Hey,
remember
that
funny
time
back
in
2020
when
Donald
Trump’s
pals
on
the
Supreme
Court
threw
a
year-long
wrench
in
the
works
before
deciding
that,
yeah,
okay,
sitting
presidents
can
be
investigated
for
crimes?
This
morning,
the
Supreme
Court
heard
argument
in
Trump’s
effort
to
get
his
federal
election
interference
case
dismissed
on
grounds
of
magical,
perpetual
presidential
immunity.
We
all
know
where
this
ends.
Not
even
this
court
is
going
to
rule
that
presidents
are
wholly
above
the
law.
But
the
question
of
when
that
train
pulls
into
the
station
is
critical,
since
an
arrival
date
in
2025
will
allow
the
defendant
to
push
the
carriage
off
the
track
and
into
a
steep
ravine
where
it
implodes
in
a
great
ball
of
fire,
along
with
the
American
democratic
experiment.
The
morning
started
with
Trump’s
lawyer
D.
John
Sauer
attempting
to
make
chicken
salad
out
of
chicken
shit.
He
opened
by
warning
that
allowing
ex-presidents
to
be
prosecuted
for
crimes
committed
in
office
would
result
in
“de
facto
blackmail
and
extortion,”
ensuring
a
chief
executive
sitting
frozen
in
fear
in
the
Oval
Office,
terrified
that
his
successor
would
invent
a
crime
to
LOCK
HIM
UP.
Relatedly,
here’s
a
email
sent
out
by
the
Trump
campaign
yesterday.
The
justices
largely
took
turns
whacking
Sauer
about
like
a
piñata,
with
Justice
Barrett
forcing
the
lawyer
to
admit
that
much
of
the
conduct
charged
in
the
indictment
was
of
a
purely
personal,
non-official
nature.
The
lawyer
did
manage
to
catch
himself
when
it
came
to
the
fraudulent
slates
of
electors
Trump
got
his
campaign
to
gin
up,
insisting
that
this
was
totes
part
of
his
official
duties.
Under
questioning
by
Justice
Sotomayor,
Sauer
channeled
Kellyanne
Conway,
insisting
that
they
were
“alternative”
electors,
not
fake!
The
ass-kicking
concluded
with
Justice
Kagan
cornering
Sauer
on
the
subject
of
presidential
coups
and
whether
they
were
legal
in
the
absence
of
impeachment
and
conviction.
Spoiler
alert:
YUP.
But
when
Michael
Dreeben,
the
OG
Supreme
Court
advocate,
took
his
turn,
things
went
totally
sideways.
Justice
Alito
picked
this
morning
to
get
in
touch
with
his
inner
Black
Panther,
inveighing
against
dirty
prosecutors
abusing
their
office
to
indict
opponents,
Fourth
Amendment
be
damned.
Wouldn’t
it
be
better,
he
wondered,
to
simply
let
presidents
just
do
all
the
crimes
before
leaving
office.
Wouldn’t
the
fear
of
being
prosecuted
simply
encourage
coups?
With
Alito
staking
out
the
absolute
craziest
possible
position,
this
left
his
fellow
conservatives
free
to
occupy
the
“middle”
ground,
i.e.
gazing
at
their
navels
until
July
and
then
pulling
out
a
Lint
Test
—
with
more
branches
than
the
Comcast
customer
service
phone
tree
—
for
the
district
court
to
deploy.
Chief
Justice
Roberts,
along
with
Justices
Kavanaugh
and
Gorsuch,
appear
to
favor
this
“moderate”
position,
which
would
remand
the
case
to
the
trial
court
for
further
determination
as
to
which
acts
were
personal
and
which
official,
and
if
so,
which
implicated
a
“core”
presidential
duty.
One
wonders
why
they
couldn’t
have
developed
this
test
back
in
December
the
first
time
the
Special
Counsel
asked
them
to.
Just
kidding.
No
one
wonders
that.
Kavanaugh
and
Gorsuch
took
great
pains
to
say
that
they
needed
to
devote
appropriate
time
to
this
weighty
issue.
“I’m
not
thinking
about
the
case
before
us,”
Gorsuch
intoned
somberly,
as
if
he
weren’t
doing
everything
in
his
considerable
power
to
ensure
that
“the
case
before
us”
drags
out
until
after
November.
Kavanaugh
echoed
this
sentiment,
even
as
he
strongly
hinted
that
the
special
counsel’s
appointment
was
itself
unconstitutional.
It’s
a
bold
move
from
a
guy
who
got
his
start
writing
the
Starr
Report
and
harassing
a
sitting
president
for
a
picture
of
his
penis.
But
if
Alito
can
go
ACAB,
then
anything
is
possible.
Among
the
conservatives,
only
Justice
Barrett
seems
to
have
the
capacity
for
shame.
She
suggested
that
the
case
proceed
to
trial
on
the
admittedly
non-official
acts
while
her
colleagues
play
with
their
belly
buttons.
Presumably
this
weakness
will
wear
off
after
a
few
more
terms.
Liz
Dye lives
in
Baltimore
where
she
produces
the
Law
and
Chaos substack and podcast.