The Supreme Court honestly couldn’t do more to give President Donald Trump everything he wants.
It has comprehensively kneecapped the lower courts, both by overturning them relentlessly—and often without explanation—and by severely limiting the relief they can award.
It has given him congressional power of the purse, letting him refuse to spend money duly allocated by Congress.
It has supported his firing spree of the heads of independent agencies—which, you know, makes them not really all that independent.
Now you might think that, since the Supreme Court is Trump’s Big Cool Friend, Trump’s smaller, less cool friends would also have an in at the nation’s highest court. Really, what's the point in spending time with a mercurial, petty toddler madman like Trump if you can’t run to the Supreme Court for all your own needs?
Jeffrey Epstein’s associate Ghislaine Maxwell tried and failed to get her conviction overturned at the Supreme Court.
Well, on Monday, the Supreme Court disappointed not one but two of the lesser denizens in Trump’s orbit.
First, it refused to hear Laura Loomer’s defamation suit against Facebook. Sure, within the confines of the Trump administration, she’s incredibly powerful—basically a one-woman funhouse mirror version of HR, getting everyone she doesn’t like fired. But the fact that she’s somehow secretly in charge of national security staffing doesn’t mean that the Supreme Court has to entertain her dumb lawsuit.
Second, the Supreme Court refused to hear convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell’s appeal to overturn her conviction, despite the Trump administration giving her special treatment in exchange for her cooperation throughout Trump’s ongoing Epstein scandal.
Earlier this year, the court also proved unwilling to allow Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to do whatever he wants regarding immigration, even as it bends over backward to remove any restrictions on Trump’s power in that arena. It refused to overturn a lower court decision striking down part of a Florida state law that made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to enter the state.
In the near future, the Supreme Court will also have to decide whether to hear right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ challenge to the $1.4 billion judgment against him in the lawsuit brought by Sandy Hook parents who Jones defamed for years. And honestly, I’m betting against Jones on this one.
The Supreme Court’s conservatives have been happy to keep rewarding Trump for his behavior, but apparently that largesse does not extend to taking care of the barnacles who’ve attached themselves to the rotting underbelly of Trump and his administration.
Thank God for small favors.
