Roberts’ Lack Of Transparency Adds Fuel To A Burgeoning Constitutional Crisis
John Roberts didn’t just go out of his way yesterday to trash Trump on a purely political matter—impeachment of corrupt judges—over which Roberts has no authority.
He did it by selectively leaking his statement to left-wing corporate media outlets, lying about its nature (claiming it was only in response to press inquiries rather than a general statement), and then refusing to provide the full statement to conservative media outlets when requested, including
To date, no one knows the full extent of what Roberts and his taxpayer-funded PR agents have said, because no record of any statement from the court can be found anywhere on the Supreme Court website, a shocking breach of protocol and transparency.
Did the left-wing corporate media outlets hand-picked by Roberts to receive his political rant print it in full, or did they selectively quote it? It is impossible to know, because the Chief Justice is refusing to be transparent about what he said and who he said it to.
I have now asked the Supreme Court public information office five separate times to be provided a copy of Roberts’ full statement. I was hung up on twice, rudely told to send an email by someone who thought that was easier than just answering why the statement wasn’t on the Supreme Court’s website, and have sent multiple e-mail inquiries that have been ignored by government employees whose sole job is to respond to media inquiries.
Do these sound like the actions of an impartial jurist doing his best to defend the Constitution and the rule of law? Or does that sound like something a nakedly political partisan activist would do?
You would think an institution that nearly got two of its own members killed after a leak of its deliberations would go to great leaks to make sure all statements and records of the Court would be transparently provided to everyone at the same time, as opposed to leaking statements—and comments about them from Supreme Court PIO staff—to select news outlets for the purpose of politically shaping coverage.
You would think that, but you’d be wrong. We have known for more than a decade that John Roberts is a political schemer, not an impartial jurist. His latest anti-Trump rant—and his refusal to be honest and transparent about it—only makes his gamesmanship more obvious, and more dangerous to the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.
