by Charles P. Pierce

Esquire

AZ State Senator Justine Wadsack thought she was privileged and a state cop calls her out with a ticket. SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts does the heavy lifting to save the orange one’s reputation. Small issue being the orange ones prompting of an insurrection. Robert would not compromise and why should he? He had the votes minus the three who would compromise.

Charle Pierce discussing the state of affairs at SCOTUS when it comes to Trump.

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I confess, I fell for Chief Justice John Roberts’ whole shtick for longer than I should have. That whole “institutionalist” jive got by me far too easily. The presence on the Supreme Court of obvious hacks like Mr. Justice Thomas and Mr. Justice Alito obscured the fact that Roberts is one of them. This weekend, The New York Times turned on all the lights.

Former President Donald J. Trump, seeking to retake the White House, had made a bold, last-ditch appeal to the justices. He wanted them to block his fast-approaching criminal trial on charges of attempting to overturn the 2020 election, arguing that he was protected by presidential immunity. Whatever move the court made could have lasting consequences for the next election, the scope of presidential power and the court’s own battered reputation.

The chief justice’s Feb. 22 memo, jump-starting the justices’ formal discussion on whether to hear the case, offered a scathing critique of a lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule, according to several people from the court who saw the document. The chief justice tore into the appellate court opinion greenlighting Mr. Trump’s trial, calling it inadequate and poorly reasoned. On one key point, he complained, the lower court judges “failed to grapple with the most difficult questions altogether.” He wrote not only that the Supreme Court should take the case — which would stall the trial — but also how the justices should decide it.

The NYT apparently was presented with a massive leak of internal Court documenting exactly the size of the thumb Roberts put on the scale as regards the destabilizing constitutional heresy that is U.S. v. Trump. (Think Tom Robbins’ Sissy Hankshaw doubled and redoubled.) In one instance leading up to that grand finale, even Alito wasn’t enough of a sure thing for the Chief.

In a momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases last term, the court found itself more entangled in presidential politics than at any time since the 2000 election, even as it was contending with its own controversies related to that day. The chief justice responded by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.

This account draws on details from the justices’ private memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders, both conservative and liberal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are supposed to be kept secret.

The chief justice wrote the majority opinions in all three cases, including an unsigned one in March concluding that the former president could not be barred from election ballots in Colorado. Another case involved a highly unusual switch. In April, the chief justice assigned Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. to write a majority opinion saying that prosecutors had gone too far in bringing obstruction charges against some Capitol rioters. But in late May, the chief justice took it over.

This breach of Court secrecy is every bit as unprecedented as the preview we got of Justice Alito’s torching of Roe v. Wade. It is further evidence that the Court is cracking up but, this time, Roberts doesn’t have the excuse of being the hall monitor in Bedlam.

During the February discussions of the immunity case, the most consequential of the three, some of the conservative justices wanted to schedule it for the next term. That would have deferred oral arguments until October and almost certainly pushed a decision until after the election. But Chief Justice Roberts provided crucial support for hearing the historic case earlier, siding with the liberals.

Then he froze them out. After he circulated his draft opinion in June, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior liberal, signaled a willingness to agree on some points in hopes of moderating the opinion, according to those familiar with the proceedings. Though the chief justice often favors consensus, he did not take the opening. As the court split 6 to 3, conservatives versus liberals, Justice Sotomayor started work on a five-alarm dissent warning of danger to democracy.

Chief Justice John Roberts Almost Had Me Fooled (msn.com)