Could the Third Time Be the Charm on Impeachment and Removal?; The New York Times, June 17, 2025

 Thomas B. Edsall, The New York Times; Could the Third Time Be the Charm on Impeachment and Removal?

"It was clear from the first day of President Trump’s second term that Round 2 would be very different from Round 1.

Trump’s revocation of law firms’ security clearances and access to federal facilities, his cutoff of research grants to Harvard, his multimillion-dollar cryptocurrency deals, his decision to send 700 Marines to contain protests in a five-block section of Los Angeles, his usurpation of congressional power over federal spending — all of these acts have left millions of Americans aggravated and apprehensive, even as a substantial number of U.S. citizens remain untouched and largely unmoved.

We now have a president imposing an agenda far more dangerous than anything Richard Nixon dreamed of.

Here is one measure of Trump’s reign of corruption.

In the five months Trump has held office in his second term, the number of impeachable offenses legal scholars estimate that he has already committed ranges from three to eight or more...

I asked Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina who has often appeared as an expert witness at congressional hearings on impeachment, about Trump. Gerhardt replied by email: “It is nearly impossible to overstate the degree of Trump’s corruption. It is manifest every day, as if he is daring the American people and Congress to try to stop him.”

Overall, Gerhardt continued: “Trump has shown time and again his disdain for the rule of law, including for the Constitution of the United States. He has routinely violated his oath of office and even proclaimed himself as entitled to break the law to save the country.”

No other American president, Gerhardt went on, “has come anywhere close to Trump’s corruption, and the level of his corruption — on a daily basis — is unmatched in our history.”"

Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say; The New York Times, June 10, 2025

Adam Liptak , The New York Times; Trump Declares Dubious Emergencies to Amass Power, Scholars Say

"To hear President Trump tell it, the nation is facing a rebellion in Los Angeles, an invasion by a Venezuelan gang and extraordinary foreign threats to its economy.

Citing this series of crises, he has sought to draw on emergency powers that Congress has scattered throughout the United States Code over the centuries, summoning the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of California’s governor, sending scores of migrants to El Salvador without the barest hint of due process and upending the global economy with steep tariffs.

Legal scholars say the president’s actions are not authorized by the statutes he has cited and are, instead, animated by a different goal."

A Road Map of Trump’s Lawless Presidency, According to 35 Legal Scholars; The New York Times, April 28, 2025

New York Times Opinion , The New York Times; A Road Map of Trump’s Lawless Presidency, According to 35 Legal Scholars

"Times Opinion recently reached out to dozens of legal scholars and asked them to identify the most significant unconstitutional or unlawful actions by Mr. Trump and his administration in the first 100 days of his second presidency and to assess the damage. We also asked them to separate actions that might draw legal challenges but are, in fact, within the powers of the president. And we asked them to connect the dots on where they thought Mr. Trump was heading.

We heard back from 35 scholars — a group full of diverse viewpoints and experiences, including liberals like U.C. Berkeley’s Erwin Chemerinsky and Harvard’s Jody Freeman; the conservatives Adrian Vermeule at Harvard and Michael McConnell, a former federal appeals court judge who directs Stanford’s Constitutional Law Center and is a member of the Federalist Society; and the libertarians Ilya Somin at George Mason University and Evan Bernick at Northern Illinois University. Many are among the nation’s most cited scholars by their colleagues in law review articles...

Due process dates back to Magna Carta; it is the essence of liberty. Without it, America is not a democracy as freedom itself is at the arbitrary whims of a malevolent ruler.
— Kim Wehle, professor, University of Baltimore School of Law...

Universities, law firms, public schools, et cetera, are being attacked because of their political views: their opposition to the president, their adoption of D.E.I. policies, their liberalism more generally. These moves flout the cardinal rule of the First Amendment, which is that the government can’t punish people because of their political speech. — Nicholas Stephanopoulos, professor, Harvard Law School

Legal Scholars Push For Supreme Court Ethics Code As Gorsuch And Thomas Come Under Fire; Forbes, February 4, 2022

 Alison Durkee, Forbes; Legal Scholars Push For Supreme Court Ethics Code As Gorsuch And Thomas Come Under Fire

"More than two dozen legal ethics scholars asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Thursday to impose a code of conduct for the court’s judges, as the conservative-leaning court faces declining public trust and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas spark new ethics concerns...

A code of conduct would help the Supreme Court “transparently address potential conflicts and other issues in a way that builds public trust in the institution,” the 25 scholars wrote in their letter to Roberts, which was released through activist group Fix the Court.

The scholars said their request wasn’t in response to any particular concern, and they “do not question the integrity of any justice,” but it comes amid concern about ethical conflicts.

Gorsuch will speak Friday evening at a conference in Walt Disney World for the conservative Federalist Society, drawing criticism because of the event’s overt political nature—other speakers include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vice President Mike Pence and Trump White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany—and because it’s closed to the press."