Discussion: Kagan, Sotomayor Grill Trump Admin Lawyer: What If Travel Ban Targeted Jews?

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Kagan, Sotomayor Grill Trump Admin Lawyer:

Did they use charcoal or a propane grill? Or perhaps they strapped Francisco to the front end of a 1938 Buick Roadmaster in-line 8.

Francisco, btw would replace Rosenstein if Trump fired him.

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Francisco replied that cabinet members are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and he’s confident they would refuse to carry out such a blatantly unconstitutional order from that imaginary president and would instead resign.
Yea that’s been happening…

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Francisco argued that campaign statements should not be considered at all, since they came from a “private citizen” who has not yet undergone the “fundamental transformation” of the oath of office.

THERE WAS NO PIVOT, you nasty man!!! Trump is the same as he ever was. He hasn’t been changed by his oath of office, but he certainly has changed the office for the worse. :angry:

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Well played.

The reality is that our system is not set up to cope with an “out of the box” president. Those questions provide a basis to toss the ban for precisely that reason: that the authority Congress thought it was giving to the president never contemplated something like this.

Too bad the “strict constructionists” won’t buy it.

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Watch out – if Kagan and Sotomayor end up in the majority on this, Trump is gonna TWEET.

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Kagan, Sotomayor Grill Trump Admin Lawyer: What If Travel Ban Targeted Jews?

Trump: “Wait – I can ban the Jews? Even better!”

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“Francisco replied that cabinet members are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and he’s confident they would refuse to carry out such a blatantly unconstitutional order from that imaginary president and would instead resign.”

Has this guy ever even heard of the Nixon administration?

You’d think a guy in Robert Bork’s old office would grasp a thing or two about “refusing” Presidential orders.

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This is a good play-by-play of what happened in court and the audio of arguments is now available

Alito will uphold the ban and probably Thomas but from the q&a by Roberts and Kennedy it is unclear to me how Kennedy or Roberts will rule. Let the guessing begin.

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“What? Who said anything about Jews? It’s the towel-heads we’re banning here.” - Noel Francisco

/s

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Thank God Trump can’t keep his racist mouth shut, and he keeps sabotaging efforts that might otherwise pass judicial muster.

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So let me get this straight-

Trump’s attorney is arguing that becoming president is a ‘transformative’ event that nullifies any statements made by ‘citizen’ Trump*?

Hands down that is the craziest thing I’ve heard in a while. That kind of tortured logic borders on religious dogma for the same level of preposterous.

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All except the ones who count his money.

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“That’s the check” on the President’s power, he asserted, before again insisting that under Trump, “you don’t have anything like that.”

Never in my life, have I seen the fabric of credulity more tightly stretched.

Besides 97% of what Trump says, of course.

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The president has the right to act to protect the nation however a policy based on shear animus towards an ethnic or religious group ought to be ruled unconstitutional. Though Korematsu v. United States has never been overruled so the justices might cite that as precedent.

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Katyal shot that down with Trump’s anti-Muslim tweets and retweets of others since taking office and Huckabee-Sanders vigorous defense of those tweets.

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Francisco replied that cabinet members are sworn to uphold the Constitution, and he’s confident they would refuse to carry out such a blatantly unconstitutional order from that imaginary president and would instead resign.

If banning Jews would be blatantly unconstitutional then banning Muslims would also be blatantly unconstitutional. Given the easily provable fact that no cabinet members resigned over the Muslim ban but instead chose to carry it out pretty much destroys Francisco’s attempt to dismiss Kagan’s hypothetical.

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“That was then; this is now,” Francisco explained, adding, “Also, reasons.”

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the “fundamental transformation” of the oath of office

Is that a legally recognized thing, or is somebody shopping a novel legal concept around?

Can we now rehabilitate criminals by administering an oath to them?

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The idea that Trump of all people is going to be “transformed” by taking an oath—it would be laughable if the consequences weren’t so tragic.

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