Digging deeper into Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority ruling that handed Donald Trump a get-out-of-jail-free card, MSNBC legal analyst Lisa Rubin claimed the devil was in the details and the ruling is even worse than initially reported.
Speaking with MSNBC host Katy Tur, Rubin held up a copy of the ruling and bluntly stated, “I want to put my voice in with Andrew [Rosenberg’s] choir here and say this is much more of a disaster than it might seem based on the rules that are being carved out here.”
“For two reasons: one, at oral argument John Sauer, for former president Donald Trump, acknowledged that the fraudulent election scheme was what he would describe as private conduct,” she began. “Despite that concession, in the majority opinion, they are saying that still lives for another day to determine whether or not that’s private. That’s conduct that Chief Justice Roberts expressly describes among the buckets of stuff that Judge [Tanya] Chutkan still has to weigh; whether it’s private or official, indicating that they think it might be official.”
Rubin continued, “The second thing, and Katy, this is a big deal, it’s on page 18. There’s a big paragraph in terms of the guidelines for Judge Chutkan in determining what’s official and what’s unofficial. And they say, the majority, ‘In divining official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives.’ This was a huge issue at oral argument: Chief Justice Roberts asked John Sauer ‘What about bribery?'”
She elaborated, “Let’s say former president Trump or a president appointing somebody to an ambassadorship gets a whole bunch of money for that, are you saying we can’t consider the bribery but we can consider the acceptance of the money? That’s nonsensical. Despite that, they’re carving a rule that says the motive can’t be considered. If you appoint somebody, it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing that for your own private gain.”
Host Katy Tur pressed, “How can that be? How can they write an opinion that says that?” Rubin replied, “I want to be clear with what we’re seeing here. I want to go back to [former solicitor general] Neil Katyal’s comments — this is not so much an opinion as it is a broad edict meant to serve a particular moment, even while they say they are writing a rule for the ages.”
This analysis highlights the potential long-term implications of the ruling, suggesting that the Supreme Court’s decision could complicate the legal landscape surrounding presidential conduct. The focus now shifts to Judge Chutkan, who will have to navigate these guidelines in the DOJ’s case against Trump, determining whether his actions were official or unofficial.