Supreme Court judge said ‘the quiet part out loud’ during Trump’s immunity hearing: analyst

Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch may have said the “quiet part out loud” during a hearing on Donald Trump’s presidential immunity claims, an expert said Monday.

Legal analysts Allison Gill and Andy McCabe addressed the Supreme Court hearing in the most recent episode of their “Jack: A Special Counsel Podcast.”

And they said a comment by Gorsuch summarized what other justices seemed to be thinking — and which, they claimed, was incorrect.

Gill said one problem with the way the conservative justices looked at the case is that they wanted to apply it to a whole range of hypothetical ideas, when the case is actually very specific to Trump. It does not attempt to set a standard for all presidents regarding a variety of immunity claims, she said. Instead, it follows the grand jury’s ruling that Donald Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 election, thus breaking the law and should be prosecuted.

“They should have said, ‘We don’t have to decide official actions for future presidents because the appeals court only took up this case,’” Gill said.

But, she said, several Supreme Court justices seemed confused about that.

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“Chief Justice Roberts asked Michael Dreeben, the lawyer who argued for special counsel, whether he agreed with the statement” by the Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., that judges should only consider Trump’s immunity, and not whether this should apply to all presidents.

Gill suggested that this means that Roberts either thinks this point is moot or that he misunderstood “what the appellate court ruled.”

Roberts then falsely claimed in court that the D.C. court ruled that there has never been any immunity for presidents from criminal prosecution, Gill said.

“If he really thinks that wrongly, then it’s no wonder he allowed” the case to be heard before the Supreme Court, Gill said.

It puts Roberts in a situation where he has participated in “a gross misinterpretation of the appellate court’s ruling” or is trying to find a justification for hearing the case, Gill said.

“To me, I mean we’re here because of incompetence, arrogance or a corrupt, deliberate delaying tactic, and none of those options give me much confidence about how the court will rule,” she said.

McCabe said the moment that stood out to him most was when the justices wanted to talk about something other than Trump’s case. They were fabricating mortgages at a time when the appeals court ruling specified that only Trump’s case would be considered.

“The facts of this case were, in fact, well beyond the bounds of any arguable recognition of immunity,” McCabe said. “And they were really trying to litigate in a different area. And I think (Neil) Gorsuch even went so far as to say the quiet part out loud when he insisted, ‘We’re making a rule here for eternity.'”

Essentially, he said, Gorsuch argued that the Supreme Court was there not just to review Trump’s case, but to examine the broader concept of presidential immunity.

You can listen to podcast episode 74 of “Jack” here.