No. of Recommendations: 1
So if an opposition Congress is holding hearings on a politically damaging topic (whether pretextually for political points or legitimately on an issue the President is vulnerable on), I think SCOTUS wants to distinguish between something like bribing a witness to lie to the panel and a President trying to get the results to be more favorable to him. Both are "influencing" the proceeding, and both are arguably doing so for a 'corrupt' purpose (political gain for the President), but one is clearly outside the scope of his job description while the other is part of the normal tug-of-war with a coordinate branch.
I think it's SCOTUS' job to artfully distinguish between crime and the normal tug-of-war between the branches. I think if we gave you a fwe days you could come up with something extremely good at clarifying the difference/ So, while apprehensive, I don't think we have to fear that SCOTUS will come up with a standard that absolves Trump to the point of competing with Dred Scott for worst opinions of all time.
I am interested in your opinion about Bruen's historical analogue test. My opinion is that it's unworkable. Even if you allow historical analogues up to and just after the Civil War, we get frozen into the mainstream laws of a past era. They seem to come up with reasons for disregarding laws they don't like, so I'm very disappointed this was put forth as a standard.
