Trump’s Terrible, Horrible, Rotten, No Good Week Ends Even Worse…For SCOTUS

Everything Trump Touches Dies   Rick Wilson   GOP Strategist

This has been a week to make Traitor Tot want to pull his yacht out of harbor, cruise out a few miles, drop the anchor, and jump overboard and join the tarpon. On Monday, his long time accounting firm, Mazar’s, drops him like a diseased rodent, and tells the world his last 10 years of financial statements aren’t worth wiping your ass with. Letitia James, the NY AG uses that letter, along with His Lownes’ incoherent response letter to demand her sit for deposition. The judge used both letters in his written ruling for Trump to show up within 21 days for deposition. Then the National Archives sent a letter to the DOJ, as well as the House Oversight Committee, confirming that some of the documents her purloined down to his McCastle were marked, Classified: National Security.

But Trump always saves the worst for last, and once again he delivered. A DC federal district court judge gave Trump the worst news he could hear. In the weeks following the Capitol riot, a group of Democratic House members, led by Bennie Thompson and Eric Swalwell sued Trump in civil court for his part in inciting the riot. They demanded compensatory as well as punitive damages. Trump was on his hind legs to quash that suit. If he was found liable, he would have to pay for damages to the Capitol, as well as damages to the Democratic House members and DC and Capitol Hill cops that joined the suit.

The judge flew the boner flag for Trump. To be clear, it was a micro ruling. The plaintiffs had also named other co-defendants, such as Don Jr., and Rudy Giuliani, but the judge threw those pieces out. But he let the case in chief against Trump go ahead to pre-trial discovery. His ruling was significant. Trump was claiming that he made his speech as President, and was therefore covered by executive immunity. The judge found that he made the speech not as President, but as a failed Presidential candidate.

This ruling has Trump tearing out his dead muskrat hair, but there’s somebody else who’s tearing out even more of his hair. because this case is almost guaranteed to end up in front of the Supreme Court, and before a witness is even called, and will embroil the Supreme Court in a controversy it has been steadfastly been trying to avoid since 1973. A DOJ OLC ruling found that while the Vice President could be indicted while in office, the President could not. And the Supreme Court has avoided that issue like a scalded cat.

To be sure, there is partial precedent for today’s ruling. When Bill Clinton was President, he was sued by Paula Jones, and ordered to give a deposition. Clinton claimed executive privilege as a sitting President. The problem is that what Jones was suing for was conduct that Clinton indulged in when he was a private citizen, before he became President. The SCOTUS ruled that Clinton’s privilege did not apply, and ordered him to submit for a video deposition, which he did, and led to the Lewinsky scandal and his impeachment.

But this case is different. It’s different simply because this time, the plaintiffs are suing Trump civilly for actions he undertook while he was still a sitting President of the United States. The district court judge ruled that when Trump made his insightful remarks, he was speaking not as President, but as a failed political candidate. Trump will of course immediately appeal the ruling. If the appellate court rules with the plaintiffs and the lower court, Trump will immediately appeal to the Supreme Court. And if the appellate court rules for Trump, the plaintiffs will immediately appeal to the Supreme Court. And either way, John Roberts has this dead polecat sitting on his bench. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. 

This is exactly the kind of a case that the Supreme Court strives to avoid at all costs.The court hated being dragged into jurisdictional disputes between other equal branches of power. They vastly prefer that the other two powers settle it between themselves. They could of course decline to hear the case, and leave it at the lower court ruling, but that would make them look like a bunch of chickenshit wimps. They are going to have to make this call.

Now to be sure, this is a civil case, and not a criminal one. But the implications and ramifications are enormous. If the court determines that a sitting President can be sued civilly for actions taken outside of his office, then the whole paradigm shifts. A ruling like that could easily lead an Attorney General to order a review of the OLC ruling to determine whether if a sitting President can be sued civilly, can he be indicted for crimes committed before or during his term of office? Either way, the issue of presidential vulnerability while in office has just been laid wide open. As Rachel likes to say, Stick a pin in this one.