During my junior year in college, 1960–1961, I took the Constitutional Law course given by Dean Leonard W. Levy, one of the country's foremost con law scholars.  In addition to his immense store of knowledge, he acknowledged the wisdom of common sense, noting that the response to Supreme Court decisions may depend on whose ox is gored.  And he advised his students, in writing papers, "Strike while the iron is hot."

This New York Times headline, the lead story for November 23, has gotten my iron hot — and dander up.  The print edition headline for the story: "JUSTICES DECIDE / AGAINST TRUMP / ON TAX RETURNS."  These four words appear below: "WIN FOR HOUSE PANEL." (Here is the headline for the online version.)

This is to suggest that the justices decided not merely "against Trump," but for oppressive, unlimited government.

Did the Supreme Court merely decide against former president Trump, or did the justices decide against due process, legislative legitimacy, regular order in the House of Representatives, indeed, the Constitution itself?  Clearly, and in weeks, months, and years to come, the American spirit of liberty will lead most observers to reflect that the justices did not only decide "against Trump," but also ruled in favor of an irresponsible, totalitarian government.

Invoking Dean Levy's recognition that a vital element of con law is common sense — Occam's Razor, if you will — was the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States "against Trump" based on a palpable fear that adherence to the Constitution's separation of powers principle would send radical, protesting mobs to the homes of the justices over the Thanksgiving Day weekend?  Has the rule of law become tempered by fear of a mob that will not be thwarted by leftist officials?

Consider, please: the high court ruled, in Dobbs, that a right to abortion, created in Roe v. Wade, is nowhere found in the Constitution of the United States.  On November 22, half a year later, the high court stated, effectively, that a house of Congress has a right, found nowhere in the Constitution, to the tax returns of a president of the country.  To boot, the justices bestow such a right on a viciously partisan panel that was established to probe the four-hour disturbance at the Capitol on January 6, 2021 — and not the tax returns of the former president.  Not only should the justices have dismissed the action against Mr. Trump as the fruit of a poisonous House panel, but the Court should have denounced the subpoena demanding tax records as a bill of attainder — and noted that if tax records for a former president are subject to (unlawful) congressional subpoena, who among the people is protected against a tyrannical Legislature serving a dictatorial administration, with SWAT teams sent forth by a thuggish FBI to enforce totalitarian subpoenas?

Just a few days ago, the attorney general named the rabidly anti-MAGA and anti-Trump Jack Smith the special counsel to hound the former president out of the 2024 presidential race.  Now the Supreme Court has given a green light to a faux congressional committee to open a second front against Mr. Trump.  Occam's Razor instructs: these Deep State blows are no coincidence.

May the American spirit of liberty, extolled by Madison in Federalist Paper No. 57, prevail this season of Thanksgiving.

Image via Max Pixel.