Morning Docket

Morning Docket: 11.29.18

* Trump's talking about pardoning Manafort again. The power of the president to pardon people is clear, but the power of the president to tease a pardon to tamper with a witness is an interesting legal wrinkle. In a way, the pardon power is a Yoda conundrum: "do or do not, there is no publicly Tweeting signals." [NPR] * Speaking of Manafort, his attorneys claim their joint defense agreement covered his tipping off Trump on details of the Mueller investigation. Except... he pleaded guilty. That kind of ends the "joint defense" part. [The Hill] * Jeffrey Epstein's massive child sex ring allegations ended in a 13-month sentence and the prosecutor who bent over backward to protect him is now in Trump's cabinet. Oh, and somehow Cy Vance's obsequious starf**king ass shows up in this story because of course it does. [Miami Herald] * It's been a few days, so it's time to remind everyone that the Big 4 accounting firms are about to wreak havoc on Biglaw. [American Lawyer] * Stacey Abrams is suing over Georgia's voting laws, and Professor Hasen is here to explain how brilliant this suit is. [Slate] * Uber ordered to pay more than $1 million in fines because they failed to notice the surge pricing on data breach liability. [Corporate Counsel] * Attorney poised to become godparent to royal baby. [Legal Cheek] * The author of this piece is confused by how Republicans seem to completely misunderstand Section 230. It's probably not confusing: they just want to kill it and lying about it is the easiest path. [The Verge]

By Joe Patrice on November 29, 2018

Paul Manafort (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

* Trump’s talking about pardoning Manafort again. The power of the president to pardon people is clear, but the power of the president to tease a pardon to tamper with a witness is an interesting legal wrinkle. In a way, the pardon power is a Yoda conundrum: “do or do not, there is no publicly Tweeting signals.” [NPR]

* Speaking of Manafort, his attorneys claim their joint defense agreement covered his tipping off Trump on details of the Mueller investigation. Except… he pleaded guilty. That kind of ends the “joint defense” part. [The Hill]

* Jeffrey Epstein’s massive child sex ring allegations ended in a 13-month sentence and the prosecutor who bent over backward to protect him is now in Trump’s cabinet. Oh, and somehow Cy Vance’s obsequious starf**king ass shows up in this story because of course it does. [Miami Herald]

* It’s been a few days, so it’s time to remind everyone that the Big 4 accounting firms are about to wreak havoc on Biglaw. [American Lawyer]

* Stacey Abrams is suing over Georgia’s voting laws, and Professor Hasen is here to explain how brilliant this suit is. [Slate]

* Uber ordered to pay more than $1 million in fines because they failed to notice the surge pricing on data breach liability. [Corporate Counsel]

* Attorney poised to become godparent to royal baby. [Legal Cheek]

* The author of this piece is confused by how Republicans seem to completely misunderstand Section 230. It’s probably not confusing: they just want to kill it and lying about it is the easiest path. [The Verge]