Quinta Jurecic: Baude who, by the way, clerked for Roberts, and whose read on what the hell is going on with the conservatives is worth a great deal

Baude who, by the way, clerked for Roberts, and whose read on what the hell is going on with the conservatives is worth a great deal

ignore the hed, this is extremely harsh criticism from the very measured Will Baude of the Court's rulings in the 14th Amendment and immunity cases www.nytimes.com/2024/07/05/o...

Opinion | A Principled Supreme Court, Unnerved by Trumpwww.nytimes.com Most of the court’s decisions were principled and sound — most, but unfortunately not all.

he has been a bit naive about JGR before I think and here he isn't quite willing to make the obvious point that there are six Republicans in the majority clearing the path for the Republican presidential nominee

not saying that anyone is infallible, but it's a useful data point imo

Agreed

I can totally believe Baude believes this but "the court that issued Loper Bright is not merely here to Save Us from Trump Derangement Syndrome" is what I believe the kids call "cope".

s/not/now

Nah, fuck that guy and the paper he wrote in on.

Overcompensating for Trump derangement syndrome? At the DOJ? There’s zero evidence for this This is either not a serious argument, or if based on inside knowledge, an indictment of the conservative majority’s ability to perceive reality

my take was that the conservative majority is just really mad that trump is facing prosecution at all, not because they love trump but because the idea of a Republican president being prosecuted by his liberal successor freaks them out and I guess this is saying something more or less similar

Genuine question: what *is* the worth in a Roberts clerk telling us the Pollyanna view of what's going on with them? We know better than he does!

This is a person who is never going to accept that Roberts did this to improve Trump's odds of wining the election.

Again: Roberts was explicitly lying here. This opinion was very much about Trump, and we should not be led by the nose into thinking otherwise.

arsonists simply don’t have the capacity to be firefighters.

That's to be expected, but it's really disheartening to see people like Quinta, Rick Hasen and Steve Vladeck *also* refusing to acknowledge why Roberts did this. If non-conservative legal pundits and academics don't get it, they're not going to be able to help the public get it.

Baude's podcast is even more revealing on this point. He criticizes the immunity decision on originalist but not consequentialist grounds. He also suggests that prosecuting Trump for the insurrection was unlikely to make a difference to the election or to any president's behavior. Roberts may agree.

The whole point of reaching the conclusion the majority did is that they - Roberts in particular - very much believe prosecuting Trump for insurrection would have made a difference in the election.

Fair. I'll reserve the right to eyeroll at his approval of their historiography though.

Throwing out our system of government because 6 Justices are anti-anti-Trump is the toxic unserious polticis that's killing us.

Calling it a reaction to their perceived Trump derangement syndrome is just a too polite way of saying they don’t think Jan 6 was an insurrection or that we saw the first time in our history where there wasn’t a peaceful transfer of power. Indeed some of them are actively pro insurrection

I had the privilege of studying with Patrick Baude, Professor Baude's father. He was, bar none, the best professor I had in college, grad school, or law school. William Baude's analytical abilities and eloquence come as no surprise at all.

That gets 4 eyerolls.

Thank you. This was a good read.

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