Not even remotely a surprising conclusion.
What is surprising (to me at least)… is that Bill Barr had to be ordered by a United States District Court not to try such a brazenly unlawful waste of the taxpayers’ money. He clearly knows better.
Here are all of the 61 well reasoned pages, out of Manhattan’s USDC Judge Lewis Kaplan, and a bit of the juicier parts:
…The holding that the president of the United States is not an “employee of the Government,” as Congress defined that term, is sufficient to resolve the government’s motion. But the parties have briefed also the question of whether, if the president is a government employee, President Trump’s allegedly defamatory statements were made within the scope of his employment. And it is appropriate to address that issue as well in order to avoid the possibility of an unnecessary remand should a higher court disagree on the “employee” question….
[E]xcept for the payment of a salary, not one of the five factors relied upon by D.C. courts to determine whether a master-servant relationship exists is satisfied here. The president is selected by the electoral college, not the executive branch or any part of it. The government does not have the power to discharge him in any circumstances, unless one construes impeachment, or removal under the Twenty-Fifth Amendment, as forms of discharge. And while commenting on the operation of government is part of the regular business of the United States, commenting on sexual assault allegations unrelated to the operation of government is not….
The “decisive” factor, however, is the fourth and most important: control. The president is the chief executive of the United States government. No one, inside or outside of the executive branch, has “the power to control the [president’s] conduct.” That conclusion is found in the first sentence of the president’s job description. Under Article II of the Constitution, “[t]he executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.”112 As Justice Scalia explained in his famous dissent in Morrison v. Olson, 113 “this does not mean some of the executive power, but all of the executive power….”
No one [need] give him permission to speak. No one can require him to say, or not to say, anything at all. No one has the authority to cut him off. And the statements he makes, as well as the topics he discusses, are entirely of his own choosing.
These points are clearer still on the facts of this case. No one even arguably directed or controlled President Trump when he commented on the plaintiff’s accusation, which had nothing to do with the official business of government, that he raped her decades before he took office. And no one had the ability to control him. President Trump is not a “servant” controlled by a “master” within the meaning of the District of Columbia’s scope of employment doctrine. Thus, his allegedly defamatory statements were not “actuated, at least in part, by a purpose to further the master’s business.” He was not acting within the scope of his employment when he made them, and [Bill Barr’s] certification under the Westfall Act was erroneous….
Only about seven more days of this insanity, now. What a completely… matched pair of little piggies.
नमस्ते
