinarily gracious.

As we continued our dinner, we recounted the bitter Democratic Party presidential primary fight in 1980 between Carter and Kennedy. We especially recalled the awkward moment on the convention stage when, after Carter secured the nomination, he unsuccessfully tried to get Kennedy to shake hands and pose together. It must have been painfully embarrassing for the sitting president to unsuccessfully chase the iconic senator around the convention stage for a photo op of unity that never happened. But Carter tried.

Poignantly, after we landed in Philadelphia, as we walked through the concourse, the first voice we heard on an airport television, delivering a touching elegy for Kennedy, was Carter, speaking via satellite link from Israel. We cried.

The respectful attention deservedly being paid to Carter’s remarkable life and career provides us with a powerful teaching moment. Not a bad lesson for law students and lawyers from a life well lived by a great teacher.

Nicholas W. Allard is the founding Randall C. Berg Jr. dean of the Jacksonville University College of Law in Florida and previously was the president and dean of the Brooklyn Law School in New York. Allard has worked as the chair of the ABA Standing Committee on the Law Library of Congress, as the chair of its Communications Committee, as a member of the ABA Government Relations Committee, and as a member of its Task Force on Lobbying Reform.

ABAJournal.com is accepting queries for original, thoughtful, nonpromotional articles and commentary by unpaid contributors to run in the Your Voice section. Details and submission guidelines are posted at “Your Submissions, Your Voice.”

This column reflects the opinions of the author and not necessarily the views of the ABA Journal—or the American Bar Association.

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Executive Branch

Biden should pardon Trump, as well as Trump’s enemies, says Watergate figure John Dean

By Debra Cassens Weiss

December 5, 2024, 9:19 am CST

Former lawyer and Nixon White House counsel John Dean is suggesting that President Joe Biden should go further with his pardons.

At the top of Dean’s suggested pardons list is President-elect Donald Trump. Others who should receive blanket pardons include everyone “on Trump’s enemies list,” including special counsels who investigated and prosecuted Trump, and everyone on the special counsel teams.

Dean made his suggestions in a post on the social media site Bluesky.

Fox News and HuffPost noted Dean’s recommendations.

Special counsels who should be pardoned, Dean said, are Jack Smith (who prosecuted Trump in the classified-documents and election-subversion cases) and Robert Mueller (who investigated but found no collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign).

In an interview with CNN, Dean said the pardons “would create a safe harbor” for the recipients and “take out the retribution and revenge element” from the Trump campaign.

Fox News noted Trump’s comments about retribution at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2023.

“I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution,” Trump said.

Trump later told Fox News host Sean Hannity in June that people worried about retribution are wrong because “it has to stop because otherwise we’re not going to have a country.”

He added however, that “based on what they’ve done, I would have every right to go after them.”

Dean, who was convicted of obstruction of justice in the Watergate coverup, became a whistleblower in congressional testimony about the break-in. He has been “an outspoken critic of Trump,” Fox News reports.

See also:

Trump’s lawyers cite Hunter Biden pardon in NY hush money dismissal bid

Must Hunter Biden’s indictment be dismissed after presidential pardon? Special counsel doesn’t think so

With Hunter pardon, Biden joins short list of presidents who absolved family

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3. Meet the sheriffs who believe they are ‘The…

The Modern Law Library

Meet the sheriffs who believe they are ‘The Highest Law in the Land’

By Lee Rawles

October 24, 2024, 1:30 pm CDT

The first image conjured in your mind by the word “sheriff” might be the protagonist of a Wild West movie or Robin Hood’s foe, the sheriff of Nottingham. But unless you’re a resident of Alaska, Connecticut, Hawaii and Rhode Island, there’s likely an elected law enforcement official in your area who has that title.

In The Highest Law in the Land: How the Unchecked Power of Sheriffs Threatens Democracy, lawyer and journalist Jessica Pishko takes a deep dive into the history of this position in American life and at a far-right movement hoping to co-opt the role of sheriff to advance extreme conservative policies.

There are about 3,000 sheriffs in the United States, one per county (or county equivalent). In this episode of The Modern Law Library podcast, Pishko and the ABA Journal’s Lee Rawles discuss how the rural/urban divide impacts the demographics of sheriffs. Ninety-seven percent of the land area in the United States is considered rural, but only 20% of the people live in those rural areas.

In the 2020 census, Greene County, Alabama, had 7,730 residents and one sheriff. Cook County, Illinois, which contains the city of Chicago, had 5,275,541 residents and one sheriff. This leads to a larger proportion of sheriffs representing a rural and more conservative demographic, Pishko says.

Pishko explains the “constitutional sheriffs” movement, including its similarities to other fringe movements like the sovereign citizens. Adherents claim that sheriffs alone have the power to interpret how the Constitution and the first 10 Amendments should be enforced in their counties. They claim that state governments, the federal government, the president and the U.S. Supreme Court have no power over sheriffs, and that as elected officials, sheriffs are answerable only to their constituents.

In this episode, Pishko also describes the large role that sheriffs have in incarcerations, how their enforcement powers differ or overlap with police, and what disciplinary or oversight measures are available when a sheriff abuses their office. Pishko and Rawles also discuss the roles that sheriffs might have in local elections and whether they might have an impact on the 2024 presidential election.

In This Podcast:

Jessica Pishko. (Photo by Parker J. Pfister)

Jessica Pishko is a journalist and a lawyer with a JD from Harvard Law School and a master of fine arts degree from Columbia University. She has been reporting on the criminal legal system for a decade, with a focus on the political power of sheriffs since 2016. In addition to her newsletter Posse Comitatus, her writings have been featured in the New York Times, Politico, Rolling Stone, the Atlantic, the Appeal, Slate and Democracy Docket. She has been awarded journalism fellowships from the Pulitzer Center and Type Investigations and was a 2022 New America fellow. A longtime Texas resident, she currently lives with her family in North Carolina.