Major new right wing revolt against Trump
Even the dark side is rising up against Tariff King Trump. The Koch brothers have been huge supporters of Trump and the right wing for many years, contributing millions of dollars to his campaigns and other right wing causes. However, the imposition of the insane tariffs by Trump has even caused concern with the surviving Koch brother Charles. So Koch and another right-wing influencer billionaire, Leonard Leo, have filed suit against the Trump tariffs.
The chances of success in the lawsuit are good in my view, since federal law provides that Congress has sole authority to control tariffs, which it has done by passing specific tariff statutes. The President has no direct authority to impose tariffs. Of course, King Trump doesn’t seem to care about following the law, so he will likely be overruled by the lower courts and he will no doubt eventually go running to the Supreme Court to decide in his favor.
Normally, Trump would have a good chance of winning in that high court since the conservative majority is in his back pocket. However, one of the parties behind the lawsuit, Leonard Leo, is a big benefactor of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, showering him with various gifts and other benefits. Thomas should recuse himself from the case if it goes up to the Supreme Court. However, he has a proclivity of participating in cases where he has at least an appearance of conflict of interest. It will be interesting to see his posture in the event SCOTUS hears the Koch case.
