Posted on 10/01/2017 12:52:52 PM PDT by jazusamo
WASHINGTON – In a potential Supreme Court preview, two attorneys on Thursday argued about the validity of the high court considering President Trump’s comments about Muslims as evidence when deciding the fate of his travel ban.
“This entire thing has come down to a judicial reading of (President Trump’s) campaign statements to issue a major constitutional ruling,” Will Consovoy, a partner at Consovoy McCarthy Park PLLC, said at the Heritage Foundation.
Consovoy, whose firm has filed an amicus brief in support of the travel ban order, said that he would find it deeply troubling if the Supreme Court were to use the president’s campaign statements as evidence of bias. If that argument succeeds, he said the U.S. should be prepared to have active litigation every time a president issues an order, with reviews of everything said in public life.
David Fontana, an associate professor at George Washington University School of Law, said that political statements, particularly recent ones, are entirely fair. He cited the criminal case against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) as an example. Fontana said that there has to be a reasonable time limit, but the objective observer would agree that Trump’s campaign promises are valid in determining the purpose behind the travel ban.
Trump’s campaign in December issued a statement calling for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until our country’s representatives can figure out what is going on,” which Trump called out during a South Carolina rally.
“Has enough time passed and have enough countries been added to remove that taint?” Fontana asked.
Shortly after taking office, Trump issued his executive order temporarily banning travel from seven Muslim majority countries: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. Lawsuits ensued, and federal courts put the travel ban on hold. Trump amended the order in March, removing Iraq. Though federal judges in Maryland and Hawaii later upheld the previous court’s decision, the Supreme Court in June allowed certain parts of the ban to take effect.
A week ago, Trump levied travel restrictions of varying degrees on three more countries – North Korea, Venezuela and Chad – while Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia remain on the list. The ACLU, which is leading one of two cases challenging the ban, immediately fired off a response, saying the recent additions don’t hide that the order is a Muslim ban.
The Supreme Court on Monday canceled oral arguments set for Oct. 10, instead asking parties to file supplemental letter briefs by Oct. 5.
“This action by the Supreme Court is not surprising given the government’s decision to issue a new version of the ban at the eleventh hour,” Director of ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project Omar Jadwat said in a statement. “Both sides will address the implications of that new ban order for the existing case in written submissions to the court. The ban has been repeatedly held unconstitutional and illegal by the courts and those decisions remain in place today.”
The lawsuits were brought by families claiming injury because relatives had been barred from entering the United States. Consovoy noted that those family members in question have since been admitted into the U.S. He argued that the executive order itself is facially neutral, and that had President Obama, or any other president, invoked the ban, the case never would have gotten this far.
Fontana said that a central question from the case is not whether immigrants have the right to live in the U.S. but whether there is validity for the reasons they are being denied. Consovoy disagreed, saying the question is more whether the family members living in the U.S. can show standing and proof that they have somehow been injured by the travel ban.
A judge is just a lawyer with too much power.
Then there is no case, and any judge that says there is is nothing more than a hack.
Campaign statements are not written in the Constitution. The judges clearly see in the Constitution that a US President has jurisdiction on who and who is not allowed a visa into the country. If they are reading campaign statements, they are no longer judges, they are hacks.
Using this same logic, then, lawsuits against politicians for breach of contract, for their failure to live up to campaign promises, should be actionable.
Tagline adjustment as requested.
If, in this country we imbed in our case law as precedent and against the Constitution as based on the Natural law, the idea that intent can be inferred from prior statements of a president rather than on the facial reality of it, we lose our balance of power and country.
IMO that idea is from European positive law and not from English case law.
It is dangerous.
Sounds like they are making crap up AGAIN.
Bias based on experience is called learning. I had zero Muslim bias until I interacted with them. What a learning experience that was. I am now biased.
Interesting how the SCOTUS bent over backwards to re-interpret 0’s “healthcare” bill tax as not a tax, but I guess things are different now that a Repub is Prez....
speech is protected 1st amendment right
and political speech has always been afforded among the very highest protections of all, given how political campaigns etc are so essential for our system of representative governance to work
so...
even IF IF IF IF IF a candidate said “I hate all Muslims and wish that they would go Hell right away~!” or worse,
it has no proper legal bearing on his lawful conduct in office
judges that try to do this kind of krap are undermining our system of representative governance (which, obviously, they oppose anyway, seeing how they want to rule us themselves)
Why doesn’t Trump judge shop like the demonrats?
Well said!
If Trump can keep the mucking fuzzies out of the country his presidency will not have been in vain.
There is a legitimate question. Under our common law, and the Constitution is based upon common law, an official executing the discretion of his office must do so reasonably, which means that he must have a stated valid reason for the decision. That goes for the President too. Now the other part of this is that a judge cannot substitute his interpretation for that of the office holder, e.g. President. The President has the discretion here because the Congress gave the president the discretion under a duly passed law. Legal inquiry ends once it is determined that the President had a valid reason for his decision. That campaign rhetoric might be argued to provide a different basis, it is not for the judge to see if he can invent an invalid argument for the decision to toss it.
If there is a religious test in the application....then I can see a problem. Otherwise, we know these are all funding of terrorism nations...and that Kim is a nutcase.
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