‘Totally in the Tank for Trump’: Justices Demonstrate Outlandish Perspectives in Immunity Case
Ability to hold former president accountable for role in 2020 election interference at issue
Several right-wing justices appeared to reveal some almost bizarre perspectives as they seemed to buy into arguments that Donald Trump should have immunity for alleged wrongdoing connected to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
The display came Thursday as the US Supreme Court considered oral arguments in Trump’s attempt to shield himself from federal criminal charges in connection with his attempts to interfere in the 2020 election and remain in power even after Democrat Joe Biden was declared the lawful winner.
At stake is Trump’s attempt to scuttle special counsel Jack Smith’s case against him pending in federal court in Washington DC.
And the high court’s right-wing supermajority seemed sympathetic to the former president’s case.
“Well, they’re politicians who are not even subject to popular election, unlike me. They should move the Supreme Court over to the [Republican National Committee] headquarters, because they’re acting like a bunch of partisan operatives,” Rep Jamie Raskin (D-Md) said of the justices. “The most astonishing thing for me today was Justice [Samuel] Alito’s question. He actually asked whether holding the president criminally accountable for actual crimes committed —whether murder or coup or you name it —whether holding them accountable would actually encourage them to stage more violent coups to stay in office to avoid prosecution. Which buys completely into Donald Trump’s narcissistic criminal world view.
“For all of American history, we have said presidents are subject to criminal prosecution if they commit crimes. That’s why Gerald Ford pardoned Richard Nixon. That’s why Bill Clinton agrees to give up his law license with the bar for five years,” added Raskin, who taught constitutional law before getting elected to Congress. “Now they say, ‘Well, if you’re really mean to Donald Trump and hold him accountable the way every other American citizen is accountable, then he’ll really overthrow the government. He’ll really bring out the big guns and we can’t afford that.’ And that’s a kind of masochistic capitulation to Donald Trump’s authoritarianism.
“Of course we have to hold the president accountable to the law. It’s the basic premise of our law that nobody is above the law, including the president.”
Justices Thursday simply displayed partisan fealty to Trump, who appointed a full third of the present membership of the Supreme Court, and is running to once again return to the Oval Office, according to Elie Mystal, an attorney, writer, and political commentator.
“Nothing that happened today with the Supreme Court being in the tank for Donald Trump is surprising at all. It’s not surprising to me,” Mystal told MSNBC host Joy Reid, in an on-camera appearance Thursday evening. “It’s not surprising to your viewers at home. You know why? Because we’re not stupid. Donald Trump called his shot month ago.
“He said, ‘My Supreme Court justices will never let this happen to me,’ and he was absolutely right. So with that information, my question to the American people is now, ‘What are you prepared to do?’ Because the Supreme Court has exposed itself as a partisan institution full of hacks that will do everything in their power to protect Donald Trump and make sure that a Republican can be elected, not just in the next election, but in every election going forward. So what are we going do about that?” he asked.
“My answer to that obviously is, ‘You cannot do anything in this country unless you expand the Supreme Court to take away their power,’ and as you say, start removing some of these conservative justices who have already exposed themselves as criminals and liars.”
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