Weissmann on SCOTUS hearing: ‘Ketanji Brown Jackson was the star of the hearing’
"A Ruling for Trump on Eligibility Could Doom His Bid for Immunity"
MSNBC
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Neal Katyal, former Acting U.S. Solicitor General and Andrew Wiessmann, former top prosecutor at the Justice Department join Alicia Menendez in for Nicolle Wallace on Deadline White House with reaction from the Supreme Court hearing dealing with the Trump’s ballot eligibility and the Trump’s legal team trying to avoid talking about the facts of what happened on January 6th and why Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson would not let how Trump’s attorneys defined what is an insurrection go
'Appalling!': Historians torch Supreme Court's handling of Trump ballot case
MSNBC
376,534 views Feb 9, 2024 #SCOTUS #Trump #Colorado
MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell discusses the Supreme Court oral arguments on the case dealing with Donald Trump being removed from Colorado's presidential ballot by that state's Supreme Court with Harvard History Professor Drew Gilpin Faust and Yale History Professor David Blight.
Does history support removing Donald Trump from the presidential ballot?
NPR Published January 31, 2024 at 4:12 AM CST
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
States are making different decisions about allowing Donald Trump's name on the presidential ballot. The Illinois Board of Elections said yesterday it's fine. Maine and Colorado said it's not. And the Supreme Court is deciding if states really have the power.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Colorado's Supreme Court said Trump is not qualified for the presidency under the Constitution's 14th Amendment. Section 3 of that amendment says you can't serve in federal office if you once took an oath to support the United States and then engaged in an insurrection or rebellion.
INSKEEP: This happened after the Civil War. Many justices on the court are originalists. They judge things based on the original public meaning of a law. So historians have submitted a friend of the court brief on what it means. They include Jill Lepore and David Blight.
JILL LEPORE: If the court's going to make its decisions based on an originalist interpretation, they do need good history. It does then become a kind of civic obligation of historians to provide the court, you know, the best and most accurate historical evidence.
INSKEEP: There seem to be several questions about the 14th Amendment, and the first is whether it still applies today or was just intended to apply to rebels from the Civil War that had just ended. What does the history tell you?
LEPORE: Yeah, the history on that point is quite clear, and actually, I will say, also moving. People were terrified. We can barely imagine the scale of suffering in a war that had cost 700,000 lives and had lasted for four years, and soon afterward ex-Confederates were being reelected to Congress. So the palpable concern people had that this kind of violence would become a feature of American life, and that the only way to stop that was with Section 3 - the discussion turned to, we need to make sure that this is in place to prevent future insurrections.
INSKEEP: When you look at the discussions, the debates about that language, did anybody address whether it was just for former Confederates or whether it was forever?
LEPORE: Absolutely. Sort of repeatedly people would just sort of read into the record their understanding that what they were agreeing to here was a provision that would apply not only to ex-Confederates, but to future insurrectionists. So a Missouri Republican named John B. Anderson (ph), on the day he cast his vote for the 14th Amendment in the Senate, said the language of this section is so framed as to disenfranchise from office the leaders of the past rebellion, as well as the leaders of any rebellion hereafter to come.
INSKEEP: So there's no doubt in your mind that when we're talking about disqualifying people for insurrection, that means now as well as 1868. That means any other thing as well as the Civil War.
DAVID BLIGHT: Well, they couldn't entirely anticipate what we're going through now, as no one could, but they meant it to be permanent.
INSKEEP: The next controversy that's being discussed today is whether, because of its wording, it applies to all officials except the president, or does it also apply to a president?
LEPORE: So there's a whole lot of legal nitpicking around this, which, from a historian's vantage, is nothing short of bizarre. It defies the record of the drafting. It defies the logic of Section 3. And it also defies what originalists would describe as the public understanding of Section 3. There's an incredible terror about Jefferson Davis in particular, who, you know, unlike Trump, had not been president of the United States. He had been president of the Confederacy. But that he would make a bid for the presidency was a real concern.
BLIGHT: And I'd also add, if they tried - they being the court - to use this idea that because Section 3 doesn't explicitly name the president, they're effectively making up a technicality. Because it says anyone who took an oath and held high office. Now, if the president isn't an officer of the United States, then who is?
INSKEEP: Let's move on to another controversy, which is who gets to decide if someone should be disqualified. In this case, the Colorado State Supreme Court has decided. We have other instances where a secretary of state of a state has decided. What does the history tell you there?
LEPORE: If you look in the congressional petitions database, among the petitions that you find in 1868 and 1869 are many, many, many petitions from ex-Confederates to Congress seeking the removal of their Section 3 disability. None of these people have been convicted of insurrection. It was their understanding, as it was indeed the understanding of those who framed Section 3, that it would be self-executing.
INSKEEP: We have this controversy today over whether various state officials can keep people off the ballot, which gets to the question of who can decide if someone engaged in insurrection if they denied it. Is there any history as to whether almost any random official or any specific official acted on this and said, listen, the facts are what the facts are. You cannot serve.
BLIGHT: Well, there's very little precedent here of any kind. Let's face it - Section 3 had all but vanished from history, and it's just suddenly risen from the dead. And that is why this so quickly went right directly to the Supreme Court. What we tried to focus on, as Jill said, is the actual history beneath why it was done and what it means and what its consequences are.
INSKEEP: Does the attack in the Capitol on January 6, 2021, and the larger effort to overturn Trump's defeat in the 2020 election - does that count as insurrection? Does the history tell you anything about the original public meaning of that word as it existed in the 1860s?
BLIGHT: Well, I would only say, despite the fact that the Confederacy is the largest dissent in American history, they never invaded the U.S. Capitol building. They never got there. In the January 6 case, a mob invaded the U.S. Capitol by violence and force to overturn the count of the Electoral College. And they were openly, vigorously prompted by the president of the United States. If that's not insurrection, then neither was the Confederacy.
INSKEEP: What would you, as citizens, make of one more argument that is less about the law in history than about political wisdom - is it wise to disqualify someone that millions of people apparently want to vote for, rather than defeating him at the ballot box, which is the way that many people would think it ought to work?
LEPORE: He was defeated at the ballot box, and he incited an insurrection.
BLIGHT: Great answer, and I would only add that we all want to believe in this basic principle - it's one of Jefferson's four first principles in the Declaration - of popular sovereignty. The people rule. We have representative democracy. Fine. But we also have laws.And I don't think in this case, a degree of popular will should be the only question in the enforcement of the Constitution, which is itself quite clear.
[Insert: That opinion of Blight's goes directly to the argument 'let the voters decide' that so many as livefree_ordie say: [...]Anyway, Colorado folks my fellow citizens I have full faith in them to make the right choice in the privacy of their own voting booth. https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=173805645]
LEPORE: There is no one who relishes the idea of Section 3 being applied in this case. There is no glee to be had. There is no triumph in striking Trump from a ballot. But this is what the Constitution says. And this is a court that has pledged to abide by the original intention, meaning and public understanding of the Constitution. And it has to come up with an answer to this history.
INSKEEP: The historians who submitted a friend of the court brief to the United States Supreme Court on this question include David Blight and Jill Lepore. Thanks to you both.
LEPORE: Thanks, Steve.
BLIGHT: Thank you, Steve.
INSKEEP: David Blight wrote "Frederick Douglass: Prophet Of Freedom." Jill Lepore wrote "These Truths." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
In Taking Up Trump’s Immunity Claim, Supreme Court Bolstered His Delay Strategy
By scheduling a hearing for late April on the former president’s assertion that he cannot be prosecuted for his actions in office, the justices increased the chances that he will not face trial by Election Day.
With each delay, the odds increase that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Donald J. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one. Kent Nishimura for The New York Times
By Alan Feuer Feb. 28, 2024
The Supreme Court that former President Donald J. Trump helped to shape tossed him a legal lifeline on Wednesday night, making a choice that substantially aided his efforts to delay his federal trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
By deciding to take up Mr. Trump’s claim that presidents enjoy almost total immunity from prosecution for any official action while in office — a legal theory rejected by two lower courts and one that few experts think has any basis in the Constitution — the justices bought the former president at least several months before a trial on the election interference charges can start.
It is not out of the question that Mr. Trump could still face a jury in the case, in Federal District Court in Washington, before Election Day. At this point, the legal calendar suggests that if the justices issue a ruling by the end of the Supreme Court’s term in June and find that Mr. Trump is not immune from prosecution, the trial could still start by late September or October.
But with each delay, the odds increase that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one.
If Mr. Trump is successful in delaying the trial until after Election Day and he wins, he could use the powers of his office to seek to dismiss the election interference indictment altogether. Moreover, Justice Department policy precludes prosecuting a sitting president, meaning that, once sworn in, he could likely have any federal trial he is facing postponed until after he left office.
----- Takeaways From Trump’s Indictment in the 2020 Election Inquiry Card [5] of 5
Four charges for the former president. Former President Donald Trump was charged with four counts in connection with his widespread efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The indictment was filed by the special counsel Jack Smith in Federal District Court in Washington. Here are some key takeaways:
The indictment portrayed an attack on American democracy. Smith framed his case against Trump as one that cuts to a key function of democracy: the peaceful transfer of power. By underscoring this theme, Smith cast his effort as an effort not just to hold Trump accountable but also to defend the very core of democracy.
Trump was placed at the center of the conspiracy charges. Smith put Trump at the heart of three conspiracies that culminated on Jan. 6, 2021, in an attempt to obstruct Congress’s role in ratifying the Electoral College outcome. The special counsel argued that Trump knew that his claims about a stolen election were false, a point that, if proved, could be important to convincing a jury to convict him.
Trump didn’t do it alone. The indictment lists six co-conspirators .. [Among those people central to the inquiry were Rudolph W. Giuliani, a lawyer who oversaw Mr. Trump’s attempts to claim the election was marred by widespread fraud; John Eastman, a law professor who provided the legal basis to overturn the election by manipulating the count of electors to the Electoral College; Sidney Powell, a lawyer who pushed Mr. Trump to use the military to seize voting machines and rerun the election; Jeffrey Clark, a Justice Department official at the time; and Kenneth Chesebro and James Troupis, lawyers who helped flesh out the plan to use fake electors pledged to Mr. Trump in states that were won by President Biden. ] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/01/us/politics/trump-indictment-election-co-conspirators.html?action=click&pgtype=Article&state=default&module=styln-capitol-mob&variant=show®ion=MAIN_CONTENT_1&block=storyline_levelup_swipe_recirc .. without naming or indicting them. Based on the descriptions provided, they match the profiles of Trump lawyers and advisers who were willing to argue increasingly outlandish conspiracy and legal theories to keep him in power. It’s unclear whether these co-conspirators will be indicted.
Trump’s political power remains strong. Trump may be on trial in 2024 in three or four separate criminal cases, but so far the indictments appear not to have affected his standing with Republican voters. By a large margin, he remains his party’s front-runner in the presidential primaries. -----
On its surface, the Supreme Court’s ruling on Wednesday night was a purely logistical decision. The justices decided to keep preparations for the trial on hold while they review a lower court’s rejection of the immunity defense. They set a hearing on the issue for the end of April.
As a practical matter, however, the court’s decision slow-walked the process of resolving the immunity debate, validating what had seemed like a last-ditch move by Mr. Trump’s legal team to find a way to keep pushing back a trial date until the campaign was over.
A spokesman for Jack Smith, the special counsel who is handling the election case in Washington, declined to comment on the court’s decision. Within Mr. Trump’s camp, the court’s ruling was seen as a major victory, but not a decisive one.
A year ago, when Mr. Trump was charged criminally for the first time, in Manhattan, and then, over the course of the next five months, was indicted three more times — in Florida, Washington and Georgia — it seemed as if he would spend much of 2024 in front of a jury. Now, however, if events break his way, he could go to trial only once before the election in November.
In that case, a state judge in Manhattan[Justice Juan M. Merchan]set a start date of March 25 .. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/nyregion/trump-manhattan-criminal-case.html .. for the former president’s trial on charges of arranging hush-money payments to a porn star in an effort to avert a scandal on the eve of the 2016 election.
And on Friday, a federal judge in Florida is set to hold a hearing to reset the clock on Mr. Trump’s other federal trial — the one in which he stands accused of mishandling dozens of classified documents after he left office. That trial was scheduled to start in May, but now may or may not take place before Election Day.
The Georgia case is also mired in pretrial clashes that have cast doubt on when, or even whether, it will proceed.
The election interference case in Washington was supposed to have been the first of Mr. Trump’s four criminal proceedings to go in front of a jury. Months ago, the judge overseeing it, Tanya S. Chutkan, picked a trial date of March 4.
But then Mr. Trump filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that he enjoyed complete immunity from the charges because they arose from acts he took as president. While the claim had no precedent and went against basic legal and constitutional principles, it had a powerful attraction to Mr. Trump’s lawyers: Once it was lodged, Judge Chutkan was required to put the underlying case on hold until the question of immunity was resolved.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court in Washington weighed in on the question, rejecting the immunity defense in a unanimous and scathing ruling that found that Mr. Trump was subject to federal criminal law like any other American.
He then asked the Supreme Court to keep the trial proceedings on hold while the justices decided whether they wanted to weigh in on the issue, perhaps hoping less that the justices would agree with him on the merits of his claims than that they might take up the question and take their time in reaching a decision.
And that is precisely what the court did on Wednesday.
The question of when the trial will ultimately happen has been complicated by Judge Chutkan’s insistence that Mr. Trump not lose any time to prepare for the proceeding while the pause in the case remains in effect. She has suggested in court papers that, in the spirit of fairness, the former president should have an extra day to prepare for every one lost to the stay.
Judge Chutkan froze the election case on Dec. 13 . . https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/13/us/politics/trump-immunity-decision-election-case.html . That means, if she sticks to her decision, she owes Mr. Trump an additional 82 days of preparation time — equivalent to the period between Dec. 13 and the originally scheduled trial date of March 4. If the Supreme Court renders a ruling on the immunity decision in June and preparations for the trial start up again immediately, the extra 82 days could push a trial date into September.
At that point, the general election campaign would be in full swing — and there would be no guarantee that the trial could be completed by Election Day.
Alan Feuer covers extremism and political violence for The Times, focusing on the criminal cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and against former President Donald J. Trump. More about Alan Feuer
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