For those of us who don't want to pick through tweets regarding RGB/Whitewater references at SCOTUS
RBG Immediately Went There, Asked Trump Lawyer How Whitewater and Watergate Were Different from Tax Return Case
Colin Kalmbacher
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/rbg-immediately-went-there-asked-trump-lawyer-how-whitewater-and-watergate-were-different-from-tax-return-case/ar-BB13YjQj
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“Counsel, in so many of these prior cases, there was a cooperation,” Ginsburg began. “For example: tax returns. Every president voluntarily turned over his tax returns. So, it gets to be a pitched battle because President Trump is the first one to refuse to do that.”
The famed liberal justice continued:
Initially, [Trump] said because of an audit was ongoing. Now it seems to be broader than that. But the aura of this case is really: “Sauce for the goose that serves the gander as well.” So, how do you distinguish, say, Whitewater when President Clinton’s personal records were subpoenaed from his accountant or even Hillary Clinton‘s law firm billing records were subpoenaed. It seems that in prior cases–you say this one is one-of-a-kind–but it seems that in prior cases there was a much greater collision of interests. [Indistinguishable] the Nixon tapes. How do you distinguish all of those cases, Watergate, Whitewater, the Nixon tapes case, the Paula Jones case?
“Well, your honor, we distinct them in a number of ways,” Trump’s attorney Patrick Strawbridge responded. “With respect to Watergate and Whitewater, obviously, those are cases of relatively recent vintage. And in separation of powers disputes, this court has generally–such as in Noel Canning–looked back for a much longer precedent for the type of issue that needs to be decided with examples of the encroachment on the separation of powers. And the recent examples–there are just a handful of them that the House identifies–are too recent under that stricture, as the court recognized in Southwest General.”
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Principal Deputy Solicitor General Jeffrey Wall, representing Trump as a government official, made a separate attempt to protect Trump’s tax returns by asserting that sitting presidents are held to a different legal standard.
“How’d that work out in the Paula Jones case?” Ginsburg quipped.
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You just know this is the same quality of justices being confirmed for lifetime positions in our courts.
Response to marble falls (Original post)
