SCOTUS 'brawl': Legal scholar reveals what's happening inside Supreme Court

I spent all day wondering what cheryn ivel thinks about all of this she never holds back she has lots of brilliant thoughts she's the former president of the NAACP legal defense fund she's now the Veron Vernon Jordan distinguished professor in civil rights at Howard law school and you've said we've talked about this case before you've said quote section three was enacted for such a time as this and for such a figure as president Trump you've reflected on History which is so powerful what was you

r reaction to the court decision today well I wasn't surprised Jen at the outcome at the Judgment uh that uh we we we had talked about this before as you said at the top of the hour that the court would be looking for an off-ramp uh I was extremely disappointed in the oral argument uh in in part because the many of the justices seem unprepared this was a a case in which um there was there were many many amikas briefs that were filed there were uh complicated arguments there this was a case in wh

ich we don't have a lot to to go on in terms of precedent because fortunately until 2020 we had not experienced um a federal Insurrection so um I expected that the court was going to seek an off-ramp and I thought the off-ramp would be kind of what it was which is that they were not going to allow one state to remove Trump from the ballot I think what is disturbing disturbing is the overreach and here I'm going to have to disagree with you a little bit I hesitate to do so we're in sync with the

green expert I welcome your disagreement please well I think even I even disagree with other legal experts on this I am not at all uh encouraged by the fact that the court did not uh say something about whether or not Trump in fact engaged in Insurrection it was very clear from the argument they had no intention of touching it uh they had no intention of reviewing the factual premise of the Colorado Supreme Court's decision um and they seemed even disdainful of uh involving themselves in the sti

ckiness of the um actual factual question as to whether or not Trump had participated in Insurrection but what they did do was that they overreached and even though this was a unanimous judgment I think the takeaway from this opinion today is the brawl that is clearly happening on this Supreme Court we have three justices Justice sotoor Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson who um seem to be concurring but it was a pretty harsh concurrence uh this is a case they said that cried out for judicial rest

raint and they used their concurrence to talk about the failure of this court to exercise restraint the court went beyond what they needed to do not only in terms of President Trump but um remember that they they also talked about the need for Congress to pass legislation they describe PR precisely what the congressional action has to be then they describe the legislation itself that it has to be tailored to section three and I think this really outraged uh the three justices who wrote that conc

urrence uh this was not a question that had been factually developed or even legally developed in this case because it wasn't an issue in this case but they reached out to do it and it's kind of I think shocking and important for the three concurring justices to say that they did it in order to insulate they said this court and the petitioner that is President Trump from future controversy they also said uh the three concurring justices that um that the decision today insulates all alleged insur

rectionists from future challenges to their holding federal office and that's important Jen because you know there were 10 members of Congress actually one was a representative elect margorie Taylor green who met with Trump on December 10th and some of us have been keeping a running list of members of Congress who were involved or believed to have been involved in the plans to overturn the election Trump is not the only fish in this ocean and the Supreme Court seemed to go further a field not on

ly to protect Trump into the future but also to protect others and then of course there's the concurrence from Amy Cony Barrett the other conservative on the court who writes a kind of plaintiff very short um concurring opinion which demonstrates what she clearly had hoped for was that this court would be unanimous that the uh five members would restrain themselves from going further than the three concurring justices wanted to and that they could have spoken with one voice in a way that as she

would describe it would bring the temperature down and it's clear to me that from her concurrence she was disappointed that the five conserve other five conservative justices the five male conservative justices somehow were unable to exercise the restraint that might have resulted in a true unanimous um op judgment and opinion in this case I think this is very revealing to us about what's going on on that court I think when the historical record is written um when when uh seats are added to the

Supreme Court as they invariably will be uh this will be part of the record of what was happening um and what even justices on the court were prepared to say uh was is the overreach of the conservatives on this court so this is a decision that we expected as it relates to Mr Trump it's it's overreach is disturbing as it relates to other insurrectionists uh and as it relates to um the court encroaching on what they believe Congress must do but also it's very revealing about what is going on on th

is Supreme Court um and it's very contentious I mean when you look at how revealing this is and please disagree with me any time I I welcome your viewpoints and also I welcome your Brilliance when you look at that and we're looking because we're all waiting this this immunity case they're not going to start hearing arguments until April how do you read we can't predict what they're going to do but how do you assess or read this ruling today in terms of how they might approach cases related to Tr

ump moving forward I I I'm I'm actually this is why I'm spending so much time parsing the words of the concurring justices because I think they're they're speaking in mors code to us I think they are telling us something uh and they're telling us something that is very disturbing which is that I mean when they say it is an attempt to insulate all alleged insurrectionists that's a pretty loaded thing for fellow fellow justices to say on the court and that the court attempts to insulate itself and

the petitioner from further controversy so I think idea of reading the tea leaves as though there's any chance that this court is going to rule in a way that uh does not allow Mr Trump to go forward even the um immunity case obviously they could have decided that that case on an expedited basis as they were asked to do by Jack Smith they didn't do so they could have left intact the court of appeals decision they didn't do so uh they've created a schedule that I think is going to make things ver

y very difficult um and so I think the idea that the Supreme Court is going to be some form of Salvation here is not uh a sound one we don't have any reason to believe that but I do think that we should be independently concerned as a matter of democracy about what is breaking down on the United States Supreme Court um and that that their actions would be cast in this way by their three colleagues who um who are were United in that in that assessment of what's going on and joined not in that in

the how far that that concurrence went went but joined in the disappointment and dissatisfaction by Amy Cony Barrett who also clearly would have preferred that the court not engage in this kind of overreach that would set off this kind of fracture that means that she knows that there are legitimacy issues as well as uh Americans view what the court is doing so I think that's for me the biggest takeaway from this decision today and I think it's independently alarming and we should be paying atten

tion to that as well always read the desent that is my shorthand summary and always watch what the court is doing concurr it's a concurrence concurrence yes it concurrence in this case so you got to read it all you got to read it all thank you Cheryl and Eiffel always appreciate having you on and talking to you and hearing your brilliance