NakedHunterBiden
Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump raped E. Jean Carroll
Legal experts were surprised by the court's opinion and predicted danger ahead.
"I can't fathom what they were thinking," said Donald Ayer, a former Justice Department attorney in the Reagan administration. "They know who Trump is. This will embolden him."
Trump said recently he will seek "revenge" against those who have crossed him and his supporters. Earlier this week, Trump reposted an image calling Republican former Rep. Liz Cheney “guilty of treason” and for her to be prosecuted in “televised military tribunals.”
Fifty years ago this week, attorney Philip Lacovara went before the Supreme Court and urged the justices to order President Nixon to turn over the White House tapes. He won a unanimous decision, with three Nixon appointees joining in.
Lacovara was taken aback by Monday's opinion, which he called the "most dangerous and anticonstitutional decision" since the 19th century.
"At the time of the Watergate investigations, not a single Supreme Court justice of any political affiliation would have taken seriously a claim that the president is immune from complying with federal criminal law. Not even Nixon in his wildest dreams ever imagined that any court would dignify such a claim," he said. "This is part of a disturbing trend, as in, for example, Poland and Hungary, in which conservative justices on the right favor authoritarian concepts of presidential power."
Today's court conservatives believe in a strong role for the president as chief executive. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh served as White House lawyers under Republican presidents, and they are skeptical of limits on the president's powers. The court's other conservatives have worked in Washington for decades, and they also wary of politically driven investigations and prosecutions.
At the same time, however, they have sharply limited the power of executive agencies. The so-called Chevron doctrine held that judges should defer to executive agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency or the Education Department when the president's appointees adopt new regulations. But the court overturned that doctrine last week by the same 6-3 vote that expanded the president's power this week.
