News
Trump Likely to Win Supreme Court Disqualification Case: Legal Experts
Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court appear prepared to hand Donald Trump a win, allowing him to not only stay on the Colorado primary ballot, but to make a landmark ruling that the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution does not allow any state to remove a candidate from an election even if they have engaged in insurrection, according to several legal experts.
Legal experts also suggest the justices were not open to Colorado’s argument, and are likely to decide for the ex-president who is also facing 91 criminal felony charges, including some for his efforts in allegedly attempting to overturn the 2020 election he lost.
“This argument did not go well for the Trump challengers,” said former Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal live on MSNBC.
“The SCOTUS oral argument- Colorado will lose, with the only issue being whether a single Justice will dissent. Tough and smart questions by the Justices including the 3 in the liberal wing,” writes Professor of law Andrew Weissmann, an MSNBC legal analyst who spent decades at DOJ.
“My bet,” says professor of law Steve Vladeck, “Between 7-2 and 9-0 for the very specific proposition that states can’t unilaterally disqualify candidates running for President on the ground that they engaged in insurrection. That’s just a prediction based on the oral argument—not what I think the Court *ought* to do.”
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Professor of law Rick Hasan, a noted election law expert, says it “would not be surprising to see a quick 9-0 or 8-1 ruling reversing Colorado and keeping Trump on the ballot, with Roberts writing on the federal interest, and perhaps some concurrences (Kavanaugh on Griffin, Alito and Gorsuch on ‘holdin’ office). Sotomayor is the question mark.”
“In my view this argument is as good as over,” wrote Mark Joseph Stern, before oral arguments concluded. “A majority will hold that individual states can’t enforce Sec. 3 against the president, at least without congressional approval.”
As some observed, it took the Justices an hour to even address the issue of insurrection, which is central to the case. Others expired grave concern that Justice Clarence Thomas, who they say clearly has a deep conflict of interest given his spouse’s actions, chose to not recuse himself.
“SCOTUS justices across the aisle — including Kagan, Thomas, and Barrett — have questioned states’ ability to disqualify federal candidates under the 14th Amendment, Section 3,” notes veteran legal reporter Adam Klasfeld. He also says, “Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson expresses skepticism about the definition of ‘officer’ in the disqualification clause: ‘Why didn’t they put president in the very enumerated list of Section Three?'”
“That ‘troubles’ her, she says.”
Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that criminal prosecution of insurrection was required to enforce Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. He also asked about “the right of the people” to vote for the candidate of their choice, and appeared concerned about “disenfranchisement” of voters.
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The Associated Press observes it is “bad for the plaintiffs trying to disqualify Trump” that January 6 “isn’t coming up in this argument.”
The AP adds that “the questioning has almost all been about technical, procedural issues, which are many of the reasons that Trump and others say the high court just shouldn’t go there. The justices are plainly worried that they’ll open a Pandora’s Box if they uphold the Colorado ruling, allowing other states to disqualify people they dislike through whatever fact-finding procedures they see fit to use.”
The attorney arguing for Colorado, Jason Murray, “keeps trying to bring the discussion back to Trump’s conduct, but not even the Democratic-appointed justices seem to be biting.”
Politico is even more certain that the Supreme Court will side with Trump and deem him not ineligible to hold elected office.
“The Supreme Court appeared to sharply veer against the Colorado voters challenging former President Donald Trump’s eligibility to run for office,” Politico’s Kyle Cheney reports. “Justices on both the left and right raised pointed questions to Jason Murray…about the ‘extraordinary’ ramifications of letting individual states decide whether a candidate is an insurrectionist.”
He adds that the “justices seem hostile to [the] disqualification effort.”
“Chief Justice John Roberts said that would essentially empower individual states to exert unilateral control over federal elections, a position ‘at war’ with the notion that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment was intended to empower the federal government to constrain wayward states.”
Justice Elena Kagan also appeared opposed, asking: “Why should a single state have the ability to make this determination, not only for their own citizens, but for the rest of the nation?”
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Donald Trump says the day he enters the Oval Office for a second term he will end anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ students implemented by the Biden administration.
Serving up a scattershot series of complaints with the hosts from the Philadelphia-based right-wing talk radio show “Kayal and Company” on Friday, Trump compared LGBTQ+ protections to a “cuckoo’s nest.”
“A lot of things don’t make sense, having to do with what they’re doing, from the border to all of the men playing in women’s sports. I mean, the world is like a cuckoo’s nest right now with what they do,” Trump declared.
One of the hosts alleged President Joe Biden has engaged in “manipulation” of Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools that receive federal funding. She claimed parents now have to “pinch some pennies” to be able to afford private Christian schools for their children, to remove them from the enhancements that go into effect this summer.
“Many schools are grappling with what they’re going to do,” she said, “because as of August 1, as you know, because of Biden’s manipulation of Title IX, these kids, the school boards, have no choice, they’re meeting right now they, many of them perplexed, and they don’t know what to do, Mr. President, because they’re so upset over this that at August 1 a biological boy can change in a locker room.”
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Trump replied, “It’s crazy. Crazy.”
“We’re going to end it on day one,” Trump vowed. “We’re going to change it on day one. It’s going to be changed. We’re going to end it. That’s right.”
“The whole thing is crazy. Look, it’s like men playing in women’s sports. It’s like open borders for the world to come in. Send all their prisoners. We’ll take as many as you can give us. Send all their people from mental institutions.”
“We’ll get that changed. Tell your people not to worry about it. It’ll be signed on day one. It will be terminated,” Trump promised, vowing to end the LGBTQ+ protections which include protections for sexual orientation and gender identity.
On his first day in office, President Biden implemented “the most far-reaching of any federal protections yet” for LGBTQ+ people, according to NPR.
In an explainer on the new expanded rules, Ms. Magazine reports “The 2024 regulations prohibit discrimination not only on the basis of sex, but also on the basis of sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity.”
According to GLAAD, which is tracking “the Biden administration’s executive orders, legislative support, speeches and nominations that affect LGBTQ people and rights,” President Biden has made 337 “moves” in 1206 days.
Listen to a short clip below or at this link.
ICYMI: @realDonaldTrump joined @NickKayal & @DawnStensland sharing his perspective on Title IX…
Watch below or listen on @Audacy pic.twitter.com/wzx0QxKPJ7
— Talk Radio 1210 WPHT (@1210WPHT) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
A Fox News panel discussing the Trump New York criminal trial debated whether or not the indicted ex-president could attack the judge’s daughter, with former Bush 43 press secretary Ari Fleischer insisting he should, and claiming doing so would not violate the terms of the gag order.
“President Trump needs to stop calling the judge ‘conflicted.’ He needs to explain why he’s conflicted,” Fleischer said Friday to a panel that included former Trump press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Every day of the trial he goes in there, he says, ‘the judge is conflicted, conflicted bigger than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life.’ He doesn’t explain how or why. He needs to say that the judge’s daughter works for a Democratic political consulting firm that does anti-Trump business. He needs to explain it. Otherwise, it’s just an assertion with no proof. And the President if he’s going to say it, back it up. Explain.”
“I think that’s a violation of the gag order, is it not?” a Fox panelist replied.
“No, he can criticize the judge,” McEnany responded.
READ MORE: Bannon Will Be ‘Going to Prison’ After Criminal Contempt Conviction Upheld, Experts Predict
“Not the judge but the family,” the panelist added.
“But when he says the judge is conflicted, you can still explain how and why, and I think comply with a gag,” Fleischer insisted.
The panelists then agreed Donald Trump has been “measured” in his remarks.
National security attorney Brad Moss weighed in on social media, posting the relevant portion of the gag order and writing that Fleischer “effectively recommends Trump violate the terms of the gag order.”
The gag order in part reads: “Defendant is directed to refrain from” … “Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staffs work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result.”
Despite Trump’s repeated attacks, an ethics panel last year cleared Judge Juan Merchan of any issues surrounding his daughter’s work.
On Monday, Judge Merchan warned Trump he may throw him in jail if he violates the gag order again.
Watch below or at this link.
Fleischer: Trump needs to talk about Judge Merchan’s daughter.
McDowell: I think that violates the gag order
Kayleigh: No, he can criticize the judge pic.twitter.com/CLgNxNpg6B
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 10, 2024
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
A federal appeals court panel of three judges has upheld the criminal contempt of Congress conviction of Steve Bannon, the far-right provocateur and former Trump chief strategist and senior White House advisor. Legal experts say he can appeal but ultimately he will he headed to prison.
Bannon had refused to comply with a subpoena lawfully-issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack.
“Bannon was sentenced to four months in jail in 2022 by U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols after a jury convicted him of two counts of contempt of Congress,” Politico reports Friday. “But Nichols, a Trump appointee, agreed to postpone the jail term while Bannon appealed the decision, agreeing that the complex mix of laws that govern executive privilege and testimonial immunity for White House aides could be overturned by higher courts.”
The appeals court panel includes judges appointed by President Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden, according to CNN’s Zachary Cohen.
In their ruling the judges wrote: “Public accounts indicated that Bannon had predicted on a January 5, 2021 podcast that ‘all hell [wa]s going to break loose’ the next day,” and noted, “In addition to the podcast prediction, Bannon had reportedly participated in discussions in late 2020 and early 2021 about efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.”
READ MORE: House Ethics Committee Extends Investigation Into ‘Ultra MAGA’ Congressman
Politico noted the “three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Bannon’s argument, saying the former aide and prominent podcaster had no legal rationale for his blanket refusal to appeal before the Jan. 6 committee — and that long-standing case law.”
Bannon is a peddler of conspiracy theories whose podcast “was crowned the top peddler of false, misleading and unsubstantiated statements among political podcasts,” according to The New York Times, citing a Brookings study.
“Bannon is unlikely to have to report to prison immediately,” NBC News reports.
Legal experts weighed in on the question of prison for Bannon.
READ MORE: ‘Undisguised Corruption’: Critics Slam Trump for ‘Selling the White House’ to Big Oil
“And now it’s time for Bannon to be given a date to report to the federal Bureau of Prisons to begin serving his sentence,” remarked MSNBC and NBC News legal analyst Glenn Kirschner, a former federal prosecutor.
“Bannon is effectively out of appeals,” observed professor of law and MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance, former U.S. Attorney. “He can delay a little bit longer, asking for the full court to review the decision en banc & asking SCOTUS to hear his case on cert, but neither one of those things will happen. Bannon is going to prison.”
Professor of law and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter remarked, “it’s slammer time.”
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