From moderate to manipulator: Behind the unmasking of Chief Justice John Roberts

WASHINGTON — John Roberts may have a robe. New illustrious, behind-the-scenes reporting from the New York Times reveals Roberts personally directed the court’s three historic Jan. 6, 2021 rulings, including the one granting presidents sweeping immunity from criminal prosecution for their “official acts.” Democrats are now redoubling their efforts to make the high court a centerpiece of this year’s elections as they continue their uphill battle to pass meaningful ethics reforms to try and rein the high court in. “Chief Justice Roberts exudes much more of an establishment aura about him, but he really has been a crucial force behind the degradation of constitutional jurisprudence on the Supreme Court,” Rep, Jamie Raskin — a Constitutional lawyer and law professor by trade — told Raw Story after digesting the illuminating new reporting. “If you go back and look at the most anti-democratic decisions of the Supreme Court — the immunity decision being one, but the little array of insurrection decisions, of which it was a part of in the threesome that's in this article — you see a lot of backstage maneuvering by the chief justice,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told Raw Story as he walked through the basement of the Capitol. “It reminds me of the backstage maneuvering by the chief justice that brought us Citizens United.” The former Rhode Island attorney general and U.S. attorney is the second highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee where he’s been pushing the SCERT — or Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal and Transparency — Act, which would place a binding code of conduct and mandatory disclosure requirements on the justices.