David A. Strauss on Kavanaugh and the Question of a Trump Subpoena
Showdown on a Trump Subpoena Could Overshadow Brett Kavanaugh’s Confirmation
“On the issue of whether the president is categorically entitled to decline to respond to a grand jury subpoena,” Mr. Dellinger said, “we have two unanimous decisions very close to resolving the question.”
Those unanimous decisions ruled against Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Bill Clinton, with Nixon and Clinton appointees voting against the presidents who had placed them on the court.
Those precedents — and the unified courts that issued them — will be much on the mind of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. should a Mueller subpoena dispute reach the court, said David Strauss, a law professor at the University of Chicago.
“The justices must understand that it would be a disaster for the court, as an institution, to divide 5-4 on the question whether Trump can ignore a subpoena, with two Trump appointees in the majority,” he said. “There will be enormous pressure on the chief justice — including, in fact especially, pressure from his own sense of his place in history — to deliver a unanimous court.”
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