The Democrats’ Second Attempt to Hurl a Bomb at Trump’s SCOTUS Nominee Exploded in Their Faces
Great Scott! Judge Brett Kavanaugh said he would like to deliver the final nail in the coffin to the Morrison decision, which spoke to the constitutionality of an independent counsel. Some have argued it’s unconstitutional, as it increases the power of the judiciary over the executive branch. Judge Kavanagh, President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court, made these remarks at an American Enterprise Institute event in 2016 (via NBC News):
Two years before President Donald Trump nominated him to a seat on the Supreme Court, federal appeals courts Judge Brett Kavanaugh said he believes the legal precedent that allows for independent counsels to investigate government officials for federal crimes should be overturned.
Asked at a conservative event in 2016 to name a case that he believed should be overturned, Kavanaugh named Morrison v. Olson, a Supreme Court ruling upholding a 1978 law that creates a system for independent counsels to investigate and potentially prosecute government officials for federal crimes. The law had five-year sunset provisions and was allowed to expire in 1999, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Trump is under federal investigation and is trying to appoint his own judge to put him above the law.
Kavanaugh was asked in 2016 to name any precedent he’d like to overturn. He chose the ruling upholding independent counsels and promised to "put the final nail in.” Watch: pic.twitter.com/WCQV6ulz4i
— CAP Action (@CAPAction) July 18, 2018
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You can see the script now from the Left, right? Fix bayonets! They’re coming charging, except the Morrison opinion was apparently a crappy legal decision that’s mostly been discarded. The act from which this issue arose—the Independent Counsel Act—was allowed to expire in 1999 (via Weekly Standard):
The law was challenged as a violation of the separation of powers. The Rehnquist majority dealt with the law’s appointment and removal provisions before turning to the separation of powers. Scalia said the majority’s approach to the case was “backwards” and instead began his opinion with a discussion of separation of powers that drew upon The Federalist. Scalia wrote that the principle “is the absolutely central guarantee of a just government” and that “without a secure structure of separated powers, our Bill of Rights would be worthless.”
(Read more from “The Democrats’ Second Attempt to Hurl a Bomb at Trump’s SCOTUS Nominee Exploded in Their Faces” HERE)
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