Who could stop a Trump SCOTUS nomination? Democrats? No, Republicans

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And at this point there is at least one Republican who is vowing to do precisely that, if he doesn’t get his way.

It is Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, a man doing justice to his last name. This should not be completely unexpected, as he learned at the lap of the Master Republican RINO himself, Senator John McCain, also of Arizona.

From RollCall.com:

Flake Confirms He’s Stalling Trump’s Judicial Nominees Over Tariffs

by Niels Lesniewski

Said Sunday he wants the Senate to respond to president’s trade policy

Sen. Jeff Flake has gone public with his threat to stall judicial nominations seeking action to rebuff President Donald Trump on tariffs.

It comes more than a week after the Arizona Republican first held up the nomination of Britt Grant to be a judge on the Atlanta-based 11th Circuit Court of Appeals at the Judiciary Committee.

“We’ve approved a number of judges. That is important,” Flake said Sunday. “But, Article I — the Congress, Article II — the executive, are important as well.”

“I do think that unless we can actually do something other than just approving the president’s executive calendar, his nominees, judges, that we have no reason to be there,” Flake said. “So, I think myself and a number of senators, at least a few of us will stand up and say let’s not move any more judges until we get a vote for example on tariffs.”

This, you see, is perfectly in keeping with the McCain Doctrine, which distills down to this: “It’s all about me, it will always be about me and, when in doubt, see the first part of this sentence.” Perhaps BZ is not the fondest friend of John McCain. Veritas.

Luckily, a dime was dropped and somehow Flake got back in line. Would loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation. From AZCentral.com:

Jeff Flake says he won’t stall Supreme Court pick over tariff dispute

by Ronald J. Hansen

U.S. Sen. Jeff Flake said Wednesday he would not try to strong-arm the Trump administration on tariffs — or other issues — by withholding his support from a Supreme Court nominee.

A lame duck about to piss in the champagne? Narrowly avoided.

But let’s go back in time for a moment and revisit just how it might be that the Demorats got into their current predicament — back to, say, 2013 and some little thingie called a filibuster involving then-Senator Harry Reid.

Who was it that said “elections have consequences?” Or: “don’t break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building.” Isn’t that what Obama heralds us to do? Win an election? And what happens if we do?

Are we to actually wield the power we acquire from said elections?

Too late Obama. You were right, there are consequences. On both sides. Some go along. Other just like to pinch a loaf in the punchbowl.

Yes, there are consequences to losing an election. They have visited the Demorats. But instead of taking Obama’s advice and not attempting to break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building, the LDAMM would rather just, well, break it.

Oh; and a few others as well. Altogether too many of them have an (R) behind their names.

Back to the original question: if Flake is eliminated as an obstructionist, who is left? Or Left?

Would it perhaps be some female Republicans?

From Politico.com:

The fate of the Supreme Court could ride on these 2 senators

by Burgess Everett and John Bresnahan

Sen. Susan Collins took a notable phone call Thursday as she enters the eye of the Supreme Court confirmation storm: It was White House counsel Don McGahn, sounding out the moderate Maine Republican in what she called a “preliminary discussion” of the high court vacancy.

Republicans control the Senate by a single seat and Arizona Sen. John McCain has been absent for months. That means any single GOP senator has enormous sway over President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court pick.

Which is why Jeff Flake was of concern. One vote. Here’s two more.

I have admitted many times since 2016 that I voted for Donald John Trump, the guy with the dead orange cat on his head, for two very specific reasons. I hold to that two years later, as firm or firmer than ever:

  • President Trump is not Hillary Rodham Clinton, and
  • President Trump will make infinitely better SCOTUS nominations than HRC.

I and many others like me are being proven quite correct. We already are witness to the positive effects of Neil Gorsuch.

None matter more than Collins and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who also received her own call from McGahn on Thursday. Then on Thursday evening, the two were part of a small group of bipartisan senators to meet directly with the president himself.

How critical a handful of votes potentially become.

A year ago, the two moderate Republicans, along with McCain, stopped Obamacare repeal in its tracks while helping to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Now, as they weigh how to replace the retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy, the two are about to be squeezed more than ever — by liberals seeking a Republican to stop the court from outlawing abortion rights, among other potential conservative rulings, and by their fellow Republicans looking for a show of party unity on a hugely consequential vote.

But after all, it’s about politics and most everything is a negotiation in DC. So let’s examine some of the top Trump SCOTUS candidates.

From the NYPost.com:

Women are frontrunners on Trump’s list of Supreme Court nominees

by Mary Kay Linge

Trump has winnowed down his short list of candidates to “about five,” two of them female, he said Friday.

He promised to make his selection from the same list of 25 jurists that he publicized during his 2016 campaign, which includes six women.

What about names? And what about age? If given the chance, any president would rather install someone who would potentially sit for years on the court.

International betting sites taking wagers on the eventual nominee see Amy Coney Barrett as a front-runner.

“There’s a lot of buzz about her, with good reason,” legal pundit John Hinderaker of the Power Line blog told The Post.

If you recall, she was mercilessly grilled by Demorats over her religion — illegally, I might add — when she was in contention for a 2017 federal circuit judgeship.

Then Diane Feinstein decided it was time to lump up Amy Barrett’s faith. “The dogma lives loudly in you.”

Funny how the religion of Demorats is never questioned because, these days, people like Nancy Pelosi pull the Religion Card frequently. But that’s just fine.

Bush question: is there a Harriet Meir amongst them?

Joan Larsen, 49, is also in the running, Hinderaker said.

“She was confirmed to the federal bench in November without a lot of fireworks, on a 60-38 vote,” he said. “She passed so easily such a short time ago, you’d have to ask why anyone who voted for her would oppose her now.”

This is an interesting point.

Murkowski opposed President Barack Obama’s appointee Elena Kagan, but otherwise she and Collins have voted for nominees under presidents of both parties. Collins and Murkowski both met with Obama nominee Merrick Garland, who never received a hearing in the Judiciary Committee.

The two senators said this nominee will be no more important than any other Supreme Court votes they’ve cast. But each acknowledged that the political stakes might be higher than ever, given their party’s narrow majority, the approaching midterms and the potential for the Supreme Court to be reshaped for a generation.

“This is what goes on in the Senate. Sometimes you’re in the pressure cooker,” Murkowski said. Asked whether a pressure campaign could backfire, as it did on Obamacare repeal, she paused and replied: “I could just say something flip, like ‘Watch me.’”

Then she added: “I don’t mean to be flip. … I take it very, very seriously.”

They both enjoy the spotlight focused upon them. They enjoy the fact that perception indicates they possess sufficient power to obstruct a very serious vote. They enjoy the recognition of their power however intermittent it may be. Alaska and Maine don’t customarily acquire power in terms of states. They have to grab for their 15 Minutes of Ring when it comes around.

Alan Dershowitz weighs in:

In addition, there is this: what will happen to the Demorats who are in possession of areas that, in the 2016 presidential election, voted for Donald John Trump? Dare they piss off their constituents and slay every nomination Trump makes? Can they afford to do that politically?

Danger, Will Robinson.

BZ

 

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DOJ wants to obstruct document production, federal judge says no

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First, the story from JudicialWatch.com:

Federal Court Orders DOJ to Begin Searching and Producing Fusion GPS Records in Response to Judicial Watch Lawsuit

Court Criticizes DOJ’s FOIA Response 

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced U.S. District Court Judge Reggie B. Walton instructed the Justice Department to immediately begin producing records about DOJ communications with Nellie Ohr, the wife of senior DOJ official Bruce Ohr.  Nellie Ohr worked for Clinton campaign vendor Fusion GPS on the anti-Trump Dossier campaign document.

The DOJ didn’t even want to begin a search for six months, following Judicial Watch winning a lawsuit which demanded records. DOJ historically has frittered time away, purposely, on the back end — now they wanted to fritter time away on the front end and then fritter time away on the back end.

Judge Walton rejected a Justice Department request to begin producing documents six months from now and ordered the DOJ to begin producing documents immediately on a rolling basis over the next two months. Judge Walton also rejected DOJ’s efforts to restrict their search to only 2016.

Judge Walton said this on the June 14th hearing. He wasn’t happy.

I think if it’s been almost, since December when the initial request was made more should have been done by now. And it seems to me if you have someone who’s going to come into office and they say they’re going to be a disrupter, that they should appreciate there’s going to be a lot of FOIA requests and therefore, should gear up to deal with those requests. So I’m not real sympathetic to the position that you have limited staff and therefore, you can’t comply with these requests. So I think you’re going to have to get some more people.

That’s called triage. That’s called prioritizing your workload.

The original issue was this:

In December 2017, Bruce Ohr was removed from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General after it was revealed that he conducted undisclosed meetings with anti-Trump dossier author Christopher Steel and Glenn Simpson, principal of Fusion GPS. A House Intelligence Committee memo released by Chairman Devin Nunes on February 2 noted that Ohr’s wife, Nellie, was “employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump” and that Bruce Ohr passed the results of that research, which was paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Hillary Clinton campaign, to the FBI.

Let me conclude with this thought.

Can you tell me any other private agency or business that would be able to somehow get away with deferring immediate reaction or production of documents in terms of response to the loss of a lawsuit? Your business or agency would produce the documents or find yourselves in contempt of the issuing court and then subsequently invaded by law enforcement officers confiscating whatever was demanded by the court itself.

Telling some court that, nah, you know what? We’ll get on that in about half a year?

That just wouldn’t work in the real world.

BZ

 

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