Fitton: Getting the Supreme Court Back on Track

Judicial Watch is pleased that Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court will provide President Trump another opportunity to nominate a constitutional conservative who will honor the Constitution and the rule of law, rather than legislate from the bench.

And the U.S. Senate should move quickly to work with President Trump to consider and approve a new justice who will apply the U.S. Constitution as written and understood by our Founding Fathers.

The importance of the solidifying a conservative majority on the Supreme Court was made clear this week in the court’s 5-4 vote to uphold President Trump’s so-called travel ban. The wording of the law under which he established the ban, and which politically motivated anti-Trump lower court judges simply ignored, could not be clearer:

Whenever the President finds that the entry of any aliens or of any class of aliens into the United States would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, he may by proclamation, and for such period as he shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens as immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on the entry of aliens any restrictions he may deem to be appropriate.

The president’s right to make these decisions is clear on its face, and it is troubling that this had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to be settled.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion: “By its plain language [the law] grants the President broad discretion to suspend the entry of aliens into the United States. The President lawfully exercised that discretion based on his findings—following a worldwide, multi-agency review—that entry of the covered aliens would be detrimental to the national interest.”

The law is designed to protect all of us. The court’s decision is a victory for national security, the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law, and the safety of U.S. citizens and other innocents. It also represents a major defeat for the anti-Trump judiciary and its political attacks on President Trump.

In December 2017, Judicial Watch uncovered documents showing strong support by top DOJ officials for former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates’ refusal to enforce President Trump’s Middle East travel ban executive order. In one email, Andrew Weissmann, one of Robert Mueller’s top prosecutors and formerly the Obama-era Chief of the Justice Department’s Criminal Fraud Section, applauds Yates by writing: “I am so proud. And in awe. Thank you so much. All my deepest respects.”

The Deep State and its liberal allies will be pushing back this summer on President Trump’s Supreme Court nomination. As always, you can expect strong leadership from Judicial Watch in the coming battle.

Tom Fitton is president of Judicial Watch.