(Photographer: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Missouri Attorney General Andy Bailey has outdone himself this time. He’s managed to think up a Supreme Court case so batguano insane that it didn’t even occur to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
He’s left a flaming bag of dogshit on the Chief Justice’s doorstep — just a little thank you note for legalizing bribery on Monday.
Styled as a Motion for Leave to File a Bill of Complaint, Bailey asks the Supreme Court of the United States to intervene in a state criminal matter so that Donald Trump can call in troll storms on court staff and the presiding judge’s family.
“Missouri seeks modest relief: a stay of New York’s gag order and impending sentence against Donald J. Trump during the 2024 Presidential election season so Missourians can participate in the election free from New York’s exercise of coercive power limiting the ability of Trump to campaign,” he writes, adding that “This modest request imposes no harm on the State of New York, but it ensures that voters in Missouri and across America are able to make their voices heard this November without one State interfering with the ability of everybody else to hear a major-party candidate campaign.”
Has Trump been halted from campaigning? We have just endured ten days of endless stories about how vigorous and manly his lies were compared to sickly Biden’s frail truths. Who exactly is being deprived of the right to listen to Donald Trump, the king of unearned media?
The so-called motion is a tour de force of public self-gratification, spewing right-wing talking points as if they were established facts.
“Bragg’s criminal charges are only the latest example in an eight-year pattern of lawfare brought against Trump. A full account is far too lengthy to include here, so a brief snapshot is provided instead,” he intones ominously, before waxing lyrical about John Durham, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Robert Mueller, Crossfire Hurricane, and of course Hunter Biden’s laptop. Then he repeats the lies about the very prosecutor Trump has been barred from targeting, as well as Justice Merchan’s daughter.
How could there possibly be standing for the Missouri attorney general to interfere in a prosecution by the District Attorney in Manhattan?
Well, see …
Missouri’s electors will be chosen by the people of Missouri through a popular vote. These millions of citizens have the same interest in hearing campaign speech, and Missourians have submitted 17 affidavits in this case (attached to the motion to expedite) explaining their interest in listening to Trump’s speech in Missouri. Their interests are harmed by New York’s exercising its coercive authority to limit Trump’s ability to speak and travel.
Missouri can sue on behalf of these individuals as parens patriae.
Finally, New York’s actions interfere with the associational rights of both electors and individual citizens of Missouri.
What does that mean? Try eating a bucket of paint chips while watching Newsmax for 27 hours straight, and it’ll all make perfect sense!
This isn’t Andy Bailey’s first performative lawstunt. We’re talking about a guy who sued Media Matters … a DC entity … in Missouri state court … for aggravated MEAN TO ELON … and then seemed surprised that a federal judge might consider him to have acceded to personal jurisdiction by using a process server in DC to serve a subpoena on Media Matters.
Bailey really has outdone himself this time. Presumably Ken Paxton will have an arrest warrant out for Alvin Bragg by Friday. Charges: TBD.
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.