How John Roberts 'played a significant role' in Trump’s return to White House

Shortly after noon on Monday, January 20, 2025, Joe Biden's presidency officially ended when President Donald Trump was sworn into office by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Vice President JD Vance, moments earlier, was sworn in by Roberts' colleague, Justice Brett Kavanaugh, officially replacing former VP Kamala Harris.

Politico's Josh Gerstein, in an article published after Trump's second got underway, offers some reasons why Roberts "played a significant and perhaps surprising role in making Trump's second term a possibility."

"Roberts' court issued a pair of decisions that dramatically affected the trajectory of Trump's 2024 campaign," Gerstein explains. "First was a unanimous ruling in March that blocked efforts in states to knock Trump off the ballot based on the Constitution’s provision barring insurrectionists from public office. Second was a 6-3 ruling in July on presidential immunity that complicated and delayed the federal criminal case against him for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election. Roberts wrote the immunity opinion."

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Gerstein stresses, however, that Trump and Roberts "have long had a difficult relationship."

"While a candidate in 2016," the Politico reporter recalls, "Trump called Roberts 'an absolute disaster' and 'disgraceful.' Two years later, the men clashed openly over Trump's penchant for attacking judges and accusing them of ruling for partisan political reasons. Roberts issued an unusual public statement defending his colleagues, writing, 'We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.'"

But Trump, Gerstein remembers, angrily responded, "Sorry Chief Justice John Roberts, but you do indeed have 'Obama judges.'"

Gerstein expects Roberts and his colleagues to hear more Trump-related matters now that his second term as president has begun.

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Gerstein notes, "Another wave of those challenges is expected to reach the High Court in the coming weeks or months, as opponents of Trump policies on immigration, the environment, transgender rights and other issues seek to block executive actions the incoming president is set to issue almost immediately."

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Read the full Politico article at this link.