The Supreme Court Is Ready to Look Past the January 6th Attack

[Passages]

The conservative justices in the Trump immunity case declined to consider the actual charges against him.

BY HASSAN ALI KANU MAY 1, 2024

The oral arguments last Thursday over whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election removed all remaining doubt that the Trump-appointed justices and their conservative colleagues will go to any lengths to protect Republican policy priorities and absolve the party’s current presidential candidate.

By the end, it was clear that each of the Republican-appointed justices is opposed to the notion that a jury’s decision as to Trump’s guilt should come as soon as possible, even though the public has an obvious and overwhelming interest in a speedy trial. The Supreme Court’s eventual ruling will effectively postpone any trial until well after this year’s elections, boosting Trump’s chances, as my colleague Harold Meyerson observed shortly after the oral arguments.

Even worse, the justices’ questions revealed that the highest court in the land is unlikely to ever hold Trump accountable for inciting an insurrection and trying to overturn an election by force and by fraud. Judging by the conservative justices’ questions, the Court’s eventual ruling will likely narrow the allegations and charges, and could end up eliminating some of the most significant and telling elements of the historic case.
https://prospect.org/justice/2024-05-01-supreme-court-look-past-january-6th/

[Hope22]

1. This from the group who is afraid of peaceful protesters in front of their building!

If they turn their backs on January 6th they best put their fence back up and prepare to be boarded. They need to watch the footage from 1/6 again! It was real and nothing that we should revisit! That being said, people will not permit judges to legislate the demise of this country without a fight.

[Lonestarblue]

2. WaPo has an article today by a clerk for Gorsuch in which he attacks the Special Counsel.

I think this is an effort by the right-wing Republicans on the Court to whitewash their ridiculous discussion of how future presidents could be prosecuted by political opponents instead of just ruling that presidents do not have immunity for crimes committed in office.

Smith was represented by an experienced lawyer, Michael Dreeben, for the immunity hearing.

“Dreeben last week advanced a view of the presidency that in effect makes the president answerable to the Justice Department. He claimed that although presidents lack absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, they can obtain it by checking with the attorney general before doing anything that could be illegal.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. asked Dreeben, “If the president gets advice from the attorney general that something is lawful, is that an absolute defense?” Dreeben said yes, under the principle of “entrapment by estoppel.” In Dreeben’s words, if “an authorized government representative” (the attorney general) “tells you” (the president) “that what you are about to do is lawful, it would be a root violation of due process to prosecute you for that.”

Snip

“Because the attorney general wields delegated presidential power, it makes no sense for the attorney general to have independent authority to immunize the president. If that were so, then the president could simply immunize himself by judging his own actions lawful.”

Dreeben never said that the Attorney General could grant immunity but he or she could advise whether an action was lawful. Big difference.

https://wapo.st/44lO8xY

[Passages]

3. Thank you for that.

[Igel]

4. I find the counter-examples probative.

In fact, I pre-empted some of them.

Did a (D) president order the assassination of an American ... Based on what bit of the Constitution or statute?

It's a problem. You can view SCOTUS' discussions as short-term--next 6 months--or long term. Has Biden done anything not explicitly authorized by Congress or the Constitution ruled illegal? Or which *would* be ruled illegal?

Nothing? No EO overturned? No provision of munitions to those who killed those innocent under US law?

Oh. Wait.

If you're longer-term thinking that includes short-term thinking.

It's a problem. Put this as the first need to think of implied versus explicit powers immunities. Did Andrew Jackson ignore the SCOTUS and probably US law--Constitutional, statutory, or case? Absolutely. But nobody tried to try him as a criminal for the Trail of Tears. Otherwise this might have been decided 190 or so years ago. Maybe they just didn't have "standing." No standing, no wrong. I guess.

[Kid Berwyn]

5. The Supreme Court is obstructing justice.

They've removed all pretense of impartiality to side openly with a traitor.

Thanks, Putin.