At first, I thought overturning Chevron Deference may be one of the most historic decisions in the history of the Supreme Court (SCOTUS). And I still feel that way. However, the deeper I dig into the presidential immunity ruling (which BTW is steeped in precedent), the more I see this decision having huge ramifications as well. Unelected bureaucrats beware!
The first hint that this decision was momentous was the rushing of President Biden out to condemn the ruling during prime time. Biden condemned Trump and the justices who ruled in favor of presidential immunity. Of course, they could not afford to have Biden out in public for very long. The address came at a time of day well past the time when the White House staff says that he can think clearly. His entire address was less than five minutes.
Despite the brevity of his address, Biden managed to lie to the public five times. Biden also managed to display his lack of mental awareness when he read a teleprompter instruction out loud.
"End of quote." pic.twitter.com/gwCXkca4xX
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) July 1, 2024
Why rush Biden out to give a short speech? What concerns do the Democrats have about the effects of the ruling? Why praise the legally deficient opinion of Justice Sotomayor who dissented? Highlighting Sotomayor’s dissent further exposes her lack of rigor in handling cases at the highest court in the land. Are the Democrats trying to get rid of her before the end of the year?
It turns out that this ruling is having and will continue to have huge impacts. Almost immediately PDJT’s lawyers asked for a stay in the sentencing phase of the in famous “hush money” trial where unanimity was not required for a conviction. PDJT was supposed to be sentenced on July 11th.
Interestingly, the Manhattan DA’s office did not oppose the request for a stay. Of course, the office said that the defendant’s arguments are without merit.
The issue is that Alvin Bragg used evidence at the trial that has been deemed inadmissible by SCOTUS in their ruling on presidential immunity. SCOTUS has held that decisions on evidence under presidential immunity must be decided pretrial. For that reason alone, the NY trial is likely to be a mistrial. Performing a post-hoc review is not permissible under the Supreme Court’s ruling on absolute/presumptive immunity. Let’s be reminded that PDJT’s attorneys had asked to hold up the “hush money” trial until SCOTUS issued a ruling on immunity.
Despite the ADA’s saying that PDJT’s motion is “without merit,” clearly this SCOTUS ruling throws a huge monkey wrench into the lawfare cases against PDJT. And it is not just the New York case that is affected. All four lawfare cases against PDJT (Washington, Florida, Georgia & New York) are under scrutiny.
Sundance over at CTH has an interesting take on all of this. Let’s be reminded that all of this lawfare against Trump has been orchestrated by McCord, Weissmann, Eisen, et al.
When you look at the issue through a Lawfare prism, things start to take on a different context. Perhaps one of the reasons Bragg is making this request for a delay is that the Lawfare team are now a little overwhelmed.
The SCOTUS immunity ruling means McCord, Weissmann, Eisen et al, have to restructure the strategy and instructions in 4 separate cases, simultaneously, involving Trump and the Supreme Court ruling.
All those legal motions, counter predictive responses, and legal arguments are now needed almost simultaneously. As a result, the Lawfare group needs more time.
The district attorneys (New York / Atlanta) and Special Counsel Jack Smith will not be asking for more time simply because Trump’s legal team are requesting it. The prosecution teams will likely be requesting time on behalf of Weissmann/Eisen et al, to be proactive with a new strategy and Lawfare approach.
In essence, the ever-present *strategic benefit* of scale, the collective Lawfare weight (4 venues) against the individual target Trump, has now become a strategic liability as an outcome of the SCOTUS ruling.
All four venues will need responsiveness simultaneously. Weissmann, Eisen, McCord, Berke, Goldman, etc will now be burning the midnight oil trying to catch up.
The lawfare approach was to overload PDJT with indictments. One of the hopes was probably to get people to believe that PDJT was criminal just based on the number of indictments alone. As Sundance points out, this strategic benefit is now a liability requiring the lawfare group to change strategies on the fly in order to keep up with the changing landscape.
Will they change strategies or will they go into coverup mode?
Another interesting aspect of the case showed up in Justice Barrett’s concurring opinion. The following appears at page 4 of Barrett’s opinion: But where trial itself threatens certain constitutional interests, we have treated the trial court’s resolution of the issue as a “final decision” for purposes of appellate jurisdiction.
This means that Judge Merchan’s decision on how to proceed in this case can receive expedited examination by SCOTUS. Merchan is not stupid. Merchan knows that SCOTUS is on to his scam and looking over his shoulder. He also knows that as a state judge he has absolutely no immunity from federal prosecution should President Trump win the election.
IMO the approach that will be used here now is to drag out the proceedings as long as practical. In this way the Democrats can run their ads calling PDJT a convicted felon, etc. Once the trial proceedings end with the overturning of those convictions, such ads could no longer be used.
There is more to this ruling by SCOTUS. However, those insights are for another time.