The courts can get to the bottom of this, but only if it wants to.
Really, what’s the recourse if the evidence is disallowed?
Good move to get further discovery. The truth has a better chance of coming out when people are answering questions under oath. The other stuff is preening and puffery.
Another chance for the SCOTUS to further erode its credibility or to maybe start to repair some of the damage. SIde with the DOJ and the road to court packing in 2021 becomes clearer.
And,fuck you mitch mcconnell !
I have to say, the letter does ask a lot of good questions.
Let me ask a very speculative question. Did someone at the DOJ write a very bad and leading defense to have the ACLU ask all these good questions? Or are the DOJ lawyers overseeing this case completely incompetent?
The two are not mutually exclusive.
True, but the motives I implied would be different.
Just wondering if someone within the DOJ might really want to torpedo the government case they have been forced to support.
The previous judgment is already final, subject to review by the Supreme Court. You can’t open the case back up just because new evidence turns up after the lawsuit is over. The discovery the ACLU is asking for would presumably be relevant and admissible if the SC decided to remand the case for a new trial in the district court. But regardless of what the SC decides, the trial court retains broad, continuing authority to sanction the parties and the attorneys who appear before it for any misconduct that occurred during the course of a case. Gore and Neuman would be wise to retain personal counsel to represent them on this, and the DOJ lawyers involved have good cause to be afraid for their law licenses.
“Defendants’ misconduct is apparent.”
Could apply in any case involving these knobs.
An evergreen sentiment.
Predicting that if Chief Justice Roberts reopens discovery, the right wing message machine will chatter about his impeachment.
They can chatter all they want.
Ideological disloyalty isn’t grounds for impeachment.
Will be interesting to read what happened in court this afternoon.
A major question in the case is whether the official rationale the administration provided for adding the question — allegedly to enhance DOJ Voting Rights Act enforcement — was a fake one meant to cover up the administration’s real reasons for including it.
Like the question of whether Trump has committed impeachable offenses, the answer to this is an obvious, resounding “yes.” There is ample evidence in the public record that the administration cooked this up to suppress votes, the only motive for any action they take in regard to election policy.
ETA: this makes me want to give all my money to the ACLU.
Furman was not really happy with the performance of the DoJ lawyers in the first trial, I expect his criticism of them to be withering this time around. I doubt they knew the background, Gore and Neuman likely did not share what the basis of their proposal was, but they still put up a defense that was dishonest. Now that we have the evidence of how dishonest it was, it’s a question of how justice is served…Furman may not be able to reopen the case, but he can do a lot of things to make sure the evidence is aired and evaluated properly.
And, his opinion is going to weigh in the SC case, it has to…if they ignore these events and allow a question to be placed that was intended to give Republicans more power it is going to set off a huge firestorm, damaging the SC and the idea of justice in America. I suspect Republicans will bear the brunt of the damage, and with good reason…maybe it will be enough to get Americans to push back against all of the cheating they are doing with voting rights.
SCOTUS will allow the citizenship question to be added to the census, and it will be added. The. End.
Probably true, alas. I’m aware of no evidence supporting the notion that the conservative justices lie awake at night worrying about what their decisions say about “the idea of justice in America”.