Justice Brett Kavanaugh drops panicky dissent over 'mess' court made for Trump

In his dissent after a 6-3 majority clamped down on Donald Trump’s ability to bypass Congress and levy tariffs on a whim, Justice Brett Kavanaugh went beyond a legal and historical precedent argument and instead worried how the current administration will cope with the adverse ruling.

Kavanaugh, a Trump appointee, wrote a dissent where he broke with conservative Justices John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch and complained that the court did not consider the implications of how the Trump administration will refund the ill-gotten tariff money.

He wrote, “So the Court’s decision is not likely to greatly restrict Presidential tariff authority going forward. But the Court’s decision is likely to generate other serious practical consequences in the near term.”

“One issue will be refunds,” he predicted. “Refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the U. S. Treasury. The Court says nothing today about whether, and if so how, the Government should go about returning the billions of dollars that it has collected from importers.”

Recalling when the case was presented to the sitting court, he added, “But that process is likely to be a ‘mess,’ as was acknowledged at oral argument.”

You can read the entire 107-page document here.