There’s a leak at the Supreme Court again and this time it’s a memo from Chief Justice Roberts about the Trump immunity case.
This write-up by the Daily Mail seems like they are trying to make it very controversial when it honestly seems far more reasonable to me.
In the article, DM suggests that Roberts demanded a unanimous decision when in reality he said “I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently…”
They claim he ‘took the lead’ on the case, but being the Chief Justice, isn’t that his prerogative?
In any event this leak doesn’t really sound like a big deal to me:
Chief Justice John Roberts strong-armed his fellow Supreme Court judges into allowing him the key role in cases involving Donald Trump, leaked memos reveal.
The conservative judge took the lead in March’s case on whether states could remove the former president from their ballots over his role in the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Roberts demanded a unanimous decision from the bench according to memos leaked to the New York Times.
He also took charge of the case concerning prosecution of the January 6 rioters himself from Justice Samuel Alito after his fellow conservative was embroiled in a row about his wife flying the Stars and Stripes upside down from their home.
Roberts told his colleagues they should take the case after an appellate court ruled that Trump did not enjoy presidential immunity for his alleged role in trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
‘As I read it, it says simply a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted,’ he said of the lower court’s judgement.
And he made no secret of the what he thought his colleagues should decide.
‘I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently,’ he wrote in a February memo.
Some conservatives wanted to delay a decision until after November’s presidential election. But Roberts demanded an early decision and then insisted on writing the opinion himself.
‘In a case like this one, focusing on ‘transient results’ may have profound consequences for the separation of powers and for the future of our Republic,’ he wrote loftily. ‘Our perspective must be more farsighted.’
The decision was a hammer blow to judicial attempts at prosecuting the former president.
In April Roberts asked Alito to write the opinion when the court was asked to consider whether the Department of Justice had overreached in its prosecution for obstruction of January 6 rioters.
But he took it back and wrote it himself when the Alito was embroiled in questions of whether his wife had shown sympathy for the ‘Stop the Steal’ movement with her flying of an upside down flag.
As I’ve asked before, am I wrong?
