Author: TSA Press

I don’t separate my person from my job. But it just so happens that my person is being highlighted because of the audacity that I have to be myself. But my job is very serious. I take it very seriously.

People immediately want to come in and identify the defendant because they think there’s a look. So then I talk about myself. It’s weird that this has all kind of come full circle. I talk about the fact that if you looked at me in my dress outside the courtroom you would never assume that I was the presiding judge because assumptions fail us all the time.

— Judge Amber Givens-Davis, Presiding Judge of the 282nd Judicial District Court in Dallas County, Texas, in response to critiques of her shaved-sides hairstyle and “bold” makeup. Judge Givens-Davis now hosts discussions with young women about individuality and self-confidence.

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Yesterday, the House Ways and Means committee finally sued Steve Mnuchin and the Treasury Department to compel them to release Donald Trump’s tax returns to the committee, as required by law. The Trump administration has vowed to fight the subpoena all the way up to the Supreme Court. Depending on how the Court is feeling, we could get a decision on whether Trump must release his tax returns by early next year.

The House is pursuing the matter along two legal fronts. The first is statutory. 26 U.S. Code Section 6103(f) says, PLAIN AS DAY, that the Treasury Secretary SHALL furnish tax returns upon the request of Ways and Means. Handing over the Trump’s taxes is a point-and-click application of the statute. There is no reasonable wiggle room here. Mnuchin hands over the taxes or laws don’t matter.

If statutory clarity isn’t enough for you, the Federalist Society is very sad you won’t apply this strictly textualist answer to the issue and demand Donald Trump release his returns to Congress (I’m joking, of course, because FedSoc are craven hypocrites). But beyond boorish textualism, there is a good reason for Section 6103 to exist as clearly as it does. Tax returns are just information. It’s information about citizens collected by the government. House Ways and Means represents the government, so does the Treasury Department. All the “government” is doing is asking “government” to share information collected by “the government.” There’s no good reason, not structurally in terms of separation of powers, or philosophically in terms of good-government principles, for one branch of the government to hide information it has collected from another branch of the government. The people who write the tax laws and the people who administer the tax laws should know what each other knows about information available in tax returns.

Allowing Congress to see Trump’s taxes under Section 6103 isn’t a hard case. But the House is also pursuing the returns under Congress’s subpoena power. This gets a little tricky. The Trump administration says that Congressional subpoena power is limited to the purposes of law-making or oversight. The House has thrown up a bunch of legislative and oversight reasons for wanting the taxes. They’re compelling enough… if you’ve been living under a rock. But if we can just all sit upon the ground and tell sad stories about the death of kings, like adults, then it’s fairly obvious that the House just wants the tax returns to hurt Trump and potentially build a case for impeachment.

The problem with this second House approach towards getting Trump’s taxes is that there is a Constitutional way to discover information that might help you build a case for the impeachment of a President. THAT WAY IS CALLED IMPEACHMENT. For the love of GOD, people, INCLUDING PEOPLE IN CONGRESS, need to stop acting like impeachment hearings and articles of impeachment are the same things. Upon convening impeachment proceedings, the House’s subpoena power is no longer limited by legislative purposes, it becomes a criminal investigative body. It is THROUGH impeachment hearings that Congress gathers the evidence to make the case for impeachment. Impeachment is just the CHARGE. It’s up to the Senate (lol) whether the case is strong enough to convict.

Trying to conduct these “impeachment-like” investigations is, frankly, bullshit. And it potentially hurts the Constitutional separation of powers. Because you know what, Congressional subpoena power should be limited to legislative and oversight purposes. It should not be used to harass or embarrass the executive branch. Trump’s taxes are not necessary for “oversight,” the argument that they need to know if Trump is passing laws that help his business is kind of crap. Congress needs these returns to hold the President accountable, and the way to do that is IMPEACHMENT not whatever the hell this is.

Of course, a normal President, one with “nothing to hide,” one who cared about the Constitutional separation of powers and the stature of the office he will leave behind, would just hand over the taxes under section 6103 and avoid this entire damaging case. Trump thinks his handpicked Supreme Court justices are going to deliver him a victory on the legislative purpose question, but either way a ruling on this issue is terrible. If Trump wins, the Court will essentially be saying that the executive branch never has to submit to a Congressional subpoena ever again. If Congress wins the Court is opening the door to potentially endless Benghazi-like harassment of the executive branch in the future. Either way, the delicate balance of powers is damaged, all so Trump can continue his corrupt fight to hide his likely tax fraud. Even Richard freaking Nixon was not this selfish.

I don’t know what the Supreme Court is going to do, because the Court has become a borderline illegitimate body. Brett Kavanaugh is a Trump patsy. Neil Gorsuch shouldn’t even be there. Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito just want to watch the world burn. John Roberts just needs a plausible reason to let Trump be racist. Who knows what these five men do when confronted with this case.

But there’s only one right answer: a 9-0 unanimous decision that Mnuchin has to hand over the taxes under Section 6103, and refusal to consider the legislative purpose question on the merits. A slam dunk, and a punt. Anything less will cause lasting damage to the separation of powers, all because Democrats are too afraid to impeach the President and Trump is selfish to defend the law.

How House Democrats set the stage for a Supreme Court showdown over Trump’s tax returns [Washington Post]

Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and a contributor at The Nation. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at elie@abovethelaw.com. He will resist.

Here at Above the Law we care a lot about increasing transparency at Biglaw firms — that’s why we spend so much time reporting on bonuses and salaries and benefits. And while reporting on the market standard and leaders will always be a part of our mission, we also want to hear about what it’s like to actually work in the halls of Biglaw.

So, we’re asking our readers to fill out a brief survey about what they wish they knew about their firm before they started working there. We don’t care about the firm’s PR line, but about what associates really feel about the firm. We’ll be integrating the results of the survey into a new transparency project that’ll be launched later this summer.

Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

The United Nations says more than 6 million Zimbabweans (or nearly 40 percent of the population) require food aid between now and the next harvest in April 2020 due to the drought and the impact of Cyclone Idai which hit the country, together with Mozambique and Malawi in March.

The Herald newspaper reported Wednesday that Public Service, Labor and Social Welfare Deputy Minister Lovemore Matuke had told a ruling ZANU-PF party meeting in Masvingo that the government had completed a document which outlined modalities on the implementation of the Food for Work program under which beneficiaries get food packs after working on identified projects.

The last food for work program was undertaken in 2016 following another serious drought in the country. Generally, priority is placed on projects that achieve food security. The incapacitated still receive food under the government’s drought relief program.

Matuke said the government had finalized the document which has already been sent to all the country’s provinces, adding that the program should be designed in a manner that promotes productivity, particularly irrigation, to ensure the country is self-sufficient in terms of food requirements.

“We need projects which have significant social economic impact,” he said.

“We need our people to provide labor on projects such as irrigation schemes, projects that help the country achieve food security rather than working on projects that have little or no impact on the economy. They should be well-designed to ensure the objectives of Vision 2030 are achieved.” he said.

He said while the government had put in place some measures and resources to alleviate food shortages in light of the El-Nino induced drought, efforts must be equally put in place to harness domestic resources to build self-food sufficiency.

Post published in: Agriculture

Last week, the central bank banned the use of foreign currencies as legal tender, officially reintroduced the Zimbabwean dollar a decade after it was wiped out by hyperinflation, hiked overnight interest rates to 50% and removed a cap on banks’ foreign-exchange trading margins. While slammed by some businesses, the moves have succeeded in reducing the gap between the nation’s official and black-market exchange rates.

The latter has strengthened to 9.50 per U.S. dollar from a record low of 12.90 last week, according to marketwatch.co.zw, a website run by financial analysts. Along with the central bank’s weakening of the interbank rate, the difference between the two is now the narrowest since at least early 2017.

Some locals and businesses criticized the return of the Zimbabwe dollar, saying it could accelerate inflation that’s already at almost 100%. Costs haven’t climbed so far. Fast-food chain Simbisa Brands Ltd. reduced prices on Wednesday at some of its chicken and pizza outlets.

“It looks like they caught the pass and they’re running with it,” said Kato Mukuru, head of frontier-markets research in Dubai for EFG-Hermes, the investment bank that described it as a Hail Mary. “But it’s still far from being a touchdown. The biggest problems could still be to come.”

He’s skeptical because Zimbabwe has nowhere near enough foreign exchange to support the currency and pay for vital imports such as fuel and medicine, which are running low. Plus, he said, higher interest rates will hit consumer demand and may cause non-performing loans to spike.

The government said it was drawing down part of a $500 million line from the African Export-Import Bank to supply the interbank market with dollars. But that won’t last long as it covers less than a month of imports, said Mukuru. It’s unclear whether Zimbabwe — which wants a loan from the International Monetary Fund but needs to clear debt arrears before it’s eligible for one — has other sources it can tap for hard currency.

A long-time Zimbabwean coffee grower, Muganyura almost gave up on the crop when prices slumped to as low as U.S. 20 cents a pound at the turn of the millennium, and foreign buyers took flight after land seizures drove out more than 120 white commercial coffee farmers under the banner of post-colonial reform.

But with companies like Nestle’s Nespresso arm now willing to pay a premium for Zimbabwe’s beans, small-scale farmers like Muganyura are returning to a sector that was all-but destroyed under former President Robert Mugabe.

Coffee output in Zimbabwe was 430 tonnes in 2018, a 10% increase over the previous year. This year production is set at 500 tonnes, according to industry officials.

Zimbabwe was never among the world’s top producers: output peaked at around 15,000 tonnes in the late 1990s. But its Arabica coffee is prized for its zesty and fruity tones, and the sector once provided a livelihood for more than 20,000 poor farmers.

Nespresso, which started buying Zimbabwean coffee last year at a 30%-40% premium above international prices and pays farmers in U.S. dollars, is helping to drive the modest revival.

It bought 200 tonnes from 450 small Zimbabwean farmers and two large estates in 2018 and wants to attract more growers, said Daniel Weston, who heads Nespresso’s corporate affairs division.

Its limited edition “Tamuka muZimbabwe” (“We Have Awakened in Zimbabwe”) coffee, launched in 16 countries in May, sold out in three weeks, he said.

“What we are hoping to achieve over time is to increase the volume of coffee coming initially from the smallholder farmers we are working with and also to encourage other smallholder farmers to join the program,” Weston told Reuters.

‘HUGE APPETITE’

Nespresso has teamed up with international non-profit Technoserve to offer training to small farmers in the growing techniques needed to achieve the high quality it demands.

“The market has a huge appetite for Zimbabwean coffee,” said Midway Bhunu, Technoserve’s farmer trainer. “The world was about to lose one of the world’s best coffees.”

Muganyura, a father of eight, received the training in 2017 and managed to more than triple output from his 2-hectare plot to 700 kg last year. This year, he expects to harvest 1.5 tonnes, a personal best that will earn him more than $10,000.

“This is only introductory to a stage where we will get real money,” Muganyura told Reuters during a visit to his plot in the eastern Honde Valley, about 360 km from the capital, Harare.

The dollar payments have enabled Muganyura to hire labor, install solar power at his homestead, buy farming inputs, pay school fees for some of his grand-children and medicine for his diabetic wife – which he struggled to do in the past.

This year, he aims to buy a car, a lifelong dream.

Because of his success, he said, neighbors are inquiring about growing coffee. He plans to add another half a hectare of coffee trees.

Zimbabwe outlawed the use of dollars and other foreign currencies last month, ending a decade of dollarization.

Nespresso said it was still assessing what that would mean for its dollar payments to farmers.

The Honde Valley is one of four districts that together had about 2,000 small coffee farmers at the turn of the millennium. But most quit and started growing bananas.

Just two white-owned commercial coffee farms remain in Zimbabwe. Robert Boswell, 50, owns one of them. His family lost two other farms to land seizures in 2000 and cut the area under coffee production by 46%.

Boswell said he felt more confident after President Emmerson Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe in 2017, promising to restore property rights and revive the ravaged economy.

Boswell, who had been selling coffee to roasters in Germany and Canada, started delivering to Nespresso in 2018. This year he will expand the area under coffee by 25% to 60 hectares, he said during a tour of his Crake Valley estate in the scenic Vumba hills, 140 km south of the Honde Valley.

Commercial growers have an average yield of more than 2 tonnes per hectare.

Tanganda Tea Company, owned by diversified group Meikles Limited, is Zimbabwe’s biggest coffee grower but its 134 hectares are a far cry from the more than 1,000 hectares it used to grow two decades ago.

Tanganda had largely abandoned coffee due to poor prices and started to grow avocados and macadamia nuts. But it too started selling to Nespresso in 2018 and plans to add another 40 hectares of coffee this year, according to a statement on its website.

Post published in: Agriculture

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Why Law Firms Are Moving to the Cloud

Clio

Joe and Elie are off for the Independence Day holiday but wanted to leave you with something to listen to while you enjoy your holiday. Last year, we spoke with Vanderbilt Law School’s Associate Director of Career Services Nick Alexiou to discuss the on-campus interviewing process. A good guide for those of you preparing for the interview of your lives.