Elizabeth Maresca commented on the hidden pitfalls of free tax preparation services for CBS. Elizabeth Maresca, a tax law professor at Fordham University Law School, said instituting a prefilled form would have mixed results for Americans. She noted that people with simple tax returns who don’t bother to itemize could benefit from such a system as would those who never file taxes but are due refunds. Yet, she acknowledges that the IRS could make mistakes. Another major concern is what would happen to people who make a living filing taxes, especially accountants who are self-employed or work at small firms.…
Author: sdanaher
Andrew Kent spoke on a Bloomberg News podcast concerning legal challenges to House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes’ claims that he had evidence of the Obama Administration’s attempts to wiretap President Trump’s campaign. Obviously there are close political links between a president and members of his party in the Congress, but when the president’s own conduct, and the conduct of his campaign and close aides to him are the subject of such an incredibly important and sensitive investigation that the House Intelligence Committee is undergoing, this behavior by the Chairman is really extraordinary and quite inappropriate. Listen to the full…
Karen Greenberg offered comment to Philly Voice about the Trump Administration’s initiative to strip a convicted terrorist of his citizenship. Karen Greenberg, director of the Fordham Law School’s Center on National Security in New York, said the federal government has been aggressive in previous decades about revoking the citizenship of accused Nazis living in the United States. But she says it’s largely unheard of for revocation proceedings to be launched against naturalized U.S. citizens imprisoned for terrorism. … But Greenberg said making the revocation of a terrorist’s U.S. citizenship established policy would only add to a trend since 9/11 of…
A Bloomberg News podcast concerning FBI Director James Comey’s testimony on Russian interference in the U.S. presidential election featured input from Fordham professor Andrew Kent. [Director Comey] was very cautious and sober and measured and careful. But I think the spectacle of seeing so many Republicans on the Intelligence Committee almost seeming angry that a counterintelligence investigation was going on – they seemed quite upset almost that the FBI was investigating Russian interference in our elections…The intensity of the partisanship here is pretty strong. Listen to the full podcast here.
Business Insider quoted Fordham professor John Pfaff in an article about Jeff Sessions’s intention to revive the “war on drugs.” John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University in New York who recently published a book on the causes of mass incarceration, told Business Insider in an email that Sessions is probably not trying to specifically revive the “War on Drugs,” but rather looking to justify “harsh punitive responses to crime more broadly.” Incarceration would be an easy sell politically for Sessions and the Trump Administration, even if its an inefficient way of controlling crime, he added. “Sessions’ insistence that the…
VICE News quoted Fordham professor John Pfaff in an article about Steve Cook, Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s pick to help crack down on violent crime. John Pfaff, a law professor at Fordham University who studies crime and incarceration, said Cook also ignores the social cost of mass incarceration, from reduced life expectancy to damage done to the prisoners’ families. “These are real costs, and they are discussed far too rarely,” Pfaff said in an email. Read the full story here.
Andrew Kent provided comment to the Providence Journal on the bipartisan probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election. “The FBI focus is going to be at looking at whether any federal laws were broken,” Andrew Kent, a professor at Fordham Law School in New York, told Voice of America, the largest U.S. international broadcaster. “The congressional committees can look a little bit more broadly and don’t have a focus on whether specific laws were broken.” Read the full story here.
Jed Shugerman co-authored an opinion piece in the New York Daily News, advocating for the New York Attorney General to dissolve the Trump Organization. It’s time to dissolve the Trump Organization. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has the legal authority to file a lawsuit for “judicial dissolution” of the company in New York court. With the firing by President Trump last week of the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, it’s all the more critical for Schneiderman to stand up for the rule of law. The Trump Organization is the nerve center for a network of…
VICE News quoted Fordham professor Zephyr Teachout in an article about the abrupt firing of Preet Bharara. “The way he was fired—after being promised the job—that’s a direct assault on the norms that hold us together,” Zephyr Teachout, the Fordham law professor who literally wrote the book on corruption in America and was in the audience for Bharara’s speech that day, told me in an email. Read the full story here.
USA Today quoted Fordham professor Zephyr Teachout on Donald Trump’s dismissal of Preet Baharara. “Preet Bharara is a New York hero. I am gut-punched to hear he was asked to resign. Right when we need rule of law,” Zephyr Teachout, a Fordham Law professor who ran for governor in 2014 and Congress last year as a Democrat, wrote Saturday morning on Twitter. Read the full story here.