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dajoki

(10,678 posts)
Fri Oct 11, 2019, 05:37 PM Oct 2019

A Trump-Appointed Judge Is Running Interference His Financial Records

A Trump-Appointed Judge Is Running Interference for the President on His Financial Records
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/trump-subpoena-mazars-neomi-rao.html

One of Donald Trump’s most controversial judicial nominees unleashed a bizarre and embarrassing dissent on Friday that seeks to shield the president from congressional oversight while flouting Supreme Court precedent

The author of Friday’s dissent, Neomi Rao, was Trump’s choice to fill Brett Kavanaugh’s old seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Her opinion marks a lawless effort to insert the judiciary into the House of Representatives’ investigations into Trump, limiting lawmakers’ ability to access potentially incriminating evidence. It also implies that federal courts could stop the House from impeaching Trump. In short, Rao is running interference for the president who put her on the bench

-snip-

This would mean that, at times when oversight and legislation are most urgent, such as to prevent executive branch overreach or to keep officials’ behavior within ethical boundaries going forward, Congress would be legislatively hamstrung unless it were to pull the impeachment trigger. And if Congress chooses not to pursue impeachment, or if impeachment is unavailable because Congress believes the alleged misconduct falls short of a high crime or misdemeanor, then there can be no investigation of—and thus no viable legislative check on—the President at all. A proposition that so strips Congress of its power to legislate would enforce only the Executive’s arrogation of power, not the separation of powers.

But there is another, even more disturbing aspect of Rao’s dissent. She wrote, ominously, that “it is unnecessary here to determine the scope of impeachable offenses.” Unnecessary here? It isn’t just unnecessary—it’s impermissible, because the federal judiciary has no constitutional authority to determine “the scope of impeachable offenses.” The Supreme Court has ruled that the Constitution assigns the power of impeachment to the House exclusively, denying the judiciary the ability to meddle in impeachment proceedings. Rao seemed to reject that precedent, instead suggesting that courts can “determine the scope of impeachable offenses” and, by extension, quash an impeachment on the grounds that the charges are not “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

Rao’s claim would allow the judiciary not only to scrap articles of impeachment, but to hobble all House investigations of the president. Remember, under her topsy-turvy analysis, the House can only scrutinize the president if it invokes the power of impeachment. But the courts cannot honor that invocation unless the charges fall within “the scope of impeachable offenses.” Courts could therefore review the House’s allegations, conclude that they are not “impeachable offenses,” and effectively shut down the House’s probe

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A Trump-Appointed Judge Is Running Interference His Financial Records (Original Post) dajoki Oct 2019 OP
Great piece. This writer pulls no punches. Mike 03 Oct 2019 #1
At least in this case it's a dissent. Jim__ Oct 2019 #2
K&R Jeffersons Ghost Oct 2019 #3
The legal beagles at Lawyers Guns & Money had a post about this, too gratuitous Oct 2019 #4

Jim__

(14,045 posts)
2. At least in this case it's a dissent.
Fri Oct 11, 2019, 05:46 PM
Oct 2019

The more judges Trump gets to appoint, the more likely this type of idiocy becomes the rule.

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