by Michael C. Dorf
The big news from today's oral SCOTUS oral arguments is that there appears to be a greater likelihood that the Court will allow the Manhattan grand jury subpoena to stand--or at least will deny Trump's categorical objections to it--than that it will give its blessing to the House committee subpoenas. The conservative Justices seemed receptive to NY County DA Carey Dunne's argument that the Manhattan case is essentially controlled by Clinton v. Jones. If the president's interest in avoiding distraction does not suffice to give him categorical temporary immunity from civil litigation, then it surely does not suffice to overcome the state's stronger interest in the vindication of its criminal law.
To be sure, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow argued that Jones was a wholly different case because it arose in federal court. But while Sekulow was very loud, he wasn't very persuasive for two main reasons. First, the Court in Clinton v. Jones said only that it wasn't reaching the question whether a different result might obtain in (a civil case in) state court. Yes, as the Clinton Court said, the considerations of federal supremacy make such a case different, but that doesn't necessarily mean that a different outcome should result. Sekulow's argument treated the Court's express reservation of the question in Clinton as though it resolved the matter.
Second, nearly all the force was taken out of Sekulow's argument by the fact that the NY case, though originating with a grand jury subpoena in state court, was actually litigated in federal court. Some readers might be wondering how that can be. What about the Anti-Injunction Act? What about Younger v. Harris? Those are, respectively, a statute and a case affirming a judge-made abstention doctrine that typically limit the ability of federal courts to interfere with ongoing state court proceedings. Although the federal district court found Younger abstention justified, the US Court of Appeals for the 2d Circuit did not and persuasively explained why not. No one said anything about either Younger or the Anti-Injunction Act during the oral argument, and everyone took for granted that this case was appropriately in federal court and that future such cases, if any, would also result in federal court litigation rather than state court litigation to determine whether a subpoena could issue. Concerns that a state court would be insufficiently protective of the president's legitimate claims of burden or privilege accordingly rang hollow.
Overall, the NY oral argument gave the impression of the Justices moving towards a consensus that would allow the grand jury subpoenas to issue, subject only to particularized objections to be evaluated under a standard that looks to the state's reasonable need for the evidence in a timely fashion. That would be a major legal defeat for Trump but perhaps not so damaging politically, because grand jury secrecy would prevent the documents from becoming public until long after the November election.
So far as the political stakes are concerned, therefore, the real action was in the first oral argument, in the two cases involving House committee subpoenas. And there, with the possible exception of Justice Breyer (who worried about a future Joe McCarthy harassing a future FDR or Harry Truman) the tea leaves point to a potential partisan divide with Trump winning 5-4 (or 6-3 if Breyer defects). To be clear, I don't favor that outcome. And as I'll now explain, I don't think that the actual substance of the oral argument justifies it either.
Arguing for the House of Representatives, Doug Letter had what we might call a "Drew Days in Lopez" moment that could sink his case. Letter contends that a congressional committee has subpoena power, subject only to particularized objections, so long as its request relates to a legitimate legislative purpose--a term drawn from the case law. Asked by Chief Justice Roberts to name a single example of a subpoena that could not satisfy that standard, Letter whiffed.
The moment was reminiscent of a not-so-great day that Solicitor General Drew Days experienced when arguing United States v. Lopez in 1994. The question then was whether the Gun Free School Zones Act fell within the scope of congressional power to regulate interstate commerce. Days said yes. Chief Justice Rehnquist asked Days to name an example of some activity that Congress could not regulate under his theory. Days replied that he was "not prepared to speculate." He was then asked versions of the same question by several other Justices and steadfastly gave no answer. He pointed to limits on the form of congressional power but not on the subject matter. Justices Kennedy and Ginsburg each suggested that perhaps Days was saying that the issue was a nonjusticiable political question. Days insisted he was not. While insisting that he believed there were substantive limits on the scope of the commerce power, he never provided an example and eventually waived his rebuttal. The US lost the case 5-4. The Chief Justice wrote an opinion that emphasized that there are outer limits to the commerce clause--limits that the SG had failed to identify.
Letter came dangerously close to making the same blunder as Days in Lopez. He did not give an example when asked by the Chief Justice, nor did he give one when asked essentially the same question by Justice Alito. Justice Kavanaugh at one point appeared to throw Letter a lifeline by asking whether, under Letter's theory, Congress would have a legitimate legislative purpose to seek a president's medical records. Letter said he couldn't imagine one but then thought better of it and suggested that Congress might legitimately be interested in issues relating to the 25th Amendment. By the end of the oral argument, it was not even clear that Letter realized he had blown it.
It would be very unfortunate if the Court sides with Trump in the congressional subpoena cases based on Letter's poor performance, because he had--our ought to have had--a very good answer. Here's what he ought to have said in response to Roberts:
Your honor is correct that virtually any request could, under the right circumstances, be related to some legitimate legislative purpose of Congress, which is why the requirement of a legitimate legislative purpose has never been understood to pose an obstacle to Congress's exercise of its subpoena power. However, that does not mean the power is unlimited. Rather, the key limits are privacy interests, executive privilege or potentially some other privilege, and the possibility of a particularized burden, all to be balanced against what this Court in the Nixon case called "demonstrated specific need." None of those sorts of reasons for limiting a congressional subpoena in a particular case remotely justifies what amounts to the categorical rule that the president's lawyers seek.
Speaking of Trump's personal lawyer, Patrick Strawbridge appeared to have a much better day than Letter (or Sekulow). However, the key word there is "appeared." Justice Breyer asked Strawbridge a couple of questions, including whether the congressional subpoena in Watergate was unlawful under his approach. Because of the time limits and limited follow-up, Strawbridge didn't answer. He apparently realized it was an important question, so he came back to it in his summation.
Strawbridge sounded smooth but what he said undercut rather than supported his case. He pointed out that during Watergate, the DC Circuit had rejected a subpoena of presidential material during Watergate. It did so in the Senate Select Committee case, finding that the material sought was duplicative. But as the House Committees' brief explains, Trump's lawyers are doubly mistaken when they cite Senate Select Committee for the proposition that a congressional committee must show a "demonstrably critical" need for presidential material. For one thing, that's the standard the DC Circuit set for overcoming executive privilege, which Trump has not asserted and could not assert in this litigation, given that the records do not involve performance of official functions as president. For another thing, even with respect to executive privilege, the standard set by the SCOTUS in the Nixon Tapes Case (and since followed by the DC Circuit in congressional subpoena cases) is not a "demonstrably critical" need but "demonstrated specific need."
Remarkably, Trump's reply brief simply reasserts reliance on the discredited DC Circuit standard of Senate Select Committee. Given that willingness to misuse case authority in print, it is perhaps not surprising that Strawbridge chose to misuse it in the same way during the final moments of his oral argument.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
...failure to pinpoint a limiting principle - reminiscent of Verrilli in the Obamacare oral argument, and whoever argued Citizens (where people walked away thinking books could be banned). The former was rescued in the end, albeit via a different authority (taxing power), so that might not really apply for comparison.
Poor Mr. Letter. He did come up empty on the questions you discuss. I wanted to answer for him: perhaps there’s no comparable historical or generic hypothetical example showcasing a limiting principle because Congress has hewed closely to its mandate(s). Second, and no one really wants to say this out loud, Trump himself complicates the question of how far is too far with Congressional subpoenas implicating a President. That is, this situation is unique in many ways because there’s never been a more obstinate, financially secretive President quite like him, and there is publicly available “smoke” suggesting that the financial conflicts, and more, of this President warrant the subpoenas as far as possible legislation. Are we to view him, just because he’s president, in a vacuum, and not look at all the circumstances? What is Congress supposed to do in such circumstances? Is the outcome supposed to be that a potentially corrupt president can always be elected, never be regulated in advance, and never be held accountable when circumstances are learned during a presidency simply by virtue of the existence of Article II?
I'll see your Drew Days in Lopez, and raise you Malcolm Stewart in Citizens United, where he couldn't find a way to say "No" to the question of whether the FEC could ban a book, leading to reargument (this time, SG Kagan taking over) and a much broader decision than was necessary. Stewart is a tremendous asset at the SG's office, but boy was that a low point...
Congress would seem to have more power here than a locality but it is noted that the attorney representing Manhattan here was excellent and had a smoother time of it.
Doug Letter was correct -- though maybe "gotchas" will matter here (e.g., "banning books" where what was at issue was regulation of a certain type of corporate funding; in Rust v. Sullivan, e.g., the Supreme Court "banned speech" on the government's dime and upheld a regulation based on content based grounds) -- that even medical records in the relevant case might be open to subpoena. The example cited was the 25A.
https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/clinic/document/mn082208_ls_readerguide_interior_final.pdf
He also cited privileges. But, such procedural checks does not seem to be exactly what the "what is the limit" caucus cares about. Multiple constitutional provisions (see, e.g,. the First Amendment) limits the commerce power too. I guess carefully reaffirming in clear language (noting there is also briefing) as suggested in the OP can help here. Anyway, there was a mixed reaction to his oral argument, Prof. Segall noting repeatedly he made some good points while other legal watchers on Twitter was almost apoletic. I thought that a tad exaggerated.
But, yes, the New York advocate -- at least during the oral argument -- seemed to have a better time of it. Maybe, that is because in theory Congress has more power so the limit is harder to cite & therefore seems more dangerous. It also was because the NY advocate seemed more on his game.
I am not a lawyer. But I too was baffled at first and then pissed off that Letter didn't address the question of limitations. It was such an obvious question. It's inconceivable to me that his team did not contemplate the question. And surely that had an answer. So why he did not reach for it when Breyer pressed him on the issue -- Breyer about as a friendly an ally as Letter could have asked for. He blew it.
About the comment on Stewart in Citizens United, I don't think that Stewart really had a coherent way to distinguish books at his disposal, as Kagan's attempts to distinguish books in the reargument showed. Stewart gave the more honest argument.
I can't say I've been impressed with any of Letter's high-stakes appearances, of which there have been many, since he became counsel to the House.
I had the same "poor performance" gut reaction to Letter while listening in realtime, but after surveying the various reactions online, I think I now agree with Prof. Blackman's take on Volokh. Although I have very different opinions from him on the merits, I think Prof. B. tends to be fair and evenhanded in these situations when evaluating pure litigation strategy. His theory that Letter acted deliberately in not offering up concessions because there would be nothing in return from justices whose votes aren't in play regardless, and doing so would only harm his client's most important priorities, makes a lot of sense to me.
Also, don't laugh, but I thought a Slate commenter, Lysander the Grey, made a good practical point along the same lines. The point was that if Letter acquiesced to any previously-unrecognized limits, that would effectively allow Trump to moot the case by bogging things down in remand proceedings until the clock runs out on the subpoena. I haven't managed to get a functioning direct link to the comment, but it was made on this article.
https://slate.com/comments/news-and-politics/2020/05/trump-mazars-deutsche-bank-supreme-court-congress.html
That said, I still didn't like how Letter started by diving into relative trivia about what was cited/discussed on what pages of the briefs -- the SCOTUSBlog feed seemed surprised by that as well. It didn't seem like the best way to use the first few minutes of argument. Only after that did he segue into a more conventional opening script. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't find that approach particularly effective.
On the flipside, there was a lot of praise for Dunne in the Vance argument. I agree that his delivery was much smoother and more confident than Letter. Also, I liked that he ordered his opening script so that it came at the very beginning. But even though it was a very enjoyable listen, in the aftermath it seems like he made some concessions that weren't all that necessary. Maybe the niceness of the delivery made the concessions less noticeable in the realtime context.
Finally, there's no question that Strawbridge did a fine job in terms of mechanics, but of course as noted by Prof. Dorf, the substance there was totally unpalatable. And Sekulow was only good if you wanted to design a drinking game based on how many times he yelled "President of the United States!"
A woman appeals advocate made a comment on Twitter that maybe Letter should have given one of the women in the office there a chance. I think the numbers in the May arguments broke down 20-3 (after a woman argued on competing sides in the first case, there was one) in the May arguments.
Without necessarily agreeing with it all, I think the last comment was well said. A basic concern about Letter is "his mechanics" but I'm not sure how horrible he did on the merits. Or how much that really matters.
Post a Comment