Today in Supreme Court History: October 20, 1973

10/20/1973: The Saturday Night Massacre occurs.

President Richard Nixon

Comments

[Commenter_XY]

Question for VC Conspirators: Was Justice Scalia correct in his Morrison v Olson dissent? Has time proved him correct?

[Dilan Esper]

I think he was. Indeed, I think the Starr investigation proved him correct.

The basic problem is that you only have two real choices on investigating the President: special prosecutors, and Congress. Special prosecutors that the President cannot fire present the Ken Starr problem- the investigation goes on and on for its own sake. (Indeed, even Starr himself admitted this happened.) Congress can conduct impeachment investigations and oversight, and can remove the President if there is bipartisan agreement. Of course, due to partisan polarization, there is never enough bipartisan agreement.

Honestly, even on the state level, you can see the same problem- the recall process California has is supposed to address serious threats like high crimes in office; instead, it's too easy to just force a pointless recall election like the one we just had.

People want perfection, but you can't have perfection. But in the end Scalia was right, because what you don't want is Ken Starr.

[Commenter_XY]

Thx for the great response.