Read excerpts of an analysis by CNN's Joan Biskupic. She writes:
Chief Justice John Roberts’ 20 years on the Supreme Court have been punctuated by a series of vivid episodes, from his confirmation hearings as he vowed merely to call “balls and strikes,” to his dramatic switched vote to preserve the Affordable Care Act, to his weeks presiding over the televised impeachment trial of President Donald Trump.
But the moment most central to Roberts’ legacy occurred in the courtroom shielded from cameras on July 1, 2024.
Seated at the center of the elevated bench, Roberts declared the American president immune from criminal prosecution. It was a milestone decision providing new power for all presidents and, at the time, possibly changing the course of a presidential election.
...
He acknowledged that dissenting justices were predicting the decision in Trump v. United States diminishing accountability would lead to “dire consequences.” But Roberts, trying to lift the case beyond Trump, insisted that without such immunity, all presidents would “scrutinize every moment of the prior four or eight years and prosecute” their predecessors.
...
As Roberts hits the 20-year mark this month – the fourth longest-serving chief justice in US history – it is striking how relevant Trump v. US remains and how many pivotal moments of Roberts’ tenure have intersected with Trump.
...
The Supreme Court’s current docket is overwhelmed by Trump-related disputes, and those cases – the result of scores of legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders – have dramatically altered the justices’ routines and their attitude toward lower court judges.
...
On a personal level, Roberts has chafed at Trump, even as the chief justice, with his expansive view of executive power, has sided with him. Trump has alternately criticized and extolled Roberts, depending how cases go, since 2012 when Trump scorned Roberts’ decision to uphold Obamacare. (“I guess Justice Roberts wanted to be part of Georgetown society more than anyone knew,” Trump wrote in a social media post at the time.)
...
Still, Trump has repeatedly thanked the Supreme Court for ruling in his favor. The White House website tallies the administration’s victories at the high court – 21 since he returned to office.
In earlier years when he lost, Trump blasted the justices. When they declined to take up a challenge to Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential victory in December 2020, Trump wrote on social media, “The Supreme Court really let us down. No wisdom, No courage!”
...
Any ambivalence evaporated when Roberts steered the case that prevented Trump from being held accountable for his actions challenging the 2020 election results. The Roberts majority ruled that a president’s actions arising from “core” powers were absolutely immune and that actions within “the outer perimeter” of his official responsibilities were presumptively immune; only unofficial conduct could be prosecuted.
...
Since then, Roberts and fellow conservatives have voted to reverse lower court decisions, at least for the time being, on a series of Trump deportation policies, his ban on transgender troops in the military and the firing of a series of leaders at independent agencies. The three liberal justices have consistently protested the pattern.
...
Sotomayor then quoted a line from an 1882 case that stands for the proposition that “All the officers of the government, from the highest to the lowest, are creatures of the law and are bound to obey it.”
Then she added simply, “but see Trump v. United States.”
