{"id":2293255,"date":"2024-07-12T07:17:57","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T11:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-resistance-john-roberts-and-company-immunize-trump-from-the-lefts-lawfare-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T07:23:57","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T11:23:57","slug":"supreme-resistance-john-roberts-and-company-immunize-trump-from-the-lefts-lawfare-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/supreme-resistance-john-roberts-and-company-immunize-trump-from-the-lefts-lawfare-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme resistance: John Roberts and company immunize Trump from the Left\u2019s lawfare &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"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\">30<\/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%2Fsupreme-resistance-john-roberts-and-company-immunize-trump-from-the-lefts-lawfare-washington-examiner%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=2293255&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>Ert Mueller\u2019s top deputy, \u2063wrote in another \u200c <em>New York \u2062Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/01\/opinion\/2024-election-supreme-court-trump-immunity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>op-ed<\/a>. Although \u201c[t]he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/Justice-Department\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Justice Department<\/a> emphasized that\u2062 the \u2062case \u2063would have \u2063been concluded, \u200bor at least\u2062 well underway, before the midterm elections even if Mr. Trump had prevailed,\u201d if he was to\u2063 do so, that \u2064would mean Americans would be \u201cheading to\u2064 the polls without knowing whether a former president would face prosecution for \u200billegal acts \u2063undertaken\u2064 in the final days\u200c of his \u2063administration.\u201d For the authors, the\u2063 court\u2019s \u2062intervention was an\u2063 affront\u200c to democracy itself. <\/p>\n<p>As the justices\u200b see it, however, the legions of\u2063 anti-Trump lawyers and judges who have \u2063sought to weaponize the\u200b law against him are themselves a danger to democracy.\u00a0As Chief Justice Roberts made plain in his opinion, \u200cthe protection of a president\u2019s \u200bofficial acts is \u200ccrucial to the functioning of government; if presidents could face prosecution \u200bby future administrations whenever\u2063 the latter dislikes \u2062their\u200d policies, administration changes would become chaotic and uncertain. <\/p>\n<p>Whether, as \u200bTribe, Murray, and Weissmann argued, \u200dnot knowing whether you\u200c are casting your ballot\u2062 for a\u2063 felon undermines \u2062democracy more than not \u200dknowing if\u200b a president may\u2063 have \u200dtheir \u200cdecisions overturned by\u2064 a vindictive successor is a\u200b question \u2062to which yesterday\u2019s dramatics in the Supreme \u2062Court \u200bat least produces no answer. It \u200chas, however, put an end to\u2063 the dream of using the \u2063legal system to make Trump&#8217;s political fortunes disappear. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"taboola-below-article-thumbnails\"><\/div>\n<p> <\/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\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\">\n<div class=\"tdb-search-form-inner\"><input class=\"tdb-head-search-form-input\" placeholder=\" \" type=\"text\" value name=\"s\" autocomplete=\"off\"><button class=\"wpb_button wpb_btn-inverse btn tdb-head-search-form-btn\" title=\"Search\" type=\"submit\"><span>Search<\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-sacff-txt\">Magazine &#8211; Feature <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Supreme resistance: John Roberts and company immunize Trump from the Left\u2019s lawfare<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-author-name-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-author-by\">By<\/span> <a class=\"tdb-author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/author\/varad-mehta\/\">Varad Mehta<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><time class=\"entry-date updated td-module-date\" datetime=\"2024-07-12T06:15:00-04:00\">July 12, 2024 6:15 am<\/time><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_1692504\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Since he departed the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/white-house\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>White House<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/donald-trump\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Donald Trump<\/a> has faced a barrage of litigation and judicial proceedings across the country. Some of it was civil, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/new-york\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>New York<\/a> attorney general\u2019s suit against the Trump Organization for inflating property valuations,\u00a0E. Jean Carroll\u2019s defamation suit, and the gambit to use Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to kick Trump off the ballot. Presidents have faced civil actions before. Last year, however, Trump became the first current or former president to face criminal charges \u2014 not once, but four times over, in the Manhattan hush money case, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/georgia\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Georgia <\/a>false electors case, the Washington, D.C., election interference case, and the Mar-a-Lago <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/classified-documents\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>classified documents<\/a> case. <\/p>\n<p>The aim of this legal maneuvering, which critics have decried as \u201clawfare,\u201d was to render Trump unelectable by miring him in court for most of 2024, making it all but impossible for him to campaign and securing multiple guilty verdicts so he could be labeled a convicted felon. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Former President Donald Trump pumps his fist as he leaves the stage at the conclusion of a campaign rally at the SNHU Arena on January 20, 2024 in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The judges presiding over Trump\u2019s trials have in many instances behaved like willing participants in these anti-Trump legal machinations, imposing gag orders on him, routinely rejecting motions filed by his lawyers while rubber-stamping those from the plaintiffs and prosecution and accepting their dubious theories, and generally rushing him toward unfavorable judgments. Before it was taken out of her hands, Tanya Chutkan, the judge in charge of Trump\u2019s Washington, D.C., Jan. 6 case, seemed to be facilitating special counsel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/jack-smith\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Jack Smith<\/a>\u2019s Javert-like pursuit of Trump as though she herself were hell-bent on getting the trial wrapped up well in advance of Nov. 5. <\/p>\n<p>One court, however, has been unmoved by the Left\u2019s pleas that Trump must face a jury of his peers before voters mark their ballots this fall. Unfortunately for the \u201cresistance,\u201d it happens to be the highest court in the land. While it may have enjoyed some success elsewhere, the scheme to litigate Trump into oblivion ran aground on the shoals of 1 First St. NE. With its decision in the Trump immunity case, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/supreme-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Supreme Court<\/a> may have sunk it for good. <\/p>\n<p>Trump had asked the high court to determine whether, as a former president, he enjoys immunity from criminal prosecution. Lower courts rejected his claim out of hand. But by a vote of 6-3, with the Republican-appointed justices on one side and the Democratic-appointed ones on the other, the justices <a href=\"https:\/\/www.supremecourt.gov\/opinions\/23pdf\/23-939_e2pg.pdf\">ruled<\/a> that presidents, including former presidents, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/trump-claims-lack-of-presidential-immunity-will-lead-to-presidents-being-afraid-to-do-anything\/\" title=\"Trump argues that the absence of presidential immunity will instill fear in future presidents, hindering their ability to take action\">possess absolute immunity<\/a> with regard to their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/aoc-sends-impeachment-threat-to-scotus-after-immunity-ruling-for-trump-assault-on-american-democracy\/\" title=\"AOC Sends Impeachment Threat to SCOTUS After Immunity Ruling for Trump - &#039;Assault on American Democracy&#039;\">core constitutional powers<\/a> and enjoy presumptive immunity for all official acts. Only unofficial acts lack any immunity at all. <\/p>\n<p>The immunity case, the last to be decided and unusually not announced until July, was easily the most significant of this Supreme Court term. No ruling by any court will have a greater impact on the legal campaign against Trump. Because of its broad, nearly categorical assertion of presidential immunity, Chief Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/john-roberts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>John Roberts<\/a>\u2019s majority opinion in <em>Trump v. United States<\/em> struck possibly a fatal blow against the legal resistance.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. (Photo by Alex Wong\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Taking a cue from Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/sonia-sotomayor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Sonia Sotomayor<\/a>, who lamented in her dissent that \u201cthe President is now a king above the law,\u201d champions of the effort to use the courts to vanquish Trump reacted with fury, as though recognizing its death knell. The majority\u2019s decision \u201cundermines the foundations of republican government,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/02\/opinion\/supreme-court-presidential-immunity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>sputtered<\/a> <em>New York Times<\/em> columnist Jamelle Bouie. The<em> Atlantic\u2019s<\/em> Adam Serwer, distempered as ever, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2024\/07\/supreme-court-donald-trump-immunity-decision\/678859\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>castigated<\/a> it \u201cfor defacing beyond recognition the Constitution and the concept of democratic self-determination.\u201d Quinta Jurecic and Benjamin Wittes of the blog <em>Lawfare<\/em>, one of the main redoubts of the legal resistance, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lawfaremedia.org\/article\/a-decision-of-surpassing-recklessness-in-dangerous-times\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>denounced<\/a> \u201ca decision of surpassing recklessness in dangerous times.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Disgusted as they were with how the case was decided, their hyperbolic responses suggest that what upset progressive legal commentators most was that it was decided at all. <\/p>\n<p>For many of them, the outcome was going to be illegitimate whatever it was because the case itself was illegitimate. The high court\u2019s ruling merely confirmed what had been apparent for months: that a trial in the Washington election interference case, the most dangerous one for Trump, would not take place before the election. For months, therefore, critics had been objecting to the court\u2019s timing and handling of Trump\u2019s appeal. These objections, which crescendoed with the release of the decision in <em>Trump v. United States<\/em>, demonstrate most clearly the political considerations motivating the Left\u2019s lawfare against the once and maybe future president. <\/p>\n<p>Laurence Tribe, a retired Harvard Law School professor and for decades one of the luminaries of the legal Left, gave the game away in his <em>New York Times<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/01\/opinion\/supreme-court-trump-immunity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>op-ed<\/a> about the immunity judgment. The court, he howled, \u201cdispensed with the rule of law by effectively depriving the American people of crucial information we should have had before the November election.\u201d By sending the case back to the district court not for trial but for Chutkan to ascertain which of Trump\u2019s actions are immune, the majority \u201cextinguished any realistic hope of getting a verdict in the Jan. 6 case before November\u201d and condemned citizens to have to vote without knowing if Trump \u201cis guilty of the crimes with which a grand jury of his fellow citizens charged him.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Simply by accepting the immunity case the justices were \u201cundermining core democratic values,\u201d Melissa Murray, a professor at the New York University School of Law, and Andrew Weissmann, a frequent MSNBC guest who was Robert Mueller\u2019s second in command during the Russian collusion inquiry, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/24\/opinion\/supreme-court-trump-immunity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>fulminated<\/a> in April. What values would those be? Trying Trump ahead of the election, of course.<\/p>\n<p>Why and how failing to try Trump before the election would undermine democratic values by depriving voters of crucial knowledge is never explained, just taken for granted. It\u2019s hard not to think, though, that the ones really being deprived are Trump\u2019s enemies, who tried to concoct that knowledge by putting him on trial and convicting him before the election. Which is the point. That gambit fails if the trials occur afterward. Hence the insistence, chanted like a mantra, that Trump must be tried before Nov. 5 and the myriad specious and factitious justifications the legal resistance invented for doing so.<\/p>\n<p>One of the most noxious was the notion, fabricated out of whole cloth, that by taking their time to decide the immunity case, the justices were somehow violating the public\u2019s right to a speedy trial. This conceit is a favorite, for example, of MSNBC legal analyst Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney and current law professor at the University of Michigan who <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BarbMcQuade\/status\/1764308140013900122\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>routinely refers<\/a> to this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/move-jack-smith-make-expedite-donald-trump-election-interference-trial-barbara-mcquade-1921895\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>suppositious right<\/a>. Writing in the <em>Atlantic<\/em> in March, NYU law professor Ryan Goodman and Weissmann, two of the most scurrilous and mendacious figures in the legal resistance, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2024\/03\/dc-trump-trial-speed\/677862\/?gift=nxdLV2TUUZTJM2K0Tf8J9T_NU-POxyTBCjcEtD8SbKQ&#038;utm_source=copy-link&#038;utm_medium=social&#038;utm_campaign=share\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>urged<\/a> the Supreme Court \u201cto vindicate the public\u2019s right to a speedy trial\u201d by resolving the immunity case shortly after hearing it. While it is true that federal law recognizes a public <em>interest<\/em> in a speedy trial, under the Sixth Amendment, the <em>right<\/em> to a speedy trial belongs solely to the accused. <\/p>\n<p>As the immunity case dragged on and the legal resistance became more anxious about its fate, its members increasingly complained about how long it was taking. The more conspiratorial among them detected nefarious designs in the delay and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/opinion\/msnbc-opinion\/trump-trial-supreme-court-immunity-rcna153267\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>suspected<\/a> the justices were intentionally dragging their feet to help Trump by holding on to it until a preelection trial was no longer feasible. University of Michigan professor Leah Litman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/19\/opinion\/supreme-court-trump-immunity.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>smelled<\/a> something \u201crotten at the court\u201d because the immunity case remained unresolved in mid-June, while the 14th Amendment case took about a month to decide. Never mind that with the latter, the court faced an external deadline in the form of Colorado\u2019s March 5 primary. And never mind, too, that by its standards, the immunity case <em>was<\/em> expedited, going from district court judgment to Supreme Court opinion in exactly seven months. Normally, a case accepted in February wouldn\u2019t be heard until the following term, which really would have put it beyond the election. The justices did move fast. Just not fast enough for the Left\u2019s political expediency. <\/p>\n<p>With a 2024 trial just about dead, some members of the legal resistance have begun putting their hopes in the idea that Chutkan could turn the hearings to determine which of Trump\u2019s actions relating to Jan. 6 are immune into a kind of \u201cmini trial\u201d that will air his dirty laundry and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2024\/07\/01\/opinions\/trump-immunity-ruling-evidentiary-hearing-eisen-perry-kolb\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>fulfill<\/a> the \u201cvital function\u201d of letting voters \u201clearn more details about Trump\u2019s alleged election interference,\u201d as Norman Eisen, who served as counsel to the House\u2019s first impeachment of Trump and is now arguably the most prominent member of the legal resistance, put it. Chutkan and the DOJ, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2024\/07\/02\/jan-6-trump-supreme-court-00166130\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>protested<\/a> <em>Politico<\/em> legal affairs writer Ankush Khardori, must \u201csalvage whatever they can from this case before November and try to give the public the information and accountability that they deserve.\u201d What the public deserves is a normative concern. It is a matter of politics, not law. If anything lacks a \u201cbasis in constitutional text, history or logic,\u201d as Khardori said of the decision, it\u2019s the belief that only placing Trump in the dock come September or October can vindicate some ineffable public right and spare it from harm. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cDonald Trump isn\u2019t worth the Constitution,\u201d I once saw a cable news pundit observe. He was talking about Trump\u2019s supporters, who by his lights place Trump above the Constitution. But his words apply with equal force to Trump\u2019s enemies, who regard him as utterly beneath it. <\/p>\n<p>Seen from this perspective, granting Trump immunity was the only possible outcome in a small-C constitutional sense. Anything else would have destabilized the political order. Critics of the majority opinion, including the dissenters, scoffed at Roberts for worrying about the \u201cprospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself\u201d as each new president prosecutes his predecessor. Yet had he greenlighted Smith\u2019s election interference charges as filed, that\u2019s just what would have happened. There would have been no way to stop retaliatory prosecutions, as any future Republican administration would simply ignore a ruling saying it couldn\u2019t prosecute a Democratic president after President Joe Biden was allowed to prosecute Trump. The vision of every ex-president becoming fair game for his replacement surely made the chief justice blanch. The genie would never go back in the bottle. Of course he would do everything to prevent its escape. <\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s not that members of the resistance couldn\u2019t conceive of these concerns. They just didn\u2019t care because their paramount goal was getting Trump, the Constitution be damned. Roberts, though, understood, even if they refused to, that Trump and Biden aren\u2019t the only presidents and that other Democrats and other Republicans will occupy the Oval Office. The court, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/religious-freedom-advocates-celebrate-after-scotus-sides-with-catholic-group-on-gay-couple-foster-parents\/\" title=\"Religious Freedom Advocates Celebrate After SCOTUS Sides With Catholic Group On Gay Couple Foster Parents\">chief justice wrote<\/a>, \u201ccannot afford to fixate exclusively, or even primarily, on present exigencies.\u201d Thus, the majority attempted, as Justice Neil Gorsuch had pronounced during the oral argument, that the court must craft \u201ca rule for the ages.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Roberts is an institutionalist. He preserved many institutions with his opinion in the immunity case: the presidency, the courts, the Constitution. But by refusing to let the transfer of power turn, as Justice <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/samuel-alito\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Samuel Alito<\/a> had warned during the oral argument and Trump in his typically blundering way nearly achieved on Jan. 6, into a moment of existential peril for the nation, the institution he protected most of all was the republic itself. <\/p>\n<p>The cadres of the legal resistance, among whom Smith is almost certainly to be counted, though he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2023\/12\/21\/what-jack-smith-wont-say-00133002\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>can never admit<\/a> it publicly, made known, loudly and vociferously, their desire that Trump \u201cface the music\u201d before November. Perhaps if they had been less hungry, the Supreme Court would have been less determined to smite what <em>Washington Post<\/em> columnist Jason Willick aptly characterized as their \u201chubris and zealotry.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Roberts took one look at the legal resistance and launched it into the sun at the earliest opportunity. Such an unforgiving reception might, one would think, inspire some soul-searching. But if the legal resistance were capable of self-reflection, none of this would have happened in the first place. <\/p>\n<p>With the civil trials and his Manhattan conviction having barely made a dent in his standing, and the rest of his criminal trials now stuck in deep freeze for the rest of 2024, and maybe forever, Trump has emerged bloodied but unbowed from the Left\u2019s legal gantlet. As a consequence, what started as an effort to prevent his return to the White House may have all but ensured it. <\/p>\n<p><em>Varad Mehta is a writer and historian. He lives in the Philadelphia area. Find him on X @varadmehta.<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_1692504\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"1692504\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Washington Examiner article discusses how the Supreme Court&#8217;s decision in the Trump immunity case has thwarted the Left&#8217;s legal efforts to prevent Trump from running for office again. The article highlights the court&#8217;s ruling that former presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution for their official acts, which has been criticized by progressive legal commentators. The article also criticizes the Left&#8217;s attempts to rush Trump&#8217;s trials before the election and argues that the court&#8217;s decision was necessary to protect the constitutional order and prevent future retaliatory prosecutions. Ultimately, the article suggests that the legal resistance&#8217;s efforts may have inadvertently strengthened Trump&#8217;s chances of returning to the White House<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2811,"featured_media":2293256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Feat.SupremeResistance.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[34774,16727,32275,3634,32076],"class_list":["post-2293255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-john-roberts","tag-lawfare","tag-supreme-court","tag-trump","tag-washington-examiner"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Feat.SupremeResistance.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293255","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\/2811"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2293255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2293255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2293255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2293255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}