What In The World Was Chief Justice Roberts Thinking?

What in the world was Chief Justice John Roberts thinking when he wrote the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States?

Just who did he think he was dealing with when he wrote an opinion establishing absolute and presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for former President Donald Trump?

Trump had said on numerous occasions that if he wins in November, he will exact retribution against his opponents by prosecuting them.

In August 2023, Trump wrote on social media, “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Roberts has now opened the door wide for Trump to do precisely that.

The Roberts opinion dangerously gives a President absolute immunity in dealing with the Justice Department.

The opinion found that Trump and other Presidents had “exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. […] Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.”

It is indefensible and unconscionable for Roberts to issue an opinion that gives future Presidents, including possibly Trump, absolute immunity to use the Justice Department and the FBI to conduct investigations and bring prosecutions for vindictive personal reasons.

Over the past four years, Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies, according to a new report from National Public Radio.

Trump has threatened President Joe Biden and his family, Vice President Kamala Harris, former President Barack Obama, former Representative Liz Cheney (R-WY) and the other members of the House Jan. 6 Committee, and the prosecutors and judges in his criminal trials.

Trump has threatened former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and retired four-star General Mark Milley with execution, and labeled former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA), among other Democrats, as  “an enemy from within.”

In late September, Politico reported, “Trump put hundreds – maybe thousands – more of his political opponents in his prosecutorial crosshairs by threatening unnamed Democratic lawyers, political operatives, donors, voters, and election officials.”

Trump has pledged to put reporters in jail and take away broadcast licenses from television networks for coverage he does not like.

That’s how dictators run countries, not how democracies are run.

A future President Trump could use Roberts’s absolute immunity in dealing with the Justice Department to wreak havoc on his opponents, adversaries, and perceived enemies.

With their disastrous immunity decision, Roberts, and the five Justices who joined him, have removed the guardrails that have protected our country since its founding.

The Founders wanted to ensure that the United States would never be ruled by a king, establishing a foundational principle that no person is above the law. That core principle lasted for more than two centuries until the Roberts opinion shattered it, placing Trump and future Presidents above the law – exactly the result the Founders sought to prevent.

General Milley, appointed by Trump to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation’s highest-ranking military position, has called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and “fascist to the core.”

Retired four-star Marine General John Kelly, Trump’s longest-serving White House Chief of Staff, said Trump “prefers the dictator approach to government,” and meets the definition of a “fascist.”

When two former top-ranking and highly regarded military leaders in our country warn of fascism, we would do well to listen. Their warnings about the dangers of another Trump presidency make the Roberts’s opinion even more perilous and irresponsible.

The Roberts opinion has set the stage for an unaccountable lawbreaking President.

Roberts wrote an opinion favored by the most conservative Justices on the Court. Justice Amy Coney Barrett, in her concurring opinion, suggested a more “narrow” approach. This approach could have gotten at least the five votes needed for a majority if Roberts had pursued it.

Instead, Roberts wrote a broad presidential immunity opinion, aimed at the most conservative Justices, suggesting that the opinion was more about Roberts’s politics inside the Court rather than the best interests of the country.

The result?

The Roberts presidential immunity opinion is the most dangerous anti-democracy Supreme Court opinion in American history.

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