Monthly Archives: August 2016

BIG LAW RESISTS THE ASSAULT ON DEMOCRACY

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Call them unsung heroes.

When attorneys in big law firms get things right, they deserve more attention than they receive. Recently, some of them have won important victories in the profession’s noblest pursuit: protecting our republic. And they’re not getting paid anything to do it.

Start with North Carolina. On July 29, a unanimous court of appeals threw out that state’s voter ID law. In an 83-page opinion, the court wrote that the law had targeted African Americans “with almost surgical precision.”

Behind that monumental win was an enormous investment of money and manpower — all of it pro bono. Daniel Donovan led a team of lawyers from Kirkland & Ellis LLP through two trials over a four-week period. More than fifty witnesses testified. After losing in the trial court — which issued a 479-page opinion denying relief — the plaintiffs appealed. On July 29, they won. Think of it as Kirkland & Ellis’s multi-million dollar contribution to democracy.

On, Wisconsin!

The same day that the court of appeals threw out North Carolina’s unconstitutional voter ID law, a federal judge in Madison invalidated Wisconsin’s effort to disenfranchise African Americans and Latinos. Big law firm partner Bobbie Wilson at Perkins Coie LLP was at the center of that effort. A nine-day trial and more than 45 witnesses (including six experts) culminated in Judge James B. Peterson’s 119-page ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

On August 22, the seventh circuit court of appeals denied the request of Governor Scott Walker’s administration to stay Judge Peterson’s ruling.

North Dakota

Three days later, Richard de Bodo of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP won a challenge to North Dakota’s voter ID laws. The targets of that legislation were Native Americans.

Like similar statutes enacted throughout the country since 2010, voter ID laws in North Carolina, Wisconsin, and North Dakota were products of a Republican-controlled legislature and governorship. The real motivation behind such restrictions on a fundamental right is as ugly as it is obvious.

Fighting Against the Demographic Tide of History

In 2014, the Brennan Justice Center noted that North Carolina and Wisconsin were in select company: “Of the 11 states with the highest African-American turnout in 2008, 7 have new restrictions in place: Mississippi (73.1 percent), South Carolina (72.5), Wisconsin (70.5), Ohio (70.0), Georgia (68.1), North Carolina (68.1), and Virginia (68.1).”

Of the 12 states with the largest Hispanic population growth between 2000 and 2010, North Carolina was one of nine that made it harder to vote. The others were South Carolina, Alabama, Tennessee, Arkansas, North Carolina, Mississippi, South Dakota, Georgia, and Virginia.

Rigged Elections? Yes, But in Whose Favor?

Now that the Republican nominee for President of the United States is pushing a dangerous and destructive new theme, the battle to vote has now assumed a great significance.

“I’m afraid the election is going to be rigged,” Donald Trump warned at a rally in Columbus, Ohio on August 1, right after the North Carolina federal appeals court ruled.

That evening he told an interviewer: “I’m telling you, November 8, we’d better be careful, because that election is going to be rigged. And I hope the Republicans are watching closely, or it’s going to be taken away from us.”

Dedicated attorneys — especially those in big firms willing to donate enormous resources to the cause — have worked hard to protect the right of every eligible person to vote. If they hadn’t, then the North Carolina legislature might, indeed, have rigged the election in a key swing state that President Obama had won. But that’s not what Trump meant, was it?

No, he sees a different enemy.

“[P]eople are going to walk in, they are going to vote 10 times maybe. Who knows?” he said in an August 2 interview.

He now has a website page: “Help Me Stop Crooked Hillary From Rigging This Election.” Such whining is actually much more than that. It’s a campaign tactic uniting two sinister and pervasive themes: racial division and attacks on the rule of law.

Facts Don’t Matter

Trump began stoking fear and division with a promise to build a wall to keep out Mexicans, whom he called rapists and drug dealers. He then coupled it with a “deportation force” to “round ’em up,” sending 11 million illegal immigrants “back where they came from.”

Then he professed ignorance about David Duke. (“I don’t know anything about David Duke… I know nothing about white supremacists.”) Before long, he unleashed hostility toward “Mexican” Judge Gonzalo Curiel. After scaring people, it was a short step for him to becoming their self-professed “law-and-order” savior.

Now he is wrapping his message in a long-discredited canard. Defenders of unconstitutional voter ID laws persist in fomenting “election fraud” paranoia, even though it lacks any factual basis. Professor Justin Levitt at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles tracked all claims of alleged voter ID fraud and found a grand total of 31 credible allegations – out of more than one billion ballots cast.

In the North Dakota case, Judge Daniel L. Hovland wrote, “There is a total lack of any evidence to show voter fraud has ever been a problem in North Dakota.”

Likewise, in the Wisconsin case, the judge ruled. “The Wisconsin experience demonstrates that a preoccupation with mostly phantom election fraud leads to real incidents of disenfranchisement, which undermine rather than enhance confidence in elections, particularly in minority communities. To put it bluntly, Wisconsin’s strict version of voter ID law is a cure worse than the disease.”

And in the North Carolina case, a unanimous court of appeals concluded, “The record thus makes obvious that the ‘problem’ the majority in the General Assembly sought to remedy was emerging support for the minority party.”

Mob Mentality

The cry of phantom election fraud feeds Trump’s narratives, while taking them a perilous step farther: de-legitimizing an election that polls now show Trump is losing “hugely.” As his prospects sag, his vile rhetoric escalates.

Shortly after an August 10 poll showed Trump trailing in Pennsylvania by double digits, he went to that state and told an Altoona crowd, “Go down to certain areas and watch and study and make sure other people don’t come in and vote five times… The only way we can lose, in my opinion – I really mean this, Pennsylvania – is if cheating goes on… ”

Never mind that Pennsylvania hasn’t voted for a Republican Presidential nominee since 1988. Even an incumbent, George H.W. Bush, couldn’t carry it in 1992.

Trump then continued waving his red herring: “Without voter ID there’s no way you’re going to be able to check in properly.”

Scorched Earth

The real danger to democracy isn’t election rigging or cheating. It’s Donald J. Trump. De-legitimization – the ultimate ad hominem attack on a process to undermine its outcome – is a standard tactic from his deal-making playbook. When it appeared that he might not arrive at the Republican convention with enough delegates to secure the nomination, he warned about “riots,” if someone else won.

Never mind the rules; they’re for losers. Anyone fearing that Trump will win should fear more that he won’t.

Trump knows that facts don’t matter because – true or false – the branding sticks. For example, there was never any evidence to support Trump’s wild “birther” claims about President Obama in 2011. But five years later, 20 percent of Americans still believe — today — that he was born outside the United States.

Some people will always believe anything Trump says, even as he contradicts himself from one moment to the next. His infamous line was pretty accurate: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”

Perhaps he is discovering that “any” was an overstatement. But his de-legitimization strategy worked against most Republican politicians, who folded like cheap suits rather than break from the man-baby who would be king. Now the stakes are higher. His targets are the rule of law, the essence of democracy, and the peaceful transfer of Presidential power that occurs every four years.

The Real Losers

The eventual victims of Trump’s scorched earth approach will be the American people. If, as with his false “birther” claims five years ago, 20 percent of voters – about half of his current supporters – believe that Trump’s defeat results from a “rigged” election that “cheaters” won, the collateral damage to the county will be profound.

Donald Trump lives in a simple binary world of winners and losers – and he’s all about winning at any cost. He measures success in dollars. His latest tactic makes democracy itself the loser. Try putting a price on that. And thank some big law firms and their attorneys who are willing to make the investment required to stand in his way.

TRUMP AND THE RULE OF LAW – MILITARY EDITION

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This is the fourth in what has become an endless series on Donald Trump’s continuing attacks on the rule of law. Those attacks seem to work for him in one respect. Every new one displaces an old one. He’s now relying on “Trump fatigue” — a condition that causes voters to say, essentially, “What stupid thing did he say today?”

Then they discount his offensive, false, or incoherent remark du jour. But his comments over time create a more complete picture and — in the case of the military — a recipe for disaster.

Recipe: Start With An Obnoxious Comment That People Forgive…

A year ago, Senator John McCain learned that he wasn’t a war hero after all.

“I like people who weren’t captured,” Donald Trump said on July 18, 2015, when asked about McCain’s critical comments about him.

He probably thought he was being witty. But it was quite a statement coming from someone who had avoided military service in Vietnam because of a still ambiguous medical condition. Trump said it was minor bone spurs in a foot. Which one? He couldn’t recall. Maybe both.

But don’t worry. His physician assured us in December, “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.”

Dr. Harold N. Bornstein didn’t describe how his physical examination of Trump compared with those he’d performed on Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, or Dwight Eisenhower.

Add Bigoted Cruelty That Troubled Some…

Having relegated McCain to the “loser” category in Trump’s binary world, he then revealed more completely his attitude about military sacrifice. U.S. Army Captain Humayun Khan received the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart for saving the lives of fellow soldiers in Iraq. At the Democratic convention, Khan’s father delivered a tribute to his fallen son. Trump lashed out, invoking stereotypes and generalizations to reinforce his anti-Muslim campaign theme.

“His wife,” Trump told ABC’s George Stephanopolous, “if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me, but plenty of people have written that. She was extremely quiet and it looked like she had nothing to say.”

Mix In Lawlessness That Has Been Lost In A Crowd Of Outrageous Comments…

Between those July 2015 and July 2016 bookends came a more disturbing episode. During the March 3, 2016 Republican debate, Fox News’ Bret Baier asked Trump about his advocacy of torture. If he made good on his threats, he would be ordering the military to commit illegal acts.

What if they refused?

“They won’t refuse. They’re not gonna refuse me. Believe me.”

“But they’re illegal,” Baier insisted.

“I’m a leader, I’ve always been a leader. I’ve never had any problem leading people. If I say do it, they’re going to do it.”

Stir In Disrespect For The Military Generally… 

Soldiers such as retired four-star General John Allen won’t do it. He made that clear in his address to the Democratic convention, and Trump didn’t like it one bit. Within minutes, he tweeted, “General John Allen, who I never met but spoke against me last night, failed badly in his fight against ISIS. His record = BAD.”

Then Trump followed up personally at a rally in Denver.

“They had a general named John Allen. I never met him, and he got up and started talking about Trump, Trump, Trump… You know who he is? He’s a failed general. He was the general fighting ISIS. I would say he hasn’t done so well, right?”

Earlier, Trump had declared, “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.”

Then he claimed that President Obama had “founded” ISIS. For the next two days, he and his media surrogates defended the falsehood as literally true. Then he said he was being sarcastic — “but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you.”

Whatever his intent, the impact has been clear. Within days, Hezbollah’s leader was using Trump’s absurd charge against America. Hassan Nasrallah is a Shiite backer of Syria’s brutal Assad regime, an ISIS foe, and a critic of the U.S. position calling for Assad to step down.

“This is not simple speech,” Nasrallah said in a speech to followers. “This is an American presidential candidate. This was spoken on behalf of the American Republican Party. He has data and documents.”

As Vice-President Biden observed, Trump’s comments caused the danger to military lives in the Middle East to go “up a couple clicks.”

Bake Until Someone Sees The Resulting Danger To The Country…

General Allen explained why he was speaking up when he did: “He’s talked about needing to torture. He’s talked about needing to murder the families of alleged terrorists. He’s talked about carpet-bombing ISIL. Who do you think is going to carpet-bombed when all that occurs? It’s going to be innocent families.”

Allen feared that if Trump actually followed through on his threats, he would be ordering illegal actions.

“I think we would be facing a civil military crisis, the likes of which we’ve not seen in this country before,” he said. “What we need to do is ensure that we don’t create an environment that puts us on a track conceivably where the United States military finds itself in a civil military crisis with a commander in chief who would have us do illegal things.”

Top With Callous Disregard for the Constitution…

Which takes us back to Khizr Khan. The most powerful 90 seconds of his convention remarks occurred when he looked directly into the camera and addressed Trump.

“Let me ask you: have you even read the constitution? I will gladly lend you my copy.”

It’s a serious question. Among legal scholars, Trump has achieved rare bipartisan consensus on his disregard for the rule of law and the limits of presidential power. From unfair “Mexican” judges (born in Indiana) to religion-based discrimination to brazen attacks on the press that include warnings of retribution to the owner of the Washington Post, Trump has been frighteningly consistent.

Everything around Trump exists to serve him and his whim of the moment, whatever it might be. The military is no exception. Fortunately, the men and women wearing the uniform answer to a higher calling.

As General Allen explained, “When we swear an oath to support and defend the Constitution, which is a document and a set of principles and it supports the rule of law, one of those is to ensure that we do not obey illegal orders.”

The Final Product: Digest It If You Can

Trump doesn’t care that his orders would be illegal. In that respect, his world is eerily similar to the bubble in which President Richard Nixon lived. As I noted in an earlier post, three years after precipitating a constitutional crisis that forced him to resign from office, Nixon finally admitted, “Well, when the President does it, that means it is not illegal.”

At least Trump isn’t President… yet.

THE ABA’S TERRIBLE, HORRIBLE, NO GOOD, VERY BAD DAY

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It’s a mere formality. Every five years, the Department of Education renews the ABA’s power to accredit law schools. The June 2016 session before a DOE advisory committee (NACIQI) was supposed to be just another step in the rubber-stamping process. The NACIQI staff had recommended approval. The committee’s three-day session contemplated action on a dozen other accrediting bodies, ranging from the American Psychological Association to the American Theological Schools. Sandwiched between acupuncture and health education, the agenda contemplated an hour for the ABA.

What could go wrong?

For starters, committee members grilled the ABA’s representatives for an entire afternoon.

Questions About Law Student Debt?

First up for the ABA was the chair of the Section of Legal Education and Admissions to the Bar, Arizona Supreme Court Justice Rebecca White Berch. A committee member asked how the ABA assessed schools based on the interrelationship between student debt, bar passage rate, and graduate placement rates. Justice Berch said the ABA was looking “for a bar passing rate of 75 percent…. [W]as that part of your question?”

Actually, that was just a proposal set for an ABA Section hearing on August 6, but it wasn’t what the NACIQI had in mind.

NACIQI Member: “Sorry, no. I think my question also went to concern related to debt that students incurred while in law school and relationship of that to placement.”

ABA Managing Director Barry Currier tried to field that one:

“With respect to debt, we have been following a disclosure model for a number of years now and a lot of information is disclosed… [W]e collect information about student borrowing, but it is currently not part of the consumer information that schools are required to post with us… [T]here is no standard about how much debt is too much debt at this point in time.”

Let the squirming begin.

“So it may be,” Currier continued, “that as evidence mounts that students don’t shop very effectively and that as uncapped student loans are available, that we need to be more paternalistic, if you will, or more — we may need to make more information required and adopt standards around how much debt is too much debt.”

Placement Rates?

NACIQI: “What would be an appropriate placement rate for a law school?”

Currier: “Well our standards do not require any specific employment…[W]e don’t have a specific standard that a school must achieve in terms of placement.”

…

NACIQI: “But you are the ones who identified that legal education is very expensive… And if they can’t find a job it wrecks their lives.”

…

NACIQI: “[Y]ou can tell a lot from some of these low performing schools. And a school that sticks out to me is Whittier Law School in California… [T]he enrollment has dropped 51 percent since 2010, yet tuition has increased 31 percent since 2008.”

He wasn’t finished.

“Over 105 million dollars of Title IV funding has gone into this school. All the while, one in four graduates of this law school has obtained a full-time attorney job within nine months… Appalachian School of Law, University of LaVerne, Golden Gate, all have abysmal placement rates… [S]o I guess my question is specifically related to these low performing institutions: what are you guys doing?”

Then he answered his own question:

“[W]hen we look at these low performing schools, you guys are doing absolutely nothing.”

Can We Talk About Something Else?

Justice Berch’s attempt to change the subject was unavailing.

NACIQI: “We are talking about student debt, right, so — I guess you are not answering my question, and so I would like for us to stay on that… I just want to make sure we are talking about what is your responsibility and your response to these lower performing schools. I mean, have they been put on probation? That’s my first question.”

Justice Berch: You make a valid point. The answer is — has anyone yet been put on probation? No…”

…

NACIQI: “How many institutions have you denied accreditation to for low pass rates?

Justice Berch: For low pass rates alone, none.”

…

NACIQI: “Over the past five years how many institutions have you withdrawn your accreditation from?”

Currier: “Zero, zero.”

You Think The ABA Can’t Do The Job?

During the NACIQI’s discussion on the motion to recommend renewal of the ABA’s accreditation power, one member put the problem bluntly:

“I am troubled that the ABA just simply isn’t independent enough for this responsibility… I find it very difficult to think that they are going to be objective enough to continue to carry out this responsibility. And I reluctantly conclude that the ABA is not the appropriate accreditor for our law schools…[T]he crushing debt load on thousands and thousands of students is too serious for us… And I think the debt load is not going to get better if we say yes to this motion.”

Another member added: “I think that objectivity is important as you go through this process, so I would think an independent body that does not have the conflict of interest that the ABA has.”

It’s Worse Than They Thought

The NACIQI didn’t consider a recent illustration of the ABA’s independence problems. Former ABA President Dennis Archer is chairman of the national policy board of Infilaw — a consortium of three for-profit law schools. At those schools — Arizona Summit, Florida Coastal, and the Charlotte School of Law — students graduate with six-figure debt and dismal prospects for a meaningful job requiring bar passage. (Full-time long-term JD-required job placement rate ten months after 2015 graduation: Arizona Summit — 40 percent; Florida Coastal — 39 percent; Charlotte — 26 percent.)

On November 18, 2013, Archer and Infilaw’s chief executive officer co-signed a seven-page tour de force warning the DOE about the perils of applying the “Gainful Employment Rule” to “proprietary law schools and first professional degree schools in general.” The letter (on Infilaw stationery) argued, among other things, that the proposed rule was unnecessary because the ABA — as an accrediting body — ensures that InfiLaw “must offer an education that will help students achieve their goals.”

Six months later, Archer became chairman of the ABA’s Task Force on the Financing Legal Education. A year later — June 2015 — the Task Force acknowledged that 25 percent of law schools obtain at least 88 percent of their revenues from tuition. But it refused to recommend an obvious remedy: financial penalties for schools where students incur massive law school debt in exchange for dismal long-term JD-required job prospects.

The Task Force’s recommendations were embarrassingly inadequate, but the ABA House of Delegates accepted them.

One More Chance?

The ABA’s culture of self-interest and insularity has now created a bigger mess. Some NACIQI members favored the “nuclear” option: recommending denial of the ABA’s accrediting authority altogether. The committee opted to send a “clear message” through less draconian means.

The final recommendation was to give the ABA a 12-month period during which it would have no power to accredit new law schools. Thereafter, the ABA would report its progress in addressing the committee’s concerns, including the massive debt that students are incurring at law schools with poor JD-required placement rates.

As one member put it, “It is great to collect data, but they don’t have any standard on placement. What’s the point of collecting data if you can’t…use the data to help the students and protect the students…”

Another member summarized the committee’s view of the ABA: “This feels like an Agency that is out of step with a crisis in its profession, out of step with the changes in higher ed, and out of step with the plight of the students that are going through the law schools.”

The day of reckoning may not be at hand, but it’s getting closer.

TRUMP AND THE RULE OF LAW: ECHOES OF NIXON

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Two months ago, I wrote an essay, “Trump and the Rule of Law.” I didn’t contemplate that it would evolve into a never-ending series on the subject. This is part three.

Perhaps history doesn’t repeat itself but sometimes it rhymes.

“We must maintain law and order at the highest level or we will cease to have a country, 100 percent. We will cease to have a country. I am the law and order candidate.” – Donald Trump, July 11, 2016

“Law and order is in the interest of all Americans. Let’s just make sure that our laws deserve respect; then, they will be respected by all Americans.” – Richard M. Nixon, 1968

To win the 1968 election, Richard Nixon exploited fear, racial unrest and an unpopular war to exacerbate division. His message resonated with alienated voters who yearned for a bygone time that looked better in hindsight than it had ever been. He offered himself as uniquely capable of fixing anything and everything that was broken.

Shared Disdain For The Rules

Although the differences between 1968 and 2016 are enormous, Trump’s campaign manager Paul Manafort boasts that his candidate will continue using Nixon’s “law and order” playbook. But the most startling similarity between Nixon and Trump is the divergence of that rhetoric from their common disdain for the rule of law.

Nixon confined his dangerous views to private conversations with confidants; Trump shouts them loudly for public consumption. Those who should be paying closest attention have lost themselves in cynical calculations of personal political self-interest.

“He’ll have a White House counsel,” says Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in explaining why he continues to support Trump. “There will be others who point out that there’s certain things you can do and can’t do.”

Senator John McCain rationalizes his tolerance for Trump’s role as his personal abuser-in-chief: “I still believe we have the institutions of government that would restrain someone who seeks to exceed their constitutional obligations. We have a Congress. We have the Supreme Court. We’re not Romania.”

Senators McConnell, McCain and other Republicans refusing to disavow Trump could benefit by spending some time with President Richard Nixon’s former White House Counsel John Dean.

Magical Thinking Has A Cost

On March 21, 1973, Dean told the President:

“[T]here’s no doubt about the seriousness of the problem we’ve got. We have a cancer within – close to the presidency, that’s growing. It’s growing daily. It’s compounding. It grows geometrically now, because it compounds itself… And that is just – and there is no assurance – ”

Nixon: “That it won’t bust.”

Dean: “That, that won’t bust.”

Nixon: “True.”

A month later, Nixon fired him. It takes little imagination to envision Trump delivering that line with gusto: “You’re fired!” While Nixon fiddled with the levers of power for the next eighteen months, the country burned. The United States languished in its most severe recession since World War II and the business of governing slowed to a crawl.

Reticent Republicans

Then as now, prominent Republicans were slow in reacting to Nixon’s attack on the rule of law. Eventually, a unanimous Supreme Court ordered release of Nixon’s incriminating White House tapes and the House of Representatives passed articles of impeachment. Only then did key Republican leaders, including Senator Barry Goldwater, urge Nixon to step down because – at long last – there were enough Republican votes in the Senate to join Democrats in convicting him.

Nixon lost his fight with Congress and the courts. But the margin was thin and for a year-and-a-half the country suffered immeasurable collateral damage. A search for the origins of current public distrust in government could start with the events culminating in Nixon’s 1974 resignation.

Unabashed Lawlessness

Nixon thought he was above the law, but didn’t admit it publicly until three years after leaving office: “When the President does it, it means it’s not illegal.”

Trump’s similar revelations occur in real-time. Even conservative legal commentators express concern for his unwillingness to acknowledge the limits of presidential power. As University of Chicago/NYU Law Professor Richard A. Epstein puts it, “I think Trump doesn’t even think there’s an issue to worry about. He just simply says, whatever I want to do, I will do.”

The Complete Makeover That Never Will Happen

On April 21, 2016, Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort assured Republican National Committee members that Trump’s antics during the primaries were an act.

“That’s what’s important for you to understand – that he gets it, and that the part he’s been playing is evolving now into the part you’ve been expecting… Fixing personality negatives is a lot easier than fixing character negatives. You can’t change somebody’s character, but you can change the way a person presents himself.”

Since then Manafort’s candidate has devolved in every way.

It Starts And Ends With The Patient

Who was to blame for all of those outbursts? Certainly not Trump himself. On June 20, campaign manager Corey Lewandowski took the fall.

“We’re going to go a little bit in a different route from this point forward,” Trump said. “A little different style.”

Since then Trump has:

  • Described Great Britain’s vote to leave the European Union as good for his Scottish golf course business;
  • Called Senator Elizabeth Warren a racist;
  • Described Jews as unduly sensitive about a campaign tweet slamming Hillary Clinton as corrupt – with dollar bills in the background and the Star of David in the foreground;
  • Invited Putin to hack the computers of Democratic rivals;
  • Smeared the Muslim religion with innuendo about a Gold Star mother of a veteran who’d died saving his fellow soldiers; and
  • Assured the world that Putin is “not going into Ukraine, OK, just so you understand. He’s not going to go into Ukraine, all right? You can mark it down. You can put it down. You can take it anywhere you want” — even though most of the world knows that Putin is already there.

At public events, his audiences cheer. Richard Nixon knew what that was about: “People react to fear, not love. They don’t teach that in Sunday school, but it’s true.”

Where’s The Bottom?

Trump’s apologists cling to the self-deceptive notion that he’s just rejecting political correctness. Here’s the truth: almost daily he says something that is simply wrong — factually, legally, and/or morally. Often he hits the trifecta with a single shot. It’s not a matter of political correctness. It’s a matter of correctness — period.

Manafort misdiagnosed his candidate’s underlying problem as something distinct from character. Trump’s personality is an extension of his character. At age 70, he remains what he has always been and always will be. But don’t take my word for it; take his.

As Trump told the press during his Memorial Day rampage against another frequent Nixon target – the media: “You think I’m going to change? I’m not changing.”

He means it. When it comes to character, decency and respect for the rule of law, Donald Trump is Richard Nixon on steroids with a megaphone and no internal filter. What we see is what we will continue to get until November when the worst reality show ever comes to an end.