Neal Kaytal– “It’s Highly Unlikely Supreme Court Would Get Involved With Trump’s Hush Money Conviction”– June 30, 2024
As we all know, on May 30, 2024 a Manhattan, NY jury of his peers found Demagogue Donald guilty on all 34 charges he faced at trial.The jurors agreed that he had falsified business records to cover up an alleged sexual encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels. As he did throughout this trial, Donald reacted with fury to the decision. He went on an infantile rant that attacked the justice system, the judge who oversaw the case, and anyone critical of his actions. He pledged to appeal the verdict, which he has a legal right to do (huffpost.com, Visser, N., 6/03/24). A sentencing hearing is scheduled on July 11, 2024, just days before the Republican National Convention which plans to “coronate” Donald as its nominee to run against President Joe Biden in November, 2024 and get “revenge” for losing in 2020. In immature drivel that Trump posted on his “Truth Social” Platform, he yelled, “The ‘Sentencing’ for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention. A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of ‘I will get Trump,’ reporting to an ‘Acting’ Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation? The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE(@realDonaldTrump)!’”
Each of these 34 counts carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison. But while Donald was convicted on all these counts, legal experts say it’s unlikely he will serve jail time as the charges were NY’s lowest level felony. Other sentencing options could include probation or fines (huffpost.com, 6/03/24, Visser). Of course, fellow congressional “Team Red” members of the Trumpist cult are complaining just as strongly about this sentence as their “Dear Leader.” According to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), SCOTUS (the Supreme Court of the United States) should “step in” on Trump’s behalf. Johnson stated that he knew many of those justices personally. He suggested that some of them were “deeply concerned” about the matter. Johnson went on to say that the outcome of Trump’s trial would “ultimately be reversed” if SCOTUS became involved in Trump’s case (msn.com, Harvey, J., 6/03/24). Former acting Solicitor General Neal Kaytal took an opposing view. Kaytal believed it’s unlikely that SCOTUS would get involved with Demagogue Donald’s hush money conviction. On the June 2, 2024 “Inside With Jen Psaki” program, Kaytal was skeptical about Speaker Johnson’s comments. In Kaytal’s words, “I know the justices personally, too. I have no stinkin’ idea of what they might be thinking about this.” Kaytal added, “And you know, Trump has been –I think it’s important to point out– a dead loser in the Supreme Court every time that it comes up. I mean, 8 to 1 on executive privilege, with only Justice Thomas siding with him, and the 2020 election, rebuked lots of times (Harvey, msn.com).” Kaytal added that it’s rare for the nation’s highest court to review state convictions. Kaytal noted, “Maybe they’ll (SCOTUS) will find some federal issue here and maybe there will be an appeal that will get there. But I think it’s tough (msn.com, Harvey, J., 6/03/04).” We should pay attention to Kaytal’s views on this matter. Let’s meet Kaytal.
Chicago, Illinois native and attorney Neal Kumar Kaytal (54) is the son of immigrant parents from India (politico.com/interactives/2017). Kaytal’s mother is a pediatrician and his late father was an engineer. Kaytal’s sister, Sonia, is also an attorney and teaches law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Neal Kaytal studied at Wilmette IL’s Loyola Academy, a Jesuit Catholic high school. Kaytal received his 1991 undergraduate degree from Dartmouth College where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of Dartmouth’s Forensic Union (georgetown.edu/faculty, 9/03/14). In 1995, Kaytal received his law degree from Yale Law School where he was an editor of the prestigious “Yale Law Journal.” At Yale Law, Kaytal studied under prominent professors Akil Amar and Bruce Ackerman and published articles with them in law review and political journals in 1995 and 1996. After graduating Yale Law, Kaytal clerked forJudge Guido Calabresi of the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and then Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer (lawgeorgetown.edu/faculty, 9/03/14).
President Bill Clinton commissioned Kaytal to write a report on the need for more “pro bono” work, or legal representation of indigent clients (gpo.gov/fdsys, 3/10/10). In 1999, Kaytal drafted special counsel regulations, which guided the Mueller investigation of the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of Trump (nytimes.com, 2/21/19). Kaytal represented Vice President Al Gore as co-counsel in the “Bush v. Gore” appeal in which a conservative SCOTUS gave “W” Bush the presidency in 2000 (wiki).
Kaytal has described himself as an “extremist centrist (Haniffa, A., 3/18/29,indiaabroad. com).” While serving serving in the Justice Department, Kaytal argued numerous cases before the High Court. Some of these cases included his 8-1 successful argument relating to the constitutionality of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, “Northwest Austin v. Holder (legaltimes.typepad.com, 7/02/11).” He additionally won a unanimous SCOTUS opinion defending former GOP Attorney General John Ashcroft against abuses of civil liberties in the war on terror. Kaytal additionally argued and won a case before SCOTUS defending the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare (wiki).
Kaytal, a member of the Solicitor General’s office, became Acting Solicitor General, after Obama appointed Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court. The Solicitor General (SG) is the U.S. Government’s chief lawyer before the Supreme Court. Several SCOTUS Justices, including Elena Kagan and Thurgood Marshall, previously headed the SG’s office.The SG determines which cases the government will argue before SCOTUS and decides which cases it wants to appeal from the lower federal courts.The SG has been called the “Tenth Justice” and often wins many of the cases it argues in front of SCOTUS (See abajournal.com, 1/21/09). Before joining the SG’s office, many of the deputy SG attorneys, like Kaytal, had done clerkships with well-known U.S. Circuit Court judges as well as SCOTUS Justices. Members of the SG’s office, a division of the Department of Justice, are usually the top graduates of elite law schools, such as Harvard and Yale. In May, 2011, Kaytal, while Acting Solicitor General, issued the first public confession of error in the Justice’s Department’s ethics lapse in arguing for the WWII internment of Japanese Americans. He rightly called these cases, “Hirabayashi” and “Korematsu,” “blots”on the reputation of his office (latimes.com, Savage, D., 5/24/11). While in private practice, Kaytal was also the lead counsel for the Guantanamo Bay detainees before the Supreme Ct. in the “Hamdan v. Rumsfeld” (2006) case. In that opinion, SCOTUS agreed with him that the Guantanamo military commissions set up by “W” Bush to try post-9/11 detainees “violated both the UCMJ (United States Code of Military Justice) and the four Geneva Conventions (cdn.harvardlawreview.org, 120 Harv. L. Rev. 65 (2006)).
After leaving the Obama Administration, Kaytal went to Georgetown University Law Center and also became a partner in the global law firm of Hogan Lovells. In addition to working on constitutional law, national security, criminal defense, and intellectual property, he runs that firm’s appellate practice, once headed by John Roberts, now Chief Justice (CJ) of the High Court. While in law school, Kaytal did a summer clerkship at Hogan Lovells where he worked for Roberts before Roberts was nominated to the SCOTUS bench (Lat, D., abovethelaw.com, 8/09/16). In the third season of the political TV drama series “House of Cards,” Kaytal had a cameo where he portrayed an attorney arguing before the Supreme Court (Lat, D., 3/02/15,abovethelaw.com). Kaytal has written briefs taking anti-union positions in two major Supreme Ct. cases which he won (hlemploymentblog.com, 5/21/18). Kaytal additionally worked with the prosecution team that successfully convicted Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin for killing African American George Floyd (wsj.com, Paul, Gershman, & Barrett, 4/22/21). In 2022, Kaytal successfully argued the key Supreme Court case, ”Moore v. Harper.” That 6-3 decision went against the independent state legislature theory Trumpist advocates were pushing. Had Kaytal lost that case, state legislatures could not be overruled by state supreme courts. “Red State” chambers would then be able to gut fair redistricting and overturn state constitutional law with no checks upon them.Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, and Alito were the three dissenters favoring this hard-right doctrine (See supremecourt.gov). “Extremist centrist” Kaytal did, however, endorse conservatives Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh’s SCOTUS nominations (wiki).
Kaytal’s legal brilliance and advocacy throughout his entire career has been recognized by many. The Justice Department awarded him its Edmund Randolph Award, the highest honor it can bestow on a civilian. “American Lawyer” Magazine considered Kaytal one of the top 50 national litigators. The “Washingtonian Magazine” named him one of the 30 best living Supreme Court advocates (washingtonpost.com, Barnes, R., 5/17/10, americanlawyer.com, 1/01/07). Kaytal currently remains a partner at Hogan Lovells and is the Paul and Patricia Saunders Professor of National Security Law at Georgetown University Law Center (law.georgetown.edu/faculty, 11/10/16). If the Supreme Ct. does not get involved in the NY Trump hush money criminal conviction case, which, IMHO, it should not,Trump could receive one consolation prize. Martha-Ann Alito might fly an upside down American flag for him!
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