SCOTUS Grants Trump Request To Temporarily Shield Mueller Materials | Republicans Readying For Supreme Court Vacancy
May 8, 2020
THE HEIGHT OF HYPOCRISY
|Republicans are keeping their eyes on the Supreme Court given JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG’S most recent hospital visit and the looming November election. Burgess Everett with POLITICO reports, “While no one says they expect a Supreme Court vacancy, GOP senators also acknowledge it’s plausible that Trump could find himself with a third nominee. And one thing is clear: Most Republicans have no qualms about approving a Supreme Court pick from a president in their own party, even if it is an election year. In 2016, Senate Majority Leader MITCH MCCONNELL (R-Ky.) said voters should decide in the election which president should choose the next Supreme Court justice because the Senate and White House were controlled by different parties. And in the Trump era, he’s repeatedly asserted that he would fill a vacancy in 2020.”
HIDE AND SEEK
|Yesterday, the Trump administration asked SCOTUS to block Congress from seeing grand jury secrets gathered in the Russia investigation by the special counsel, ROBERT S. MUELLER III. In his filing for the court, NOEL FRANCISCO asked the justices to block an order for the Justice Department to turn over evidence, saying the executive branch would suffer irreparable harm if lawmakers see it. Adam Liptak with The New York Times notes, “Usually, Congress has no right to view grand jury evidence. But in 1974, the courts permitted lawmakers to see such materials as they weighed whether to impeach PRESIDENT RICHARD M. NIXON. Last summer, as the House Judiciary Committee weighed whether to impeach President Trump, it sought a judicial order to see certain Mueller grand jury materials, too. The politically charged fight turns on a technical legal issue: whether the impeachment process, which begins with a House inquiry and can culminate in a Senate trial, counts as a ‘judicial proceeding’ under an exception to grand-jury secrecy rules that permits sharing evidence for that purpose.”
I SAID YOU CAN HAVE WHATEVER YOU LIKE
|And just like that, the Supreme Court today granted the Trump administration’s request to temporarily shield the grand jury materials related to ROBERT MUELLER’S Russia investigation. The administrative stay means the Justice Department won’t have to meet a Monday deadline turn over the evidence to Congress while justices consider the Trump administration’s request for a longer delay. CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS requested that House of Representative lawyers file a response by May 18.
AIN'T GONNA WORK
|Jess Bravin with The Wall Street Journal reports on the Supreme Court yesterday reinstating a federal law that makes it a crime to induce noncitizens to stay in the country illegally. The unanimous decision from SCOTUS reversed — and sharply criticized — a decision from the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for invalidating the law on grounds that hadn’t even been raised by the defendant in the case. The case centered around an immigration consultant who had been convicted of defrauding would-be immigrants by telling them she could arrange for them to have legal residency for a fee. Bravin notes, “While the justices’ language faulting the appellate court was striking, the decision sidestepped the conflict at the core of the case, between the broad rights to speak and to petition the government guaranteed by the First Amendment and the federal power to protect the nation’s borders.”
ORDER IN THE HOUSE
|“The Supreme Court’s teleconference arguments this week have offered a window on the justices to a broad audience, as Americans for the first time can follow along live with the court’s proceedings. Yet, the most significant change is not so much in who is listening but how the arguments are unfolding. From disputes over trademarks to religion and robocalls, the new sessions have altered the nature of the court’s usual freewheeling but substantive give-and-take. And that could affect the outcome of cases.” That’s Joan Biskupic with CNN reflecting on the new format justices have had to embrace in their remote arguments.
WHAT TO DO WHAT TO DO
|Steven Mazie for The Economist previews the upcoming SCOTUS case on faithless electors. On May 13, the Supreme Court will consider whether electors can deviate from their pledges, and the conservative justices will have to decide whether they themselves should deviate from the Constitution and the Founders’ understanding of the Electoral College.
TOP-ED
|“On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear one of the most consequential cases ever considered on executive privilege. Trump v. Vance concerns a subpoena issued by the Manhattan district attorney to PRESIDENT TRUMP’S accountants demanding the release of tax returns and other financial documents to a grand jury. What is at stake is no less than the accountability of a president to the rule of law.” Claire O. Finkelstein and Richard W. Painter argue in The New York Times that Trump’s legal position in this case clearly contradicts Supreme Court precedent. They hope “the pull of history, precedent and logic will give the Supreme Court the wisdom to defend the institutions of accountability for our political leaders and safeguard the rule of law.”
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
|In The Atlantic, Leah Litman reacts to the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision to overturn the criminal convictions that resulted from the “Bridgegate” scandal. She suggests, “In the decision, Kelly v. United States, the court did not deny that is what happened; rather, it concluded that this conduct did not violate any federal laws. In a sense, then, the court accepted that this sort of partisan hackery is just how politics works. Perhaps the most awful part is that this is a self-fulfilling prophecy: By endorsing this bleak vision of the world, the court has made it all the more difficult to prevent corruption at all—and it has done so at the same time when many government officials have adopted corruption as their way of governing.”
WHAT A NIGHTMARE
|Mark Joseph Stern with Slate thinks the sound of a toilet flushing during oral arguments this week was quite possibly CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS’ worst nightmare realized. Stern writes, “The court wants to be an American Vatican that sends up smoke to alert a rapt nation to its semi-divine judgments. Instead, on Wednesday, it became the one thing the justices dread the most: a joke.”
MORE LIVE ACTION NEXT WEEK
|For info on how to listen live to the Supreme Court’s remote oral arguments next week, go to Fix the Court’s schedule of cases. You’ll find information on how to access the live feeds, as well as background on the cases that will be argued.