Way to sugarcoat Roberts lack of action during the impeachment. He abrogated his sworn duty and sat like a lump.
Please stop expecting Roberts to have done something else other than his job. His job was to conduct the proceeding according to the rules he was given, no more and no less.
1
@James
Trouble is, he ignored every "rule he was given", allowing Republicans to treat the event with contempt, a deep lack of seriousness, and create a party atmosphere of partisanship and disrespect for the process and the American people.
Mitch's rule were ridiculous but simple, Republicans flagrantly broke every one and Roberts issued not one pathetic peep.
You're correct, that was his one meaningful responsibility and he chose to fail rather than risk confronting his masters in the party.
1
@John
"Trouble is, he ignored every "rule he was given"
Please provide proof of these sweeping statement.
So wow! Democracy is on the ropes, the fix is in with the Senate GOP, and Trump is unleashing unrestrained unconstitutional neo-fascist racist nativism on vulnerable populations who are supposed to be protected by the Constitution (but thanks to J.R. & his GOP “Gang of 5“ aren’t).
In the middle of a Constitutional crisis and a mockery of the rule of law, the Chiefie is mostly concerned with not getting his hands dirty or having the blood of the innocents he has thrown under the Trump bus splatter his pristine robes. How inspiring!
And, of course, in an existential battle between an authoritarian regime out to steamroll the Constitution and the people it was meant to protect, who would want to take sides?
But, no matter how much “flim flam,” task avoidance, immorality, inhumanity, ignorance, and legal gobbledygook the “Chiefie” and his fellow GOP Supremes spout, they HAVE taken sides. Squarely in favor of America's enemies and against the rights of the majority of Americans (who, J.R., aren’t actually corporations).
Only time will tell if it is too late for our republic to survive. But, the toxic role of J.R. & his fellow life-tenured judicial cowards who “went small” and failed those who “stood tall” (like some lower Federal Court Judges and social justice advocates) will be written large in history. No amount of hand washing or pretending will erase it!
Shame on those granted life tenure who refuse to speak truth to corrupt power!
2
I think the word best to describe the Justice is neutered, not restrained.
2
"INSULATED" you can't be serious? He is already insulated he has a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. What he did not do what his job! he was nothing but a potted plant that could read questions.
Jerry W North East Kingdom VT
Get over it liberals.
The term “Chief Justice” is now clearly an oxy-moron.
Most Americans would love to hear Roberts answer the question,”Was justice served?”
With echo’s of the OJ Trial, never has anyone so obviously guilty walked free.
How does he sleep at night ? What does he tell his children?
1
He sold out his nation. He betrayed his duty. He stripped the entire process of any legitimacy--he and McConnell between them. If America survives it will be in spite of what he did, not because of it.
Between the SC handing us Bush Jr. and Roberts handing us an entirely bogus senatorial impeachment trial, there's no reason left to place any faith in the legislative branch. We've got judges selling black kids into bondage in private prisons, forgiving rapists, and turning a blind eye to white nationalist terrorism. We've got higher courts letting states break constitutional law to promote pipelines and protect them against protest. And we've got the leader of the highest court in the land openly siding with a biased kangaroo court run by overt oath-breakers to "avoid conflict."
Correct behaviour for a Chief Justice
Impeachment is a political process, not a judicial one.
And beginning with Clinton, has morphed from what the framers saw as to an extreme emergency to a UK style vote of no confidence.
Commonly launched in the UK, when the PM is of another party than then party with a majority in parliament
I expect the same, in the future, for the US
1
I have no criticism of how the Chief Justice presided over the Senate trial. Because the proceeding was so intensely political and partisan--and a Senate trial on whether a President should be impeached should be and is a political proceeding (there was no doubt that President Clinton committed perjury, but most Senators found that criminal act involving an extramarital incident did not warrant impeachment)--he was in a no-win situation regardless of what he did. And there were no Senate votes ending in a tie.
Criticism of how the Senate conducted the trial should fall on the Senate, not the Chief Justice.
2
@Richard
You mean that Dems ignored Clinton's perjury? BTW, Clinton wasn't impeached for the tawdry affair.
@James
The Democrats did not ignore it, but concluded that perjury involving the "tawdry affair" was not worthy of impeachment.
2
@Richard
It doesn't matter the subject of perjury for it to be a crime.
Roberts was right not to engage in a highly politized impeachment trial. The Democrats were putting pressure on Roberts to call witnesses as a political maneuver to get around the advantage the GOP had over calling them. The Democrats had all the time in the world to complete their proceedings. They did not need to rush their articles of impeachment. It seemed more like a scheme to make the Senate do the House's work.
2
Chief Justice Roberts presided over a kangaroo court with no witnesses, and no documents. The American people watched and realized that the Supreme Court also does not care about the US Constitution, rule of law or the American people.
2
Roberts is appointed for life to give him independence from dubious influence. However, despite this insulation intended to produce objectivity, Roberts took the tack of avoiding any attempt to convert this sham into a search for fact. His limited objective was to follow the desires of the GOP while avoiding blatantly obvious servility. He was only slightly successful, but it was a tall order. His inaction will not sit well with history nor with the majority of Americans, but his masters will accept it as the best they could hope for.
3
Of course Roberts didn't please liberals. Anyone who doesn't toe the liberal line or get the results they want is "partisan" or an "ideologue." Roberts was appropriately neutral. We should be glad of that.
1
@J. Waddell
Good God, Jay, what are you talking about?
Administration personnel were invited, subpoenaed, approached in writing. The only thing Democrats failed (foolisdhly) to do was run all this through the courts. An inexcusable, unexplainable Pelosi lapse but not prejudicial and surely does not support your claim the House failed to subpoena testimony.
As for your "due process" complaint, this, the Senate hearing, is his due process and no one denied it but Republicans.
You fool people pressured Democrats to treat the investigation like a trial and they stupidly agreed.
The only reason the House ran its own investigation is because your puffed up fraud of an attorney general refused to appoint an independent prosecutor as was done in the Clinton impeachment you boys claim served as model, but which you ignored or contradicted in every detail.
Your team won, big boy, go gloat...enjoy. But don't be so stupid as to claim this was a process corrupted by anyone but you.
Chief Justice Roberts was the perfect chief "dunsel" at the impeachment trial. He successfully managed to bring no value to those assembled with regard to trial law and courtroom practices applicable to American citizens.
1
Chief Justice Roberts did not preside but instead in effect conspired with Senator McConnell to deliver an acquittal to Trump. He could have instead taken steps to reveal truth and uphold Constitutional values. He missed his chance to be a great American in history. After watching several hours of the impeachment trial, my conclusion is that Roberts did not measure up to the role that the Founders expected of him. We are left with a process that overturned the Revolutionary War and has appointed a king.
16
The bottom line in all of this is that an impeachment "trial" is a big deal, and, hence, should be a real trial, at least as serious as that involving, say, the selling of contraband cigarettes. The presiding Chief Justice should be empowered and be held responsible for so assuring. I suggest, perhaps too radically, that the chief objectives are Truth and Justice.
6
@StanC
Is the actual impeachment also a big deal? Because that was not treated with any sense of seriousness.
Let’s say this again: The Chief “Justice” presided over a cheap, tawdry show trial that, up to now, only happened in corrupt foreign dictatorships and would have been unthinkable for the United States.
Roberts could have intervened and demanded an actual trial that served justice instead of Trump, truth instead of lies, but he did not.
By putting his rubber stamp on this mockery, Roberts soiled the Supreme Court and betrayed his country.
Roberts’ efforts to rationalize his betrayal only serve to emphasize the stench.
15
@Chickpea You are right and that stench will be with the Supreme Court for years to come.
1
Last I checked it’s the job of the Chief Justice and senators to uphold the constitution. Roberts and every republican except Romney failed their country and betrayed the constitution.
14
"Chief Justice’s Impeachment Handbook: Determined Minimalism"…….
Could it be that John Roberts, the Chief Justice of SCOTUS is
AFRAID of Donald Trump too
Just like all - except Mitt Romney - of the Republican Senators are?……
Some Republicans had better find their patriotic backbones before it's too late - if it's not already…………
It is said that democracy when it fails will do so from within…….
Are the Republicans going to prove it correct?…..Looks like they're pulling out all the stops trying to do so……...
7
Every Republican knows intuitively that Trump is guilty but they all have an excuse for their lack of transparency and responsibilities.
7
Under the guise of “ill-defined responsibilities” Chief Justice Roberts was grossly negligent in his duty to uphold the constitution. It was judicial incompetence not judicial restraint.
10
Judicial restraint?
That's the line now?
Roberts, who was technically neutered in this process, sought cover in the explanation that while he could not affect the substance of impeachment, it is his job to enforce rules of order handed down from Senate leadership (the Mitchster).
What rules they were, intentionally both ridiculous and intimidating. A blanket threat of jail time for drinking a Coke, writing with a pen, any kind of contact with any sort of communications thingy requiring a battery (it was a paper only affair).
Stay in your seats, kids, raise your hand if you need to use the potty, no talking to the press corralled off to the side, no talking to each other, no passing notes, no gum chewing. Again: "Jail Time"...
This, the true portfolio Roberts enthusiastically used to cover his impotence on matters of substance..
Not only did Roberts fail to note repeated and emphatic assertions that fairness and a commitment to truth have nothing to do with Republicans, Roberts refused even a single time to note, let alone punish universal violations of McConnell's idiotic rules.
Senators may as well have hauled their iPhones to Roberts' dais, asked him to help figure out how send Instant Messages to the press.
Roberts is an ideologue and, honestly, something of a fool. His performance in this instance was offensive, partisan, and confirmed he is only a placeholder for bigger political boys.
His credibility, and that of his court are long since shot.
25
Roberts is Chief Justice in name only. The Supreme Court is wholly in the hands of then authoritarian GOP members beholden to Republicans. Roberts probably cannot save, or restore, the SC at this point.
15
The impeachment was a Democratic hoax with zero due process given to Trump.
Obstruction of justice based on Trump’s exercise of Executive Privilege when the House did not subpoena White House personnel?!?
No wonder the Chief Justice didn’t want to taint the Supreme Court with that garbage.
4
@Jay Peters Sad that reaching out to a foreign gov't to investigate one's political enemies and using gov't $ as hostage isn't a crime to you. But of course a fir trail with witnesses would have uncovered the truth.
5
@Jay Peters
They did subpoenaed white house personnel but trump told them not to appear. Please get your facts straight and quit watching fox.
2
@Jay Peters The problem is that you really believe what you wrote. No due process? Did you watch any of the impeachment trial? Who was it decreed that there would be no witnesses? And many subpoenas of WH personnel at the investigation stage resulted in refusals to appear or to provide documents. Those who did appear were questioned by both sides.
No it wasn't a hoax. The offense - requesting that a foreign power assist with a forthcoming election was real and the President's own words condemned him. Now you might think that's OK and you have a right to that opinion: but you do not have a right to say it didn't happen.
Roberts gets no credit here. His single attempt at something material was to chastise Nadler for ... calling liars Sekulo and Cippolone or whatever the spelling is exactly what they indisputably are - liars.
15
He was a good model for further impeachments and there are a lot of those coming now that the Democrats have obliterated any minimal standards.
5
@JQGALT
So trying to get a foreign country to investigate a political opponent and then obstructiing Congress is okay? Please remember republicans started investigating Clinton and 4 years later they found out he had a sexual relationship that was consensual. I think we can say republicans "obliterated" any standard at all for impeachment .
2
The Chief Justice did a spectacular job in remaining low key and managing the proceedings in a nonpartisan manner. Kudos, especially, for handling Elizabeth Warren’s cheap shot without comment. Our democracy is not well served by partisans disrespecting the judiciary.
5
@Mary: The judiciary should be disrespected in this case. Roberts did nothing but enable the Republican criminals in their flouting of our laws. What a disgrace.
1
Roberts helped found the Royalist Party with his decision in Citizens United. Now we have King Donald I and his Chief of Staff Lord McConnell. When and where will our Lexington Bridge occur?
16
The Constitution calls on the Chief Justice to preside. That's it. His actions were little more than clerical - reading questions, keeping the clock, and checking the jury count. Pathetic. Every judge in every court in the country has a better notion of his or her function in presiding and Roberts fell well short of any semblance of an attempt to ensure that justice, however flawed a concept, was done. I don't blame Roberts for the result which was preordained, but he had, I think, a duty to see that as much of the truth as possible could be presented to the voters who would, in the end, judge this president and the senators who participated in the show 'trial.'
6
Your job as Cheif Justice is to uphold the constitution. For that matter, it is the job of everyone in government to uphold the branches and institutions that keep us from being controlled by an autocracy. Robert's had a critical role that I do not envy but he still had a critical role. The different branches are there to check one another in the event corruption. Robert's, by choosing to keep his head down, failed in his role and failed the constitution and the laws of our land. As a Supreme court justice, as a civil servant, it's not wrong to expect more.
23
Justice Roberts was in the wrong on this one. We have three branches of government; executive, legislative and judicial. The founders chose to include all three. In what reasoning should the judicial branch sit with hands folded and not use their judicial power to ensure a fair and complete trial? He could have instructed them to present witnesses for both sides while limiting the number. The outcome may have been the same, but the American people would gotten a clear picture of their elected leaders.
Blue wave 2020!
8
Robert's performance was just what the Republican party told him to do. Sorry, but after the terrible decisions his court has made to help the Republicans tear down democracy he needs to have his title "justice" in quotes. This is what happens when a political party packs the court with its party operatives.
10
The only way that I can accept the way Honorable Justice John Roberts Jr. presided over this irregular impeachment trial would be if it had and most likely would have consequences towards his deliberations and ability to continue as Chief Justice. I, like many, felt that he should have possibly interjected several times but that was because of my hunger to see this alleged corrupt man-Trump convicted, I would have liked to see more decorum and the Republican Senate and Trump Attorney's chastised for illegal use of technology, not being attentive by leaving Chambers too often not due to personal human functions, but more, so that they could report to both the Whitehouse and to the Trump favorable media. I do however understand that should he have decided to rule on any challenges first, it would have been overruled by both McConnell and Senators, secondly, it would have made it awkward as it would present a possible conflict of interest in regards to whatever decisions he would in the future rule on that could pertain to court filings involving the Trump Administration, Organization and any further Trump family involvement. So, as much as it may sting, Judge Roberts did the Very Best he could in order to keep not only his integrity but the Supreme Court's integrity intact in order to keep this one institution that for the time being still stands as the Highest Judgement based on Law and the Constitution. So far the Supreme Court has sadly come close to being sullied by Trump.
3
Roberts's minimalist approach to presiding over the trial made me wonder: what's the point of his being there? If he's not ruling on evidence or insisting that the norms of a trial be followed (witnesses called; jurors required to stay in the room; actual cross-examination), then he's just a prop. We don't really need the *Chief Justice* to read questions, follow the parliamentarian's script, and sit there, looking grim. *Anyone* could do that. Surely, the Constitution expected more here.
10
The Chief Justice handled a difficult task perfectly- I would call it somber attachment. Bravo.
4
Roberts said, in the event of a tie
"the normal rule is that the motion fails"
This is normal?
The end of checks and balances is normal?
Not having witnesses to the the abject corruption, perpetrated by a president, is normal?
Isn't this America anymore? Instead of "Hail to the Chief"
They should play a Funeral Dirge before the liar speaks.
7
@Getreal
Yes, only the Senate gets to decide and he’s not a senator. He doesn’t get to cast the tiebreaker vote.
1
@JQGALT
No cigar ! The chief justice would not be casting a "vote".
A tie is a tie.
Which way should it go? Towards Liberty and Justice ? or towards obstruction and muzzling witnesses ?
3
Yes, that a tie vote fails to pass a motion has been the norm in practice dating to the Roman Senate. Were it not so, an equally divided body would have both sides flooding it with motions, since the first to be voted upon on a particular issue would win, not because it had majority support, which is at least tenable in a democracy, but because it had been filed first, like some Gold Rush claim.
I don't want things decided by a rush to the claims office (clerk); do you?
1
It should be noted that the members of the body were elected by the people. Sort of. The 53 Republicans were elected by 12 million of them. The other members received 18 million votes whose wishes went mainly unrepresented.
9
Take it up with the Founders, please. The rest of us have plenty to do just working with their framework.
Do you seriously think there would have been a federal government in 1789 without the House of Unrepresentativeness (the Senate)? Has our educational system failed so badly that people think the Founders just had an off day when they created the Senate, or worse?
1
Senator Warren’s comments are particularly disturbing in all of this. Regardless of one’s view of impeachment, a candidate seeking to impugn SCOTUS simply to support one’s own political view, is not the sort of leader the US needs right now as President.
5
@LTJ - the Republican majority court impugns itself with its decisions helping Republicans destroy democracy.
6
The last thing he wanted was a confrontation with the right wing or the president. trump believes he has the chief justice in his pocket and he may be right.
26
So Lisa Murkowski cared more about the Chief Justice than the issue at hand which was to call witnesses who would shed light on truth and.
Got it Lisa Murkowski! you really did not care about the truth, you put party before; country constitution and duty. Noted.
31
Mr. Liptak, I wish someone would call attention to and write about the senators behavior during the impeachment trial: specifically why senators who left during any testimony were allowed to vote. I defy any juror in a court trial to leave the premises during a trial let alone come back and be part of the jury vote! The fact that senators were not mandated to sit in their seats and listen to ALL testimony is simply inexplicable. If Justice Roberts was doing his job at all, he would have announced in the beginning: "If you leave your seat during anything but authorized breaks, you may return but you permanently lose your right to vote on this impeachment." As a Florida lawyer, I am totally confused by senators being able to leave and return and still get to vote. I won't even go into how I feel about a trial where the accused can present no evidence as to innocence and further forbid individuals from testifying without being found guilty. Trump has made a mockery of all our democratic systems and our legislature is allowing it to happen. What does the future hold for law-abiding citizens?
33
@Janice Fleischer Excellent point, and comment. How about McConnell, admitting, even boasting, before the Senate, “trial,“ publicly stating that he would be, “working with the Presidents lawyers,” to acquit? Would anyone be allowed on any jury with such a predisposition? Not to mention the optics of this sham trial that always works in favor of the Republican anti-government narrative. Where, was Roberts, “the presiding judge”? He was clearly the referee at the plate, waving the Republicans across.
1