There’s ancient wisdom that says when you’re running out of good ideas, pick the best bad idea and run with it. That seems to be where many Trump supporters are at in the fight against the coup attempt. But a viral legal memo published today by the Western Journal offers more than fodder for Trump supporters to cling to on Christmas Eve. It actually makes some very strong points and takes a slightly different angle on a notion that has been considered since the Supreme Court declined to hear the Texas suit against four contested states.
When SCOTUS shot down the Texas lawsuit over standing despite 19 other states joining in, many called on the Trump campaign to refile it. After all, they would clearly have standing and the merits of the lawsuit were arguably strong. But that didn’t happen for a few different reasons, not the least of which that they had their hands full with other lawsuits. Some questioned the efficacy of fighting a legal battle over technicalities when there was direct and demonstrable voter fraud that took place. I was one of those who felt this way.
But this new concept, penned by William J. Olson and Patrick M. McSweeney, takes a different angle. Instead of the Trump campaign refiling the lawsuit, it is the duty of the United States of America, represented by the Department of Justice, to file a variation of the Texas suit from a purely constitutional angle.
At first glance, I balked. Getting the Department of Justice involved in election affairs would make for bad optics. But upon reading their memo, I realized two things. First, the contention is not that an election was simply unfair but that laws and constitutional standards were broken in the effort to “win” the election for former Vice President Joe Biden. In other words, crimes were allegedly committed and that puts this under the purview of the DoJ, not the Trump campaign alone.
Second, optics are no longer valid. Who cares what Democrats, mainstream media, and Big Tech think at this point? They have directly attacked Republicans and conservatives because they control optics. This is too important of a circumstance for us to hesitate just because they’re going to go after us for it. They’re going after us regardless of what we do. We might as well use every possible weapon in our arsenal.
With duplicitous Attorney General William Barr handing the reins of the DoJ to Jeffrey Rosen, there should be no roadblocks to make this happen. The United States has unquestionable standing in this situation and the Supreme Court is compelled to hear cases when the federal government sues a state or visa versa. The framework is already in place thanks to Texas. Some tweaking and this lawsuit is ready to go.
Many on social media have been all over this since it was released a couple of hours ago, including Trump attorney Jenna Ellis.
Read this. https://t.co/LMDjw8Xm5X
— Jenna Ellis (@JennaEllisEsq) December 24, 2020
.@realDonaldTrump
@POTUS READ THIS!@DanScavino
@kayleighmcenany
@SidneyPowell1
@LLinWood
@tracybeanz
@JennaEllisEsqA Christmas Eve gift—Bombshell Legal Memo Giving DJT Supporters hope
https://t.co/XgJIvrQAof— General Flynn (@GenFlynn) December 24, 2020
Would the United States sue Pennsylvania in the Supreme Court? https://t.co/ae4Mcs3wHL
— Praying Medic (@prayingmedic) December 24, 2020
TWJ Exclusive: Bombshell New Legal Memo Giving Trump Supporters Hope on Christmas Eve https://t.co/VNvctrhuhu
— Juanita Broaddrick (@atensnut) December 24, 2020
This is the legal way to re-file case to Supreme Court and throw out stolen presidential election. Mr President, what are you waiting for? https://t.co/NdKQFrTPZ1
— Wayne Allyn Root (@RealWayneRoot) December 24, 2020
It’s imperative for President Trump to order acting-AG Jeffrey Rosen to take action on this now. The constitution is under attack and the republic is at stake.
Here is the memo:
Overcoming the Court’s Abdication in Texas v. Pennsylvania
William J. Olson & Patrick M. McSweeney
December 24, 2020
In refusing to hear Texas v. Pennsylvania, the U.S. Supreme Court abdicated its constitutional duty to resolve a real and substantial controversy among states that was properly brought as an original action in that Court. As a result, the Court has come under intense criticism for having evaded the most important inter-state constitutional case brought to it in many decades, if not ever.
However, even in its Order dismissing the case, the Supreme Court identified how another challenge could be brought successfully — by a different plaintiff. This paper explains that legal strategy. But first we focus on the errors made by the Supreme Court — in the hopes that they will not be made again.
Texas v. Pennsylvania
The Supreme Court declined to hear the challenge brought by the State of Texas against four states which had refused to abide by Article II, § 1, cl. 2 — the Presidential Electors Clause, which establishes the conditions and requirements governing the election of the President of the United States. In adopting that provision, the Framers vested in each State legislature the exclusive authority to determine the manner of appointing Presidential electors. The Framers’ plan was shown to be exceedingly wise, because we have now learned that allowing other state and private actors to write the election rules led to massive election fraud in the four defendant states. Individuals can be bought, paid for and corrupted so much easier than state legislatures.
In refusing to hear the case, the sole reason given was that Texas lacked “standing.” In doing so, all nine justices committed a wrong against: (i) Texas and the 17 states that supported its suit; (ii) the United States; (iii) the President; and (iv) the People.
The Court’s Many Wrongs in Texas v. Pennsylvania.
As Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist No. 78, courts have “neither FORCE nor WILL, but merely judgment.” As such, in deciding cases courts have a duty to explain their decisions so the rest of us may know if they constitute arbitrary exercises of political power, or reasoned decisions of judicial power which the People can trust. In Texas v. Pennsylvania, all that the justices felt obligated to do was to state its — “lack of standing” — supported by a one sentence justification: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its election.” Resolving a case of this magnitude with one conclusory sentence is completely unacceptable.
The Supreme Court docket consists primarily of only those cases the High Court chooses to hear. However, just like when it agrees to decide a case, and in disputes where the original jurisdiction of the Court is invoked, it has a duty to decide cases properly brought to them. Two centuries ago, Chief Justice John Marshall construed the obligation of contracts clause in a decision where he wrote: “however irksome the task may be, this is a duty from which we dare not shrink.” Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, 17 U.S. 518 (1819). Courts have a duty to resolve important cases even if they would prefer to avoid them. In Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803), Marshall described “the duty of the Judicial Department to say what the law is” because “every right, when withheld, must have a remedy, and every injury its proper redress.” Abdication in a case of this sort is not a judicial option.
The Supreme Court’s reliance on standing as its excuse has had one positive result — provoking many to study the origins of that doctrine who may be surprised to learn that the word “standing” nowhere appears in the Constitution. There is compelling evidence to demonstrate it was birthed by big-government Justices during the FDR Administration to shield New Deal legislation, and to insulate the Administrative State from challenges by the People. Those who favored the Texas decision argue that standing is a conservative doctrine as it limits the power of the courts — but the true constitutionalist uses only tests grounded in its text. The true threshold constitutional test is whether a genuine and serious “controversy” exists between the States that could be resolved by a court.
The only reason given by the Supreme Court was: “Texas has not demonstrated a judicially cognizable interest in the manner in which another State conducts its election.” In truth, Texas did make such a showing. When Pennsylvania violated the exclusive authority bestowed on state legislators in the Constitution’s Electors Clause, it opened the door to corruption and foreign intrigue to corrupt the electoral votes of Pennsylvania, and as Alexander Hamilton explained in Federalist 68, that is exactly why the Framers created the Electoral College. During the 2020 election cycle, changes to the election process in Pennsylvania were made by judges, state office holders and election officials which would never have been made by its state legislature.
If the process by which Presidential Electors are chosen is corrupted in a few key states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin by rigging the system in favor of one candidate, it becomes wholly irrelevant who the People of Texas support. That political reality presents a real “judicially cognizable interest” no matter what the Supreme Court decided. What happens in Pennsylvania does not stay in Pennsylvania, as electors from all States acting together select the President of the United States.
In the Federalist Papers, both James Madison and Alexander Hamilton recognized the need to combat “the spirit of faction” and the tendency of each State to yield to its immediate interest at the expense of national unity. They reasoned that the Constitution provided a solution to this centrifugal pressure while reserving a measure of sovereignty to each State. When differences arise between States that threaten to lead to disunion, the Republic can be held together, as Hamilton observed, either “by the agency of the Courts or by military force.” A constitutional remedy to enable the States to resolve their differences peacefully is the provision that permits any State to invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to address and settle their differences.
In the vernacular, the Supreme Court blew it, threatening the bonds that hold the union together.
Round Two: The United States Must Enter the Fray
Fortunately, that might have been only the first round in the fight to preserve the nation. A strategy exists to re-submit the Texas challenge under the Electors Clause to the Supreme Court in a way that even that Court could not dare refuse to consider. Just because Texas did not persuade the Justices that what happens in Pennsylvania hurts Texas does not mean that the United States of America could not persuade the justices that when Pennsylvania violates the U.S. Constitution, it harms the nation. Article III, § 2, cl. 2 confers original jurisdiction on the Supreme Court in any case suit brought by the United States against a state. Thus, the United States can and should file suit against Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan and Wisconsin. Like the Texas suit, that new suit would seek an order invalidating the appointment of the electors appointed by those four defendant States that refused to abide by the terms of the Presidential Electors Clause. That would leave it to the state legislatures in those four states to “appoint” electors — which is what the Constitution requires.
When those four States violated the Constitution by allowing electors who had not been appointed in the manner prescribed by the state legislature, the United States suffered an injury. Indeed, there could hardly have been a more significant injury to the nation than that which corrupted its Presidential election.
The United States has a vital interest and a responsibility to preserve the constitutional framework of the Republic, which was formed by a voluntary compact among the States. As with any contractual relationship of participants in an ongoing enterprise, no party is entitled to ignore or alter the essential terms of the contract by its unilateral action.
The President who has sworn to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution has the right and the duty to order the U.S. Department of Justice bring such an action in the Supreme Court — and should do so quickly.
Reasons for Great Hope at Christmas
In rejecting the invocation by the State of Texas of the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to resolve the dispute between Texas and four other States that refused to abide by the terms of the Presidential Electors Clause, for now, a majority of the Justices foreclosed the use of that constitutional safeguard by Texas to provide a peaceful means of resolving the controversy that has deeply divided States and the citizens of this Republic as at no time since the 1860s.
That consequence is too dangerous to be allowed to stand.
If the same case previously brought by Texas were now brought by the United States of America, there is every reason to believe that the Supreme Court would be compelled to understand it must hear it and decide it favorably.
Although outcomes are never certain, it is believed and hoped that a majority of the Supreme Court could never take the position that the United States has no business enforcing the process established in the Constitution by which we select the one government official who represents all the People — The President of the United States.
COVID-19 lockdowns are taking down an independent news outlet
Nobody said running a media site would be easy. We could use some help keeping this site afloat.
Colleagues have called me the worst fundraiser ever. My skills are squarely rooted on the journalistic side of running a news outlet. Paying the bills has never been my forte, but we’ve survived. We have ads on the site that help, but since the site’s inception this has been a labor of love that otherwise doesn’t bring in the level of revenue necessary to justify it.
When I left a nice, corporate career in 2017, I did so knowing I wouldn’t make nearly as much money. But what we do at NOQ Report to deliver the truth and fight the progressive mainstream media narrative that has plagued this nation is too important for me to sacrifice it for the sake of wealth. We know we’ll never make a ton of money this way, and we’re okay with that.
Things have become harder with the coronavirus lockdowns. Both ad money and donations that have kept us afloat for a while have dropped dramatically. We thought we could weather the storm, but the resurgence of lockdowns that mainstream media and Democrats are pushing has put our prospects in jeopardy. In short, we are now in desperate need of financial assistance.
The best way NOQ Report readers can help is to donate. Our Giving Fuel page makes it easy to donate one-time or monthly. Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal as well. We need approximately $17,300 to stay afloat through March when we hope the economy will be more open, but more would be wonderful and any amount that brings us closer to our goal is greatly appreciated.
The second way to help is to become a partner. We’ve strongly considered seeking angel investors in the past but because we were paying the bills, it didn’t seem necessary. Now, we’re struggling to pay the bills. This shouldn’t be the case as our traffic the last year has been going up dramatically. June, 2018, we had 11,678 visitors. A year later in June, 2019, we were up to 116,194. In June, 2020, we had 614,192. In November, 2020, we hit 1.2 million visitors.
We’re heading in the right direction and we believe we’re ready talk to patriotic investors who want to not only “get in on the action” but more importantly who want to help America hear the truth. Interested investors should contact me directly with the contact button above.
As the world spirals towards radical progressivism, the need for truthful journalism has never been greater. But in these times, we need as many conservative media voices as possible. Please help keep NOQ Report going.
