'Get-out-of-jail' card: Constitutional lawyer slams 'former student' John Roberts over immunity opinion

01 July 2024

Former Harvard constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe on Monday shared his thoughts on the Supreme Court's immunity ruling in favor of Donald Trump — slamming his "former student" in the process.

Explaining to CNN's Erin Burnett that he agrees "entirely with Justice [Sonia] Sotomayor and Justice [Ketanji] Jackson in their dissents," Tribe notes, "I would give my former student, John Roberts, a B minus. His opinion doesn't rely on any intelligent dissection of a separation of powers. He makes it up as he goes along. He has nothing — absolutely nothing — to say about the important hypotheticals that the justices in dissent pointed out. And they weren't just hypothetical, they came up in the oral argument, the immunity that the majority granted was even greater than that, which the president's lawyer, John Saur, asked for."

The former Harvard professor explained, "To begin with, the delay itself, gives the president de facto absolute immunity. More than that, the dissenters, especially Justice Jackson, pointed out that the court has it upside down, almost like the upside down flag that [Justice Samuel] Alito flew, has an upside down one, that says that if the president uses as a official powers to commit crimes — all crimes, apparently including murder — then he gets either absolute immunity, if the power is at the absolute core, or presumptive immunity, which is a vague notion, if the immunity is for official act."

"But as Justice Jackson pointed out," Tribe continued, "it's all the worst if the president uses power is available only to him to commit crimes. The court never explains why it has turned things upside down that way. There is no precedent supporting with the court did. There has never before been any immunity from criminal prosecution suggested in any court decisions, state or federal, in the history of the United States of America."

The legal expert emphasized, "This is a sad day, not just because of the license it gives to Donald Trump, should he ever become president again to get rid of this case all altogether and commit all manner of crimes without ever being held accountable. But because of what it does to the future of the country. Let's assume that we've somehow gotten past the MAGA plague, and that we don't have a Trump-ified government. There will be future presidents who will take it as very tempting to become president knowing that it's a get-out-of-jail-free card for everything except purely private behavior."

"And even there, when many of us believed, and as a former professor of evidence as well as constitutional law, when I was confident that you could at least use evidence of official acts, even though you might not be able to prosecute for them, you could use that evidence to show a pattern, and a motive of the wrong doer," Tribe added. "Here, the court says you can't look at motive — it doesn't matter if the president is trying to benefit himself rather than the country. Only Justice Barrett disagreed with the men on the court when she said that at least the evidence should be used. So this is a disastrous decision."

Watch the video below or at this link.

Constitutional lawyer slams 'former student' John Roberts over paving way for 'get-out-of-jail' cardwww.youtube.com

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