Tag: SCOTUS

Supreme Court Will Decide Whether Trump Really Can Get Away With Murder

Our Supreme Court will hear Donald Trump’s claim that if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue police could not investigate him. Yes, these are crazy times.

In fighting a New York City investigation into whether Trump is a serial tax cheat, one of his lawyers argued in October that should he murder someone the authorities could not even collect evidence. However, lawyer George Consovoy added, Trump could be prosecuted after he leaves office.

Technically, the high court said Friday that it will take up whether Trump’s tax returns and supporting financial records must be turned over to three different investigations. Continue reading

Supreme Court will take up Trump’s broad claims of protection from investigation Add to list

Washington Post logoThe Supreme Court on Friday agreed to decide whether President Trump may shield disclosure of his financial information from congressional committees and a New York prosecutor, raising the prospect of a landmark election-year ruling on a president’s immunity from investigation while he is in office.

Trump asked the court to accept the cases, and they will be heard in March, with a ruling before the court’s session ends in late June. It means that whatever the outcome of Trump’s separate impeachment proceedings, the controversies over investigations into Trump’s conduct will continue into the heart of the presidential election campaign.

Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. and three Democratic-led congressional committees have won lower-court decisions granting them access to a broad range of Trump’s financial records relating to him personally, his family and his businesses. The court on Friday said it would consider all three cases.

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House urges Supreme Court to enforce subpoenas for Trump’s financial records

Delay in subpoenas would be deprive Congress information it needs to secure elections, court filing says

The House cited 2020 election security concerns Wednesday when it urged the Supreme Court not to delay the enforcement of congressional subpoenas for financial records of President Donald Trump and his business from Deutsche Bank and Capital One Financial Corporation.

Any harm to Trump for allowing the enforcement of the House Financial Services and Intelligence committees would be less severe than Congress not getting information it needs to protect the elections from foreign influence, House attorneys argued in a Supreme Court filing.

The House said a delay in the subpoenas would be deprive “the peoples’ representatives of information they need to secure the nation’s 2020 elections from foreign influence and otherwise exercise their constitutional responsibilities wisely before their time for doing so expires.”

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Supreme Court halts subpoena to Deutsche Bank for Trump records

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court on Friday granted President Trump‘s emergency request to temporarily block a congressional subpoena for his financial records from Deutsche Bank.

The court’s order came just hours after the president’s legal team asked for a temporary stay of an appellate court decision ordering Deutsche Bank to comply with subpoenas from the House Financial Services and Intelligence Committees for a broad range of documents concerning Trump’s finances and his businesses.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who oversees the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, issued an administrative stay of that court’s decision that will be in effect until Dec. 13 while the court deliberates on whether to grant a longer stay and to give Trump’s lawyers time to prepare a formal appeal.

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Why Republicans Will Sidestep Their Garland Rule for the Court in 2020

New York Times logoJustice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s health scare raised the question of how the Senate would handle a Supreme Court vacancy in a presidential election year.

WASHINGTON — When Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released from the hospital last weekend after another in a string of health scares, blue America breathed a sigh of relief. Only one more month, many whispered, until the start of a presidential election year when filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court would be off limits in the Senate.

But would it?

That was the case in 2016 when Senate Republicans stonewalledPresident Barack Obama’s nomination of Judge Merrick B. Garland to fill an opening that occurred with 11 months left in Mr. Obama’s tenure. “Let the people decide,” was the Republican mantra at the time, as they argued that it was improper to consider Mr. Obama’s nominee when voters were only months away from electing a new president who should get the opportunity to make his or her own choice on a Supreme Court justice.

View the complete November 29 article by Carl Hulse on The New York Times website here.

Appeals court rejects Trump’s attempt to withhold tax returns from local prosecutors, setting stage for Supreme Court fight

Washington Post logoA federal appeals court on Monday unanimously rejected President Trump’s effort to block New York grand jury subpoenas for his tax records, setting up a possible Supreme Court showdown.

New York prosecutors are seeking eight years of Trump’s tax returns from his accounting firm in their investigation of hush-money payments made by Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen before the 2016 election.

Trump’s attorneys have argued that as president, Trump is immune not only from prosecution but from investigations. But in the decision, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that “any presidential immunity from a state criminal process does not bar the enforcement of such subpoena.”

View the complete November 4 article by Jonathan O’Connell and Ann E. Marimow on The Washington Post website here.

‘Everything conservatives hoped for and liberals feared’: Neil Gorsuch makes his mark at the Supreme Court

Washington Post logoSome justices ascend to the Supreme Court quietly, deferring to their elders and biding time before venturing out too far to offer their own views of the law.

Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, on the other hand, appears to have been shot from a cannon.

At his inaugural oral argument in April 2017, President Trump’s first choice for the Supreme Court asked 22 questions. In the term just completed, Gorsuch wrote more dissents than any other justice and typed out a whopping 337 pages of opinions. Again, more than anyone else.

View the complete September 6 article by Robert Barnes and Seung Min Kim on The Washington Post website here.

Despite Supreme Court Ruling, Trump Still Aims For Citizenship Query In Census

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party were seemingly dealt a major blow when the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling late last month that blocked, at least for now, a citizenship question from being included on the 2020 U.S. Census. After the high court’s ruling, the Trump administration appeared to give up on the idea; as recently as July 2, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (who oversees the Census) said the administration would be printing Census forms without a question on citizenship.

But Trump is refusing to give up on the possibility of a citizenship question somehow being included on the 2020 Census and appears to be looking for possible ways to do so without running afoul of the Supreme Court’s ruling.

On Friday, Trump told reporters he was weighing his options and was considering some type of “executive order” on a citizenship question for the Census.

View the complete July 5 article by Alex Henderson from AlterNet on the National Memo website here.

Supreme Court stokes DACA fight for 2020

The Hill logoThe Supreme Court’s decision to hear cases on whether President Trumplawfully ended Obama-era protections for undocumented immigrants is teeing up the program as a key issue for Democrats in the 2020 presidential election.

Friday’s order was a win for the Trump administration after a pair of federal appeals courts ruled that officials’ move to wind down the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was unlawful and allowed the protections for “Dreamers” to stay in place.

And the order ensures that the protections for Dreamers, or undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children, will remain in place as the Supreme Court considers the cases.

View the complete June 29 article by Jacqueline Thomsen on The Hill website here.