that the whole project is at serious and maybe fatal risk if trump is imprisoned or loses in the fall and that conservatives on the court have a duty to try to prevent that any way they can, through the most motivated reasoning they can conjure.
I think this is true *and yet* this is not the most careful decision of its type he could have crafted to look reasonable! I’d guess it’s the most careful one he could craft without the other five ditching him and going way further.
She concurred with the idea that there's a difference been official and unofficial acts and that presidents have immunity from the former, but she agreed with Sotomayor about how absurd it is to say that all *official communications* are similarly protected, even when they further a conspiracy to 1/
So, then the question becomes, if the other 4 conservatives had lost Roberts, would she be the fifth vote with him and the liberals? Or would such a coalition not even have a possible consensus?
I don't think the liberals wanted to go as far as Barrett/Roberts did in immunizing the president from prosecution for official acts. Roberts did seem genuinely concerned about every president prosecuting his or her predecessor over political decisions.
Frankly, I think that's silly, and I'd rather have an executive branch that's feeling restrained by this prospect than one that feels emboldened by immunity.
I would imagine a president not wanting to invite prosecution from his successor is enough to prevent him from frivolously prosecuting his predecessor, and as evidence id point to all of history.
My read is they don't have a path through they're all on board with right now, which is not to say they won't find the same page when the lower court sends as standard up to them to rip up, but also you can see cracks running through their alliance
