The U.S. Supreme Court heard Donald Trump’s immunity claim in his federal criminal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 election Thursday, and the conservative majority is likely going to give Donald Trump what he wants: a delay of the trial until after the election. If Trump wins again, the conservatives have essentially signaled that they would be open to blanket immunity for him against any future criminal charges.
The fact that Supreme Court justices are suggesting that the president is above the law proves why the court must be reformed.
Four of the justices—Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch—even went so far as to suggest that special counsel Jack Smith’s entire prosecution is unconstitutional, and they reinforced Trump’s argument that the president is immune.
Kavanaugh even told Michael Dreeben, a lawyer from Smith’s office, that it’s a “serious constitutional question whether a criminal statute can apply to the president’s criminal acts.”
That would be the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card for the chief executive, rubber stamped by the highest court of the land.
It’s worth remembering that Thomas refused to recuse himself from this—and most of the Trump election interference cases—despite the fact that his wife, Ginni Thomas, was deeply involved in Trump’s coup attempt. When she testified to the Jan. 6 special congressional committee, she maintained that the election was stolen.
His failure to recuse himself comes after a new ethics code has supposedly been enforced, saying that “a Justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the Justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circumstances would doubt that the Justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”
So much for that suggestion from Chief Justice John Roberts. His code has no teeth, which is yet another reason why ethics reform—and indeed court reform and expansion—is essential.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted a prescient broadside against the court before arguments began, writing “SCOTUS speeds up trials when it wants—but not in this case.”
By all accounts, the court’s conservative majority is doing everything in its power to delay this one.
If the Senate retains the majority in 2025, Schumer is going to have to follow up on that: the Supreme Court is going to have to be reformed and expanded. Nothing less than the survival of this democracy demands it.
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