Following one of the biggest upsets in modern political history, The Heritage Foundation convened a panel of experts Thursday to examine what a Donald Trump presidency will mean for the Constitution and conservatism as a whole.
“I frankly think that what just happened in this election may have preserved our constitutional republic,” Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint said in his opening remarks.
DeMint continued:
We know the intent of [Mrs.] Clinton, and she talked a lot about it and what her belief was of the Constitution. And we know Donald Trump has talked about the importance of the Constitution and the list of Supreme Court justices that he released gave us at least some positive indication … to carry out the original intent of the Constitution.
While the Supreme Court is one of the most important issues for voters, according to an exit poll conducted by ABC News, one panelist pointed out that the court is not the only defender of the Constitution.
“It infuriates me how we have come to the point of where we think the Supreme Court is the only guardian of the Constitution,” said Jonah Goldberg, a senior editor at National Review and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Goldberg explained that politicians as well as citizens must also defend the Constitution.
“[The Supreme Court] is a guardian of the Constitution, and in certain formalistic situations, it is the last guardian of the Constitution. But anyone who swears an oath to uphold the Constitution is a guardian of the Constitution, and, the citizens from whom the Constitution derives its authority are guardians of the Constitution,” Goldberg said.
Instead of relying on the Supreme Court, Goldberg believes that Americans should see themselves as the first line of defense when it comes to preserving constitutional principles.
“[W]e’ve gotten to this place where we just basically say, ‘Anything goes unless the Supreme Court, like a hockey goalie, stops it,’” Goldberg said. “And, that is something that the conservative movement … could do a much better job at in terms of creating that incentive structure for politicians.”
Trump’s opportunity to appoint Supreme Court justices who uphold the Constitution will be a top priority of the new administration.
Byron York, chief political correspondent at the Washington Examiner, is hopeful that conservatives will not have to worry about Trump’s choice of justices. He noted that Trump is sensitive to the reactions of his supporters.
“I think the roots of his approach to [the Supreme Court] go back to the early days of the Republican primary when he is trying to consolidate the support of conservatives,” York said. “And he’s got Ted Cruz, whose argued a bunch of cases before the Supreme Court, he’s got governors, he’s got a lot of people who have experience in government and law running against him, and Trump is extremely sensitive to the reactions of audiences.”
York believes that Trump’s perceptiveness of public opinion will be helpful in keeping him true to his word when it comes to filling Supreme Court seats.
“He loves the rallies. He really notices, ‘Do they go for this?,’ ‘Do they not go for this?,’ ‘Did they sit on their hands when I talked about this?,’ and ‘They went crazy when I talked about this!’”
York said that Trump picked up on the interest Republicans had in the primary about the future of the Supreme Court. The way he consolidated support, according to York, was to publicly release a list of judges that he said he would appoint.
In May, Trump announced that list, then in September, he released a more extensive list. During the final presidential debate in October, Trump said he would “be appointing pro-life judges.”
Confirming those judicial nominees might pose challenges, however. Even with a Republican president and a Republican-controlled Senate, Democrats could still mount a fight against Trump’s nominees using procedural tactics such as the filibuster.
Michael Mukasey, a former U.S. attorney general under President George W. Bush, is confident that this will not be the case.
“Although it is certainly not unprecedented for a nominee not to be voted on when there is a change in an administration, it is unusual to the point of being unprecedented for them to try to block any confirmation,” Mukasey said. “That is a political loser from their standpoint.”
While the Supreme Court is one of the most important issues facing the Trump administration, John Yoo, professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said it’s not the only issue.
“It’s not just Supreme Court justices that are important,” Yoo said. “It is also who the attorney general is [and] how the Trump administration is going to interpret and enforce federal law.”
Yoo said that would “have much more of an immediate importance about the Constitution than who he appoints to the Supreme Court.”
Even though Republicans won big on Election Day, Goldberg urged conservatives to remain vigilant and hold leaders accountable.
“Once the honeymoon is over, conservatives need to be set up in a situation where [Trump] has to deal with us and get our approval on the important things,” Goldberg said.
“The peaceful transfer of power is one of the hallmarks of our democracy,” Obama said, reminding Americans “we’re actually all on the same team.”
In a sweeping victory that has stunned the pundits, New York construction billionaire Donald Trump has won the presidency of the United States of America.
Many Americans feel that neither candidate is a good choice, so it really doesn’t matter which one you vote for. They feel that not voting is as valid as voting. All untrue.
Former President Bill Clinton’s top aide wrote in 2012 that Chelsea Clinton used Clinton Foundation resources “for her wedding and life for a decade” and a top Foundation donor was responsible for “killing” unfavorable press coverage – all as an internal Foundation audit uncovered numerous conflicts of interest and “quid pro quo benefits,” according to emails released Sunday by WikiLeaks.
The FBI’s investigation into the Clinton Foundation that has been going on for more than a year has now taken a “very high priority,” separate sources with intimate knowledge of the probe tell Fox News.
Another leaked email has emerged showing Democratic National Committee boss and former CNN contributor Donna Brazile sharing a debate question in advance with the Hillary Clinton campaign — despite Brazile’s persistent claims to the contrary.
The FBI announced Friday it had uncovered news emails related to its investigation of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton‘s handling of classified information while conducting a separate investigation into the pervy sexting habits of former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner. Weiner of course is the estranged husband of Hillary’s closest aide, Huma Abedin who herself figures prominently in Clinton’s email scandals.
PORTLAND, Ore. – 
Here’s a rundown of what’s been revealed so far from the continuing release by Wikileaks of Clinton campaign emails. (This is an update of an earlier compilation.)
The state of Utah is historically a solid red state, its heavily Mormon population identifying best with the pro-Christian, pro-life, limited government and spending philosophies of the Republican party. This election year, however, the voters of the state of Utah appear to be enamored of the idea of a protest vote, wherein they demonstrate their dislike for the superficially flawed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump by voting for independent third-party candidate Evan McMullin.
Early results from their final debate are in, and Donald Trump remains barely ahead of Hillary Clinton in the White House Watch.
American education is failing thousands of students every year. But this crisis is not just about poor scores in math and reading. It is a deeper failure, leaving entire generations of Americans without the most basic knowledge of the country’s past and its civic institutions.
I had planned on taking a day off from the blog, but developments with the Wikileaks email dump obliged me to stay on the job. Late last night a friend informed me that Julian Assange’s internet access had been disrupted. Let me give you a bit of background on Assange and Wikileaks. Julian Assange is an Australian citizen, computer programmer by occupation, who created the organization known as Wikileaks. Since its inception over ten years ago, Wikileaks has been dedicated to hacking into private government and business computer systems, and releasing to the public confidential information. The organization claims no political bias, and only releases information that it decides is in the public interest. You may recall that former U.S. Army soldier Bradley Manning was Court-martialed for sharing Top Secret military intelligence with Assange and Wikileaks. While Wikileaks was making a name for itself in the Bradley Manning affair, Assange found himself in “unrelated” difficulty with the Swedish police. Two women accuse Assange of sexual assault, relating to the time period that Assange was living in Sweden. Assange, who was in England when the accusations became public, has been hiding out at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London in order to avoid extradition to Sweden to face trial. While he has been holed up in the Embassy of Ecuador, Assange has continued to control Wikileaks. In fact, Assange claimed that Wikileaks had hacked into Hillary Clinton’s server when she was Secretary of State, and that Wikileaks intended to release these emails in October, just prior to the U.S. presidential election.
When October rolled around, and Wikileaks started releasing Clinton emails, the U.S. media was busy giving airtime and legitimacy to a string of slanderous, false stories about Donald Trump. A number of us noted with anger the “coincidental” timing of the stories about Trump, but we also realized that the media could not distract the American public forever. The Wikileaks emails would eventually be disseminated, and barring any unforeseen developments, the release would take place before the November election. Imagine my surprise when I discovered Sunday night, that Assange’s email access had been disconnected, just prior to the release of another batch of emails. Wikileaks, which claims to have other methods of sharing the emails, announced that Assange’s access was terminated by the government of Ecuador. I have also read that the CIA was involved, but I doubt the verac
A senior State Department official proposed a “quid pro quo” to convince the FBI to strip the classification on an email from Hillary Clinton’s server – and repeatedly tried to “influence” the bureau’s decision when his offer was denied, even taking his plea up the chain of command, according to newly released FBI documents.
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