Averting Crisis
A face-saving measure could let the country avoid Constitutional calamity.
A follow up to my earlier piece on The American Mind.
On April 25, 2024, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in the matter of Trump v. United States. Trump’s attorneys argued that the president has absolute immunity for official acts and that the federal prosecutions against him should be dismissed. The government argued the opposite. Back and forth they went. It was all very interesting to lawyers, but nothing in 192 pages of transcript will persuade any partisan to change their views.
Buried in those 192 pages, however, was a short exchange between Justice Thomas and Trump’s attorney, John Sauer. Thomas asked: “Did you, in this litigation, challenge the appointment of special counsel?” (27:45 on the audio.) This was a reference to an amicus brief filed by former attorney general Ed Meese and others. This seemingly off-handed question has now become the central obstacle to the government’s case. But, as I explain below, it is also a release valve that can avoid a constitutional crisis while permitting the administration to “save face.”
Substance, Substance, Substance
Trump’s attorneys raised the immunity defense in the “insurrection case.” He lost at the district court level, but the matter was appealed to the DC Circuit. There, Judge Florence Pan posed several intelligent hypotheticals to Trump’s attorneys: could the President sell military secrets, sell pardons, or use the Navy SEALS to assassinate political opponents? Trump’s lawyer was a bit flummoxed and it did feel like the legal equivalent of a “gotcha” moment that ends debate immediately. But though these questions were rhetorically effective, this “parade of horribles” is more theoretical than real.
By the time the matter reached the High Court, Sauer had put some more thought into the matter. When Justice Jackson alluded to the possible parade of horribles, suggesting that the only thing keeping the President in line was the threat of prosecution, Sauer had his own “mic-drop” moment: “The regime you’ve described [your honor] is the regime we’ve operated under for 234 years.” The implication being: “and somehow the republic survived.”
In retrospect, this is even more obvious than it sounds. Not only has this hypothetical renegade President not been a problem in our country’s history, but even were we to elect a President who blatantly disregarded the rule of law, the recourse we need—the recourse upon which our form of government depends—is the ability to remove him from the Presidency, not prosecute him. At no point in this entire prosecution has anybody suggested that Donald Trump is immune from impeachment or removal from office, whether or not he is immune from prosecution…
You can read the rest here at The American Mind.
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Nice try, TJ, but we have crossed the Rubicon. What happened in Nov 2020 was a coup d'état, and today's Progressive Democrat party and their fellow radicals will stop at nothing to retain and exercise power. We are long past the time when that party should have been dropped in the dust bin of history just as the Nazi party was at the end of WWII. The parallels to what occurred in 1930's Germany are instructive.
The unabashed lack of shame that leftists have in attacking the judge on this case (along with every other justice who might not rule with them or that they weren't able to shop) is nauseating. They really thought the judge who signed the search warrant would get the case. They, again, have 0 problem attacking a minority female when it suits them. However, I think she's smarter than them and is taking every single ruling very seriously. They say all these things with a straight face after basically choosing the judges and prosecution and district in every other case. Plus, I've read so much about it all that I'm almost 99% sure Jack Smith is not legally qualified to try this case. They should take the loss.