House lawyers asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to reject President Trump’s efforts to keep congressional investigators from seeing his tax returns, noting that the financial records could factor into the “rapidly advancing impeachment inquiry,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
I’m more apprehensive about SCOTUS weighing in on trump and the multitude of subpoenas and lawsuits than almost anything else. If SCOTUS aids in allowing the stalling to continue then this will all end up waiting for the election. It feels as though they are the last card Democracy has to play at this point.
Lindsay Graham has tipped the Republican hand with the request for documents relating to Joe Biden’s dealings with Ukraine. If produced, State will have legitimized one request for information while denying others that stand to be potentially harmful to the administration.
As for tax returns: these would fit neatly into the developing narrative that Trump had personal dealings that hinged on fabricating culpability that Ukraine factored into the disinformation campaign in the 2016 election. Those personal dealings: Russian money would tell that story. I believe that most people here would love to see that narrative unfold with newly revealed tax documents.
Nah. State won’t have any problem handing over documents about Biden because trump won’t protest. trump’s protest was their sole reason for not turning them over last time.
Probably, but the timing of the case is useful, anyway. If they delay this no-brainer case, there’s no hope they will rule against Trump in any other case. That affects impeachment planning.
It’s unknown how significant a role the altered document played in the FBI’s investigation of Page. The alterations were significant enough to have shifted the document’s meaning and came up during a part of Horowitz’s FISA review where details were classified, according to the sources. According to the Washington Post, it did not change Horowitz’s finding that the FISA application had a legal basis.
Horowitz is expected to release his report on December 9 and testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee two days later.
I can already read the headlines in a month if they agree to expedite a ruling.
“Trump cites ‘activist liberal judges and ‘Never Trumper’ John Roberts’ as reason why his administration will ignore 5-4 SCOTUS ruling, as DOJ impounds records from Mazers USA”
But doesn’t that then undermine his claim of executive privilege? If EP doesn’t apply in respect to the Senate request, it can’t possibly apply to the Impeachment request.*
It’s Biden’s information and AFAIK he doesn’t have an executive privilege claim. Wouldn’t Obama have to exert privilege over his communications with Biden to stop whatever we’re talking about here?
Good point, and I don’t know. It would seem that the Constitution and/or case law supports the idea that an impeachment inquiry should have top level access to docs and witnesses. However, the idea that Trump doesn’t even have control over those comms is interesting. Given the powers of the presidency, I can’t image that Trump couldn’t release whatever he feels fit from any point in the history of the Republic.
We’ll see. The author of Josh’s ‘READ THIS’ editorial today did not elicit optimism about the SCOTUS making the appropriate decision(s).
Hairs on a coke can, drunken sexual assaults at frat parties…do we just hope they are conscientious?
It takes five votes for a stay, but only four to grant cert to take up the case on the merits. In practice, it’s not hard to pick up that fifth vote when refusing it would mean denying your four colleagues the opportunity to consider the merits. The easy resolution for Roberts is to vote to stay and also order the expedited briefing. He can then grant or deny the petition on Dec. 13.
Of course, there is a realistic chance that there are not even four votes to hear the case on the merits. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh are probably in the bag for Drumpf. But Gorsuch has been a somewhat more independent vote than I would have thought. He’s a bit like a judicial John McCain, a doctrinaire conservative the great majority of the time who also surprises you more often that expected.