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Sam Alito Says that Donald Trump Is a Maligned Ham Sandwich

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I’m not, now, as full of despair as I was at one point in the SCOTUS hearing on Presidential immunity. (Here’s my live thread.) I believe that a majority of the court will rule that for private conduct — adopting the Blassingame rule that a President acting as candidate acts in a private role — a former President can be prosecuted.

But whooboy, Sam Alito really really believes everything Trump has said about this being a witch hunt. He repeatedly said that the protections that we assume ensure rule of law in the US — DOJ guidelines on prosecutions, the role of a grand jury, the role of a judge — are not enough in the case of Donald Trump. Sam Alito believes that Donald Trump should not have to be inconvenienced by a trial while he could be doing something else. Sam Alito also believes that January 6 was a mostly peaceful protest.

Alito even suggested that a President would be more likely to engage in violence after a closely contested election if he knew he might be prosecuted for it than not.

It was fairly insane.

Meanwhile, while I think there’s a majority (though Steve Vladeck is not as convinced) — with at least all the women in a majority — to let this case proceed at least on the private acts alleged in the indictment (with the huge caveat that Trump’s demands of Pence would not be considered a private act!), it’s clear that Neil Gorsuch doesn’t see how 18 USC 1512(c)(2) could be applied to Trump because we don’t know what corrupt purpose is, even though, of all the January 6 defendants, his corrupt purpose — his effort to obtain a improper private benefit — is most clearcut.

But there’s a whole lot of garbage that will come out of this decision, including immunity for core actions, like pardons and appointments, that could clearly be part of a bribe.

Notably, both Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh appear to be gunning for Special Counsels (though possibly only with respect to Presidents, not the sons of Presidents).

Michael Dreeben backtracked and backtracked far enough to preserve a case. But it’s not sure what else there will be.

SCOTUS Rushes to Grant Trump Protections After It Refused to Rush to Ensure Due Process

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Unsurprisingly, after declining to rush to make sure Trump got due process before a jury of his peers, SCOTUS granted cert to the appeal of Trump’s disqualification by Colorado.

The case will be heard on February 8.

Update: Rick Hasen, who is very smart on these issues, notes that SCOTUS did not hone the issues it will review.

I’m more surprised that the Court did not better focus the questions to be briefed. Trump’s question presented is a blob of a question on disqualification. The challengers to Trump had written 7 questions presented in the alternative. In the Colorado challenge, which does not seem to have been granted by this order, they raised three questions, which somewhat overlap with Trump’s claims.

This seems like it could be a free-for-all in arguments and briefing. I take the failure to hone it down due to lack of consensus on the court or time for there to be serious research on these issues.

Today Is Robert Mueller’s Merrick Garland Day

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As I laid out last week, I provided information to the FBI on issues related to the Mueller investigation, so I’m going to include disclosure statements on Mueller investigation posts from here on out. I will include the disclosure whether or not the stuff I shared with the FBI pertains to the subject of the post. 

Last month, Mitch McConnell started bitching about how long the Robert Mueller investigation has been going on.

What I think about the Mueller investigation is, they ought to wrap it up. It’s gone on seemingly forever and I don’t know how much more they think they can find out.

In response, I started tracking a different kind of forever: how long Mitch McConnell kept open Antonin Scalia’s SCOTUS seat to place Neil Gorsuch, rather than Merick Garland, in it.

Scalia passed away on February 13, 2016.

Gorsuch was sworn in on April 10, 2017.

By my math, Mitch McConnell kept that seat open for 422 days.

Robert Mueller was appointed on May 17, 2017.

By my math, 422 days after May 17, 2017 is July 13, 2018. (Do check my math on this–it has been decades since I have done anything resembling real math.)

In other words, today is Robert Mueller’s Merrick Garland day, the first day on which he has been working as long as Mitch McConnell kept a Supreme Court seat open to make sure a conservative ideologue rather than a centrist judge would occupy that lifetime appointed seat.

Mitch? We haven’t gotten close to forever yet.