I see folks saying they are confident that ultimately this Supreme Court will reject Trump’s claim that presidents have absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. I’m not. I meant it every time I have said that Trump appointed Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Coney Barrett are almost certainly in the tank for him. Were they not, they’d be recusing themselves from all his appeals, as their participation certainly has, at the least, the appearance of impropriety. 1/ #LawFedi
Clearly, if Thomas weren’t in the tank for Trump, he too would be recusing himself from any decision involving him. Imagine if these 4 justices acted ethically and did recuse themselves. Then, Roberts, Alito, Kagan, Sotomayor, and Brown Jackson would be deciding. A very different situation. 2/
Back in the real world, though, the 4 clearly compromised Justices are not the only ones who want to empower authoritarian Presidents. Alito is a declared adherent of the the “unitary executive theory” which is Republican code for putting the President above the law. 3/
There are many reasons we would be complete fools to count on the various legal actions against Trump to keep him from power. The criminal trials probably won’t happen before the election. The civil judgments make it harder for him to finance his campaign, but there are plenty of folks who will put in the money for the swing states, the only ones that matter. 4/
Moreover, there are a significant number of voters who will be more inclined to vote for Trump BECAUSE he is an adjudicated fraud and who would be even more committed if he were a convicted criminal. 5/
The threat of another Trump presidency comes from where it always has: the number of people willing to vote for him in deep red, red, and swing states. 6/6
@heidilifeldman
I can't wait for Bidens absolute immunity.. Can he arrest the Supreme Cult? lol
Will the court just say Trump has immunity and no other President..
@heidilifeldman What goes around...in this case all the horrors of regime change, coups, political meddling and economic warfare that the US has subjected other countries to, is coming home. Good! It could not have happened to a more deserving nation. The same thing is unfolding in the UK. With conservative governments and an inept political class like the US and UK has there is no need for external threat actors.
They'll give him Trump slack by delaying it past the DOJ fake rule about being to close to an election.
No one knows whether thats two month or two weeks because they make things up to suit them .god knows Garland doesn't want dirty political hands. That's why we're here now.
@heidilifeldman But-if Trump is not elected, there is no harm for the ruling, is there?
I don't think Trump has a snowball's chance in hell of being elected and thus the ruling will stick to him for the remainder of his trials.
I think he's going to be the total loser.
@fmhilton@heidilifeldman I mean sure, if you ignore all the polls and the history of people in 2016 saying Trump didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
@cherold@heidilifeldman And what happened in 2020?
That was a fluke?
No. I think it was not and the issue of age is overblown when you consider Trump is going broke and insane at the same time.
That is what we all said in 2016. Trump is far, far more likely to win in 2024 than he was in 2016. At this point, I'd say a Trump victory is looking like a near-certainty.
@barney@fmhilton@heidilifeldman I think 'near-certainty is just overstating in the other direction. Trump has a decent chance of winning, but also a decent chance of losing. For him to win he needs to do much better in 2020, which requires that a whole bunch of people who thought Biden was better then have to decide that in spite of all the indictments and Trump's steady stream of nonsense that he is now better than Biden. That could happen, but it's not certain at all.
For what it's worth (which is very little), current state polls put Trump's likelihood of winning near 100%. And nearly every possible political force is currently moving in Trump's favor.
We're going to have to pull off a miracle to save our democracy this year. We can do it, but, at the moment, most of us don't give a shit.
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