“If you view conservatives judges and justices as “lawless,” then every decision that they issue can be construed as a “crisis” in failing to adopt your own interpretive approach.”

—George Washington University law professor and lawyer Jonathan Turley

I decided to ignore the recent open letter signed by approximately 950 law professors declaring the second Trump administration a “Constitutional crisis,” because it was so obviously a mass exhibition of both “bias makes you stupid” and the overwhelming partisan slant of the legal profession, upon which Ethics Alarms has commented many times. The letter is the equivalent of the infamous one in 2020 signed by all those national intelligence experts who wanted everyone to know that the Hunter Biden laptop was really Russian disinformation, but the current letter is worse. Lawyers, as professionals, are required to be trustworthy. Trustworthy lawyers don’t put their names on legal misinformation and political propaganda like this latest “Trump is a dictator” attack. (The American Bar Association has issued a similar statement.)

I’m glad I waited and let Professor Turley eviscerate these disgraces to the law and academia. Cruelly, he has more influence, visibility and credibility than little ol’ me. In his blog post and column for The Hill titled “Panic politics: Law professors’ umpteenth ‘constitutional crisis’ falls flat”, Turley neatly points out,

• “The latest letter follows a familiar pattern that has played out like a political perpetual motion machine since the first Trump impeachment. It works something like this: A legal academy composed of largely liberal academics announces a “constitutional crisis” caused by conservatives, and then a largely liberal media runs the story with little scrutiny or skepticism. On most echo-chambered media sites, the public rarely hears an opposing view.”

Nah, there’s no mainstream media bias! On my Facebook page, lawyers and even a couple of professors regularly proclaim as fact that President Trump is “defying” the Constitution.

Biased, ignorant and Trump-Deranged is no way to practice law, son.

Read the whole thing, but here are some more excerpts:

• “A study by Georgetown University’s Kevin Tobia and MIT’s Eric Martinez found that only 9 percent of law school professors in the top 50 law schools identify as conservative…In other words, it is embarrassingly easy to get 1,000 law professors to sign off on letters claiming endless constitutional crises caused by Trump or conservatives. Those letters are then fed to eagerly awaiting media outlets. The perpetual machine then whirls and spins as liberal professors feed liberal reporters, who then feed liberals in Congress, who cite the unchallenged consensus of academia and the media.”

• “The New York Times rushed the news to its viewers that “Trump’s Actions Have Created a Constitutional Crisis, Scholars Say.” The Times interviewed Berkeley Dean Erwin Chemerinsky, who previously called the conservative justices “political hacks” and just published a book titled “No Democracy Lasts Forever: How the Constitution Threatens the United States.” Chemerinsky breathlessly explained “We never have seen anything like this.” The problem is that we have. Presidents often negate the prior executive orders of their predecessors, fire their appointees and implement sweeping new changes. Those actions are frequently challenged and some are found to be procedurally or substantially unlawful. Others are upheld.”

This part of what EA marked as Big Lie #6: “Trump’s Defiance of Norms Is a Threat To Democracy” during Trump’s first term. As Turley notes now,

President Biden was repeatedly found to have violated the constitution without most of these signatories expressing a peep of concern over the mounting “crisis.”

Indeed, some pushed for unconstitutional actions against the overwhelming views of legal experts. Take Harvard Professor Laurence Tribe, who also signed this letter to express alarm at Trump pushing the Constitution to the breaking point. Tribe has attacked conservatives in profane diatribes and supported packing the Supreme Court to engineer a liberal majority.

When Biden wanted to circumvent Congress and implement billions in student loan forgiveness payments before the election, Tribe was there. Even former Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted that Biden could not constitutionally wipe out hundreds of millions of dollars of student loans without congressional action. However, Tribe assured President Biden that it was entirely legal.

It was found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court and lower courts.

Turley frequently uses his blog to debunk Axis talking points, and thus has been exiled to Fox News, when ethical news broadcasts should be lining up to have him clarify such misleading assertions by legal hacks and partisan propagandists in lawyers’ clothing. He has been “cancelled,” in essence, because the professor bases his analysis on sound legal principles and an observance of historical precedents rather than party affiliations or preference.