A newly released email from WikiLeaks is showing that progressives worked to "scare" Chief Justice John Roberts into his vote to uphold Obamacare's individual mandate provision in 2012's National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius decision.
The June 2015 email from Neera Tanden, the President of Center for American Progress, discusses strategies for the forthcoming King v. Burwell decision for Hillary's campaign.
"It is most likely that this decision has already been made by the Court, but on the off chance that history is repeating itself, then it's possible they are still deciding (last time, seems like Roberts went from striking the mandate to supporting it in the weeks before)," Tanden wrote to Jennifer Palmieri and John Podesta. "As Jennifer will remember, it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court, warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off."
In the email, Tanden suggests that Hillary Clinton employ similar scare-tactics in the case of King v. Burwell in which the court eventually decided to ignore the plain language of the law in favor of an interpretation "that is compatible with the rest of the law."
"I'm not arguing that Hillary spend a lot of time attacking the Court." Tanden explained. "I do think it would be very helpful to all of our interest in a decision affirming the law, for Roberts and perhaps Kennedy to see negative political consequences to ruling against the government."
The level of irony here is off the charts. The president warns Justice Roberts against politicizing the court by deciding against the Obamacare mandate, while behind the scenes, leftists like Neera Tanden freely admit that politicizing the court and it's decision is exactly what they hope to do.
YES
He should be allowed to step-down voluntarily.
If he refuses, he should then be removed.
In a perfect world, he probably should be, but I don’t think it would be successful, and if it wasn’t, what chance would there be that Roberts, with his lifetime appointment, would continue to side with the party that tried to impeach him?
One of those situations where, if you are going to try it, you had damn well better be sure you will succeed.
If you are for impeaching justices, how about impeaching the three liberal trolls?
Bah! I’m all for impeaching a Justice (a punishment that’s never used loses it’s effect).
Political pressure is nothing to Roberts, or any Justice.
Obamacare IS a tax.
It would be nice to impeach him and the other non conservative Justices. But, on the other hand it is not going to happen so spend your capitol on something that we can do.
HIM, THE ‘WISE LATINA’, THE BULL DYKE, AND RUTH BUZZI.
He’s in line behind Ginsberg (moving to NZ), La Raza Sotomayor, Kagen. Breyer, and Kennedy.
As bad as he is, he’s still the 3rd best one we have left.
Only if Zero hS compromised him.
Being a bonehead is not an impeachable offense.
YES!
Get a grip, man. We have a lot more important things to worry about.
YES
But I don’t see how Congress can remove a House-impeached Roberts from office. This is because, even after four election cycles, enough elections to have hypothetically replaced 133% of the Senate by now, low-information patriots have still secured nothing more than a lame duck Senate majority which is not enough to remove anybody from office.
But maybe Trump could find a way to pressure state sovereignty-ignoring activist justices to resign.
Corrections, insights welcome.
What is the process for impeaching a Supreme Court justice?
Fine, but put in a solid Scalia replacement first. Don’t give the left a stretch of a 4-3 majority while replacing Roberts.
Yes.
YES.
Roberts, Kennedy, Ginsburg, Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan for bringing disrepute upon the court.
We should be more concerned about the extreme liberals on SCOTUS.
Impeachment is a valid check on the extraConstitutional actions of the Court.