Thread by @MatthewStiegler

My reading of Justice Alito's statement for himself & Justice Thomas seems to be a minority view, but I disagree, at least tentatively, w those who think the Court's ruling was really a 9-0 defeat for Trump & that Alito was saying he'd reject the suit. 1/

https://twitter.com/benjaminwittes/status/1337547874285088771

The order stated that the Court denied for lack of standing Texas's motion for leave to file the suit.

Alito w Thomas made a "Statement" which said that in his view, the Court doesn't have discretion to deny leave to file this kind of suit. So, they disagreed w the Court. 2/

Here's where it gets hazy.

Alito then said, "I would therefore grant the motion to file the bill of complaint but would not grant other relief, and I express no view on any other issue." 3/

What does "would not grant other relief mean?" What does "any other issue mean?"

The majority view, including plenty of folks smarter than me, appears to be that it means that Alito/Thomas agree that Trump loses, they just think he loses on the merits instead. 4/

That is, they think "would not grant other relief" means would not ultimately rule in Trump's favor. 5/

I read it differently. In my reading, Alito is saying that he'd hear the case ("grant the motion") and that he expresses no view on who would win the case ("any other issue"). 6/

So what about "would not grant other relief?" I believe that refers to the other up-front stuff Texas asked for, basically a court order blocking the 4 states from pushing ahead while the case was pending. 7/

Basically, since Alito thinks the Court shouldn't reject the suit in the first place, then he has to reach the other initial questions that the majority never got to. That all I read Alito to be referring to. 8/

If everyone else were right that all 9 agreed that Trump loses, I suspect pretty strongly that the form of the order would have made that clear. There is zero chance that the Court failed to understand that this the sort of moment where unanimity would matter. 9/

(I see people are responding to earlier tweets in this thread but I haven't read them yet, sorry)

I've also seen a variation of the prevailing view, which is that Alito was denying the suit *in effect* even if he didn't quite say so. 10/

The view, if I understand it, is that with the TRO/PI request denied the suit was doomed because events would render it moot, so Alito intended his position to be fatal to Trump's suit, too. 11/

I don't know enough to say whether the suit was doomed to be tossed on mootness grounds if the Court agreed to hear it without granting the PI/TRO. I'll assume so.

I just don't read that dismissal as implicit in Alito's cryptic sentence. 12/

I wish I agreed with everyone else. My view is that a firm 9-0 smackdown defeat of this trash would have been best for the country. I just don't believe that Alito and Thomas gave it to us. /end