Age of Rage: Critics Unleash Threats and Abuse on the Court Following the Presidential Immunity Decision

by Jonathan Turley

Below is my column in the New York Post on the Supreme Court’s historic presidential immunity decision. I am not someone who has favored expansive presidential powers. As a Madisonian scholar, I favor Congress in most disputes with presidents. Yet, the reaction to the Court’s decision has been baffling from academics who did not raise a whimper of opposition when President Barack Obama killed an American citizen without a trial or a charge. When former Attorney General Eric Holder announced the “kill list” policy (that included the right to kill any American citizen), he was met with applause, not condemnation. Moreover, even the government conceded before the Supreme Court that official acts did deserve protection from prosecution. The issue was only where to draw that line.  The Court found that there was absolute immunity for actions that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” while they enjoy presumptive immunity for other official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions.

I felt that there were good-faith arguments on both sides of this issue. The reaction, however, of politicians and pundits is to again denounce and even threaten the justices. Rage has again replaced reason as commentators misrepresent the opinion and race to the bottom in reckless rhetoric. It is not clear what these paper-bag pundits are more upset about: the fact that the Court ruled in favor of immunity or that the Court again failed to yield to years of harassment and threats from the left. What they fail to understand is that this is precisely the moment that the Court was designed for.

Here is the column:

Within minutes of the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, liberal politicians and pundits seemed to move from hyperbole to hyperventilation. When not breathing into paper bags, critics predicted, again, the end of the republic.

CNN’s Van Jones declared that it was “almost a license to thug, in a way.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) declared: “My stomach turns with fear and anger that our democracy can be so endangered by an out-of-control court” and denounced six justices as “extreme and nakedly partisan hacks — politicians in robes.”

Blumenthal has previously shown greater intestinal fortitude, as when he threatened the justices that they would either rule as Democrats demanded or face “seismic” changes to their court.

Jones warned the justices that “politically it’s bad” for them to rule this way.

The comment captures the misguided analysis of many media outlets. The Supreme Court was designed to be unpopular; to take stands that are politically unpopular but constitutionally correct.

Court independence

Indeed, the Democrats have become the very threat that the court was meant to resist.

Recently, senators demanded that Chief Justice John Roberts appear to answer to them for his own decisions. (Roberts wisely declined.)

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer previously declared in front of the Supreme Court, “I want to tell you, [Neil] Gorsuch, I want to tell you, [Brett] Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”

Now Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) announced that she will seek the impeachment of all six of the conservative justices. She was immediately joined by other Democratic members.

Notably, scholars have long disagreed where to draw the line on presidential immunity. The court adopted a middle approach that rejected extreme arguments on both sides.

Yet, because Ocasio-Cortez disagrees with their decision, she has declared that this “is an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture.”

Previously, Ocasio-Cortez admitted that she does not understand why we even have a Supreme Court. She asked “How much does the current structure benefit us? And I don’t think it does.”

Other members, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), have called for packing the Court with additional members to immediately secure a liberal majority to rule as she desires.

For these pundits and politicians, justice is merely an extension of politics and subject to the whims of the majority.

These are same voices who chastised Judge Aileen Cannon for “slowwalking” her decisions by holding hearings on constitutional questions. They pointed to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who supported the efforts of special counsel Jack Smith to try Trump before the election, turning her court into a rocket docket.

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