Two Republican-nominated Supreme Court justices were duped by liberal hype into setting a disastrous precedent on Thursday when they sided with the three liberals refusing to approve a stay on Friday’s scheduled sentencing of President-Elect Donald Trump, conservative commentator and Constitutional Scholar Mark Levin says.
Regarding the dubious, so-called “hush money” conviction of Trump in a New York court case presided over by anti-Trump Judge Juan Merchan, Justices Amy Comey Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the liberal minority to deny a request for the Supreme Court to take up the case and delay sentencing.
In the days before the Supreme Court issued its last-minute decision, Merchan put out a public letter advertising that he intended to sentence Trump to “unconditional discharge” of any penalties (jail, probation, fine, etc.) for his conviction. On Friday, he did just that.
Thus, Judge Merchan succeeded in branding his political opponent with the label of “felon,” while evading the Supreme Court scrutiny he would’ve quickly drawn if he had imposed any type of actual penalty.
Which is just what Merchan and other liberals had banked on, Levin explained in a Fox News Channel interview Friday following the sentencing:
“You see, what Merchan did here, the reason he didn't imprison him or give him an ankle bracelet, or really penalize him in any way, is because he knew the Supreme Court would then take up the case, because he would be interfering with the function of the federal government. He would be interfering with the office of the president. So what has he done?
“This guy is a schemer. He’s says, you know what, I will put the scarlet letter on, but I'm not going to punish him, quote unquote, because then I will have a problem with the Supreme Court.”
By telegraphing his intention ahead of the Supreme Court ruling, Merchan and his allies “played” Barrett and Roberts into siding with the liberals voting to shirk the case, Levin explained:
“And the abomination, to me, on top of everything else of that short order, was that they actually hyped the fact that, really, Merchan is not going to punish him as one of the reasons to let it go.
“They were played.
“Those four justices in the minority, they knew that, they saw that. I'm sure they did. And, again, I think a (Chief Justice William H.) Rehnquist would have seen it. A (Justice Antonin) Scalia would have seen it. They had more reason to take this case than they did Bush versus Gore – and now we're stuck with it.”
America is now “stuck with” the ramifications of one of the worst cases in world history, Levin said:
“When you look at cases throughout history - not just in the United States but all over the world - this will be remembered as one of the worst. This will be remembered as an absolute injustice from the beginning.”
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“[I]t was very, very crucial the Supreme Court take up this case the way they took up Bush versus Gore, because it is the most extraordinarily outrageous case in modern times.”
“They said to let the process play out,” but that’s unacceptable when you have a corrupt process, Levin said:
“No, you don't let a corrupt process, that these gentleman have been talking about from beginning to end, play out - particularly when you talk about an incoming president of the United States where the appellate process for this corrupt process will be going on while he is president of the United States. So, this court had an extraordinary responsibility, like it rarely does, to set this straight.
“And now the precedent is set. That is that you will be able to drag candidates, maybe for president, some D.A. (can drag them) through a corrupt process that has to play out all the way to the end until the Supreme Court is going to look at it.”
Trump’s conviction is widely expected to be ultimately reversed by the Supreme Court, based on any number of flaws in the case, if it isn’t reversed by a lower court.
“I strongly disagree with what Roberts and Barrett did here,” Levin concluded.