Heather Digby Parton: Trump is becoming a bigger problem for the Supreme Court -- and John Roberts can't control it

[Dennis Donovan]

Salon - Trump is becoming a bigger problem for the Supreme Court — and John Roberts can't control it

After extending presidential immunity in Trump's Jan. 6 case, the court has no room to stop his judicial attack

By Heather Digby Parton
Columnist
Published March 19, 2025 9:37AM (EDT)

Last Friday, President Trump gave a speech at the Department of Justice to an assembled staff full of handpicked supporters. He had a prepared transcript about "law and order" but spent most of the hour talking off the cuff about his grievances against the justice system he believes did him wrong. The New York Times described it this way:

He delivered a grievance-filled attack on the very people who have worked in the building and others like them. As he singled out some targets of his rage, he appeared to offer his own vision of justice in America, one defined by personal vengeance rather than by institutional principles. “These are people that are bad people, really bad people,” Mr. Trump said. “They tried to turn America into a corrupt communist and third-world country, but in the end, the thugs failed and the truth won.”

He spent quite a bit of time on the idea that his enemies had intimidated and derided Judge Aileen Cannon, who presided over the stolen classified documents case in Palm Beach, Florida. He said she was strong and tough, "the absolute model of what a judge should be." He went on an extended riff about the late basketball coach Bobby Knight, wondering about how he used to "play the refs":

He'd scream at the ref. He'd scream so hard, oh boy, it was terrible actually. And the people would come up, his assistant coaches would come up, the players. Coach, coach, don't do that. Don't do it...That's when he threw the chair, he starts going crazy.

And he said, no, he's not going to change this time, but he's going to change for the next play.

Trump claimed that's what his enemies did to Judge Cannon, and that he doesn't think it's legal. But according to him, it didn't work with her, she just "got angry." (If true, it would be interesting to know how he knows that.)

/snip

[Irish_Dem]

1. What until DOGE hackers and US Marshals break into courtrooms and judges' chambers.

[Aristus]

2. It's a shame when an educated, trained, and experienced judge can't tell when giving immunity

to a criminal is going to end badly.