Slate legal columnist Dahlia Lithwick issued a warning Wednesday that the U.S. Supreme Court has effectively opened the door for President Donald Trump to act with unprecedented freedom.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace cited ABC News reporting that two Justice Department prosecutors were placed on leave after seeking sentences for Jan. 6 attackers whom Trump later pardoned.
Lithwick told Wallace the recent Supreme Court opinion seemed written as an “entirely academic thought experiment,” not accounting for the realities of a corrupt executive.
“There was hope it might aid a president in times when quick decisions were needed,” Lithwick said, “but this isn’t an ordinary president, and this isn’t an academic exercise. This is someone who’s repeatedly said he could shoot someone and get away with it. For the court to say, yeah, his lawyers went into court and argued he could send SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political rival—and that’s plausible—is staggering.”
Lithwick added that when it comes to controversies like Trump reportedly pressuring the DOJ for $230 million, “it’s going to be immunity, immunity, immunity.”
She continued, “So when President Trump makes requests of Attorney General Pam Bondi—thinking he’s speaking privately but inadvertently revealing it to the world—urging her to target his rivals, all of this emboldens him because the Supreme Court handed him that on a silver platter.”
“It’s not just Justice Department lawyers who are confused about handling this,” Lithwick explained. “Judges across the country are grappling with the fact that Trump has been handed a loaded gun by the Supreme Court, and he’s brandishing it over case after case. They’re now forced to ask themselves what to do, because their hands are tied by this broad, maximalist decision presented as a fait accompli.”
Miles Taylor, a former Homeland Security chief of staff under Trump, also called out the Supreme Court, noting, “They’ve bubble-wrapped Donald Trump in immunity; he’s fully aware, and we’re only seeing the start of him using what he believes is an invisibility cloak against the law.”
