Donald Trump tips off how worried he is about what’s coming next
Donald Trump is surely the world’s worst poker player. For all his erratic behavior, he can be consistently relied upon to give away what he’s really thinking. For instance, late last night he posted this Twitter thread which seems on the surface to be yet another aggressive abuse of power, but is instead actually a telltale sign of what he’s worried about most:
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“Sotomayor accuses GOP appointed Justices of being biased in favor of Trump.” @IngrahamAngle @FoxNews This is a terrible thing to say. Trying to “shame” some into voting her way? She never criticized Justice Ginsberg when she called me a “faker”. Both should recuse themselves..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 25, 2020
To be clear, this is utterly deranged and profoundly corrupt on Donald Trump’s part. He’s trying to intimidate two Supreme Court Justices into recusing themselves, for no legitimate reason, in upcoming cases that involve him. Not only is this corrupt, it’s felony obstruction of justice. But it’s also, very obviously, not going to work. Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsberg obviously are not going to recuse themselves. And there’s no apparatus for Trump somehow magically forcing them to do so. It simply will not happen. Now ask yourself why Trump is even trying to make it happen.
If Trump thought he had five Supreme Court votes in the upcoming cases involving his tax returns, the Mueller transcripts, and his ability to pardon himself on his way out the door, he wouldn’t be worried about trying to force any of the other four Justices to recuse themselves. Trump’s rant is a dead giveaway that he’s worried he doesn’t have five votes. He’s only confident he has four. If he could magically prompt two recusals, he would win with a 4-3 ruling. But again, unfortunately for him, he doesn’t have a magic wand. Donald Trump is clearly afraid John Roberts will vote with the liberals on this matter, which Roberts does a significant minority of the time.
John Roberts can’t be trusted to do the right thing. But Trump can’t count on him to do the wrong thing either, because Roberts instead always does the opportunistic thing. We can’t count on Trump losing these Supreme Court rulings over his fate, but Trump appears to be well aware that he can’t count on winning them either.
