The
Supreme Court ruled this week that presidents have immunity from so-called Official
Acts, even if those acts might be unlawful. So, the idea of a president asking
SeaL Team Six to take out an enemy or asking the Department of Justice to
arrest a political foe is no longer a hypothetical consideration; it could happen
in the worst scenarios.
The
principles of “equal justice under the law” and that “no man is above the law”
are now seriously being called into question by these actions. The Conservative
justices, apparently afraid that their guy, a convicted felon already, might be
further prosecuted, came up with a get-out-of-jail-free card before the jail
door was even opened. Every legal scholar who viewed this petition thought it
had no merit and that the Supreme Court would decline to review it further. The
Federal Appeals Court ruling was described by Bloomberg
News:
“A US federal appeals court gave the Supreme Court an easy off-ramp
if the justices want to stay out of a second dispute involving Donald Trump,
this one centered on whether he’s immune from criminal prosecution for alleged
election interference.
The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit did what it could to
make the Supreme Court’s review less likely in issuing a straightforward,
well-reasoned decision that’s written for a broad audience, legal scholars say.
They rejected the former president’s claim that
he is categorically immune from criminal liability for acts taken while in
office. That contention “is unsupported by precedent, history, or the text and
structure of the Constitution,” the judges say.”
I thought the Federal Appeals Court nailed it. So, when I heard
the oral arguments, it seemed the justices were moving away from the question
at hand-does this president have immunity to a broader interpretation of future
immunity? In my opinion, the attorneys for DJT did a terrible job explaining
the issues. I agreed with Judge Tanya Chutkan that presidents are not kings. But
my opinion counts for little and no one paid me to make my decision, unlike
some who should have recused themselves.
The
Associated
Press described the 6-3 decision below. Justice Sonia Sotomayor read her
dissent out loud from the bench, which is the court’s way of disagreeing and
stamping one's foot.
Lindsay Whitehurst, AP
Washington (AP) — In an unsparing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says
the Supreme Court allowed a president to become a “king above the law” in its ruling that
limited the scope of criminal charges against former President Donald Trump for
his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol and efforts to overturn
the election.
She called the decision, which likely ended the prospect of a
trial for Trump before the November
election, “utterly indefensible.”
“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the
president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she
wrote. She was joined by liberal justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown
Jackson, who wrote another dissent referring to the ruling’s consequences as a
“five-alarm fire.”
Sotomayor
read her dissent aloud in the courtroom, with a weighty delivery that
underscored her criticism of the majority. She strongly pronounced each word,
pausing at certain moments and gritting her teeth at others.
“Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing laws can now just
break them,” Sotomayor says.
Chief Justice John Roberts accused
the liberal justices of fear-mongering in the 6-3 majority opinion. It found
that presidents aren’t above the law but must be entitled to presumptive
immunity to allow them to forcefully exercise the office’s far-reaching powers
and avoid a vicious cycle of politically motivated prosecutions.
While the opinion allows
for the possibility of prosecutions for private acts, Sotomayor says it
“deprives these prosecutions of any teeth” by excluding any evidence that related
to official acts where the president is immune.
“This
majority’s project will have disastrous consequences for the presidency and for
our democracy,” she says. She ended by saying, “With fear
for our democracy, I dissent.”
“It is a far greater danger if the president
feels empowered to violate federal criminal law, buoyed by the knowledge of
future immunity,” she says. “I am deeply troubled by the idea ... that our
nation loses something valuable when the president is forced to operate within
the confines of federal criminal law.”
So
where do we go from here? President Biden said he does not want this power. I
guess our only chances of surviving this decision are to be certain we never elect
despots.
Project
2025 is empowering such leaders.
Further
knowledge about Project 2025 is causing pushback after the leader of the
Heritage Foundation recently described its proposed takeover of our democracy.
But Democracy to some is a bit of an ephemeral discussion, isn’t it? But as Chris Hayes put it
recently, they want to take create an authoritarian government, put DOJ under
the president and weaponize it, scale down and purge our civil service, outlaw
porn, teach Christianity in the schools, prohibit contraception, abortion, and
divorce.
I find it intriguing that leader Roberts has aligned his organization with both financial and political support from Viktor Orban, the Hungarian authoritarian ruler who keeps close ties with Russian leader Putin. Remember, Conservatives invited Orban to speak at their annual meeting a few years ago and Tucker Carlson broadcast his show from Hungary a while back. Heather Cox Richardson discussed the attempt to promote this mandate in two recent Substack posts, which I quote from below. People are learning more and speaking out against these moves.
Heathercoxrichardson@substack.com wrote on July 4th about Project 2025.
“That Supreme Court ruling yesterday on immunity is vital, and
it's vital for a lot of reasons,” Roberts says, adding that the nation needs a
strong leader because “the radical left…has taken over our institutions.” “[W]e
are in the process of the second American Revolution,” he says, “which will
remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.”
Roberts took over the presidency of the Heritage Foundation in
2021, and he shifted it from a conservative think tank to an organization
devoted to “institutionalizing Trumpism.” Central to that project for Roberts
has been working to bring the policies of Hungary’s president Viktor Orbán, a
close ally of Russia’s president Vladimir Putin, to the United States.
In 2023, Roberts brought the Heritage Foundation into a formal
partnership with Hungary’s Danube Institute, a think tank overseen by a
foundation that is directly funded by the Hungarian government; as journalist
Casey Michel reported, it is, “for all intents and purposes, a state-funded
front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.” The Danube Institute has given grants to
far-right figures in the U.S., and, Michel noted in March, “We have no idea how
much funding may be flowing directly from Orbán’s regime to the Heritage
Foundation.” Roberts has called modern Hungary “not just a model for conservative statecraft
but the model.”
On July 5th Richardson noted the following in her Letters
to an American posting.
“But for all of what independent journalists are calling a
“feeding frenzy,” egged on by right-wing media figures, it seems as if the true
implications of Project 2025 are starting to gain traction and the Trump
campaign recognizes that the policies that document advocates are hugely
unpopular.
On July 2, Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts assured
Trump ally Steve Bannon’s followers that they are winning in what he called
“the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows
it to be.” In March, Roberts tells former Trump administration official and now
right-wing media figure Sebastian Gorka about Project 2025: “There are parts of
the plan that we will not share with the Left: the executive orders, the rules
and regulations. Just like a good football team we don’t want to tip off our
playbook to the Left.”
This morning, although Roberts has described Project 2025 as
“institutionalizing Trumpism,” Trump’s social media feed tried to distance the
former president from Project 2025. “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have
no idea who is behind it,” the post read. Despite this disavowal of any
knowledge of the project, it continues: “I disagree with some of the things
they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous
and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with
them.”
In what appeared to be a coordinated statement, the directors of
Project 2025 wrote on social media less than two hours later that they “do not
speak for any candidate.” (Don’t believe them!)
And, of
course, the third big thing this week is the question about the health of President
Biden and his ability to serve another term. Nancy Pelosi asked a question that
remains unanswered: ‘Was this an episode or a condition?’ Concerned minds would
like to know. I was willing to wait and see after the debate, but I am less
supportive of that premise now after the interview with ABC. While it was
generally okay, I do not think the president answered the questions well, nor
do I believe he is assessing his situation or polling adequately. When George
noted elections are about the future, not about the past, Biden did not pick up
on that and give a vision for a second term. And his final comment, that if he
loses to DJT, “if he gave it his all and lost, that was okay” is so not right
with me. Americans cannot allow that man in the White House again and must
prevent his election.
In case
you missed it- here is a YouTube
link to the full interview:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzdi6xhlfiM)
Here are
links to some interpretations in the media:
Many
Democratic officials are calling for Biden to step down and allow someone else
to run. Given campaign finance rules, (as I understand them) the only person
who could use already collected campaign funds is Kamala Harris because she is already
on the ticket. There is also the issue of state ballots; many states close
ballot lists early because of early voting regulations. Any changes would have
to occur soon.
Republicans
will hold their convention in Milwaukee soon, even though a Vice-presidential
candidate has not been named. The Democratic Convention will be in Chicago on
August 19-22. The election will be on November 5th, 2024.
Like many
Democrats, I remember the 1968 Convention with sadness; I do not wish to see
that repeated, but feel powerless to change anything right now. Some have
suggested the president should step down soon for health reasons and put Harris
in charge, so she could run as an incumbent. I do not know if that is an answer,
but it is a thought. So, so many things to ponder.
‘Til next
week- Peace!
No comments:
Post a Comment
All comments are reviewed prior to posting.