The attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump should be a warning and wake-up call to those attacking the Supreme Court’s conservative majority members to cool their hateful rhetoric!
The Supreme Court’s (6-3) ruling that the president of the United States has immunity from federal prosecution for official acts taken while in office unleashed an avalanche of hysterical, vitriolic attacks on the Court and its six conservative Justices.
Leading the charge was President Joe Biden who called the ruling " . . . a dangerous precedent."
That is totally false.
Legal scholar and George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley set the record straight:
"What the president said last night was not true, and he was misleading the public… It was not just unfair to the Supreme Court; it was unfair to the public that they were told something that simply is not true."
Turley put the decision in perspective stating that just because the president can’t be criminally charged doesn’t mean he can’t be stopped referencing constitutional restraints including checks and balances, impeachment, and being enjoined by federal courts.
He called the attacks on the Court "overheated rhetoric" fueled by "members of Congress and political leaders.”
Most noteworthy was his warning that such rhetoric is:
" . . . dangerous because there's some people that " . . . actually believe that that's true, and if they do, they believe that anything they do then is justified” (Emphasis added).
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., should heed Turley’s warning.
Schumer said the Court's ruling was a "disgraceful decision by the MAGA Supreme Court."
This is the same Schumer who in 2020 threatened two members of the Court:
"I want to tell you Gorsuch. I want to tell you Kavanaugh. You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions."
Two years later, a man was arrested near Justice Kavanaugh’s home and charged with attempted assassination of a Supreme Court Justice.
Blumenthal issued a blistering attack saying that members of the Court’s conservative majority will now be "rightly perceived as extreme and nakedly partisan hacks – politicians in robes."
Their attacks on the Court are reminiscent of Southern Democrats’ attacks on the Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), decision outlawing racial segregation in public schools.
Schumer and Blumenthal are obviously ignorant of how the Justices voted in other cases.
According to the Supreme Court Stat Review, approximately 46% of all decisions in the 2023 term were unanimous (9-0) which is the "highest in recent memory."
And, of the 22 (6-3) decisions, "half (11) maintained the six conservative versus three liberal split."
The question for Sens. Schumer and Blumenthal: Are the 3 liberal Justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Katanji Brown Jackson — accomplices in Schumer’s "MAGA Supreme Court" or; Blumenthal's "naked partisan political hacks and politicians in robes" for voting with the conservatives in the 9-0 rulings?
How do they explain members of the liberal bloc voting with the conservatives in other cases:
- Justice Jackson joined with the majority in the (6-3) ruling regarding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capital case Fisher v. United States.
- Justices Jackson, Kagan, and Sotomayor joined with the majority in the Idaho (6-3) Moyle v. United States abortion case.
- The same trio of liberal Justices joined with the Majority in the (8-1) decision on restricting the gun rights of domestic abusers in United States v. Rahimi.
They, the president, and their pundit allies in the mainstream media may not realize it, but they are putting a bullseye target on the backs of every conservative member of the court.
As Turley noted, such messages are dangerous because there are some — like Kavanaugh’s attempted assassin — who might take the rhetoric as an invitation to do harm which to them would be "justified."
I would wager that many in Congress, the major media, and their allies on the left would be pleased if Biden had an opportunity to replace any one of the six conservative Justices.
The only people who can stop this dangerous attack on the court are the three liberals Justices.
They must send a message to the Court's critics — in writings or speeches — to stop attacking the Court for exercising its Constitutional responsibility and respect its independence.
Will they?
I doubt it.
Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations and training consulting firm in Florida. He is the author of "How Obama Failed Black America and How Trump Is Helping It." Read Clarence V. McKee's Reports — More Here.