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Non-Tech : Franklin, Andrews, Kramer & Edelstein -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scion who wrote (12285)	11/26/2019 2:20:54 AM
From: scion	Respond to of 12881

The judgment from Ketanji Brown Jackson, of the US district court in Washington, has potentially far reaching implications for Trump as he struggles to fend off impeachment. Not only is McGahn an important witness in his own right – as Trump’s first White House counsel he had broad influence until he left the post in October 2018 – but the ruling could also affect other key witnesses called before Congress. Those high-value witnesses include John Bolton, the former national security adviser who is reported to have been deeply unhappy about Trump’s posture on Ukraine, Bolton’s deputy Charles Kupperman and the current acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. In each of those cases the White House has deployed the same argument – that the officials were so core to executive functions that they enjoyed immunity in the face of congressional subpoenas. Jackson’s ruling has blown a large hole in that legal argument. In terms that left no room for ambiguity, the judge scathingly remarked that the White House had got its separation-of-powers thinking in relation to the respective standing of the president, Congress and judiciary “exactly backwards”. Pointedly, the judge added: “It is a core tenet of this nation’s founding that the powers of a monarch must be split between the branches of the government to prevent tyranny… Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that presidents are not kings.” It was the role of the judiciary to interpret the law and of Congress to conduct investigations of suspected abuses of power by the government, she wrote in the 120-page opinion. The Department of Justice’s claim “to unreviewable absolute testimonal immunity on separation-of-powers grounds … is baseless, and as such, cannot be sustained.” theguardian.com