Adam Liptak: Trump Case Is Not the Case Chief Justice Is Eager To Have But It Is Unavoidable

EXCERPT:

LIPTAK: "Well, the court, as you know, is embattled. It is going through a rough period. Its public approval ratings are down. It’s been the subject of ethics scandals. This is not a case the chief justice is eager to have, but it is probably unavoidable. This question needs a national solution. His impulse will be to try to avoid doing damage to the legitimacy of the court, which is 6-3 Republican/Democrat split of the appointees on the court, would give rise to. So I think he’d look for consensus. He would look for something incremental, he would look for something technical. And there are, as we’ve been discussing, off-ramps. There are ideas that Congress has to act first or that it is a political question. So I think the chief justice will want to find a way not to give Trump a victory here, but to tell the American public that it is not — the court is not taking a position on the question of whether he engaged in insurrection, but probably look for some technical way to rule for Trump but not in a kind of earth-shattering way. This is not a court that’s been particularly sympathetic to Donald Trump. It is a conservative court, but it has rebuffed Trump and his allies when they tried to get the court to overturn the election, and when the Manhattan D.A. and a congressional committee sought records from him, the court voted 7-2 against Trump, with all of the Trump appointees in majority and only Justices Thomas and Alito in dissent."