Lisa Rubin

Was former Trump lawyer Alina Habba ‘validly appointed’ to her DOJ post? Whether or not she is legitimately serving as New Jersey’s U.S. attorney, DOJ’s fallback position is even more concerning.

NEW: DOJ says the ongoing dispute over Alina Habba is one about titles, not authority. What does that mean? And why is their fallback position more frightening for the rule of law than their insistence on keeping her as Acting U.S. Attorney? Read here:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

Read Epstein prosecutor Maurene Comey’s letter to colleagues after DOJ firing “Fear is the tool of a tyrant,” wrote the daughter of former FBI Director James Comey, a frequent target of President Donald Trump.

NEW: In an email to her now-former colleagues today, veteran SDNY prosecutor Maurene Comey says she was “summarily fired” by “Main Justice” and urges that fear not “seep into the decisions of those who remain.” Read her whole email here:

www.msnbc.com/top-stories/...

YouTube video by MSNBC Trump facing endless legal NIGHTMARE: 'Keep on suing'

Democratic state AGs have filed dozens of lawsuits against the Trump admin. and are showing no signs of stopping.

MSNBC's @lawofruby.bsky.social sits down with three of them to discuss their role in combating Trump 2.0 in a new episode of "Can They Do That?"

WATCH: www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIz_...

Pete Hegseth's not the only Trump ally nor the only Trump nominee to express doubts that the executive branch should follow court orders, full stop. It's a disturbing trend, especially when the doubters are themselves federal judicial nominees. My latest for @msnbc.com: msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

Promotional graphic for MSNBC's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell featuring MSNBC Legal Correspondent Lisa Rubin

TONIGHT: @lawofruby.bsky.social joins @lawrenceodonnell.msnbc.com on The #LastWord at 10pm ET.

The court battles between the Trump administration and Harvard are now so extensive and critical to Harvard that, as I just said on @msnbc.com, collectively, they remind me of this scene.

Reviewing Certain Presidential Actions MEMORANDUM FOR THE ATTORNEY GENERALTHE COUNSEL TO THE PRESIDENT SUBJECT:       Reviewing Certain Presidential Actions By the

The Trump memo launching an investigation into the Biden White House’s use of the autopen allegedly to conceal his mental state is something else. Why is the White House Counsel in charge of this investigation? That is one indicator that something is awry.

www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

NEW: I watched today’s nomination hearing for the first of Trump’s judicial nominees, and spoiler alert: they are willing to go places unthinkable for legal conservatives even 4 years ago. My latest for MSNBC.com:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

Lisa Rubin is going home to her daughters and take-out.

Nominations | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

NEW: The first judicial nominees of Trump 2.0 get a Senate Judiciary hearing this morning starting in 2 min. Watch along with me?

www.judiciary.senate.gov/committee-ac...

As law firms and clients push back against Trump, he shifts focus to judicial 'vetters' In cutting off the American Bar Association's access to judicial nominees and attacking the Federalist Society, Trump seeks to become the sole arbiter of judicial quality.

NEW: Everyone's got a hot take on Trump's beef with the Federalist Society. Mine? Trump wants to eliminate both FedSoc and the ABA's influence over judicial nominations so he's the sole arbiter of nominees' qualifications & fitness. My latest for MSNBC.com: www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

Victims' lawsuits show FBI and DOJ's focus on Epstein files misses the mark Instead of devoting thousands of hours to document redactions, the agencies should determine how to more effectively — and emphatically — respond to sex abuse victims.

NEW: Pam Bondi & Kash Patel are under increasing pressure to release more info about Jeffrey Epstein’s life and death. But putting aside our own curiosity, doesn’t federal law enforcement owe his victims a review of their own failure to act? My latest at MSNBC.com:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

NEW: Are the courts holding in Trump 2.0? Well, that depends. No court can hold if its orders are flouted—and one immigration case highlights how willing the administration seems to disobey. My latest for MSNBC.com:

www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

The significance of Biden’s Hur audio isn’t what he said. It’s how he said it. The release of the Biden audio amid the Sean “Diddy” Combs trial underscores why the public’s ability to watch and listen to court proceedings matters.

NEW: The audio of Biden's interview with Robert Hur matters less for what he said than how he said it--and underscores, like the Sean "Diddy" Combs trial, why there's often no replacement for actually hearing a witness's account. My latest for @msnbc.com: www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

And why was she arrested the same day that a federal judge in another court expressed doubt that customs officials had authority to revoke her visa? Something smells off here -- and it's not the "biological material" Petrova failed to declare on her customs forms.

Petrova was detained at Logan Airport on February 16. If the case against her is righteous and just, why did it take the feds two months after detaining her to file so little?

In the meantime, the charging papers are little more than an affidavit from a Homeland Security Investigations agent and this criminal complaint.

At some point today, the administration moved to unseal its criminal complaint against Petrova in a Massachusetts federal court and represented she has been arrested:

The administration told that judge, Christina Reiss, that they intend to send Petrova back to Russia, despite her fear of arrest because of her support for Ukraine. Reiss scheduled a bail hearing on May 28, "potentially setting the stage for Ms. Petrova’s release":

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/14/h...

Harvard researcher Kseniia Petrova has been charged criminally with smuggling goods -- e.g., frog embryos and samples thereof on slides, etc. -- into the United States on the same day the judge overseeing her habeas case questioned the government's authority to revoke her visa.

Why it matters that Cassie Ventura named names While the public focuses on the sexual and physical abuse that Ventura allegedly suffered at Sean “Diddy” Combs’ hands, the charges necessitate proof of who enabled his conduct.

NEW: Beyond detailing the horrors she alleges she suffered at Sean Combs' hands, Cassie Ventura has dropped some other important details: the names of Combs' alleged enablers (aka co-conspirators). I break down why that matters in my latest for @msnbc.com: www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

So just to be clear, DOJ policy prohibits personnel from offering “any opinion as to the defendant’s guilt” except during the proceeding itself or after a conviction. There is no exception for media appearances. FIN.

And yet, in service of what they call responding in kind, this DOJ doesn’t seem to care a lick about complying with the department policy they claim the preceding administration ignored. 4/

That claim was thoroughly dismantled by a federal judge, even after the Justice Department scoured prosecutors’ emails and texts for proof of their purported misconduct. 3/

Weren’t the public statements of then-SDNY U.S. Attorney Damian Williams a large part of their claim that the charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams were politically motivated? 2/

I am struggling to understand why, when as the Deputy Attorney General acknowledged, it is not appropriate to comment on a pending criminal investigation, it is ok to disparage Newark’s mayor, who now faces charges under a federal criminal complaint, on national TV. 1/

So it’s Friday night and Rumeysa Ozturk is out on bail, Ras Baraka is in Homeland Security custody, and Stephen Miller is casually toying with suspending habeas corpus. Do I have that right?

Without David Souter, the Federalist Society might’ve remained on the fringe More than any decision he authored, the justice’s legacy was how he surprised legal conservatives, galvanizing a movement to prevent the nomination of federal jurists like him.

NEW: News of the passing of retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter made me think immediately of . . . the Federalist Society. Why? Read my latest for @msnbc.com: www.msnbc.com/opinion/anal...

"The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing." FIN.

"He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all. 3/