Ruth Marcus

This week I left The Washington Post after 40 years, 6 months and 6 days. Today I have a piece in the New Yorker explaining my heart-breaking decision, and including the column that was spiked. I wish I never had to write it. www.newyorker.com/news/essay/w...

Thinking today of all the fine journalists at Voice of America, Radio Free Europe and elsewhere who can no longer do their excellent and indispensable work.

The White House has gone after another leading law firm. This time Paul Weiss. I cannot overstate how dangerous this is—and how urgent for the private bar to respond with solidarity to this assault on the legal profession and rule of law.

We all knew the moment would come in the second Trump term when he got his way and used the DOJ to pursue foes. But it fees like a gut punch nonetheless. The Flimsy, Dangerous Indictment of James Comey www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

In Pam Bondi, Donald Trump finally has the attorney general he always wanted. My latest for the New Yorker, www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Erez Reuveni, the Justice Department whistleblower, speaks out. His words are powerful. My latest, www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

The federal courts have been doing an impressive job of standing up to Trump. This includes SCOTUS, at times. But not always. See its latest gift to presidential power--conveniently ignoring a 90-year-old precedent. My latest for New Yorker www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

Annals of a judiciary losing its patience--this from the judge overseeing the case of migrants deported to dangerous third countries: "Defendants have mischaracterized this Court’s order, while at the same time manufacturing the very chaos they decry." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Vance v. Roberts. My latest from New Yorker, about the vice president's wrongheaded claim that the federal courts are frustrating the will of the voters--and that the chief justice should intervene.

Fact check: No, Secretary Noem. Habeas corpus is not a constitutional right the president has to remove people from the country. It is a right the people have to combar the arbitrary use of executive power. I have a handy explanation for you here. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

My take on the surprising and at least somewhat cheering oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case. The skeptical reception some justices gave to SG John Sauer was, I think, evidence that the Trump administration's aggressiveness may be costing it in court. www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

Who’s weaponizing now? Taking career prosecutors out of the equation and leaving it to Trump-installed US Attorneys is yet another dangerous move. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The right to go to court to protest unlawful detention--habeas corpus--is, SCOTUS has said, “the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.” Trump is "actively considering" suspending it. My latest, www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...