The Trump administration moved quickly to respond to a judge’s Monday decision against it in the Don McGahn case, with a notice Tuesday morning that it was appealing the ruling and a request that the judge pause her ruling for the appeal.
The Public Interest Favors A Stay.
OK so now we have reached the point where tRump’s interests are the public interest. NONSENSE, in any world where Bill Barr does not run the justice department… OR where the ruling would be against Democratic interests.
In its stay request, the Justice Department nonetheless argued that it had a “likelihood” of success on appeal — one of the thresholds that must be met for a lower court decision to be paused.
I wonder how many bottles of whiskey someone had to down while writing that argument!
Well, it sounds bad when you phrase it like that.
The reality is, though, that a stay is almost guaranteed, because the DoJ is correct…if McGahn is compelled to testify, no Court can undo that.
It is, however, extremely unlikely that Trump wins on appeal.
Q: “Why does the bar association code of ethics prevent sex between lawyers and their clients?”
A: “To prevent clients from being billed twice for essentially the same service.”
I think Judge Brown should be confident in her well-reasoned, legally strong opinion and tell them to fuck off.
The next Judge up is a Republican. So we have a “likelihood” of success.
Did I understand from Maddow last night, that it was 129 pages worth of decision? Which Rachel gleefully mentioned.
Which makes a stay far less likely.
The Trump argument is based on thin air, and has little chance of success at the appellate level, or at SCOTUS.
The appeal will be heard by a three-judge panel.
We have no way of knowing in advance who they will be, or what their political leanings are.
I note for the record that Steven A. Myers just certified his good faith belief that John Roberts is totally in the bag for Trump. That’s noteworthy given that there is no other good faith basis for believing that there is a likelihood of success on the merits.
No whiskey at all actually.
Simply 1 cup of “IOKIYAR Kool-aid” is all it takes.
There’s that, too. I’m betting she opts to stay on the bench.
But we have a very good idea who the en banc D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is, and there is no reason to believe the full court would not reverse some Naomi Rao bullshit. The only open question here is John Roberts.
So is it only the deciding judge who can issue an appeal, or can the appellate court do so as well? Because I see no reason for a stay from the judge who issued that opinion. And even the ostensibly irreparable harm is doubtful, since McGahn can (if he wants the legal jeopardy) claim privilege on everything. So it’s only the principle that convenience of former members of the executive branch must not be infringed.
I would be shocked if the DC Appeals Court granted an en banc hearing of such obvious legal piffle.
Roberts is a conservative—but he’s also an institutionalist who is very concerned about—and very protective of—his judicial legacy.
I think he’ll err on the side of caution, and won’t support such foolishness.
This judge really laid it out in her decision, arriving at what I always thought was a basic fact in America - that no man is above the law. All of the nuanced arguments in the world should not be able to stand against this simple bedrock principle - but Barr is going to go for it, of course. The worst president in our history has found the worst Attorney General, and they are ripping through centuries of common sense jurisprudence to establish that the founding fathers really wanted a monarchy after all.
Ketanji Brown’s decision does not compel him to testify; but only to show up.
I would be utterly shocked if the DC Circuit did not grant rehearing en banc to reverse a 2-1 Neomi Rao bad faith bullshit majority opinion. Just responding to your point that we don’t yet know who will be randomly selected for the three-judge panel. That panel may end up being comprised of bad-faith Republicans, but the en banc majority is not.
I will call this right now: Roberts will vote for something that nominally upholds the rule of law, but that still punts it past the 2020 election by remanding for further fact-finding or some other pretext.
You’re right about the en banc.
I was presuming that the 3-judge panel would not overturn the decision.
And you may well be right about Roberts.
We’ll have to wait and see.
I’m not convinced that all four of the other conservatives on the court will rule in Trump’s favor.
I think you mean “issue a stay,” but both the district court judge and the court of appeals can grant a stay. Judge Brown obviously will not, but there is a good chance the court of appeals would. But of course, the COA might just be getting tired of Trump’s bullshit and decline to intervene.