Lawyer 'indignant' at SCOTUS: 'God forbid the president feels restrained from committing crimes'

03 July 2024

Elie Mystal, an attorney and justice correspondent for The Nation, did not mince words in his analysis of the Supreme Court's immunity decision in favor of Donald Trump on Monday.

Speaking with MSNBC's Katie Phang, Mystal said, "I want all of the Institutionalists to line up in front of me so they can apologize to me and America for gaslighting people for the past three decades about what these conservatives were actually about, because people like me have been trying to scream it from the rooftops for years at this point."

The courts and criminal justice system writer continued, "The conservative controlled Supreme Court is 100% involved in the massive power grab. What they are trying to do is remake the rules of American democracy so that unelected, unaccountable judges hold all the power and the voters hold none. Even in the immunity decision. And I know immunity is creating the presidency as an office of king. It's giving extreme power to the executive, but think carefully about what the court actually did there. What they did is they tried to separate out the difference between 'unofficial' and 'official' acts, right? They didn't give any guidance about what those acts may be. They didn't give any guidance so that we, the people, might understand the difference between official and unofficial acts. They just said, 'Yeah, there's probably a difference, but everything Trump did was most likely official.' Well, what does that mean? That means going forward that the only people who know whether or not a president is able to commit crimes is not the president, it's the Supreme Court."

"The only people who know what laws are constitutional or unconstitutional is the Supreme Court — not Congress, not the president, and not the voters," Mystal emphasized. "That is the point. That is the through line from everything that we've seen from the Supreme Court, not only this past week, but over the past ten or so years. And that's where we are in this country, with a court that is completely overpowered, and a court that understands we, the people, and we the Democratic party lack the strength to do squadush to stop them."

Phang then noted, "In that majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts argued that the hesitation to execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly under appall of potential prosecution raises unique risk to the effective functioning of government. Elie, since when is criminal deterrence a bad thing?" she asked.

"Right?" Mystal replied. "Remember, this is about what Trump did while he thought he could be prosecuted after the fact for his crimes. Can you imagine what he's going to do now that he knows he can't be prosecuted for crimes? And the idea the president needs to act so quickly, boldly, and without reason, that criming is just a thing that might happen, that God forbid the president feels restrained from committing crimes — that is insane. Presidents are absolutely immune from everything. Cops can still be charged with murder. Not so with presidents. It's absolute immunity for criminal actions, not civil penalties. It's unhinged. But, again, this is what the court has been pretty much since Roberts took control of it."

Phang then emphasized, "Roberts being construed as the moderate [on the majority conservative court] is absurd."

"Thank you for being indignant," the MSNBC host said to Mystal. "And thank you for being angry. We need it."

Watch the video below or at this link.

'God forbid the president feels restrained from committing crimes': Analyst 'indignant' at SCOTUSwww.youtube.com

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