“We got immunity”
By 
Three of the more ominous words you could hear from an aspiring fascist:
John Roberts reportedly thought people would be grateful to him for this. https://t.co/xljFyBVTy5— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) October 25, 2024
The thing is, I absolutely believe the reports that Roberts expected to be greeted as a liberator — Biskupic is well-sourced, and high-level appellate judging requires a lot of cognitive dissonance, plus the Republican justices live in a total media bubble now. Trump himself, however, understands the shot here.
Incidentally, Kantor and Liptak’s story reminds us of this gem from Roberts at oral argument, which apparently repeated the angry memo he wrote in response to lower court judges who do not believe the Constitution established a monrchy:
The chief justice’s Feb. 22 memo, jump-starting the justices’ formal discussion on whether to hear the case, offered a scathing critique of a lower-court decision and a startling preview of how the high court would later rule, according to several people from the court who saw the document.
The chief justice tore into the appellate court opinion greenlighting Mr. Trump’s trial, calling it inadequate and poorly reasoned. On one key point, he complained, the lower court judges “failed to grapple with the most difficult questions altogether.” He wrote not only that the Supreme Court should take the case — which would stall the trial — but also how the justices should decide it.
[…]
Chief Justice Roberts, echoing his critique in the February memo, called the logic of the appeals court ruling circular. “As I read it, it says simply a former president can be prosecuted because he’s being prosecuted,” he said.
I mean, yes, “people who violate federal criminal statutes can be prosecuted by the federal government” is tautological, in the sense of something that’s true by definition. The idea that “the president can be prosecuted for breaking the law” is the position that requires the burden of proof, as opposed to “the Constitution confers a broad immunity found nowhere in its text, structure, history, or purpose” is a great summary of Roberts’s authoritarian instincts, and it’s a testament to his arrogance that he assumed that everyone would be thrilled at the bespoke immunity suit he crafted for Trump out of these shoddy materials.