Chief Justice Roberts handed Trump the keys to power
Chief Justice John Roberts recently reprimanded Donald Trump for his irresponsible behavior. That's like a parent scolding their 10-year-old son for reckless driving after tossing him the car keys.
So, what am I accusing Roberts of? Of doing more than just about anyone else in clearing the road for Trump's rise to power and his illegal actions once in the White House. The bill of particulars could be much longer, but let's just look at four counts.
First, there's the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Committee. In that case, Roberts cast the deciding vote to reverse a century of precedent by authorizing corporations, other outside groups and wealthy donors to spend unlimited sums on elections. Just days after the decision, President Barack Obama warned the decision “will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” Unlimited contributions have indeed tilted the American electoral process toward the interests of corporations and the rich. Today, the largest contributor to Trump's 2024 campaign, Elon Musk, is playing an unprecedented role in the current administration.
Second, in 2013, Roberts assigned himself to write the majority opinion in Shelby County v. Holder, which threw out a key section of the Voting Rights Act. A 2024 article in the Journal of Political Economy found evidence that the Shelby County holding decreased turnout of minority voters due to “voter suppression tactics that have occurred in the absence of federal oversight.” As two professors wrote in an American Economic Association paper: “Our findings suggest that perhaps Chief Justice Roberts should be slightly less optimistic about the state of democratic equality in the South.”
Third, in 2023, the Colorado Supreme Court ruled that Trump should be taken off the state's ballot because of the 14th Amendment's bar on candidates who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” against the United States or “given aid or comfort to its enemies.” Upon review, Roberts and four associate justices held that a statute must be passed by Congress for such a disqualification to take effect.
And in the most serious count, Roberts again assigned himself to write for the majority in last summer's United States v. Trump. In his opinion, the chief justice conjured up a right to immunity for the president “from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.” In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor says Roberts “invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.”
Trump agrees wholeheartedly with Sotomayor's analysis. He has said, “I have the right to do whatever I want as president” and “He who saves his country does not violate any law.” He appears to know, too, that he owes Roberts a debt of gratitude. On March 4, cameras caught Trump patting Roberts on the arm and saying, “Thank you again. I won't forget.”
In his two months in office, Trump has ignored dozens of statutes and constitutional provisions. He's issued executive orders intended to overturn citizenship rights granted by the 14th Amendment, block money appropriated by Congress to the Agency for International Development, blackball an Associated Press reporter from White House briefings, fire civil servants without cause and much more.
Recently, Trump ordered rounding up noncitizens for their alleged membership in a Venezuelan gang and sending them to a prison in El Salvador. He claims the right to do so without a hearing under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 which applies only in wartime or in case of invasion. Judge James Boasberg, who was first named to a judgeship by President George W. Bush, issued an order temporarily halting these deportations. On social media, Trump called Judge Boasberg, a “Radical Left Lunatic of a Judge” and went on to say, “this judge like many of the Crooked Judges' I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!”
Roberts reacted to the president's post with a statement of his own: “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision. The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
Ah, Mr. Chief Justice, your admonition is too little, too late. You've already played a key role in opening American politics to a corrupting flood of money, restricting the right to vote, ensuring Trump stayed on the 2024 ballot in every state and putting the president above the law. You've put the keys to the kingdom in Trump's hands, and it's not going to be easy to wrest them away.
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