Two myths of modern political life absorbed major blows yesterday.
The first is the myth that Donald Trump is a highly competent business titan -- a myth that was cultivated on the reality game show The Apprentice and allowed Trump to achieve a dubious victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, a campaign that likely was aided by Vladimir Putin and Russia.
The second myth is that the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) can be trusted to abide by the rule of law and its own precedent.
An appellate judge in New York blew up the first myth when, according to a report from Associated Press (AP), he "refused to halt collection of Donald Trump’s $454-million civil-fraud penalty while he appeals, rejecting the former president’s request that he be allowed to post a bond covering just a fraction of what he owes.
In the second instance, SCOTUS blew up its own myth by deciding to hear Trump's presidential-immunity case. From an AP report:
The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to decide whether former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on charges he interfered with the 2020 election, calling into question whether his case could go to trial before the November election. While the court set a course for a quick resolution, it maintained a hold on preparations for a trial focused on Trump’s efforts to overturn his election loss. The court will hear arguments in late April, with a decision likely no later than the end of June.
The second item is by far the more troubling of the two. Why? There is no such thing in American law as presidential immunity, so there is no reason for an honest court to hear the case. But the SCOTUS' decision to hear Trump's immunity claim, which has zero support in American law, is the latest evidence that this court is not honest -- and the justices are determined to give Trump all kinds of breaks that might allow him to be unlawfully elected president in November.
The issue before the court in Trump's immunity case could not be more simple. Perhaps no one has put it more succinctly tha longtime Alabama attorney Donald Watkins, who has tried some of the nation's best-known cases in criminal-defense and civil-rights law. He also has become a leading voice in online investigative journalism.
From a Legal Schnauzer post dated Feb. 6, 2024, under the headline "Criminal-defense expert: Trump's attempt to have appeals court grant him immunity was doomed from the outset, which former president should have known":
Donald V. Watkins, longtime Alabama attorney and one of the nation's foremost authorities on criminal defense (see here and here), says Donald Trump's attempt to have a court declare that absolute immunity shielded him from prosecution for alleged criminal acts committed while he served his first term as president (2017-2021) was an exercise in futility. That's because no provision of law allowed the D.C. Circuit Court to grant the relief Trump was seeking. In short, Trump's complaint was little more than a glorified "snipe hunt," which he is expected to continue by filing an appeal with the U.S. Supreme Court. -- even though there is little chance the result will change.
Under the headline "D.C. Appeals Court: There is No Presidential Immunity for Criminal Acts," Watkins writes:
Today, a federal court of appeals in Washington confirmed for the public what most competent lawyers knew all along – there is no such thing in U.S. law as presidential immunity for criminal acts.
None of the 46 U.S. presidents has ever enjoyed such immunity.
Presidential immunity for criminal acts is not authorized in the U.S. Constitution. It is not authorized in any federal statute. It is not authorized in the Code of Federal Regulations.
Such an immunity claim is merely a figment of Donald Trump’s imagination. This was a “bullshit” legal argument when it was first asserted by Trump’s lawyers.
We are NOT running a monarchy in America. There is no King, Queen, or Emperor, who is above in law.
This is how Richard Painter, former chief White House ethics counsel for the George W. Bush administration, puts it: "There is a substantial chance Trump is being blackmailed by Putin."
Why would anyone question the integrity of SCOTUS justices based on their recent actions? Let's consider our reporting on oral arguments for Trump's ballot-disqualification case out of Colorado. In a post dated Feb. 8, 2024, we wrote under the headline "Breaking the Law: The Constitution says Trump, as an insurrectionist on January 6, cannot run for president, but SCOTUS justices seem just fine with the idea":
As we have reported, two big questions hung over today's oral arguments in the ballot-access case involving Republican frontrunner Donald Trump and Colorado: (1) Did Trump engage in an insurrection or rebellion on Jan. 6? (2) Does SCOTUS, in its current disheveled state, have the courage and integrity to apply constitutional law correctly?
After today's oral arguments, the answer to both questions appears to be no. That means Trump, clearly an insurrectionist based on the events of Jan. 6, 2021, will get a free pass into the general election -- and maybe beyond. That leaves us with this problem: Anyone connected to the legal profession is unlikely to say it -- but I'm a journalist, not a lawyer, so I will say it -- this morning's oral arguments signal that we have a compromised U.S. Supreme Court. And that is a polite way of saying some, maybe all, of the justices, are crooked -- so much so that they cannot rule correctly on a simple provision of law -- Section 3, 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. A first-year law student should be able to get that right. That the SCOTUS justices apparently are not going to get it right -- suggests to me that they are acting intentionally, meaning they probably had determined how they were going to rule on this case before the first word was spoken this morning.
What does that mean? For one, it means Trump, who incited, or engaged in, an insurrection or rebellion on Jan. 6 -- with millions of Americans watching on television -- would be put in charge of the very government he sought to obstruct. That is the very thing Section 3 is designed to prevent; it would be like putting Jefferson Davis, president of the Confederacy, in charge of the post-Civil War U.S. government. That is a prospect that should trouble all Americans, no matter their political leanings.
Not only is presidential immunity nonexistent, Trump's arguments on the issue were weak, according to lawyers who have reviewed the briefs. From our post of Feb. 14, 2024, under the headline "'Really bizarre' and 'poorly written': That's the verdict from experts who reviewed documents from Trump's effort to receive presidential immunity":
Legal analysts, who have reviewed briefs in Donald Trump's presidential-immunity case, say the former president presents weak arguments -- even calling the brief "poorly written" and "really bizarre -- that should not prevail on the merits if the case reaches the nation's highest court. That, of course, is assuming the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is willing to rule on the merits -- and that is a big "if", considering SCOTUS already has sent signals that it is prepared to rule contrary to the facts and law in Trump's ballot-disqualification case out of Colorado. That means the U.S. has a deep and entrenched problem with judicial corruption throughout our federal court system, and it might require drastic measures to resolve -- if the American people and their leaders even have the will and interest in resolving it, as opposed to responding with shrugged shoulders. But that is a story for another day.
For now, our focus is on the experts who suggest Trump's immunity claim should quickly go down in flames if it reaches the eyes of SCOTUS justices. If that proves to be the case, it will mean Trump remains on the hook for the four criminal cases on his crowded legal docket -- election interference cases in Washington, D.C., and Georgia, a hush-money case involving porn star Stormy Daniels in New York, and a classified-documents case in Florida.
As for the immunity matter, Salon addresses that issue under the headline "'Really bizarre': Legal experts trash Trump’s 'poorly-written' Supreme Court immunity filing" Writes Senior News Editor Igor Derysh:
Former President Donald Trump on Monday asked the Supreme Court to block a lower-court ruling and allow his D.C. criminal election-subversion case to move forward, echoing his repeatedly rejected argument that he is immune from prosecution.
“Without immunity from criminal prosecution, the presidency as we know it will cease to exist,” Trump’s lawyers claimed in the filing, arguing that if presidents can be charged for actions in office, “such prosecutions will recur and become increasingly common, ushering in destructive cycles of recrimination.”
A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit last week rejected Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution, writing that “we cannot accept that the office of the presidency places its former occupants above the law for all time thereafter.
What happens next? My guess is that SCOTUS will concoct some way to grant immunity, freeing Trump from all of his criminal legal entanglements and allowing a disqualified candidate to remain on ballots, putting him in a general election he could win, which would put a man who tried to obstruct our government in charge of that government. That probably presents grounds to have all 12 justices criminally indicted, but we will have to see if anyone in our broken government has the guts to do that.
Let's review the destruction of myth No. 1 -- the notion that Trump is a business wizard, which is based largely on his ability to read cue cards that somebody else wrote for The Apprentice. For that review let's return to the AP report :
Judge Anil Singh of the state’s mid-level appeals court rejected Trump’s offer of a $100-million bond, though he did give Trump leeway that could help him secure the necessary bond before New York Attorney General Letitia James seeks to enforce the judgment starting March 25.
Singh granted a stay, pausing part of Judge Arthur Engoron’s Feb. 16 verdict that barred Trump, his company. and co-defendants from borrowing money from New York financial institutions. The Republican presidential front-runner’s lawyers had told the appellate court earlier Wednesday that the lending ban had made it impossible for him to secure a bond for the full amount.
Trump’s lawyers warned he may need to sell some properties to cover the penalty and would have no way of getting them back if he is successful in his appeal. State lawyers said those disclosures suggested Trump — who has more than a half-billion dollars in pending court debt — was having trouble coming up with enough cash to foot the bill. The penalty is increasing by nearly $112,000 each day because of interest and will eclipse $455 million on Saturday.
My, how the mighty Trump has fallen in a financial sense. But don't be surprised if a corrupt U.S. Supreme Court creates a path to usher him back into the White House.
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