Trump has interviewed Judge William Pryor for open SCOTUS seat

Wow, he's not wasting any time.  Above the Law has all of the details:

On Saturday afternoon, here in cold and snowy New York, President-elect Donald Trump interviewed Judge William Pryor of the Eleventh Circuit for the open seat on the U.S. Supreme Court. The opportunity to meet with PEOTUS to talk about SCOTUS must have lifted Judge Pryor’s spirits, in the wake of the loss of his beloved Crimson Tide in Monday’s football championship.
The news of a Trump/Pryor meeting, while notable, is not surprising. At last week’s press conference, Trump said that SCOTUS meetings are underway and we should expect a nominee within two weeks of inauguration day. And Judge Pryor, beloved by conservatives, sits at the top of the Trump SCOTUS list.
...
Judge Pryor is very conservative and very outspoken — but he’s also very smart and a stickler for preparation, and he would likely perform well at confirmation hearings. He might not be able to bob and weave around the issues as well as some other nominees, given his paper trail and past pronouncements (and he might not even bother to; recall how he refused to disavow his “Roe is an abomination” comment in his 2005 hearings). But Bill Pryor is not going to self-immolate like Robert Bork in 1987; he’s too shrewd for that. And short of a self-immolation, he has a solid shot of winning confirmation, with 52 Republicans in the Senate (plus some Democrats who might cross over — Vice President-elect Mike Pence is already working on that). 

"It’s Game of Thrones, The Apprentice, and Survivor, all mixed into one.”

Via Politico, great quote from a senior Trump person on the transition process... David Lat from Above the Law has coverage of the SG sweepstakes and the DOJ transition, which all seems very chaotic.  The process for this District doesn't seem any more organized. 

Enjoy the long weekend.

SCOTUSblog profiles Judge Bill Pryor

It's an incredibly detailed and informative post on the potential Supreme Court nominee from the 11th Circuit.  The whole thing is definitely worth reading if you are interested in the Supreme Court.  Here's the intro:

Judge William H. Pryor Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit is widely considered, along with Judge Diane Sykes, to be the front-runner to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. President-elect Donald Trump mentioned both judges by name during a primary debate shortly after Scalia’s death, and both have the conservative bona fides necessary to allay concerns about, as Pryor himself has put it, adding “more Souters” to the court.
Pryor, 54, earned his B.A. from Northeast Louisiana University in 1984 and his J.D. from Tulane University Law School 1987. Pryor clerked for Judge John Minor Wisdom on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and then worked as a private attorney until 1995. He served for two years as deputy attorney general of Alabama before becoming attorney general in 1997. As attorney general, he became known for his removal of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for Moore’s refusal to follow a federal court order to remove a Ten Commandments monument from the state Supreme Court building.

President George W. Bush nominated Pryor to the 11th Circuit in 2003, but the nomination stalled after Senate Democrats criticized Pryor for several incidents. While serving as attorney general, Pryor wrote a brief in defense of the Texas law banning sodomy that was later struck down in Lawrence v. Texas. Additionally, Pryor has called Roe v. Wade the “worst abomination in the history of constitutional law.” Bush eventually appointed Pryor to the appeals court during a congressional recess in 2004, and he was later confirmed by the Senate by a vote of 53-45.

Rumor has it (UPDATED)

The nice thing about blogging is that we can post rumors as they come in (oh wait, the MSM does that too, see Golden Showers!).  We don't have anything like that, but we have it on a reliable source that the Trump administration has asked U.S. Attorney Willie Ferrer to resign. [UPDATE -- someone with knowledge of this has indicated that this rumor is false and that Willie has NOT been asked to resign.] If true, there should be a shakeup in that office in the near future.  There's also been quite a bit of speculation on what Mr. Ferrer will do next.  I'll leave that for him to say.

The shakeup locally and nationally will hopefully change the extreme position that the government frequently takes on bond.  For example, yesterday DOJ asked for the VW executive (who was arrested in Miami while on vacation with his family) to be held on pretrial detention.  From the DBR:

The defense team said they would like Schmidt to be held in a marshal-supervised hotel until a full bond hearing could be held in Michigan. They argued Schmidt had cooperated with the U.S. government by meeting with FBI agents of his own volition in London early in the investigation.
"He showed that he has absolutely nothing to hide from the government," Massey told the judge.
Massey also said Schmidt's arrest came as something of a surprise, because the government told Schmidt's attorneys as recently as Dec. 16 that he was only a "subject" and not a "target" of the investigation.
Singer insisted that Schmidt's meetings with U.S. officials were rife with deception. Schmidt traveled to the U.S. to meet with regulators in 2015 and deliberately hid the emissions test cheating from them, Singer said.
"It's actually, I think, a fact that weighs against him," he said.

Schmidt's local lawyer is one of the candidates for U.S. Attorney, John Couriel.  If John gets the gig, there may be some hope that he softens the office's very harsh position on bail.

Lots of press coverage for the shooter's initial apperance

There was a ton of press at the airport shooter's initial appearance yesterday.  "The judge told him the maximum penalty -- DEATH!"  "He was shackled!"  "The prosecution is seeking detention!"  So basically, like every other initial appearance, except that the maximum penalty in this case could be the death penalty.  In every initial appearance, the defendant is shackled and the judge reads the charges and the maximum penalties.  And in every case of serious violence, the prosecution seeks detention.

In any event, he's very lucky  that he will have the Federal Public Defender's Office representing him in this case.  It will be extremely interesting to see if the government actually seeks the death penalty.  You would think it wouldn't based on all of the reports of mental illness and that the FBI returned the gun to him.  But with the new AG Jeff Sessions, who knows.  Perhaps he will use this case to start off his administration with a new direction by trying to reinvigorate the federal death penalty. 

Meantime, it looks like law enforcement is leaking again, which has become a real problem in this District and around the country.  This time, it leaked awful videos to the press.  Here's coverage on the leak:

Local and federal authorities think they know who leaked security video of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport shooting to TMZ.
Broward Mayor Barbara Sharief told CBS4 News that she’s doesn’t specifically know who leaked the video, but she’s fairly certain it was a member of law enforcement.
TMZ obtained the dramatic surveillance video of suspected mass murderer Esteban Santiago calmly pulling a gun from his waistband and shot 15 bullets at Terminal 2’s baggage claim at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Friday.
Five people were killed and even more were injured.
It’s video that Sharief said the public was never meant to see.
“We’re not tolerating this,” Sharief said. “This is an ongoing investigation. That tape shows a victim being shot and we don’t want that out on the street.”
Sharief said it appeared that the video released to TMZ was taken by someone recording the surveillance video with a cellphone.
She said a reflection captured on the cellphone recording might give away the person by identifying the law enforcement agency the person works for.
“We were able to clearly see the association or agency that the person was with and identify some other significant characteristics,” she said.
Sharief said the identity of the person who recorded the video and possibly leaked it isn’t known, but the county asked the FBI to investigate.
Sharief said after airport officials and the FBI enhanced the reflection, investigators were able to rule out airport and FBI personnel.
She said it “leaves BSO and a couple of other law enforcement agencies that were in that room.”