Trump adviser’s group SUES THE SUPREME COURT as feud erupts

Trump adviser’s group SUES THE SUPREME COURT as feud erupts

This is Democracy Watch. Mark, I’m going to put a a headline on the screen that I had to read five separate times and then ask you offline if it was actually real. This is the headline from Democracy Docket. Group founded by Trump ally Steven Miller sues John Roberts in a bid to control the courts. John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, is being sued by a group that is uh was founded by by Donald Trump’s own adviser, Steven Miller. What in the world is happening here? Yeah. So, I got to give people a little bit of a peek behind the curtain because it is true. Literally, Brian was like, “Okay, I saw this on democracy, but this isn’t real.” And I literally had to show him the lawsuit to convince him that that yes, this group, Brian, is suing the chief justice of the United States claiming that the judicial conference, okay, this is the entity that oversees the budget uh and the operation of the US uh court system that it is actually in in this group’s uh estimation, it is actually not part of the courts. It is, wait for it, part of the executive branch and should fall under Donald Trump’s authority. So what what is what was their contention within within the lawsuit? What is what is the crux of what they’re trying to do of what Steven Miller’s group is trying to do? So I have to say the lawsuit, you know, is is is odd. It starts as a as laying out a series of grievances. And the first grievance it lays out is that it believes that um Senator uh Sheldon White House and Representative Hank Johnson, who’s a Democrat from Georgia, um are being too mean uh to Supreme Court justices, particularly Justice Thomas Alo and Kavanaaugh. uh and that as a result um that the goal of these Democrats in Congress is to quote kill the judicial independence of these Supreme Court justices. So if not for Sheldon White House and and the other Democrats uh bullying bullying the Clarence Thomas’ of the world and uh and Samuel Letos of the world if if not for if not for them they would be able to really exercise their judicial independence. That’s the problem here is that they’re not is that that they’re being bullied by the overbearing Democrats. Correct. That’s right. The problem in the federal judiciary according to this the first paragraph of this lawsuit is that uh it is not the White House or the Republicans who are threatening judicial independence. It is actually the Democrats who are threatening judicial independence. I I what I would give for the Democrats to be 10% as aggressive and overbearing as Republicans frame them as being. I would love I mean to live in a world where we had the Democrats who were just so strong and aggressive and hostile that they could actually impact what this Supreme Court is doing. Look, so that’s how the lawsuit begins. And you know, by the way, kudos to Senator White House and Congressman uh Johnson that you’ve made it into this uh into this screed of theirs. But what they really are saying is that the part of the judicial the part of the judiciary, the judicial conference, the administrative body that oversees the courts that because it is an administrative entity, it administers, it administers the court system. uh and by the way uh the chief justice is the head of that which is why John Roberts is named um that that because it’s an administrative body it needs to sit in the executive branch and be controlled by Donald Trump. So like at the end of this rainbow they say would be a the court systems administration the administration of the court system would not be under the chief justice but would be subject to the whims of Donald Trump. I mean, don’t don’t they recognize the obvious fundamental problem here, which is that we have three co-equal branches of government, and they are literally trying to say that one of those branches of government belongs to sits beneath uh the executive branch. Uh yes, that is what they want. I mean, I understand I understand why they’re trying to do this is because they want to assert control. They’ve already they already own the legislative branch because Donald Trump could, you know, could could ask uh any of these congressional Republicans to sacrifice their firstborn and they would say, “How about our second born, too, but really the the biggest bull work against the executive branch’s overreach um has been the court system thus far.” And so this is basically saying, “You think that you are a co-equal branch of government, but in fact, we own you.” That’s right. We admin we should be in charge of administering your budget and and and how you operate and all of that. that that should be within the purview of the the White House and the executive branch. And of course, since they believe in what’s referred to as the unitary executive theory, it literally would mean at the whim of of Donald Trump. Um, and and all of this because, as I said, they believe that Clarence Thomas, uh, uh, Justice Kavanaaugh uh, and Justice Alo uh, have all been bullied uh, and that this is their this is therefore essential, right? They’ve been bullied and that’s why they’re not allowed to exercise any uh any judicial independence and judicial independence, right? If if if only uh the Democrats hadn’t bullied them so much, they would be they would be more more neutral, but I guess uh alas, that’s where that’s where it stands right now. Mark, I would ask what does this look like in practice? Does this mean if they’re successful with this whole bid, which I don’t presume is going to be successful? We can talk about that that in a moment. But let’s say we have judges, for example, who dain to uh to to issue rulings in accordance with the law or the constitution that this White House isn’t happy with. Does that mean that they could basically strip the the budget um of away from certain judges whose rulings they don’t like or student or certain um uh circuit court jurisdictions whose rulings they don’t like? Um I think what they would say is yes. I think that what they they don’t flesh it out in exactly those terms but I think what they would say is that the administration of the courts um you know how the budgets how money gets appropriated uh you know to different courouses or different judicial districts perhaps the ethics rules you know one of the reasons why they single out Senator White House and Congressman Johnson is because they have been critics of these three Supreme Court justices about ethics and of course the judicial conference has an ethics regime there’s a question about whether or not it has been appropriately vigorously applied to the Supreme Court. Uh but it is definitely applied to lower courts. So it’s literally you know everything about how the courts operate, how judges health care, insurance, you know, everything about the the administration of the courts other than um uh other than how the judges themselves hear cases and rule. And so yes, they could target judges who they didn’t like, judicial districts that they wanted to favor or disfavor. Um and uh and all of this is summed up in one particular paragraph where they say the judicial conference’s duties are executive functions and must be supervised by executive officers who are appointed and accountable to other executive officers, namely Donald J. Trump. Right? You know, the the the interesting part of this is that we don’t have to guess what what that looks like with the Trump administration because all we have to do is look at how they’re comporting themselves as it relates to these universities. Uh I mean, they just stripped away Harvard’s tax or they tried to strip away Harvard’s tax exempt status. And so we’ve already seen the ways in which they will use uh finances for example to be able to to wield it as a cudel against their political opponents. And so if they’re doing it with universities, if they’re doing it with law firms, if they’re doing it with media outlets, if they’re doing it with these tech billionaires, clearly they’re going to they’re going to use the same playbook when they go after uh when they go after these court systems and these judges depending on whether they find their rulings favorable or disfavorable. Yeah. And this is, you know, just the next step in the authoritarian playbook that we see from the Trump administration and from from its allies. Now, I do want to say, and you said we’d get to this, this lawsuit’s not going to prevail. I mean like I mean this is in some sense I I have to hope for the benefit of the lawyers who put their names on the bottom of this uh this pleading uh that this is aimed at making a point uh because uh I don’t believe that the federal uh I don’t believe that the federal district court uh in the District of Columbia is going to rule against uh the Supreme Court Chief Justice uh in his ability to administer the judicial branch. And I don’t suspect that they think that the that the DC circuit or the Supreme Court are going to have that. So I think that this is them, you know, trying to both make a point, but also, you know, more seriously try to put some pressure, you know, try to try to put some leverage here against the courts and maybe get a couple of balls called strikes uh that would have otherwise been called balls. And that’s exactly where I wanted to dig in because clearly they know that this isn’t going to pan out as they would hope it would pan out in in this, you know, ideal version of of uh of this um effort. But really, can you speak on the the fact that they are just trying to ultimately intimidate these courts into doing what they want them to do by showing that they’re not afraid to take as aggressive a posture as they need to to try and get their way? Do you think that’s going to have any impact on Look, I I don’t presume it’ll have some impact on the Supreme Court who recognizes its own autonomy, at least most of the Supreme Court justices. But but what about the impact that this could have on district courts or appeals courts? Yeah. I mean, look, that’s I think you’ve asked the right question because, you know, I think what they’re basically saying is, boy, it would be awfully terrible if something happened to your your court your your court system there. Um, and because, you know, even if they don’t win this lawsuit, as I said, I don’t think they’re going to win this lawsuit. The president can still veto legislation. He can still propose. He, as you say, he basically controls Congress. He can essentially dictate to Congress what they do by law. You know, what ethics rules do they put? What ethics rules do they repeal? What budgetary changes do they make to uh to uh different districts? Do they create additional circuits? Do they split divisions? Do they put rules about which judges from where can hear what kind of cases? Right? So, I think that this is meant to probably illustrate that the Trump world, the broader uh MAGA uh uh universe is unhappy with how the courts are being administered. And again, it may not affect the US Supreme Court uh but at the lower levels because they’re looking to trying to gain every advantage they can because they are frankly losing so many cases. The administration is losing so many cases right now. They’re trying to affect that. Will it work? Boy, I hope it doesn’t work. Yeah. Uh I hope that the judges stand up to it and we’ve seen a lot of evidence of of some brave judges standing up to the Trump administration, but I think that that’s what they’re what the Trump what the MAGA world is hoping. Let’s finish off with this and and and I don’t presume that, you know, I’m going to get as straight an answer as I would like to get here, but in the event that Trump does go after the the US Supreme Court here, do you think that that could have some type of a a backfiring effect in that by virtue of trying to to assert their control over the Supreme Court? Really, the Supreme Court has the ability to push back. And we’ve seen a lot of these cases bubble up to the Supreme Court. That’s generally a safe space for this administration. oftentimes they want their cases to come up to the Supreme Court because they know that that’s where they have the best chance of succeeding. But do you think that by taking as aggressive a posture as they are by really jumping the shark as it relates to to their authority um and trying to to undermine the Supreme Court’s authority? Do you think that the Supreme Court could push back and maybe not offer uh you know as as favorable an environment for this administration as they might hope? Yeah, look, I I’ve said for some time now that I thought that the administration was making a huge mistake in how it’s approaching the courts because it it has always struck me that if the administration played nice with the courts, you know, they they respected their rulings, they were respectful in their interaction with the judges, they appealed the cases that they lost, but they did it in ways that showed deference to the judiciary. They didn’t threaten judges with impeachment. They didn’t Their allies were not filing lawsuits like this. That at the end of the day, you know, it’s a 6-3 conservative court, right? You know, they get what they want most of the time. Yeah. And it’s a 63 conservative court that, by the way, has a pretty, you know, when you count when you count heads of the justice there has a pretty pro strong uh executive strong pro presidency bent to it. Yeah. So, it’s always struck to me that it struck me that if they had just approached things that way, they’d actually do pretty well and that what they’re actually doing is playing into the hands of people like me and like you who who don’t want them to succeed by being so antagonistic to the justice. I mean, this isn’t going to win them a single vote in a single case on the US Supreme Court. like you know Justice Thomas and Justice uh Kavanaaugh and and and and um uh and Justice Alo I am sure are shagrined not pleased by this like they don’t need some group filing a lawsuit against the chief justice on their behalf. They are more than capable of maintaining their own judicial independence from whatever criticism they get from a senator or from the entire Senate or from Congress. And so I think that this is actually going to backfire. I suspect it already has started to backfire that one of the reasons why you’ve seen the Supreme Court in you know in the um the CA the Goolog case as I refer to it where you know rule as strongly as it did is because that was a case that in which the administration was flouting the courts and so you know I hate to say I hope the administration continues down this path because it’s not good for it’s not good for democracy it’s not good for you know relations within the branches but in some ways. I think stuff like this, stunts like this are only going to redound to their detriment and to the benefit of those of us who want the judiciary to be stiffer in its spine versus the Trump administration. Well, look, I I think that this is an especially uh interesting and uh and and important story to cover. Uh I I haven’t seen it anywhere but Democracy Docket. And so I would highly recommend for everybody watching right now, not just to support the invaluable work of Mark and his team. Um but also to to really be able to to get the full breadth of their fearless independent journalism. So I’ll put the link to Democracy Docket right here on the screen and also in the post description of this video. Please make sure to sign up. I’m Brian Teller Cohen. I’m Mark Elias. This is Democracy Watch.

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