...And the Grift Goes On

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Bicycle Bill
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...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Bicycle Bill »

Supreme Court ends Trump emoluments lawsuits

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to lawsuits over whether Donald Trump illegally profited off his presidency, saying the cases are moot now that Trump is no longer in office.

The high court's action was the first in an expected steady stream of orders and rulings on pending lawsuits involving Trump now that his presidency has ended.  Some orders may result in dismissals of cases since Trump is no longer president.  In other cases, proceedings that had been delayed because Trump was in the White House could resume and their pace even quicken.

The justices threw out Trump’s challenge to lower court rulings that had allowed lawsuits to go forward alleging that he violated the Constitution’s emoluments clause by accepting payments from foreign and domestic officials who stay at the Trump International Hotel and patronize other businesses owned by the former president and his family.  The high court also ordered the lower court rulings thrown out as well and directed appeals courts in New York and Richmond, Virginia, to dismiss the suits as moot now that Trump is no longer in office.
That's almost as bad as saying that because I have since sold and no longer own my car, I can't be held responsible for hitting someone with it.
The outcome leaves no appellate court opinions on the books in an area of the law that has been rarely explored in U.S. history.
And the order for the lower courts to also dismiss the suits/expunge their records means the next time a Republican weasel like Trump uses his office to line his own pockets, the whole damned matter has to start from scratch again.

The article did not say which justices voted in which manner, but it shouldn't be too hard to guess.
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by MGMcAnick »

Huh? I'm no lawyer or Supreme Court justice. Someone has to explain this one to me.
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Bicycle Bill
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Bicycle Bill »

MGMcAnick wrote:
Mon Jan 25, 2021 9:48 pm
Huh? I'm no lawyer or Supreme Court justice. Someone has to explain this one to me.
Don't worry; Dr. BSG will be along shortly, I'm sure.
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Gob
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Gob »

:lol:
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”

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Sue U
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Sue U »

OK, so this is some pretty technical legal work here and while the orders might look terrible from a news sound-bite perspective, they actually make sense. First things first, we're dealing with two concepts: "mootness" and "vacatur."

Mootness means that for some reason aside from the legal arguments made, the case is no longer a viable vehicle for the claims it raised. Here, the underlying "emoluments" cases sought injunctive relief to stop Trump from taking money through his hotel properties from foreign interests looking to curry favor with his administration. But in order to bring a lawsuit in federal court, a party cannot just allege that "the President is doing something illegal/unconstitutional/otherwise bad and I want to make him stop." A generalized grievance like that is insufficient to establish standing to bring suit. In order to have standing, a party has to allege some particularlized harm to them. So the actual theory of the case was that Trump's acceptance of foreign emoluments through his businesses was hurting competing businesses, because the Trump properties had an unfair advantage by essentially taking bribes on behalf of the President.

Even though the businesses were arguably losing money because of the alleged emoluments, a violation of a constitutional provision doesn't provide a basis for recouping "damages" for injury the way a tort or contract case might. So the relief the plaintiffs were seeking was solely injunctive: Make him stop doing that. Now that Trump is out of office, he is no longer doing that, since he no longer has an office to sell. Because the result sought by the lawsuit has now occurred without judicial intervention, the case is moot. Under Article III of the Constitution, federal courts only have jurisdiction where there is actually a live "case or controversy," so because the case has been rendered moot, it must be dismissed.

So now the question is, what happens to the rulings from the courts below? Well, in this case, none of the rulings was a "final order" that decided anything in the case other than whether it could proceed. Because they were not final orders the issues they may have discussed (other than whether the case might proceed) were not subject to appellate review and therefore cannot really be considered decisional law. In other words, because there was never a real opportunity to fully litigate the substance of the claims, it is considered unfair to allow these interlocutory opinions to represent precedent that might be relied on by courts in the future. So the remedy the Supreme Court came up with in a 1950 case (U.S. v. Munsingwear) was to vacate all the decisions below, rendering them void. Hence the "vacatur" part of the order after the dismissal for mootness.

The ins and outs of "Munsingwear vacatur" involve a lot of factors and policy choices that can get pretty complex. But if you're that much of a geek about the issue go to freakin law school.
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Big RR »

Excellent summary, Sue. :ok

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Joe Guy
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Joe Guy »

Thanks, Sue. You saved me the trouble of having to explain it... :mrgreen:

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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by MajGenl.Meade »

I appreciate that, Sue. Thanks.
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Sue U
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Sue U »

I guess the horrific moral of this story is that if we wanted to find out how the courts would rule on an emoluments case, we should have reelected Trump to a second term.

Yeah, I didn't think so, either.
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

So he can't be prosecuted while he is in office; and then he can't be prosecuted because he is out of office. Got it. I know that SCOTUS normally gives reasons and a write-up for full decisions and often (always?) does not for this sort of 'Nah, we're not going to bother with this one' ruling. I wish that they would spell it out, so that we can see how they each voted. I'd be really curious to know whether it was 6-3 (or even 5-4) or 9-0.

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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Big RR »

Andy--if what he did amounted to offense, nothing the court did would prevent him from being prosecuted (although I have never seen an ex-president prosecuted for anything); the court has just said that there is no relief that could be granted by any court in the suit dismissed as he is no longer president. I guess he's pretty lucky the dems fixed the election so he wouldn't win :lol:

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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Sue U »

ex-khobar Andy wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:08 pm
So he can't be prosecuted while he is in office; and then he can't be prosecuted because he is out of office. Got it. I know that SCOTUS normally gives reasons and a write-up for full decisions and often (always?) does not for this sort of 'Nah, we're not going to bother with this one' ruling. I wish that they would spell it out, so that we can see how they each voted. I'd be really curious to know whether it was 6-3 (or even 5-4) or 9-0.
As much as we may all want to see Trump held accountable (and I think you know where I stand on that question), this was not a partisan political decision by the Court. This was an order that recognizes and respects the constitutional limits of judicial power. The dismissals here were posted on the Orders List, which generally announces procedural and administrative actions for which little to no further explication is necessary (certiorari granted/denied, various motions granted/denied, etc.). Here, the Court provided a few sentences for each case to tell us what they were doing:
20-330 TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF U.S. V. CREW, ET AL.
The motion of Scholar Seth Barrett Tillman, et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae is granted. The motion of Professor Lawrence A. Hamermesh for leave to file a brief as amicus curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950).
20-331 TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF U.S. V. DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, ET AL.
The motion of Scholar Seth Barrett Tillman, et al. for leave to file a brief as amici curiae is granted. The petition for a writ of certiorari is granted. The judgment is vacated, and the case is remanded to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. See United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U. S. 36 (1950).
In the trade, these kinds of orders are called "GVRs," meaning the petition for certiorari is Granted, the decision below is Vacated, and the case is Remanded to the lower court with instructions to do whatever (here, dismiss as moot). The reference to United States v. Munsingwear is supposed to tell you all you need to know about the basis for the orders and the status of the opinions issued below. I'm sure that if there was even a vote on this question it was 9-0.

The fact is, these cases were always going to be dicey propositions to even get before a court. It is altogether unclear whether, absent specific statutory authorization (e.g., 42 U.S.C. § 1983, for constitutional civil rights violations), there is even any private right of action for anyone to seek judicial redress for violation of the emoluments clause of the Constitution. This really is a matter that should have been addressed by Congress through impeachment and removal rather than through private enforcement in the courts, but when you have the President's craven lickspittles determining the outcome of such proceedings, well, you know.
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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by Big RR »

This really is a matter that should have been addressed by Congress through impeachment and removal rather than through private enforcement in the courts, but when you have the President's craven lickspittles determining the outcome of such proceedings, well, you know.
Absolutely; and IMHO it is why impeachment power is so broad.

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Re: ...And the Grift Goes On

Post by ex-khobar Andy »

Thanks Sue - and that's why I wanted to know if the court was split along (God forbid!) partisan lines or if it was 9-0. I'll take your supposition/presumption that it was 9-0 - makes sense to me.

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