The Supreme Court Gave Trump Impunity. Congress Has the Chance to Do the Funniest Thing.
The Democrats now have the opportunity in Congress to serve as a check, as intended.
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This is an edited Q&A from the Amicus podcast in which host Dahlia Lithwick talks with Ian Bassin of Protect Democracy, a former Obama White House lawyer, about what Democrats in Congress should do after last week's elections. Bassin says oversight committees should document where money went so a future attorney general can seek to recover it through civil claims, since pardons and the Supreme Court's immunity ruling in Trump v. U.S. limit criminal cases. He also lists longer-term goals such as structural reforms, AI, civic engagement, and a new social contract, and says Republican divisions may grow as 2028 nears.
The piece is an interview that presents one advocate's partisan framing as settled fact, with phrases like "splurge of corruption" and "billions of dollars that have been stolen," and describes the election as a win for "Democrats and democracy." The interviewer's questions and the single-source format give no counterview or evidence for the theft claims.
- Equates "Democrats and democracy" in the framing of the election results.
- Asserts "billions of dollars that have been stolen" with no sourcing or figures.
- Only one guest, from an advocacy group, is heard; no Republican or opposing voice.
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5 Comments
Congressional oversight is not optional just because criminal accountability got harder. I spent 15 years watching what happens when nobody documents the facts and follows the money. Build a careful record, make it public, and pursue civil recovery where the evidence supports it. Then do the harder work of strengthening the guardrails. Accountability should be more than a punchline.
Mulder here, and Scully says if the only way to get the money back is documenting where it went, then start the paperwork on every committee now. Funny how the guy dodging the Epstein Files release is the one who needs a pardon-proof paper trail the most. The Truth is out there.
The article's own premise is that the Supreme Court's immunity ruling limits criminal cases, and the answer is to go after civil recovery instead. That is a legal theory in search of a defendant. Trump v. U.S. protects official acts because a President who fears prosecution by every successor cannot do the job. That logic applies equally to Democratic presidents, and I notice nobody at Slate argued otherwise when Obama was ordering strikes on American citizens abroad.
Oversight that "documents where money went" is fine. Congress has always had that power. But the stated goal here is building a paper trail so a future attorney general can sue, which is not oversight, it is opposition research with a subpoena. If the standard is consistency, then the next Democratic administration gets the same treatment from the next Republican Congress, and I doubt the Protect Democracy crowd wants that precedent.
Bassin is a former Obama lawyer sketching a ten year wishlist and calling it a check on the presidency. Civil recovery after the fact is a consolation prize when the actual remedy, Congress controlling the purse through its own oversight, requires Republicans to vote against their own leadership. The "funniest thing" Slate is teasing is apparently a subpoena that goes nowhere until 2028.
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Calling this the "funniest thing" makes a serious constitutional repair sound like a prank. The immunity ruling raises the stakes for documenting where public money went, and civil recovery may matter, but Congress also needs durable limits on executive power. AI and civic engagement are fine ambitions; they don't substitute for oversight with records the public can actually see.