The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America

[malaise]

From August
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/21/justice-john-roberts-supreme-court

On 4 March, Donald Trump delivered his epic 100-minute speech to Congress, the longest such presidential address in US history. Having finished speaking, in time-honored fashion, he walked down the line of supreme court justices, gladhanding each in turn before coming to a stop before the chief justice, John Roberts.

“Thank you again, thank you again,” Trump said, taking Roberts’s hand into both his own and shaking it vigorously. Then, as he began to step away, the president tapped Roberts on the arm in a gesture of buddy-buddy intimacy, and said: “Won’t forget.”

Supreme court watchers have wondered why Trump thanked the chief justice so effusively. Was it because the Roberts court had, exactly a year earlier, allowed Trump to stay on the electoral ballot even though he had inspired a violent mob attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021?

Could it have been that Roberts had written the ruling that immunised Trump from criminal prosecution for that January 6 insurrection and for any other criminal misdeed he might commit while in the White House?

Or was it, as Trump later claimed, more innocent than that: a simple thank you to Roberts for having administered the oath of office at Trump’s second inauguration?

Whatever the truth, time has moved on since that friendly encounter five months ago. Were the president to bump into the chief justice today, one might expect an even more extravagant display of gratitude.

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We won’t forget either