I would sure like to be a fly on the wall of the Supreme Court chambers right about now. The Court's term typically ends in June, but they still haven't released their ruling on Donald Trump's immunity claim. What can they possibly be waiting for? Was there some kind of last-minute change of heart that delayed things? Or what?
Now, there's no law that says the Supreme Court term has to end in June. It just usually does. Hell, there's no law that says they can only publish opinions on weekdays. Maybe the immunity decision will drop at 3 am on Saturday. At this point anything is possible.
What makes this whole thing especially weird is that there's another decision still in waiting: Moody v. NetChoice, which is about whether a state can prohibit social media companies from removing content based on the views expressed. Like the immunity case, this one should be a no-brainer: of course they can't. This kind of state interference with speech is precisely what the First Amendment is designed to prevent.
What does it mean that two easy cases are taking so long? Maybe nothing. But the justices aren't hermits. They know the stakes of the immunity case in particular. They know that Trump's January 6 trial has been on hold for months waiting on them.¹ What are they thinking?
POSTSCRIPT: On a broader note, why is the Supreme Court so weirdly obsessed by secrecy? Why not just tell us when the term will end? Why not publish their schedule for releasing opinions? What possible benefit is there in keeping everyone on the edge of their seats?
¹The immunity decision doesn't affect Trump's classified documents case because it applies only to immunity for actions taken as president. The documents case is about actions he took after leaving office.
They did tell us when the term will end: https://x.com/steve_vladeck/status/1806702188766335252
Monday, July 1st, is the final day for decisions.
i think kevin is feigning confusion
fuck you, is why the secrecy.
You'd think so, but one of his arguments centers on the immunity of his official acts to declare these classified documents as personal records while he was in office. If SCOTUS throws that other case back to Chutkan to distinguish between personal/official actions, you can bet Trump will push Cannon to designate all of the items in the boxes stored at Mar a Lago as personal records, by way of official action, classification be damned.
The term ends in June informally, but it also means the justices have made their summer plans which would have to be delayed. I've come around to see this lateness as proof that the conservative SCOTUS is, indeed, slow-dragging the case as much as they can to help Trump.
Biden should stir up the hornet's nest and propose to the nation that the Court double in size because of the Court's propensity to make poorly reasoned decisions.
if trump's docs are truly declassified, anyone should be able to get a copy using a FOIA request
Bot not if they're personal.
Maybe the Republicans on the Court are having difficulty reaching decisions. They are not a united bloc, there is a range from strongly partisan to insanely partisan. The focus has shifted from actually interpreting the law in light of the Constitution and precedent to how to advance Republican objectives and the Justices are not united on just what they want they want to do.
Authoritarians always fall out, until there is one left standing - they don't want to share power. They don't compromise even among those who supposedly share their objectives. Their main objectives are individual power and the triumph of their cause. Why should the Republican Justices be more unified than House Republicans?
How do they publish an opinion where the author confuses Nitrogen oxides with Nitrous oxide?
too much nitrous oxide
Even better is that none of his own clerks, and none of the other four universal-geniuses-in-all-realms-of-knowledge, and none of their clerks, recognized the difference. Everybody in that coterie just passed right over it.
Could there be a better illustration of the John Roberts postulate that our fine judges know all anyone could ever need to know about this stuff that's supposedly so "technical"?
/s
I hadn't heard about that one.
https://newrepublic.com/article/183285/supreme-court-chevron-gorsuch-nitrous-oxide
wapo ed board:
The best scenario, should Mr. Biden drop out, would be for the party to invite several interested candidates to consider running and ask them to spend the next seven weeks in a series of debates. The convention would then be thrown open to these candidates. The deciders would be Democratic convention delegates, not primary voters. But the process would be transparent.
I think the non-rabid conservatives telegraphed the immunity case today. They found against the DOJ on the Jan 6 "offical proceedings" rule, but in a way the preserves the department's ability to pursue most of the cases, and notably the one about Trump.
They did so in a sort of needle-threading way that seems to designed to reach that result. If they were going to crown Stumpy on Monday, that would have been a pointless exercise.
Or maybe they're just as weird as they are corrupt and I'm wrong. Who can say. In the long run, we're all dead anyway.
I'm guessing they are going to feign ignorance on which acts are official and remand the case to the lower court to decide that issue. The delay is how to write that order to get Trump off the hook without looking like they're doing that. The problem is that it would look bad to declare blatantly criminal acts "official"--it's hard work being a Supreme Court Justice.
Now, about that gratuity....
That's more or less my prediction--the six corrupt Republican "justices" will pull some totally fabricated rule granting immunity for official acts out of their orifice and send the matter back to Judge Chutkan for months of hearing on Drumpf motions for dismissal based on immunity followed by even more months of an appeals process. And that's a best case scenario that assumes democracy survives after November, which ain't looking great ATM. Of course, this "judgment" will be totally absurd, since there is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that the president has any such immunity, but maybe the corrupt six can once again find some guidance from Matthew Hale, their favorite seventeenth century judge and witch hunter. Meanwhile, Sammy and Clary, the Bobbsey Twins of utterly shameless corruption, will concur in the result but write separate opinions stating that they would have found something awfully close to Drumpf's ludicrous claim of total immunity. This opinion will be so off the wall that it should cause my '70s era Cornell Law profs to spin in their graves. Nonetheless, the odds are at least 50-50 that Gorsuch (and perhaps even Kavanaugh) will sign on to this mishegoss.
I think the loons wanted to leave Biden's debate performance as the news and not distract from that. They want TFG back, obv., even if they loathe him as a human.
SCOTUS sucks SCROTUS.
It seems I am much less suspicious of the Supreme Court than others here. People like John Roberts are far too conservative for my tastes, but I do not believe he’s plotting anything malevolent.
So here’s a prediction which, of course, may very soon be proved wrong: the court will not uphold Trump’s immunity claim. But why are they taking so long? I think Kevin more or less gets it right:
“They know the stakes of the immunity case in particular.”
My guess, which may wind up looking either foolish or prescient, is that Roberts is trying to forge as much consensus on this issue as possible. He wants as strong a statement as he can get against Trump’s immunity claims. But consensus takes time, and unanimity may no longer be possible with the present court.
After all, the Republican justices surely realize that any immunity they grant to a Republican president (which many of them like) can then be utilized by a future Democratic president that they probably won’t like.
And, no, the Supreme Court is not trying to engineer a country without any future Democratic presidents. That sort of claim is paranoid.
"After all, the Republican justices surely realize that any immunity they grant to a Republican president (which many of them like) can then be utilized by a future Democratic president that they probably won’t like."
You cannot possibly be so naïve as to think the Sinister Six would actually apply the law equally to Republicans and Democrats.
@drickard1967:
Right, so your perspective is what I was referencing above with the word “paranoid.”
I’ll grant there are one or two of the conservative justices who really are concerning.
I’ll add, on the other hand, that there are also some Liberal justices who lost my trust when they wrote fierce opinions attacking free speech when they disapproved of the speech in question.
But a “sinister six”? This is real life, not a comic book.
I agree that Sinister Six is overblown. They are merely christian fascist weirdos who are drunk on power and want to subjugate the country to their stupid cultish religion and force women to die in hospital parking lots so baby jesus isn't sad.
Thanks for bringing some much-needed sanity to this discussion!
Yeah, it's real life.
They're fucking sinister, and it should be pointed out that behavior only belongs in comic books, not real life.
He isn't naive. He is a right wing racist troll that likes to pretend he is a concerned liberal about how extreme leftwing Democrats are, especially with anything that tries to preserve the rights of minorities.
I expect they want to extend immunity ONLY after January 20th or the Inauguration of the Next Republican President [click-click], whichever comes first. Biden is probably the least likely person who will ever in the future hold the office to abuse the immunity, but you just never know, do you?
In many ways, that is the essence of the problem for the Republican justices. A complete immunity from the law would, at least in theory, allow Pres. Biden to send Seal Team 6 to kill Donald Trump but wouldn’t similarly empower a Republican to kill Biden since there’s only one president at one time and Biden’s the sitting president. So my guess is that they’ll compromise and come up with some kind of a test and remand for proceedings consistent with the new bullshit test—which means no federal or state trial for Trump before the election.
Beautiful music, whether a march or dirge relies on tempo...
How could they revel the crescendo when it's drowned out by bed wetting?
The five stages of grief, also known as the Kübler-Ross model, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
I’ve reached acceptance. Where are you?
🕊️ ☮️
Emigration.
The only thing I have to say with regards to the entire sentiment expressed is:
Duh.
Secrecy enhances their deity affectation.