Trump's lawyers: only the executive branch is allowed to determine whether president broke the law

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Walter Shaub Retweeted

Do people understand the implication of this position?

Link to tweet

Trump's lawyers argue in a new D.C. Cir. brief that Congress does not have the power to investigate whether the president broke the law. They say only the executive branch - the people who work for the president - is allowed to determine whether the president broke the law.

Link to tweet

[DUgosh]

1. Only the fox

Can guard the henhouse

[ProudMNDemocrat]

2. That is NOT what the US Constitution says when it determines the 3 equal Branches of Government....

Trumpy's lawyers are going to LOSE this arguement BIGLY.....

[Volaris]

11. Right? And if these clowns have the balls to take this to the SC,

I can't imagine that even Roberts wouldn't slap this down so hard that someone gets threatened with disbarrment, just for being an asshole when they should damnwell know better...this isn't complicated stuff--its fifth grade civics level for anybody with a modicum of sense.

[Me.]

3. ...

[trev]

4. Well, that's just plain false, isn't it?

Can't wait to hear Pelosi's response....

[bigbrother05]

5. Literally the definition of UNCONSTITUTIONAL

They have all signed on to violating their oath of office.

[targetpractice]

6. Oh, also the executive branch won't because of some OLC memo...

... So, they are arguing that the president is above the law.

[shraby]

8. Yup, the OLC memo says the president can't be charged while in office.

I'm sure they will make that investigated or charged.

[uponit7771]

13. Red Don's lawyers: " OLC has more letters than SC so OLC wins!"

[donkeypoofed]

7. Are these lawyers being paid with taxpayer money?

So they're circumventing the Constitution, and at taxpayer expense? Wow, that takes alot of knackers.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

9. Reprising an argument that two federal judges found unserious.

Brad Heath Retweeted

Reprising an argument that two federal judges found unserious.

Link to tweet

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. Stupid fuckhead thinks he's king

[uponit7771]

12. Red Don's lawyers:.." Trump is the best so that means you have to say he won"

[shanti]

14. It feels like

the Executive Branch is being guided this way by bad actors, i.e., Putin. This is unprecedented and quite frankly, scary. They really are going for the gusto.

[procon]

15. I'm sure existing case law is full of classic

Judicial rulings that support that bit of laughable fiction.

[duforsure]

16. I guess when your a crook

You will try anything to get away with your criminal past, especially when you have enough money to pay people to say things like that for you in court. Its amazing how these lawyers would do this for money for him, and claim something so corruptly wrong.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. Trump's Lawyers Drag Justices Into DC Circuit Subpoena Fight

Trump's Lawyers Drag Justices Into DC Circuit Subpoena Fight
The first couple of pages of Trump's opening brief puts a focus on the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. D.C. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett, Neomi Rao and David Tatel have scheduled argument for July 10.
By Mike Scarcella and Tony Mauro | June 11, 2019 at 03:27 PM

Lawyers for President Donald Trump are hoping to convince a Washington federal appeals panel that a U.S. House committee subpoena for financial records goes too far, and the opening lines of their newly filed court papers tee up a hypothetical clash between Congress and the U.S. Supreme Court—where the justices’ records, and not the president’s, are the target of a congressional demand.

The justices, of course, just like the president, file annual financial disclosure forms that are available to the public. But that’s not what House Democrats are going after—they hit the president’s longtime accounting firm, Mazars USA, with a subpoena for records created between 2011 and 2018. Mazars has remained mum in the dispute, letting the president’s legal team make its case.

The subpoena was upheld in Washington’s federal trial court, and now the fight, which opened Monday with the brief from Trump’s lawyers, will unfold in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That’s where Trump’s attorneys—including William Consovoy of the Washington boutique Consovoy McCarthy—presented a scenario in which the House has demanded access to financial records belonging to Supreme Court justices.

“[R]eplace ‘president’ with ‘justices’ and the ruling below would, without question, authorize a congressional subpoena for the justices’ accounting records—even for many years before they joined the court,” Consovoy wrote in the brief, also signed by former White House lawyer Stefan Passantino of Michael Best & Friedrich, who represents various Trump business entities.
....

D.C. Circuit Judges Patricia Millett, Neomi Rao and David Tatel have scheduled argument for July 10. The case parallels one that will be heard in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, where Trump’s lawyers are fighting a House subpoena that seeks Trump-related information from Deutsche Bank and Capital One.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

18. Trump's Lawyers Say Congress Can't Subpoena His Finances Because Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Impeach

JURISPRUDENCE
Trump’s Lawyers Say Congress Can’t Subpoena His Finances Because Nancy Pelosi Refuses to Impeach
By MARK JOSEPH STERN

JUNE 11, 20193:13 PM

As House Democrats remain divided over the wisdom of impeachment, Donald Trump’s lawyers have seized on their inaction to fight a subpoena seeking the president’s financial records. Their latest brief argues that, until the House officially puts impeachment on the table, the House Oversight Committee has no authority to subpoena this information. Trump’s lawyers are, in effect, daring the House to launch an impeachment inquiry—and betting that Speaker Nancy Pelosi will refuse to do it.

House Democrats have spent months asserting their authority to investigate the president, with relatively little to show for it. The House Oversight Committee issued a subpoena to Mazars USA, Trump’s former accounting firm, in April, requesting eight years of his financial records. Trump quickly intervened, asking U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta to invalidate the subpoena on the grounds that it falls outside Congress’ constitutional powers.

Mehta refused, citing a string of Supreme Court decisions that confirm the House’s authority to scrutinize the president. SCOTUS has long held that the “power to secure needed information” through subpoenas is “an attribute of the power to legislate.” Congress may also “inquire into and publicize corruption” and “maladministration” in government. Thus, courts cannot interfere with congressional subpoenas so long as they have some “legitimate legislative purpose.” Nor can courts demand that Congress provide some concrete link between a subpoena and future legislation, or search for a secret illicit motive among committee members. If the committee provides a legitimate reason for its subpoena, the courts must honor it.

The House Oversight Committee declared that it sought Trump’s records to determine whether he “accurately reported his finances to the Office of Government Ethics” so it could decide “whether reforms are necessary to address deficiencies with current laws, rules, and regulations.” Because that goal clearly “falls within the legislative sphere,” Mehta ruled, he was obligated to treat the subpoena as valid. The committee also cited Congress’ duty to ensure that the president complies with the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which Mehta found to be a legitimate reason for examining Trump’s finances.
....

[mahatmakanejeeves]

19. Trump urges appeals court to reverse House access to accounting records

Trump urges appeals court to reverse House access to accounting records

By Andrew Harris
Bloomberg News
Published
June 11 2019, 12:14pm EDT

President Donald Trump’s personal lawyers told a U.S. appeals court it must reverse a judge’s ruling allowing the House Oversight and Reform Committee to subpoena financial records from his accounting firm because lawmakers lack a legitimate legislative purpose to see them.

Trump’s attorneys made the argument in a filing Monday as they fight to overturn the May 20 Washington federal court ruling that gave the Democrat-led panel access to the president’s personal and business records going back to 2011. The committee had issued a subpoena for the records to Trump’s longtime accountant, Mazars USA LLP.

“The separation of powers implications of this appeal are profound,” the president’s lawyers said in the filing. They said the lawmakers are trying to exercise enforcement powers that are reserved for the executive branch. Any justification for seeking the records, including stronger conflict-of-interest laws and financial-disclosure requirements, is unconstitutional, they wrote.

Congress can’t interfere with the president’s constitutionally created powers or his “responsibility to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump’s lawyers said. “The species of legislation that the committee has in mind here would do both.''

The Washington lawsuit is one of three pending legal battles between Trump and Democrats, who won control of Congress’s lower chamber in the November elections.
....

[gratuitous]

20. What else are they going to say?

"Yeah, we don't have a legal leg to stand on, but here's a clearly bullshit argument that we're going to put down on paper. Maybe Donald's new buddies on the Supreme Court will find a way to rule in his favor? Otherwise, we got nothin'. Here's the documents you asked for."