Bill Huey
Bill Huey

After weeks of dragging its feet and raising tons of suspicion about its motives, the Supreme Court on July 1 issued a 6-3 ruling that broke new ground in American constitutional jurisprudence, i.e., that the President of the United States is immune from prosecution unless proven otherwise.

This will not only put the cases brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith in drydock until after the November elections, it will wreak havoc on prosecutions for years to come.

I won’t get into the weeds of all the potential impacts because I am no legal scholar anyway, but in terms of twisted legal logic this ruling is right up there with the Citizens United conclusion that money is protected speech. Moreover, it could pave the way for Donald Trump to become The Man Who Got Away with It All.

As the distinguished constitutional scholar Laurence Tribe told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell:

“The Supreme Court is flying the constitutional flag upside down.”

The only comforting thing about the court’s undermining of the rule of law is that if Joe Biden does get re-elected, he could have Trump taken out by a Navy Seal team while the Orange One is playing golf and nobody could touch him because it was an official act.

Of course Old Joe wouldn’t do that because he is a nice and moral guy and because he has too much respect for the office of the President. Someone like Trump doesn’t have that because he is a sociopath and never knew what it meant to be President during the whole time he was in the White House.

Last year, the Pew Research Center reported that for the first time in their polling dating to 1987, “the public’s views of the Supreme Court were significantly more negative than positive. Pew noted that the court’s favorable rating had declined 26 points since 2020. From a public opinion viewpoint, the SCOTUS is sinking like a rock, and the shenanigans of Justices Thomas and Alito aren’t helping one bit.

The Supremes adjourn for their annual break on July 4 and won’t be back until October. By then, the country could be on the verge of a constitutional crisis. While he is out sailing or whatever he does on vacation, Chief Justice John Roberts might consider hiring a PR firm to help guide the court through the coming storm.

***

Bill Huey is president of Strategic Communications and the author of "Advertising's Double Helix: A Proposed New Process Model," Journal of Advertising Research, May/June 1999. His article about advertising effects has been cited in books and academic papers around the world.