SCOTUS
Is there good reason why the Supreme Court should not have already quickly and unequivocally ruled that Trump is not above the law? If some of its members are, as they claim to be, originalists, then the overwhelming evidence leads them to only one conclusion, he is not. By prolonging deliberation they are dragging their feet and in effect obstructing justice.
Kavanaugh claims:
If he is very concerned about the future then he should be focused on the here and now of this case. What is decided here and now, the question of whether anyone is above the law, has direct bearing on both the present and the future. Surely, he knows this. The attempt to avoid making a decisive ruling here and now by pretending to look toward the future is at best cowardly and at worse to be complicit king making.
Alito worries:
The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the law not alter it. The immediate threat of destabilization has already occurred and can only become more dire if they rule that anyone is above the law, that someone can overturn the legitimate results of an election and even, as the defense has claimed, murder his political rivals.
Kavanaugh claims:
Im not focused on the here and now of this case. Im very concerned about the future.
If he is very concerned about the future then he should be focused on the here and now of this case. What is decided here and now, the question of whether anyone is above the law, has direct bearing on both the present and the future. Surely, he knows this. The attempt to avoid making a decisive ruling here and now by pretending to look toward the future is at best cowardly and at worse to be complicit king making.
Alito worries:
Will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?
The job of the Supreme Court is to interpret the law not alter it. The immediate threat of destabilization has already occurred and can only become more dire if they rule that anyone is above the law, that someone can overturn the legitimate results of an election and even, as the defense has claimed, murder his political rivals.
Comments (34)
Who would be above the law? Almighty God? What do have atheists to say about that?
Without opening any American legal prints I'm sure that there isn't a case that someone is above the law. Hence it would be crazy to state this literally.
If Trump really would be a God-Emperor, then perhaps he should reject his deity or divinity as Emperor Hirohito did when he gave the Humanity Declaration. :snicker:
Theyre deliberately dragging it out so that the trial is postponed until after the election.
Thats all there is to it. Its really that simple, and anyone who isnt neck deep in political hobbyism can see it. The answer is obvious: no, hes not above the law. They also moved quite quickly on the Colorado ballot case, so we know theyre capable when they see fit.
Personally, I dont care it SHOULD be the people rejecting him. If were really so stupid as to elect this guy again, then what difference does a Supreme Court ruling really make?
I think it makes a very big difference. The system is set up so that there are checks and balances, including checks against the tyranny of the majority and of a president without legal bounds.
But even checks and balances and any other principle, rule, or law makes no difference if no one takes it seriously.
If it gets to that point then we are in deeper trouble than we are now. We must be on guard against the contagion of nihilism.
Quoting Fooloso4
The whole system is based upon the rational judgement of the electorate. If the electorate votes "wrong", there's nothing much to do then. It's not the job of any supreme court to decide on what the people of a republic voting a candidate into power. Trump's cases are still in the lower courts, hence there is no reason for the SCOTUS to make any decisions.
Elected officials are only part of the system.
To not take any principle, rule, or law seriously goes much deeper. It matters. Things could be much worse. There will always be those who pay attention and are ready to step in to seize power if unopposed.
If they get elected, then it really comes down to thing of the parliamentary support they have and finally the next elections. If the people elected don't abide with these rules, what they do is basically make an autocoup of self-coup.
How the people and the institutions react to this is really then critical issue. Do the military go along with it? Can the other parties be simply removed from the political system? And finally, do the people themselves go with it.
I think if an autocoup would have been done, it's window of opportunity was passed the last time when the Congress building was breached. That would have been the perfect setting to do an autocoup. The masses breaching the halls of Congress would have been the perfect setting, but then those that did the autocoup would have had planned an extensive chirade of theatre-trials were the "culprits" of the fraud would have been convicted.
(Perfect setting for an autocoup: Angry people, US flags, all but the actual coup-plot missing. Otherwise totally writable to the narrative of American exceptionalism.)
Trump had no idea of doing this ...or utterly has no capability to do this. He really thought that a few phone calls or Pence could hand him actual victory. Perhaps he thought it would be as easy as with Bush and Gore where Al Gore in the end accepted the outcome. And Trump was just mesmerized that he got his base to storm the Capital building and finally his Secret Service, simply drove him to the White House where he watched in awe what his supporters were doing. Extremely pathetic, if I may say so.
Now, someone incapable of commanding his own personal security detachment is totally unable to do a self coup. What the frightening thing is that there would have been capable people to do this coup. I'm sure someone like general Mike Flynn could have through with an autocoup as he tried to advise Trump of using the military to seize the ballot machines. And understanding that an autocoup means either succeeding or life imprisonment (or even theoretically the death penalty), that would be enough incentive to go through with the mock trials and martial law. A lot of generals and politicians would have had to be detained, fired and so on. But once you are at that road, you cannot never turn back.
Now it's different. There isn't that "Deer in the headlights moment" where the Democrats (or the Republicans, actually) wouldn't simply fathom that a self-coup is happening.
What you have in store in the future is likely something just like in the 60's and 70's. Some political violence, a deeply divided populace, some fringe terrorists. But that's it.
Why would they do that? They have lifetime appointments. Trump has no leverage over them. They owe him nothing.
There's more at stake than just Trump.
[i]John Yang:
Marcia, what else do the justices seem to be concerned about?
Marcia Coyle:
Well, there was some concern that the criminal laws might be used by political opponents of former presidents to go after them for decisions they made or acts they took. There was concern that presidents were or knowing that there's no immunity, might actually pardon themselves for everything before they leave office.
But, most importantly, I think there was concern about whether there would be a chilling effect on a president doing his or her duties if there is no immunity at all for official acts.[/i]
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/analyzing-the-supreme-court-hearing-on-trumps-presidential-immunity-claim
It's more important for SCOTUS to get this right than to ensure Trump goes on trial before November.
Yes. I agree. Although we might not agree as to the scope of what is at stake.
quote="RogueAI;899432"]Well, there was some concern that the criminal laws might be used by political opponents of former presidents to go after them for decisions they made or acts they took.[/quote]
That is something to be adjudicated on a case by case basis. The attempt to protect a president should not extend to protecting them from being held accountable for illegal actions.
Quoting RogueAI
I can't follow the logic of this. Is the argument that they should have immunity because if they don't they will in effect make themself immune by pardoning themselves? The result is the same. Perhaps the solution is to pass a law against self-pardon. But that is beyond the scope of the judiciary.
Quoting RogueAI
The problem with that concern is that immunity need not be all or nothing. The question before the court is:
whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.
The court need not answer this in order for the trial to proceed. A president should not be free to overturn the legitimate results of an election. That does not fall within the scope of his or her official acts and duties. That is clear cut and unequivocal.
The defense should be allowed to argue that what Trump did was done within his official acts, but they do not want to do this, because they know they will loose. If the court allows this tactic to derail or unduly delay the trail then they are at best dupes and at worse complicit.
Quoting RogueAI
If it does not go to trial before the election and Trump wins then the possibility of getting it right vanishes.
Why? Trump as President doesn't have any influence over SCOTUS's rulings.
If Trump pardons himself the case against him will not proceed. If the case does not proceed the question of whether he has blanket immunity will not be addressed unless some other case arises before the court addressing this issue.
The soonest Trump could pardon himself is January. SCOTUS will not take that long.
Good point. It does seem likely that the trial will have concluded by then, but if the trial is not completed before the election then the results of the election might be determined by the court's unwillingness to render a timely decision. Their unwillingness to clear the way is tantamount to election interference.
Careful deliberation is certainly always necessary but on such an important issue it is incumbent upon them to act quickly. Despite defense claims, to act quickly does not mean to act without careful deliberation. If they put other issues before them aside the claim of absolute immunity can be decided in a matter of days and then the trial can and should proceed. The extent to which he is immune need not delay the trial further if they rule that he is not immune from charges of attempting to overturn the election.
If you have to ask
Shouldn't this thread go into the Trump thread, which was specifically created so that people could vent their Trump spleen in one place?
Well, I get why the conservatives justices would want Trump to win, but you're suggesting there's a conspiracy going on among them to delay his trial. I think in light of the Dobbs leak, it would be very stupid for the conservatives justices to go down that road. If that leaked there would be a very real chance of the Court being packed in the future. I think the more likely explanation is they want to settle the presidential immunity question, and the fact that it helps the Republican nominee is a happy accident for them. I think SCOTUS would take up the issue even if it helped the Democrat nominee.
This assumption assumes the conservative members of the Court share the Left's delusion that the trial or even a conviction would reduce Trump's support.
The opinions of prosecutors, judges, and jurors hold no sway over the supporters of Trump. As you note, Trump has to be beaten democratically for it to matter. He's not going to be beaten with all these trials.
True but the Supreme Court knows very well what its doing. It shouldnt have even been taken up.
No. What Trump says and does and what the Supreme Court says and does are not the same.
If anything it should go in Supreme Court (general discussion) thread.
It is not unreasonable to think that there is some segment of voters who may be sways by what might be uncovered in trial. Given how close the election is likely to be this could make a difference. There is a reason why Trump is doing whatever he can to postpone or prevent the trials from taking place.
I'll leave that up to the moderators. I put it here because it is an election issue. But if they take up the larger issue of the extent and specifics of presidential immunity then it is no longer simply an election issue.
There is some amount of speculation always I agree as to what persuades people, but I don't think the strategy to prosecute Trump out of the race has been generally effective. The general strategy of criminal defendants is to delay, object, and refuse to cooperate, but I don't know that it's the election he's most concerned about as opposed to just getting convicted.
As a strategy I agree, but I don't think this is what is going on. His legal problems began before he announced he would run. At that time there was a widely held assumption that he decided to run as a way of avoiding legal troubles. Declaring he was running two years ahead of the election he attempted to turn his legal troubles into political opposition.
Quoting Hanover
That is true. It is what he has done his whole life. Something he learned from his father and his mentor Roy Cohn.
Quoting Hanover
I think he hopes to avoid the latter by way of the former.
I missed the fact that there was a thread on the Supreme Court. If I was aware of that I would not have started a new thread. I though you meant I should not have put it in the Lounge.
No big deal doesnt matter to me. The mods can merge the two if they want. I was just throwing it out there.
I only mentioned it because this is a bit of Trumpy thread. A lot of people think the court's on Trump's side and not being judicially impartial. And opinions about that correlate with people's opinions on Trump. So this is really a Trump thread. Or at least a Trumpy thread. That was my thought process anyway. But I'm not actually participating in the thread, so I haven't got any strong feelings, I had just noted that there's a zillion-page long Trump thread, and I assumed that was there to soak up the gusher of opinion on the guy.
Gotta say, the man was on reality tv for ten years, he knows what the American people love, or love to hate. The historians will have a field day, if we all live that long.
I do think that there are members of the court who have an agenda. It is not that they are on Trump's side but that they see Trump as useful to their side. An expedient for attaining their conservative goals.
Maybe. Dobbs certainly. But that's been a disaster for the GOP. It cost them the 2022 red wave and many local and special elections. It put abortion back on the table as a political issue. Centrist voters that could trend GOP on the economy, crime, and immigration, now have to vote Dem for abortion.
The percentage of the public for whom abortion is their top issue, represents a certain percent of the vote lost to the GOP and won by the Dems in every election at every level of politics forever, till Congress hashes out a law everyone can live with. And good luck with that.
In the long run, the conservative justices have done more harm to the conservative cause than if they'd left Roe in place. The Dems are going to win a lot of races they'd otherwise have lost, as long as abortion is on the ballot. And overturning Roe put abortion back on every ballot.
If this is part of some secret plan by the conservative Supes, I wonder what it is.
I do not think it is some secret plan. They are anti-regulation, anti-LGBT rights, pro-discrimination on the basis of religious freedom, and pro-gun.
But then why did they saddle the GOPs with a five to ten point deficit in every election at every level everywhere in the country for years, by overturning Roe? Now abortion's always on the ballot. That hurts every cause you listed. That's my point. Dobbs was profoundly counterproductive for the right.