Obamacare architect
Jonathan Gruber is set to testify before a House committee on Tuesday, and Judge Andrew Napolitano says his words are likely to pose only a political problem for those involved — unless it turns out those involved includes the Justice Department.
Gruber will face grilling by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee over recently uncovered videos of him saying that the Affordable Care act was sold to the public based on its ignorance of economics.
Appearing Monday on Fox News Channel's
"Your World with Neil Cavuto," the Fox News legal analyst said that if Justice was involved in using Gruber's arguments to the Supreme Court it could become a legal problem for the government and the High Court could then reconsider its 2012 ruling on the individual mandate.
"If the court relied on a trick that was put in the document in order to trick the court, they will want to re-examine their decision immediately," Napolitano said.
The case hinged on whether the individual mandate could be considered a tax. Gruber argued publicly that it was not, but government lawyers argued that it was. Gruber is seen on tape admitting the writers of the bill knew it was a tax all along, but that the language of the bill was intentionally ambiguous.
"Selling legislation cannot be the basis for undoing the legislation," the judge said, "unless those sales pitches, again, made their way to the Justice Department, and the Justice Department made – knowingly or unknowingly – material mispresentations to the court."