Trump Calls For SCOTUS To Revisit Flag Burning, Forgetting Scalia’s Warnings Of Tyranny
June 2, 2020
A RARE LIFELINE FROM SCOTUS
|Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal report on rulings issued yesterday from the Supreme Court including the high court’s decision to curb lawsuits alleging mismanagement of certain types of corporate pension plans, and its move to allow immigrants facing deportation to claim in court that they will be tortured if sent home. JUSTICE BRETT KAVANAUGH wrote the majority opinions for each of those decisions. Kendall and Bravin report that the court’s deportation opinion “gave immigrants a lifeline to the federal courts if they feared torture in their home countries.”
MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT
|The Department of Justice yesterday asked SCOTUS to overturn a lower court decision granting House Democrats access to redacted grand jury materials from former special counsel ROBERT MUELLER’S investigation. John Kruzel with The Hill notes that this comes as the Trump administration’s formal appeal of the order to hand over secret documents to the House Judiciary Committee. SCOTUS has already granted a temporary block of that order to allow time for an appeal.
ALWAYS WITH THE EMAILS
|The Associated Press reports the Supreme Court declined to take up a lawsuit from supporters of SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS who sued the DNC over claims that party officials unlawfully tipped the scales in favor of former Secretary of State HILLARY CLINTON in 2016. “The lawsuit was filed after leaked DNC emails suggested Democratic party officials had favored Clinton over the Vermont senator during the primaries. The emails were posted on the document disclosure website WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks did not say who provided the material, but 12 Russian military intelligence officers were ultimately indicted in connection with the DNC hack and hacking of the Clinton presidential campaign. According to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the release was part of a sweeping conspiracy by Russia to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election.”
A GOVERNMENT NOT RULED BY TYRANNY
|Yesterday, PRESIDENT TRUMP said during his call with governors that the Supreme Court should once again take up the issue of flag burning as nationwide protests over the killing of GEORGE FLOYD have persisted and intensified. Chandelis Duster with CNN notes, “Back in 1989, the court divided 5-4 on the issue holding that a demonstrators’ conviction for flag desecration was inconsistent with the First Amendment. The case concerned a political demonstration during the 1984 Republican National Convention in Dallas. The late Supreme Court JUSTICE ANTONIN SCALIA, whom Trump has repeatedly praised, sided with the majority that ruled, ‘If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.’ Scalia spoke about the matter in a 2012 interview with CNN, saying that while he did not approve of flag burning, it is fundamentally protected by the Constitution and the Founding Fathers’ efforts to create a government not ruled by tyranny.”
WISH I KNEW HOW TO QUIT YOU
|Kyla Eastling, Danny Li and Neil Weare write in Slate that SCOTUS just passed up an opportunity to extend the principle of equal justice to U.S. territories in its Puerto Rico decision this week. They suggest, “The Supreme Court just can’t seem to quit the Insular Cases, a series of controversial decisions from the era of Plessy v. Ferguson that established a doctrine of ‘separate and unequal’ status that has justified denying basic constitutional rights and protections to the nearly 4 million Americans living in Puerto Rico and other U.S. territories. On Monday, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the constitutionality of the Financial Oversight and Management Board for Puerto Rico—an undemocratic, federally appointed body with near-total authority over Puerto Rico’s budget and finances. In doing so, the court once again avoided the opportunity to finally overrule the Insular Cases.”