Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) has waged several successful legal efforts against the Biden administration and continues to do battle against government overreach. However, his office’s recent effort to intercede regarding the New York criminal case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg against former President Donald Trump has met with rejection.
On July 3, Bailey’s office filed a motion for leave to file a “bill of complaint” against the State of New York in the United States Supreme Court. In the motion, Missouri sought a temporary stay of the gag order and sentencing in Trump’s case in the run-up to the election.
Missouri seeks modest relief: a stay of New York’s gag order and impending sentence against Donald J. Trump during the 2024 Presidential election season so Missourians can participate in the election free from New York’s exercise of coercive power limiting the ability of Trump to campaign.
As set forth in the accompanying brief and complaint, the actions by New York have created constitutional harms that threaten to infringe the rights of Missouri’s voters and electors, namely:
- New York’s gag order and impending sentence unlawfully impede the ability ofelectors to fulfill their federal functions.
- New York’s gag order and impending sentence violate the Purcell principle.
- New York’s gag order and impending sentence violate the First Amendment rights of Missouri citizens to listen to the campaign speech of a specific individual on specific topics.
Missouri respectfully submits that the forgoing violations establish considerable harms to voters and electors in Missouri, who will be precluded from fully engaging with and hearing from a major-party Presidential candidate in the run up to the November election. These harms are a direct consequence of New York’s calculated, unprecedented decision to prosecute Trump for alleged bookkeeping offenses just months before the Presidential election.
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On Monday, however, the Supreme Court issued an order denying Missouri’s motion.
Missouri’s motion for leave to file a bill of complaint is denied, and its motion for preliminary relief or a stay is dismissed as moot. Justice Thomas and Justice Alito would grant the motion for leave to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief.
The order is obviously brief, simply denying the relief requested by the State of Missouri, but does indicate that Justices Thomas and Alito would have granted the motion to file the bill of complaint.
As CNN notes, the effort was somewhat of a longshot.
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey attempted to file the longshot suit against New York in early July, claiming in part that the gag order violated the First Amendment rights of voters in his state to hear Trump speak.
But the case was widely viewed as unlikely to gain traction at the Supreme Court in part because of the sweeping implications of allowing a state to intervene in a pending criminal case unfolding in a different state.
Following the ruling, Bailey issued a statement on Twitter/X, expressing his disappointment with the outcome but vowing to continue efforts to combat Joe Biden’s (and Kamala Harris’s) Department of Justice:
It’s disappointing that the Supreme Court refused to exercise its constitutional responsibility to resolve state v. state disputes.
I will continue to prosecute our lawsuit against @KamalaHarris @JoeBiden’s DOJ for coordinating the illicit prosecutions against President Trump
— Attorney General Andrew Bailey (@AGAndrewBailey) August 5, 2024
