Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent in Trump v. United States called out clearly her Republican-appointed colleagues’ broad grant of criminal immunity to Donald Trump. So even though she didn’t offer an entirely new sentiment during a new television interview, it was nonetheless striking to see and hear the Supreme Court justice express displeasure with the July 1 ruling.
In an excerpted clip of that CBS interview posted on Tuesday, occasioned by Jackson’s forthcoming memoir, when asked by anchor Norah O’Donnell if she was concerned about broad immunity, the Joe Biden appointee replied: “I was concerned about a system that appeared to provide immunity for one individual under one set of circumstances, when we have a criminal justice system that had ordinarily treated everyone the same.”
Putting aside all sorts of problems in the criminal system having nothing to do with Trump — of which Jackson, a former public defender, is likely well-aware — her comments took on even greater significance in the context of special counsel Jack Smith’s filing a superseding indictment Tuesday in the federal election interference case. The new indictment, which seeks to comport with the Roberts Court’s new immunity test, served as its own reminder of how far the GOP-appointed majority has gone to help Trump. Jackson’s remarks underscore that reality.
The justice may have yet another opportunity to weigh in officially on the case. The high court sent it back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan and tasked the trial judge with applying the new, vague test to Trump’s prosecution. It’s unclear when or how Chutkan will rule, but the justices can review her work yet again before any trial can go forward. Such review is unlikely to occur before November’s presidential election, and as regular readers know, if Trump wins that election, he’ll find himself in the best circumstances possible for a criminal defendant: gaining the power to get rid of the case himself. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for updates and expert analysis on the top legal stories. The newsletter will return to its regular weekly schedule when the Supreme Court’s next term kicks off in October.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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