Supreme Court Justice John Roberts has been left “shaken” by the unexpected public reaction to his ruling in the Donald Trumppresidential immunity case, a columnist wrote Friday.
Slate’s judicial writer Dahlia Lithwick wrote that Roberts was left shocked that Americans didn’t buy his attempt to persuade them that his ruling was not about Trump, but instead focused on the office of the presidency. The court ruled that a president was largely immune from criminal prosecution for official actions.
Lithwick referenced a report by CNN’s Joan Biskupic. He “was shaken by the adverse public reaction to his decision affording [Donald] Trump substantial immunity from criminal prosecution," she wrote.
"His protestations that the case concerned the presidency, not Trump, held little currency.”
Maybe this columnist thinks he’s “shaken”, but I doubt it. The reason he acted in a more moderate way before was that the Christian Nationalist justices didn’t have a strong majority and the ability to impose their agenda with impunity. The minute they had a 6-3 majority, he knew they could do whatever they wanted, and they have.
The only thing we can do about it now is elect as many Dems as possible to the House and Senate and pressure them to impose term limits and expand the Court, things that should have been done a long time ago.
And please, regardless of whether you think your vote for POTUS will count, vote anyway and fill out your full ballot because you have much more influence on your State legislature and local offices, which is where so many things that affect your life are decided.
pressure them to impose term limits and expand the Court
No amount of voting will implement this pressure. This has been the chronic problem: electoral victories don’t translate into pressure for any given policy.
Biden was very specific that he was against expanding the court, and Harris is taking up every single policy position Biden did, so we can probably take this up again in 4-8 years.
Who said electoral victories translate into pressure for a given policy? Voting them into office gets them to where they have power and can then be pressured to wield it for our benefit, which is a different type of political action than an election. Voting in elections is how you try to get people who are closest to the values you’re looking for into office–and the primaries are as important as the general for that.
Organizing around an issue, speaking out with meetings, in the media, with protests, etc., calling attention and building up support for a cause–all those things exert pressure on elected officials. Read about movements in American history – the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, etc. and BTW you want to know a movement that was very effective? The fucking Tea Party movement, which led to the maga takeover of the republican party.
For some reason (lack of proper civics education in schools is part of the problem), people have this simplistic idea that all they have to do is go vote for a president every four years, get pissed that they don’t like the choices, and assume that the POTUS is supposed to somehow magically fix everything, not understanding the other branches of government involved, and when it doesn’t happen fast enough or at all, they get pissed and either vote for someone else or give up and don’t vote or fall for a populist conman or get violent or whatever. That’s not how it works!
No wonder we’re where we are today. I’m sick of even talking about it any more. If people refuse to educate themselves about how our system of government is supposed to work and act accordingly then it’s over, and we as a country deserve to fall into the fascism brought to us by the people who did make the effort to figure out how to achieve their agenda and went out and did it.
I guess what I mean is uncritical votes for Democrats across the House and Senate doesn’t guarantee any pressure. Shit that is probably the most viable arena for third party candidates or at least candidates caucusing on a specific policy issue that people get behind, especially during primaries for each and every cycle.
Maybe I’m just being salty because my entire downballot this year is all Democrats running on working with Republicans and Republicans running on working against the Democrats.
One democrat in my old district is literally running on opposing Biden and helping Republicans with the southern border. My state borders Canada.
Maybe this columnist thinks he’s “shaken”, but I doubt it.
cover for the next batch of heinous shit they’re gonna pull
Every single time the SC does something outrageous some version of this article comes out proclaiming his deep held belief in justice and whatever else. And every time it is complete bullshit.
It’s like some journalists fucking fanfic desperately wishing that these people’s consciouses are eating them up inside. Meanwhile they go home to their mansions and continue to happily live their comfortable lives. It’s not even that they know they won’t face consequences for their actions (which they won’t), it’s that they think they have done nothing wrong at all. They believe themselves to be morally in the right.
“Shaken”? Don’t kid yourself. He’s as content and happy as a pig in shit.
Term limits are defined by the Constitution and require an Amendment. See the 22nd:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
We are currently too divided to pass any Amendment right now.
Yes, but the proposal is to implement a senior status, benching (heh) justices after a period of time, calling them up in case a starter recuses or is otherwise incapacitated.
Technically still appointed, and composition is done by law not the constitution.
Only flaw is the body that decides if this approach is constitutional is the one being curtailed.
What this says to me is that he and other members of his majority live in a kind of bubble.
What this says to me is a veteran reporter covering the SCROTUS is just now realizing this.
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https://www.rawstory.com/trump-news/
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/08/politics/john-roberts-donald-trump-biskupic/index.html
https://www.rawstory.com/roberts-immunity-ruling/
https://www.rawstory.com/supreme-court/
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/01/politics/takeaways-trump-immunity-scotus/index.html
https://www.rawstory.com/justice-john-roberts-bubble/Unexpected? How the fuck is backlash about a ruling saying the President is above the law unexpected?
Exactly. How can he claim to be shocked when the dissent told him why he’s a monster? Dude is a liar.
For real. He’s either being completely disingenuous or he’s really that much of an oblivious asshole.
I can only imagine the kind of impenetrable bubble this extremely small, privileged group of people live in. Especially after a decade or more.
Making up (increasingly unprecedented) rules that 1/3 of a billion people must live by. With no possible repercussions for corruption, incoherence, anything. We should’ve been very careful who we added to this court. Extremist christian fascists using a useful idiot to replace over 1/3 of court (so far!) is a nuclear bomb waiting to explode.
Unbelievably, he managed to underestimate the political awareness of the US public to his office. The bar was already on the floor.
More like digging required.
Yeah, McConnell buried their reputation when he fucked over Obama’s appointment responsibility.
He has gotten away with it for along time.
Trump was an epiphany for the right wingers that no one is really held to account and our checks and balances systems barely work at all, while also shielding government officials from public lawsuits. The Leahy laws are being broken to the extreme right now and no one cares in congress, which is the only body empowered to question the president’s actions in any way. and you can do crazy crimes in congress and you wont get voted out. Your own party will always clear you of it.
Because every 8th grade civics course says the same thing. You punish Presidents with impeachment.
Yeah, no. That’s an 8th grade understanding of the concept where you never learned anything after.
Impeachment has nothing to do with whether actions are legal or illegal, and has nothing to do with criminal charges. Impeachment is a political process with the ultimate result being removal from office.
Impeachment and removal from office does not mean they would go to jail, it is not a criminal trial. It literally just removes the person from office.
Prior to this decision, Presidential acts could still be prosecuted if they were criminal, DOJ policy just meant that a sitting president wouldn’t be charged.
This Supreme Court decided that anything the President does, even if it is clearly and overtly illegal, but done as part of the Presidential duties, is inherently immune from prosecution.
Impeachment is a political process with the ultimate result being removal from office.
And potentially the removal of that person’s ability to ever run for office again.
Impeachment and removal from office does not mean they would go to jail, it is not a criminal trial.
Yes, that’s the design. Because it’s not an “impartial” process but a political one. And because only 40 or so people have been given that protection, it makes perfect sense.
That’s an 8th grade understanding of the concept where you never learned anything after.
The 8th grade understanding is the correct one. As confirmed by SCOTUS.
Remember the DOJ reports to the President. A process where you’re either suppose to investigate your boss or investigate your Boss’s political allies/opponents would be way to open for abuse.
Trump can be prosecuted for what he did before the Presidency (as is being done in New York) and for what he has and will do after the Presidency (should he run back J6 part deuce). But for crimes committed while President impeachment is counterbalance.
The 8th grade understanding is the correct one. As confirmed by SCOTUS.
The SCOTUS that made that decision via a majority run by a political party actively trying to speedrun a fascist takeover of the country. The decision was made specifically to protect a twice impeached Republican who stole thousands of classified documents when he left office.
The current SCORUS is clearly filled with partisan hacks and they’ve thrown out any attempt at hiding that fact now.
Clearly that wasn’t the thought process decades ago before this hyper partisan court. Nixon was explicitly pardoned to avoid prosecution for his crimes. So obviously the idea that the President had blanket immunity wasn’t a fucking thing.
Nixon was explicitly pardoned to avoid prosecution for his crimes.
Congress didn’t have to stop the impeachment of Nixon. They chose too because Nixon agreed to never run for office again.
If we want that to change we need an Amendment that established an Independent, non-partisan Prosecutor whose job it is to prosecute Presidents and former Presidents.
This is a complete sanewashing article… Roberts read all the dissents, he knew exactly what he was doing. Putting Trump above the law.
I would be worried to if I had just given the president immunity for all official acts. Example of a worrisome formula: Biden + official act + seal team 6 + corrupt supreme court judges = no need to pack the court to give it a liberal majority.
He’s not serious. Roberts is an arch conservative and has been for a long time. This is posturing to try and paint himself as a moderate, like he has been doing since before he was appointed to the bench. Fuck him.
“You mean my radical and insane interpretations of the law are insane and radical?”.
Yeah, he fucking knows and is a piece of shit like the rest of these disingenuous monsters
He’s just not as confident in the shoot-the-moon approach that the rest of the fascists are using to try and take/keep power.
The Extreme Court has made itself irrelevant, useless and obsolete.
None of that is true in any way. They are a relevant, useful, very much still in use, tool for conservatives to undermine democracy. I don’t understand why you chose a single one of those descriptors.
I second that. FUCK this guy.
How could he possibly have been surprised by the response? They are with 9 judges. Three vehemently disagreed with the ruling and even Barret partially disagreed. It’s not like he was looking for some compromise ruling that all judges signed onto. Pathetic reporting.
He wasn’t. He’s trying to maintain the image that he’s above the fray while being deep in it
Boo hoo, fucking cry baby. Corrupt SCOTUS is too insulated from their terrible decisions.
Shaken? Right because you weren’t being a partisan hack when the special counsel asked to skip straight to proceedings because they knew the court wanted to issue a ruling and you drug your feet buying donald time. Then handed him powers not afforded in the constitution. But keep clutching those pearls.
This is why The French invented things.
He should be. There is no way that the constitution had immunity in mind for the president. George Washington would be flipping some tables in the supreme court if he was alive.
The fact that the Supreme Court gave themselves the ability to effectively unilaterally write federal laws with Marbury v Madison was already massively overstepping bounds and the concept of checks and balances.
We need to overturn Marbury v Madison.
They would literally be shooting the tyrants.
They would all be challenged to gentlemen’s duels so quickly, for abdicating their honor.
Won’t somebody think of the oligarchy!
I’m kind of okay with it. Nobody is doing more to advocate for and bring awareness to the need to expand the Supreme Court right now than this fucking guy.
Why is there a presumption of immunity? Even when there is clear self-serving corruption, the presumption of immunity takes precedence. This will go down in history as an abysmally bad decision.
He doesn’t fear enough.
Assuming I believe anything he says in the first place. We are so divided that he won’t see consequences.
Tbh I’m low-key waiting for someone to try taking a shot at one or more members of the Tribunal of Six. They’re so obviously standing in the way of progress in so many ways. They’re only appointed for life, after all. Someone’s going to take advantage of the darker side of that statement at some point. Roberts and his ilk should be scared.
Actions have consequences.
Ya, idk why people are surprised about the consequences of one party trying its damnedest to make the last box of liberty the only protected box. Like, what did they expect?
It’s honestly wild that two people have tried to take a shot at Trump first. Trump’s just a useful idiot to these fuckers, the real assholes that are destroying our country are the ones on the Supreme Court.
funny thing, it doesnt say explicitely in the constitution that justices are lifetime appointments. Its more of a tradition. Biden or Harris could tell the Office of personnel that theres a madatory retirement age for all federal employees, and see if it gets overthrown. The justices cant be plaintiffs and judge in their own case.
