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Jonathan Turley Wanted For Vicious Murder Of Nonsensical Straw Arguments Of His Own Making

The professor lashes out at Trump's critics and he really hopes the networks are listening.

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Jonathan Turley continues to compose open letter mash notes about Donald Trump for the benefit of any cable news producer who might be looking to fill 5 minutes of dead air. The longtime George Washington Law School professor has reoriented his latter years into an ongoing effort to get himself booked as the contrarian Eli Cash of constitutional theory, hoping to squeeze out another 15 minutes of the sad simulacrum of “fame” that fills the CNN timeslot where the vast majority of the world watches Survivor or enjoys MasterTopChoppedChef or stares into the blank void of existential chaos that is always closing in on them.

Turley’s current bugaboo arises from Donald Trump’s ill-conceived tweet from earlier this week, where he threatened to withhold funding from Michigan for flirting with absentee voting. Right after that, a dam broke and unleashed a catastrophe upon the state and Trump realized that threatening to cut off aid to a swing state under those conditions might be seen as gauche. In any event, actually respected legal scholars quickly pointed out that cutting off federal funds because a state doesn’t support your effort to suppress voter turnout would be, you know, illegal for a variety of reasons.

Seeing an opportunity to get a few minutes to tell a national audience that the Framers totally intended for presidents to punish specific states for political disagreements, Turley took to every outlet he could to question the credibility of scholars who criticized the possibility that this runs contrary to a wide swath of laws.

Sigh.

The crux of Turley’s nonsense is a contrived hand-wringing over the idea that Trump could ever act without legal authority for anything. Turley concedes that Trump shouldn’t punish Michigan, but refuses to countenance any claim that he lacked the authority to do so. It requires the meticulous construction of a fictional universe populated by unwarranted caveats.

A lot of Turley’s ire is directed at Professor Steve Vladeck who said, “Except that withholding federal funds over (unrelated) policy disagreements is itself ‘illegal[] and without authorization.'” That seems pretty straightforward. Assuming Congress allocated funds to election security measures and Michigan refused to take any measures, a president could take that money back. But since that’s not what’s being proposed here, it’s an exercise of power beyond the president’s legal authority.

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Prompting Turley to write:

Once again, the statement could be entirely legal if the funds were discretionary or Trump asked for the restrictions from Congress.  Such things appear to matter little.  Simply declaring a tweet a crime is instantly accepted and repeated on networks like CNN and MSNBC.

If wishes were horses.

This isn’t even helpful analysis. People pointed out that in the reality where these funds aren’t magically discretionary and Congress doesn’t intervene — which it would not because here on Earth-1, Nancy Pelosi isn’t planning to give Trump a pot of money to extort Democratic governors — then there is no legal authority for the order Trump proposed in plain English. That’s entirely cogent analysis.

But at least Turley’s powers of projection are still running at top form as he bemoans shamelessly chasing cable news hits.

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And what of this aside about “declaring a tweet a crime”? That doesn’t seem to be what’s going on at all here. But it’s not thrown in there accidentally, it’s that nice slab of red meat for right-leaning producers who revel in turning the First Amendment into an arch-narrative that the thought police are just oppressing them.

President Trump also possesses a right to freedom of speech like other citizens. He was objecting to the use of mail voting as inherently more susceptible to fraud — a view shared by many.  He then said that he would ask to limit funds.  We do not criminalize such statements in this country.

As the Dude informs Walter Sobchak, “This isn’t a First Amendment thing, man.” No one, absolutely no one, suggested that Trump’s tweets were crimes, they explained that the policy Trump described would be either unauthorized or an illegal act. Turley should be ashamed of himself for trying to jam this square peg in that round hole.

He also lashes out at former Director of the Office of Government Ethics Walter Shaub, who suggested that — if carried out — Trump’s proposal would run afoul of a criminal statute barring an official from using appropriations for “interfering with, restraining, or coercing any individual in the exercise of his right to vote at any election.” Firing up the parallel universe portal gun, Turley responds:

Again, the analysis leaps to a conclusion without any factual foundation.  Trump could have been referring to asking Congress for such restrictions.

Coulda, but didna.

Moreover, if the funds were discretionary, it would distributed according to the congressional design.

Yes… do you have any theory on which specific legislation was designed to allow this proposal? Maybe take a few minutes to research that before committing this tripe to the page? Honestly, Turley is the guy who lists every defense to the jury and then never bothers to propose a theory of how his client actually meets any of them.

Finally, even if funds were restricted in conflict with congressional intent, one would have to prove that it was done “for the purpose of interfering with, restraining, or coercing any individual in the exercise of his right to vote.”

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Crimes need to be proven? Sterling insight.

Again, we would need to know the specifics before declaring that the tweet is clearly contemplating a crime.

Jonathan Turley is what happens if the words “this isn’t a question as much as a comment” took human form.

It seems like a century ago — but it was only last month — when Turley decided to tweet out his “Unfrozen Caveman Performative White Nationalist” routine about how he has no idea what Chicken Tikka Masala is but suspects it’s a liberal elitist plot. The disingenuousness on display in all of this is sickening. Yes, he is fully aware that in 90 percent of cases, and 100 percent of the realistic ones, what Trump proposed while Tweeting from the toilet the other day was illegal, just like he’s fully aware that Indian food exists.

Look, maybe Turley was just trying to clarify the analysis out there by pointing out that “actually there are a few, admittedly unlikely, excuses that could justify Trump’s suggestion here” as opposed to launching a baseless attack on the credibility of any scholar suggesting that this might be illegal (despite the fact that he himself implicitly concedes that it would be in the absence of these farcical exceptions).

But that would require reading a whole lot of unwarranted caveats into the plain text that he wrote. And that would just be silly.

No, Trump Did Not Commit A Crime In Threatening To Withhold Funds From Michigan [Jonathan Turley]

Earlier: Jonathan Turley Doesn’t Understand All Your Crazy Sounding Ethnic Food!

HeadshotJoe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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