The political reporters and editorial board of the New York Times have been widely criticized in recent years. But the news and investigative divisions of the Times continue to publish incredibly important articles, uncovering blockbuster story after blockbuster story that demonstrates how seriously off-course the pro-Trump editorial and political reporting slant remains.

Last Sunday, New York Times investigative and Supreme Court reporters Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak released a major story entitled How Roberts Shaped Trump’s Supreme Court Winning Streak. It is devastating in showcasing how Chief Justice Roberts and the conservative supermajority have unilaterally blown up the legitimacy of the Court.

“In a momentous trio of Jan. 6-related cases last term, the court found itself more entangled in presidential politics than at any time since the 2000 election, even as it was contending with its own controversies related to that day. The chief justice responded by deploying his authority to steer rulings that benefited Mr. Trump, according to a New York Times examination that uncovered extensive new information about the court’s decision making.

This account draws on details from the justices’ private memos, documentation of the proceedings and interviews with court insiders, both conservative and liberal, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because deliberations are supposed to be kept secret.”

All three cases were important and unprecedented in their scope, but the immunity case, which I discussed in July, was perhaps the most consequential. And it is here that we see Roberts not as the pillar of the establishment and defender of the constitution, a legacy he clearly strives to attain, but as a devious and distrustful political hack.

“During the February discussions of the immunity case, the most consequential of the three, some of the conservative justices wanted to schedule it for the next term. That would have deferred oral arguments until October and almost certainly pushed a decision until after the election. But Chief Justice Roberts provided crucial support for hearing the historic case earlier, siding with the liberals.

Then he froze them out. After he circulated his draft opinion in June, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the senior liberal, signaled a willingness to agree on some points in hopes of moderating the opinion, according to those familiar with the proceedings. Though the chief justice often favors consensus, he did not take the opening. As the court split 6 to 3, conservatives versus liberals, Justice Sotomayor started work on a five-alarm dissent warning of danger to democracy.

In his writings on the immunity case, the chief justice seemed confident that his arguments would soar above politics, persuade the public, and stand the test of time . . .

But the public response to the decision, announced in July on the final day of the term, was nothing like what his lofty phrases seemed to anticipate.”

Roberts, the political hack, had misread the sentiment of the nation.

“Chief Justice Roberts’s language in the opinion seemed intended to stay above the fray, extending protections to ‘all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy or party.’ But in a withering dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that the majority opinion gave Mr. Trump ‘all the immunity he asked for and more.’ It also, she wrote, protected ‘treasonous acts,’ transformed the president into ‘a king above the law’ and ultimately caused her to ‘fear for our democracy.’

Read the entire article, which I’ve included with a gift link. Those on the inside who shared memos and background documents to ensure that this story reached a broader readership should be applauded. And this courageous reporting led me to return to a book I first read last year.

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Supreme Inequality: The Supreme Court’s Fifty-Year Battle for a More Unjust America (2020) by Adam Cohen is a devastating and damning argument against today’s Supreme Court and the Republican party’s fifty-year plan to circumvent the Constitution, overturn the gains of the New Deal and Civil Rights eras, and cement inequality into American law and life. Cohen surveys Supreme Court rulings on a variety of topics from poverty, education, and campaign finance to labor, corporations, criminal justice, and democracy itself to expose how little the Court does to protect the rights of the poor and disadvantaged. In fact, since the Nixon era “the Court has, with striking regularity, sided with the rich and powerful against the poor and weak, in virtually every area of the law.” 

Cohen shows how President Johnson and the liberal lions of the Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren made a number of tactical mistakes concerning retirement and appointments. That allowed a go-for-the jugular Richard Nixon to ruthlessly push a justice with lifetime tenure out the door and make four strongly conservative appointments to the high court. He was stopped only when forced to resign in disgrace. Similarly, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the Republicans built the current 6-3 constellation as the result “of several questionable—to use a wonderfully euphemistic term—actions” so that the corrupt, twice impeached, twice indicted Donald Trump could make three appointments that have sealed the Court’s supermajority before he was voted out of office and his coup attempt failed.

Cohen carefully reviews the decisions that case-by-case have undermined America’s rule of law, handing control over to an extremist minority. Even conservatives like Reagan administration Solicitor General Charles Fried are appalled.

“[I]t has undermined or overturned precedents that embodied long-standing and difficult compromise settlements of sharply opposed interests and principals. These decisions are not the work of a conservative Court.”

The Court is pushing America back to the era before the New Deal and working to cut the access of Black and Brown Americans to elite educational institutions and the paths of power. To get there at least three conservative members of the court—Justices Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch—lied under oath about their acceptance of precedents to gain lifetime appointments. The hypocrisy of the Chief Justice in testifying at his confirmation that he was not a legislator, but a mere umpire calling balls and strikes, seems more appalling with each term.

Heather Cox Richardson reminds us that “just as in the 1850s, we are now, once again, facing a rebellion against our founding principle, as a few people seek to reshape America into a nation in which certain people are better than others.”

Following the unbelievably cynical immunity ruling, Princeton history professor Kevin Kruse suggested that,

“The current Supreme Court of the United States has just cemented its place in history as the most radical Supreme Court ever.”

Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak have shown us how real journalists do their job and tell the truth.

More to come . . .

DJB

Photo of Supreme Court building from Pixabay