Scott Horton is a law professor and writer on legal and national security affairs for Harper's Magazine and The American Lawyer, among other publications.

Not even the roughest—and most leading—questions from the GOP peanut gallery could derail Obama’s Supreme Court nominee Tuesday. As Scott Horton argues, she’s cruising toward confirmation.

The attorney general is leaning toward appointing a special prosecutor to investigate Bush-era torture policy, sources tell Scott Horton. Inside the logic driving Eric Holder’s possible conversion.

The Daily Beast's Scott Horton gets the inside scoop from Jane Mayer on CIA chief Leon Panetta—and how he advocated for a truth commission on torture but was rebuffed by Obama, who saw it as a potentially dangerous political distraction.

Update and correction: Since this story posted Friday, Salon has accurately pointed out that the sexually explicit photographs focused on in my story were first published by Salon in 2006, and that all the Salon photographs have in fact been released by the government. The 44 photos subject to the ACLU law suit and reviewed by President Obama do not contain sexually explicit images. Read more from Scott Horton's update and correction.

Three lines of attack have been outlined against Sonia Sotomayor: The Princeton and Yale Law graduate is dim, a product of affirmative action and a reverse-racist. The Daily Beast’s Scott Horton debunks each one.

Sonia Sotomayor built a reputation (and made a lot of enemies) by driving prosecutors nuts, The Daily Beast’s Scott Horton reports. Now, the questions begin about her religion and her mysterious views on abortion.

Republicans are using reports that the speaker was briefed on torture to turn around the debate and duck further hearings. The Daily Beast's Scott Horton asks: Will the tactic work?

A new Justice Department report about Bush lawyers who legitimized torture techniques is "devastating," a source tells The Daily Beast's Scott Horton, and contrary to The New York Times, criminal charges aren't off the table—Attorney General Eric Holder just has to make up his mind.