Opinion: It takes a lot to get a federal judge to write a piece this bold

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Opinion | It takes a lot to get a federal judge to write a piece this bold

By Drew Goins
October 7, 2024 at 4:52 p.m. EDT

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Objection, Your Honors


(Anthony Gerace for The Washington Post)

This newsletter typically omits writers’ middle initials, but when you come across an impassioned op-ed written by a senior federal appellate judge, he gets to keep the S.

In other words, it’s a big deal that Stephen S. Trott of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit — who was appointed by Ronald Reagan — has decided to write anything, let alone that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling in the case of Donald Trump is untenable in a democracy.

Under that ruling, he opens his piece, “could President Richard M. Nixon have legally ordered his Plumbers to burgle the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist? Might they all have gotten away with it? It certainly looks that way to me.”

Trott is in a position to know; before he assumed judgeship and all its expectations of impartiality, he was the young lawyer overseeing that very burglary indictment.
Trott walks through how differently all the Nixon scandals might have unfolded if that presidency had possessed today’s imperial powers. His analysis includes a chilling sentence: “The president’s and the Plumbers’ corrupt intent and criminal purpose would have been considered immaterial.”

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Opinion by Drew Goins
Drew Goins is a newsletter writer and editor in the Opinions section.follow on X drewlgoins

[captain queeg]

1. This Supreme Court is an embarrassment to America.

[Escurumbele]

5. More than an embarrasment is how dangerous they are, they don't understand that any day now, they will all

be thrown under the bus by the buffoon. Why can't people understand that when they follow the buffoon all they become is tools for the moment? All tools have an expiration day.

[captain queeg]

9. I say that all the time. You can sell your soul for him and one day he'll throw you under the bus.

Ask Mike Pence. Though he still won’t say anything bad about him.

[ShazzieB]

11. Six of them are.

The hands of the other three are, sadly, tied. I feel for those women.

[dchill]

2. The Court of Perjurors.

The majority of them, anyway.

[OAITW r.2.0]

3. Indeed they did.

Outright lied on how they would rule on Roe v. Wade.

[dchill]

12. What I'm sayin'! Lying to the Senate Committee is perjury.

[dalton99a]

4. Kick

[Hermit-The-Prog]

6. The Subversive Court thinks it is royalty. We must take action to correct that notion.

[usonian]

7. Paywalled but archived.

https://archive.md/W4H1S

[RainCaster]

8. Thank you!

[Midnight Writer]

10. Justice Thomas gets "a lot" to write his bold opinions.

[Kali999]

13. Roberts wife

Has her own grift making millions off her court contacts. These folks got away with way too much. I hope Ginny Thomas does time.

[bucolic_frolic]

14. Correct, as long as it's all run through the AG's office, it's an official act

SCOTUS ruling is a consolidation of imperial power, Barr's Imperial Presidency come to life. The ruling is unConstitutional. Give us 30 years and 6 new Justices and it will be reversed. If the country survives the ruling, that is.

[roscoeroscoe]

15. Ever see notes about how the Army is always set up to fight the last war?

That's parallel to how Republicans have been fighting, ever since Nixon, to change the whole system so that wouldn't happen again. Change the media landscape with Fox etc., and change the legal landscape by packing the courts through the Federalist Society. Patient, well-funded, and corrupt.

At the moment, they are succeeding, but the tide is turning.

[C0RI0LANUS]

16. SCOTUS: Overpaid, unelected Politburo for life with no accountability. A public "Star Chamber."

When do we start impeaching them?

[LymphocyteLover]

17. Supreme Court reform NOW!!!