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******Official SCOTUS Thread****** (1 Viewer)

rockaction said:
Roberts:

Roberts warned that “across this vast area” now deemed to be Native American land, “the State’s ability to prosecute serious crimes will be hobbled and decades of past convictions could well be thrown out.”

“On top of that, the Court has profoundly destabilized the governance of eastern Oklahoma,” Roberts wrote. “The decision today creates significant uncertainty for the State’s continuing authority over any area that touches Indian affairs, ranging from zoning and taxation to family and environmental law."
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Yeah, but Congress could vote to formally dissolve these reservations (which, remember, already do not exist as a matter of fact, only of law) tomorrow and we're all back to the status quo.  That would be logical outcome that you would expect in a sane world.

 
The Thomas and Alito dissents in Mazars are weak. They're even split on why the President might have a defense. Thomas is most extreme and thinks Congress has to go through all the steps to impeach to get this stuff (and that I take it would mean even more than a committee vote but a whole vote by all of Congress, sure, Clarence). Alito is a bit more measured and says the Congress should at least provide greater clarification - he seems to view this as almost a fait accompli that the district courts will rule against him and other presidents. Alito isn't even disagreeing with the majority, he's just saying there should be a tougher test.

 
IvanKaramazov said:
Yeah, but Congress could vote to formally dissolve these reservations (which, remember, already do not exist as a matter of fact, only of law) tomorrow and we're all back to the status quo.  That would be logical outcome that you would expect in a sane world.
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Indeed they can. And that process and accountability come to the fore with Gorsuch writing the decision. It is less of a piece for the aggrieved than a way to get Congress to stop implicitly delegating these authorities by unwritten fiat to states. Note the first paragraph and how it ends in the decision. "Today we are asked whether the land these treaties promised remains an Indian reservation for purposes of federal criminal law. Because Congress has not said otherwise, we hold the government to its word." 

 
Clarence Thomas going to the wall for near unitary, absolute immunity is really telling, it's actually past Rao (who at least made the veneer of an attempt at a "finding").

 
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Again in Vance Thomas and Alito split. Both these cases are practically 8-1 with Thomas in the cold, Alito is basically saying there should be a tougher test, but his sympathy for poor, poor Donald is evident:

The Court says that a President can “argue that compliance with a particular subpoena would impede his constitutional duties,” ante, at 20 (emphasis added), but under the Court’s opinions in this case and Mazars, it is not easy to see how such an argument could prevail. The Court makes clear that any stigma or damage to a President’s reputation does not count, ante, at 14, and in Mazars, the Court states that “burdens on the President’s time and attention” are generally not of constitutional concern, post, at 20.

Elsewhere in its opinion in this case, the Court takes the position that when a President’s non-official records are subpoenaed, his treatment should be little different from that of any other subpoena recipient. Ante, at 18. The most that the Court holds out is the possibility that there might be some unspecified extraordinary circumstances under which a President might obtain relief. Finally, the Court touts the ability of a President to challenge a subpoena by “‘an affirmative showing of impropriety,’ including ‘bad faith’” or retaliation for official acts. Ante, at 16–17. But “such objections are almost universally overruled.” S. Beale et al., Grand Jury Law and Practice §6:23, p. 6–243 (2014). Direct evidence of impropriety is rarely obtainable, and it will be a challenge to make a circumstantial case unless the prosecutor is required to provide the sort of showing outlined above.

For all practical purposes, the Court’s decision places a sitting President in the same unenviable position as any other person whose records are subpoenaed by a grand jury.
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Alito really makes clear here why the President is likely not going to prevail with what remains.

The word "stigma" comes up in this opinion a lot - and it seems that the President's biggest argument was that being subpoenaed would make him look like a crook. SMDH.

As for the bolded, oh hell yeah.

 
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Shortly before Attorney General Harry Daugherty resigned in 1924, the Senate opened an investigation into his “‘alleged failure’” to prosecute monopolists, the protagonists of the Teapot Dome scandal, and “‘many others.’” McGrain, 273 U. S., at 151. The investigating Committee issued subpoenas to Daugherty’s brother, Mally, who refused to comply and was arrested in Ohio for failure to testify. Id., at 152–154. Mally petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, and the District Court discharged him, based largely on Kilbourn. Ex parte Daugherty, 299 F. 620 (SD Ohio 1924). The Deputy Sergeant at Arms who arrested Mally directly appealed to this Court, which reversed. The Court concluded that, “n actual legislative practice[,] power to secure needed information by [investigating and compelling testimony] has long been treated as an attribute of the power to legislate.” McGrain, 273 U. S., at 161. The Court specifically found that “t was so regarded in the British Parliament and in the Colonial legislatures before the American Revolution” and that “a like view has prevailed and been carried into effect in both houses of Congress and in most of the state legislatures.” Ibid. But the authority cited by the Court did not support that proposition. The Court cited the 1792 investigation of St. Clair’s defeat, in which it appears no subpoena was issued, supra, at 7–8, and the 1859 Senate investigation of John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, which led to an impassioned debate. 273 U. S., at 162–164. Thus, for the reasons explained above, the examples relied on in McGrain are materially different from issuing a legislative subpoena for private, nonofficial documents. See supra, at 7, 10–11.

The Court acknowledged Kilbourn, but erroneously distinguished its discussion regarding the constitutionality of legislative subpoenas as immaterial dicta. McGrain, supra, at 170–171 (quoting Kilbourn, supra, at 189). The Court concluded that “the two houses of Congress, in their separate relations, possess not only such powers as are expressly granted to them by the Constitution, but such auxiliary powers as are necessary and appropriate to make the express powers effective.” McGrain, supra, at 173. Instead of relying on Kilbourn’s analysis, McGrain developed a test that rested heavily on functional considerations. The Court wrote that “[a] legislative body cannot legislate wisely or effectively in the absence of information respecting the conditions which the legislation is intended to affect or change.” 273 U. S., at 175. Because “mere requests for such information often are unavailing, and also that information which is volunteered is not always accurate or complete,” “some means of compulsion are essential to obtain what is needed.” Ibid. The Court thus concluded that Congress could issue legislative subpoenas, provided that “the purpose for which the witness’s testimony was sought was to obtain information in aid of the legislative function.” Id., at 176. The Court has since applied this test to subpoenas for papers without any further analysis of the text or history of the Constitution. See Eastland v. United States Servicemen’s Fund, 421 U. S. 491, 504–505 (1975). The majority today modifies that test for cases involving the President, but it leaves the core of the power untouched.
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- Vance

This is really significant, because this is the essence of everything, the law that Congress used to enforce oversight on the corrupt Harding / Daugherty administration is equated with the current Trump / Barr administration and it is validated as Constitutional. I really think this is what Trump and Barr wanted to destroy and they utterly failed. I'm thankful.

 
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I don’t believe we (the public) will ever see Donald Trump’s taxes or true financial info. 
 

And it won’t matter after November anyhow. He’ll never be indicted for anything. 

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
I know Trump believes in this absolute imperial immunity bs, but let's face it taking an insanely extreme legal position and then leveraging the special, unique constitutional position of the presidency to appeal every last damned thing over the course of 1-2+ years is a strategy any lawyer would love. The tax cases finally go before judges who now get to look at the subpoenas the way they could or would have before all this started, and that will be appealed. The courts have repeatedly enabled this strategy. It's abuse of office but I suppose there is no way around it. Having said that 7-2 decisions will make the district judges a lot more empowered to enforce these things.
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That was one of my first thoughts when skimming through it this morning.  His lawyers must all be celebrating this result.  They now have their billable hours filled for the next several years, with the best client one could hope for - an admin who doesn't care about the cost because they are being paid by taxpayers.

 
CletiusMaximus said:
That was one of my first thoughts when skimming through it this morning.  His lawyers must all be celebrating this result.  They now have their billable hours filled for the next several years, with the best client one could hope for - an admin who doesn't care about the cost because they are being paid by taxpayers.
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Wait until you see the look on their faces after they send the bill in the first quarter of 2021 to former President Trump, and he opts not to pay....

 
timschochet said:
I don’t believe we (the public) will ever see Donald Trump’s taxes or true financial info. 
 

And it won’t matter after November anyhow. He’ll never be indicted for anything. 
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Maybe it should be mentioned that Trump and his company are under criminal investigation by the NYC DA a little more.

I think it's established that Congress and the DA are getting some or all of this at some point.

 
rockaction said:
Practical import is that Eastern Oklahoma becomes a federal Indian Reservation. That means everything from criminal jurisdiction to commerce is affected, as Congress regulates commerce with Indian tribes rather than the state. 
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I don't think we're there yet. My read of the opinion is pretty narrowly tailored to the Major Crimes Act. However, a further development of case law could get us to where you're at. If I'm on the legislative body of the Creek Nation, I'm proposing our sales tax over all of that land, including much of Tulsa, at the next meeting.

 
SaintsInDome2006 said:
Because he removed the major roadblock of constitutionality, it's just a procedural issue now.
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Yes, a procedural issue on the one hand, where actual resolution of a no-brainer factual backdrop moots the important questions of whether the person who continues to lead our country, and run for re-election, either acted criminally (Vance) or is in the pocket of foreign interest (Congress). Moreover, there is invitation to present new arguments, which is why Sekulow was quoted reacting "We are pleased that in the decisions issued today, the Supreme Court has temporarily blocked both Congress and New York prosecutors from obtaining the President's financial records. We will now proceed to raise additional constitutional and legal issues in the lower courts." Basically, it's a 7-2 ruling in favor of endless re-litigation and untimely conclusion, preserving opportunity to have some entirely new technical argument determine the outcome. A political bias cynic might say they also avoided a ruling they may need to follow when the shoe is on the other foot, from a political perspective.

 
Rirruto said:
I don't think we're there yet. My read of the opinion is pretty narrowly tailored to the Major Crimes Act. However, a further development of case law could get us to where you're at. If I'm on the legislative body of the Creek Nation, I'm proposing our sales tax over all of that land, including much of Tulsa, at the next meeting.
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So you'd think they can remove the state authority to tax and divert it to the Creek Nation?  Such a massive decision, way more long term import than the taxes.

Can the Creek Nation start evicting folks out of land that they want back?  Man, talk about worms here.  I need to see if the land my house is on was part of a Treaty way back when.

Good article and video on this here. Learned a lot on the 5 nations and the land involved.

-----

On the taxes - looks like the justices essentially voted that law enforcement has the right to see these records but Congress (with their naked political ambitions) can't.  From a common sense point of view that makes sense.  Let's just hope SDNY is better at stemming leaks than Congress.

 
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Just chiming in to thank everyone for their feedback in this thread.  I don't have the time or expertise to reach my own conclusions on the matters so I appreciate reading the discussion. 

 
Sand said:
So you'd think they can remove the state authority to tax and divert it to the Creek Nation?  Such a massive decision, way more long term import than the taxes.

Can the Creek Nation start evicting folks out of land that they want back?  Man, talk about worms here.  I need to see if the land my house is on was part of a Treaty way back when.

Good article and video on this here. Learned a lot on the 5 nations and the land involved.

-----

On the taxes - looks like the justices essentially voted that law enforcement has the right to see these records but Congress (with their naked political ambitions) can't.  From a common sense point of view that makes sense.  Let's just hope SDNY is better at stemming leaks than Congress.
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Maybe, but we're not there with just this opinion. Part of Oklahoma's defense was that the Creek had sold or transferred all of this land (I'm going to hand wave a butt load of history, but anyone interested can google "allotment period" or Dawes Act and start from there), but the Court drew an analogy to western lands in the US. A lot of that land was transferred by the federal government to homesteaders, but no one makes a straight-faced argument that the feds wanted to give up sovereignty.

I think what you could see is a sales tax or property tax or something that would be in addition to state or federal taxes. Like what you see in many cities. But that has a huge hole because I don't think there's any precedent for state taxes on the rez. Although that's getting out of the area where I know anything about what I'm talking about.

So, the tl;dr is that this case sets a framework for how the Creek and other tribes would try to exercise more control, but I don't think it gets anywhere close to handing them the keys.

The political ramifications are fascinating. I think a few years ago you could have gotten some sort of act of Congress to "fix" this opinion (the majority calls for it several times.) But it would be political suicide to even discuss bringing something like that up now that would "re-steal" this land in the eyes of a very vocal many.

Edit: as to your second question, there's zero chance that they can evict basically anyone. This land was either sold or transferred by individual Creeks after the allotment era. Other land was bought for 30 cents an acre by the US gov't or was otherwise taken back by act of Congress, but the Court says the land in those two categories don't count as rez land for purposes of the decision today.

 
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Sand said:
So you'd think they can remove the state authority to tax and divert it to the Creek Nation?  Such a massive decision, way more long term import than the taxes.

Can the Creek Nation start evicting folks out of land that they want back?  Man, talk about worms here.  I need to see if the land my house is on was part of a Treaty way back when.

Good article and video on this here. Learned a lot on the 5 nations and the land involved.

-----

On the taxes - looks like the justices essentially voted that law enforcement has the right to see these records but Congress (with their naked political ambitions) can't.  From a common sense point of view that makes sense.  Let's just hope SDNY is better at stemming leaks than Congress.
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Congress can fix this by explicitly re-dissolving the reservations.  (They're already de facto dissolved).  It's only because we live in the stupid timeline that this is controversial.

 
roadkill1292 said:
Lou Dobbs: "The Deep State extends all the way to the Supreme Court."
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I never watch Dobbs but happened to be flipping channels last night and landed on his show for 5 minutes.  Sweet Jesus it was like listening to a senile old man in a nursing home rant and rave.  It was hilarious and a tad frightening at the same time.

 
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The Gator said:
Yeah, not so much.

I honestly have no idea how quickly the GOP could rush a nominee through the Senate, but I would have to imagine it would be pretty quick, and neither an upcoming election, nor even-post election, would slow the GOP senators down...
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I've no doubt that's true. It'd be interesting to see how they justify it.

 
I really hate thinking about this for such a remarkable woman, but she really, really needs to live until 1/20/2021.  I hope she lives for many years after that, but at least until that date.  

 
The Gator said:
I honestly have no idea how quickly the GOP could rush a nominee through the Senate, but I would have to imagine it would be pretty quick, and neither an upcoming election, nor even-post election, would slow the GOP senators down...
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I think it depends on the nominee. If it's someone ridiculous, there might be four Republican holdouts.

 
BladeRunner said:
Sorry if I'm missed something.  What is the obvious hypocrisy?
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Mitch McConnell's reason for denying Merrick Garland a hearing or a vote in 2016 was that a Supreme Court Justice should not be confirmed in an election year.

You can think that's a good reason or a bad reason. But it's an obviously hypocritical reason if they confirm someone in 2020.

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
Mitch McConnell's reason for denying Merrick Garland a hearing or a vote in 2016 was that a Supreme Court Justice should not be confirmed in an election year.

You can think that's a good reason or a bad reason. But it's an obviously hypocritical reason if they confirm someone in 2020.
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You bet it is.  Thanks for the reminder.  :thumbup:

 
Maurile Tremblay said:
Mitch McConnell's reason for denying Merrick Garland a hearing or a vote in 2016 was that a Supreme Court Justice should not be confirmed in an election year.

You can think that's a good reason or a bad reason. But it's an obviously hypocritical reason if they confirm someone in 2020.
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He was nominated on March 16th, so we are way past when it was too close to the election.

 
NutterButter said:
I'm sure they'll just play the "Obama was a lame duck" card.
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Meh.  While I don't excuse bad behavior and hypocrisy, if you don't think the Democrats would do the same then I don't know what to say.

Bof Sides are hypocrites when it comes down to being able to advance your agenda.

 
NutterButter said:
I'm sure they'll just play the "Obama was a lame duck" card.
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Mitch can barely get through his explanation without laughing (well he doesn't really laugh, he more quivers) but he has said in the past they would confirm a nominee saying that the situation is different now than in 2016, because the Senate and the White House were controlled by different parties. Both are controlled by Republicans at the moment.

 
BladeRunner said:
Maurile Tremblay said:
Mitch McConnell's reason for denying Merrick Garland a hearing or a vote in 2016 was that a Supreme Court Justice should not be confirmed in an election year.

You can think that's a good reason or a bad reason. But it's an obviously hypocritical reason if they confirm someone in 2020.
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You bet it is.  Thanks for the reminder.  :thumbup:
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So are you saying you are or aren’t ok with the hypocrisy?  Do you support waiting until after the election to make any moves on the SC? (Assuming there’s are moves to be made). 

 
dkp993 said:
So are you saying you are or aren’t ok with the hypocrisy?  Do you support waiting until after the election to make any moves on the SC? (Assuming there’s are moves to be made). 
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Aren't.

If Republicans would have just held the Democrats to their made up biden rule then I would be fine with them pushing a nominee through now.  However, when they invoked it for their own benefit with garlind they lost that option.

 
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Jobber said:
How difficult is it to bump the SCOTUS to 11 if one party holds congress and the presidency?
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You’d need a few seats of buffer I’d imagine because there would be a few Senators reluctant to pull the trigger. 
 

But theoretically you’d just need POTUS and 50 votes + VP.

 
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