SCOTUS Finale

It’s that time of year, when we take a look at the just-ended Supreme Court session. I don’t really know if this session has been busier than usual. It may not be more momentous than the Dobbs ruling in 2022. But there does seem to be too much to handle. I’ll take a non-lawyer’s look at just a few. And I’ll share some of the “stack of stuff” I read or listened to.

We can’t—and shouldn’t—expect Court rulings to solve all our government issues. But it’s good when justice prevails. Although this year it’s a mixed bag, I think the country is in better shape after the 2023-2024 session than it was before.

Supreme Court building, image from Epoch Times

 

Presidential Immunity

Trump v. United States (23-939)   

This case seems to have generated the most talk this week. I agree it’s a big deal, and in general I think it’s a good ruling. This will affect possibly all of the cases against President Trump, including some of the concluded ones. For the 34 felony “convictions” on a dispute over how to classify a blackmail payment (the Stormy Daniels “hush money” case), sentencing has been postponed until September, giving the judge time to come up with a way to claim this was somehow a private action. And there is the weakness—instead of delineating more clearly a difference.

The case was never about “absolute immunity,” which could mean a president could, you know, target his political opponent, maybe with lawfare, raids on his home, or, God forbid, assassination. The president never had immunity from those things—or anything else for which he could be impeached. That is clear now.

The case is worth reading, for the details. Especially read Justice Thomas’s concurrence. He takes the extra step of pointing out that, if there is ever to be a case against a former president, at the very least it ought to be prosecuted by someone granted authority to do so. We can hope Judge Cannon, who is set to rule on whether Jack Smith can prosecute related to the Mar-a-Lago raid of documents will take note.

Here are some of the commentaries:

·       “Judicial Watch Statement on Supreme Court’s Immunity Ruling” 

Today’s commonsense Supreme Court immunity ruling is a victory for former President Trump, the U.S. Constitution, and the rule of law. The Biden administration’s political decision to try to put Trump in jail for simply being president was unsurprisingly rejected by the Supreme Court.

Make no mistake, the Supreme Court is imposing a virtually insurmountable burden on Jack Smith in his vicious pursuit of Trump over the election and document disputes. The unprecedented charges against Trump were frivolous to begin with and, after today’s decision, should be shut down completely by the Justice Department.—Tom Fitton

·       “Trump revels in political wins while Biden campaign reels from debate” Jill Colvin, Associated Press, July 3, 2024 

Trump’s run began last week during the first debate, when Biden delivered a performance so dismal that he has spent the days since fending off calls from alarmed Democrats to step aside to save the party from losses up and down the ballot.

On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, limiting the indictment against Trump for his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden. It’s all but certain he won’t face trial before Election Day.

And on Tuesday, the judge in Trump’s New York criminal hush money trial postponed his sentencing to weigh the impact of the Supreme Court decision.

·       “Justices rule Trump has some immunity from prosecution” Amy Howe, SCOTUSblog, July 1, 2024    

·        “SCOTUS Didn’t Just Upend Jack Smith’s Plans for Pre-Election Trump Trial, They May Have Ended His Entire Prosecution”  Katelynn Richarson, The Daily Caller 7-3-2024       

·       “Judge delays Trump’s hush money sentencing until at least September after high court immunity ruling” Jake Offenhartz and Jennifer, Associated Press, July 2, 2024      

This next is a response to the above piece, by Ashe in America, Badlands Media Brief, Substack, which comes by email, July 3, 2024. I’ve highlighted a couple of points:

Our Take: The process is the punishment. It’s become a common saying in our current moment, explicitly calling out the weaponization of power against political opposition — by people continuously screeching about fascism.

Monday’s immunity decision was explosive, and it’s notably led to the fascists showing their true colors. Calls for Biden to unilaterally expand the Supreme Court are ubiquitous, as are demands that he channel his worst impulses and finish 45 by whatever means necessary.

MAGA has been so dehumanized in our society, that such overtly un-American demands are met with applause rather than condemnation.

It’s clear that, for the uniparty, the only way to fight Trump and MAGA’s theoretical future fascism is with actual fascism right now. Without a hint of irony. Yet, despite the hysteria, and for the first time I can remember, it seems the system is working.

The Executive, the Legislative, and the Judiciary are all in focus at their intersections, checking and balancing the execution of power against the Constitution’s guardrails.

Better, and more importantly, this is all being viewed prominently in the context of the 2024 election—the will of the People.

This is how it’s supposed to work.

The boomerangs are coming around now, and the Constitutionally prescribed processes for restoring the public will absolutely be the punishment for the enemies of liberty.

Think I’m exaggerating? Judge Merchan just vacated [postponed until September, not vacated] President Trump’s sentencing.

Never stop fighting.

We’re winning. — Ashe in America

 

·       Another response from Ashe in America, Badlands Media Brief, Substack, July 2, 2024  (response to an Axios piece), in this one about Sotomayor dissent; again I’ve highlighted a main point:

From Sotomayor, if the President “uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

Take a Xanax, Sonia.

Notably, the court affirmed that there is no immunity for unofficial acts. So, for example, crimes committed while running the country illegally behind the mask of a demented, geriatric puppet would not result in prosecutorial immunity for a former president.

Robert Gouveia breaks down the Immunity decision,
screenshot from here

 

·       “How the Supreme Court Decision on Presidential Immunity Could Impact Trump Cases” Catherine Yang, Epoch Times, July 1, 2024 

·       “Trump throws a Clarence Thomas-sized wrench into Mar-a-Lago case after Supreme Court immunity ruling” Alex Woodward, The Independent, July 5, 2024 

·       “Jack Smith in DANGER after SCOTUS Immunity Decision” Robert Gouveia law vlog, July 3, 2024  

·       “Trump Sentencing DELAYED after IMMUNITY Threatens Case" Robert Gouveia law vlog, July 3, 2024 

 

J6 Defendants Accused of Document Interference, Cases Dismissed

Fischer v. United States (23-5572)   

This one relates to the use, in hundreds of J6 cases, a law invented/legislated during the Enron era to make it a crime to ruin documentary evidence, which would prevent an investigation or prosecution—a government procedure. It was stretched beyond the point of elasticity to apply to protesters at the capitol, claiming they were disrupting a government procedure. It has never been used in this way, or for anything that isn’t destroying or hiding documents. And now the Court has made it clear that it cannot be so used.

Most J6 prisoners/defendants have multiple charges, so this ruling only sets them free if this is their only charge. Still, it is a step in the right direction in these cases, and it exposes the tenuous grounds used to prosecute peaceful protesters, which most of the defendants were.

·       “SCOTUS DISMISSES Key J6 Charge in 6-3 Decision” Robert Gouveia law vlog, June 29, 2024. 

 

Chevron Deference Removed

Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo (22-451)  

This one may turn out to be the most consequential ruling of the SCOTUS 2023-2024 session. It has been looming on the horizon since the appointment of Justice Gorsuch. It severely curtails (but doesn’t yet fully eliminate) the power of the administrative state. Here are a few words from Gorsuch’s concurrence:

“Today, the Court places a tombstone on Chevron no one can miss. In doing so, the Court returns judges to interpretive rules that have guided federal courts since the Nation’s Founding.”—Justice Neil Gorsuch

 

Tom Woods’ daily newsletter, Monday, July 1, 2024, quotes Spike Cohen, giving a good overview of the case and background:

A family fishing company, Loper Bright Enterprises, was being driven out of business, because they couldn't afford the $700 per day they were being charged by the National Marine Fisheries Service to monitor their company.

The thing is, federal law doesn't authorize NMFS to charge businesses for this. They just decided to start doing it in 2013.

Why did they think they could away with just charging people without any legal authorization?

Because in 1984, in the Chevron decision, the Supreme Court decided that regulatory agencies were the "experts" in their field, and the courts should just defer to their "interpretation" of the law.

So for the past 40 years, federal agencies have been able to "interpret" laws to mean whatever they want, and the courts had to just go with it.

It was called Chevron Deference, and it put bureaucrats in charge of the country.

It's how the OHSA was able to decide that everyone who worked for a large company had to get the jab, or be fired.

No law gave them that authority, they just made it up.

It's how the ATF was able to decide a piece of plastic was a "machine gun."

It's how the NCRS was able to decide that a small puddle was a “protected wetlands."

It's how out-of-control agencies have been able to create rules out of thin air, and force you to comply, and the courts had to simply defer to them, because they were the "experts."

Imagine if your local police could just arrest you, for any reason, and no judge or jury was allowed to determine if you'd actually committed a crime or not. Just off to jail you go.

That's what Chevron Deference was.

It was not only blatantly unconstitutional; it caused immeasurable harm to everyone.

Tom Woods adds this bonus info:

Harvard's Laurence Tribe feels sorry not for Americans who have been endlessly harassed by these semi-lawless agencies, but for his legal buddies who were trained to operate in this environment: "The ones I feel sorry for are my administrative law colleagues who built their courses and careers around the intricacies of Chevron deference."

That this kind of people will have to find something else to do is a wonderful bonus, not something to deplore!

So I said to Tribe on Twitter: "I already support the decision; you don't have to keep selling it to me!"

Woods ends with this happy outlook:

Whenever something like this happens, when a wicked but seemingly irreversible feature of American life is suddenly overturned, it should lift our spirits: things we assume are forever may not be so forever after all.

 

·       “Supreme Court strikes down Chevron, curtailing power of federal agencies” Amy Howe, SCOTUSblog, June 28, 2024. 

·       “Supreme Court overturns Chevron decision, curtailing federal agencies' power in major shift” Melissa Quinn, CBS News, June 28, 2024. 

·        Burning Bright on Badlands Media Brief, Substack, responds to the above CBS piece on this ruling, noting that it ends a really bad week for the bad guys. They had that terrible debate on Thursday. That same day they learned, from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) v. Jarkesy decision, that defendants accused of fraud by the SEC have a right to a jury trial—gasp! Just as guaranteed in the Constitution! How can that be? And then the week ends with the Chevron Deference ruling. Here’s the CBS News comment from the piece by Melissa Quinn, followed by Burning Bright’s response:

"The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a landmark 40-year-old decision that gave federal agencies broad regulatory power, upending their authority to issue regulations unless Congress has spoken clearly."

Essentially, while the Collective Mind was sleeping, we were absolutely kicking a— on the Actual layers of the Info War, with the administrative state getting neutered to close out the week.—Burning Bright

Supreme Court illustration from Epoch Times

 

Censorship Allowed

Murthy v. Missouri 

This is a ruling we feel bad about, and may seriously regret down the road. It is a bit of a kicking-the can-down-the-road type of ruling. It concerns censorship by tech companies—which are getting the benefits of being common carriers, but are additionally treated as private companies that can decide what speech can show up on their platforms. There is some sympathy for such platforms, which feel like they are held accountable (but are not actually) for hate speech or bullying, or libel—in other words speech that could be handled through other legal means between the speaker and the victim. These tech companies broadly stretched that sympathy into full-on censorship. They continue to censor—sometimes without the speaker knowing they’re being censored, and almost always without knowing why. This was most apparent during COVID; you still see their stupid messages show up beneath posts that even tangentially oppose the elites' narrative. There’s a recent ad for a Hillsdale College online course about the Great Reset, in which they detail public statements and information about the WEF; Facebook deems it necessary to warn us that Hillsdale is lying to us about a secret conspiracy theory. Ridiculous!

The case is about government censorship, but it fails to recognize the pressure on (or tacit agreement with) private companies to carry out the censorship for them.

Tech companies used censorship to great effect during the 2020 election. During litigation they have been slightly less hesitant to outright censor. This ruling gives them carte blanche to knock out whatever speech they don’t like during this year’s election. 

·      “No Remedy for Censorship: The Perils of Murthy” Philip Hamburger, Real Clear Politics, July 2, 2024. 

Murthy is probably the worst speech decision in American history. In the face of the most sweeping censorship in American history, the decision fails to recognize either the realities of the censorship or the constitutional barriers to it. In practical terms, the decision invites continuing federal censorship on social media platforms. It thereby nearly guarantees that yet another election cycle will be compromised by government censorship and condemns a hitherto free society to the specter of mental servitude. 

·       “Supreme Court Punts on Florida and Texas Social Media Laws, Sends Cases Back to Lower Courts” Matthew Vadum, Epoch Times, July 1, 2024.  

·       “Rigged AGAIN? Biden's Censorship ALLOWED in 2024 after SCOTUS Ruling” Robert Gouveia law vlog, June 27, 2024.  

·       “Missouri v. Biden - SCOTUS Plays Pontius Pilate: NO STANDING on 1st Amendment Violations?” Viva Frei law vlog, June 26, 2024. 

 

Viva Frei (left) and Robert Barnes walk through multiple cases and other news,
screenshot from here. Note: there's a disinformation warning attached by YouTube,
which will continue to be allowed because of the failure in the Missouri ruling.

Extras

Here are a few extras that either cover multiple cases, or cases beyond what I’ve covered here: 

·       “Ep. 217: Biden Debate Debacle; SCOTUS Jan. 6;SCOTUS Chevron; Trump AND MORE!” Viva Frei & Robert Barnes, June 30, 2024.  

·       “Key Takeaways from Supreme Court Rulings That Curb Executive Power” Sam Dorman, Epoch Times, June 28, 2024.  

·       “Supreme Court Rejects Challenge to Power of Federal Agency to Set Workplace Rules” Tom Ozimek, Epoch Times, July 3, 2024.