Justice Alito singled out as roadblock to stalled Trump criminal immunity ruling

[onenote]

55. Yep. Totally speculative.

We don't know how the case is coming out. If he's part of the majority, Robert will assign the decision to himself. If Roberts is not part of the majority, and Thomas is, then Thomas will assign who writes the opinion and probably will give it to himself or, maybe Alito. But whichever way it comes out, there is a very good chance that each Justice, or nearly each Justice, will write a separate concurring or dissenting opinion. And thus, it could be any one of the justices that are holding up the release of the decision as they go back and forth and tweak their opinions. That's almost certainly what happened with the Rahimi decision, where eight of the justices agreed on the majority opinion which Roberts assigned to himself, but there still ended up being concurring opinions from 6 of the justices and a dissent from Thomas, which helps explain why it took so long for the decision to come out -- the case was argued in early November -- more than five months before the immunity case. Interestingly, the only justice in the majority who didn't sign onto a separate opinion was Alito.

In short, there is no evidence that Alito is the sole justice standing in the way of the decision being finalized.