Avoiding showmanship amid a partisan melee, Chief Justice John Roberts will thrive at President Trump’s impeachment trial.
Although Roberts will wish that he did not have to participate in such an overtly political activity, he will recognize the opportunity and responsibility he has to represent the judicial branch. An institution, he fervently believes, that must not descend into the rancorous sensationalism that now defines the other two branches of government.
Deeply committed to the judiciary’s foundation as an apolitical institution, Roberts has publicly defended the federal courts in the face of two presidential attacks.
The first defense came after President Barack Obama’s 2010 State of the Union attack on the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, allowing unlimited private donations to political action committees. As the justices sat mute while Obama attacked their ruling (aside from Samuel Alito, who muttered “not true”), the Democratic-controlled chamber roared. This brought Roberts’s delayed but unambiguous dispute.
“The image of having the members of one branch of government standing up, literally surrounding the Supreme Court, cheering and hollering while the court, according to the requirements of protocol, has to sit there expressionless, I think is very troubling.” Roberts continued, “It does cause you to think whether or not it makes sense for us to be there, to the extent the State of the Union address has degenerated into a political pep rally, I’m not sure why we’re there.”
In November 2018, when Trump attacked a federal judge for being an “Obama judge,” Roberts challenged Obama’s successor. The judiciary, Roberts said, is made up of judges attempting to do their best for those present before them. It was telling of Roberts’s sense of his role that the conservative-minded judge felt it necessary to risk Trump’s ire.
Yet Roberts’s ultimate concern here is to ensure that the judiciary is both insulated from politics as far as can be arranged and defined by a baseline of civility. We can also see Roberts’s apolitical interest in the Supreme Court’s reluctance to hear appeals on issues that reach most closely to contemporary political debates.
In turn, as he presides over Trump’s impeachment trial, Roberts will also recognize that it is not a trial per se. Instead, it is the presentation of a trial as a means for two competing parties to advance their political interests. Selecting partisan figures such as Adam Schiff and Alan Dershowitz to play leading roles in making their arguments, both Democrats and Republicans have shown their first priority is the mobilization of their bases. This will be a rambunctious affair with little attention for politeness.
So expect three things from the chief justice this week: few interruptions, a determination against perceivable bias, and no shows of obvious emotion.
