Part of me wishes I could have been in whatever room Donald Trump was in when he got word that the Supreme Court had delivered a potentially fatal blow to his cover-up efforts relating to the 1/6 insurrection.
More to the point, that same part of me wishes I could have heard his response when he learned that all three justices he nominated for the court voted with the majority in squashing the effort.
You see, Donald Trump expects the judges he nominates to be loyal to him, not to the law or to the Constitution.
The court ruled 8 to 1 to require the National Archives to turn over records to the House committee examining the insurrection. The only dissent came from Justice Clarence Thomas. As for Trump’s nominees — Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch — well, they stuck with the law.
That’s how it should be.
According to NPR.org: The court’s order paves the way for the release of records from the National Archives. The records could shed light on the events that led to the riot by Trump supporters protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden.
The high court said lower courts had determined that Trump could not claim “executive privilege” in hiding those records.
“Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump’s claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court’s decision,” the court said in its order.
Lifetime appointments to federal courts do have this way of freeing judges from a good bit of political pressure. That, too, is in keeping with what the founders had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. They were wise men.