Even as President Trump is arguing in his impeachment trial that the House should have taken him to court to enforce its subpoenas, he made new arguments to the Supreme Court Monday that House subpoenas against his accounting firm and bank are illegitimate and beyond the power of the legislative branch.
“Whatever powers Congress holds, it may not deploy them in a way that keeps the President from fulfilling the obligations of his office,” attorneys for the President wrote in a Monday brief. “Unleashing each and every House committee to torment the President with legislative subpoena after legislative subpoena is a recipe for constitutional crisis.”
The arguments come as Trump tries to fight off four subpoenas issued by House committees to his longtime accountant Mazars USA LLP and lender, Deutsche Bank.
Trump sued last year to prevent the financial institutions from complying with the House subpoenas, and is simultaneously fighting a separate case in which a New York grand jury issued a criminal subpoena to Mazars for his financial records.
But the President’s arguments in the House subpoena case – delivered in the brief by his lead impeachment defense attorney Jay Sekulow – diverge from those made in his ongoing Senate impeachment trial. There, the President’s attorneys and partisans in the Senate GOP caucus have argued that House Democrats failed to complete their investigation before bringing articles of impeachment to the Senate, saying that they should have been willing to sue to get the evidence they wanted.
At the Supreme Court, the Trump team contends that lawsuits launched by the House for the President’s financial records fulfill an illegitimate “law enforcement” purpose and not a “legislative” one.
“Legislative subpoenas may not be used to engage in law enforcement, to investigate into areas where Congress may not validly legislate, and to probe into issues that are not pertinent,” the brief reads. “These four subpoenas flunk this test under the Court’s decisions resolving disputes over ordinary legislative subpoenas about routine congressional topics. But the subpoenas under review here are anything but ordinary, and the congressional investigations that produced them are certainly not routine.”
Trump also accused the House in its brief of failing to properly authorize the subpoenas. The House held no full vote on the investigation into Trump before the subpoenas were issued, which the President has seized on to argue that the basis for the probe is illegitimate.
“Whether Congress is empowered to subpoena the President’s personal records—at all—in aid of legislation and, if it is, whether these subpoenas exceed that authority are exactly the kind of interbranch disputes the Court should avoid resolving until Congress has made clear that it understands the stakes and is prepared for judicial resolution,” the brief reads. “The weighty constitutional issues presented by this dispute should not be resolved until Congress does so.”
The Supreme Court will attempt to resolve the issue this term. The exact dates for oral arguments have not yet been scheduled, though they are expected to be held in late March.
Read the brief here:
Keep tryin’. buddy. At some point, that Olive Garden kitchen with pasta all over the floor is going get one strand of spaghetti that might stick.
Not this time, though.
I hope they keep this shit up. At this point there are very few people capable of objectively looking at this mess that aren’t convinced the President did what’s alleged and that he and his team are lying about it. Their strategy is to lie and deflect to the Bidens. While Chief Justice Robert’s sits in his robes and enables the lot of it. Everyone capable of seeing what’s going on sees it. Those that are incapable don’t matter.
I hope they keep it up. Keep lying, projecting and deflecting until they let Trump walk. For folks old enough to remember the Clinton impeachment it fooled very few. It was a partisan affair intended on “overturning the 1996 election” and all of America knew that. The same will out in 2020. Trump will walk but the majority of Americans will know.
As Louis XIV said, “L’etat cest moi.” Louis XV said, “Apres moi, le deluge.” Louis XVI didn’t say anything, after…
One of the side-effects of losing one’s head.
Too bad that’s not an option here.
I am not a lawyer (crosses self) nor a Constitutional scholar, but couldn’t the Dems request a ruling from the chair, i.e. Chief Justice Roberts, on the admissibility of evidence via the calling of witnesses?? I know the Senate could override his judgment, but isn’t trying a good strategy?