John Roberts’ secret Trump memo revealed in huge SCOTUS leak

MicroWave@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 744 points – John Roberts’ Secret Trump Memo Revealed in Huge SCOTUS Leak
thedailybeast.com

The Supreme Court was hit by a flurry of damaging new leaks Sunday as a series of confidential memos written by the chief justice were revealed by The New York Times.

The court’s Chief Justice John Roberts was clear to his fellow justices in February: He wanted the court to take up a case weighing Donald Trump’s right to presidential immunity—and he seemed inclined to protect the former president.

“I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently,” Roberts wrote to his Supreme Court peers, according to a private memo obtained by the *Times. *He was referencing the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision to allow the case to move forward.

Roberts took an unusual level of involvement in this and other cases that ultimately benefited Trump, according to the Times— his handling of the cases surprised even some other justices on the high court, across ideological lines. As president, Trump appointed three of the members of its current conservative supermajority.

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Hey guys I know it’s wild but there might be some corruption going on in the Supreme Court.

Lucky for us there is a system of checks and....oh wait...

Bribery. Checks and bribery.

A system of checks and money orders. And cash.

And luxury vacations. And forgiven "loans." And property purchased as "gifts." And free flights on private jets. And...

These fuckers. These absolutely amoral fuckers.

The biggest blunder of the framers was assuming we'd never form factions (i.e. parties). The assumption was that the branches would oppose each other, not collude.

I don't think that's their fault. They specifically addressed a two party system in multiple writings (they didn't like it) in addition to explicitly stating that they expected future generations to update the constitution as necessary to protect the republic from those who would seek to undermine or replace it. We didn't heed their warnings and now here we are.

To be clear, I don't think the framers were infallible or able to see all possibile challenges that our nation would face. However, they seem to have been pretty damn good at learning from history and that's something modern Americans are absolutely abysmal at. For all their faults they have a lot to teach us in that respect.

they expected future generations to update the constitution as necessary to protect the republic from those who would seek to undermine or replace it.

The problem with this is that it requires people in power to vote to limit their own power. And while there have been some, certainly, who have been willing to do so, getting a supermajority of people willing to do it is simply not something I see as remotely possible anymore.

One could argue that situation would occur if we were smart enough to repeatedly elect those kinds people

It assumes a democracy of well informed voters that is capable of creating enough Cincinnatus figures that they can reliably voted in. That’s not the worst assumption for them to have. It’s a similar assumption to what fucked over the ussr and ccp. The problem is that the average person only cares about bread and circuses and that when the going gets rough or they start losing a certain percentage of the population is comfortable abandoning democracy for perceived security.

At least one of them (maybe Jackson but I'm probably wrong on who) specifically warned about political parties

It was Washington. However, Washington also tended to side with Hamilton against Jefferson in practice, and those two would quickly form political parties that are the ancestors of the modern ones.

The "Founding Fathers" were far from a monolithic block of philosopher kings like American mythmaking likes to portray.

Duverger's Law was developed in the 1950s and 60s, so it wasn't understood way back then.

Which is fucking stupid to think that humans won’t form tribes.

Yeah Andrew Jackson was not a founding father. He was a person who owned hundreds of human beings as slaves and conducted genocide against the native population. He was a total piece of shit really. Trump ordered Jackson's portrait hung in the oval office during his presidency.

You think Trump knew him as anything but "the face on the $20 note"?

If he had gotten office in 1914, he'd have put Grover Cleveland's portrait up for the same reason.

Trump knows Jackson, actually. Jackson is one of his favorite Presidents. Jackson was also a raging asshole, so that makes sense.

That Jackson portrait that was hung up during Trump's tenure? They made sure it was there when Trump met with Native American leaders, and the intended insult was heard loud and clear.

You aren’t wrong on any count but it should be noted most of the founding fathers were slavers and conducted genocide on the native population. Jackson was just particularly shameless about both whereas someone like Jefferson was clearly uncomfortable with slavery, just not as much as he was with the idea of not keeping his fellow human beings, some of whom were his biological family, as slaves.

The supreme court makes a mockery of democracy (intentionally) and should be treated with scorn instead of reverence.

I'd like to take a moment to remind y'all that Clarence "I'm For Sale" Thomas turned down a FREE RV offered by Last Week Tonight. So he's not corrupt. He's selective.

Let's wait and see how he votes on repealing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia

I'm sure he'll vote his conscience

but he already has a free RV,

I think Oliver also offered him $1 million a year from Oliver’s personal moneys. Which is not an insignificant amount of money for a justice who isn’t corrupt.

In the past, he signaled he'd retire because he wasn't getting paid enough, meaning he needed to be bribed to keep a conservative justice on the SCOTUS.

If you take it at face value, then he should have jumped at John Olivers' offer.

The only thing Thomas likes more than money is respect. He would never take Oliver money because it would publicly embarrass him. He hates embarrassment more than anything.

Embarrassment suggests he has a sense of shame. He has already conducted a number of shameful acts already (taking gifts) without any sense he's embarrassed.

When he was in front of the Senate confirmation hearing he was absolutely embarrassed. He knew everyone was watching while he was accused of sexual harassment. He basically stopped interacting with the media because he was so furious with how he was portrayed publicly. Dude hates being publicly shamed. Doesn't mean he's wise enough to stop doing shitty things.

Yeah he’s not shameless. You can say a lot of negative things about him, but he has a hell of an ego and being publicly criticized and embarrassed pisses him off. Though nothing seems to anger him like being pitied.

Shameless and integrityless are different things and he has shame but not integrity.

This one would be newer. A truth lost on us plebes who have to pay for things.

Why take a bribe from John Oliver, who would immediately turn around and disclose that Thomas accepted it on his television program, when he could just go ask Daddy Harlan Crow for an identical RV and then not disclose it?

The Supreme Court is corrupt to the core. There's an inability to hold them accountable for anything. The system of checks and balances functionally doesn't exist for this "apolitical" branch.

“I think it likely that we will view the separation of powers analysis differently,” Roberts wrote to his Supreme Court peers, according to a private memo obtained by the Times.

That's all the Times is gonna give us? One sentence of a memo relating to one of the most questionable Supreme Court decisions of all time? The voters should know everything about how they got to this decision.

Yeah that's not even enough for me to know if it's controversial. I, also, think SCOTUS will have different opinions on separation of powers.

While I agree we need more, this may not sound like much to you or me... but a SCOTUS judge saying it basically states he already has made up his mind about where he stands before even taking the case. They are supposed to be impartial at all times

Exactly. This is a conservative-majority SCOTUS saying, "We decided long ago what we were going to do about this issue and many others. Nothing you can say will change our course. This conversation is over."

When Thomas said he thinks they will have different views, he wasn't saying "we" as in the various supreme court justices. That may be a more reasonable statement.

Thomas said "we" the Supreme Court will have different views than both Chutkin and the DC appeals courts. He was saying SCOTUS will probably overturn the two lower courts.

this would be very "study shows parents more tired than non parents" energy

We all know what they had very stupid reasoning, the only question here is "how stupid?"

I'm GLAD that these LAWMAKERS are UNELECTED and Appointed for a LIFETIME!

Term limits won't help with systemic corruption, because replacing corrupt judges with new corrupt judges would be the natural response.

Enshrining impeachment as a regular and viable strategy for actual corruption would be.

Make them elected and dark money will guarantee that the self-same bastards are elected. You think that democracy is a roadblock to these people?

Not surprised that it happened, shocked that the story got out.

Are they going to vigorously investigate these leaks just long enough to find out it was one of the conservatives and then drop the whole thing?

It wasn't a conservative, it was probably some random clerk.

And they deserve a fucking medal.

  1. That’s what they said last time.

  2. At this point the majority has moved so far right they are beyond conservative and well into autocratic and flirting with authoritarian.

That is to say there may be conservatives who are willing to blow the whistle to try to keep this stink off of themselves.

That’s what they said last time.

Last time it was to force a vote they wanted to go right, which it did.

This one is actually embarrassing to the court.

The news has been embarrassing to the court for a few years now.