Every year, Chief Justice John Roberts sits down and pens a little newsletter to the nation about the big issues facing the judiciary and manages to blow it every single time. Whether he’s rambling about typewriter history or spinning Thomas Paine fan-fiction, the Chief reliably provides a warmed over Christmas card letter of vapid meditations while the world burns.
Now he’s gone and gotten a Substack.
Well, not exactly. Roberts contributed an essay on William Howard Taft to In Pursuit, a “debrief” of the American experiment on the occasion of its 250th birthday. A mostly rosy look at the national journey from “divided government” to “go ahead and send SEAL Team 6 to murder your rivals.” Presumably, the curators of this project asked Roberts to write about the former chief justice who inspires him most and then scrambled when he turned in a draft about Taft instead of Roger Taney.
The essay is, by and large, a Wikipedia history of the 27th president-cum-10th chief justice. He hailed from Ohio, he was president, he lost in a three-way fight with Teddy Roosevelt, he sat on the Supreme Court. It’s an unintentionally fitting reminder that the conservative legal movement believes in rooting its decisions in history while simultaneously displaying a superficial grasp of the subject. Roberts spends more effort buttering up Taft than staffers did trying to get him out of a bathtub.
In fairness, Roberts alludes to this by mentioning Taft’s White House weight gain, and eventual slimming before joining the Court. Sort of buries the best part though.
But what the essay lacks in insight, it makes up for with pointed remarks. The In Pursuit series explicitly instructed contributors to keep it non-partisan, but they didn’t say anything about using the essays to hype yourself:
To be sure, Taft opinions are few and far between in modern constitutional law casebooks. A notable exception is Myers v. United States, which upheld a President’s power to remove executive branch officials.
Six weeks ago, Roberts personally used Trump v. Slaughter to expand the power of presidents to haphazardly remove — not only executive officials — but officers serving in independent agencies under statutes with explicit checks against removal. At the time, Roberts called Myers a “landmark decision” and “perhaps our best word on the subject.” In reality, Myers was a radical departure from established law at the time, and that’s why it got swatted back by Humphrey’s Executor a few years later. Roberts took the occasion of honoring Taft to slide in a plug for his decision to kick down a load-bearing pillar of federal governance based on a decision that didn’t last a decade.
Of note, Roberts does not use this essay’s lionization of Myers to explain why it would magically exclude the Federal Reserve from its “best word on the subject.” Roberts tried and failed to explain that distinction himself when he issued the directly contradictory Slaughter and Cook opinions on the same day.
Ironically, the In Pursuit project is being quarterbacked by Colleen Shogan, who is only doing this because Trump fired her as Archivist of the United States in February 2025. That role does not have the protections on paper that either Slaughter or Cook enjoyed, but Congress DID see fit to require under 44 U.S.C. § 2103 that the President “shall communicate the reasons for any such removal to each House of the Congress.” Just send Congress a memo. That’s it.
Eighteen months and several professional-association letters later, he still hasn’t.
The enhanced prestige of the Court contributed to the ability of future Chief Justices to stave off challenges to its authority, such as the court packing plan and resistance to its landmark civil rights rulings.
Except, the court packing plan worked. The “switch in time” Court surrendered and the bill died after the capitulation was complete. As for the “resistance to its landmark civil rights rulings,” that does describe the Court’s battle against Southern governors in 1957. It also very much describes Shelby County and Callais. The essay half-hopes some Sorkin-pilled West Wing liberal reads it and decides that objecting to justices taking luxury vacations from litigants puts them on the wrong side of Brown. I’m not sure that person exists.
Taft operated within the system, acting only where he found authorization under the Constitution. Roosevelt, by contrast, saw himself as a direct representative of the people, pushing ahead where he sensed a mandate, even if his actions bumped up against or maybe even beyond the powers of the Executive under the Constitution.
Ah. Perhaps Teddy should have declared his actions as “official acts” because I hear that automatically makes it legal.
Roberts praises Taft’s post-presidency book Popular Government as “a defense of presidential self-restraint and a critique of excessive use of executive muscle as an end run around the Constitutional design.” It’s hard to read this as anything but wishcasting constitutional order. It’s not that he and his fellow traveler jurists agree with facilitating Trump’s abuses — or so he desperately hopes we believe — it’s that presidents require sweeping, nearly unchecked power so history can properly bestow brownie points when they show self-restraint.
In an essay sprinkled with gratuitous references to his own legacy, this unintentionally might be the most telling and frightening. While the Framers sought to build institutions to guard against a venal man capturing an imperial presidency, Roberts knocks those guardrails down in favor of a sort of ritualistic presidential asceticism. Like he envisions the American experiment as a string of presidents on a hero’s journey that only properly reveals their moral worth if the temptations are maximized.
Sometimes that creates a great statesman. Sometimes it lands the Chief Justice in the cuck chair.
Earlier: Supreme Court Slaughters FTC, Lets Federal Reserve Cook
Chief Justice Roberts Explains Why Thomas Paine Would LOVE Presidential Immunity And Troops Patrolling Streets, Actually
John Roberts Once Again Uses Judiciary’s Annual Report To Express His Utmost Contempt For The Public
John Roberts Dismayed Public Sees Supreme Court As ‘Political Actors’ Just Because They’re Political Actors
Chief Justice Roberts, Welcome To The Cuck Chair
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post John Roberts Uses William Howard Taft To Defend His Own Record, Fails appeared first on Above the Law.
Every year, Chief Justice John Roberts sits down and pens a little newsletter to the nation about the big issues facing the judiciary and manages to blow it every single time. Whether he’s rambling about typewriter history or spinning Thomas Paine fan-fiction, the Chief reliably provides a warmed over Christmas card letter of vapid meditations while the world burns.
Now he’s gone and gotten a Substack.
Well, not exactly. Roberts contributed an essay on William Howard Taft to In Pursuit, a “debrief” of the American experiment on the occasion of its 250th birthday. A mostly rosy look at the national journey from “divided government” to “go ahead and send SEAL Team 6 to murder your rivals.” Presumably, the curators of this project asked Roberts to write about the former chief justice who inspires him most and then scrambled when he turned in a draft about Taft instead of Roger Taney.
The essay is, by and large, a Wikipedia history of the 27th president-cum-10th chief justice. He hailed from Ohio, he was president, he lost in a three-way fight with Teddy Roosevelt, he sat on the Supreme Court. It’s an unintentionally fitting reminder that the conservative legal movement believes in rooting its decisions in history while simultaneously displaying a superficial grasp of the subject. Roberts spends more effort buttering up Taft than staffers did trying to get him out of a bathtub.
In fairness, Roberts alludes to this by mentioning Taft’s White House weight gain, and eventual slimming before joining the Court. Sort of buries the best part though.
But what the essay lacks in insight, it makes up for with pointed remarks. The In Pursuit series explicitly instructed contributors to keep it non-partisan, but they didn’t say anything about using the essays to hype yourself:
To be sure, Taft opinions are few and far between in modern constitutional law casebooks. A notable exception is Myers v. United States, which upheld a President’s power to remove executive branch officials.
Six weeks ago, Roberts personally used Trump v. Slaughter to expand the power of presidents to haphazardly remove — not only executive officials — but officers serving in independent agencies under statutes with explicit checks against removal. At the time, Roberts called Myers a “landmark decision” and “perhaps our best word on the subject.” In reality, Myers was a radical departure from established law at the time, and that’s why it got swatted back by Humphrey’s Executor a few years later. Roberts took the occasion of honoring Taft to slide in a plug for his decision to kick down a load-bearing pillar of federal governance based on a decision that didn’t last a decade.
Of note, Roberts does not use this essay’s lionization of Myers to explain why it would magically exclude the Federal Reserve from its “best word on the subject.” Roberts tried and failed to explain that distinction himself when he issued the directly contradictory Slaughter and Cook opinions on the same day.
Ironically, the In Pursuit project is being quarterbacked by Colleen Shogan, who is only doing this because Trump fired her as Archivist of the United States in February 2025. That role does not have the protections on paper that either Slaughter or Cook enjoyed, but Congress DID see fit to require under 44 U.S.C. § 2103 that the President “shall communicate the reasons for any such removal to each House of the Congress.” Just send Congress a memo. That’s it.
Eighteen months and several professional-association letters later, he still hasn’t.
The enhanced prestige of the Court contributed to the ability of future Chief Justices to stave off challenges to its authority, such as the court packing plan and resistance to its landmark civil rights rulings.
Except, the court packing plan worked. The “switch in time” Court surrendered and the bill died after the capitulation was complete. As for the “resistance to its landmark civil rights rulings,” that does describe the Court’s battle against Southern governors in 1957. It also very much describes Shelby County and Callais. The essay half-hopes some Sorkin-pilled West Wing liberal reads it and decides that objecting to justices taking luxury vacations from litigants puts them on the wrong side of Brown. I’m not sure that person exists.
Taft operated within the system, acting only where he found authorization under the Constitution. Roosevelt, by contrast, saw himself as a direct representative of the people, pushing ahead where he sensed a mandate, even if his actions bumped up against or maybe even beyond the powers of the Executive under the Constitution.
Ah. Perhaps Teddy should have declared his actions as “official acts” because I hear that automatically makes it legal.
Roberts praises Taft’s post-presidency book Popular Government as “a defense of presidential self-restraint and a critique of excessive use of executive muscle as an end run around the Constitutional design.” It’s hard to read this as anything but wishcasting constitutional order. It’s not that he and his fellow traveler jurists agree with facilitating Trump’s abuses — or so he desperately hopes we believe — it’s that presidents require sweeping, nearly unchecked power so history can properly bestow brownie points when they show self-restraint.
In an essay sprinkled with gratuitous references to his own legacy, this unintentionally might be the most telling and frightening. While the Framers sought to build institutions to guard against a venal man capturing an imperial presidency, Roberts knocks those guardrails down in favor of a sort of ritualistic presidential asceticism. Like he envisions the American experiment as a string of presidents on a hero’s journey that only properly reveals their moral worth if the temptations are maximized.
Sometimes that creates a great statesman. Sometimes it lands the Chief Justice in the cuck chair.
Earlier: Supreme Court Slaughters FTC, Lets Federal Reserve Cook
Chief Justice Roberts Explains Why Thomas Paine Would LOVE Presidential Immunity And Troops Patrolling Streets, Actually
John Roberts Once Again Uses Judiciary’s Annual Report To Express His Utmost Contempt For The Public
John Roberts Dismayed Public Sees Supreme Court As ‘Political Actors’ Just Because They’re Political Actors
Chief Justice Roberts, Welcome To The Cuck Chair
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
The post John Roberts Uses William Howard Taft To Defend His Own Record, Fails appeared first on Above the Law.
