According to Slate legal analysts Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern, one of the least commented-upon aspects of Thursday's Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump's eligibility to stay on the ballot based upon the 14th Amendment was Justice Samuel Alito's veiled threat aimed at attorney Jason Murray representing the state of Colorado.
During their "Amicus" podcast, Lithwick admitted that some of Alito's comments about a ruling against Trump would lead to "frivolous " lawsuits struck her as "mob-like" as in, "nice democracy you got, it’d be a shame if something happened to it."
Commenting on his "menacing tone," she explained, "Alito was saying: 'Well, if you allow Colorado to knock Trump off the ballot, there’ll be more lawsuits by people who are willing to weaponize the legal system.' And I guess there’s only one answer to that, the answer that Jason Murray gave, which was that courts actually do know what to do with frivolous, threatening lawsuits that have no point. But another answer could be: 'I’m sorry, Justice Alito, are you threatening me?'"
According to Stern, Alito's questioning also seemed menacing to him.
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"It’s a threat that if a majority of the court allows Colorado to remove Trump from the ballot, justices like Alito are going to come out swinging for the frivolous, ridiculous cases that follow—which really should not be compared to this one, since it’s very much rooted in the Constitution," he explained. "It’s a threat that red states will try to retaliate, that Ron DeSantis will remove Joe Biden from the ballot because he’s a traitor or a Chinese spy or whatever other reason, just fill in the blank. And Sam Alito will be ready to let it happen."
Stern added that "fretting" questions from fellow conservative justices indicated they were less concerned with making the right constitutional ruling as much as they were worried about the repercussions for themselves in the future.
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"Like Roberts and Alito, Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh kept fretting that a ruling for Colorado could lead to such dangerous places. If we let Colorado remove a presidential candidate from the ballot, we’ll have to get involved in each and every other case out of red and blue states alike. So we have to look at the consequences of our decision," he elaborated before later adding, "And yet on Thursday, it was all consequence-based judging! From top to bottom! And I think that’s another example of the hypocrisy disparity between the different sides of the court."
You can listen to the podcast here.
