Trump’s tweets could haunt him in high court
Might this finally quiet him?
WASHINGTON — Could the U.S. Supreme Court be the one institution that could cure President Trump of his impulsive tweeting habit?
Possibly, if the fate of his travel ban or any of host of other legal challenges facing him and his administration turns on his tweets.
Yesterday Trump’s social media habit was a major topic of discussion during oral arguments over whether the travel ban is an unconstitutional act of religious discrimination.
Attorney Neal Katyal argued that the text of the executive order barring entrants from eight countries, most of which are majority-Muslim, must be considered alongside both Trump’s campaign promise to stop all Muslims from entering the country and his tweets while in office that Katyal said evidence animus.
“The president and his advisers have directly tied this policy to those statements,” Katyal argued.
Even U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco, defending the travel ban, conceded that courts can look at statements Trump made after taking the oath of office — though he denied Trump’s tweets evidenced any intent to discriminate.
But that concession means that at the very least, the justices will be free to consider Trump’s retweets of anti-Muslim videos posted by a far-right British official purporting to show Muslims assaulting people and committing vandalism — some of which were later debunked as inaccurate.
But beyond the travel ban case, the ability of courts to weigh Trump’s tweets since he took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017, as evidence could affect a number of legal matters in which they could prove crucial, from the ongoing challenges to his order rescinding the DACA program, to matters related to the ongoing Russia probe, potential obstruction of justice and litigation over the infamous Russian dossier.
Up until now there has been an ongoing debate over the open question of whether the president’s tweets constitute official statements, to what extent they can serve as evidence. The Justice Department’s top litigator himself conceded that the tweets are open to scrutiny could be a game changer.
That should be enough to give White House Counsel Don McGahn, who was in the high court’s marbled chamber for oral arguments yesterday, serious cause to try to convince Trump to curb his Twitter trigger finger. If there was any doubt before that anything Trump tweets while in office can be used against him in a court of law, as well as politically, that travel ban case — no matter its ultimate outcome — has now dispelled it.