I don't know what I thought the Supreme Court would do with the Trump immunity case. I tried not to think about it because it wasn't going to do me any good to worry about it, and if anything I probably thought they would land somewhere in the wishy-washy middle, instead of doing what they should have done (declaring that of course the president is not immune to prosecution).
Instead six of them have landed on the fascist extreme, doing what they've been paid to do throughout their careers, and what makes sense in the Leonard Leo worldview they've immersed themselves in despite the supposed logic they claim to support. They don't support logic, or history, or facts — not even the facts of the cases in front of them.
As usual there's a fire hose of reaction. Here are a few things I've read, each on quoted from the attributed account.
From Twitter
Welp, that's all folks. The President is immune from prosecution so long as he says he committed crimes as part of his "official" duties. So ends the part of the American experience where our leaders were bound by the rule of law. Thanks for playing.
Elie Mystal
Alfie Kohn
The Constitution explicitly says president can be impeached AND prosecuted. It mentions bribery. How can a POTUS be bribed except for official acts?
Mona Charen
biden ending his speech with "i dissent" is a perfect encapsulation of his approach to the court—he sees himself as akin to a dissenting justice who only has the power to complain, rather than a politician with the ability to do—or even try to do—something about the court
Jack Mirkinson
Supreme Court Overturns 'Right v. Wrong'
The Onion
So SCOTUS answered the Seal Team Six hypothetical with....yeah that's fine?
Chris Hayes
So Biden can’t forgive student loans but he can order a drone strike on the loan collectors?
Sam Youngman
Quite a headline from Elie Mystal:
Thor Benson
Many people are fine jettisoning democracy if it has to be a multi-racial democracy. Once you understand that, everything else makes sense.
Erika K Wilson
Alito, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh are the only five of the 116 justices to serve on the Supreme Court to have been confirmed by senators representing less than one half of the US population. The panel on the left shows how dramatically different that was just 24 years ago, when, with the exception of Thomas, every justice on the Court was confirmed by senators representing at least two-thirds of the US population, and six were confirmed by senators representing 90 percent of the US population:
Michael Podhorzer
Do people seriously not understand that “official acts” is a construction so the Court can subjectively cut down anything a president they don’t support and protect a president they do support? I mean. Cmon. They didn’t do this haphazardly. Stop pretending otherwise.
Jared Yates Sexton
FromBlueSky:
Well at least there's one person in America who is allowed to sleep on a park bench
Luu @itsmeluu.bsky.social
The lesson Roberts and Thomas draw from the unprecedented nature of Trump's indictments is not that he's a unique threat (as per all available evidence). The real threat to "liberty" is the possibility that, someday, the most powerful person on earth could, in theory, be unjustly accused of a crime.
Radley Balko
trump just called for liz cheney to be prosecuted for treason which, according to john roberts, is an official act and would not be subject to criminal sanction
b-boy bouiebaisse @jbouie.bsky.social
This Originalist™ court has effectively immunized both the president and all federal law enforcement officers from any meaningful accountability. Because if there are two things the Founders cherished, it's the power of a king-like executive and armed agents of the government to act with impunity.
Radley Balko
I know no one "on here" thinks this but if you think that the man who said "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?" won't use his power if he becomes president to kill a rival or even an annoyance.. just wait.
Anthea Butler
throughout the Trump immunity decision, the Court champions the idea of an unfettered, uninhibited President. the darkest part of the opinion isn’t that it paves the way for an authoritarian leader, it’s that it yearns for one
Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social
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