The Supreme Court announced Tuesday that it will meet on Dec. 13 to consider whether to hear arguments in a full briefing on Donald Trump's appeal of a lower court ruling giving access to his tax returns and other financial records to prosecutors in New York.
This is the first of many cases involving possible Trump corruption, including potentially questions involving his impeachment, that a supposed "neutral" court, there just to "call balls and strikes," in Chief Justice John Roberts' words, could hear. A lot more is at stake than Trump's presidency, including the integrity of the court and every justice serving on it.
In the words of Walter Dellinger, the attorney who argued and lost at the Supreme Court on behalf of then-President Bill Clinton, "This is a real existential test for this Supreme Court." The case Dellinger lost was over whether Clinton was immune from a lawsuit. The court said he wasn't. "This will be a special moment for the independence of the judiciary and whether the hyperpartisanship that has infected so much of our culture has also infiltrated the Supreme Court," said Dellinger.
It's too late for that. It's clear that the Roberts court is part of the Republican establishment, and willing to be radically so. When Dellinger calls this an existential test, he's not exaggerating.