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Another Thing Trump Is Really Good At: Loopholes
Also: arguing one thing in public, and the exact opposite in court…
Today, we’ll look at two prime recent examples of some of that:
First, a federal appeals court ruling that Congress cannot sue to force former chief White House lawyer Don McGahn to testify. A lower court judge originally ruled he had to.
You may remember that during impeachment proceedings, the President, as well as many Republicans, publicly arguing that if Democrats in the House had a problem with Trump blocking everybody close to the President — including McGahn — from testifying, they should take it up in federal court.
Yet in federal court Trump’s folks argued that the House has no right to take it up in federal court.
And the court agreed.
The 3-judge panel ruling 2–1 that the House didn’t have standing to sue to force the testimony. Why not? Because in the opinion of 2 of the 3 judges involved, the Executive (President) And Legislative (Congress) branches of government need to work such matters out between themselves and not involve the Judicial (Courts). And that federal courts here have no power to act as mediator. Judge Thomas Griffith writing in the decision:
“[W]e lack authority to…
