I fully expect a dissenting opinion from Alito and Thomas that attempts to retcon nominative determinism (“Donald Trump can do whatever he wants, but Joe Biden is a stinky poo poo head and must go directly to jail”) into a core pillar of Constitutional originalism, but I don’t think there’s a majority on the court that would sign on to an opinion legitimizing drone strikes on the opposition party. I’m fairly certain the end result will be a significant narrowing of Trump’s criminal exposure regarding the January 6 insurrection, but the biggest impact that the court has made with this case is dragging out the process of trying it to the point that it likely will not be decided before the election. If they help Trump run out the clock and it winds him the election, then he can instruct the DoJ to kill the case, and his toadies on the court will have handed him a win while being able to maintain the thin veneer that they’re not nakedly partisan operators. If Biden wins anyways, they’re not in danger of catching flak from the MAGA crowd because they will have done their part.
I fully expect a dissenting opinion from Alito and Thomas that attempts to retcon nominative determinism (“Donald Trump can do whatever he wants, but Joe Biden is a stinky poo poo head and must go directly to jail”) into a core pillar of Constitutional originalism, but I don’t think there’s a majority on the court that would sign on to an opinion legitimizing drone strikes on the opposition party. I’m fairly certain the end result will be a significant narrowing of Trump’s criminal exposure regarding the January 6 insurrection, but the biggest impact that the court has made with this case is dragging out the process of trying it to the point that it likely will not be decided before the election. If they help Trump run out the clock and it winds him the election, then he can instruct the DoJ to kill the case, and his toadies on the court will have handed him a win while being able to maintain the thin veneer that they’re not nakedly partisan operators. If Biden wins anyways, they’re not in danger of catching flak from the MAGA crowd because they will have done their part.