The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has given Donald Trump a short-term gift in his quest to receive presidential immunity for criminal acts he allegedly committed in office, but the high court might wind up costing him down the road. That's from a piece by Joe Patrice (a lawyer and full-time staff member) at the Above the Law (ATL) legal website:
Under the headline "Supreme Court Takes Up Immunity Case, Winning Donald Trump A Battle... Maybe Costing Him The War," Patrice writes:
Richard Nixon once said that if the president does it, it’s not a crime. The Supreme Court didn’t shield Nixon back then, but Richard Nixon didn’t have anyone around to buy Lewis Powell a shiny new RV. Rookie mistake.
The Supreme Court has decided to take up Donald Trump’s claim that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office unless impeached AND convicted of that specific crime by the Senate. Argument is set for April 22 — two months from now — and the criminal trial is paused until the Court ultimately rules, strongly increasing the probability that Trump’s federal criminal fate is pushed past the election.
As we have reported previously, there is no support in the U.S. Constitution, federal statutes, or the Code of Federal Regulations for the kind of immunity Trump seeks. As a matter of law, Trump's appeal must be dead on arrival. So why is SCOTUS hearing it, given that the lawful outcome is a foregone conclusion? Joe Patrice provides his thoughts on that tricky question, and without using the "C" word, essentially calls the court's right-wing justices corrupt -- and he does it FOUR TIMES (bravo, Joe!):
The Supreme Court is unlikely to rule in Trump’s favor, of course. Discovering an absolute presidential immunity ensconced within the penumbra of Article II seems like a stretch even for the most reactionary members of the Court. Though these arguments have never been more than a delay tactic to push his various trials past the election so Trump can — he hopes — retake the presidency and shut down the DOJ. On that front, whatever assemblage of conservative justices who blessed this delay have granted Trump the victory he sought.
But if Trump loses in November… none of this really matters. And it feels like the Court just gave Trump the Pyrrhic victory that he and his supporters lack the classical education to understand.
The justices who granted cert definitely want to help Trump win that election. As The Nation’s Elie Mystal points out, Alito and Thomas don’t want to Ginsburg themselves by rolling into another four years of Joe Biden being able to pick their successors if they die while vacationing at a billionaire’s resort. They can’t grant him immunity but they can drag this out with a mummer’s farce of disingenuous hand-wringing over the “oh so complicated” constitutional question of whether a president can legally assassinate a general-election opponent — an actual argument that Trump’s team endorsed.
We invite you reread the words highlighted in blue above. In short, Patrice says SCOTUS justices want Trump to win the 2024 election, they are taking steps to help him win -- and Patrice even provides hints about why they want him to win. Any way you slice it, that is corruption, big time.
Could it turn out, however that SCOTUS has done Trump more harm than good? Patrice says it is quite possible. He writes:
Does the high court's move actually help Trump win in November? Democratic politicians are already spinning the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case at all as transforming the race into a referendum on the rule of law in the Donald Trump era. Joe Biden hasn’t whipped up a lot of enthusiasm for his re-election, but nothing focuses the mind quite like watching the other candidate explicitly make pro-political assassination arguments on a national stage. (Please notice the language highlighted in blue directly above. In so many words, Patrice says the Supreme Court's actions call into question its commitment to the rule of law. Again, that points to corruption.)
Patrice points to what might be the best outcome of all -- for the country and the rule of law:
The biggest losers in this war might be the conservative justices themselves. Since taking over the institution, the right-wing justices have bristled at the attention they’ve received. Justice Barrett whines about how much better it was when the Supreme Court could ruin people’s lives in obscurity. Sam Alito raged at the notion that ethicists noticed that he was having lawyers write fawning puff pieces about him while they had business before the Court. John Roberts will literally talk about the history of typewriters rather than acknowledge the Supreme Court’s substantive work. And Clarence Thomas is incensed that anyone might want to know that he’s collecting hundreds of thousands from interested parties. A couple of years back, Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote a piece about the paradoxical situation of conservative justices getting angrier just as they get everything they ever wanted. Stern hypothesized at the time:
My theory of the case is essentially that they watched for decades while the court was center-right or moderate, or occasionally handed down liberal rulings, and the country largely accepted those decisions. The legal establishment accepted them. There was not a call generally to expand the court, and the court’s approval ratings remained high. I think Alito and Thomas feel like they’ve now won fair and square, they’re in the driver’s seat, they’re issuing all of the decisions that they think are right, that they believe are certainly no more radical than same-sex marriage or abortion, and suddenly their approval rating is plummeting.
Imagine that: Deep thinkers like Thomas and Alito, who always have their palms out, ready to be greased, can't imagine why the public suddenly sees them as glorified whores. What conclusion does Patrice reach? Here it is:
For a group so outraged that the country has turned its ire upon them, taking up an absurdist immunity claim will only supercharge public cynicism. Alito and Thomas want the country to think there’s principle behind their decisions, but they’ve staked the credibility of the institution on a claim that can only be read as mendacious partisan gamesplaying. (We invite you to reread the words highlighted in blue directly above. First, Patrice calls Trump's immunity claims "absurdist," suggesting they are "intentionally ridiculous or bizarre." That the nation's highest court would take up such a claim points to corruption. Patrice also accuses the justices of engaging in "mendacious partisan gamesplaying" That's a fancy way of saying they are acting corruptly.
That's four times in one article that a lawyer and author at one of the nation's most widely read legal websites has pointed toward The Supreme Court acting with corrupt intent. That should tell you the court's reputation is heading into the tank -- and it likely will only get worse as the justices continue to make unlawful rulings designed to help Donald Trump. Americans can recognize cheaters, and as Richard Nixon learned, they do not hold them in high regard. The court's right-wing cheaters might wind up having that tough lesson jammed down their throats.) Patrice concludes:
They likely think that the Supreme Court’s procedural machinations will fly under the radar and they can lend Trump a hand without finding themselves plastered on every headline and at the center of the campaign itself. But that cloistered world no longer exists.
They could have walked away from the controversy. Postured themselves as devoutly conservative but aloof to petty political hackery. Used this move to drape future decisions in a thin air of legitimacy.
In the end, they couldn’t help themselves.
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