General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsA 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 Trumps 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 Fridays dissent, Neomi Rao, was Trumps choice to fill Brett Kavanaughs 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 ofand thus no viable legislative check onthe President at all. A proposition that so strips Congress of its power to legislate would enforce only the Executives arrogation of power, not the separation of powers.
But there is another, even more disturbing aspect of Raos dissent. She wrote, ominously, that it is unnecessary here to determine the scope of impeachable offenses. Unnecessary here? It isnt just unnecessaryits 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.
Raos 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 Houses allegations, conclude that they are not impeachable offenses, and effectively shut down the Houses probe
Mike 03
(16,616 posts)Bookmarked.
Jim__
(14,045 posts)The more judges Trump gets to appoint, the more likely this type of idiocy becomes the rule.