GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT | Tens Of Thousands Tuned In To Hear 2nd Circuit Arguments Over Trump Financials
October 24, 2019
WOULDN'T PUT YOUR MONEY ON IT
|At Wednesday’s federal court hearing in New York regarding PRESIDENT TRUMP’S financial records, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit appeared skeptical of Trump’s claim that he is immune from criminal investigations while in office. Corinne Ramey with The Wall Street Journal reports the judges didn’t seem to buy Trump’s request to block his accounting firm from complying with a subpoena for tax returns, and at least one judge said that the final word on the matter would likely come from the U.S. Supreme Court.
THE END OF THE WORLD...OR VERY MUCH NOT
|Audio of the 2nd Circuit’s argument over Trump’s financial records was livestreamed for the public yesterday. Fix the Court notes that by yesterday afternoon, more than 40,000 people had already tuned in to listen to the arguments. And even with all those watchful eyes, FTC notes that no judge nor attorney used the opportunity to grandstand.
NOT GOING GREAT
|Mike Schneider with The Associated Press reports that the effort to collect citizenship information from state driver’s license records “has been a bust so far.” The vast majority of state motor vehicle agencies have not agreed to share their records with the U.S. Census Bureau, which PRESIDENT TRUMP had ordered to collect citizenship data after the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s plan of putting a citizenship question on the 2020 Census.
TOP-ED
|Linda Greenhouse with The New York Times wonders whether the Supreme Court will side with the unarmed Mexican teenager who was shot at the border. “Although it has received little attention and is absent from most lists of the new Supreme Court term’s most important cases, Hernandez v. Mesa is significant even beyond its particular disturbing context. To understand why requires a bit of background,” Greenhouse writes. And background, indeed, she gives.
CELEB SHOT
|The Supreme Court invited PAUL CLEMENT, a former solicitor general from the Bush administration, to defend the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s independence later this term. The invitation comes after the Justice Department abandoned defending the agency. Marcia Coyle with The National Law Journal reports.
OTHER NEWS
Could Executive Privilege Protect Trump In The Impeachment Inquiry?
FiveThirtyEight“Executive privilege is not in the Constitution, but that hasn’t stopped pretty much every president from trying to keep information out of the hands of Congress. As a formal legal concept, though, it’s still relatively new. The term ‘executive privilege’ was coined during the Eisenhower administration. It was first recognized by the Supreme Court as a legitimate presidential power in 1974 as part of the Watergate investigation — although ironically, the justices went on to conclude that even though executive privilege existed, it was not unlimited, so Nixon still couldn’t use it to avoid handing over the White House tapes to a court.”
SCOTUS Workplace Discrimination Cases Threaten All LGBTQ+ People
Teen Vogue“The Trump administration is asking that the court rule against legal protections for the LGBTQ+ community — my community. This could take away the protections that Alana Flores fought so hard for decades ago and roll back the legal protections that have been so critical to transgender people. This is about more than laws — this is about what our country believes about our basic humanity. Polls and the arc of history show that most Americans, regardless of their political affiliation, want to live in a country where people can earn a living regardless of who they are.”