The Unmasking of the Kangaroo Court

The 6 conservative Supreme Court justices dropped all pretense at the end of term

Jul 03, 2024

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The Unmasking of the Kangaroo Court

As the Supreme Court ended its Presidential Election year term, the 6 conservatives on the bench unleashed a torrent of legal chaos that has fundamentally shifted how the U.S. Government and the law more broadly operates. In its final week, which stretched into Monday, July 1, the 6 political ideologues successfully completed an enormous power grab for the Supreme Court and for the executive branch.

Last week, the Supreme Court struck down the landmark 1984 Chevron Doctrine in Loper Bright v. Raimondo, which effectively stripped federal agencies of their authority and expertise to interpret the laws they administer and gave it to the federal courts. The high court also helped cover its own butt by reinterpreting what bribery means. In a self-serving decision, the conservatives declawed the long-standing federal anti-bribery law in Snyder v. United States, ruling that it’s perfectly legal, perfectly cool for state and local officials to accept gratuities for their past acts that benefit an interest. The law only applies if local and state officials accept gifts (aka bribes) for future acts.

On Monday, the Supreme Court further obliterated the administrative state, specifically the ability for federal agencies to properly function. In Corner Post v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, the high court moved the goalposts of the statute of limitations for companies to challenge federal regulations and applied it retroactively. The court decided that the statute of limitations doesn’t begin until the company is injured by the regulatory action. This means that even if the regulation was applied decades ago, a challenge can be brought now under the claim that the regulations have begun harming a business’ operations (aka profits).

Also on Monday—after delaying oral arguments until the final day of the terms’ hearings and sitting on the decision for as long as possible—the Supreme Court reinterpreted history in a way that complied with the once fringe belief, the unitary executive theory. Now that the conservatives on the court have fully embraced this theory—that the President has sole control over the executive branch—they were able to inject it into the federal court system and the law of the land by ruling that Trump has absolute presidential immunity for official acts.

And they didn’t stop there. They twisted the law into a pretzel in order to make it nearly impossible to hold Donald Trump accountable for any criminal acts while he occupied the White House. In addition to absolute immunity for core official acts, the high court also ruled that Trump is entitled to presumptive immunity for acts “within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.”

Now if you think there is a silver lining here with the court ruling there is no immunity for unofficial acts, I hate to tell you I am the bearer of bad news. The court baked in a very high bar for prosecutors to prove their case that Trump’s actions were unofficial acts. And also explicitly made some acts core official acts that are now off limits to Special Counsel Jack Smith.

In determining “unofficial acts,” the court ruled that Trump’s motives cannot be a factor. Trump is also absolutely immune from any instructions or pressure he put on the acting attorney general and conversations he had with administration officials. This means that this evidence the SC has gathered is now inadmissable in court.

The court also put a big question mark over Trump’s pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to invalidate the 2020 election results at the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021. While the Supreme Court put this in the “presumptive immunity” bucket, it can be appealed through the courts and it will ultimately be up to the high court to have the final say on the matter. This means that the justices incorporated another delay tactic into the opinion.

And, last but not least, the Supreme Court put one more question mark over Trump’s use of his favorite bully pulpit, Twitter. The justices placed Trump’s tweets instructing MAGA to storm the U.S. Capitol and pressure his VP squarely in the “outer perimeter of his official responsibilities,” which means this issue also comes with a delay tactic.

What the Supreme Court did this term wasn’t just a power grab for itself; it was a consolidation of power from 3 co-equal branches of government to 2 approximately equal branches of government. In order to do so, it had to choke off Congress’ authority over the administrative state and its power to check the executive branch. And it accomplished both things.

What’s most insidious about these decisions is the sneaky power it placed on itself above the executive branch. Notice that while they crowned Trump King, they gave themselves the ultimate say in any criminal charges against the Commander in Chief. Another way to describe what the Supreme Court did this term is make itself King of the Law to impose judicial tyranny.

This is the result of Donald Trump’s first term. It is also his legacy. And it must be undone.

So it should be lost on no one that the Supreme Court is also on the ballot in November. It’s simply not enough to call out the court for the damage they’ve unleashed. The electorate deserves to understand the real stakes of this election and what needs to happen in order to right the wrongs being made by Donald Trump and his power hungry judges.

The danger is that that is not the course of action the U.S. media and the political establishment is taking right now.

Why the U.S. media and the political establishment are helping Trump

And yet the U.S. media and political establishment are focused on … *checks notes* … President Joe Biden’s performance at the presidential debate. In fact, the two entities are coalescing around booting Biden from the Democratic ticket and are floating replacing him with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic National Convention.

The collective hysteria by those that wield power and influence are so far up their own asses they can’t see their own hubristic stupidity (and cowardice) in blaming the victim instead of the perpetrators. And for ignoring their role in perpetuating the optics, as well as the narrative that Biden doesn’t have what it takes despite the fact the voters are saying otherwise.

Simply put, these stakeholders are only benefiting Donald Trump by publicly messaging this hypocritical message: Biden is old and feeble and has trouble stringing words together. You know who else is old and feeble and has trouble stringing words together? Donald Trump. But he is held to a far different standard, which means that the media and the highfalutin pundits squawking on air are not being honest with the public about Donald Trump. In any way shape or form.

So it’s no wonder that there is absolute silence about calls for Donld Trump to step aside. Crickets. Even after being convicted on all 34 felony counts on May 30 and after the Supreme Court bestowed Trump with a golden legal parachute that elevated him above the law one month later on July 1.

But the narrative about the real threat Donald Trump and his stolen Supreme Court poses is just not click-baity or salatious enough. So they choose to stick with the tried and true formula of “Dems in Disarray” and the weakness of Democratic presidential candidates. They choose to manipulate reality for the public to make the presidential race appear equal or as if it’s a horse race, even when the stakes are too fucking high.

The only responsible central narrative is highlighting the damage that has been done by Donald Trump’s first term and what is at stake in this election. A key component of that narrative is threading the needle of the very real consequences being wrought NOW by that first term. This includes:

Economic inflation from Trump’s “herd immunity” policy during the pandemic
Increase in wealth gap from Trump’s tax bracket reform and tax cuts to the wealthy
Trump’s barbaric border policy that separated families and imprisoned immigrants and has since swung Democrats to the right on the issue
Trump’s diplomatic policy that favored autocrats over allies and led to the U.S. military’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and the coverup of Saudi Crown Prince’s assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamaal Khashoggi
And so many more life-impacting issues that are for another newsletter

The most significant of all of Trump’s first term though has foundational consequences that are upending this nation’s democratic experiment. That is Trump’s three Supreme Court picks—Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.

This leads me to the subnarrative that is imperative context to the core story: The Supreme Court has been packed with far-right, Christian Nationalist ideologues who were handpicked by one man, Leonard Leo. All 6 conservatives on the high court are Federalist Society members, a far-right legal organization of which Leo is a co-chairman.

Beyond investigating Leo for his judicial racketeering scheme, the U.S. news media and political establishment needs to be showcasing how much control of the judicial system he has and what his impact has been on the law of the land to-date as well as what this means in the future.

The biggest takeaway from this past week is that politics isn’t a game. But it sure as hell is being treated as one, and the only losers are the American people and U.S. Democracy.

- Stephanie

The News Lede

The Unmasking of the Kangaroo Court

The 6 conservative Supreme Court justices dropped all pretense at the end of term

The Unmasking of the Kangaroo Court

Why the U.S. media and the political establishment are helping Trump

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