Category: Blog Post

On February 28, 2020, a three-judge Panel held—in an eighty-two page opinion that including a concurrence and a dissent—that the House Judiciary Committee could not maintain a subpoena-enforcement action seeking to coerce the attendance of former White House Counsel Donald McGahn before the Committee as part of its impeachment investigation.  The Committee...

I recently served as appellate counsel to an elected county official in Ohio who was tried, convicted, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment for fraud and extortion based on conduct far less serious than what the House of Representative Managers presented in the impeachment trial of President Trump.  As articulated by...

Committee on the Judiciary of the U.S. House of Rep. v. McGahn II, No. 19-5288, 2020 WL 1149883,            ___ F.3d ___ (D.C. Cir. Feb. 28, 2020) Editorial Note:   This decision lays bare the dilemma that arises when the Executive Branch refuses to cooperate with...

In ancient Greece, speech was thought to be superior to writing. Socrates said that true knowledge and understanding is not served by writing because it leads to misunderstanding and cannot be questioned. He told Phaedrus to inform speechwriters and lawmakers: "that if their compositions are based on knowledge of the truth, and...

In the Dodd Frank Act, Congress directed several federal agencies, including the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (FRB) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), [i] to jointly promulgate a regulation that requires securitizers of asset-backed securities to retain at least 5 percent of the credit risk of the underlying...

Big Law Experience, Small Firm Attention Combining “Big Law” relationships and a long history of success with small firm attention and cost-effective representation, Jerry Madden is pleased to announce the opening of Madden Law PLLC in Washington, D.C. Joining Jerry at the firm are seasoned and highly effective attorneys...

As the second of nine children in an Irish Catholic family, notions of fairness and justice were the subjects of near daily debate during my childhood. With so many siblings, life seemed like rolling team events, as one sport's season slipped into the next. From this beginning and a six-year stint in the...