{"id":2232637,"date":"2024-04-29T12:24:02","date_gmt":"2024-04-29T16:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/on-trump-immunity-case-conservative-justices-shouldnt-write-rules\/"},"modified":"2024-04-29T12:26:06","modified_gmt":"2024-04-29T16:26:06","slug":"on-trump-immunity-case-conservative-justices-shouldnt-write-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/on-trump-immunity-case-conservative-justices-shouldnt-write-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservative Justices Shouldn&#8217;t Set Rules on Trump &#8216;Immunity&#8217; Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fon-trump-immunity-case-conservative-justices-shouldnt-write-rules%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2232637&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The recent Supreme Court oral arguments\u2062 on former\u2062 President Trump&#8217;s &#8220;total immunity&#8221; claim involved conservative\u200b Justices Alito, Kavanaugh,\u2063 and\u2063 Gorsuch. They delved into matters beyond the court&#8217;s jurisdiction, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/union-claims-amazon-illegally-meddled-in-alabama-warehouse-election\/\" title=\"Union Claims Amazon Illegally Meddled in Alabama Warehouse Election\">prompting concerns<\/a> about straying from the core issues. Immunity\u200b discussions for past presidents should center \u2062on constitutional grounds rather than personal interpretations of\u2063 right and wrong.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>In last week\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/supreme-court\/?source=%2Fopinion%2Ftime-for-term-limits-for-federal-courts&#038;utm_source=google&#038;utm_medium=cpc&#038;utm_campaign=WE_Pmax_Section-News&#038;gad_source=5&#038;gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9fTqh6LghQMV0UL_AR1s2Q0bEAAYASAAEgJmmvD_BwE\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Supreme Court<\/a> oral arguments regarding former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"President Donald Trump\">President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s assertion of \u201ctotal immunity\u201d for acts committed as president, conservative Justices <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/samuel-alito\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Samuel Alito<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/brett-kavanaugh\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"Brett Kavanaugh\">Brett Kavanaugh<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/neil-gorsuch\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Neil Gorsuch<\/a> each considered questions outside the court\u2019s proper purview.<\/p>\n<p>Except perhaps at the very margins, they should not base their decisions on those questions or the answers thereto.<\/p>\n<p>Alito worried that without immunity for former presidents, \u201cthere has to be a trial, and that may involve great expense and it may take up a lot of time, and during the trial, the former president may be unable to engage in other activities that the former president would want to engage in.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Well, so what? First, this is true of any defendant. That\u2019s the nature of being a defendant: It\u2019s inconvenient, to say the least. Why should a former president be spared the bother? Second and more importantly, why is this even relevant? The issue at hand is not whether a president <em>should, <\/em>in a logical world, enjoy some form of immunity. The issue is whether a president <em>does<\/em> enjoy immunity based on anything in the Constitution (or from the decidedly narrow band of principles that are assumed to have been incorporated into the Constitution via preexisting British common law).<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives have always criticized liberal judges for trying to decide what their own sense of right and wrong advises rather than following the actual text of the law. Even if immunity is a good idea, no <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/eric-holder-urges-democrats-to-pack-supreme-court-says-federal-courts-are-stacked-with-ideologues-who-reach-rulings-based-on-stunted-mindsets\/\" title=\"Eric Holder Urges Democrats to Pack Supreme Court, Says Federal Courts Are Stacked with Ideologues \u201cWho Reach Rulings Based on Stunted Mindsets\u201d\">conservative judge<\/a> should provide it if the Constitution is silent about it. After all, immunity would be an exception to the ordinary laws of criminal guilt or innocence, so the ordinary laws should apply <em>unless<\/em> the Constitution provides such an unambiguous exception.<\/p>\n<p>Kavanaugh, meanwhile, was similarly worried about \u201cwhat if\u201d scenarios that aren\u2019t based on the constitutional text. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/oral_arguments\/argument_transcripts\/2023\/23-939_f204.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>He asked<\/a> what would happen if former presidents, as a form of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/graham-if-democrats-call-witnesses-at-trial-we-will-call-democrats-thatve-used-inflammatory-language\/\" title=\"Graham: If Democrats Call Witnesses At Trial We Will Call Democrats That\u2019ve Used Inflammatory Language\">political retribution<\/a>, regularly began to be prosecuted by their successors so that \u201cit\u2019s going to cycle back and be used against the current president or the next president and the next president and the next president after that.\u201d Granted, that may be a legitimate concern (although if it has happened only once in 228 years of former presidents, the concern may be overblown). Nevertheless, why is it the business of the justices? If such a cycle is a problem, but it is <em>not <\/em>addressed in the Constitution, then it\u2019s not the job of the Supreme Court to fix it. Instead, it\u2019s a problem that must be fixed either by Congress (if possible) or via a constitutional amendment.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what conservatives always tell liberals: If there\u2019s a problem not fixed by the Constitution, then fix it by amendment \u2014 <em>not <\/em>by legislating from the bench.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, Gorsuch took the same detour from appropriate considerations. \u201cI am concerned,\u201d he said, \u201cabout future uses of the criminal law to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-steers-supreme-court-in-trump-immunity-case-were-writing-a-rule-for-the-ages\/\" title=\"Gorsuch Guides Supreme Court in Trump Immunity Case: Crafting Timeless Rules\">target political opponents based<\/a> on accusations about their motives. \u2026 We\u2019re writing a rule for the ages.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Someone should remind Gorsuch that his job is not to <em>write<\/em> rules for the ages. His job is to interpret rules already in place. Judges are not meant to be legislators.<\/p>\n<p>Since when did conservative justices adopt <a href=\"https:\/\/plato.stanford.edu\/entries\/consequentialism\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>consequentialist<\/a> approaches to jurisprudence? Conservatives have spent at least a half-century criticizing the Left for that habit. Where the Constitution is silent, conservatives say the only proper option is to trust the political, legislative, or amendment processes. Trump\u2019s current conundrum should not obviate that obligation for judicial restraint.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the recent Supreme Court oral arguments on Trump&#8217;s &#8216;total immunity&#8217; claim, Justices Alito, Kavanaugh, and Gorsuch ventured off-topic. It&#8217;s advisable for them to stick to the core issues rather than dwelling on peripheral matters when making their rulings<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2983,"featured_media":2232638,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP24116689297899-1024x683.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[538],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2232637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/wex-s3.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/AP24116689297899-1024x683.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2232637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2232637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2232638"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2232637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2232637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2232637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}