Trump's Supreme Court Seat: The Art of the Steal

Did U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy’s sudden resignation June 27 stem from corrupt motives?

That question looms even as most court watchers focus on the conventional analysis of predicting the nominee’s identity and confirmation chances.  President Trump (shown above in a file photo with the retiring justice) plans to announce his nominee for Kennedy’s seat at 9 p.m. (EDT) on Monday, July 9. 

No matter what hoopla, drama and distraction Trump is planning, the possibility of Deep State corruption deserves our attention — and as thorough an investigation as society’s (mostly) timid and toothless watchdogs can muster.

That’s particularly so when the high stakes involve a potential ultra-right court majority likely to protect the current president and his cronies from an ongoing corruption probe, with all of this facilitated by hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious money disbursed among the current players.

That kind of attack on democracy by corrupt elites, one of the definitions of a “Deep State,” is as bad or worse than the court rulings and precedents that a new justice may help create. The intrigue is heightened because Republicans arguably “stole” a seat — and their current majority — by failing to schedule hearings on any Democratic nominee during the last year of President Obama’s second term.

Suspicions of the process not seen in many years arise in part because of the vast financial transitions between Deutsche Bank and LNR Property,. entities associated with the Trump and Kennedy families, as well as the clear-cut benefit for Republicans and Trump by rousing their base with a new court appointment before the mid-term congressional elections in November. Kennedy had already hired court clerks for the coming term, suggesting that he did not expect to retire until recently.

Trump could also benefit in rulings from a younger and more partisan justice than Kennedy on what are likely to be increasingly serious legal actions by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III against Trump Administration players.

On Monday, Republican Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife Virginia (shown in a Gage Skidmore photo) showed yet again her side’s utter contempt non-partisan judicial norms when she used her Twitter feed to defend U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan from accusations that Jordan had helped enable gay pedophilia when he was Ohio State’s assistant wrestling coach.

Jordan, an Ohio Freedom Caucus leader running to become House Speaker, is one of Trump’s major GOP defenders against the corruption probe by Special Counsel Robert Mueller III. Virginia “Ginni” Thomas is a longtime hard-right Republican activist who years ago showed her corrupt proclivities (See the 2011 Los Angeles Times blockbuster, Clarence Thomas failed to report wife’s income, watchdog says) by trying to start a consulting business in advance of her husband’s (and Kennedy’s) vote to destroy the nation’s federal campaign financing system in the all-Republican 5-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision.

Kennedy has been part of such presidential puppetry before, most obviously with his vote in the 5-4 Bush-v. Gore decision in 2000 that stopped that year’s presidential vote recount in Florida. With court precedent to anyone but ultra-right partisans, Kennedy thus awarded the U.S. presidency (by an unprecedented court fiat enacted exclusively by Republicans) to GOP nominee George W. Bush, thus altering American history in enduring ways. 

With that background, we explore more fully below the suspicious activity between the Trump and Kennedy families in this sequel to New GOP High Court Threatens Massive Public Pain, our previous analysis of recent court decisions and the potential civic harms stemming from Kennedy’s resignation.