Because of
the pandemic, the Supreme Court has taken the unprecedented step of holding
arguments via telephone, and also letting those arguments be heard by the
public via C-SPAN. (Ordinarily, one can attend Supreme Court sessions, but
maybe only about 100 people or so are let in to the Washington, D.C.,
courtroom.) Today the cases being heard were about the subpoenas served on
Trump by both House committees and by the New York City D.A.’s office.
I knew
these arguments would be the subject of news reports, and since I had the
chance, I wanted to be able to listen in myself and get my own sense of what
was going on. So I had my TV on just after 10 a.m.
It was
fascinating. First the president’s lawyers and then the solicitor general,
representing the government, made their arguments in about five minutes. Then,
starting with Chief Justice Roberts and then going by seniority (Clarence
Thomas, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Stephen Breyer, Samuel Alito, Sonia Sotomayor,
Elena Kagan, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh—that sequence is now indelibly
in my mind), each justice had five minutes to ask questions and have the
attorneys respond. Roberts must have had a timer, because when five minutes was
up, he called the next justice, even if the attorney was in the middle of
responding.
The
justices, of course, are supposed to be nonpartisan, but we know the general
political leaning of almost every one of them. So it was instructive to see a
conservative judge ask a question from the more liberal side, and realize that
the justice was giving the president’s lawyer the opportunity to make the
points that the conservative justice wanted to hear. Sometimes, if a lawyer was
stopped in the middle of answering a question because a justice’s time was up,
the next justice would follow up to get the lawyer to finish his (and all of
the lawyers were men) point.
In the
cases concerning the congressional subpoenas, there were lots of questions
comparing this case to both the lawsuits against Clinton and the Watergate
hearings into Nixon. Trump’s lawyers often talked about having to protect
future presidents from political “harassment,” but one could argue that the
case against Trump is already the third, and the one against Clinton was just
as much if not more harassment than the case against Trump.
It wasn’t
easy to see which way the justices were leaning, though I sense that their
decision will be on as narrow grounds as possible.
If you have
any chance at all, do try to listen to these arguments on C-SPAN, either on TV
or laptop or phone. They only last until around 1 p.m. If you have teenage children, ask them to listen for a
while as well. It may seem boring or hard to follow, but the process is part of
our government, and rarely has it been so readily available to the general
public.
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Thanks for thin informative post. I have listened in, but I think it would be interesting to hear. This would be a great learning experience for students.
ReplyDeleteGreat information! Thank you for writing a succinct piece on this important aspect of our government. It is our duty and right to participate in our government as much as possible.
ReplyDeleteThank you for the reminder. When I first heard about this happening I thought it was amazing; and then I forgot about it. I'll try to listen in. You are right....this is such an important thing for any citizen to do.
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