John C. Wright's Journal

Trump’s Classified Documents Case Dismissed

From a Fox News Affiliate (by: Ella Lee, Zach Schonfeld, The Hill):

Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday tossed former President Trump’s case over his alleged mishandling of classified information, ruling that special counsel Jack Smith was not lawfully appointed.

The ruling hands a major victory to Trump, marking the first time one of his four criminal cases has been dismissed entirely.

“The Superseding Indictment is dismissed because Special Counsel Smith’s appointment violates the Appointments Clause of the United States Constitution,” Cannon wrote in a 93-page ruling.

The judge said that her determination is “confined to this proceeding.”

The Supreme Court this very day in the case of Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. ___ (2024) together with a companion case, Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce, rescinded the nigh unbridled power of the Administrative State to interpret their own laws for themselves, called the Chevron doctrine.

The Loper and Relentless ruling today held that The Administrative Procedure Act requires courts to exercise their independent judgment in deciding whether an agency has acted within its statutory authority. The courts may not defer to an agency interpretation of the law simply because a statute is silent or ambiguous; Chevron is overruled.

Justice Neil Gorsuch in the concurring opinion writes “…today, the Court places a tombstone on Chevron no one can miss. In doing so, the Court returns judges to interpretative rules that have guided federal courts since the Nation’s founding.”

This ruling is a significant and far-reaching as the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022) overruling Roe v. Wade (1973).

The case being overruled is Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, (467 U.S. 837, 104 S. Ct. 2778 (1984)) which established the Chevron doctrine. At first Chevron was a minor case, but, as with Roe v Wade,  successive layers of reinterpretation expanded its meaning far beyond the original holding, and made it the single most cited case in administrative law.

The Chevron doctrine held that if Congress has not directly said otherwise in the authorizing statue, a court must defer the agency’s own interpretation of the statute authorizing the agency, provided it was reasonable. In other words, Federal Agencies merely decided for themselves what their own powers were, and what they were authorized to do.

Vacated and remanded, 6-2, in an opinion by Chief Justice Roberts on June 28, 2024. Justices Thomas and Gorsuch concurred. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justice Sotomayor joined. Justice Jackson recused herself. However, Jackson joined the dissent in the Relentless case.

Read the remainder of this entry »

Thirty minutes after the polls closed, the Iowa Caucus race was called for GOP nomination for Trump, who won 99 out of 99 counties in a unprecedented landslide victory.

More here:

• Trump Wins Iowa in Historic 30-Point Landslide at 51 Percent; DeSantis 2nd 

ADDENDUM:

I just discovered that Trump only won 98 out of 99 Iowa counties. A Democrat voter entered the GOP Caucus at the last minute to cast a vote for Nikki Haley, overturning the result in one county by one vote. Dem for Nikki. Make of that what you will.

Addendum to an earlier post:

Justice Thomas, writing the concurring opinion in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, refuties the dissent of Justice Jackson. He produces such gems of judicial wisdom, faceted with clarity and brilliance, that I am unable to restrict myself to one paragraph or passage.

There are worse ways to idle away an hour, dear reader, and to read may restore one’s faith in human reason and in the American way of life. Here is treasure. 

This excerpt begins in Section IV of the concurrence, and omits  footnotes and references for ease of reading. 

***   ***   ***

IV

Far from advancing the cause of improved race relations in our Nation, affirmative action highlights our racial differences with pernicious effect.

In fact, recent history reveals a disturbing pattern: Affirmative action policies appear to have prolonged the asserted need for racial discrimination.

Parties and amici in these cases report that, in the nearly 50 years since Bakke, 438 U. S. 265, racial progress on campuses adopting affirmative action admissions policies has stagnated, including making no meaningful progress toward a colorblind goal since Grutter.

Rather, the legacy of Grutter appears to be ever increasing and strident demands for yet more racially oriented solutions.

Read the remainder of this entry »

The Supreme Court has ruled Biden’s $430 billion student loan ‘forgiveness’ plan unconstitutional.

The cases are Department of Education v. Brown, United States Supreme Court No. No. 22–535, and Biden v. Nebraska, United States Supreme Court No. 22–506.

In the first, the High Court unanimously (and, in my humble opinion, correctly) held that the plaintiffs, who were not eligible for Biden’s student loan relief, lacked standing to sue because they could not show that they had been harmed directly by it.

In the second, the vote once again was six to three, with the six Republican appointed justices voting for the Constitution and the three Leftists voting against.

The dissent, in effect, would remove the lawmaking power of congress from congress and award it to the Secretary of Education, which in this case did not even abide by its own rules and procedures of public comment, and so on, before issuing an administrative fiat.

Let us give thanks to heaven that the unjust judges, finally, are in the minority.

Read the remainder of this entry »

A crowded day for victories this day.

The Supreme Court announced the decision of 303 CREATIVE LLC  v. ELENIS holding the First Amendment prohibits Colorado from forcing a website designer to create expressive designs speaking messages with which the designer disagrees.

Read the remainder of this entry »

One might disagree as to who deserves most credit for this, but I submit these events would not have taken place, nor even been imagined, in a world where Hillary took the 2016 election.

Much of this may be premature, but winning has been thin on the ground for some months, and we may need a breath of refreshment.

• Schiff, Swalwell, Omar tossed from Intel
• First Bill: House votes to rescind IRS funding
• New Church Committee to investigate FBI, CIA abuses 
• Pentagon Finally Ends Wu Han Vaccine Mandate
• House Passes Babies Born Alive Act. Satan weeps
• Select Committee on Red Chinese empaneled

My comments below fold.

Read the remainder of this entry »

The Post Millennial website reports six in ten abortion clinics shut down in states with pro-life laws after Roe overturned.

The column reads, in part:

These states had a total of 71 clinics providing abortions prior to the Supreme Court’s June 24 ruling. As of July 24, 28 of these clinics remain.

Read the remainder of this entry »

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme court in West Virginia, et al. v Environmental Protection Agency ruled that the Clean Air Act does not give the EPA the broad authority to alter the nationwide character of the energy sector.

Read the remainder of this entry »

In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme court in Kennedy v. Bremerton School Dist. yet again upheld freedom of religion.

The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered its long-awaited ruling on a case involving a former Seattle-area football coach who was fired from his job because he refused to stop praying on the field with players.

The nation’s highest court has sided with the high school football coach in the crucial First Amendment case.

Joseph Kennedy lost his job as a high school football coach in the Bremerton School District after he knelt at midfield after games to offer a quiet personal prayer. Mr. Kennedy sued in federal court, alleging that the District’s actions violated the First Amendment’s Free Speech and Free Exercise Clauses. He also moved for a preliminary injunction requiring the District to reinstate him.

The High Court held that the Free Exercise and Free Speech Clauses of the First Amendment protect an individual engaging in a personal religious observance from government reprisal; the Constitution neither mandates nor permits the government to suppress such religious expression.

You did not expect this to happen during your lifetime. Yet is has. How many prayers does this answer?

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling was handed down. Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113, and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 are both as dead as all the unborn babies they killed.

Roe v Wade is overturned, root and branch, and a great sickness and grave moral evil no longer overshadows our Constitution. The battle now shifts to state by state legislatures, and will be long and hard. Gird up your loins.

If I were a pagan I would raise a shrine to Donald Trump, and to all who voted for him, for this victory is due to their election of him as president, and his selection of conservatives for Supreme Court Justices.

Nevertrumpers, tear garments and pour ashes on your head as you beg heaven for forgiveness. A tearful flood of apologies for your stiffneckedness and shortsightedness is now due.

Read the remainder of this entry »