A Double Victory for Donald Trump

The exit of Mitch McConnell and the Supreme Court taking up Trump's immunity claim underscore his continuing ability to get what he wants

Sen. Mitch McConnell leaves the Senate chamber Wednesday. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

It’s fitting that the same day Mitch McConnell announced he was exiting his position as Senate minority leader in November that the Supreme Court announced (on Wednesday) they’re taking the case on presidential immunity. This delays Donald Trump’s election interference trial, thereby providing the criminal defendant aid and comfort. Once again, enablers do their part.

Mitch McConnell. You know the storyline of this cynical man with an all-consuming love for power and indifference toward hypocrisy. He’s the guy who denied Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland hearings during the last eight months of the Obama administration (Too close to the election! Let the voters decide!), then four years later pushed through Amy Coney Barrett in the last two weeks before the 2020 election.

He’s the guy who voted against impeaching Donald J. Trump after the January 6 insurrection, then made a knowing speech on the Senate floor acknowledging that the attack resulted from “wild falsehoods [fed] by the most powerful man on Earth, because he was angry he'd lost an election…a disgraceful, disgraceful dereliction of duty.” Then, less than a month later, he said he’d “absolutely” support Trump if he wins the nomination in 2024.

Talk about hypocrisy. But that doesn’t bother Mitch. Not after he got in three right-wing Supreme Court justices. Not after he got a $2.3 trillion tax cut for his rich buddies. So what if he played a critical role in the devolution of our society as unfair, corrupt, tilted toward the rich?

As Jane Mayer described him in 2020 in The New Yorker: “Nobody has done more than he has to engineer the current campaign-finance system, in which billionaires and corporations have virtually no spending limits, and self-dealing and influence-peddling are commonplace.”

Never forget that the nihilistic Mitch proudly proclaimed that making Barack Obama a one-term president was his top priority, then enabled four years of Trump desecrations to the presidency and our democracy. So what if he shamelessly allied with the singularly unfit Trump and helped break the Senate as long as he could hold onto power and line the pockets of his rich cronies?

Mayer again: Critics “say that he knew from the start that Trump was unequipped to lead in a crisis, but, because the President was beloved by the Republican base, McConnell protected him. He even went so far as to prohibit witnesses at the impeachment trial, thus guaranteeing that the President would remain in office.”

Mitch McConnell’s decision to exit leadership is the final expression that Trump and his acolytes now fully control the GOP. In dramatic understatement, Sen. Marco Rubio said, “The Republican Party is going through a pretty dramatic transition.” No kidding.

Now the Supreme Court, stuffed with Leonard Leo/Federalist Society-approved justices, has further showcased their indifference toward justice and We the People. The 6-3 conservative court already deep-sixed Roe v. Wade in a brazen display of contempt toward the majority, women and legal precedent. Now, by taking up Trump’s criminal immunity claim and setting April 22 for oral arguments, they’ve again made their open hostility toward the will of the people painfully clear.

Never mind that the D.C. Circuit Court, in a unanimous 57-page opinion, offered what legal experts considered a bullet-proof case against immunity. (“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim,” they wrote, “that a president has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power—the recognition and implementation of election results.”) Never mind that taking up the case a full seven weeks from now makes it increasingly improbable that Trump’s election interference case will conclude and reach a decision before the November election—that is, if it even will proceed.

Never mind that this slow walking communicates loudly their lack of urgency and serves the strategy of a criminal defendant who’s expert in exploiting the legal system to delay results and evade justice. Never mind that their decision could convey rejection of the principle that no one is above the law. Never mind that a majority of Americans, including many Republicans, want to know whether the leading Republican candidate is innocent or guilty before they make their vote in November. Surely these justices know that Trump has signaled he’d drop the cases against himself if he takes back the White House.

Of course, it’s not like their arrogance or apparent corruption here is a surprise. No one on the court is a more appalling illustration of this problem than ethics-free Clarence Thomas, husband of insurrection-supporting Ginni Thomas who shows no indication that he will recuse himself, despite the fact that his conflict of interest could not be more disgustingly obvious. So what if public trust in the Supreme Court, once a most-trusted institution, remains at near-record lows, with 58 percent of Americans disapproving of the way they do their job?

Note the words of the thin-skinned Chief Justice Roberts after news leaked in 2022 about the likely stripping away of women’s reproductive rights and trashing of settled law, spurring a rising crescendo of criticism about the court’s credibility: “Simply because people disagree with an opinion is not a basis for questioning the legitimacy of the court.” Translation: Don’t trust your lying eyes.

Finding a silver lining is a tall order in this latest iteration of a a court gone wild with power. But maybe this frustrating rejection of speedy justice in the election interference case—underlining with great intensity the notion that justice delayed is justice denied—will serve to mobilize voters who’ve had enough with what unavoidably looks like aiding and abetting a criminal defendant.

Maybe this will activate those souls among us who are still sitting on the fence, refusing to get off the couch or convinced that Joe Biden’s age or any of a number of other criticisms is enough to skip this election. Maybe the Supreme Court sowing doubt about the principle that no one is above the law will rankle enough people’s sense of fairness that turnout in the fall will hit all-time highs.

Because while many of us may hope that we can count on the courts to hold Donald J. Trump accountable, it finally will be up to all of us to send the necessary message: We the People, in our commitment to democracy and self-governance, will decide our own fate. We the People will make sure that a man who desecrated the White House and the democratic principles upon which the country was founded—who has spoken loud and clear about his intention to do more damage—should never retake the levers of power.

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