Clinton Campaign Plotted To Threaten Supreme Court Over ObamaCare Ruling

Here's an interesting bit from the latest trove of Clinton campaign emails leaked out Thursday morning: Clinton operatives were conspiring in June 2015 on how to best threaten the Supreme Court to rule their way in King v. Burwell, the case that could have effectively ended ObamaCare.

On June 2, 2015, Neera Tanden, the president of the leftist Center for American Progress, emailed Clinton advisor Jake Sullivan her thoughts on how to put the most pressure on the Supreme Court to rule in favor of ObamaCare.

Basically, she wrote, scaring the Court would be the best tactic:

As Jennifer will remember, it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court, warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off.

Tanden went on to strategize that the campaign would have to make the Supreme Court aware of “negative political consequences to ruling against the government,” which it could do by planting stories about how Clinton would turn the Supreme Court into an election issue:

Therefore, I think it would be helpful to have a story of how progressives and Hillary would make the Supreme Court an election issue (which would be a ready argument for liberals) if the Court rules against the government. It's not that you wish that happens. But that would be the necessary consequence of a negative decision...the Court itself would become a hugely important political issue.

“We can get that story started,” Tanden helpfully suggested, but acknowledged it “rests on you guys to make it stick.” In subsequent emails on the thread, Jennifer Palmieri (communications director) approved of the approach, while Brian Fallon (press secretary) offered his help in getting the story out there.

The message to the Supreme Court? Vote against us, and you'll regret it.

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