United States seeks to stay discovery order in emoluments case// Talking Points Memo
December 17, 2018 2:34 pm
President Trump’s Justice Department is scrambling to stop two state attorneys general from procuring evidence about whether the President is violating the Constitution’s emoluments clause by filing an emergency appeal in the Fourth Circuit court.
Warning that attorneys general from Maryland and DC have sent 38 subpoenas to third parties, Justice Department attorneys argue that the court needs to halt the lawsuit at the district court level before documents from those subpoenas are returned by a January 3 deadline.
Trump lost a motion to dismiss the suit at the district court level in the case, and he filed the appeal as a petition for writ of mandamus, essentially asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to override the lower court and halt the case immediately before throwing it out entirely.
DOJ attorneys argue that the state attorneys general have a “fundamentally flawed” view of the Constitution and that the lower court judge, District Judge Peter Messitte, committed a “manifest abuse of discretion” in failing to allow an appeal of his decision denying a motion to dismiss.
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