Texas will ultimately turn into a 'lynch mob' and 'vigilante justice': former Obama lawyer
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace about what Texas will become in the wake of the draconian law that will allow any person to sue someone for aiding in an abortion, former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal said that it would lead to a "lynch mob" mentality among Texas residents.
"The whole point, Nicolle, is to prevent vigilante justice, to have a sense of rules, rights and obligations that can't be taken away by the lynch mob," he said. "We're not going to let state officials enforce this, just your neighbor or anyone down the street can just sue you if they think you had anything to do with an abortion. And the Supreme Court, five justices, notably not the Chief Justice, but, you know, the other Republican nominees on the court, all said, yeah, that's fine."
Katyal said that anti-abortion conservatives may be excited about this, but this kind of law could present some strange unintended consequences.
"Let's say New York passes a law that says everyone who -- anyone can sue anyone who has a gun even in their home even for self-defense, something this Supreme Court said is protected by the Second Amendment," he continued. "We can enable these lawsuits. There's no logical stopping point for this kind of madness and it's fundamentally antithetical to what it is all about."
Wallace applied the logic to people getting the COVID vaccine, saying that there could easily be a law that mandates someone get the shot before going inside a restaurant or that anyone defying a mask mandate could be sued.
"Would this Supreme Court hold that up?" she asked.
"I think the logic of the decision last night is absolutely," said Katyal. "Now there are questions would they be consistent with their prior principles and so on, but you can cut and paste -- it's a great point. You can cut and paste and apply it to your COVID situation and, yeah, we can have these kinds of vigilante lawsuits."
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