Hawaii cites Trump’s recent tweets in urging Supreme Court to reject travel ban appeal

Attorneys for the state of Hawaii on Monday cited President Trump’s recent tweets in urging the Supreme Court not to lift lower court orders blocking the president’s so-called travel ban.

The attorneys, which include Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under former President Barack Obama, said Trump in a series of tweets last week decried how the Department of Justice (DOJ) had submitted a watered-down, “politically correct” version of the order to the Supreme Court, and urged the DOJ to ask for an expedited hearing of the watered-down travel ban before the Supreme Court and seek a much tougher version.

{mosads}“Finally, he claimed that ‘the courts are slow and political,’ but that his Administration was already ‘EXTREME VETTING people coming into the U.S.’” the attorneys said in court documents.

Trump said on June 5 that the DOJ should have fought for his original order.

“The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to [Supreme Court],” he tweeted.

The president also said he’s calling the order what it is — a travel ban.

“People, the lawyers and the courts can call it whatever they want, but I am calling it what we need and what it is, a TRAVEL BAN!” 

The state’s attorneys on Monday asked the justices to deny the emergency requests the administration filed on June 1 asking the court to block the 4th Circuit and Hawaii District Court rulings that halted his revised March 6 order and review its case.

The attorneys argue the order would have long-term, significant consequences.

“As soon as the unconstitutional Order is implemented, our Framers’ greatest fears for this Nation will be realized; the Order will serve as an ominous ‘Beacon on our Coast, warning’ the ‘persecuted and oppressed of every Nation and Religion’ that they must ‘seek some other haven,’” they wrote.