They were simply intrigued
The conservative justices have, over the years, seen harbingers of tyranny in union organizing, environmental regulations, civil-rights laws, and universal-health-care plans. When confronted with a legal theory that establishes actual tyranny, they were simply intrigued. As long as Donald Trump is the standard-bearer for the Republicans, every institution they control will contort itself in his image in an effort to protect him.
The conservative justices have, over the years, seen harbingers of tyranny in union organizing, environmental regulations, civil-rights laws, and universal-health-care plans. When confronted with a legal theory that establishes actual tyranny, they were simply intrigued. As long as Donald Trump is the standard-bearer for the Republicans, every institution they control will contort itself in his image in an effort to protect him.
Trump’s legal argument is a path to dictatorship. That is not an exaggeration: His legal theory is that presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for official acts. Under this theory, a sitting president could violate the law with impunity, whether that is serving unlimited terms or assassinating any potential political opponents, unless the Senate impeaches and convicts the president. Yet a legislature would be strongly disinclined to impeach, much less convict, a president who could murder all of them with total immunity because he did so as an official act. The same scenario applies to the Supreme Court, which would probably not rule against a chief executive who could assassinate them and get away with it.
Also, plus, besides…come on…do they really think the men who wrote the US constitution intended to give the chief executive the right to murder people at will?
The conservative justices have, over the years, seen harbingers of tyranny in union organizing, environmental regulations, civil-rights laws, and universal-health-care plans. When confronted with a legal theory that establishes actual tyranny, they were simply intrigued. As long as Donald Trump is the standard-bearer for the Republicans, every institution they control will contort itself in his image in an effort to protect him.
Which seems to me like burning the house down to protect it from thieves. The fact that Trump is a nominal Republican is dwarfed by the fact that he’s a moral monster and an aesthetic horror. He’s not a conservative, he’s a terrorist and a power-mad egomaniac. He’s a moral sewer. You wouldn’t think Republicans would want to marinate themselves in moral sewage.
Trump has the conservative justices arguing that you cannot prosecute a former president for trying to overthrow the country, because then they might try to overthrow the country, something Trump already attempted and is demanding immunity for doing.
And is apparently going to get for doing.
No previous president has sought to overthrow the Constitution by staying in power after losing an election. Trump is the only one, which is why these questions are being raised now. Pretending that these matters concern the powers of the presidency more broadly is merely the path the justices sympathetic to Trump have chosen to take in order to rationalize protecting the man they would prefer to be the next president. What the justices—and other Republican loyalists—are loath to acknowledge is that Trump is not being uniquely persecuted; he is uniquely criminal.
Same with “Trump derangement syndrome.” We’re not deranged; he is uniquely grotesque and horrible.
Of course, when Bill Clinton was president, they ruled he could be sued while sitting as president. Yes, it was a civil case. Yes, it was separate from his duties, from before he was president (during his time as governor of Arkansas). The riot was separate from Trump’s duties, and while he was a sitting president, it’s only because his duly elected predecessor had not yet been sworn in.
Of course, Clinton has a D after his name, not an R.
Methinks Trump needs to be careful what he wishes for. If the SC interprets the law as above, then for the time being at least Trump is not the president with immunity, he is the political rival. Not that I think for one second that Biden would stoop so low, but all it takes is a throwaway remark in a moment of frustration for matters to spiral out of control, as Henry II’s ‘turbulent priest’, Thomas Becket, found out to his cost.