US supreme court

Subterms

    More stories

    • 213 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Supreme court justice Samuel Alito faces criticism after Trump-supporting flag reportedly seen outside his home – live

      by

      Good morning, US politics blog readers. The New York Times reported yesterday that a flag used by supporters of Donald Trump’s baseless claim of fraud in his 2020 election loss flew outside Samuel Alito’s house shortly before Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. The supreme court justice, who said the flag was displayed by his wife amid a dispute with a neighbor, is a conservative stalwart on the court, and authored the decision that two years ago overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states the ban abortion. The reactions to the news have been predictably partisan, with Republican senator Tom Cotton accusing the Times of trying to “incite another mob”, Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz describing flying the flag as “not normal” and Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal saying the court’s credibility “is plummeting”.The story was the latest in a string of reports that have emerged over the past year and raised questions about the supreme court’s ethics. While these stories have generated plenty of outrage, none of the justices involved have suffered any consequences, and the conservatives remain dominant on the court, with six seats against the liberals’ three. The court is poised to soon rule on whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election – a case that could have a major impact on his rematch with Joe Biden.Here’s what else is going on today:
      The House oversight committee late yesterday advanced a resolution to hold attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt for not releasing a recording of Biden’s interview with a special counsel, but only after a shouting match between lawmakers.
      Biden, who polls show has lost some of his support with Black voters, will speak at the National Museum of African American History and Culture at 11.45am ET, and then meet with leaders of Black fraternities and sororities together with Kamala Harris at 3.30pm.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre takes reporters’ questions at 1pm.
      The Democratic chair of the Senate judiciary committee, Dick Durbin, is calling on Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases concerning Donald Trump and the 2020 election after the New York Times reported that a flag supporting the ex-president’s false election fraud claims flew outside the supreme court justice’s residence.Here’s what Durbin had to say:
      Flying an upside-down American flag – a symbol of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement – clearly creates the appearance of bias. Justice Alito should recuse himself immediately from cases related to the 2020 election and the January 6 insurrection, including the question of the former President’s immunity in US v Donald Trump, which the supreme court is currently considering.
      The court is in an ethical crisis of its own making, and Justice Alito and the rest of the court should be doing everything in their power to regain public trust. This latest story is further proof that Congress needs to pass the SCERT Act to create an enforceable code of conduct for the supreme court. Supreme court justices should be held to the highest ethical standards, not the lowest.
      The Scert Act would require the supreme court to adopt a code of conduct and create a mechanism to investigate violations. While the court adopted an ethics code last year, it lacks any mechanism for enforcement.Republicans are vehemently against any new regulations on the supreme court, and have the votes to prevent the Scert Act from passing the Senate.In other news, the House oversight committee last night advanced a resolution to hold the attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt after he refused to release audio of Joe Biden’s interview with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated his possession of classified documents. But the vote only took place after a messy verbal clash between lawmakers at opposite ends of the political spectrum, the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly reports:The two most famous sets of initials in US politics clashed in a chaotic House hearing on Thursday, as the progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, or AOC, objected fiercely to an attack on another Democrat by the far-right Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, or MTG.The oversight committee hearing concerned Republican attempts to hold the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, in contempt, for refusing to release tapes of interviews between Joe Biden and the special counsel Robert Hur.Things went wrong when MTG made a partisan point, trying to tie Democrats to the judge in Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money case – which, by drawing a number of Republicans to the New York courtroom to support Trump, was responsible for the hearing starting late in the day.In answer to MTG, Jasmine Crockett of Texas said: “Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland … Do you know what we’re here for? You know we’re here about AG Garland?”In response to the New York Times’s reporting, Samuel Alito acknowledged that the flag was raised outside his house, but said it was due to a dispute with a neighbor:
      I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Justice Alito said in an emailed statement to The Times. “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”
      The Alitos live in Alexandria, Virginia, a pleasant city across the Potomac river from Washington DC, where some of their neighbors do not like them, the Times reports:
      In recent years, the quiet sanctuary of his street, with residents who are Republicans and Democrats, has tensed with conflict, neighbors said. Around the 2020 election, a family on the block displayed an anti-Trump sign with an expletive. It apparently offended Mrs. Alito and led to an escalating clash between her and the family, according to interviews.
      Some residents have also bridled at the noise and intrusion brought by protesters, who started showing up outside the Alito residence in 2022 after the Supreme Court overturned the federal right to abortion. Other neighbors have joined the demonstrators, whose intent was “to bring the protest to their personal lives because the decisions affect our personal lives,” said Heather-Ann Irons, who came to the street to protest.
      The half-dozen neighbors who saw the flag, or knew of it, requested anonymity because they said they did not want to add to the contentiousness on the block and feared reprisal. Last Saturday, May 11, protesters returned to the street, waving flags of their own (“Don’t Tread on My Uterus”) and using a megaphone to broadcast expletives at Justice Alito, who was in Ohio giving a commencement address. Mrs. Alito appeared in a window, complaining to the Supreme Court security detail outside.
      As you can see in the below tweet from the New York Times, the flag flown outside the conservative supreme court justice Samuel Alito’s house was simply an upside-down American flag:But as their story notes, flying the flag that way had, by early 2021, become a symbol of support for Donald Trump’s false claims that his loss in the November 2020 election had occurred due to fraud:
      Turning the American flag upside down is a symbol of emergency and distress, first used as a military S.O.S., historians said in interviews. In recent decades, it has increasingly been used as a political protest symbol — a controversial one, because the flag code and military tradition require the paramount symbol of the United States to be treated with respect.
      Over the years, upside-down flags have been displayed by both the right and the left as an outcry over a range of issues, including the Vietnam War, gun violence, the Supreme Court’s overturning of the constitutional right to abortion and, in particular, election results. In 2012, Tea Party followers inverted flags at their homes to signal disgust at the re-election of President Barack Obama. Four years later, some liberals advised doing the same after Mr. Trump was elected.
      During Mr. Trump’s quest to win, and then subvert, the 2020 election, the gesture took off as never before, becoming “really established as a symbol of the ‘Stop the Steal’ campaign,” according to Alex Newhouse, a researcher at the University of Colorado Boulder.
      A flood of social media posts exhorted Trump supporters to flip over their flags or purchase new ones to display upside down.
      “If Jan. 6 rolls around and Biden is confirmed by the Electoral College our nation is in distress!!” a poster wrote on Patriots.win, a forum for Trump supporters, garnering over a thousand “up” votes. “If you cannot go to the DC rally then you must do your duty and show your support for our president by flying the flag upside down!!!!”
      In an appearance on MSNBC this morning, Richard Blumenthal, a Democratic senator who serves on the judiciary committee, said the revelation that a pro-Trump flag flew outside Samuel Alito’s house further undermines the supreme court’s credibility.Polls indicate public approval of the supreme court has declined over the past two decades, which Blumenthal blames on the conflicts of interest that have developed among its conservative justices. He called on Chief Justice John Roberts to order Alito and Clarence Thomas, a fellow conservative whose wife was involved in efforts to stop Joe Biden from taking office, to recuse themselves:Blumenthal has been among the Democratic lawmakers that have pressured Roberts and the justices to tighten their ethics following reports of their connections with wealthy conservatives:The revelation that a flag used by supporters of Donald Trump’s baseless 2020 election fraud claims flew outside the house of Samuel Alito comes as the court is considering whether to give the ex-president immunity from the federal charges brought against him for his attempt to block Joe Biden from assuming office.In oral arguments in the case last month, the supreme court justice and other conservatives seemed partial to Trump’s claim that he should be immune from at least some of the charges, since they concern his conduct while acting in his official capacity as president. That raises the prospect of a decision that could have the net effect of further delaying his trial, potentially until after his November presidential election rematch against Biden.During the oral arguments, Alito, together with fellow conservative Brett Kavanaugh, seemed worried that future presidents could be affected by a denial of immunity to Trump. Here’s a recap of their viewpoint, from the Guardian’s Hugo Lowell:
      Alito and Kavanaugh suggested they were particularly concerned about zealous prosecutors going after former presidents once they left office for “mistakes” if the supreme court decided that presidents had no immunity from criminal prosecution.
      “It’s not going to stop, it’s going to cycle back and be used against the current president and the next president and the next president after that,” Kavanaugh said.
      The government disputed that prosecutors could wantonly target former presidents, arguing there were checks and balances in the judicial system like the grand jury process.
      Alito was dismissive of the grand jury suggestion, bringing up the adage that a grand jury could indict a “ham sandwich”. When Dreeben said prosecutors don’t charge people who don’t deserve it, Alito responded: “Every once in a while there’s an eclipse too.”
      For more on the case, and how the supreme court’s decision could affect it, here’s our story from April:Good morning, US politics blog readers. The New York Times reported yesterday that a flag used by supporters of Donald Trump’s baseless claim of fraud in his 2020 election loss flew outside Samuel Alito’s house shortly before Joe Biden’s inauguration in 2021. The supreme court justice, who said the flag was displayed by his wife amid a dispute with a neighbor, is a conservative stalwart on the court, and authored the decision that two years ago overturned Roe v Wade and allowed states the ban abortion. The reactions to the news have been predictably partisan, with Republican senator Tom Cotton accusing the Times of trying to “incite another mob”, Minnesota’s Democratic governor Tim Walz describing flying the flag as “not normal” and Democratic senator Richard Blumenthal saying the court’s credibility “is plummeting”.The story was the latest in a string of reports that have emerged over the past year and raised questions about the supreme court’s ethics. While these stories have generated plenty of outrage, none of the justices involved have suffered any consequences, and the conservatives remain dominant on the court, with six seats against the liberals’ three. The court is poised to soon rule on whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution over his attempt to overturn the 2020 election – a case that could have a major impact on his rematch with Joe Biden.Here’s what else is going on today:
      The House oversight committee late yesterday advanced a resolution to hold attorney general Merrick Garland in contempt for not releasing a recording of Biden’s interview with a special counsel, but only after a shouting match between lawmakers.
      Biden, who polls show has lost some of his support with Black voters, will speak at the National Museum of African American History and Culture at 11.45am ET, and then meet with leaders of Black fraternities and sororities together with Kamala Harris at 3.30pm.
      White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre takes reporters’ questions at 1pm. More

    • 163 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Upside-down US flag reportedly hung outside Samuel Alito’s home days after Capitol attack

      by

      An upside-down American flag was reportedly spotted flying outside the home of the conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito during the closing days of the 2020 election.The inverted flag is a symbol that has become associated with the former president Donald Trump’s false claims that Joe Biden stole the election.Used by some Trump supporters during the January 6 Capitol Hill riots, the upside-down flag was seen outside Alito’s home on 17 January 2021 – 10 days after the riots in DC and three days before Joe Biden’s inauguration, according to a report in the New York Times on Friday.The image of the flag outside Alito’s home is likely to renew fears of partisanship among political appointees on the conservative-leaning court. The court has found itself at the epicenter of US culture wars in recent years for the rulings it has made, including a rollback of reproductive rights and a relaxation of restrictions relating to gun ownership.According to the Times, word of the upside-down flag made its way back to the court as the justices were considering an election case related to ballot-counting in Pennsylvania. Alito, an appointee of George W Bush, was on the losing side of the decision.“I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in a statement to the paper. “It was briefly placed by Mrs Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”Alito’s wife, Martha-Ann, had been in a dispute with a neighbor about an anti-Trump sign on their lawn. Neighbors said they interpreted the Alito family’s flag as a political statement, and one said it had hung outside the home for several days.On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough offered an impassioned take on the flag’s appearance at Alito’s home, telling viewers of his show on Friday morning: “For a guy who is a supreme court justice that let that happen at his own home in one of the most fraught times in American history since the civil war is just … it’s just sad. And it shows how little respect he has for the institution. It shows how little respect he has for the law. It really … It’s disgusting. It’s just disgusting.”Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who appeared on Morning Joe on Friday alongside Scarborough, echoed those thoughts.“I am beyond disturbed. I was a law clerk to Justice Blackman on the US supreme court when this kind of behavior would have been unimaginable. You wouldn’t have read about it in a book of fiction,” he said.“Justice Alito should not sit on any of these cases involving Donald Trump. He ought to recuse himself. Here is the challenge to Chief Justice Roberts: the US supreme court’s credibility is plummeting – lower than perhaps the US Congress, and that’s saying something. It is due to the supreme court’s own self-inflicted wounds.”Experts on judicial conduct told the Times that symbols of partiality, including flying an upside-down flag, could be a violation of ethics rules designed to avoid even the appearance of bias.“It might be his spouse or someone else living in his home, but he shouldn’t have it in his yard as his message to the world,” Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, told the Times.Frost added that the inverted flag was “the equivalent of putting a ‘Stop the Steal’ sign in your yard, which is a problem if you’re deciding election-related cases”.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe US supreme court recently adopted a stronger but nonbinding code of ethics for the nine justices on the bench after the conservative justice Clarence Thomas came under scrutiny for accepting but not disclosing trips funded by a Republican billionaire. It was later reported that Alito had similarly failed to report a trip to Alaska.Court employees are under strict rules that warn against public displays of political affiliation, including bumper stickers on vehicles. According to Reuters, the flag should only be displayed upside down “as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property”.The revelation that Martha-Ann Alito hung an upside-down flag in her yard may not provide a determination that Alito was in any way aligned with Trump-inspired insurrectionists, but rather that during the 2020 election neighborhood passions ran hot.Neighbors told the Times that the street was divided between Republicans and Democrats and had been “tensed with conflict”. The anti-Trump sign that Martha-Ann Alito objected to, they said, contained an expletive and had led to mounting tensions.One said neighbors had joined demonstrators outside the Alitos’ home with the intent “to bring the protest to their personal lives because the decisions affect our personal lives”. Those protests have continued. Last Saturday, some used a megaphone to broadcast expletives at Alito.Two years ago, a bipartisan bill was passed to provide round-the-clock police protection for the justices and their families. That came after the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, ordered the US Marshals Service to provide 24/7 protection to the justices following the still-unexplained leak of a draft decision that overturned federal abortion rights guarantees.But with political tensions again increasing with the approach of the November elections, including a supreme court decision on the extent of presidential immunity that will affect at least one of Donald Trump’s pending prosecutions, Alito’s neighborhood flag-flying comes down to “a question of appearances and the potential impact on public confidence in the court”, the former federal judge Jeremy Fogel told the Times.“I think it would be better for the court if he weren’t involved in cases arising from the 2020 election,” Fogel added. “But I’m pretty certain that he will see that differently.” More

    • 175 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Louisiana must use House map with second mostly Black district, US supreme court rules

      by

      The US supreme court on Wednesday ordered Louisiana to hold congressional elections in 2024 using a House map with a second mostly Black district, despite a lower-court ruling that called the map an illegal racial gerrymander.The order allows the use of a map that has majority Black populations in two of the state’s six congressional districts, potentially boosting Democrats’ chances of gaining control of the closely divided House of Representatives in the 2024 elections.The justices acted on emergency appeals filed by the state’s top Republican elected officials and Black voters who said they needed the high court’s intervention to avoid confusion as the elections approach. About a third of Louisiana is Black.Like much of the south, voting is racially polarized in Alabama so any majority-Black district is likely to favor Democrats. Republicans narrowly control the US House and are fighting for an advantage in every seat.It is the latest development in a long and twisted legal saga over Louisiana’s congressional districts.Louisiana lawmakers were forced to add a second majority-Black district last year after a federal judge said the map they drew violated the Voting Rights Act. The state approved a map, but then non-white voters challenged it in court, saying lawmakers relied too much on race when drawing it. Lower federal courts agreed the map should be struck down, and the state said it should not be required to use the map for this year’s elections.The supreme court’s order on Wednesday halts that argument and means the map with a second majority-Black district will be used for this year’s election. What happens after that is unclear.The supreme court has previously put court decisions handed down near elections on hold, invoking the need to give enough time to voters and elections officials to ensure orderly balloting. “When an election is close at hand, the rules of the road must be clear and settled,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote two years ago in a similar case from Alabama. The court has never set a firm deadline for how close is too close.The court’s three liberal justices, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson, all said they would not have granted the request to intervene. Only Jackson explained her reasoning.“There is little risk of voter confusion from a new map being imposed this far out from the November election,” she wrote in a brief dissent. “We have often denied stays of redistricting orders issued as close or closer to an election.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionJackson was objecting to what has come to be known as the Purcell principle – a novel idea adopted by the supreme court that they should not intervene in an election dispute when election day is near. The liberal justices and other critics have accused the court of using the principle to benefit Republicans.Louisiana has had two congressional maps blocked by federal courts in the past two years in a swirl of lawsuits that included a previous intervention by the supreme court. More

    • 138 Shares159 Views

      in US Politics

      Clarence Thomas: Washington is a ‘hideous place’ of ‘nastiness and lies’

      by

      Clarence Thomas told attendees at a judicial conference Friday that he and his wife have faced “nastiness” and “lies” over the last several years and decried Washington DC as a “hideous place”.The US supreme court justice spoke at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the 11th circuit judicial conference, which hears federal cases from Alabama, Florida and Georgia. He made the comments pushing back on his critics in response to a question about working in a world that seems mean-spirited.“I think there’s challenges to that,” Thomas said. “We’re in a world and we – certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been – just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.“But you have some choices. You don’t get to prevent people from doing horrible things or saying horrible things. But one, you have to understand and accept the fact that they can’t change you, unless you permit that.”Thomas has faced criticisms about accepting luxury trips from a Republican donor without reporting them. Last year, he maintained that he didn’t have to report the trips paid for by one of “our dearest friends”.His wife, conservative activist Ginni Thomas, has faced criticism for using her Facebook page to amplify unsubstantiated claims of corruption by Joe Biden as the Democrat seeks a second term as president.He did not discuss the content of the criticisms directly, but said that “reckless” people in Washington will “bomb your reputation”.“They don’t bomb you necessarily, but they bomb your reputation or your good name or your honor,” Thomas said. “And that’s not a crime. But they can do as much harm that way.”During the appearance, Thomas was asked questions by US district judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, one of his former law clerks, who was later appointed to the federal bench. During his hour-long appearance, the longest-serving justice on the court discussed a wide range of topics including the lessons of his grandfather, his friendship with former colleagues, and his belief that court writings and discussions should be more accessible for “regular people”.Thomas, who has spent most of his working life in Washington DC, also discussed his dislike of it.“I think what you are going to find, and especially in Washington, people pride themselves on being awful. It is a hideous place as far as I’m concerned,” Thomas said.Thomas said that it is one of the reasons he and his wife enjoy traveling in their recreational vehicle.“You get to be around regular people who don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things, merely because they have the capacity to do it or because they disagree,” Thomas said.An RV used by Thomas has also become a source of controversy. Senate Democrats in October issued a report saying that most of the $267,000 loan obtained by Thomas to buy a high-end motorcoach appears to have been forgiven.Thomas did not discuss the court’s high-profile caseload.The justice said he believed it is important to use language in court rulings so the law is accessible to the average person.“The regular people I think are being disenfranchised sometimes by the way that we talk about cases,” Thomas said.He wasn’t the only justice making a speaking appearance on Friday.Brett Kavanaugh said on Friday that US history shows court decisions unpopular in their time later can become part of the “fabric of American constitutional law”.The justice was speaking at a conference attended by judges, attorneys and other court personnel in the fifth US circuit court of appeals, which covers Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi and is one of the most conservative circuits. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      US supreme court presses Trump lawyer over immunity from prosecution claim – audio

      by

      US supreme court justices on Thursday questioned a lawyer for Donald Trump about the former president’s claim of immunity from prosecution over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. They posed questions about what happens if a president sells nuclear secrets, takes a bribe or orders a coup or assassination. Trump took his case to the highest court after lower courts rejected his request to be shielded from four election-related criminal charges on the grounds that he was serving as president when he allegedly took the actions that led to the indictment More

    • 175 Shares109 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump the elephant in the room as supreme court hearing strays into the surreal

      by

      It took two hours and 24 minutes for the elephant in the room to be mentioned at Thursday’s US supreme court hearing. “The special counsel has expressed some concern for speed, and wanting to move forward,” said Justice Amy Coney Barrett.That was shorthand for the gargantuan stakes at play in Trump v United States. The court was being asked to consider one of the most consequential prosecutions in US history – the four federal charges brought against former president Donald Trump accusing him of attempting to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election – and whether the case can conceivably go to trial.The supreme court has already moved at such a snail’s pace that the chances of the case coming to trial before November’s presidential election – in which the accused is once again standing for the most powerful job on Earth – are growing slim. The charges were filed by special counsel Jack Smith on 1 August, almost nine months ago.With the clock ticking down, the most conservative of the nine supreme court justices appeared determined to talk about anything but the case at hand. “I’m not concerned about this case, so much as future ones,” said Neil Gorsuch, one of the three justices appointed to the supreme court by Trump.“I’m not focused on the here and now in this case,” parroted another Trump appointee, Brett Kavanaugh. “I’m very concerned about the future.”Samuel Alito repeated the mantra. “I’m going to talk about this in the abstract because what we decide is going to apply to all future presidents,” he said.What the justices appeared to be overlooking in the rush towards abstraction was that the actual substance of the case – the here and now – is of monumental significance. Trump is charged with having orchestrated a conspiracy to subvert the bedrock of democracy – the outcome of a freely held election – as the first president in US history to resist the peaceful handover of power.As Michael Dreeben, who spoke for the government, put it, Trump’s novel legal theory that he enjoys absolute immunity from criminal liability would immunize any president who commits bribery, treason, sedition and murder. Or in Trump’s case, “conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power”.At times the epic debate, which lasted two hours and 40 minutes, strayed into the surreal. Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, argued that a president who ordered the assassination of a political rival or who instigated a military coup could only be prosecuted if he had been impeached and convicted first by Congress.The first question from the bench came from Clarence Thomas, the justice who stubbornly refused to recuse himself despite the inconvenient truth that his wife, Ginni, was profoundly mired in Trump’s conspiracy leading up to the insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January 2021.The award for the most jaw-dropping display of jurisprudential sleight of hand goes to Alito. He invoked the goal of preserving a “stable democratic society” in support of Trump’s claim that he should be immune from prosecution for having attempted to destroy a stable democratic society.“If an incumbent who loses a very close hotly contested election knows that it is a real possibility after leaving office that he may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country?” Alito asked.“I think it’s exactly the opposite, Justice Alito,” Dreeben replied, with admirable restraint.It was all clearly too much for Ketanji Brown Jackson. Of the three liberal justices she put up the most impassioned counter-argument for the prosecution to go ahead.“If there’s no threat of criminal prosecution, what prevents the president from just doing whatever he wants,” she said. The justice left it implicit that this particular former president is potentially less than seven months away from returning to the Oval Office.How the court will rule is less than clear. It is a fair bet that four of the conservatives – Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Thomas – will vote for an outcome that in some form spares Trump from facing a jury in DC before he faces the American electorate on 5 November.Barrett was harder to read. She appeared to be open to allowing the prosecution to proceed, albeit through a tighter lens to distinguish between Trump’s actions that were motivated by personal gain from those conducted in his official capacity.The final word may well fall – once again – to John Roberts, the chief justice. The thrust of his questioning (he alluded to one-legged stools and got stuck on the word “tautology”) suggested that he might be tempted to remand the case back to a lower court for further time-consuming deliberation.Which would play exactly into Trump’s hands. From day one, Trump’s strategy has been delay, delay, delay – with the endgame of kicking the prosecutorial can so far down the road that he can win re-election and appoint a manipulable attorney general who will scrap all charges, or even pardon himself.Which is why the elephant in the courtroom cut such a striking presence. Though with the exception of Barrett’s lone comment, it went entirely un-noted. More

    • 238 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Justice Barrett signals at least part of Trump’s trial could continue even if court approves immunity defense – live

      by

      In an exchange with attorney John Sauer, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett signaled she thought Donald Trump could still face trial on some election interference charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith, even if the supreme court agrees with his claims of immunity.“So, you concede that private acts don’t get immunity?” Barrett asked.“We do,” Sauer replied. Barrett then referred to Smith’s brief in the immunity case:
      He urges us even if we … assume that there was some sort of immunity for official acts, that there were sufficient private acts in the indictment … for the case to go back and the trial to begin immediately. And I want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts.
      She then posed a series of scenarios to Sauer, and asked him whether the acts were official or private. Sauer said most would be considered private, not official, acts.“So those acts, you would not dispute those were private, and you wouldn’t raise a claim that they were official as characterized?” Barrett asked. It’s a telling statement from the Trump-appointed justice, because the court could find that Trump is immune for official acts – but must face trial for acts done in his capacity as a private citizen.Before the special counsel’s office began presenting its case, Neil Gorsuch, a conservative justice, pondered whether rejecting Donald Trump’s claim of immunity would cause presidents to preemptively pardon themselves, in fear that a successor could decide to prosecute them.“What would happen if presidents were under fear, fear that their successors would criminally prosecute them for their acts in office,” asked Gorsuch, who Trump appointed, in an exchange with his attorney John Sauer.“It seems to me like one of the incentives that might be created as for presidents to try to pardon themselves,” Gorsuch continued, adding, “We’ve never answered whether a president can do that. Happily, it’s never been presented to us.”“And if the doctrine of immunity remains in place that’s likely to remain the case,” Sauer replied.Trump’s lawyer went on to argue that a finding against his immunity claim would weaken all future presidents:
      The real concern here is, is there going to be bold and fearless action? Is the president going to have to make a controversial decision where his political opponents are going to come after him the minute he leaves office? Is that going to unduly deter, or is that going to dampen the ardor of that president to do what our constitutional structure demands of him or her, which is bold and fearless action in the face of controversy?
      “And perhaps, if he feels he has to, he’ll pardon himself every four years from now on,” Gorsuch pondered.“But that, as the court pointed out, wouldn’t provide the security because the legality of that is something that’s never been addressed,” Sauer replied.Arguing before the court now is Michael Dreeben, an attorney representing special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted Donald Trump on federal charges relating to conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.He told the court that agreeing with Trump’s immunity claim means president could not be found liable for all sorts of criminal acts:
      His novel theory would immunize former presidents for criminal liability for bribery, treason, sedition, murder, and here for conspiring to use fraud to overturn the results of an election and perpetuate himself in power.
      Such presidential immunity has no foundation in the constitution. The framers knew too well the dangers of a king who could do no wrong. They therefore devised a system to check abuses of power, especially the use of official power for private gain. Here the executive branch is enforcing congressional statutes and seeking accountability for petitioners’ alleged misuse of official power to subvert democracy.
      Conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett continues to sound somewhat flummoxed by John Sauer arguments in favor of Donald Trump’s immunity.“So how can you say that he would be subject to prosecution after impeachment, while at the same time saying that he’s exempt from these criminal statutes?” Barrett asked.Apparently unsatisfied with his answer, Barrett posed another hypothetical to Sauer: In the “example of a president who orders a coup, let’s imagine that he is impeached and convicted for ordering that coup and let’s just accept for the sake of argument, your position that that was official conduct. You’re saying that he couldn’t be prosecuted for that even after conviction and an impeachment proceeding?”Sauer responded by arguing the law must specify that a president who has been impeached and convicted by Congress can still face criminal prosecution for a coup:
      If there was not a statute that expressly referenced the president and made it criminal for the president. There would have to be a statute that made a clear statement that Congress purported to regulate the president’s conduct.
      In an exchange with attorney John Sauer, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett signaled she thought Donald Trump could still face trial on some election interference charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith, even if the supreme court agrees with his claims of immunity.“So, you concede that private acts don’t get immunity?” Barrett asked.“We do,” Sauer replied. Barrett then referred to Smith’s brief in the immunity case:
      He urges us even if we … assume that there was some sort of immunity for official acts, that there were sufficient private acts in the indictment … for the case to go back and the trial to begin immediately. And I want to know if you agree or disagree about the characterization of these acts.
      She then posed a series of scenarios to Sauer, and asked him whether the acts were official or private. Sauer said most would be considered private, not official, acts.“So those acts, you would not dispute those were private, and you wouldn’t raise a claim that they were official as characterized?” Barrett asked. It’s a telling statement from the Trump-appointed justice, because the court could find that Trump is immune for official acts – but must face trial for acts done in his capacity as a private citizen.Another liberal justice, Elena Kagan, debated the specifics with Donald Trump’s attorney John Sauer of his alleged misconduct, and whether he would be immune from prosecution.Kagan asked for Sauer’s views on Trump’s attempt to get Republican lawmakers in Arizona to help him disrupt Joe Biden’s election victory there: “The defendant asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing based on their claims of election fraud.”“Absolutely an official act for the president to communicate with state officials on a matter of enormous federal interest and concern, attempting to defend the integrity of a federal election to communicate with state officials,” Sauer replied.In an exchange with liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor, Donald Trump’s attorney John Sauer defended the legality of sending slates of fake electors – as Trump is alleged to have done to stop Joe Biden from winning the White House.The allegation is at the heart of the charges against Trump, both in special counsel Jack Smith’s federal case, and in the case brought in Georgia by Fulton county district attorney Fani Willis.“What is plausible about the president insisting and creating a fraudulent slate of electoral candidates, assuming you accept the facts of the complaint on their face? Is that plausible that that would be within his right to do?” Sotomayor asked.“Absolutely, your honor,” Sauer replied. “We have the historical precedent we cite in the lower courts of president Grant sending federal troops to Louisiana and Mississippi in 1876 to make sure that the Republican electors got certified.”Liberal justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded sharply skeptical of John Sauer’s arguments as she harkened back to the country’s early days in exploring the situations where a president could be prosecuted.Referring to amicus, or “friend of the court”, briefs filed in the case by outside groups, Sotomayor said:
      There are amica here who tell us that the founders actually talked about whether to grant immunity to the president. And in fact, they had state constitutions that granted some criminal immunity to governors. And yet, they didn’t take it up. Instead, they fought to pass an impeachment clause that basically says you can’t remove the president from office, except by a trial in the Senate, but you can impeach him after so … you can impose criminal liability.
      We would be creating a situation in which … a president is entitled not to make a mistake, but more than that, a president is entitled for total personal gain, to use the trappings of his office. That’s what you’re trying to get us to hold? Without facing criminal liability?
      Up first before the court is attorney John Sauer, who is representing Donald Trump.He’s currently in a back-and-forth with chief justice John Roberts, a conservative who has occasionally acted as a swing vote on the rightward-leaning court, as to whether a president accepting a bribe would be legal.The nine supreme court justices are seated and have begun hearing arguments over whether or not Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election because he was acting in his official capacity as president.Follow along here for live updates.Should the supreme court throw out Donald Trump’s immunity claim, when might his trial on federal election subversion charges begin?Or, if it is delayed further, which is the next criminal case to go before jurors? And what of the many civil suits against him?For a rundown of the former-perhaps-next president’s multitudinous legal troubles, check out our regularly updated case tracker:Protesters often turn up by the dozens outside the supreme court in Washington DC when it hears high-profiles cases, and Donald Trump’s occasional appearances in the Capitol also typically attract demonstrations.But for whatever reason, the exterior of the high court appears relatively quiet this morning, at least based on the photos on the wire, with few protesters present:The supreme court has not yet even heard arguments in Donald Trump’s claim that he is immune from charges related to attempting to overturn the 2020 election because his alleged actions were taken while serving as president. But legal scholar Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, said the conservative-dominated body has already done the ex-president’s bidding by agreeing to hear the case – and therefore delaying the start of a trial that could prove pivotal to his chances of returning to the White House.“The justices have already done great damage,” Waldman wrote recently. “They engineered one of history’s most egregious political interventions – not with an ugly ruling, at least not yet, but by getting ‘the slows’. At the very least they should issue this ruling in three weeks. That would give trial judge Tanya Chutkan enough time to start the trial [before the election], if barely.”Here’s more on why Waldman thinks the high court erred, and what we can expect in today’s arguments, from the Guardian’s Martin Pengelly:Good morning, US politics blog readers.It’s another big day at the supreme court – perhaps the biggest of its term so far. Beginning at 10am ET, the nine justices will hear arguments over whether Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for acts done while he was in office. The former president has made the claim as part of a bid to blunt special counsel Jack Smith’s case against him for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election, and while there’s no telling how the court will rule, it has already had one concrete effect: delaying his trial in Washington DC, potentially until after the November election, and therefore preventing a potential guilty verdict that could have damaged his campaign.The supreme court is composed of a six-justice conservative supermajority – three of whom Trump appointed – and a three-justice liberal minority, and the fact that they took this case up at all has raised eyebrows among some legal scholars. A ruling in his favor could lead to at least some of the charges Smith has brought to be dropped. If the court rejects arguments from Trump’s attorneys, his trial may be cleared to proceed – but there is still no telling when it will actually kick off.The former president will not be in Washington DC for today’s oral arguments. He’s in New York City, where his trial is underway on charges of falsifying business documents related to hush money payments made before his 2016 election victory, the first of his four criminal cases to go before jurors. We have a separate live blog covering all that.Here’s what else is going on today:
      Joe Biden is heading to Syracuse, New York to tell the tale of how the 2022 Chips act and other policies are helping turn around the local economy, then heading to New York’s ritzy suburbs for a campaign event.
      Arizona has indicted 18 former top Trump officials, including Mark Meadows, his ex-chief of staff, and attorney Rudy Giuliani for their attempts to overturn Biden’s victory in the state four years ago, the AP reports.
      And in Michigan, a state investigator said he considered Trump and Meadows as unindicted co-conspirators in a plot to interfere with Biden’s victory there in 2020, according to the AP. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Liz Cheney urges US supreme court to rule quickly on Trump’s immunity claim

      by

      The former congresswoman and co-chair of the House January 6 committee Liz Cheney is urging the US supreme court to rule quickly on Donald Trump’s claim that he has immunity from prosecution for acts he committed while president – so that his 2020 election interference trial can begin before the 2024 election this November.“If delay prevents this Trump case from being tried this year, the public may never hear critical and historic evidence developed before the grand jury, and our system may never hold the man most responsible for January 6 to account,” Cheney wrote in an opinion article for the New York Times, published on Monday.Trump faces four federal election subversion charges, arising from his attempt to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden in 2020, fueled by his lie about electoral fraud and culminating in the deadly attack on Congress by extremist supporters, urged on by the then president, on 6 January 2021.Cheney warned: “I know how Mr Trump’s delay tactics work,” adding: “Mr Trump believes he can threaten and intimidate judges and their families, assert baseless legal defenses and thereby avoid accountability altogether.”The special counsel Jack Smith, prosecuting the case against Trump, has urged the court to reject Trump’s immunity claim as “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government”.Cheney, a Republican and the daughter of the former vice-president Dick Cheney, was ousted from her congressional seat, representing Wyoming, after she became one of the strongest voices from the GOP demanding Trump be held accountable for inciting and failing to stop the January 6 insurrection.She has since said she would prefer Democrats to win in the 2024 elections over members of her own party as it has become more extreme, because she feared the US was “sleepwalking into dictatorship” and that another Trump White House presented a tangible “threat” to American democracy.Cheney said in her New York Times article: “The special counsel’s indictment lays out Mr Trump’s detailed plan to overturn the 2020 election … [and that] senior advisers in the White House, Justice Department and elsewhere repeatedly warned that Mr Trump’s claims of election fraud were false and that his plans for January 6 were illegal.”She added: “If Mr Trump’s tactics prevent his January 6 trial from proceeding in the ordinary course, he will also have succeeded in concealing critical evidence from the American people – evidence demonstrating his disregard for the rule of law, his cruelty on January 6 and the deep flaws in character that make him unfit to serve as president. The Supreme Court should understand this reality and conclude without delay that no immunity applies here.”The court’s nine-member bench leans very conservative, especially after Trump nominated three rightwing justices while he was president. The court hears oral arguments in the immunity case on Thursday.Trump and his team urged the court to find that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts they take in office and therefore dismiss the federal criminal case. More