After telling an audience at Mount Vernon that “we saw the outpouring of voters in on Tuesday,” Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor told them that she hoped to see the reversal of various conservative opinions starting with the presidential immunity decision in Trump v. United States.
Speaking at the historic home of George Washington, Justice Sotomayor described her (presumably) conservative colleagues as doing some “crazy things.”
She observed that “There have been some systemic changes in my court’s jurisprudence in many areas of law,” Sotomayor said. “We’ll settle down, too. Not quite sure when. But we will. And a new order will be established that people will begin to understand.”
She then specifically turned to the court’s 6-3 decision along ideological lines that former presidents enjoy at least presumptive immunity for their official acts. In her dissent, Sotomayor portrayed the decision as bestowing imperial power, noting that it made President Trump and his successors a “king above the law.”
She told the crowd that “I dissent a lot. I’m hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it’s done. I’m only joking — maybe not…No, seriously, You know, I’ve spoken openly about this, there’s some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them.”
As I discuss in my column on the Democratic effort to effectively nullify the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment, there is a series of changes being sought to impact the 2028 election. With Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito pushing 80, liberals could secure a majority in the next Administration without carrying out their plan to pack the Court.
If that happens, Justice Sotomayor appears ready to reverse a series of opinions that she deems “crazy” from her conservative justices.
Jonathan Turley is the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
The immunity decision was only made necessary because of Biden DoJ overreach on charging Trump for crimes that were at least doubtful. This was an example of bad judgment resulting from political ambition. In my view, the court did a reasonable job in dealing with a question that should never have arisen.
Regarding overturning precedent, Thomas has been the Justice most willing to consider doing so. He has questioned many of the substantive due process decisions, for example, and would prefer that these matters be judged under the privileges and immunities clause. He has not raised Meyer and Pierce in this context, however, so I wonder what he would do regarding the currently available constitutional protections for parents, especially in a public school context.
Daniel: per your note of “political ambition,” there might be an interesting SCOTUS divide in the pending St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy case (whether Catholic schools should lose pre-school public funding for rejecting youngsters of LGBQT parents as contrary to religious beliefs.
This parallels the recent gains of trans political candidates in elected office. https://19thnews.org/2026/11/these-trans-and-nonbinary-candidates-just-made-history/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
This one seems to hinge on whether public benefits can be denied based on a non-discrimination law of general applicability that does not explicitly disfavour religion but has the effect of doing so. Judging from the oral argument, I suspect the court will side with the religious schools here. The question will be how they get there. They could hold that the many exemptions granted makes the law not generally applicable. Or they could hold that a law that burdens religion is covered even if it does not explicitly refer to religion.
I didn’t think the modern left could get more openly fascist than the Biden years, but here we are. Every week their depravity deepens; then again, this is likely who they have always been intrinsically, they just find new lows to stoop to and less inhibition from public declaration. this is *precisely* how the Nazis took power, right up to the promises of ‘improvements’.
The next person that unironically claims the coalition we voted for in 2024 is fascist or ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ – if I were a violent person prone to giving in to rage, which I am not, that is the province of the left – they would get smacked right upside the head. I’m beginning to think a sub 100 IQ is a requirement for being a modern ‘liberal’.
Authoritarianism is remarkably speedy abd efficient at precluding critical inquiry.
James,
Nobody knows whether you are hyperbolic or prophetic. Time will tell.
But How Sad it is, that (because of the condition of our nation) so many people think you are prophetic!
Oh please.
Let us be reminded that it has been the liberal end of the Court, particularly female SCOTUS justices who have done the most, to ethically discredit and reduce respect for the Court with regard to public comments and engagements in partisan politics. We are reminded of Sotomayor’s persuasive lectures to young female students about getting out to vote for certain liberal measures that she favored. Judicial ethics canons be damned. (please Show me where O’Connor or Barrett ever engaged in similar partisan rants.)
And who could forget Justice Ginsburg’s (RBG) terrible PRE-ELECTION trashing of presidential candidate Trump, calling him a “faker” and expressly stating that “I can’t imagine what the country would be . . . with Donald Trump as our president.” https://yalelawjournal.org/forum/politics-and-judicial-ethics-a-historical-perspective
Obama didn’t help when he trashed the Court in front of the whole country at his State of the Union address. And now, we have to deal with little Justice Jackson lecturing her fellow senior Justices…
Oh, and BTW, we constantly have MEDIA, over and over, bringing up and stoking disdain for the Federalist Society and its alleged role in pushing conservative judicial/SCOTUS candidates .….How many times have we seen or heard MEDIA even bring up, -let alone stoke disdain, for the American Constitution Society (ACS), -the parallel progressive/leftist organization that does the exact same thing pushing its liberal judicial/SCOTUS candidates? I bet some of you reading this have never even heard of the ACS.
Lin,
Your false equivalence between the Federalist Society and the American Constitution Society (ACS) ignores how judicial pipelines actually operate in practice.
The media focuses on the Federalist Society not out of bias, but because of its unprecedented institutional power. During the Trump administration, the White House openly outsourced its judicial selection process to a curated list provided directly by the leadership of the Federalist Society.
By contrast, the ACS operates as a standard progressive professional network. No Democratic administration has ever publicly handed its judicial vetting apparatus to the ACS in a centralized, formal manner. The media covers the Federalist Society because it achieved an unprecedented level of vertical integration with executive power, not because the ACS doesn’t exist.
Even conservative jurists have routinely engaged in highly public, ideologically charged rhetoric.
Alito in 2022 speech in Rome mocking international heads of state who critiqued the Dobbs decision, is widely viewed by legal ethicists as nakedly ideological extrajudicial broadsides.
Scalia frequently delivered blunt, politically salient lectures to conservative legal groups and famously authored a 21-page defense refusing to recuse himself from a case involving Vice President Dick Cheney, shortly after taking a private jet to go duck hunting with him.
Justice Thomas’ decades of un-disclosed luxury travel and financial entanglements with billionaire political donors, coupled with the overt partisan activism of his spouse, represent a structural challenge to the appearance of impartiality that eclipses a generic “get out the vote” lecture.
There are plenty of examples professor Turley “forgot” to mention in his attempt to portray Sotomayor’s speeches as particularly “concerning”. It’s par for the course.
I regret that you do not seem able to grasp the things that you lift from your Ai sources (“level of vertical integration” ???)
When the Federalist Society holds university and public debates, it “almost always has representatives of the Left on its panels about substantive legal issues, but the ACS much less frequently has representatives of the Right. At their 2017 conventions, I estimate that approximately 32 percent of such panelists at the Federalist Society were on the Left whereas about 13 percent were on the Right at the ACS.” https://lawliberty.org/why-the-federalist-society-has-more-ideological-opponents-on-its-panels-than-the-acs/
And even your beloved AI and Wikipedia sources describe and acknowledge that ACS as “created as a counterweight to, and is modeled after, the Federalist Society, and is often described as its progressive counterpart…” and “actively works to identify and promote strong judicial candidates for federal and state benches, as well as engaging in advocacy related to judicial nominations. They also support efforts to reform the Supreme Court'”
Lin,
Oh I grasp what I read. Every time. Do you grasp what you cite?
Your citations from John O. McGinnis’s 2018 essay and Wikipedia are factually accurate, but they prove my point rather than yours. They highlight the difference between an organization’s rhetorical format and its institutional power.
Professor McGinnis’s data regarding the 2017 national conventions—showing that the Federalist Society includes more ideological opponents on its panels than the ACS—is a well-documented aspect of its campus and conference strategy. As McGinnis himself notes in that very essay, because conservatives are historically underrepresented in the legal academy, inviting the institutional Left to debate is a deliberate strategy to achieve mainstream academic respectability and notoriety.
But hosting a debate panel with a liberal law professor does not alter the organization’s downstream political impact. The media does not investigate the Federalist Society because of its university debate formats; it investigates it because of its unprecedented role as a clearinghouse for presidential appointments.
Your quote noting that the ACS was “created as a counterweight to, and is modeled after, the Federalist Society” is correct. The progressive movement explicitly tried to clone the Federalist Society’s blueprint.
However, as a lawyer, you know that intent does not equal outcome. Modeling yourself after a successful competitor does not mean you possess the same market share or institutional efficacy. Right?
Silly Silly. You just shot yourself in the foot. again. Why do you think that “market share,” “institutional efficacy,” or “outcome” (over intent) favor the Federalist Society? “You’re not making any sense,” as you like to tell others, but thanks anyway, I’m moving on
(*I guess any good lawyer might express interest in examining the “why”s, n’est ce pas?)
Lin,
To answer your question directly: “market share,” “institutional efficacy,” and “outcome” favor the Federalist Society because they are the standard metrics used to measure political and institutional power.
You weren’t aware of that?
The Federalist Society maintains a near-monopoly on the conservative legal movement’s judicial pipeline. There is no major competing conservative lawyers’ network. Every single conservative appointment to the Supreme Court over the last decade, and the vast majority of conservative appellate appointments, went through this singular pipeline.
That’s why those on the left often criticize the Federalist Society.
By contrast, the progressive legal movement’s “market share” is highly fragmented. The ACS is just one player among many competing for influence under Democratic administrations. Left-leaning judicial selections are heavily decentralized, pulled from labor unions, public defender networks, environmental advocacy groups, civil rights organizations (like the NAACP LDF), and traditional corporate firms. The ACS does not control the market of progressive judicial nominations; the Federalist Society largely controls the conservative one.
I didn’t shoot myself in the foot. You did. You’re just pivoting to avoid the embarrassment of your mistake.
Plus moving the goalposts does not help your argument.
And BTW, I don’t remember which Canon it is, but there is definitely one about no Justices speaking publicly on any issues that are likely to come before the Court. Is that what Sotomayor is doing?
Your examples of post-decision speech by Alito, or post-defense of Scalia’s failure to recuse himself have nothing to do with anything. Regarding partisan spousal activities, it’s too bad that two of the three SCOTUS female liberals (Sotomayor and Kagan) are not married, or we might have had more to work with…. thanks anyway.
Lin, again. Sotomayor’s comments are also about cases that already passed SCOTUS docket.
I presented examples showing Turley’s criticism is essentially a non-issue. Because even Conservatives justices engage in the same talk Sotomayor is doing. Neither is wrong. But singling out Sotomayor is just throwing out implied accusations for the benefit of MAGA to rage about.
OMG you clown George! what is the TITLE of JT’s article ???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????/
You don’t know?????? I thought you knew how to read. My mistake.
You need AI to tell you what the title of PT article is
Lin, I still love your comments, keep up the great work.
After eliminating presidential immunity Obama should be the first charged with murder for ordering the execution of an American citizen in a foreign country.
Careful what you ask for, Justice.
“I dissent a lot. I’m hoping that the court will take back some of the crazy things that it’s done. I’m only joking — maybe not…No, seriously, You know, I’ve spoken openly about this, there’s some opinions that I hope in my lifetime will get overturned. The immunity case is one of them.”
Wow, that’s a very…Trump-like statement.
So Sotomayor may be right. At some point this could be revisited. I mean Justice Thomas also made a similar “speculative” quip about revisiting and perhaps reversing Obergefell the gay marriage ruling which Alito would most certainly be glad to overturn.
Just like Roe vs. Wade. Long set precedents are not immune from being reversed or overturned. The conservatives in the court have already shown they are not always going to respect stare decisis.
I would love to see both absolute and qualified immunity be thrown on the ash heap of history. Not sure Sotomayor and her fellow travellers realize how much that would expose them, rightfully, to the consequences of their bad behavior.
One would think elected officials, and civil servants, should be held to a higher legal standard. .. if absolute and qualified immunity were thrown on the dung hill of history, I would be a cock who crows upon it.
*also, the dung hill could be used as fertilizer for future elections.
The immunity decision has zero basis in the Constitution and the Constitution has clauses that would refute immunity.
“The immunity decision has zero basis in the Constitution . . .”
The official acts immunity comes from Article II. You might disagree with that argument, but it does have a “basis.”
“. . . the Constitution has clauses that would refute immunity.”
Your comment would be worth considering if, instead of an arbitrary assertion, you provided an argument.
“The immunity decision has zero basis in the Constitution….” Says the person that supports Roe???!?!?
“. . . Democratic effort to effectively nullify the Electoral College without a constitutional amendment . . .” (JT)
Funny, isn’t it, how the Left (with its “compact”) has suddenly become a fan of states’ “rights.”
Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court can’t overturn it! It says what the Constitution says. The Supreme Court said so.
Trump v. United States. The Supreme Court has to overturn it. It does not say what the Constitution says. I don’t care what the Supreme Court said!
Congress can overturn wildly expansive Judicial interpretations of the Constitution, and of course, any prior statutory law. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 countermanded the 1856 Dred Scott decision. The Indian Citizenship Act of 1924 overturned 1884 Elk vs. Wilkins decision. Congress can overturn Trump v. Barbara.
We just have to elect Congresspeople who are comfortable putting activist plaintiffs and Judges in their proper place (subordinate in power to elected legislators).
pbinca,
If you really think Congress and the President can “overturn” a Supreme Court decision by enacting a federal statute … oh well
Pbinca, can Congress pass a law establishing segregated schools? How about a law banning gay marriage? How about voting rights?
“Roe v. Wade. The Supreme Court can’t overturn it!” But in fact they did. 06/24/22.
Anonymous,
Apparently I was not clear enough for you to understand.
I did not express the opinion that the Supreme Court can’t overturn Roe v. Wade, or any other Supreme Court decision. (In fact, my opinion is that the Supreme Court can overturn a previous Supreme Court decision.)
I expressed the inconsistent opinions of those who insist that only Supreme Court decisions they don’t like can be overturned.
@Anon: Please read that decision. SCOTUS didn’t overturn “Roe v. Wade” the decision was basically that SCOTUS was not empowered or entitled to write law – that is the legislative branch.
Perhaps a dummy’s guide to the Constitution would help that there are 3 different (and balancing) powers:
Legislative Branch – make the laws, budget the government
Executive Branch – execute the laws enacted by the legislative branch (including exercise of investigation and prosecution through the Department of Justice)
Judicial Branch – Insure the enacted laws are being upheld and that legislative law is actually compliant with the US Constitution
WHEN THE LEGISLATIVE BRANCH EMPOWERS ITSELF TO BE A KANGAROO COURT WITHOUT A JUDICIAL PROCESS OF FAIRNESS AND DEFENSE, WE HAVE ACHIEVED A DUAL STATE AUTHORITARIANISM
What was Justice Ginsburg pushing?
Who could have possibly leaked the Dobbs opinion? Polygraphs for all!
I think the very fact that Sotomayor makes such an obviously and ridiculously biased political statement is proof positive that such will likely never occur. Given a politically minded supreme court the ability to charge a president would not only erase separation of powers, it would place the court above all, and the party through them.
I didn’t know that Courts brought charges.
if you vote Democrat
You hate America.
It is that simple
guyventner,
Please, let’s not be harsh. Democrats say they do not hate America.
All they say they hate is the Constitution, Bill Of Rights, Founding Fathers, American Flag, National Anthem, Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of not judging people by the color of their skin, and 70 or 80 million Americans who voted twice for President Trump.
Actually, those who voted THREE times for Trump.
Who was it that said “never let anyone outside the family know what you’re thinking?“
This was a common saying among “Soviet Union Citizens” who underwent 3+ generations of Slavery, Bigoted Programs, and a Totalitarian state whose basic judicial system was a bullet in the back of the head in the basement of the Kremlin or a luxury vacation to the Gulags.
Those of us who developed friendships with Alayah (Jews who fled the Soviet Union to the US in the 1970’s when allowed) often heard this adage when questioned “how on earth did you survive in that totalitarian state?
Another adage conveyed to me loved even more: “We pretended to work, They pretended to pay us”.
Apology of lack of clarity: That was the United Soviet SOCIALIST Republic (USSR)
Trump needs to claim immunity for himself, his family members and members of his staff right now,
I don’t think it matters much when he does it. Probably better that he does it sooner, than later. Congressional investigations don’t really mean anything unless you control the DOJ. No one actually gives testimony during show hearings, they take the 5th. Why would anyone ever incriminate themselves, especially to a body that has no power to prosecute? He will definitely give immunity deals before he leaves office.
This immunity crap has to be put to an end!
Democrats are fascists
DEI is failure
Remove these failures
No one ever believed the the President didn’t have broad immunity for official acts. It’s just that no one ever felt the need to codify it. Who would ever take the job if there wasn’t? The only difference is that Trump’s enemies want the rules to be different for him. No one ever questioned a President’s ability to classify or declassify top secret material either. For what would seem to be obvious reason of, as the highest ranking military official in the country, who’s approval for doing so is a President supposed to obtain? Past Presidents have done it during press conferences without consequence. But for Trump, the rules are suddenly different.
Anonymous 7:53AM-well put. Besides the president is not totally immune. I think there is a little process called impeachment. She also fails to remember that it will also apply to Democratic Presidents and maybe even Supreme Court Justices. “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander”
Even impeachment has become something of a nothing burger. They’ve made it sort of meaningless. If the Dems want to burn whatever political capital they have on yet another impeachment, go for it. Lawfare was what elected Trump to a second term. They just couldn’t help themselves. Now removal from office would be something else, but they might want to think that one through a little more. The votes probably won’t be there and Vance takes over giving him two years to really screw them good. It would also consume the entire news cycle, unify republicans, and show Dems for what they truly are. For the left, Trump is the gift that keeps on giving, if they removed him, then what? No more crazy X posts?
Oh, there will always be “X” posts. Why would I stop. This is just getting started.
GEB, after they take over, they will simply rewrite the rules. Easy peasy.
Biden’s overriding of the immigration laws so as to eventually add Democrats to the voter rolls certainly wasn’t questioned, was it. Mayorkas closed the borders, didn’t he. Dirtbags of feather..
Trump was charged for doing, AS PRESIDENT, what Biden did as a SENATOR regarding classified documents. It is Biden’s DOJ that forced the Court to address this issue.
I ran both Claude and ChaTGpt through historical causes and processes of revolutionary actions then asked them to calculate the chance of a true revolution in the USA should the left pack the court. The results came back at over 90% that there would be a gorilla war dismantling the corruption in government.
As I sit on saQ of freedom seeds, holding my stiQ, it will come to blood. That’s all the other side knows. Buckle up. Somehow, every county in the nation turned blue, sure. Some say MAGA didn’t show up. Nearly the same amount of conservatives voted as the last cycle…. BUT, the blues had an ‘extra’ 20M new voters…. swallow that pill. Governors MUST not certify . full stop
11b
Pretend revolutionaries self-entertain by talking in code.
I would predict that either, a leftist President “packing” the supreme court with four new picks or a widespread move to ban firearms or cause possession to become a crime, would be the kick-off to that revolution. If either or both happened, it would be the obvious signal where things were heading.
Many are saying Conservatives/MAGA did not show up. Wrong, I’ll tell you who showed up, 20M [new] dimocrats… Pondering that as I sit on my sack of freedom seeds….
The remedy is easy, Governors MUST NOT certify fraudulent installations {some call them elections}
@txvet33
I think it was both, personally. The people that didn’t show up woefully underestimated the odds. Had everyone been front and center, it would have been tight. I also think the threats against younger voters who don’t know any better for supporting non-dems worked.
Threats?
Not Democrats. Independents and young first time voters. 18-29 year olds voted in record numbers. Then you have the Hispanic vote in Texas. They turned on Trump after being “misled” about how he would conduct immigration deportations. That’s not what they had in mind and they made it pretty clear in Texas that they were not in agreement with the state’s Republicans and the president’s tactics.
If such a case arose, given this public outburst, should she not recuse herself ?
No. Her opinion was already known from her dissent.
Justices have been known to change their minds, but this statement shows an unwillingness to look at the fact of any case involving that particular issue. Recusal is appropriate