As New Year’s Eve traditions go, this one is pretty tame. At 6 p.m., exactly when one might release news if the goal is the smallest possible audience, Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts delivered his annual report on the state of the federal judiciary.
The previous 12 months had certainly been consequential. A flag flown by insurrectionists at the Capitol flew before the home of Justice Samuel Alito, who then refused to recuse himself from cases involving Jan. 6. Clarence Thomas acknowledged that he should have reported luxury vacations gifted to him by a billionaire, which several legal experts suggested could have run afoul of the law. Roberts himself slow-walked a case involving charges against Trump for January 6, then in a stunningly awful decision, awarded him absolute immunity for prosecution for “official acts.” He greased his path back to power complete with a get-out-of-jail-free card.
