Anand Giridharadas: If you look at figures on the Supreme Court, who I’m sure at least at one point you’ve had respect for — maybe you still have respect for them — who now say things like, hold things like, Donald Trump can do whatever he wants as president and there can never be consequence, I wonder which of those situations you think they are more likely to be in: Do you think they’re essentially scared? Do you think they are essentially scared of Donald Trump and not operating on principle any more because they are afraid in a very practical sense? Or do you think they have had a moral and philosophical change of heart that almost takes them a 180 degrees around from how you would see the impunities of an American president?

Judge Michael Luttig: I know, not just in my heart, but far more importantly I know that as a matter of constitutional law — constitutional law over the past 250 years — and as a matter of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, that those persons who have voted and written differently in both Trump against the United States, giving the president of the United States, Donald Trump, essentially absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, and the same different panel of the Supreme Court that held that Donald Trump was not disqualified from holding office under the Fourteenth Ammendment, I know, under the constitution and the laws of the United States that those justices were mistaken.

Anand Giridharadas: But what I’m asking is, do you think they know better and are too scared or do you think they’ve actually changed their mind?

Judge Michael Luttig: [Following a judicious and measured pause] Neither.

Anand Giridharadas: So what do you think it is?

Judge Michael Luttig: They’re not scared, nor have they changed their mind, Anand.

Anand Giridharadas: So then what is it?

Judge Michael Luttig: I don’t know.

In The Atlantic, Luttig writes:

For the almost 250 years since the founding of this nation, America has been the beacon of freedom to the world because of its democracy and rule of law. Our system of checks and balances has been strained before, but democracy—government by the people—and the rule of law have always won the day. Until now, that is. America will never again be that same beacon to the world, because the president of the United States has subverted America’s democracy and corrupted its rule of law.

Trump’s corruption of the rule of law could have been and still could be resisted and even prevented by the Supreme Court. But since Littig is emphatic in asserting that this failure by the court can be attributed to neither fear nor changed views, the corruption that he points to surely includes the court itself.

As a judge and as a personal friend of Chief Justice Roberts, Luttig sounds like he’s pulling his punch when he says “I don’t know.” Moreover, he may reasonably feel that for him to damn the court with this label corruption would be to close the door on any possible influence with Roberts or any of the other conservative justices. Still, my sense is that this is where he is pointing.

Now, through the court’s latest order green-lighting the resumption of Trump’s campaign of destruction across the federal government, it’s clear that there is no longer any semblance of a separation of powers.

Trump owns the Supreme Court and its six conservative justices, of their own volition, have turned themselves into his lapdogs.