During a Senate Judiciary subcommittee this Tuesday, University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Kate Shaw (who also happens to be the wife of MSNBC's Chris Hayes), tried to explain to Sen. Josh Hawley that there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all of the court injunctions against Trump that they're so unhappy about:
Hawley, during the Senate Judiciary joint subcommittee hearing, presented a graph showing that the number of injunctions issued against Trump is far higher than other recent U.S. presidents.
“You don’t think this is a little bit anomalous?” Hawley asked University of Pennsylvania Law School professor Kate Shaw.
“A very plausible explanation, senator, you have to consider is that he [Trump] is engaged in much more lawless activity than other presidents, right,” Shaw said. “You must concede that as a possibility.”
Hawley argued that nationwide injunctions, which judges have issued in recent months to temporarily halt or slow down the actions of the executive branch, had not been used before the 1960s and that “suddenly Democrat judges decide we love the nationwide injunction, and then when Biden comes into office, no, no.”
Shaw, a Supreme Court contributor for ABC News, noted that Republican-appointed justices have also imposed injunctions against the administration and added that the 1960s was “where some scholars begin — sort of locate the beginning of this.”
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“The federal government was doing a lot less until 100 years ago,” Shaw said. “There’s many things that have changed in the last 100 or the last 50 years.”
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The Missouri senator also asked, “How can our system of law survive on those principles, professor?”
“I think a system in which there are no constraints on the president is a very dangerous system,” Shaw responded.
PBS posted more of the exchange which you can watch below. Shaw did a great job when she managed to get a word in edgewise, since Hawley interrupted and talked over her for the better part of his time. Sen. Blumenthal also gave Shaw some of his time to finish some of the responses she was not allowed to give to Hawley.
