John Dowd

* President Trump tweeted a letter that his lawyer John Dowd wrote to former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis about criticism Mattis lodged against President Trump. Guess Dowd can save money on a stamp… [Hill]

* The attorney accused of firebombing an NYPD police car during protests last week has been suspended from his Biglaw firm. [New York Post]

* A Texas attorney is accused of charging homeless people exorbitant fees to help process their stimulus payments. [KHOU.com]

* Attorneys are fearful over plans to reopen Brooklyn courthouses closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As someone who has attended CCP and JCP in Kings County many times, I can understand the concern. [New York Daily News]

* Jay-Z lent his private jet to Ahmaud Arbery’s legal team so they could make it to a court proceeding on time. [E! Online]

* Amazon is facing a lawsuit alleging that warehouse workers were not properly protected from COVID-19. Thought Amazon would just have robot workers by now… [Fox News]

* You better get ready, because the next month at the Supreme Court is going to be a complete sh*tshow. From the scandalous trademarks to the census citizenship question to partisan and racial gerrymandering to race in jury selection to double jeopardy, this could get pretty crazy. [CNN]

* From the “totally not at all obstruction” file: According to a recently released transcript, one of Donald Trump’s lawyers asked Michael Flynn’s attorney for a “heads up” if any of the information Flynn planned to give Robert Mueller would be damaging to the president. [Big Law Business]

* In somewhat related news, the Justice Department rejected a judge’s order to release transcripts of Michael Flynn’s conversations with the Russian ambassador during the presidential transition. [New York Times]

* Want to feel old? Today is the last day that the LSAT will be administered as a fully paper-and-pencil test. The next administration will be a hybrid before the exam becomes all digital. [Law.com]

* Another day, another Biglaw firm falling prey to a cyber scam. In case you missed it, the email accounts of two DLA Piper attorneys were compromised which led to some fishy monetary requests transactions occurring. [Am Law International]

* Alabama’s new abortion law takes aim at a Supreme Court that just all but junked stare decisis. How’s that “no drama” Court looking, Mr. Chief Justice? [NPR]

* Law firms are in the midst of a decent financial run, so obviously they’ve stopped innovating because self-relection is for losers. [American Lawyer]

* John Dowd has registered as a lobbyist eschewing the customary diplomatic game of pretending not to be a lobbyist for a couple years after leaving the service of the president. [National Law Journal]

* Trump pardoned Conrad Black, a fraudster who has taken to calling the Mueller probe a sham… which appears to be a criminal’s ticket to exoneration these days. [Law360]

* SEC enforcement actions are reaching a fever pitch and they’re making sure they stay out of court. [Corporate Counsel]

* “I considered crashing my car just to take a week off….” [Legal Cheek]

* Law schools in North and South Carolina have canceled classes for the foreseeable future so that students, faculty, and staff can evacuate the area and hunker down before Hurricane Florence arrives. Please be careful and stay safe, everyone. [Law.com]

* President Trump is eager to choose Emmet Flood to succeed Don McGahn as the next White House counsel. Ty Cobb, one of Trump’s former lawyers, is in Flood’s camp because he’s “battled investigations from the White House before—[and] that’s what will be coming.” [Wall Street Journal]

* Earlier this week, Bob Woodward said that former Trump attorney John Dowd told the president he couldn’t testify in the Russia investigation because he’s “disabled” and “can’t tell the truth.” That sounds just about right. [People]

* The University of California Berkeley School of Law may soon be doing away with almost all references to John Henry Boalt thanks to his racist views. Public comment on the issue will close on Halloween, and then Dean Erwin Chemerinsky may formally apply to dename Boalt Hall. Let’s see what happens with this one. [ABA Journal]

* “This is clear interference with an ongoing criminal investigation.” Representatives from the New York state tax department reportedly met with Michael Cohen’s attorney yesterday over the objections of Southern District of New York. [CNN]

* A family of conspiracy theorists: Donald Trump Jr. says he’s not worried about going to jail as a result of Robert Mueller’s Russia probe, but “[t]hat doesn’t mean they won’t try to create something” that could put him in jail. [USA Today]

* Michael Cohen is talking to John Dean because 2018 is the new 1973. [WTOP]

* Shocking no one, John Dowd doesn’t understand basic laws. [Washington Post]

* Andrew Cuomo signed a bill cracking down on bad prosecutors. He’s been in office for 7 years but he finally got around to this because Cynthia Nixon said something about criminal justice reform. [Law360]

* UNC students toppled a confederate statute because the school wasn’t doing anything about it. [Huffington Post]

* Will elite Biglaw firms suffer from mid-tier competition? Probably not, but maybe. [American Lawyer]

* Microsoft identifies more Russian hacking efforts because Microsoft is our default government now. [Courthouse News Service]

* Georgia is trying to kill kids. [AJC]

* FIFA fired its lawyer so if you want a job facilitating international graft on an epic scale, here’s your chance. [NY Times]

* “This isn’t some game. You are screwing with the work of the president of the United States.” This is what John Dowd reportedly said in response to special counsel Robert Mueller when the possibility of issuing a subpoena for President Trump to appear before a grand jury was raised during a meeting with the president’s legal team. [Washington Post]

* Unnamed Republican lawmakers have drafted articles of impeachment against Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, and he seems pretty pissed. Not only did he refuse to comment on documents that “nobody has the courage to put their name on,” but he countered that “the Department of Justice is not going to be extorted.” [USA Today]

* Per ex-White House aides, Ivanka Trump is “involved in everything,” so why hasn’t she been called in for questioning by Robert Mueller yet? Not only would the president “go nuclear,” but Mueller knows that “trying to interview Ivanka Trump would be like lighting a match to the highly combustible Donald Trump.” [Politico]

* For what it’s worth, Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein isn’t a fan of the fact that the Senate has been taking its sweet time to confirm his would-be colleagues at the Justice Department. The Criminal, Civil, Civil Rights, and Environment and Natural Resources Divisions have leaders in vote-pending purgatory. [National Law Journal]

* Before he had clients like Donald Trump and Sean Hannity, Michael Cohen was a personal injury attorney, and some of his clients allegedly staged their car “accidents” in an effort to commit insurance fraud. Some of Cohen’s clients are alleged to have not even been in the vehicle that was in the “accident” being litigated. [Rolling Stone]

* John Dowd says the Trump legal team had a “terrific” relationship with Robert Mueller’s office. Yeah… that’s probably why you’ve been forced off the Trump legal team. [National Law Journal]

* Becoming beloved by GCs isn’t difficult. Just give them 100 percent of your time for 50 percent of the cost. And if you can’t handle that, here are some other tips. [Law360]

* Mayer Brown boasts mother and son partner duo. [American Lawyer]

* BDO has a new report entitled Inside E-Discovery & Beyond: Reimagining Digital Risk. I think the problem is too many lawyers haven’t begun imagining digital risk, let alone reimagining it. [BDO]

* Facebook would really, really like you to know that you have privacy settings available to you. [The Recorder]

* Senior DOJ attorney bolting for LGBT rights organization. That’s a lateral move I didn’t expect. [The Hill]

* “This is crazy.” Donald Trump reportedly had members of his White House senior staff sign nondisclosure agreements that are supposed to last beyond his presidency. This raised some brows, but dissenters concluded that the contracts weren’t likely to be enforceable, so they signed on the dotted line. Yes, crazy. [Washington Post]

* With quotes from “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” President Trump’s personal lawyer, John Dowd, said — first on behalf of the president as his counsel, and later, on behalf of only himself (oopsie?) — that it’s time for the Mueller probe to end. [Daily Beast]

* And following a tweet storm about Mueller this weekend, it certainly seems like President Trump is gearing up to fire the special counsel. Congressional Republicans are less than pleased with the president’s behavior, and have issued a few stern warnings, urging Trump not to cross the “massive red [Mueller] line,” because “that would be the beginning of the end of his presidency.” [New York Times]

* Are you ready for legal sports betting? Your bookie might not be, but America’s four major U.S. sports leagues are preparing for anything and everything that could happen as a result of the Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling. [Washington Post]

* “What’re you in for?” “A law degree.” According to a report from the ACLU, debts “from medical bills to car payments to student loans” are being criminalized, and courts across the country are issuing arrest warrants. [Idaho Statesman]

* Christopher Tripp Zanetis, NYFD fire marshal, U.S. Air Force captain, Debevoise associate, RIP. We’ll have more on his passing later today. [American Lawyer]

* Waymo and Uber head to court in self-driving car battle. Uber’s characterizing Waymo’s allegations of industrial espionage as a conspiracy theory and hopes no one reads too much into the fact that Uber ran an industrial espionage group for years. [NPR]

* On February 2, Ropes & Gray was engaged by USA Gymnastics to investigate allegations of sexual abuse by Larry Nassar. Hey gang, we all loved the movie, but Groundhog Day doesn’t mean you actually get a do-over on all the stuff you screwed up before. [American Lawyer]

* John Dowd and Jay Sekulow don’t want Mueller to interview Trump. Ty Cobb thinks transparency and cooperation are the best policy. The existence of this story suggests Dowd and Sekulow are winning the internal struggle. [Business Insider]

* The Supreme Court isn’t going to intervene to protect Pennsylvania’s gerrymandered districts… [Courthouse News Service]

* … So, Pennsylvania Republicans are looking into impeaching the state supreme court justices who ruled against them. [Daily Intelligencer]

* Is this the least qualified lawyer to helm a Gitmo case? He certainly thinks so. [NY Times]

* Speaking of Gitmo, there’s a fight brewing over the Defense Department’s recent decision to strip prisoners of their rights to own their own art. [Hyperallergic]

* When the Brits refuse to extradite to the U.S., maybe it’s time to reconsider prison conditions. [The Intercept]

* Katten Munchin opens up in Dallas. [Law360]

* This weekend was full of huge news in Trumpland. Following Michael Flynn’s guilty plea, President Trump tweeted that he fired Flynn because he lied to the FBI. If you recall, Trump originally said that he’d fired Flynn because his former NSA adviser had lied to Vice President Pence. [New York Times]

* Here’s why Trump’s shift is pretty important, according to Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller: “Oh my god, he just admitted to obstruction of justice. If Trump knew Flynn lied to the FBI when he asked Comey to let it go, then there is your case.” [The Hill]

* Slow your roll, prosecutors. President Trump is now saying that he never asked former FBI director James Comey to stop investigating Flynn, even though Comey testified to that version of events before Congress. Per Trump, it’s “[j]ust more Fake News covering another Comey lie!” [CBS News]

* But wait, there’s even more! It seems that President Trump wasn’t the author of that tweet. Apparently it was written by one of his lawyers, John Dowd, who now says it was “[his] mistake” as he’s “out of the tweeting business” and “did not mean to break news.” [Washington Post; Axios]

* Finally, in case you missed it, the Senate passed its version of the tax bill in the dead of night as it was still being written, with a 20 percent tax rate for corporations. Now, President Trump — the client who will never be satisfied — says that rate might go up to 22 percent. [CNBC]

* Last, but not least, President Trump has endorsed accused child-toucher Roy Moore via tweet (obviously) for the Republican Senate seat that was left open by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. This has reached a whole new level of ridiculousness. [CNN]

* In other news, CVS is planning to buy Aetna for $69 billion. We’ve not yet seen which law firms are representing the companies on the deal, but this is a move that could seriously change the way our health care system looks. (And as an aside, it could seriously change the way your EOBs look, since CVS is a fan of those absurdly long receipts.) [DealBook / New York Times]

* Brock Turner, the former Stanford swimmer who served just three months in jail for sexually assaulting an unconscious woman, is now appealing, claiming that his trial was “fundamentally unfair.” Most would counter that raping an unconscious woman in the street is what’s really “fundamentally unfair,” but that’s neither here nor there. [NBC News]