Congressional Dems blast ruling on Trump immunity: ‘Extreme right-wing Supreme Court’

Democratic lawmakers lamented the conservative majority Supreme Court's decision on Monday, granting presidents limited immunity for actions in their official capacity. 

"This is a sad day for America and a sad day for our democracy," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote on X. "The very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law."

"Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president," he continued. 

SCOTUS RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION FOR OFFICIAL ACTS IN IMMUNITY CASE

The court ruled on Monday that former presidents have substantial immunity from prosecution when it comes to official acts while they are in office, but this does not extend to unofficial acts. The ruling was decided 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts authoring the majority opinion.

"The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official," he wrote. 

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., said she would introduce articles of impeachment over the decision, though she did not specify which justices she would target.

"The Supreme Court has become consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control. Today’s ruling represents an assault on American democracy. It is up to Congress to defend our nation from this authoritarian capture. I intend on filing articles of impeachment upon our return," Ocasio-Cortez said on X.

Minutes later, fellow progressive Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, responded, "Count me in."

Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., claimed in a statement, "This Court has lost all credibility—made painfully clear by the fact that Justice Thomas and Justice Alito refused to recuse themselves from this case despite their glaring lack of impartiality."

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The Vermont lawmaker has been an advocate of ethical reform for the nation's highest court. 

The ruling sets a "dangerous precedent," House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said in a statement. "House Democrats will engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution," he added. 

Congressional Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., called the ruling "shocking."

"The extreme right-wing Supreme Court just drastically weakened accountability if a president attempts to use their office for criminal purposes. It’s a disastrous ruling that could have grave effects on our democracy," she claimed. 

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Another strong advocate for ethics reform, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote on X, "My stomach turns with fear & anger that our democracy can be so endangered by an out-of-control Court."

"The members of Court’s conservative majority will now be rightly perceived by the American people as extreme & nakedly partisan hacks—politicians in robes," he said. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., claimed the Supreme Court had gone "rogue" in its decision-making. "The former president’s claim of total presidential immunity is an insult to the vision of our founders, who declared independence from a King," she said in a statement. 

Democrats in Congress were quick to point out that three of the justices were appointed by former President Trump. According to Schumer, the decision on immunity, handed down by the court's conservatives, "suggests political influence trumps all in our courts today."

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"He appointed 3 extreme judges and is now exploiting the powers of the president in ways that were once unthinkable. The court can no longer be counted on to defend the constitution," said Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif. 

Vulnerable Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin avoided opining on the ruling itself, but bashed the Supreme Court in general on X. "Reminder: Republicans and this activist Supreme Court are responsible for stripping away women’s reproductive rights and they aren’t done attacking our freedoms. My Women’s Health Protection Act would restore these rights everywhere across the country. Let’s pass it," she wrote. 

House Judiciary sues Garland for Biden audio that Hur says shows him as ‘elderly man with a poor memory’

The House Judiciary Committee is suing Attorney General Merrick Garland to obtain recordings of President Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur.

The committee, as part of the lawsuit filed Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, stressed the importance of the "verbal and nonverbal context" of Biden's answers that could be provided by the audio recordings – especially considering that Hur opted against charging Biden after the interview, in part, because he was viewed as "a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory." 

DOJ WON'T PROSECUTE AG GARLAND FOR CONTEMPT FOR REFUSAL TO TURN OVER AUDIO FROM BIDEN, HUR INTERVIEW

The lawsuit comes amid chaos in the Democratic Party as leaders consider whether Biden should continue with his re-election campaign after the president’s widely panned debate performance last week.

The committee, in its lawsuit, says the president’s invocation of executive privilege over the materials "lacks any merit," and it asks the court to overrule that assertion of privilege. 

"This dispute is about a frivolous assertion of executive privilege," the lawsuit states. 

As part of the House impeachment inquiry against the president, the committee issued a subpoena to Garland to obtain records related to Hur’s investigation of Biden’s alleged mishandling of classified records. The committee sought materials related to Hur’s interviews with Biden and Mark Zwonitzer, the ghostwriter of Biden’s 2017 memoir. 

The Justice Department has provided the committee with transcripts of those interviews, but Garland "has refused to produce the audio recordings of the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer." 

"Instead, Attorney General Garland asked that President Biden assert executive privilege over those recordings, and President Biden complied with that request," the lawsuit states. 

The committee argues that audio recordings "are better evidence than transcripts of what happened during the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer." 

"For example, they contain verbal and nonverbal context that is missing from a cold transcript," the committee states. "That verbal and nonverbal context is quite important here because the Special Counsel relied on the way that President Biden presented himself during their interview – ‘as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory’ – when ultimately recommending that President Biden should not be prosecuted for unlawfully retaining and disclosing classified information."

The committee argued that the audio recordings – not merely the transcripts of them – are "the best available evidence of how President Biden presented himself during the interview." 

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"The Committee thus needs those recordings to assess the Special Counsel’s characterization of the President, which he and White House lawyers have forcefully disputed, and ultimate recommendation that President Biden should not be prosecuted," the suit states. 

The committee said Biden’s "self-serving attempt to shield the audio recording" of his interview from the public "represents an astonishing effort to expand the scope of executive privilege from a constitutional privilege safeguarding certain substantive communications to an amorphous privilege that can be molded to protect things like voice, inflection, tone and pace of speech." 

The committee also noted that the transcript of the interview was made public, which essentially "waived" executive privilege." 

"Additionally, the heart of the privilege claim – that Executive Branch employees will be less likely to cooperate with DOJ investigations if they know that audio recordings of their interviews may be released to Congress after DOJ has made transcripts of those same interviews publicly available – is at odds with common sense," the lawsuit states. 

"If the potential for disclosure would chill cooperation, it would be the disclosure of a transcript, which DOJ voluntarily disclosed here, not the disclosure of audio recordings after the transcripts are widely available," the lawsuit states. 

The committee argued that because of this, Biden’s invocation of executive privilege "lacks any merit." 

"The Committee therefore asks this court to overrule the assertion of executive privilege and order that Attorney General Garland produce the audio recordings of the Special Counsel’s interviews with President Biden and Mr. Zwonitzer to the committee," the lawsuit states. 

The lawsuit comes just weeks after the House of Representatives voted to hold Garland in contempt of Congress, referring him for criminal charges over defying the congressional subpoenas for the audio recordings.

The Justice Department, though, said it would not prosecute Garland. 

"Consistent with this longstanding position and uniform practice, the Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the committees did not constitute a crime, and accordingly the Department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the Attorney General," Assistant Attorney General Carlos Felipe Uriarte told House Speaker Mike Johnson in a letter last month. 

Hur, who released his report to the public in February after months of investigation, did not recommend criminal charges against Biden for mishandling and retaining classified documents, and he stated that he would not bring charges against Biden even if he were not in the Oval Office. 

Those records included classified documents about military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other countries, among other records related to national security and foreign policy, which Hur said implicated "sensitive intelligence sources and methods."

Olbermann leads left-wing meltdown against CNN, calling to ‘burn it down’ after Biden’s performance

Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann led liberal outrage toward CNN, calling for the network to be "burn[ed] down," after its moderators otherwise received praise over its forum between President Biden and former President Trump.

While bipartisan voices lauded moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, Olbermann and other Biden loyalists appeared to take their outrage at the president’s performance out on the moderators and network.

"No audience, no moderators, no journalism," Olbermann fumed as he opened the latest episode of his "Countdown" podcast.

Olbermann called what he characterized as the refusal to "fact-check" former President Trump one of the most "immoral decisions" in the history of American journalism.

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"Literally, I am suggesting that at some point tonight CNN should -- it will not -- go off the air in shame, fire everybody, seal off the buildings, make sure everybody's out, and burn the Godd--- place to the ground," the onetime ESPN anchor added.

Olbermann lashed out at CNN Worldwide CEO Sir Mark Thompson and called for Bash and Tapper to be "fired for journalistic malpractice" for how the debate went on.

In an interview Friday, Pennsylvania Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro – a Biden campaign surrogate – also criticized the network directly to anchor John Berman’s face.

"Frankly, I think CNN could have a done a better job in calling [Trump's] lies out," Shapiro said while admitting Biden had a rough night.

"I’ll be the first to admit that…," Shapiro said, while adding that Biden’s "bad night" is less egregious than Trump being a "bad president."

Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., one of Trump’s staunchest critics who served as Democratic counsel during his impeachment, claimed CNN did not properly push back when the Republican "blatantly mischaracteriz[ed] the disaster that was his presidency."

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"He intimidated your network," Goldman told CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.

Former Playboy White House correspondent Brian Karem, a columnist at Salon who was known for his outbursts in the briefing room during Trump’s tenure, also took aim at Bash and Tapper.

"The biggest sin was the fact that the moderators failed to moderate the debate. A complete abdication of journalistic responsibility," Karem said, according to the Daily Mail.

Stephanie Winston Wolkoff – a former top adviser-turned-critic of former first lady Melania Trump who wrote a "tell-all" about her former boss – criticized CNN's lighting during the debate.

Wolkoff claimed on X that the network's choice of framing and lighting design conveyed "intended perceptions of fragility vs. dominance in visual composition."

"Biden was filmed in profile, looking pale as a ghost. Trump was filmed straight on, not looking his usual shade of tangerine, but more like marmalade," she said. 

"Biden is a man of honor, integrity, resilience, and resolve."

Meanwhile, liberal actor John Cusack claimed CNN was letting a "deranged liar lie with no consequences," adding on X that "this is the end, my beautiful friends."

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In a statement, CNN pointed to the aforementioned bipartisan praise, citing quotes from Republicans, Democrats and Fox News talent Sean Hannity and Charlie Gasparino, defending its debate production.

"The role of the moderators is to present the candidates with questions that are important to American voters and to facilitate a debate, enabling candidates to make their case and challenge their opponent," a CNN spokesperson said.

"It is up to the candidates to challenge one another in a debate. CNN offered robust fact-checking coverage in post-debate analysis on TV and across our digital platforms during and following the debate’s conclusion."