Raw Story

While writing Criminology on Trump (2022) and Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy (2024), I had never imagined that even this extreme Supreme Court supermajority would rule in favor of Donald Trump’s quest for presidential immunity.

Alas, after the Court’s outrageous decision on July 1 that eviscerated the Constitution and confirmed Trump is not subject to the criminal law, I know that the wannabe dictator — Teflon Don — has been feeling legally, if not politically, vindicated. I also know that our Founding Fathers, informed that a president of their democratic republic had been granted the status of a king, would spin somersaults in their graves.

Because of the long-coming decision of this Supreme Court’s Christian nationalist MAGA majority, justice in Trump’s four separate criminal cases have been delayed, and possibly, eliminated altogether. More importantly, the justices’ legal chicanery has retroactively allowed a former president and all future presidents absolute immunity from criminal prosecutions by untenably conflating “private interests” with “official duties.”

In very different words, these Supreme Court justices have “nullified” Article II, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution.

Ideally, a decision of this magnitude should have been a unanimous one — 9-0 — with justices across the ideological spectrum speaking with a unified and principled voice.

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Instead, the three justices that Trump nominated “cemented a 6-2 conservative majority that pushed the court further right, not only in embracing a broad view of presidential immunity, but also on an array of other topics – most notably, reducing the power of federal agencies, a long-favored target of conservative lawyers and legal scholars,” in the words of former Supreme Court litigator Amy Howe.

Certain justices themselves agreed.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, for one, wrote in her powerful dissent, the Supreme Court has made “a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law,” noting that the Court gave Trump “all the immunity he asked for and more.”

As she opined, we should all fear for our democracy.

The question for this criminologist became: “How or why did crime and criminality – specifically a criminal conspiracy to overturn a presidential election – become the official business of a constitutionally empowered president of the United States?”

To find out how the Supreme Court avoided the answer to my question, obstructed justice or impeded due process, and eventually rendered such an absurd and perverted decision, you will have to read their convoluted logic for yourself and attempt to make sense of text that stubbornly defies logic, legal foundation or conservatives’ beloved principle of “originalism.”

Or, less painfully, you can read about it from Joyce Vance, a former U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama who’s now a distinguished professor of the practice of law at the University of Alabama School of Law. As she wrote in Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance: “Presidents are kings” in the Supreme Court’s estimation.

To summarize Vance’s key takeaways:

The Supreme Court's decision “signals that they believe it’s more important to create a powerful presidency … then it is to be concerned with how a president could abuse that concentrated power, including to try and overturn an election.”

This was “a long decision with lots of moving parts” because there were five separate opinions written. Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. He was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote a concurrence, as did Justice Amy Coney Barrett, “who joined most of Justice Roberts’ majority opinion, but not all of it.” Sotomayor wrote a dissent that was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, who also wrote a separate dissent.

As Vance underscores, “the opinion itself is hard reading, even for appellate lawyers or those used to contemplating constitutional issues.” It is not law “written for the public, and that is an abdication of the Court’s responsibilities. Speaking of abdication of responsibility, both Justice Thomas and Justice Alito participated in the decision, an ongoing sign of the ethics dysfunction at the Court.”

Once more, the “Court has frittered away public confidence in its integrity as a democratic institution just when it’s needed the most, as the 2024 election, which like the one in 2020” may also end up in the courts.

The issue that the Supreme Court agreed to decide — which it never should have after trial judge Tanya Chutkan and a three-judge appellate panel had ruled unanimously that Trump could be prosecuted for actions undertaken while in the White House and in the run-up to Jan. 6 — was this: whether, and to what extent, Trump enjoyed “presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”

As Vance writes below, the conservative supermajority issued a fairly direct answer finding that there were “three different categories of presidential conduct, and a different rule about immunity applies to each one,” as follows:

1.) “A former President has immunity from criminal prosecution for actions taken with his ‘conclusive and preclusive’ constitutional authority — his official authority stemming from the Constitution and our laws. This is for the exercise of his core constitutional powers.”

2.) “He had presumptive immunity from prosecution for other official acts, unless the government establishes that permitting them to prosecute will not create a danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch. The Court calls this the ‘Twilight Zone’ of official acts, which includes areas where a president has shared immunity with Congress.”

3.) “There is no immunity for unofficial acts. [However,] there may be an issue about how to decide whether conduct is official or unofficial, but if it’s the latter, no immunity.”

Vance notes that had President Richard Nixon known he had this type of immunity, “he wouldn’t have resigned” from the presidency in 1974.

It also turns out that Nixon, during one of his exclusive 1977 interviews with David Frost, foreshadowed the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling 47 years in the future.

In response to Frost’s query about him having broken the law in relation to “a president believing that something is in the best interests of the nation,” Nixon legendarily replied: “Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

The three dissenting Supreme Court justices, Vance and this criminologist are hardly alone in our dismay. When I hunted through Google News for any commentaries that concurred with the Supreme Court’s pro-MAGA decision, I could not find any — save for Fox News, New York Post and several pro-MAGA publications.

Here are representative samples of what I did find:

From The Bulwark: “The Supreme Court is protecting the president from you. It should be the other way around.”

From The Washington Post: “Supreme Court’s Trump immunity ruling poses risk for democracy.”

From the Los Angeles Times: “We should all dissent from the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, and not respectfully.”

From CNN Politics: “The Supreme Court just gave presidents a superpower.”

From PBS: “A President could pocket a bribe for a pardon, stage a military coup to retain power, order the killing of a rival by the Navy’s SEAL Team Six – and be protected.”

From Project Syndicate: “The US Supreme Court has now ruled that the Constitution entitles former President Donald Trump to “presumptive immunity” from criminal prosecution for actions related to his efforts to overturn the November 2020 election.”

From Talking Points Memo: “The Supreme Court took a sledgehammer to American democracy.”

From Slate: “In its awful immunity ruling… benefitting Donald Trump, the court seems so worried about future threats to democracy that could come from the possibility of bogus future criminal prosecutions of former presidents [that have never happened before in US history] that it is willing to let a legitimate election prosecution over a current threat against democracy go by the wayside.”

From The New York Times: “The Supreme Court creates a lawless presidency.”

From Salon: “The Supreme Court rules that Donald Trump can be a dictator.”

From Politico: “The Supreme Court gave Trump a stunning Gift – and rewrote the Constitution.”

From Let’s Address This with Qasim Rashid: “Raise your hand if you remember learning about the separation of powers, and the fact that we have a democratically elected President with limited powers, not a fascist empowered dictator with unlimited powers?”

From Mother Jones: “The Supreme Court’s decision to grant presidents wide-ranging immunity from criminal prosecution is only guaranteed to fuel Democrats’ fear of a second Trump term and its impact on everything from the justice system to immigration to LGBT and other civil rights.”

Last month, in another assault on constitutional democracy, a 6-2 decision written by Chief Justice Roberts for the Supreme Court concluded in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that the 40-year-old Chevron doctrine is dead, and that the era of executive branch agency rule is effectively over.

Elie Mystal, writing for The Nation, underscored the danger of this anti-scientific decision by detailing how it represents the unifying mission of The Federalist Society, Project 2025 of the Heritage Foundation, Trumpism and the Supreme Court supermajority.

“We just witnessed the biggest Supreme Court power grab since 1803,” Mystal lamented.

Mystal, a constitutional scholar, was referring to the fact that the Supreme Court “has given itself nearly unlimited power over the administrative state, putting everything from environmental protections to workers’ rights at risk.”

One might say that the “deconstruction of the administrative state” dreamed of and advocated by Steve Bannon, the once pardoned and now federally imprisoned advisor to the former president, is well on its way — especially should the felon and corruptor-in-chief return to the White House this coming January.

After all, the ideologically driven and anti-constitutional Supreme Court supermajority has now transformed itself and the presidency into imperial powerhouses. In the process, they have abandoned any semblance of legal principle and cultural tradition while setting both the First Amendment and stare decisis on fire.

Gregg Barak is an emeritus professor of criminology and criminal justice at Eastern Michigan University and the author of several books on the crimes of the powerful, including Criminology on Trump (2022) and its 2024 sequel, Indicting the 45th President: Boss Trump, the GOP, and What We Can Do About the Threat to American Democracy.

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A Republican lawmaker appeared on Newsmax on Friday to warn his party about the possibility that Democrats may switch out President Joe Biden ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

However, in the process, he inadvertently make a strong case for Biden's record while in office.

During the interview, Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) was asked about the dangers that someone such as Vice President Kamala Harris could take over from Biden at the top of the ticket and experience a media honeymoon that could last right up until the presidential election in November.

McCormick agreed with this assessment about the media environment surrounding Harris, and then added a bunch of positive economic indicators that could further cloud Republicans' efforts to win in November.

"If you look at what's going on in the markets, the stock markets have set several records in the last month," he said. "If you look at interest rates, they're probably going to come down in September, not really enough to affect the market, but you're going to have still a low unemployment rate."

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Added to this, he said, the falling number of illegal border crossings in recent months could give Biden an argument that he "quote-unquote did something about the border."

Despite a lot of positive economic news in recent months -- including cooling inflation, continued strong job growth, and a strong stock market -- Democrats have struggled to get credit for it.

Watch the video below or at this link.

GOP lawmaker accidentally makes a good case for Biden's record www.youtube.com

Utah Supreme Court has ruled a lawsuit alleging state lawmakers illegally nullified an anti-gerrymandering initiative passed by voters in 2018 can move forward, Court documents filed Thursday show.

Proposition 4 demanded that an independent redistricting commission be created that would draw district lines non-partisanly.

But the Utah legislature then passed Senate Bill 200, which diminished the redistricting commission to nothing more than an advisory role and continued allowing lawmakers to draw their own districts.

The League of Women Voters and the Mormon Women for Ethical Government responded with a lawsuit saying the newly drawn maps were illegal.

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The legislature tried to block the case, a decision that went to the top court in the state.

The Campaign Legal Center, which represents the petitioners in the case, called out the state asselmbly members, saying the case, "exemplifies how a ruling political party can skew the electoral process by 'cracking' voters from the minority party into multiple congressional districts to dilute their voting power."

They asked that the courts block the maps for the next election.

“When Utahns exercise their right to reform the government through a citizen initiative, their exercise of these rights is protected from government infringement,” the court ruled unanimously.

“Although the Legislature has authority to amend or repeal statutes, it is well settled that legislative action cannot unduly infringe or restrain the exercise of constitutional rights,” the opinion continues.

Read the full opinion here.

A senior official from former President Donald Trump's administration just made an ominous threat to the immigrant community during a recent gathering of far-right political activists.

Semafor reporter Dave Weigel reported that during the National Conservatism conference (also known as "NatCon") in Washington, D.C., several of the speakers eagerly expressed how they would help the former president accomplish his goal of pursuing vengeance against his political opponents if elected to a second term. During one panel, Tom Homan – who was director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Trump's Department of Homeland Security – suggested he was already working behind the scenes to make Trump's promise to deport millions of immigrants as draconian as possible.

"Trump comes back in January, I’ll be on his heels coming back, and I will run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen,” Homan said. “They ain’t seen s— yet. Wait until 2025.”

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As the New York Times reported last year, one key plank of Trump's second-term policy agenda is the rounding up and detainment of undocumented immigrants on an unprecedented scale. Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller — an outed white nationalist — previously suggested Trump would deport approximately 10 million immigrants during a second term. Earlier this year, Ronald Brownstein — a senior editor for the Atlantic — tweeted excerpts from a speech Miller gave to National Rifle Association activists about how Trump would create “standing facilities” to detain immigrants by the thousands “where planes are moving off the runway constantly.”

Deporting millions of immigrants in a short number of years would likely be a major blow to the economy and result in significant price hikes for Americans. New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman, Charlie Savage and Jonathan Swan reported last month that it's likely "production falls and labor costs go up" in the event of mass deportations.

"For example, if farmers could not find enough workers to pick all their crops, there would be a smaller supply of produce and it would get more expensive," they wrote. "And businesses would be forced to offer higher wages to attract or retain workers — passing on some of their higher costs to consumers."

According to Weigel, the NatCon audience that met at the Capital Hilton in D.C. consisted of "Trump administration veterans mingled with conservative writers and think tankers who had conquered the old 'Bush-Romney' Republican Party." Attendees reportedly viewed Trump as "a conquering hero who’d have a confident, well-trained movement behind him next year," and NatCon speakers often echoed Trump's promises to use the force of the federal government to punish Trump's enemies.

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In a segment featuring former Trump attorney John Eastman (author of the so-called "Eastman Memo" that outlined the plot to disrupt Congress' certification of the 2020 Electoral College count), the now-disbarred lawyer proposed punishing federal judges who ruled against Trump in his unsuccessful election litigation.

"We’ve got to start impeaching these judges for acting in such an unbelievably partisan way from the bench," Eastman said, just a week after the six conservatives on the Supreme Court ruled that presidents are free to break the law as long as it's deemed an official act.

John Yoo, who was a top DOJ official in former George W. Bush's administration, also encouraged political reprisal under a second Trump administration. He specifically called on Republican prosecutors to be Trump's political foot soldiers should he win in November.

"People who have used this tool against people like John [Eastman] or President Trump have to be prosecuted by Republican or conservative DAs in exactly the same way, for exactly the same kinds of things, until they stop," Yoo said.

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The Florida social club where Donald Trump, a convicted felon and former president, stands accused of illegally storing official classified documents is raking in cash with ramped up prices that grants patrons the privilege of easy-access sycophancy, a new analysis finds.

Mar-a-Lago has taken in $4.7 million from candidates and political committees since Trump left the White House in 2021 and bumped its initiation fee from $100,000 to $600,000, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

Mar-a-Lago reported $22 million net profits in 2022, with new club members paying about $12 million to join, according to the report.

Fred Rustmann, a former club member and current Trump supporter, told the Times he left because of the new the vibe these new patrons brought.

“[The clientele] started to change to people who were kissing his butt all the time,” Rustmann said. “There was a lot of hand-shaking, and applause, and everybody stands up, and wow-wow-wow.”

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Mar-a-Lago’s roughly 500 members aren’t the only people paying through the nose to gain access to the gilded Palm Beach club, according to the report.

Trump’s club reported $11 million in profits from food and beverage operations with customers that include the Republican Party of Palm Beach County, according to the Times.

The local party group reportedly paid $318,000 for is 2023 Lincoln Day dinner, up from $158,000 in inflation-adjusted dollars seven years earlier, the Times reports.

“You can’t ask for a better venue,” said Michael Barnett, chairman of the county G.O.P. until 2023. “We would never consider going anywhere else.”

This influx of big cash stands in stark contrast to Mar-a-Lago’s state of financial affairs in 2012, when records reportedly show it was losing money.

“Its profits began to climb as Mr. Trump entered politics,” the Times reports. “They hit a peak in 2017, as the club added new customers — including the U.S. government, which paid for bedrooms used by Secret Service agents and liquor drunk by Mr. Trump’s aides — without losing its existing ones, like the charities that rented out the club’s ballrooms for fund-raiser galas.”

Visuals in the stunning Times report show a bill for more than $1,000 in liquor charges paid by the U.S. Department of State in 2017.

The money buys Mar-a-Lago attendees and guests front row seats for a parade of Trump adoration and praise.

Speakers and guests call Trump “greatest president” “since Abraham Lincoln,” hand him awards, profess their love and sing him songs, the Times notes.

Guests include conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, white nationalist Laura Loomer, powerful politicians such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), reality television stars and convicted felon Roger Stone.

The Times’ readers professed themselves stunned by the report.

“Mar-A-Lago comes across as more of a carnival rather than an exclusive club,” commented reader Belinda. “And Trump is the carnival barker.”

“This is what Germany in the 30s would have been like if they had social media,” added a Times reader from Secaucus. “God help us if [T]rump wins.”

Just like the other gangsters and autocrats he compared himself to, [Trump] has judges and justices on his payroll, but it’s indirect and untraceable,” Steve Ell commented. “The taxpayer end up responsible for the bill.”

Donald Trump’s former aide Hope Hicks could be the key to bringing his effort to appeal his hush money conviction crashing down, a former federal prosecutor said.

Legal analyst Joyce Vance said evidence from Hicks presented in his trial is likely not covered by a recent Supreme Court ruling that Trump’s team is expected to rely on to overturn his conviction on falsifying business record charges.

Trump was scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, but Judge Juan Merchan agreed to delay it until September to consider the impact of the Supreme Court’s ruling that presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts while in office.

But Vance, speaking on the Cafe Insider podcast, said Hicks’ testimony, given during a tearful appearance in the witness box, would likely not be affected.

Hicks had been a Trump Organization employee long before Trump became president, and a lot of her core evidence involved that time, Vance said.

She added that evidence was central to the conviction.

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"It'll be hard to say prosecutors didn't ask the jury to rely on that evidence,” she said. "So I think the better argument for the government here is that it's just not evidence of official acts. And you know, Hope Hicks is in a really unique position because she was not a White House assistant who went to work for the president, she traveled with Donald Trump."

"She was involved in the initial acts here where the decision was made that Stormy Daniels would be paid off," she added. "She was around for the whole Michael Cohen thing, and so I think the government has a great argument that this is just transferring pre-presidency Donald Trump — candidate Trump — into the White House."

"I mean, when Donald Trump writes checks to pay his utilities in Trump Tower, if he does that while he's sitting in the White House, that doesn't make it an official act just because of where he's sitting or who he has a conversation with or gives the check to," she said. "So I think the prosecution has a strong argument here."