At 7:30 this morning, House staffers received an email blast from the Sergeant at Arms. Based on what it reads and given that Congress is out of session, it appears that President Trump will be at the Supreme Court hearing on birthright citizenship (Trump v. CASA, Inc.).

For those who are not aware, the interpretation of the 14th Amendment is in question here. President Trump's day one Executive Order 14160 would upend the long-standing view that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, and federal law since 1940 confer citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.

I honestly have not looked into the case all that much, and so I do not feel very qualified in this area. What I can say is that, based on numerous articles I have read from people on the left and the right, the 14th Amendment centered on ensuring Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship. It is written more broadly than just former slaves, and this can be seen with the high court's 1898 ruling in Wong Kim Ark, which held that the U.S.-born child of Chinese nationals was a citizen.

Clearly, coming to the actual oral arguments is something that is being done to apply more pressure to the Supreme Court. Love him or hate him, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts has been doing a hell of a job fighting both the left and the right to maintain the judiciary's independence, and I do not see that changing here. Pressure from the Presidency on the Supreme Court is something that has been growing over the last decade and a half with the first big instance in recent history being President Obama's comments in 2012 after he said the Supreme Court would be taking an “unprecedented, extraordinary step” if it struck down the 2010 Affordable Care Act.