Elie Mystal: The Supreme Court's Five Male Justices Are Fully in the Tank for Trump

https://archive.ph/azqjV


Donald Trump believes that he has the Supreme Court in his back pocket. He is right... Trump is counting on delaying the trial about his crimes committed in the previous election until he gets to the next one, which he hopes to win so he can then dismiss the charges against him. The Supreme Court has done everything in its power to help Trump accomplish his goals, and that pattern continued on Thursday.

The question has long since ceased being “whether” the court will help Trump; the question is only “how” it will go about doing it...

Roberts’ approach is wrong on at least two levels. First, the crimes that Trump is charged with cannot reasonably be construed as having been “official acts,” so the lower court should not be required to explain the difference between official and personal acts.
It’s not, for instance, “official” for a president to use his power to submit fake electors in an effort to obstruct the certification of the election results. The liberal justices made this point repeatedly. Justice Elena Kagan was particularly effective when questioning Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, about whether “attempting a coup” could possibly be construed as “official.” (Sauer, reluctantly, said yes, attempting a coup could be construed as an official act and that Trump should be immune for such crimes, which only serves to highlight the utter ridiculousness of Trump’s argument.)

Roberts is also wrong when he suggests that the DC Circuit didn’t complete its homework. The DC Circuit never got to the official-versus-private-acts question, because it ruled that whatever criminal immunity Trump may have had ended when Trump ceased being president. Remember, nobody else in the country can even begin to claim that they are immune to prosecution for crimes because committing crimes is part of their job. Trump’s only being allowed to make this argument because he used to be president, but the whole concept of “immunity because you’re the president” collapses (or should collapse) the moment you leave office. Trump is no longer president, and that should simply end the discussion on whether being president made him immune for the rest of his life.

It’s the part of the argument Roberts, and his fellow Republicans, never got to, because it doesn’t help their forever-president. The entire idea that a president should be treated differently, and better than, a regular citizen after they leave office runs counter to the principles of constitutional democracy. The Republicans on the court expressed a worry that post-presidential prosecution would “chill” future presidents from… committing crimes...

As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pointed out, if we did live in a world where presidents were forever immune, Richard Nixon wouldn’t have needed a pardon from Gerald Ford....

Full essay:
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/supreme-court-trump-immunity-hearing/

Trumpcult who yell about Democrats weaponizing government -- constitutionally known as enforcing Rule of Law -- now excite themselves over the prospect that the Koch weaponized Supreme Court will shut down Special Counsel cases before Nov 5 -- to advance the Koch autocratic goal of rule of men.