Y’all seeing this? (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
Missouri Attorney General Andy Bailey is the thirstiest public official in the country. If he’s not hanging out with rightwing podcasters, he’s tweeting love notes to Elon Musk. If he’s not threatening Target for making child-sized Pride t-shirts, he’s suing the Biden administration over woke school lunches. And always, always, ALWAYS he’s shilling for Donald Trump.
Toward that end, AG Shitpost staged an absolute banger of a stunt at the Supreme Court last month with a trollsuit demanding that the justices halt New York state’s prosecution of Donald Trump to protect the First Amendment rights of Missouri voters.
“Missouri respectfully submits that the forgoing violations establish considerable harms to voters and electors in Missouri, who will be precluded from fully engaging with and hearing from a major-party Presidential candidate in the run up to the November election,” he wrote, referencing the gag order in Trump’s false business records case which is in place pending sentencing. “These harms are a direct consequence of New York’s calculated, unprecedented decision to prosecute Trump for alleged bookkeeping offenses just months before the Presidential election.” Naturally, Florida, Iowa, Alaska, and Montana filed an amicus brief, because stupid is a deadly contagion.
Bailey requested leave to file a bill of complaint, along with a stay of “any gag order or sentence against Trump until after the November Presidential election.” Then he demanded a preliminary injunction on the theory that “New York’s actions impose a sovereign harm to the ability of Missouri’s 10 electors to exercise their federal authority.” (The huge bong rip is implied.)
The state of New York responded that Missouri wasn’t being harmed, Trump himself was litigating the identical issue in state court, and OMG that’s now how standing works. (The huge eye roll is implied.)
Yesterday the Supreme Court scraped that rancid smear of dogshit off its judicial shoe.
“Missouri’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied, and its motion for preliminary relief or a stay is dismissed as moot,” the Court wrote in a miscellaneous order published Monday. “Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the motion for leave to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief.”
This is presumably a comment on Thomas and Alito’s beliefs about the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction, rather than a comment on the case itself, since the order would appear to suggest that the two conservative justices would have denied Bailey’s requested injunction. That would accord with the order denying Texas AG Ken Paxton relief in a 2020 trollsuit against Pennsylvania seeking to prevent its certification of Biden’s win. Four years ago, Thomas, joined by Alito, wrote, “In my view, we do not have discretion to deny the filing of a bill of complaint in a case that falls within our original jurisdiction.”
And so it’s on to the next trollstunt by Bailey. Or perhaps not! Today he’s facing off in a contested primary against Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Will Scharf, who is being heavily backed by SCOTUS Svengali Leonard Leo. And for all his peacocking, Trump still hasn’t decided on a suitor.
“Missouri has two Highly Respected Candidates running for the important Office of Attorney General, your current A.G., Andrew Bailey, and one of my very talented lawyers in private life, Will Scharf,” he wrote on Truth Social. “Both have fearlessly confronted the Radical Left’s destructive Lawfare and Weaponization of “Justice” with Great Wisdom, Courage, and Strength!”
No honor among thieves!
Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.