LOS ANGELES.–Today’s Supreme Court oral arguments on 77-year-old President Donald Trump’s presidential immunity raises many questions Constitutional questions for the nine-member High Court. Justices want to figure out with Special Counsel Jack Smith has the authority to charge Trump with crimes related holding onto power, resisting the peaceful transfer of power in Jan. 6, 2020 when the Electoral College was set to certify the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election. Smith alleges that Trump engaged in a false scheme to dispute the results of the election claiming widespread voter fraud when he could prove none. Smith alleges that Trump corruptly deceived the public about voter fraud, leading to his speech Jan. 6, 2021 that incited, according to Trump’s impeachment, the Jan. 6, 2021 Capital insurrection. Yet the Supreme Court ruled that state election officials could not keep Trump from the ballot.
Colorado’s Supreme Court ruled that Trump could be disqualified Dec. 19, 2023 from the ballot, citing arcane Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, stating that anyone involved in insurrection could not run for public office. Supreme Court Justices rule March 4, that Trump could not be disqualified from the ballot based on Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. Yet lawyers for the Democrat Party in the House used language from the Section 3 about “insurrection” to charge Trump in his second impeachment with “incitement of insurrection.” House members led by 84-year-old former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) used the language “insurrection” in her second impeachment article to attempt to stop Trump for running again in 2024 for election. Trump was acquitted in the Senate for “incitement of insurrection” Feb. 13, 2021making the matter moot.
Democrats place all their hopes on linguistics, hoping they could sell Trump as an “insurrectionist,” despite cleared by the Senate for “incitement of insurrection.” Of course it came out that Trump didn’t incite insurrection, it had been planned by months by the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys and other right wing groups, according to FBI reports. But Pelosi charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” telling no one in his Jan. 6, 2021 speech to vandalized the Capitol. Hearing oral arguments today whether or not Trump has the presidential immunity to s top Special Counsel Jack Smith’s two prosecutions of Trump, one for obstruction the election and the other for harboring classified government documents. Smith used the July 30, 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act to charge Trump and Jan. 6 rioters with trying to obstruct an official government hearing.
Supreme Court Justices, especially conservatives, were skeptical about Sarbanes-Oxley used to tack on addition jail time to the multiple felonies of Jan. 6, 2021 lawbreakers. If the Supreme Court tosses out Sarbanes-Oxley in the case of Fischer v. United States Jan. 6, it would potentially at lessen 150 sentences that used the Enron-era Sarbanes-Oxley Act to charge Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol vandals. When you look at all the various charges against Trump and Jan. 6 rioters, it’s clear that the Department of Justice has pursued its cases with the same kind of zealotry used by 63-year-old former FBI Director James Comey who opened up a counterintelligence investigation into Trump all based of fake probable cause from former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s discredited Steele Dossier. Hillary’s dossier accused Trump of colluding with the Kremlin to win the 2016 presidential election.
Today’s oral arguments on presidential immunity raised many Constitutional questions, especially about whether the government can prosecute former presidents for political reasons. “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser get thrown into jail,” said conservative Justice Samuel Alito. Special Counsel Solicitor General Michael Dreeben argued that broad presidential immunity was not needed because there are laws on the books that can be used to contest presidential elections. Alito asked Dreeben why in the 234 years U.S. history no other president has been charged with crimes. “The reason why there have not been prior criminal prosecution is that there were no crimes,” Dreeben said. Surely, Dreeben recalls Watergate but when President Franklin D. Roosevelt illegally interned Japanese Americans in WW II.
Today’s oral arguments show that Constitutional law has little to do with all the arguments about presidential immunity, pro and con. Liberal justices use their own logic to justify prosecuting Trump for real or imagined crimes against the state. Special Counsel Jack Smith thinks there’s nothing wrong with stretching Sarbanes-Oxley to the breaking point to tack on more harsh sentences to Jan. 6, 2021 rioters—and to Trump. Sarbanes-Oxley was supposed to stop corporate financial crime stemming from the Enron Scam that lost investors $74 billion in the natural gas trading company. How the Department of Justice decided to use Sarbanes-Oxley is anyone’s guess. Conservative Supreme Court Justices certainly expressed their doubts about using Sarbanes-Oxley to augment Jan. 6 sentences. Today’s oral arguments expose the highly political nature of the Supreme Court.
About the Author
John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news. He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.
