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Insight News • July 8, 2024 - July 14, 2024 • Page 1
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Insight News
July 8, 2024 - July 14, 2024
Vol. 51 No. 28• The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
A King above the law?
‘I DISSENT’
Editor’s Note: Best takes of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor statement on SCOTUS ruling on Trump immunity. Lightly edited for clarity and published July 1 by Roxanne Szal, in Ms. Magazine. Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President … The Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent. The indictment paints a stark portrait of a President desperate to stay in power. … That is the backdrop against which this case comes to the Court. The Court now confronts a question it has never had to answer in the Nation’s history: Whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution. The majority thinks he should, and so it invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law. … Argument by argument, the majority invents immunity through brute force. Under scrutiny, its arguments crumble. … No matter how you look at it, the majority’s official-acts immunity is utterly indefensible. Historical evidence reinforces that, from the very beginning, the presumption in this Nation has always been that no man is free to flout the criminal law. The majority fails to recognize or grapple with the lack of historical evidence for its new immunity. With nothing on its side of the ledger, the most the majority can do is claim that the historical evidence is a wash. The majority today endorses an expansive vision of Presidential immunity that was never recognized by the Founders, any sitting President, the Executive Branch, or even President Trump’s lawyers, until now. Settled understandings of the Constitution are of little use to the majority in this case, and so it ignores them. Today’s Court … has replaced a presumption of equality before the law with a presumption that the President is above the law for all of his official acts. The majority’s dividing line between “official” and “unofficial” conduct narrows the conduct considered “unofficial” almost to a nullity. … Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under the majority’s test, if it can be called a test, the category of Presidential action that can be deemed “unofficial” is destined to be vanishingly
SOTOMAYOR 5
Biden responds to SCOTUS THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. The presidency is the most powerful office in the world. It’s an office that not only tests your judgment, perhaps even more importantly it’s an office that can test your character because you not only face moments where you need the courage to exercise the full power of the presidency, you also face moments where you need the wisdom to respect the limits of the power of the office of the presidency. This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. Each — each of us is equal before the law. No one — no one is above the law, not even the president of the United States. With today’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity, that fundamentally changed. For all — for all practical purposes, today’s decision almost certainly means that there are virtually no limits on what a president can do. This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone. This decision today has continued the Court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation. Nearly four years ago, my predecessor sent a violent mob to the U.S. Capitol to stop the peaceful transfer of power. We all saw it with our own eyes. We sat there and watched it happen that day. Attack on the police. The ransacking of the Capitol. A mob literally hunting down the House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi. Gallows erected to hang the vice president, Mike Pence. I think it’s fair to say it was one of the darkest days in the history of America. Now the man who sent that mob to the U.S. Capitol is facing potential criminal conviction for what happened that day. And the American people deserve to have an answer in the courts before the upcoming election. The public has a right to know the answer about what happened on January 6th before they ask to vote again this year. Now, because of today’s decision, that is highly, highly unlikely. It’s a terrible disservice to the people of this nation. So, now — now the American people have to do what the Court should have been willing to do but would not. The America people have to render a judgment about Donald Trump’s behavior.
Sonia Sotomayor
Joe Biden
BIDEN 5
Rebecca Roush, Henn