President Biden formally unveiled plans for an overhaul of the Supreme Court on Friday, apparently with an eye toward limiting the power of former President Donald Trump if he succeeds him.
The commander in chief took the unusual step of announcing a major policy move in a newspaper editorial, and The Washington Post kindly informed its readers that “the writer is the President of the United States.”
The president said the Supreme Court is “in the midst of an ethical crisis” and laid out three major reform proposals for the court, including term limits and a binding code of conduct.
But the main focus was the court’s recent decision to grant President Trump broad immunity for any crimes he committed while in office.
“This country was founded on a simple yet profound principle: No one is above the law — not the President of the United States, not the Justices of the United States Supreme Court, not anyone,” Biden wrote.
“But the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision on July 1 granting the president broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed while in office means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do.
“The only limitations will be those imposed by the person in the Oval Office.”
He made it clear he was wary of Trump returning to the presidency, writing that “if a future president incites a violent mob similar to that seen on January 6, 2021, to storm the Capitol and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power, there may be no legal consequences.”
In addition to the so-called “no one is above the law” amendment, Biden has proposed term limits for Supreme Court justices, allowing the president to appoint new justices every two years and allowing them to serve on the court for 18 years.
Biden also called for the Supreme Court to establish a binding code of conduct, writing that the court’s current voluntary ethics code is “weak and self-enforcing.”
“Judges should be required to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest. All other federal judges are bound by enforceable codes of conduct, and there is no reason why the Supreme Court should be exempt,” he wrote.
He argued that a “vast majority” of Americans support these reforms, which would help prevent abuse of presidential power.
“Abuses of presidential power can and must be stopped. We can and must restore public faith in the Supreme Court. We can and must strengthen the guardrails of our democracy,” Biden wrote.
Biden ended his op-ed with this statement: “In America, no one is above the law. In America, the people rule.”
