Eric Columbus
@EricColumbus
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Senior editor @lawfare. Obama appointee at DOJ/DHS. Litigator for @SpeakerPelosi @January6thCmte. @YankeeStadium đ vendor. Wannabe historian. Dad joker.
Washington, DC | NYC diaspora
Joined October 2012
Last week, with the change in House control, I left a great job. I was Special Litigation Counsel in the House Office of General Counsel, litigating on behalf of Congressional committees and @SpeakerPelosi, and handling special projects. A long, self-indulgent thread follows. 1/
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There is some, uh, interesting math here. 654% discounts!
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HAPPENING IN JUST UNDER AN HOUR at 4pm ET Trials of the Trump Administration live with Benjamin Wittes, Loren Voss, @AnnaBower, @rparloff, @EricColumbus, and @mollylroberts on domestic deployments, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more âŹď¸
Tomorrow at 4pm ET, Benjamin Wittes, Loren Voss, @AnnaBower, @rparloff, and @EricColumbus will discuss the legal challenges to the National Guard deployments in Portland and Chicago, litigation over the efforts to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.
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This is the problem--threat of acute political pain can only work if there's forbearance, but no real leverage if they're convinced you'll do it anyway.
Murray says RIFs could have happened anyway: âA shutdown does not give Trump or Vought new, special powers to cause more chaos or permanently weaken more basic servicesâ âThis is nothing new, and no one should be intimidated by these crooks.â
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I wrote for @lawfare about the Letitia James indictment -- what's actually in it, not what everyone expected to be in it. Spoiler: It's still very bad!
lawfaremedia.org
Lindsey Halligan didn't have a strong case against Letitia James. She indicted her anyway.
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Are You Smarter Than a Politician? Game Show w/ Joshua Lisec, Kaecey Rasmussen, Burnin T
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Imagining a time traveler going back to the height of DOGE mania and saying âin 6 months Elon will have completely given up his ambitions of transforming the government and pivoted to a more achievable goal of making sexy AI-generated cartoonsâ
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Boy, I dunno. The fact that we didn't see a large number of indictments of Dems in Trump's first term doesn't appear to be for lack of trying.
Unfortunately for Democrats, some of whom are complaining that âTrump would do this anywayâ even without those prior indictments, we actually have a 45th presidential administration where no such things happened and that was also the presidency of Donald J. Trump. Two wrongs do
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Marco Rubio co-signed a letter in support of the nomination of MarĂa Corina Machado for the Nobel Peace Prize. Hereâs the letter he and several other GOP lawmakers sent to the Nobel committee last year. Mike Waltz also co-signed the letter.
President Trump will continue making peace deals, ending wars, and saving lives. He has the heart of a humanitarian, and there will never be anyone like him who can move mountains with the sheer force of his will. The Nobel Committee proved they place politics over peace.
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I was told that if I didn't vote for Trump, Christians would come under attack for living out their faith. (And they were right.)
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I know the president spews so much delusional word-vomit that we casually dismiss this stuff, but calling the small business plaintiffs in the tariff cases "enemies of the country" is still really shitty
Trump: "I can create peace with tariffs. I'm using them for a lot of different reasons. If that power was taken away from the president, it would be a terrible terrible day for our country. And I would say many of the things I've done could be eradicated ... these are enemies of
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Every day, it gets more North Korean.
Brooke Rollins: "We had an amazing cabinet meeting. President Trump walked in before the cameras were there. The cabinet is seated around the table, and we all stood up, just his team, and gave him a two minute standing ovation. I don't think anybody has talked about that.
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This is just objectively, obviously true, and any Republican official or conservative pundit who disagrees is lying to you.
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Tomorrow at 4pm ET, Benjamin Wittes, Loren Voss, @AnnaBower, @rparloff, and @EricColumbus will discuss the legal challenges to the National Guard deployments in Portland and Chicago, litigation over the efforts to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and more.
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The Yankees have not won the World Series under a Republican president since Eisenhower.
Trump cursed the Yankees
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Surgeon General in Trumpâs first termđđ
Disinformation and the destruction of public health & Americaâs trust in doctors will kill more people than cigarettes. Neither I nor the other five living Surgeons General wanted to call for this unprecedented warning- but all felt compelled by duty to do so.
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Back on April 2, Speaker Johnson swore in 2 House Republicans - during a pro forma session - who were elected the day before. Anyone who says Adelita Grijalva D-AZ can only be sworn in when the House is back and voting is completely bullshitting you.
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It actually seems sort of obvious that if youâre investigating a former president of the United States for trying to subvert an election, youâd probe some of contacts he and alleged co-conspirators had with people he was trying to enlist/pressure to overturn the results.
Why would the FBI need to look at the toll records of senators? See Footnote 132 in Smithâs final report: At around the same time as he issued his 6:01 p.m. Tweet, Mr. Trump tried to reach two U.S. Senators, and he also directed Co-Conspirator 1 to call Members of CongressâŚ
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Biggest lie about MAGA in Chicago since Jussie Smollett
Trump: "You have Black women with MAGA hats on in Chicago. All over the place. They want the Guard to come in."
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Wait how is she going to balance this with all of her obligations at the University of Austin
Breaking News: Paramount is buying The Free Press for $150 million and appointing Bari Weiss, the news site's co-founder, as the editor in chief of CBS News. https://t.co/8hvx1Vn8wJ
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Shockedâshockedâto discover that the guy who invents Portland fires doesnât know the judge he appointed is a woman.
Trump on Portland ruling: I wasnât served well by the people who pick judges. I appointed the judge and it goes like that. If he made that decisionâPortland is burning to the ground⌠all you have to do is look at the TV and read your newspapers. That judge ought to be ashamed
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There are ways, per every court, that a president can overstep his authority to deploy the military. This Trump-appointed judge found that he did so here â in part because DOJ presented no evidence of a threat that canât be managed by regular law enforcement. Millerâs issue
Legal insurrection. The President is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces, not an Oregon judge. Portland and Oregon law enforcement, at the direction of local leaders, have refused to aid ICE officers facing relentless terrorist assault and threats to life. (There are more
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