From a brilliant essay by @radleybalko on John Roberts' coup. Read the whole thing. https://radleybalko.substack.com/p/the-supreme-court-folds ht @ryanlcooper
Text: The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States is its worst decision of my lifetime. John Roberts’s sloppy, arrogant, contradictory majority opinion provides license for any future president to lie, cheat, steal, suppress dissent, and — if they have the stomach for it — assassinate. It obliterates a guardrail for executive power that’s fundamental to a functioning democracy. So fundamental, in fact, that until the country elected an aspiring autocrat brazen enough to engage in open-air corruption, it was a guardrail few thought necessary to actually define. Of course the president can be prosecuted for actual crimes. When Trump initially made his claim of “absolute immunity” for presidents from criminal charges, it was widely derided among constitutional scholars as a hopeless Hail Mary. Then John Roberts answered Trump’s prayers. This opinion isn’t a stain on Roberts’s legacy. It is his legacy. He will be remembered as the “institutionalist” who destroyed the legitimacy of the institution entrusted to his care. And if that’s the worst of the damage, we’ll all be lucky.