A decision to send Solicitor General John Sauer to defend an executive order signed by Donald Trump before the Supreme Court this week was a massive mistake that could haunt the president going forward.
That is the opinion of conservative lawyer George Conway who appeared on MSNBC's "The Weekend" Saturday morning where he was asked to weigh in by co-hosts Jonathan Capehart, Eugene Daniels and fill-in host María Teresa Kumar.
Discussing Trump's attempts to undermine birthright citizenship enshrined by the 14th Amendment, Conway asserted the DOJ used the wrong case at the wrong time.
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"This is the worst possible case and that was Justice [Elena] Kagan, former Solicitor General Kagan's point," he began. "To bring up to the Supreme Court on the procedural technical issue of when you can issue a nationwide injunction."
"You want to go up on a case where you're going to you have a chance of winning, where the court thinks that, ultimately, your position is right," he stated.
"So why did they bring this case?" co-host Daniels asked.
"Donald Trump!" Conway immediately shot back.
"Because you, let's say you work for Donald Trump," he proposed. "You're the solicitor general, okay? And you want to go and say 'Donald Trump, look. I won something for you!' okay? Because you don't want to go and see the president and say and explain, like, 'Well, we lost. Because you took a stupid.effing position.' That wouldn't go over very well."
He later cited conservative Justice Amy Comey Barrett putting Sauer on the spot, saying she was, "... looking at John Sauer like he had a hole in his head. Like, you know, basically, she's was asking, 'OK, let's say you lose the case. Are you going to obey it in the next case?' And he's like, 'Well, generally.' And basically, the answer is we're going to do whatever the heck we want. And they realize that killing nationwide injunctions, killing universal injunctions, at this moment in time, is just the prescription for utter chaos and lawlessness."
You can watch below or at the link.