Kelly Sloane
It’s a bit of an irony in history that the UK will hold a general election on the 4th of July. With Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party expected to form the next government, and the opposition split between an ineffectual Conservative Party and a rebel Reform Party, the mood in the UK seems a little darker and more anxious than usual. Few in the UK seem particularly happy with the options (sound familiar?), but they look across the Atlantic and find some comfort, especially after that shameful carnival some call the “presidential debates.” One commentator in the Telegraph quipped, “The US faces a stark choice in the presidential election between a president who can deliver a verdict and one who can barely deliver a verdict.”
The bar for that “debate” was set so low that it was surprising how high it still was. The only substantive topic they actually discussed was their relative golf handicaps. President Joe Biden’s weaknesses were on full display for all to see, including other world leaders. It was not America’s finest moment.
The Biden campaign has been in what is technically called “panic mode” ever since, and any distraction from its performance would be welcomed by the campaign, which partly explains the overreaction to this week’s string of Supreme Court decisions.
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Listening to the Biden campaign and others on the left say things like this, you might think that their rulings on presidential immunity and the administrative state overturned the Bill of Rights, all of the Ten Commandments of Magna Carta, and the singing of “Happy Birthday.” In reality, all they did was confirm that America is governed by a system of checks and balances that is pretty clearly laid out in the Constitution, and that system will prevail even if some old, incompetent fool with a tenuous connection to reality and truth wins the presidential election next November.
In Trump v. United States Immunity, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said: “Order Navy SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political opponent? Immunity. Organize a military coup to stay in power? Immunity. Take a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immunity. Immunity, Immunity, Immunity.” If there was a contest for the most hyperbolic and illogical excuse, that would win. “Even if these nightmare scenarios never come to pass, and I pray they never will, the damage has already been done,” Justice Sotomayor continued. “In every exercise of public power, the President is now a king above the law.” Oh my goodness.
The best conclusion to take from this decision is that Supreme Court justices shouldn’t write their dissents while falling asleep watching a B-grade dystopian movie on Netflix. This decision does no such thing. As Chief Justice John Roberts has repeatedly stated, the president is not above the law, and this decision does nothing to change that. First, this was not a case of immunity for Trump. The majority rejected his inane defense of blanket immunity and dutifully rejected it. What this decision made clear was the vision of the Framers of the Constitution, that there must be a clear separation of powers and that the executive branch must be afforded some latitude to act. No president, no matter who he is, should allow fear of legal embarrassment to get in the way of his job. The clearest example I’ve seen is then-President Barack Obama’s decision to take out terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki, who happened to be a U.S. citizen, with a drone-launched missile. I happen to agree with this decision, but others, like the ever-patriotic ACLU, do not. “A president who is inclined to take one course of action based on the public interest may choose to act differently instead, fearing that criminal penalties will befall him upon leaving office…. And the ‘independence of the executive branch’ could be seriously impaired if the official duties of former presidents were routinely scrutinized in criminal prosecutions,” Justice Roberts wrote. Yes, that’s true. And it doesn’t excuse a president from shooting someone down Pennsylvania Avenue or unleashing the SEALs on the enemy.
This decision, Presidency — It does not apply to Donald Trump. Democrats outraged by this decision should also consider that it means a future Trump administration cannot prosecute Biden for acts as president, as Trump has threatened. The law applies to everyone.
It’s ironic that liberals are simultaneously making a fuss about other court decisions. limit They are suddenly worried about executive power. In both the decision that overturned Chevron and the decision in SEC v. Jarquessy that reaffirmed that due process applies to executive branch agencies, the Court reaffirmed that the Constitution draws the boundaries of the branches. Sotomayor, in her dissent in Jarquessy, provided another unintentionally compelling civics lesson.: “All most people can say to these agencies and countless others is, bad luck, we’ll get new legislation from Congress.”
Yes, that is exactly what is written in the Constitution and how the laws are made in this country.
Yes, the upcoming presidential election is a bleak prospect, but on the Fourth of July, we can take solace in the fact that the country the Framers gave us is so much more than a president. Thank God.
Kelly Sloan is a Denver-based political and public policy consultant and former journalist.
