Donald Trump is having a Louis XIV moment. He considers himself above the law.

[Zorro]

With the lawsuit he filed on Thursday against Manhattan Dist. Atty. Cyrus Vance, Jr., President Trump seeks to set himself above the law. Like Louis XIV of France, he seems to believe “l’état c’est moi.”

The lawsuit asks the court to block a grand jury subpoena Vance served on the Trump organization and Trump’s outside accountants to obtain eight years of tax returns, including those from five years before he took office.

Vance claims that the Trump tax returns may, among other things, be relevant to his investigation of 2016 payments to Stormy Daniels, allegedly to keep her from talking about an alleged sexual relationship she had with Trump a decade earlier.

It’s hard to see how even Clarence Thomas could side with Trump on this one.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-20/donald-trump-lawsuit-cyrus-vance-subpoenas

[Firestorm49]

1. It's bad enough that the Goof In Chief thinks he owns the government.........

then, you get sycophants like Barr in there to add to the dilemma.

[lark]

2. SCOTUS just don't care.

They don't care about the constitution,
they don't care about upholding any laws on themselves (meaning rw repugs)
they don't care about morality
they don't care about the lives of anyone, women included, but themselves
they don't care one bit about the country
they only care for money and power and Russian Repug SCOTUS will rule for the rw dictatorship every time, even Roberts will

[ProudMNDemocrat]

3. You mean Louis XVI and Marie Antionette...Louis XIV was "The Sun King"..

Louis XVI thought himself above the law. Both he and Marie Antionette of Austria, thought themselves above the law, who spent money lavishly as the people of France lived in squalor and abject poverty. The French Revolution of 1793 brought down the French Monarchy and the Aristocracy. Many lost their heads, lands and houses confiscated. Amid terror from Rosppierre and his cronies, France became a Republic.


What we have now in Trump is similar. A family who thinks themselves above the law. Well, history tends to repeat itself if we do not learn from it. Trump will not lose his head, but his freedom and financial future are at stake if he loses in 2020 and HE KNOWS IT. Because the next POTUS will be a Democrat and Trump will have to face the law.

[True Blue American]

5. Melania

Would make a good Matie Antoinette.

” I don’t care, Do You?”

[genxlib]

4. Clearly you underestimate Clarence Thomas

I have never seen an issue that he couldn't squirm around.

That's the thing about "Originalists". They can warp the argument however they want and say that is what was intended 200+ years ago.

"Hey, there was no such thing as a tax return when the constitution was written..."

[empedocles]

6. Alito has described himself as a 'practical originalist'

Consistently on the bad side of cases, [imo]. His son doing rw predictable things in the law also.

[MurrayDelph]

9. Alito was a reverse-engineer

He'd start with the result he wanted, and then try to find a reason to justify it, we if the previous week that "justification" was used for an opposite result.

[empedocles]

7. For gangster trump, people who follow laws are fools.

Law is just something that gets in the way of their ambitions, and has to be worked around.

[malthaussen]

8. Except Louis was right.

Insofar as contemporary political theory was concerned, he was the state. Now, as the person currently occupying the position of President of the US, Mr Trump is, alas, the head of the US state, but political theory has moved on since the 17th century, so being Head of State is no longer synonymous with being outside (or above) the law. Mr Trump is something of a Confucian, probably without knowing it. I suspect, however, that this is nothing new, and that Mr Trump has always considered himself "special" and entitled to absolute privilege.

-- Mal