A Quiz
Believe it or not, my followers on Twitter asked for a test.
So I made a Twitter Law Exam with questions taken directly from my posts. Don’t worry. You, too, can take the Twitter Law Exam.
#1: Due process applies to:
- All U.S. citizens
- All persons in the United States
- Only people wearing MAGA hats
#2: The 19th century law of coverture meant a married woman:
- Had to cover her legs
- Had no separate identity
- Had to wear a MAGA hat
#3: Under current law, if asylum seekers arrive at the border without documents, a lawyer should advise them to do which of the following:
- Present themselves at a port of entry and claim asylum
- Head directly to San Francisco
#4: For much of history, rape was:
- A property crime
- Not a crime
#5: For most of the 1800, the age of consent for a girl was usually
- Ages 10 – 12
- Ages 13-14
- Ages 15-16
Liberal democracy is a form of government with:
- Liberals in charge
- Free and fair elections and based on rule of law
# 7: Obstruction of Justice means to:
- Block the court doors
- Work for Trump
- Corruptly impede justice
#8: impeaching a president requires:
- A majority vote in the House
- A majority vote in the Senate
- 2/3 vote in the Senate
- Throwing peaches at the president
#9: The precise wording for the doctrine of “executive privilege” is from:
- The Constitution
- A DOJ memo
- A Statute
- None of the above
#10: The NDAs Trump had his White House staff sign are:
- Probably enforceable
- Probably not enforceable
#11: Yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County means:
- You can’t fire people based on their sexual orientation or gender identification
- The Court won’t let the House have Trump’s taxes
Answer key and links to the blog post if you want to read more:
2: A woman had no separate identity apart from her husband.
3: Present themselves for admission at a port of asylum.
6: A form of government with free and fair elections, based on rule of law.
8: Majority vote in the House (removal from office requires 2/3 vote in the Senate)
MORE NDAs
This NDA issue suddenly popped up again in the news. You see, Trump famously uses NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) to keep people from talking.
The complaint is here. The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment forbids prior restraints. People can say whatever they please. If their speech violates a law (if, for example, what they say is slander, or a criminal threat) they are then liable.
So the First Amendment means that there can be no prior restraint on Bolton’s freedom to say what he wants.
The DOJ gets around this by alleging that in publishing the book, Bolton is violating a non-disclosure agreement. In other words, Bolton is being sued for breaching a contract (NDA.) The problem is that the lawsuit is an injunction preventing him from publishing the book. So essentially, the lawsuit is an attempt to prevent him from breaching.
Moreover, the NDAs Bolton is accused of breaching are not included in the complaint. So the DOJ is asking the court to prevent Bolton from breaching a contract that they cannot see.
This brings us to the problem of calculating damages. If what Bolton says is true, how can Trump claim that he was damaged?
Just when I was reeling from the silliness of that, this popped into my feed:
So, if there was an NDA, and if Mary Trump breached, she would be liable for whatever damages her breach caused Trump.
Presumably whatever she is saying is true. If it was false, Trump would sue her for libel. Because it’s true, he is suing for breach of a non-disclosure.
Once again, the problem is calculating damages: How can someone suffer damages if another person tells the truth about that person? Silly, right?
NDAs are generally used for guarding trade secrets. Employees are required to sign them so they don’t steal secrets that belong to the company. If a person breaches the NDA, the damages would be whatever losses the company suffered as a result of the breach.
Now consider what damages Trump suffers if his niece tells the truth about him. “I, the president of the United States, suffered enormous damage to my reputation when someone told the truth about me.”
It just doesn’t work.
Recall that Alex Jones argued that he had a First Amendment right to accuse the Sandy Hook parents of staging the massacre. He argued that it was his opinion, so he had the right to say it. As a general rule, I’ve learned that people on the far right wing believe that freedom of speech means that they have the right to lie, and nobody else has the right to speak the truth.
