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One event not really covered here on FR or any of the SCOTUS monitoring sites I visit is the impact of the resignation of Solicitor General Paul Clement a week ago.

Every place I've posted that news, I've been typically getting a response of 'Who is Paul Clement?'. Uh, he's the former Solicitor General who argued on behalf of the US government in DC v. Heller, remember him now?

He was one of Scalia's legal aides working on internship as a young law school graduate and later as Solicitor General argued for the government in Silviera v. Lockyer in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It was a hysterical point against falling down the slippery slope towards legalizing machine guns if the petitioner Silviera should prevail.

Of the few places this news was even mentioned, I had read that there was a rumor that Clement resigned ahead of the finding in DC v. Heller because he'd gotten wind of the internal debate at SCOTUS gleaned from their legal aides as well as what legal references they were researching on behalf of the individual justices.

Sounds like rumor, of course. I can certainly tell you that I don't miss him a bit.

Clement resigned ahead of the finding in DC v. Heller because he'd gotten wind of the internal debate at SCOTUS gleaned from their legal aides as well as what legal references they were researching on behalf of the individual justices.

Do I understand correctly, then, that Clement argued a grabber's brief in Silviera vs. Lockyer?

And is he,then, carrying water for Pres. Bush in arguing such briefs? We know the Bush Administration has twice now -- in Emerson and now in Heller, argued that RKBA is both an individual right, and one that can be regulated out the wazoo. In Heller they're arguing for every restrictive federal gun law ever written. Perhaps DoJ and the Solicitor General think they have a positive obligation to play goalie for every federal law on the books, but I don't buy it.

Further: If Clement is getting inside whispers from the network of Supreme Court clerks, then does that mean he's a Harvard guy tied into Laurence Tribe's intelligence network of former students serving as clerks for the Justices?

Tribe himself has said, all unwillingly, that his reading of 2A is that it's very broad in the rights it confirms to individuals and binds to the States. Is he nevertheless logrolling behind the scenes (and maybe losing, if Clement resigned) for a restrictive ruling that favors the Solicitor General's interpretation of a broad, but infinitely infringible 2A?