John Roberts’ NY Times article hits new low in the left’s fight for the Supreme Court

In an ugly escalation of the left’s war on the Supreme Court, the New York Times last week took a swipe at Chief Justice John Roberts, falsely accusing him of “abusing his authority to influence rulings that benefited” Donald Trump in “three significant cases related to January 6.”

In addition, the story was based in part on leaked confidential court documents – meaning that court staff and possibly one of the judges were actively portion the ongoing attack on the institution.

The slander itself was pathetic: Jodi Cantor and Adam Liptak of the Times claim that Roberts supported Trump on three occasions:

• One of them (which overturned Colorado’s attempt to disqualify Trump from the election) was decided 9-0, showing that Trump did not need any help: the facts were clear even to the three liberal justices.

• The second wasn’t really about Trump, but about whether prosecutors had wrongly charged 250 Capitol rioters with “obstruction of an official proceeding” on January 6, 2021. The result was 6-3 – with Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Amy Coney Barrett “switching sides” to vote with opposing “blocs.”

Cantor and Liptak are particularly fascinated by one oddity: Roberts had originally assigned the task of writing the majority opinion to Justice Samuel Alito, but later took on the task himself.

But the Times reporters themselves point out that the move came after leftists called for Alito to recuse himself, suggesting that Roberts was simply trying to avoid unnecessary controversy—a move that had no bearing on the decision anyway. Result.

• Only the third decision “really helped Trump”: the ruling on presidential immunity. But Roberts “exerted his authority primarily by agreeing with the court’s ruling.” liberal that the Supreme Court should accept Trump’s appeal against a lower court ruling immediatelyrather than hearing the case in October, which would have delayed any trial beyond Election Day.

And Roberts had made his view of the fundamental issues crystal clear in a confidential memo to his colleagues in February – a memo that, according to Cantor and Liptak, “several people from the court” later discussed with reporters.

Such leaks are a far greater violation of the ethics of the Supreme Court than any of the left-wing complaints of recent years: How can the Court even function if the judges cannot communicate openly with each other?

This follows the leak of the draft Dobbs decision (overturning Roe v. Wade) two years ago, another clearly politically motivated scandal by some Court insider.

And the suspicion for the leak of the memo falls on Judge Sonia Sotomayor: Her hysterical dissenting opinion in the presidential immunity case accuses her of making every president a “king above the law,” which makes her “fear for our democracy.”

Cantor and Liptak also portray them as angry that Roberts ignored their efforts to reach a compromise, even though he made it clear in his February memo where he would end up.

All this follows extensive “ethics” smears against Justices Clarence Thomas (most notably) and Sam Alito (plus the now routine smears at the confirmation hearings of all Republican Supreme Court nominees).

And yet there is no ethical storm, say, over KJB’s $3 million book deal or the $3.7 million in book payments to Sotomayor.

Bad enough, this campaign has undermined public confidence in the Supreme Court—the only branch of the federal government that isn’t completely dysfunctional these days.

Worse, the information leaked to the Times suggests that the madness is slowly beginning to infect the Supreme Court itself.