Tag Archives: Chief Justice John Roberts

Taking Aim At The Deep State

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On Monday, The Daily Signal posted an article about a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that will have a negative impact on the deep state.

The article reports:

The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to strike down the 90-year-old precedent in Humphrey’s Executor that insulated deep state actors when even the president sought to fire them.

“Nearly 250 years ago, the Framers decided to vest ‘[t]he executive Power’ in one person—’a President of the United States of America,’” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “The choice was not made lightly.”

Roberts noted that “several delegates to the Constitutional Convention pushed for a multimember council instead of ‘unity in the Executive magistracy,’ which they feared would serve as ‘the foetus of monarchy.’ But unity won out.”

“Our Constitution’s drafters knew from experience that a ‘plurality in the executive’—the model in use by most States at the time—not only ‘diminishe[s]’ the ‘activity, secrecy, and dispatch’ necessary to ensure ‘good government’ but ‘tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility,’” he added.

Roberts delivered the opinion of the court, which Justices Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined in full. Justice Clarence Thomas joined every part of the opinion except one, while Justice Sonia Sotomayor filed a dissent, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The deep state was very active during the first Trump administration and has not gone away. Their actions have been blunted somewhat by President Trump’s quick learning curve and by the loyalty of the people he has chosen for his cabinet this administration. In President Trump’s first administration, the deep state saw him coming and was prepared. In this administration President Trump saw the deep state coming and was prepared.

The article notes:

An RMG Research poll last year found that 75% of Washington, D.C.-area federal employees who made at least $150,000 a year and who voted for Kamala Harris in 2024 would disobey a lawful Trump order if they considered it bad policy.

That is the reason this decision is important.

The article concludes”

Trump v. Slaughter involved President Donald Trump’s ouster of Federal Trade Commissioner Rebecca Slaughter, but it will affect other federal boards and commissions with members appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents.

The so-called independent boards and commissions have members appointed by Republican and Democrat presidents who, in theory, operate without political concerns. They serve for a set term, regardless of whether a new president of a different party assumes office during that term.

Slaughter’s lawyer argued that independent commissions have existed in some form since the 1790s and added that such bodies don’t operate with unchecked power, since members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 prohibited the president from firing a commissioner for any reason other than “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office.”

In Humphrey’s Executor v. United States (1935), the high court ruled that Congress could enact laws limiting the power of a president to fire executive officials of an independent agency.

At Some Point This Has To End

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Former President Trump has to be one of the most investigated men in America’s history. The Washington establishment is obsessed with finding him guilty of something while ignoring obvious questionable actions by family members of the current administration. There is a rumor that President Trump will be indicted for something (anything!) after the mid-term elections. Anything to keep him from running for President again. Meanwhile, the search for a crime continues.

On Tuesday, The Epoch Times reported the following:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 1 blocked Congress from obtaining former President Donald Trump’s tax returns.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, stayed an appeals court order that had ruled a congressional panel could gain access to the documents.

Trump filed an emergency application on Monday to the Supreme Court, asking it to halt the order.

Roberts’ stay is temporary, pending further developments in the case.

Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, has for years been trying to obtain Trump’s returns, asserting that they are necessary as the panel considers possibly updating how audits of presidents are done.

Trump said that the true purpose is to release the returns to the public.

Neal is not seeking the records of any other president, and has said that “unraveling President Trump’s sophisticated tax avoidance” was one of the reasons he thought Trump should release his returns.

If we can see President Trump’s tax returns, let’s see all of Congress’ tax returns. It seems only fair since they are asking to see his.

The article concludes:

U.S. Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, offered a concurring opinion in which she diverged from her colleagues on one point.

“Although I agree with my colleagues that the burdens imposed on the Presidency by the Committee’s Request do not rise to the level of a separation-of-powers violation, I conclude that the burdens borne by the Executive Branch are more severe and warrant much closer scrutiny than my colleagues have given them,” she said, adding later that the potential of Congress to threaten a sitting president with a post-presidency request “in order to influence the President while in office should not be dismissed so quickly.”

Roberts ordered Neal and other respondents, including the IRS, to respond to Trump’s application on or before Nov. 10 by noon.

A spokesperson for Neal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Roberts received the application because he oversees the District of Columbia appeals court.

Roberts can decide on the application himself or refer the matter to the full Supreme Court.

I don’t think the President should be forced to release his tax returns unless Congress is forced to release theirs.

Still Searching For The Leaker

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On Tuesday, The Western Journal reported that the investigation into the leaking of the abortion opinion draft from the Supreme Court is heating up.

The article reports:

Inside the Supreme Court, an investigation into the leak has now reached the point where law clerks are being asked to provide cellphone records and sign affidavits, CNN reported Tuesday, citing three sources it did not name.

Why are people inside the Court still leaking to CNN?

The article notes:

Chief Justice John Roberts met with law clerks after the leak. Each justice gets four clerks, and the prized spots that can be steppingstones to a high-profile career.

CNN estimated that in addition to the 36 clerks, others would have had access to the draft, totaling about 75 people in all.

The report said it was not clear whether other court employees were being asked to share cellphone records.

The court’s internal investigation is being led by the court’s marshal, Gail Curley.

Curley, a lawyer and former Army colonel, oversees the police stationed at the court’s building.

The article concludes:

Justice Clarence Thomas said the damage done to the court by the leak was severe.

“I do think that what happened at the court is tremendously bad,” Thomas said at a recent conference.

“I wonder how long we’re going to have these institutions at the rate we’re undermining them. And then I wonder when they’re gone or destabilized, what we will have as a country? And I don’t think the prospects are good if we continue to lose them,” he said.

If the pool of suspects is only 75 people, the investigation should be completed fairly quickly. I wonder why it has not been.