Is there any scenario where Trump acts Andrew Jackson-style, in defiance of the Supremes? For the cases that we have pending to talk about, there’s not really an option to defy the court. The court has really been defined over the course of our entire American experiment by being at odds with powerful presidents. My argument would be, this has actually built its legitimacy as an independent branch. There’s only been 17 chief justices and there’s been like 50 presidents. These guys look around and are like: We will outlast you and the next guy and the next guy, no problem. Like on birthright citizenship, for instance, if the Supreme Court, as I predict, says no, Donald Trump cannot do that through executive order, that’s the end of it for Donald Trump. Well, just to walk through the maximally paranoid scenario, because I think there’s a lot of people who read The New York Times who entertain these scenarios. The one thing we haven’t talked about is the court’s ruling about broad executive immunity from prosecution and legal action. There’s just this sense that, well, the court gave the president all this immunity, and so can’t he use that to issue crazy pardons and do all kinds of things, knowing that in the end, even if it doesn’t work, he won’t be prosecuted? What do you make of that argument? Because certainly Trump has not been shy about issuing corrupt pardons. Nope. Right. So, just how would you reassure someone if you would reassure them that is unlikely? If one were giving a president good legal advice, they would say that immunity decision should have no bearing on how you act. You should act as if it never happened, because we do not know what immunity this actually gives you. Whatever immunity Donald Trump or any president may enjoy, you just don’t know a lot based on that. There’s so many unanswered questions. So I wouldn’t rely on that at all if I were giving legal counsel to a president, especially if the president was like: Hey, I’ll pardon you for a future crime you commit on my order to ignore the Supreme Court decision and affirmatively do this thing. Those people are going to go to jail and then they can argue about it. And I just don’t think there’s going to be a lot of executive branch officials that are going to enjoy playing roll the dice with President Trump.
About The Author
