Daniel R. Alonso

Former fed & NYS prosecutor and occasional commentator. Civil & crim litigator. Adjunct Prof @CornellLaw. Views my own, this isn't legal advice. RT ≠ E 🇺🇸🇦🇷

[Daniel R. Alonso @DanielRAlonso]

My new article in the
@NYSBA Bar Journal explores the federal and New York systems for fighting public corruption.
"Although it is generally
'easier'to prosecute public corruption in federal court rather than state court, it is certainly not easy."

[Corey Walker 🇺🇸 @CoreyWriting]

This actually ended up being correct.

[Lauren @cabsav456]

This is misleading. The JCPOA was not '"designed to give Iran nuclear weapons." It had built-in sunset clauses (key restrictions on centrifuges, stockpiles & enrichment phasing out after 10-15 years).

Obama explicitly warned it wasn't a permanent fix but was the best deal the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, Russia) + Germany + EU could get with Iran at the time. He said a follow-on deal would be needed to avoid zero constraints.

This short MOU gives upfront sanctions relief, asset unfreezes & reconstruction funds — all while leaving Iran's advanced nuclear program at "status quo" (???), with weaker verification than the JCPOA & no requirement to ship out enriched uranium (like the ~97% that left the country before JCPOA implementation) back in 2015.

Claiming this MOU is better is pure cope, and you know it. We deserve to know wtf is going on so how about being honest for once?

[Geraldo Rivera @GeraldoRivera]

Israel and the U.S. went for a kill shot against Iran. The odious Regime took a pounding and lost a generation of leadership, but survived. This peace deal at best brings us status quo ante. We’re back where we started on 28 February except a lot of people have died; a lot of stuff got blown up, and Israel is more isolated than ever. Maybe it was worth the shot, but there is no way to spin that into victory.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

$70 Billion and 13 service members to achieve this.

[Daniel R. Alonso @DanielRAlonso]

@PeterMoskos It speaks substantive volumes about Mamdani that he would endorse her at all. And it speaks political volumes that he would do so after Espaillat endorsed Mamdani in the mayoral race.

[The Lincoln Project @ProjectLincoln]

Donald Trump is breaking all of his promises, and he thinks you're too stupid to notice.

[Daniel R. Alonso @DanielRAlonso]

We used to say things like “the *government* won’t turn a blind eye to fraudsters.”

[Scott Brady @ScottBradyPA]

Truly incredible work by @Sonderling47 and @USLaborIG. The Trump-Vance Administration will not turn a blind eye to fraudsters. 💪🇺🇸

[Lauren @cabsav456]

Israel is likely feeling what Ukraine & many NATO countries have felt during the second Trump administration: that the United States is becoming an increasingly unreliable partner.

Allies that spent decades anchoring their security & foreign policy in Washington are now being forced to ask whether America's alliances are based on shared commitments vs. whatever happens to be politically convenient at the moment.

America spent decades building the most powerful alliance network in human history. We're dismantling it in real time by treating our allies as transactional relationships.

We are not weakening our allies — we are weakening ourselves.

[Lauren @cabsav456]

I don't think people fully grasp how significant the current "deal" situation with Iran really is.

Back in 2015, after the Obama administration negotiated the JCPOA, Congress passed the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) with near-unanimous support.

The principle was simple: ANY major agreement involving Iran's nuclear program and/or sanctions relief was far too important to be handled solely by the executive branch.

Because many of the sanctions at issue were originally enacted by Congress as a national security measure, lawmakers required that any such agreement be submitted to Congress within 5 days & subjected to a review period. 🧵(1/3)

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

This is great advice Rachelle. I truly appreciate the constructive feedback. Giving in to the temptation of adding my two cents to the inane political rhetoric on this platform is so unsatisfying. Everyone puts on their armor picks up their teams flag and goes on the attack. I certainly haven’t been above that over the past week. And to what end? What I have been struggling with is whether and when to defend myself and my family against some of the more heinous accusations without being defensive. That’s been hard to figure out sometimes. The number of people/ bots/ trolls/ whatever that call me and my dad pedophiles, make claims of incest and treason and crimes against humanity is really staggering. All of it based on a wholly fabricated line of lies that they point to as truth. There is a a tactic that totalitarian regimes use called “eliminationist rhetoric.” The idea is that if you can get even a small percentage of a population to believe the absolute worst about someone (pedophile) then convincing a larger percentage of a lesser yet no more fact based crime is that much easier (bribery). Putin perfected what the Nazi’s invented on his rise to power.
When you are on the receiving end of it your first instinct is that it’s so ridiculous that of course you just ignore it. But instead of going away it festers and worms its way into people’s brains. It’s maddening.
It’s particularly maddening because it’s almost always projection on the part of this crew at least. The accusations of corruption and sex crimes and bribery. There is a mountain of actual facts that we all know about this regime and instead they play the grade school game of “I know you are, but what am I.” And the mainstream media just goes on with what they call “balanced” journalism. There is no balance between lies and truth. One should always weigh more than the other.
Nevertheless, thank you for the open advice. I received it I hope in the spirit it was given. I’ve only really been her for about a week and I’m trying to find the right mix that’s true to me, because I don’t have the luxury of being anything but me. Keeping letting me know when you thinking I’m not doing my best.

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

I’m just going to post this every few days rather than arguing with faceless, nameless trolls in the comments.

[Barbara Comstock @BarbaraComstock]

Any lawyer who would sign their name to this insane filing should be laughed out of court and the practice of law.

[Norm Eisen @NormEisen]

BREAKING: Donald Trump just filed his emergency stay in the DC circuit to keep his name on the Kennedy Center & it is batsh** crazy

He clearly wrote big pieces himself

We have filed our opposition, fighting for the rule of law & the American people

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

To everyone so eager to cancel someone for a tattoo they got at age 22, a drunk text, a selfie they took in the middle of a mental health crisis:

Show us your laptop.
Show us your iCloud.
Open your entire digital life to your worst enemy. No context. No filter. No explanation.

You won’t.

You won’t because you know what I know. Any one of us, frozen at our worst moment, photographed in our lowest hour, looks like a monster. Looks like a stranger. Looks like someone who deserves to be cast out.

That is not who we are.

My mom and baby sister were killed in a car accident when I was just a kid. Cancer took my brother Beau, my best friend and my rock. I battled alcoholism. I battled addiction. I chose the coward’s way out more times than I can count.

For years I believed the defining chapters of my life were written by tragedy, loss, and shame.

I no longer believe that.

Pain can shape us. Loss can humble us. Failures can leave scars that never fully fade. But none of them have the authority to define us.

And it sure as hell ain’t the critic that counts.

That authority belongs to us alone-the person in the arena.

Every setback presents a choice. Play the victim, or cut the bullshit and take ownership for who we become next.

Life does not determine our character. It reveals it.

Again and again we are asked the same question. When shit happens, what next?

We are not defined by what happened to us. We are not defined by the worst photo, the worst text, the worst tattoo, the worst night. We are defined by the person we choose to become. And by the courage to choose that person, every single day.

So before you reach for the gavel - show us your laptop.

You won’t.

The whole world saw mine. And I am still here. Still becoming. Still choosing. Still standing.

That is the only definition that matters.

[Terry Moran 🇺🇸 @TerryMoran]

It’s not about arguments. It’s about facts.

I know one great fact about American elections, and I know it because the Republican Party has proved it to me:

There is no election fraud of any consequence anywhere in the United States.

The Republican Party and its allies, FOR DECADES, have been searching high and low, in every corner of our country, for evidence of election fraud.

This effort has been made with vast sums of money and other resources, and with some of the greatest powers in our nation at the party’s disposal:

A presidential commission under President Donald Trump.

The Department of Justice under President Donald Trump, armed with the resources of the FBI, and the powers of subpoena.

Committees of Congress under Republican control, also armed with the powers of subpoena and the investigative resources of the first branch of government.

State legislatures under Republican control, also with subpoena powers, have launched similar efforts to find evidence of election fraud.

Republican-controlled states have set up special commissions and task forces, some with subpoena powers, all well-funded and with access to the state’s electoral systems.

Conservative academics and think tanks have launched projects seeking out evidence of election fraud.

Fox News and the rest of MAGA media have dedicated significant resources to finding evidence of election fraud.

What is the result of this enormous Republican effort to find election fraud?

Ask The Heritage Foundation.

For nearly a decade, Heritage has maintained an “Election Fraud Database.”

The database contains “proven instances of election fraud.”

It covers elections going back nearly fifty years.

That’s billions and billions of American votes.

Right now, the total number of proven instances of election fraud that Heritage can document is:

1620.

That’s an infinitesimal number, vanishingly small, and it is solid proof of two things:

1. Some individuals commit election fraud.

2. There is no evidence at all of systemic or even widespread election fraud anywhere in the USA.

The election-fraud panic is the Big Lie of our time.

It is peddled by people who know better. Their own investigations over decades demonstrate that.

Stop trying to subvert our democracy.

🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸

[Matt Viser @mviser]

SCOOP: Despite insisting that a $1.776 billion “anti-weaponization” fund has been scrapped, the administration is quietly assuring allies that payout plans remain on track, @S_Fitzpatrick reports.
https://t.co/MD2pfzIGIZ

[Andy McCarthy @AndrewCMcCarthy]

No to Todd Blanche for Attorney General https://t.co/HTN3J2Urfi

[Daniel Golliher 🗽 @danielgolliher]

When New York State Legislature passed our modern criminal code in 1970, it explicitly forbade judges from detaining people (pre-trial) according to their estimated level of threat to society--no "dangerousness" standard. [^1]

The dangerousness standard was opposed by the Legal Aid Society, the New York Civil Liberties Union, and the NYC Bar Association, among others.

Why bring this up? Because it is the single best entry point I know of that shocks most regular people into interest in New York's criminal justice system. As it exists, the system clearly cannot prevent regular public injuries by known public menaces.

So many people are used to seeing headlines about a terrible crime--and they just know the details will often confirm that the person was a known menace, that they were receiving state attention, but not restraint, and that as a result the government once again defaulted on its most fundamental responsibility of securing the public.

The solution here is not as simple as "instate the dangerousness standard." That could be part of the solution, but the shape of a criminal procedure that would confine known menaces--while preserving the liberty interests of those who come before a court but otherwise deserve to not be confined--requires several changes, and those changes have to be carried out by multiple parties--district attorneys (elected), criminal court judges (appointed by the mayor), and more.

But the fundamental lack of a dangerousness standard, and the continued organized opposition to it to this day, points to the larger flaws in New York's criminal procedure. I'll note: this shape of criminal procedure was enacted on a bipartisan basis, even if it is maintained on a largely unipartisan basis today.

[1] Judges have latitude to detain individuals prior to trial only based on whether they are a "flight risk." As a result, judges definitely used their flight risk discretion to detain clearly dangerous individuals (they just have to not say "I did this because the person was dangerous"). However, whether and when judges can even do that has changed substantially in the past several years. Personally, I think it just makes basic sense to have a dangerousness standard, and then to observe when and how it's used. Modern opposition to it is based on the fear that it will be abused on the basis of various prejudices--this is a relevant consideration, but it should not lead to "no dangerousness standard," either in pre-trial or parole-type releases.

[scary lawyerguy @scarylawyerguy]

There is a massive DOJ scandal going on in Illinois right now that national media is ignoring for reasons I think we all understand b/c let me tell you folks, if this shit was going on under Joe Biden, that's all you'd fucking hear about.

[Joe Walsh @WalshFreedom]

Donald Trump’s greatest legacy is the destruction of truth. His greatest legacy is convincing half the country to not accept the results of elections their side loses. His greatest legacy is convincing half the country to believe that any election their side lost was “rigged.”