The billionaire industrialist Koch brothers, meanwhile, are being urged to reconsider their opposition to Trump by some of the donors in their network who are supporting the Manhattan tycoon, including Minnesota media mogul Stanley S. Hubbard and Dallas investor Ray Washburne, according to the two Republicans familiar with the outreach.
.. But the Republicans familiar with the push said top Koch aides rejected the idea of a meeting.
.. The Minnesota media billionaire Hubbard, a longtime member of the Koch donor network, initially opposed Trump, but has come around, and said he’ll urge the Kochs to do the same when he sees them this weekend in Colorado Springs.
.. “I think it is time that we get behind Trump because of all the important things such as Supreme Court appointments, which are crucial,” he said, adding that he was aware of the efforts to get the Kochs to meet with Trump.
.. Pence’s deep ties to the Kochs and other major conservative benefactors were considered among his strengths as a vice presidential candidate.
What happened to Comedy Central’s cable-news satire?
in the landmark District of Columbia v. Heller case, Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority, in part, “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited” — and that curbs may apply to “dangerous and unusual weapons.”
Justice Clarence Thomas’s Solitary Voice
In an opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the Supreme Court overturned a 30-year-old murder conviction, ruling that racial discrimination infected the selection of the all-white Georgia jury that found a black man guilty of a white woman’s murder. The vote was 7 to 1. The dissenter was Justice Thomas. His vote, along with the contorted 15-page opinion that explained it, was one of the most bizarre performances I have witnessed in decades spent observing the Supreme Court.
.. I almost think Justice Thomas revels in his chosen role as the anti-Thurgood Marshall, the civil rights hero whose seat he took on Oct. 23, 1991.
.. It was standard operating procedure for prosecutors to use peremptory challenges to prevent African-Americans from serving as jurors in trials of black defendants. The Batson decision held that when the defense made a plausible claim that a peremptory challenge was racially motivated, the prosecution had to offer “a race-neutral basis for striking the juror in question.” The trial judge was then to decide whether the prosecution’s explanation held up or whether it was a pretext.
.. For example, the prosecutor said he struck 34-year-old Marilyn Garrett because the “state was looking for older jurors that would not easily identify with the defendant,” who was 19. Yet there were eight white jurors under the age of 36 whom the prosecution didn’t strike; one who ended up serving was 21. The prosecutor also said he struck Ms. Garrett because she was divorced, while not striking three white potential jurors who were divorced.
Trump Could Threaten U.S. Rule of Law, Scholars Say
Donald J. Trump’s blustery attacks on the press, complaints about the judicial system and bold claims of presidential power collectively sketch out a constitutional worldview that shows contempt for the First Amendment, the separation of powers and the rule of law, legal experts across the political spectrum say.
Even as much of the Republican political establishment lines up behind its presumptive nominee, many conservative and libertarian legal scholars warn that electing Mr. Trump is a recipe for a constitutional crisis.
.. David Post, a retired law professor who now writes for the Volokh Conspiracy, a conservative-leaning law blog, said those comments had crossed a line.
“This is how authoritarianism starts, with a president who does not respect the judiciary,” Mr. Post said. “You can criticize the judicial system, you can criticize individual cases, you can criticize individual judges. But the president has to be clear that the law is the law and that he enforces the law. That is his constitutional obligation.”
.. Randy E. Barnett, a law professor at Georgetown and an architect of the first major challenge to President Obama’s health care law, said he had grave doubts on both fronts.
“You would like a president with some idea about constitutional limits on presidential powers, on congressional powers, on federal powers,” Professor Barnett said, “and I doubt he has any awareness of such limits.”
.. Several law professors said they were less sure about Mr. Trump, citing the actions of another populist, President Andrew Jackson, who refused to enforce an 1832 Supreme Court decision arising from a clash between Georgia and the Cherokee Nation.
“I can easily see a situation in which he would take the Andrew Jackson line,” Professor Epstein said, referring to a probably apocryphal comment attributed to Jackson about Chief Justice John Marshall: “John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it.”
..
“He owns Amazon,” Mr. Trump said in February. “He wants political influence so Amazon will benefit from it. That’s not right. And believe me, if I become president, oh do they have problems. They’re going to have such problems.”