‘King above the law.’ That’s what dissenting Justice Sonia Sotomayor says yesterday’s unprecedented Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity from prosecution for “official” acts makes of every president.
■ Politico: “The court … makes it nearly impossible for a president to be held legally accountable for any use of official power … with Congress’ impeachment power being the only recourse.”
■ Popular Information’s Judd Legum calls it “a five-alarm fire for democracy.”
■ Political scientist Norm Ornstein: “A President Trump … can order the IRS to put liens on the property of media companies who criticize him and jail reporters and editors” …
■ … but HuffPost says the court also gave President Biden “the legal OK to assassinate Donald Trump” …
■ … and USA Today columnist Rex Huppke cheers: “C’mon, King Joe. Embrace the monarchy.”
■ It’s power Biden says he won’t use …
■ … and historian Heather Cox Richardson says the ruling doesn’t mean Biden can do as he wishes, because “it is reasonable to assume that this particular court would not give a Democrat the same leeway it would give Trump” …
■ … or, as Lisa Needham puts it at Public Notice: “One can easily imagine a situation where it decides a former Democratic president’s actions, in contrast to those of Trump, are somehow unofficial and therefore prosecutable.”
■ The Conversation: Justices gave Trump “the most favorable legal decision he could have reasonably hoped for.”
■ Sure enough, within hours, Trump’s lawyers asked his New York hush-money conviction be set aside and his sentencing, set for next week, be delayed.
■ Law professor Joyce Vance: “The court’s decision means that the only force that can hold Trump accountable for trying to interfere in the last election is the voters in the coming one.”
■ Bulwark columnist Kim Wehle: The court’s ruling makes increasingly unlikely the prospect “that future prosecutors would even bother to go after a president violating the law.”
■ Trump’s niece Mary: “Six unelected people have stripped basic human rights from millions of women, destroyed the federal government and made it almost impossible to hold Donald accountable.”
■ Washington Post satirist Alexandra Petri channels a holiday greeting from the justices: “The restored monarchy might be the greatest of the many gifts we’ve sought to give the American people this term.”
■ The court also ruled unanimously that Colorado can’t keep Trump off the presidential ballot …
■ … all of which makes this cartoon five years ago today from the late Keith J. Taylor all the more timely:
■ See also: Another breaking T-shirt from Raygun, quoting Justice Sotomayor.
On the other hand …
■ The conservative Dispatch concludes the Supreme Court ruling “bolstered the charge against Trump related to his pressure on Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election results on Jan. 6, 2021.”
■ Mother Jones: The court’s reversal Friday of some Jan. 6 protesters’ convictions is also a win for progressive protesters.
■ Former Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. turned Biden supporter Adam Kinzinger: “The Supreme Court decision was enough to temporarily knock the wind out of me”—but he’s devised seven ways to “keep hope alive.”
■ Cartoonist Tom Tomorrow looks for the bright side: “I’m sure everything will work out great because of American exceptionalism or some goddamn thing!”
‘Mass arrest’ details. Chicago police took 53 people into custody—several on felony charges—after chaos broke out in the Lakeview neighborhood Sunday night.
■ CWBChicago calls that a city record for “the most arrests at any one-day event since at least 2013.”
■ The Sun-Times reports a record number of Chicago restaurant burglaries last year—with even more likely this year.
Illinois’ win on guns—for now. In an at least temporary victory for the state, the Supreme Court today declined to consider challenges to Illinois’ assault weapons ban—inspired by the Fourth of July shooting in Highland Park two years ago this week.
■ A second fatal shooting at the 31st Street Beach has prompted a City Council member to seek more security for the Independence Day holiday.
Divvy with the fishes. Block Club Chicago: So many shared Divvy bicycles are in Lake Michigan, a group of volunteers has assembled to haul them out.
■ The AP explains how warming ocean water fueled Hurricane Beryl’s explosive growth into an unprecedented early whopper of a storm.
■ Heated: The U.S. election’s climate stakes just got much higher.
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