A super, well written article again. 🙏. It never ceases to amaze me that Trump can get away with all this BS, and that the majority of the Americana are not up in arms about it all. How come that so many Americans are swallowing all the Trump poison without questioning anything? Will US really have to go through a Trump dictatorship in order to see the truth?
I'm very sorry to say that too big a part of the reason is the six SCOTUS justices who tried to deceive us (and apparently did deceive) a lot of Americans into thinking that our Constitution was designed to let presidents commit crimes against the people of this country and our Constitution.
There's a lot of merit to the warning of the SCOTUS that gave us the famous Miranda warning (which Trump got to hear when he got arrested for committing crimes):
"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Miranda v. Ariz., 384 U.S. 436, 480 (1966) (quoting Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (Brandeis, Holmes, JJ., dissenting)).
Thank you Lisa. I started reading this unsealed doc but am also reading the various takes b/c it's 150+/- pages and my "beautiful mind" is so sick and tired of this scoundrel that so many have been roped in ( amazingly) to support despite what a crook and criminal and how unfit he is to ever hold office again. First up after Trump is the Supreme Court's ruling on immunity protecting him. And of course all the others without which he would be in a straight jacket or prison. That our country has not been able YET to cage this fraud conman is a great disappointment about us. Trump gets all the benefits of our system and trashes it. But this time Jack Smith is the David against this Goliath. The SOS brought on by SCOTUS has forced Smith to make a much better, more detailed case, a CLEARER case, while USING the immunity constraints. And this in October.. it's here NOW before the election for all who would know. It really is up to the American people. The law cannot save us. Thank you.
I would like to know, maybe from Aaron, how this gets reported on Fox and the Trump media.
I corrected myself- I meant SCOTUS but it really was an SOS that Jack Smith was having to deal with from the beginning! Turns out the SCOTUS, if they wanted to protect Trump, are getting clarified about immunity which to me looks like, for some on the court, being hoisted on their own petard. (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Right. We can hope/surmise SCOTUS did tfg’s bidding by slowing everything down until he wins the election. Smith saw through them and called their bluff.
Read the substack https://substack.com/@decodingfoxnews : Decoding Fox News. The poor woman follows them every week and reports what she saw/heard. She also compares the topics covered with PBS. Great stuff — if you can take it.
“No trial would happen until that was fully resolved, and given that the conservatives on the Court seem very determined to safeguard Trump from the laws that apply to everyone else, it’s difficult to say with certainty what would happen.”
Bingo! Excellent newsletter Lisa. I agree, the fascist court has no intention of ever allowing Trump to face any consequences of his actions, not because they love Trump, but because he owns MAGA and what’s left of the party. McConnell and the conservative justices understand that the entire party would go down in flames, and cost republicans down ballot losses, in both state and federal elections. They may never recover.
Even if Smith prevails in the lower courts, there will be no trial because Trump will appeal every ruling, and the court which knows Trump is guilty, will find convenient carved out loopholes just for Trump, like they did when they conjured presidential immunity for one! If not, they’ll continue to kick the can down the road until Trump is either dead or on life support.
Which brings me to my main point. Trump is just the despicable and malignant tumor, I mean vessel, as well as a useful idiot that can corral the uninformed voters and dead brain zombies who think Trump is the anointed one. However. it’s people like Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Miller (everyone’s favorite sadistic fascist), McConnell and the usual suspects in Congress, and Trump’s propaganda machine of the most morally bankrupt bobble heads ever to sit in prime time anchor chairs, pretending to be journalists.
Furthermore, their prime goal is to get Trump elected, take back the senate, and then secure the SC with six religious zealots who will decide the fate of 330 million for the next four decades, as Alito, Thomas and Roberts all retire, and then get $25 million dollar book deals, and multi-million dollar salaries as a chair at a law school, working for a conservative think tanks, as well as other ways to reward them for stepping aside, so a new generation of conservatives can force feed religious doctrine down our throats, while the court continues to rule in favor of polluters, corrupt companies, and making sure all those who could swing an election to democrats, never have the chance to vote.
Bottom line: these clowns were around before Trump came on the scene, and will not go quietly into the night. The reversal of Roe was four decades in the making, so make no mistake, even if we win this battle, the war is just beginning. These religious zealots and fascist white nationalists will learn from their mistakes, and find new ways to destroy our democracy. They are as ruthless as they are relentless.
In fact, their weapon of choice will be the federal judiciary; especially the corrupt and bent, Supreme Court, which will eventually rule by judicial fiat, destroying this country with a death by a thousand judicial cuts. Let that sink in!…..:)
You make a great point in analogizing this to Watergate! Now, I think I understand why six SCOTUS justices are trying to help Trump get away with committing crimes. Their decision seems in significant part to be nothing better than official cover for a Watergate-like cover-up. Their point wasn't merely that Trump can't be prosecuted for the crimes he committed if he relied on current government employees. Their point was as much the ability to conceal (withhold) evidence of then-current government employees helping Trump commit crimes. Makes me wonder who they're really protecting (especially in light of Justice Alito's flag flying after Jan. 6 and the participation of Justice Thomas's wife in events related to Jan. 6).
We can't have a sane world as long as the corp media continues to normalize Trump no matter how heinous his crimes. They effectively conceal Trump's depraved cruelty with their tepid and false reporting and by doing so, they numb us to it (to paraphrase Liz Cheney).
The main point we should take from evidence presented against Trump and his co-conspirators is something I've been loathe to say: it is time for serious people to think seriously about asking the House to impeach and the Senate to conduct a trial of the SCOTUS justices who openly encouraged presidents to commit the crimes Trump committed. Those justices are accountable to us, the sovereign people, and they should be required to prove that they really believed our Constitution gave them the power that they pretended to have.
Six SCOTUS justices conspired to encourage presidents to viciously and egregiously undermine our Constitution, not only by committing crimes, themselves, but also by corrupting other public servants to help corrupt presidents commit such crimes. That's what they did by (knowingly) misrepresenting that Trump had immunity from prosecution for crimes he committed when he abused his "official" or "core" powers to try to seize power in clear and egregious violation of our Constitution. Their decision can be distilled to this: the only real mistake Trump made was in not relying exclusively on other current government employees to commit his crimes.
Those SCOTUS justices knew that their misconduct and misrepresentations were (and are) undermining the most fundamental aspects of our Constitution to deprive voters of the rights and privileges of our Constitution. Don't take my word for that. Take theirs.
In Ariz. State Legis. v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm'n, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito issued a dissenting opinion. They emphasized that the majority opinion had emphasized that the “animating principle” (the primary point) of our Constitution was "popular sovereignty" (the sovereignty of the people over all public servants). Then, the dissenters, themselves, emphasized that "the ratification of the Constitution was the ultimate act of popular sovereignty, and the people who ratified" it "did so knowing that it assigned authority to 'the Legislature' as a representative body" (to represent the sovereign people).
Every SCOTUS justice who pretended that they had the power to give Trump immunity knew that Congress (working with the president) enacted criminal laws to protect us (the sovereign people) from public servants who would commit the crimes that Trump committed. A big part of the reason Congress makes conduct criminal is to discourage people from committing such crimes.
The dissenting justices in the Arizona case followed the foregoing with this in their opinion: "This Court has no power to upset such a compromise simply because we now think that it should have been struck differently. As we explained almost a century ago," whatever "method" that "the framers of the Constitution" actually "adopted" is what binds SCOTUS because it “is not the function of courts" to "alter the method which the Constitution has fixed.”
Consider also this paragraph from the concurring opinion of Justice Gorsuch in United States v. Vaello-Madero in 2022:
[I]n our Constitution" every part of the federal government (including the presidency and SCOTUS) “deriv[es] its powers directly” from the sovereign people." (quoting Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819). Every part of the federal government (including the presidency and SCOTUS) "is empowered to act only in accord with the terms of the written Constitution the people have approved." (citing Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison in 1803). "Empires and duchies in Europe may have subscribed" to the “doctrine" that "the people were made for kings, not kings for the people.” (quoting James Madison in The Federalist No. 45). “Monarchical and despotic governments” may possess the power to act “unrestrained by written constitutions.” "But our Nation’s government" has "no existence" (no power of any part of federal government exists) "except by virtue of the Constitution,” and our representatives in federal government "may not ignore that charter."
Any judge acting “under color of any law” or “custom” to “willfully” deprive voters “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by” any provision of the “Constitution” or federal “laws” commits a crime. 18 U.S.C. 242. The SCOTUS justices who pretended to have the power to authorize Trump to commit crimes with impunity should be required to prove they didn't commit a crime.
And SCOTUS judges sit for life, which is crazy in itself. Most modern societies have retirement age for politicians and High Court Judges. This is only common sense. Very interesting to read your comments, Jack.
The media just can't let itself be consumed with every little shiny object. They have to keep their powder dry in case something important develops, like one of the candidates becomes old and speaks with a stutter.
A super, well written article again. 🙏. It never ceases to amaze me that Trump can get away with all this BS, and that the majority of the Americana are not up in arms about it all. How come that so many Americans are swallowing all the Trump poison without questioning anything? Will US really have to go through a Trump dictatorship in order to see the truth?
I'm very sorry to say that too big a part of the reason is the six SCOTUS justices who tried to deceive us (and apparently did deceive) a lot of Americans into thinking that our Constitution was designed to let presidents commit crimes against the people of this country and our Constitution.
There's a lot of merit to the warning of the SCOTUS that gave us the famous Miranda warning (which Trump got to hear when he got arrested for committing crimes):
"Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."
Miranda v. Ariz., 384 U.S. 436, 480 (1966) (quoting Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438, 485 (1928) (Brandeis, Holmes, JJ., dissenting)).
Thank you Lisa. I started reading this unsealed doc but am also reading the various takes b/c it's 150+/- pages and my "beautiful mind" is so sick and tired of this scoundrel that so many have been roped in ( amazingly) to support despite what a crook and criminal and how unfit he is to ever hold office again. First up after Trump is the Supreme Court's ruling on immunity protecting him. And of course all the others without which he would be in a straight jacket or prison. That our country has not been able YET to cage this fraud conman is a great disappointment about us. Trump gets all the benefits of our system and trashes it. But this time Jack Smith is the David against this Goliath. The SOS brought on by SCOTUS has forced Smith to make a much better, more detailed case, a CLEARER case, while USING the immunity constraints. And this in October.. it's here NOW before the election for all who would know. It really is up to the American people. The law cannot save us. Thank you.
I would like to know, maybe from Aaron, how this gets reported on Fox and the Trump media.
I corrected myself- I meant SCOTUS but it really was an SOS that Jack Smith was having to deal with from the beginning! Turns out the SCOTUS, if they wanted to protect Trump, are getting clarified about immunity which to me looks like, for some on the court, being hoisted on their own petard. (Shakespeare, Hamlet)
Right. We can hope/surmise SCOTUS did tfg’s bidding by slowing everything down until he wins the election. Smith saw through them and called their bluff.
Read the substack https://substack.com/@decodingfoxnews : Decoding Fox News. The poor woman follows them every week and reports what she saw/heard. She also compares the topics covered with PBS. Great stuff — if you can take it.
“No trial would happen until that was fully resolved, and given that the conservatives on the Court seem very determined to safeguard Trump from the laws that apply to everyone else, it’s difficult to say with certainty what would happen.”
Bingo! Excellent newsletter Lisa. I agree, the fascist court has no intention of ever allowing Trump to face any consequences of his actions, not because they love Trump, but because he owns MAGA and what’s left of the party. McConnell and the conservative justices understand that the entire party would go down in flames, and cost republicans down ballot losses, in both state and federal elections. They may never recover.
Even if Smith prevails in the lower courts, there will be no trial because Trump will appeal every ruling, and the court which knows Trump is guilty, will find convenient carved out loopholes just for Trump, like they did when they conjured presidential immunity for one! If not, they’ll continue to kick the can down the road until Trump is either dead or on life support.
Which brings me to my main point. Trump is just the despicable and malignant tumor, I mean vessel, as well as a useful idiot that can corral the uninformed voters and dead brain zombies who think Trump is the anointed one. However. it’s people like Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, Kevin Roberts of the Heritage Foundation, Stephen Miller (everyone’s favorite sadistic fascist), McConnell and the usual suspects in Congress, and Trump’s propaganda machine of the most morally bankrupt bobble heads ever to sit in prime time anchor chairs, pretending to be journalists.
Furthermore, their prime goal is to get Trump elected, take back the senate, and then secure the SC with six religious zealots who will decide the fate of 330 million for the next four decades, as Alito, Thomas and Roberts all retire, and then get $25 million dollar book deals, and multi-million dollar salaries as a chair at a law school, working for a conservative think tanks, as well as other ways to reward them for stepping aside, so a new generation of conservatives can force feed religious doctrine down our throats, while the court continues to rule in favor of polluters, corrupt companies, and making sure all those who could swing an election to democrats, never have the chance to vote.
Bottom line: these clowns were around before Trump came on the scene, and will not go quietly into the night. The reversal of Roe was four decades in the making, so make no mistake, even if we win this battle, the war is just beginning. These religious zealots and fascist white nationalists will learn from their mistakes, and find new ways to destroy our democracy. They are as ruthless as they are relentless.
In fact, their weapon of choice will be the federal judiciary; especially the corrupt and bent, Supreme Court, which will eventually rule by judicial fiat, destroying this country with a death by a thousand judicial cuts. Let that sink in!…..:)
You make a great point in analogizing this to Watergate! Now, I think I understand why six SCOTUS justices are trying to help Trump get away with committing crimes. Their decision seems in significant part to be nothing better than official cover for a Watergate-like cover-up. Their point wasn't merely that Trump can't be prosecuted for the crimes he committed if he relied on current government employees. Their point was as much the ability to conceal (withhold) evidence of then-current government employees helping Trump commit crimes. Makes me wonder who they're really protecting (especially in light of Justice Alito's flag flying after Jan. 6 and the participation of Justice Thomas's wife in events related to Jan. 6).
It doesn’t matter if Trump loses the election. The SCOTUS will protect him no matter what.
We can't have a sane world as long as the corp media continues to normalize Trump no matter how heinous his crimes. They effectively conceal Trump's depraved cruelty with their tepid and false reporting and by doing so, they numb us to it (to paraphrase Liz Cheney).
The main point we should take from evidence presented against Trump and his co-conspirators is something I've been loathe to say: it is time for serious people to think seriously about asking the House to impeach and the Senate to conduct a trial of the SCOTUS justices who openly encouraged presidents to commit the crimes Trump committed. Those justices are accountable to us, the sovereign people, and they should be required to prove that they really believed our Constitution gave them the power that they pretended to have.
Six SCOTUS justices conspired to encourage presidents to viciously and egregiously undermine our Constitution, not only by committing crimes, themselves, but also by corrupting other public servants to help corrupt presidents commit such crimes. That's what they did by (knowingly) misrepresenting that Trump had immunity from prosecution for crimes he committed when he abused his "official" or "core" powers to try to seize power in clear and egregious violation of our Constitution. Their decision can be distilled to this: the only real mistake Trump made was in not relying exclusively on other current government employees to commit his crimes.
Those SCOTUS justices knew that their misconduct and misrepresentations were (and are) undermining the most fundamental aspects of our Constitution to deprive voters of the rights and privileges of our Constitution. Don't take my word for that. Take theirs.
In Ariz. State Legis. v. Ariz. Indep. Redistricting Comm'n, 576 U.S. 787 (2015), Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas and Alito issued a dissenting opinion. They emphasized that the majority opinion had emphasized that the “animating principle” (the primary point) of our Constitution was "popular sovereignty" (the sovereignty of the people over all public servants). Then, the dissenters, themselves, emphasized that "the ratification of the Constitution was the ultimate act of popular sovereignty, and the people who ratified" it "did so knowing that it assigned authority to 'the Legislature' as a representative body" (to represent the sovereign people).
Every SCOTUS justice who pretended that they had the power to give Trump immunity knew that Congress (working with the president) enacted criminal laws to protect us (the sovereign people) from public servants who would commit the crimes that Trump committed. A big part of the reason Congress makes conduct criminal is to discourage people from committing such crimes.
The dissenting justices in the Arizona case followed the foregoing with this in their opinion: "This Court has no power to upset such a compromise simply because we now think that it should have been struck differently. As we explained almost a century ago," whatever "method" that "the framers of the Constitution" actually "adopted" is what binds SCOTUS because it “is not the function of courts" to "alter the method which the Constitution has fixed.”
Consider also this paragraph from the concurring opinion of Justice Gorsuch in United States v. Vaello-Madero in 2022:
[I]n our Constitution" every part of the federal government (including the presidency and SCOTUS) “deriv[es] its powers directly” from the sovereign people." (quoting Chief Justice Marshall in McCulloch v. Maryland in 1819). Every part of the federal government (including the presidency and SCOTUS) "is empowered to act only in accord with the terms of the written Constitution the people have approved." (citing Chief Justice Marshall in Marbury v. Madison in 1803). "Empires and duchies in Europe may have subscribed" to the “doctrine" that "the people were made for kings, not kings for the people.” (quoting James Madison in The Federalist No. 45). “Monarchical and despotic governments” may possess the power to act “unrestrained by written constitutions.” "But our Nation’s government" has "no existence" (no power of any part of federal government exists) "except by virtue of the Constitution,” and our representatives in federal government "may not ignore that charter."
Any judge acting “under color of any law” or “custom” to “willfully” deprive voters “of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by” any provision of the “Constitution” or federal “laws” commits a crime. 18 U.S.C. 242. The SCOTUS justices who pretended to have the power to authorize Trump to commit crimes with impunity should be required to prove they didn't commit a crime.
And SCOTUS judges sit for life, which is crazy in itself. Most modern societies have retirement age for politicians and High Court Judges. This is only common sense. Very interesting to read your comments, Jack.
Thank you, Helen. If you might be interested in a better, more complete analysis of this issue, see "SCOTUS Justices' Own Words Prove Extreme Deceit (and Irrelevance) of Trump Immunity Decision (Part I)" at https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/scotus-justices-own-words-prove-extreme?r=30ufvh
And you touched on another issue that we all should care about. If you're interested, check out "Fake Originalists' Frivolous Lies about Judges' Right to Life Tenure" at https://blackcollarcrime.substack.com/p/fake-originalists-frivolous-lies?r=30ufvh
Thanks for the deep dive, Public Notice. You’re the best.
The media just can't let itself be consumed with every little shiny object. They have to keep their powder dry in case something important develops, like one of the candidates becomes old and speaks with a stutter.