Democratic Sen. Cory Booker has put out a series of tweets stating his belief that Congress cannot in good conscience consider any nominee for the Supreme Court until the investigation of Donald Trump’s involvement in colluding with Russian operatives is complete.
Booker: The President of the United States is a subject of an ongoing criminal investigation – an investigation that every member of the Judiciary Committee knows could end up before the Supreme Court.
In two different trial motions, former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort has forced the court to address the issue of whether or not the special counsel law is constitutional. Manafort has also challenged the range of the counsel’s authority, including his ability to address crimes unrelated to the 2016 campaign. Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has made similar arguments, and also challenged the FBI’s authority to raid his offices. Donald Trump has weighed in on both issues—attacking Robert Mueller for prosecuting Manafort over what he calls “old charges” and claiming that raids on Cohen violate attorney–client privilege. Trump even joined with Cohen in an effort to prevent access to material seized from his office. While trial judges have ruled against these efforts, they’ve done so in ways that leave the door wide open to appeal. In fact, at least one of these judges, while shying away from personally killing the special counsel law, appears to be inviting an appeal.
A federal judge in Virginia concluded Tuesday that special counsels are given too much latitude and that the current one is prosecuting Paul Manafort only so he will offer evidence against President Trump.
There is every chance that these issues will march forward along a chain of federal courts. And the constitutionality of the special counsel law and appropriate scope of the investigation is just one aspect of the Trump–Russia case that is likely to make an appearance before the Supreme Court at some point. The whole issue of whether it is possible to indict Trump, or whether executive authority over the Department of Justice includes being able to fire officials involved in an investigation that might lead to impeachment, is all but certain to come under review.
And as Booker points out, Trump has not shied away from demands of personal loyalty. It seems certain that his test for a Supreme Court nominee will not be how the candidate would rule on any other subject, but how willing the nominee is to hold Trump above the law.
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Booker makes it plain that, in the face of Trump’s willingness to rate personal loyalty as the most important quality and to demand loyalty pledges of federal officials, allowing Trump to appoint a Supreme Court justice at this point would be tantamount to allowing him to draft his own get-out-of-investigation-free card.
Booker: For that reason, I do not believe the Judiciary Committee should or can in good conscience consider a nominee put forward by this President until that investigation is concluded.
Polls show that a majority of Americans would support impeaching Donald Trump if he were to pardon himself. But allowing Trump to select a new Supreme Court justice at this point is little but giving him a pardon by another name.
Without the ability to filibuster court nominees, there is not much that Democrats in the Senate can do before the coming election other than to keep raising this issue. But there is something that Democrats can do outside the Senate: raise your voices, move your feet, get on the phone to your senator, stay visible, stay loud.
All Trump needs is for enough people to believe this fight is already lost and move on to the next. Because that’s the formula for losing the next fight. And the one after that.
“Civility” is concession. Don’t give it to him.