Trump has a decent chance of getting absolute immunity

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Those here who told us that this Supreme Court isn't partisan are looking more and more foolish.

And this is the case even for those who don't think much of the writer of the linked article Ian Millhiser, because one doesn't have to think much of him to recognize that this Supreme Court is, at a minimum, determined to find a way to at least send the case back to a lower court thereby delaying any of the federal criminal cases against Trump until the election.

When President Nixon claimed "when the President does it, that means it is not illegal" even Republican lawyers at that time called that absurd. Yet, now we even have a Republican Supreme Court seriously judging just that.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

If Trump gets immunity, does this mean Biden gets immunity too?

Well, Biden doesn't need immunity. But, certainly if Trump got immunity and I were Biden, the first thing I'd do is order something to be done that can't be mentioned on this board.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Any blue avatar who defends any conservative Justice that votes in favor of absolute immunity is exposing themselves as a total hack.

Seems like a bold statement. You think Neil Gorsuch is a total hack?

If he says that Trump gets full immunity, then yes.

Are we talking about the same Neil Gorsuch? Bostock Gorsuch? The guy who interpreted the Civil Rights Act as stopping funeral home directors from firing transgender employees despite that not being mentioned once in the debates on the law at the time or by any of the representatives/senators involved in writing or passing it? The guy whose opinion made half of Oklahoma native reservations?

There's a lot that can be said about Neil Gorsuch. But no GOP hack putting outcomes first would vote the way Neil Gorsuch has.* If he thinks Presidents have absolute immunity (which is what at least some observers interpreted him as arguing for earlier), then I take at face value that he really believes that Presidents have absolute immunity.

*Ironically, applying this same analysis to the Dem justices would lead to the conclusion that many of them are hacks, but that's a different story.

So your argument is that Gorsuch isn’t a hack, but a total idiot who would make a ruling that could very quickly lead to a civil war based off of some insane interpretation of the Constitution that clearly wasn’t the Founders intent?

Gorsuch's ruling on native territorial treaty rights might be impractical but it certainly wasn't insane and it did show a consistency that is completely lacking from all the other Republican Justices. He correctly reasoned that since the U.S Constitution is still in effect even though it's over 200 years old, so are treaties and that just because one side hadn't sincerely honored the treaties over that time (which is why the tribes took the state to court) that doesn't invalidate them.

Certainly the other Republican Justices have not been consistent but, for instance, have cited 'practicality' when it helped them justify the ruling they wanted to make all along, and have dismissed 'practicality' when it didn't help them justify the ruling they wanted to make all along.

[Benjamin Frank 2.0]

Just because Neil Gorsuch sincerely believes something doesn't mean it's true or a good idea. A lot of Neil Gorsuch's sincere beliefs are absolutely bonkers. (I'd love to hear an absolutist "constitutional conservative" argument against his approach to Indian law, though; that is an area in which it is the right whose jurisprudence has traditionally been "the government can do whatever the hell it wants and dare people to try to get it to stop.") I do agree that "hack" is manifestly not the right word for him, though.

FWIW Clarence Thomas's view is that the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 rendered all tribal treaties and agreements null and void, and thus now all Reservations and federal recognition of tribes is illegal.

Obviously absurd because one party to an agreement can't simply alter or abrogate the agreement without the consent of the other party.

I'm sure Thomas would admit that as well if he weren't bought.