A federal judge in Seattle blocked, temporarily, President Donald Trump’s attempt to rescind birthright citizenship — the idea spelled out in the Constitution that every person born in the United States is an American citizen.
Senior U.S. District Judge John Coughenour on Thursday was blistering in his criticism of Trump’s action as he granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide.
“I’ve been on the bench for over four decades, I can’t remember another case where the question presented is as clear as this one is. This is a blatantly unconstitutional order,” Coughenour, an appointee of Ronald Reagan, said from the bench. “There are other times in world history where we look back and people of goodwill can say where were the judges, where were the lawyers?”
Coughenour interrupted before Brett Shumate, a Justice Department attorney, could even complete his first sentence.
“In your opinion is this executive order constitutional?” he asked.
Said Shumate, “It absolutely is.”
“Frankly, I have difficulty understanding how a member of the Bar could state unequivocally that this is a constitutional order,” Coughenour said. “It just boggles my mind.”
The executive order will remain blocked for at least 14 days while lawsuits in Washington and elsewhere over Trump’s action proceed.
One thing is clear: Shumate has burned his credibility. Defending a blatantly unconstitutional order is going above and beyond the duty of zealous representation.
Another thing is clear: This is impeachable. That the Republicans are lining up behind Der Dickeralterorangefarbenerführer is going to be something that I, and others, will happily hang around the neck of Republicans forever.
1 comment:
And the doxing begins in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.
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