This will be short, I just saw that the Supreme Court just declined to review the DC Court of Appeals ruling on part of the William Jefferson brouhaha.
From the NYT:
The ruling that the Supreme Court declined to review held that the F.B.I.’s use of a "filter team" to examine the evidence from the Congressman’s office to determine what was clearly legislative, and therefore out of bounds, was not adequate to protect Congress’s constitutional right to operate without interference from the executive branch.
It only applied to the paper searching, as far as I can tell, so Jefferson is not cleared. My interest in this is not in Jefferson, however, but what this might mean for the unitary executive theory.
I'll preference this quick little analytical thought by saying I'm not a legal type, I'm a scientist by trade, so this will be more "my thoughts" than an actual analysis.
This particular aspect of the case was a separation of powers issue. The Appeals Court ruling held that the FBI search was illegal. So if the Supremes declined to review it that means they are not necessarily going to go whole hog into the unitary executive bog that many fear they will do if given the chance over FISA and/or the Justice Dept firings.
Given especially that this case was essentially giftwrapped for the SCOTUS to take this issue on and rule in favor of the admin (potentially legal gray area, not directly to do with hot-button issues i mentioned above, and taking down a dem), the Court's declining to even review this question leads me to believe there isn't enough support yet among the Justices to bow to Bush on this idea.
It seems like there is a great fear to try and bring things like the FISA suits and Justice Dept Attorneys General firing shenanigans before the Court because they would likely set precedent for the unitary executive idea. This decision could be a signal that we don't quite have to fear this yet.
I could be being a bit too hopeful and not sharp enough to really understand the meaning here behind the Court's refusal to review, but I'd really like this to be a good sign. Hopefully one of our more legally-minded FPers will take this up.
UPDATE: Thank you all for input. I definitely jumped the gun on this one. I do know enough about the SCOTUS to know that one single (and relatively ambiguous, like this) move by them hardly a snowstorm makes and should've remembered that before I got all hyped up.