No One is Above the Law

On the same day that Senator Mitch McConnell announced that he would be stepping down as Senate Republican leader, the Supreme Court agreed to decide whether former President Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, virtually assuring that Trump will not face trial by Election Day.

McConnell’s influence on the ideological makeup of the Court is indisputable and perhaps the crowning achievement of his long career. In 2016, with McConnell leading the charge, President Obama was denied the right to fill a vacancy on the Court upon the untimely death of Justice Antonin Scalia. “All we are doing is following the long-standing tradition of not fulfilling a nomination in the middle of a presidential year,” McConnell said.

Of course, that was a gross fabrication, as there have been multiple election-year vacancies filled since the Civil War. The vacancy was eventually filled by President Trump in 2017. Then, when Justice Ruth Bader Ginzburg died in the final year of Trump’s term, McConnell disavowed the previously concocted reasoning, allowing Trump to fill another slot, his third.

The Supreme Court’s ruling on the immunity claim, regardless of the outcome, may ultimately provide the exemption that Trump so desperately seeks. If re-elected in November, Trump, with a tip of the cap to McConnell, would likely stop all proceedings, shattering the principle that no one is above the law.

Jim Paladino
Tampa