Trump's post-admin executive privilege lawsuit

[BmorePat87]

https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-joe-biden-lawsuits-734dc2a47d3875cc844456073e93cedc

This will be a pretty interesting legal decision. The Trump camp is arguing that the request is too broad and doesn't serve a legislative purpose, but they're also challenging the constitutionality of a sitting President waiving executive privilege over the communications of a very recently former President.

It should fail, for a few reasons outlined by a former Obama Solicitor General

https://news.yahoo.com/obama-doj-official-outlines-three-202600601.html

1. He's not the President and being the former President does not grant him any special legal protections.

2. Executive privilege is designed to protect the release of information on how a decision was reached by the Executive Branch, shielding the acting parties from political retribution for involvement in crafting policy positions and protecting the sanctity of the process and/or national security. That's not really relevant in an investigation surrounding an assault on Democracy

3. His claims are also based on the idea that this is just Congress abusing their power to annoy him or be petty, which is a hard argument to make when his last months in office were filled with him trying to use various departments to chase false claims to make it seem like he won the election.

[GMDino]

It will be fun to watch.  But I hope that unlike most of his legal wrangling this doesn't get dragged out forever.  

[BigPapaKain]

Makes you wonder what he has to hide.

[Belsnickel]

I am curious how this will play out. Executive privilege is pretty much a creation of the courts, so given the conservative makeup of the SCOTUS I could 100% see this going in Trump's favor. The reality of this, though, will be that it will stall out in the courts and we probably won't get an answer until after the midterms, making this a fun political football during the election and preventing any sort of work being done.

[GMDino]

(10-19-2021, 10:09 PM)BigPapaKain Wrote: Makes you wonder what he has to hide.

He may not have ANYTHING to hide, it's just the tic he has that everyone is out to "get him" and even though he did everything "perfectly" no one else is good enough to see his "personal" information.

He's been a crook his entire life so he has the habit of hiding everything whether he has to or not.  It's his default mode.

[BmorePat87]

(10-20-2021, 08:02 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I am curious how this will play out. Executive privilege is pretty much a creation of the courts, so given the conservative makeup of the SCOTUS I could 100% see this going in Trump's favor. The reality of this, though, will be that it will stall out in the courts and we probably won't get an answer until after the midterms, making this a fun political football during the election and preventing any sort of work being done.

It might be expedited since it relates to a commission that would need to finish up before the session is over, but I can see an argument on the other side that a conservative court may be unwilling to grant protections to a former president as it arguably expands the power of the President to include non-benefits related legal privileges when they leave office and return to citizen life. 

[Belsnickel]

(10-20-2021, 09:43 AM)BmorePat87 Wrote: It might be expedited since it relates to a commission that would need to finish up before the session is over, but I can see an argument on the other side that a conservative court may be unwilling to grant protections to a former president as it arguably expands the power of the President to include non-benefits related legal privileges when they leave office and return to citizen life. 

I don't have as much faith in the SCOTUS being ideologically consistent rather than partisan.