1/ I often write: The only thing I know *for certain* about the future is that it has not happened yet.
Yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling is a perfect example of how much I need to heed my own mantra.
For years, I heard Donald Trump was saying that he was certain that “his Supreme Court justices” . . .
2/ . . . would ride to his rescue. I scoffed at his “stupidity” and “naïveté”, confident that he did not understand how Supreme Court justices worked. I felt comfortable that “conservative” Justices would care more about their jurisprudence and institution than protecting one man. I thought SCOTUS
3/ . . . would deny cert. and leave the DC Circuit’s opinion in place. I was wrong.
I thought that SCOTUS would quickly dispatch of Trump’s appeal, perhaps in tandem with deciding the Insurrection Clause challenge to Trump’s candidacy. I was wrong.
I thought that even if though there . . .
4/ . . . was delay, that only meant that one or two Justices (likely Alito and/or Thomas) were doing Trump’s dirty work by withholding their dissents to the last possible minute, in order to make it impossible for Judge Chutkan to conduct the trial before Election Day. I was wrong.
To be fair to you (and me), before this opinion I’d say SCOTUs wasn’t making any “I’ll do anything for Trump” moves — they didn’t intervene in the 2020 election and rejected some other outrageous demands. This was a huge huge jump in the depth of the tank they are in.
“gratuitying the judges.” Bribes are passe.
RVs, Bali vacations, jet rides to vacations at private ski and hunting lodges took place AFTER whatever. It’s all very legit.
the six judges ruled for Snyder because they can now point to it and say, ‘well, that mayor did it. And we said that was legal.’
These men always believe Nixon should have gotten away with his crimes. That is their literal origin story. That is BORK BORK BORK that they scream like muppets at us.
This is the least surprising ruling in the history of Bork Bork Republicans.
To also be fair to you both, we are in a profession that inherently requires some belief in the rule of law. The concepts of ethics and justice also often play a part, despite all our cynicism.
With that as our foundation, I think we can be forgiven for not seeing this coming.
I understand you not seeing this coming, but I trust you'll understand that I'm re-evaluating some of my other expert-informed opinions, e.g. whether a given Res is RICO.
I do wonder if the Clarence Thomas bribes expose was a trigger for the rest of them to realise that there were no penalties for doing whatever the hell they wanted. "Well damn, if it's gonna be that sort of party..."
I've seen it stated elsewhere that Roberts had said that the Supreme Court gets to decide what is and isn't covered, which struck me as suggesting a power grab for judicial supremacy. But I may be far wrong.
I haven't heard other experts talk about what a baseline Roberts court ruling on presidential immunity would have looked like in a non-Trump world. I'm with everyone else in horror, but the possibility that this is fairly close to their pre-Trump opinions anyway has occurred to me. Any thoughts?
It's possible that Roberts and one or two others were motivated more by being in the tank for Nixon than devotion to Trump per se, but the result is the same
I think they are probably implicated, or perhaps being blackmailed. And they know what Trump is guilty of, or at least some of their patrons, do and it's pretty bad stuff.
It's simpler than that. They want power for their faction, so they just took it.
"It's our country now. You have to kill us to take it back. And by the way, its legal for our guy to kill you."
I hope Biden and other leading Dems understand this.
