DOJ faces ethics nightmare with Trump bid for $230M settlement; The Hill, October 31, 2025

REBECCA BEITSCH, The Hill; DOJ faces ethics nightmare with Trump bid for $230M settlement

[Kip Currier: This real life "nightmare" scenario is akin to a hypothetical law school exam fact pattern with scores of ethics issues for law students to identify and discuss. Would that it were a fictitious set of facts.

If Trump's former personal attorneys, who are now in the top DOJ leadership, will not recuse themselves due to genuine conflicts of interest and appearances of impropriety, will the state and federal bar associations, who license these attorneys and hold them to annual continuing legal and ethics-related education requirements so they can remain in good standing with their respective licensing entities, step in to scrutinize potential ethical lapses of these lawyers?

These unprecedented actions by Trump must not be treated as normal. Similarly, if Trump's former personal attorneys approve Trump's attempt to "shake down" the federal government and American taxpayers, their ethically dubious actions as DOJ leaders and officers of the court must not be normalized by the organizations that are charged to enforce ethical standards for all licensed attorneys.

Moreover, approval of this settlement would be damaging to the rule of law and to public trust in the rule of law. If the most powerful person on the planet can demand that an organization -- whose leadership reports to him -- pay out a "settlement" for lawfully-conducted actions and proceedings in a prior administration, what does that say about the state of justice in the U.S.? I posit that it would say that it is a justice system that has been utterly corrupted and that is not subject to equal application of its laws and ethical standards. No person is above the law, or should be above the law in our American system of government and checks and balances. Not even the U.S. President, despite the Roberts Court's controversial Trump v. U.S. July 2024 ruling recognizing absolute and limited Presidential immunity in certain spheres.

Finally, a few words about "speaking out" and "standing up". It is vital for those who are in leadership positions to call out actions like the ones at hand that arguably undermine the rule of law and incrementally move this country from one that is democratically-centered to an autocratic nation state like Russia. I searched for and could find no statement by the American Bar Association (ABA) on this matter, a matter that is clearly relevant to its membership, of which I count myself as a member.

Will the ABA and other legal organizations share their voices on these matters that have such far-reaching implications for the rule of law and our nearly 250-year democratic experiment?

The paperback version of my Bloomsbury book, Ethics, Information, and Technology, becomes available on November 13, and I intentionally included a substantial professional and character ethics section at the outset of the book because those principles are so integral to how we conduct ourselves in all areas of our lives. Ethics precepts and values like integrity, attribution, truthfulness and avoidance of misrepresentation, transparency, accountability, and disclosure of conflicts of interest, as well as recusal when we have conflicts of interest.]

[Excerpt]

"The Department of Justice (DOJ) is facing pressure to back away from a request from President Trump for a $230 million settlement stemming from his legal troubles, as critics say it raises a dizzying number of ethical issues.

Trump has argued he deserves compensation for the scrutiny into his conduct, describing himself as a victim of both a special counsel investigation into the 2016 election and the classified documents case.

The decision, however, falls to a cadre of attorneys who previously represented Trump personally.

Rupa Bhattacharyya, who reviewed settlement requests in her prior role as director of the Torts Branch of the DOJ’s Civil Division, said most agreements approved by the department are typically for tens of thousands of dollars or at most hundreds of thousands.

“In the ordinary course, the filing of administrative claims is required. So that’s not unusual. In the ordinary course, a relatively high damages demand on an administrative claim is also not that unusual. What is unusual here is the fact that the president is making a demand for money from his own administration, which raises all sorts of ethical problems,” Bhattacharyya told The Hill.

“It’s also just completely unheard of. There’s never been a case where the president of the United States would ask the department that he oversees to make a decision in his favor that would result in millions of dollars lining his own pocket at the expense of the American taxpayer.”

It’s the high dollar amount Trump is seeking that escalates the decision to the top of the department, leaving Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, as well as Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, to consider the request."

Lawmakers Across the Country This Year Blocked Ethics Reforms Meant to Increase Public Trust; ProPublica, October 1, 2025

Gabriel Sandoval, ProPublica, with additional reporting by Nick Reynolds and Anna Wilder, The Post and Courier; Yasmeen Khan, The Maine Monitor; Lauren Dake, Oregon Public Broadcasting; Marjorie Childress, New Mexico In Depth; Louis Hansen, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO; Mary Steurer and Jacob Orledge, North Dakota Monitor; Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune; Alyse Pfeil, The Advocate | The Times-Picayune; and Shauna Sowersby, The Seattle Times , ProPublica; Lawmakers Across the Country This Year Blocked Ethics Reforms Meant to Increase Public Trust

"At a time when the bounds of government ethics are being stretched in Washington, D.C., hundreds of ethics-related bills were introduced this year in state legislatures, according to the bipartisan National Conference of State Legislatures’ ethics legislation database. While legislation strengthening ethics oversight did pass in some places, a ProPublica analysis found lawmakers across multiple states targeted or thwarted reforms designed to keep the public and elected officials accountable to the people they serve.

Democratic and Republican lawmakers tried to push through bills to tighten gift limits, toughen conflict-of-interest provisions or expand financial disclosure reporting requirements. Time and again, the bills were derailed.

With the help of local newsrooms, many of which have been part of ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network, we reviewed a range of legislation that sought to weaken or stymie ethics regulations in 2025. We also spoke to experts for an overview of trends nationwide. Their take: The threats to ethics standards and their enforcement have been growing.

“Donald Trump has been ushering a new cultural standard, in which ethics is no longer significant,” said Craig Holman, a veteran government ethics specialist with the progressive watchdog nonprofit Public Citizen. He pointed to Trump’s private dinner with top buyers of his cryptocurrency and the administration’s tariff deal with Vietnam after it greenlit the Trump Organization’s $1.5 billion golf resort complex; and he said in an email it was “most revealing” that the White House “for the first time in over 16 years has no ethics policy. Trump 2.0 simply repealed Biden’s ethics Executive Order and replaced it with nothing.”

Mayor of New Orleans Is Indicted on Corruption Charges; The New York Times, August 15, 2025

 Rick Rojas and Pooja Salhotra, The New York Times; Mayor of New Orleans Is Indicted on Corruption Charges

"Mayor LaToya Cantrell of New Orleans was charged on Friday with going to criminal lengths to carry out and cover up a romantic relationship with a city police officer who had been assigned to protect her, prosecutors said.

The indictment emerged from a lengthy federal investigation into corruption that has cast a shadow over Ms. Cantrell’s second and final term as mayor, which ends in January. She and her former bodyguard, Jeffrey Vappie, face a combined 18 felony counts, including making false statements, obstruction of justice and conspiracy."

Supreme Court Keeps Ruling in Trump’s Favor, but Doesn’t Say Why; The New York Times, July 16, 2025

 Adam Liptak, The New York Times; Supreme Court Keeps Ruling in Trump’s Favor, but Doesn’t Say Why

"In clearing the way for President Trump’s efforts to transform American government, the Supreme Court has issued a series of orders that often lacked a fundamental characteristic of most judicial work: an explanation of the court’s rationale."

The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.; The Washington Post, June 24, 2025

 

 Lena H. Sun

 and 

Rachel Roubein

, The Washington Post; The plan to vaccinate all Americans, despite RFK Jr.

"Professional medical societies, pharmacists, state health officials and vaccine manufacturers, as well as a new advocacy group, are mobilizing behind the scenes to preserve access for vaccines as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. works to upend the nation’s decades-old vaccine system, according to public health experts.

The groups are discussing ordering vaccines directly from manufacturers and giving greater weight to vaccine recommendations from medical associations. And they are asking insurance companies to continue covering shots based on professional societies’ guidance instead of the federal government’s, according to more than a dozen people familiar with the conversations, including some who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share private discussions.

The moves come as Kennedy has replaced members of the key federal vaccine advisory panel to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that decides which vaccines are recommended for whom and whether they’ll be covered by insurance. Kennedy fired the 17-member committee earlier this month and handpicked eight new members,several of whom are vaccine critics."

Cassidy, in Break With Kennedy, Calls for Vaccine Meeting Delay; The New York Times, June 24, 2025

Sheryl Gay Stolberg , The New York Times; Cassidy, in Break With Kennedy, Calls for Vaccine Meeting Delay

"The chairman of the Senate health committee, in his first significant break with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has called for a delay in this week’s meeting of a panel of vaccine advisers, saying the group Mr. Kennedy appointed lacks the experience and diversity of opinion necessary to ensure public faith in its recommendations.

The chairman, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana, made his comments in a social media post on Monday night. Mr. Cassidy, a physician and a strong proponent of vaccines, voted reluctantly to confirm Mr. Kennedy after announcing that the secretary had agreed to consult with him on significant matters and not to disband the advisory committee. The senator has carefully parsed his words about Mr. Kennedy.

“Although the appointees to ACIP have scientific credentials, many do not have significant experience studying microbiology, epidemiology or immunology,” Mr. Cassidy wrote, using the acronym for the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which advises the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“In particular,” Mr. Cassidy added, “some lack experience studying new technologies such as mRNA vaccines, and may even have a preconceived bias against them.”"

The loss of editorial freedom at 60 Minutes is a sorry milestone for US media; The Guardian, May 1, 2025

Margaret Sullivan, The Guardian ; The loss of editorial freedom at 60 Minutes is a sorry milestone for US media

"Pelley said that, to date, no story had been killed but that Owens “felt he lost the independence that honest journalism requires”.

Pelley’s comments were picked up widely, and now the world knows that viewers can no longer fully trust what they see on the Sunday evening show that has done such important and groundbreaking journalism for decades.

Of course, as with so many of the red alerts mentioned above – lawsuits, threats, changes in long-held practices that protect the public’s right to know – the problem involves Donald Trump’s overweening desire to control the media. Controlling the message is what would-be authoritarians always do.

Trump sued 60 Minutes for $20bn a few months ago, claiming unfair and deceptive editing of an interview with his then rival for the presidency, Kamala Harris. And his newly appointed head of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, took an aggressive approach by reopening an investigation into CBS over supposed distortion of the news. The editing of the Harris interview, by all reasonable accounts, followed standard practices.

What has happened with 60 Minutes is a high-octane version of what is happening everywhere in Trump 2.0.

Those who could stand up to Trump’s bullying are instead doing what scholars of authoritarianism say must be avoided, if democracy is to be salvaged. They are obeying in advance.

Not everyone, of course. It’s inspiring to see prominent institutions – Harvard and other universities, many law firms, Georgetown law school and the Associated Press – refusing to buckle."

When was the last time AI made you laugh? Scenes from the 2025 Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism; Poynter, April 11, 2025

TyLisa Johnson, Poynter ; When was the last time AI made you laugh? Scenes from the 2025 Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism

"This year’s Summit on AI, Ethics and Journalism, led by Poynter and The Associated Press, unfolded over two days in New York City’s financial district at the AP’s headquarters.

Here’s a brief summit recap through images:"

The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’; The New York Times, January 16, 2025

Benjamin Mullin, The New York Times ; The Washington Post’s New Mission: Reach ‘All of America’

[Kip Currier: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.” 

-- Juvenal, Roman satirical poet (c. 100 AD).

To think that The Washington Post was the newspaper whose investigative reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the 1970's Watergate break-in and cover-up, resulting in the eventual resignation of Pres. Richard Nixon on August 8, 1974...

And to now see its stature intentionally diminished and its mission incrementally debased, week by week, at the hands of billionaire Jeff Bezos and hand-picked former newspaper administrators who worked for billionaire Rupert Murdoch-owned U.K. newspapers.]

[Excerpt]

"After Donald J. Trump entered the White House in 2017, The Washington Post adopted a slogan that underscored the newspaper’s traditional role as a government watchdog: “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

This week, as Mr. Trump prepares to re-enter the White House, the newspaper debuted a mission statement that evokes a more expansive view of The Post’s journalism, without death or darkness: “Riveting Storytelling for All of America.”...

The slide deck that Ms. Watford presented describes artificial intelligence as a key enabler of The Post’s success, the people said. It describes The Post as “an A.I.-fueled platform for news” that delivers “vital news, ideas and insights for all Americans where, how and when they want it.” It also lays out three pillars of The Post’s overall plan: “great journalism,” “happy customers” and “make money.” The Post lost roughly $77 million in 2023.

But many aspects of The Post’s new mission have nothing to do with emerging technology. The slide deck includes a list of seven principles first articulated by Eugene Meyer, an influential Post owner, in 1935. Among them: “the newspaper shall tell all the truth” and “the newspaper’s duty is to its readers and to the public at large, and not to the private interests of its owners.”"

Chief Justice John Roberts Thinks You're Stupid And He's Probably Right; Above The Law, January 2, 2025

JOE PATRICE, Above The Law; Chief Justice John Roberts Thinks You're Stupid And He's Probably Right

"As Chief Justice of the United States, John Roberts prepares a year-end report, ostensibly to communicate with the American people — or Congress — about the state of the federal judiciary and his vision for the branch’s future. His approach this year is to condescend to the public while ignoring every useful area of inquiry about the court system.

Because he thinks everyone is too stupid to care...

More likely, this is a bid to undermine the public’s faith in legal analysis. The public doesn’t necessarily appreciate how much obfuscation exists in rulings by design let alone when a judge affirmatively tries to muddy the waters. When a court tries to say “oh, we didn’t really do what the analysts are saying, we decided it on standing!” the public relies on legal analysts to cut through this nonsense and explain what they’ve actually done...

America should demand more from a Chief Justice. But it won’t."

Only 35% of Americans trust the US judicial system. This is catastrophic; The Guardian, December 21, 2024

David Daley, The Guardian; Only 35% of Americans trust the US judicial system. This is catastrophic

"It’s not surprising that Americans have lost all faith in something as anti-democratic as an unelected body (with a majority appointed by presidents who lost the popular vote) granted lifetime fiefdoms to cast final judgement over acts of the elected branches, without any accountability or ethics code that might, for example, prevent them from taking luxury vacations paid by billionaire benefactors."

Inside the Supreme Court Ethics Debate: Who Judges the Justices?; The New York Times, December 3, 2024

 Jodi Kantor and Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times; Inside the Supreme Court Ethics Debate: Who Judges the Justices?

"As the summer of 2023 ended, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court began trading even-more-confidential-than-usual memos, avoiding their standard email list and instead passing paper documents in envelopes to each chambers. Faced with ethics controversies and a plunge in public trust, they were debating rules for their own conduct, according to people familiar with the process.

Weeks later, as a united front, they announced the results: the court’s first-ever ethics code. “It’s remarkable that we were able to agree unanimously,” Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said in a television interview this year.

But a New York Times examination found that behind the scenes, the court had divided over whether the justices’ new rules could — or should — ever be enforced."

Is this (finally) the end for X? Delicate Musk-Trump relationship and growing rivals spell trouble for platform; The Guardian, November 17, 2024

Siân Boyle , The Guardian; Is this (finally) the end for X? Delicate Musk-Trump relationship and growing rivals spell trouble for platform

"As recently as 2022, Musk tweeted that “for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally.” He tweeted that “Trump would be 82 at end of his term, which is too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America.”

Months later, when Musk bought Twitter for $44bn, he fired content moderators and charged for account verification, which meant people could buy influence. Twitter was rebranded to X, shed millions of users and reinstated Trumps’s account, suspended after the White House insurrection in January 2021.

The proliferation on X of alt-right diatribe, hate speech and bots, as well as Musk’s own clash with the UK government during the riots in August, have led to mounting disquiet among X users. The Guardian and Observer announced last week that their presence on the site was now untenable and they would no longer post. Stephen King, the author, left, saying it had become “too toxic”. Oscar-winners Barbra Streisand and Jamie Lee Curtis have departed the platform.

“X has become effectively Truth Social premium,” said Mark Carrigan, author of Social Media for Academics, referring to Trump’s hard-right social media platform. And the talk in technology circles is that Trump’s Truth Social could be folded into X.

If that happens, whose interests take priority? Would Musk suppress criticism of the authoritarian governments he does business with, or promote it? In the Donald and Elon media show, who is the puppet or paymaster?

“If that happens, it will be the ultimate amplification machine for Trump’s ideas – a political super-app masquerading as social media,” said James Kirkham of Iconic, which advises brands including Uber and EA Sports on digital strategies. “Forget Facebook or Fox News; the true heart of the GOP’s digital strategy could be X.”"

2 years in, Trump surrogate Elon Musk has remade X as a conservative megaphone; NPR, October 25, 2024

Shannon Bond, Bobby Allyn , NPR; 2 years in, Trump surrogate Elon Musk has remade X as a conservative megaphone

"For the owner of one of the internet’s most influential public squares to openly endorse one political party shocked many observers — especially since only six months earlier, as Musk agreed to buy the company, he declared that "For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally."

Now, as both the 2024 election and the second anniversary of Musk's takeover of Twitter loom, the billionaire has completely evaporated any notion of political neutrality on the platform he's renamed X because his influence on it remains outsized.

Musk has put his money and mouth behind returning Donald Trump to the White House, pouring $75 million into a super PAC he created to turn out voters in battleground states and using X to cheerlead for Trump, smear Vice President Kamala Harris, and amplify rumors and conspiracy theories to his 202 million followers."

California advances landmark legislation to regulate large AI models; AP, August 28, 2024

TRÂN NGUYỄN, AP ; California advances landmark legislation to regulate large AI models

"Wiener’s proposal is among dozens of AI bills California lawmakers proposed this year to build public trust, fight algorithmic discrimination and outlaw deepfakes that involve elections or pornography. With AI increasingly affecting the daily lives of Americans, state legislators have tried to strike a balance of reigning in the technology and its potential risks without stifling the booming homegrown industry. 

California, home of 35 of the world’s top 50 AI companies, has been an early adopter of AI technologies and could soon deploy generative AI tools to address highway congestion and road safety, among other things."

He Regulated Medical Devices. His Wife Represented Their Makers.; The New York Times, August 20, 2024

 Christina Jewett, The New York Times; He Regulated Medical Devices. His Wife Represented Their Makers.

"For 15 years, Dr. Jeffrey E. Shuren was the federal official charged with ensuring the safety of a vast array of medical devices including artificial knees, breast implants and Covid tests.

When he announced in July that he would be retiring from the Food and Drug Administration later this year, Dr. Robert Califf, the agency’s commissioner, praised him for overseeing the approval of more novel devices last year than ever before in the nearly half-century history of the device division.

But the admiration for Dr. Shuren is far from universal. Consumer advocates see his tenure as marred by the approval of too many devices that harmed patients and by his own close ties to the $500 billion global device industry.

One connection stood out: While Dr. Shuren regulated the booming medical device industry, his wife, Allison W. Shuren, represented the interests of device makers as the co-leader of a team of lawyers at Arnold & Porter, one of Washington’s most powerful law firms."

Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law; The Washington Post, July 29, 2024

Joe Biden , The Washington Post; Joe Biden: My plan to reform the Supreme Court and ensure no president is above the law

"That’s why — in the face of increasing threats to America’s democratic institutions — I am calling for three bold reforms to restore trust and accountability to the court and our democracy.

First, I am calling for a constitutional amendment called the No One Is Above the Law Amendment. It would make clear that there is noimmunity for crimes a former president committed while in office. I share our Founders’ belief that the president’s power is limited, not absolute. We are a nation of laws — not of kings or dictators.

Second, we have had term limits for presidents for nearly 75 years. We should have the same for Supreme Court justices. The United States is the only major constitutional democracy that gives lifetime seats to its high court. Term limits would help ensure that the court’s membership changes with some regularity. That would make timing for court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary. It would reduce the chance that any single presidency radically alters the makeup of the court for generations to come. I support a system in which the president would appoint a justice every two years to spend 18 years in active service on the Supreme Court.

Third, I’m calling for a binding code of conduct for the Supreme Court. This is common sense. The court’s current voluntary ethics code is weak and self-enforced. Justices should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. Every other federal judge is bound by an enforceable code of conduct, and there is no reason for the Supreme Court to be exempt.

All three of these reforms are supported by a majority of Americans — as well as conservative and liberal constitutional scholars. And I want to thank the bipartisan Presidential Commission on the Supreme Court of the United States for its insightful analysis, which informed some of these proposals.

We can and must prevent the abuse of presidential power. We can and must restore the public’s faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of democracy.

In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule."

Supreme Court ethics remain at center stage after hard-right rulings; The Washington Post; July 6, 2024

Justin Jouvenal, The Washington Post;  Supreme Court ethics remain at center stage after hard-right rulings

"Several experts said the court needs to fully embrace an ethics overhaul to help reassure the public."

Supreme Court Justices: Ethics, recusal and public perception; WOUB Public Media, June 28, 2024

WOUB Public Media; Supreme Court Justices: Ethics, recusal and public perception

"The U.S. Supreme Court has hit an all-time low in public trust and confidence.

In this episode of “Next Witness…Please,” retired judges Gayle Williams-Byers and Tom Hodson explore the reasons behind this decline and the immense power wielded by Supreme Court justices.

They delve into why the public sees the court as more political than judicial, eroding faith in the rule of law.

The episode also addresses shady financial dealings, unreported gifts, and questionable public actions and statements by justices, including Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

These issues raise serious ethical concerns and undermine the court’s integrity, much to the consternation of many legal analysts and ethicists.

Tune in to “Next Witness…Please” as the judges discuss potential solutions to these ethical challenges and ways the Supreme Court can restore public trust."

Supreme Court Justices Apply New Ethics Code Differently; Newsweek, April 9, 2024

 Khaleda Rahman, Newsweek; Supreme Court Justices Apply New Ethics Code Differently

"Supreme Court justices are divided along political lines over whether or not to explain their recusals, and legal experts are very concerned."