During oral arguments on Tuesday, virtually every justice on the U. S. Supreme Court expressed doubts about the disingenuous honest-services-fraud statute, suggesting its days are numbered.

What is honest-services fraud? No one really knows.

Indefinable and hence unconstitutionally vague, honest-services fraud is "a scheme or artifice to deprive another of...

A stunning archaeological find surfaced two weeks ago amid world-wide media coverage: "Vanished Persian Army Said Found in Desert." The longstanding mystery surrounding the Lost Army of Cambyses--50,000 Persian soldiers swallowed up in a hurricane-force sandstorm in 525 BC--had finally been solved.

As one of the world's leading experts on...

Jack Abramoff--the imprisoned Washington ex-lobbyist--must be kicking himself.

On Thursday, October 15, a judge in Washington, D.C. reluctantly declared a mistrial for defendant Kevin Ring, one of Abramoff's most trusted lieutenants.[1] The jury had found itself hopelessly deadlocked on all eight counts, most of them "private honest-services fraud."[2] And...

Last week, we arranged for my 57-year-old brother-in-law to fly back from the rural Philippines. His health was failing and he was not expected to live more than a few months. He had been suffering for years from hepatitis C, contracted from a 1977 blood transfusion following a bad car...

Barack Obama is not the first black man for whom I've voted for President of the United States. In 1968, I voted for someone who was running against Republican Richard Nixon and Democrat Hubert Humphrey. His name was Eldridge Cleaver, the Peace and Freedom Party candidate. It was during the...

Former UBS private banker, Bradley Birkenfeld, son of a Boston neurosurgeon, may be one of the most effective whistleblowers in the nation's history. He has essentially destroyed the chance for wealthy Americans and/or criminals to hide their money in Swiss numbered bank accounts. UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, has agreed to...

Private health-insurance and pharmaceutical industry lobbyists are threatening the health and stability of America. Some argue that this is equivalent to crimes against humanity. Perhaps these lobbyists should be sent to prison, not the Jack Abramoffs of the world, whose transgressions were comparatively trivial.

What frightens these lobbyists, along...

Who are the beneficiaries of what appears to be the teapot tempest over the recent arrest of an African-American man in The People's Republic of Cambridge, Ma, one of the most liberal municipalities in America? Perhaps it is all of us, but in particular, the "victim" Henry Louis "Skip" Gates,...

On June 22, The Boston Globe reported that the now disgraced, former Massachusetts House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi announced that he would challenge the legal and intellectual validity of the controversial and nebulous honest-services fraud statute, for which he had been recently indicted. Windmill tilting notwithstanding, his challenge is both welcomed...

What one reads in the newspapers is often oversimplified and distorted so much so that it borders on fiction--a lesson we need to be reminded of constantly.

On Thursday, May 21, The Washington Post reported that convicted and imprisoned ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, recently received a $520,189 IRS tax refund. The...

Two-time Oscar winning actor Kevin Spacey and director George Hickenlooper may have committed a felony last week by visiting convicted felon Jack Abramoff in prison. They are involved in a feature film--tentatively titled Casino Jack or Bagman--about the Abramoff lobbying scandal.

Although their felonious infraction may seem minor, the consequences...

In a stunning -- and almost unprecedented -- development, Attorney General Eric Holder announced this week that he would ask for the indictment and conviction of former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) to be rescinded -- due to prosecutorial misconduct.

Declaring Holder to be "a pillar of integrity," Stevens' lawyer, Brendan...

A longstanding, exemplary priest will be defrocked, prosecuted, and imprisoned if on one occasion long ago he molested a 10-year-old altar boy. A highly esteemed lawyer will be suspended and/or disbarred, if on one occasion he borrowed from client's funds. A highly trusted bank teller will spend time in prison,...

WHY NOT TALK TO BIN LADEN

President Obama wisely believes in the value of engaging in dialogue with those whose viewpoints differ radically from his--the President of Iran, perhaps members of Hamas, and even "moderate" elements of the Taliban. Because of the "deteriorating" political and military situation in Afghanistan--after more...

The New York Times (in editorials on February 22 and March 2, 2009), along with so many others, including most Democrats and many Republicans, lament "the shameless back-scratching of lobbyists and lawmakers." The Times demands tougher lobbying reform and political corruption laws. This kind of thinking, while well intentioned, is...

In Friday's New York Times (February 20, 2009), there were two intriguing items on lobbying. One was an editorial, decrying the insidious nexus between lobbyists and campaign contributions; the other, a news story about the settlement of a libel lawsuit brought by lobbyist Vicki L. Iseman, Sen. John McCain's special...

Many conservatives equate talking to the enemy with appeasement. They cite Neville Chamberlain's simplistic, naïve appeasement of Adolph Hitler and President Jimmy Carter's of Leonid Brezhnev as examples of the very kind of approach that President Barack Obama should avoid. It may be the conservatives who are simplistic and naïve.

Dear President Bush,

I am writing to urge you to commute the sentence of Jack Abramoff. Although I know this request may sound far fetched, I would appreciate your forbearance until I can explain.

The truth in the Abramoff case is not what it appeared to be, as all the...

Sen. John McCain, for many, is an appealing presidential candidate, because he seems to have followed his conscience, not Republican Party dogma, on so many issues. These include his support of campaign finance reform, and his opposition to the Bush tax cuts, drilling in the Arctic Wilderness, and a constitutional...