Today is Thursday, April 15, 2024. Today the nation got to hear a very politically leaning “Extreme” Court take up the question of whether to grant immunity to former disgraced president Donald Duck for his alleged attempt to overturn the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. The views of the conservative justices on the Supreme Court stunned legal experts, according to an AlterNet online article by David Badash entitled “Justices’ views on Trump immunity stun experts: ‘Watching the Constitution be rewritten.'”

At the beginning of the three-hour exchange between Trump’s lawyers and those of the Justice Department under special counsel Jack Smith, it seemed that legal authorities were pleased with how the hearing was going initially as to how they might rule on Drumpf’s “absolute immunity” claim from criminal prosecution, but then it got much darker under questioning by the right-wing justices of the U.S. Department of Justice’s attorney. Now many experts are suggesting that the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

Axios reports, “Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6.” Now the least likely outcome from this fiasco of a hearing would be allowing his January 6 trial to promptly resume, which is a big loss for Jack Smith who wanted to prosecute Dump immediately.

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.” That would be truly disgusting.

From the tenor of the questioning, it appears that the far-right justices like corrupt Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Brett Kavanaugh believe that Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Possibly Neil Gorsuch might feel this way too. John Roberts might be skeptical of the charges, and Amy Coney Barrett could be more amenable to Smith, but still wants some immunity for the Orange Fiend.

Noted foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

A former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama opined, “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era, the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that ‘at least’ four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray observed, “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Dump’s own lawyer, John Sauer, argued before the high court that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeached by the U.S. House of Representatives, then convicted by the U.S. Senate.” This is totally not true, by the way.

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up this prediction about what just transpired today at the Supreme Court which is this, “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide this case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.” No matter how you slice it, today was a dark day for democracy, thanks to the political hacks sitting on the Supreme Court. And, as woefully expected, Justice Clarence Thomas failed to recuse himself again on a January 6 case involving the former insurrectionist. His hubris is astounding!

So it’s late here, owing to Elliot and I watching a film on Hulu called Cat Person. We didn’t finish it because I wanted to write the blog. I still don’t know if I like it; we’ll try to finish it tomorrow.

Stay safe and be well.