Adam Liptak, chief legal affairs correspondent at the New York Times called it<\/a> \u201ca declaration of independence,\u201d congratulating the \u201ccontrolled, cerebral chief justice\u201d for staring down \u201cthe biting, brazen president.\u201d<\/p>\n Times opinion columnist David French suggested<\/a> that Learning Resources v. Trump<\/em> \u201cmay prove to be the most important Supreme Court decision this century.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn this day the presidency is stuffed back into its box. On this day the separation of powers prevails. And on this day the Constitution holds,\u201d he gushed.<\/p>\n Over at the Wall Street Journal, the Editorial Board celebrated<\/a> the \u201cmonumental vindication of the Constitution\u2019s separation of powers,\u201d winking that \u201cYou might call it the real tariff Liberation Day.\u201d<\/p>\n Only George Will at the Washington Post tempered his criticism<\/a>. While lauding the ruling as a \u201cdefibrillator to Congress,\u201d he chided conservatives for \u201csomething the court has been dilatory about elaborating and timid about enforcing: a nondelegation doctrine.\u201d Please, Mister Manly Chief Justice, enforce your made-up \u201cmajor questions doctrine\u201d harder<\/em>!<\/p>\n No doubt the Chief Justice appreciates the lovefest, but his adoring fans should take a breath. Trump\u2019s claim that he can shout \u201cEmergency!\u201d and steal Congress\u2019s tariff power was stupid a year ago when the first challenges were filed. It was stupid in May, when a three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade declared<\/a> them unlawful, for the exact same reasons just reached by the Supreme Court. It was stupid in August when the Federal Circuit agreed, but sent it back to the trial court to figure out what the hell to do after SCOTUS blew up nationwide injunctions in Trump v. CASA<\/em>. And it was stupid in September when the Supreme Court granted cert, effectively staying the CIT\u2019s injunction and allowing Trump to collect the illegal levies.<\/p>\n At any point, the justices could have put a stop to this nonsense. But, faced with the choice to tell the president \u201cno\u201d in the first instance or let him steal hundreds of billions of dollars, Chief Justice Roberts said, \u201cEh, let\u2019s go with door number two. Seems like the safer option.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n American taxpayers footed the bill for this fecklessness, as importers passed the cost on to consumers. And because the justices dithered, presumably to let Justice Kavanaugh polish his 63-page turd of a dissent, the meter kept running for four months.<\/p>\n Cut the check, @realDonaldTrump<\/a>. pic.twitter.com\/NjVJ0tABme<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 JB Pritzker (@JBPritzker) February 20, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n After the opinion came down Friday, Trump gave a rambling press conference<\/a>, in which he called the majority justices \u201clap dogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats\u201d and praised Kavanaugh, \u201cwhose stock has gone so up, you have to see, I\u2019m so proud of him.\u201d There was also a lengthy airing of his fantasy of being kissed by a steel worker.<\/p>\n Trump: “‘President, I’d love to kiss you’ \u2014 this is a very powerful man. I don’t want to be kissed my that man. But a very powerful, strong man \u2026 he said, ‘Sir, I want to kiss you so badly.’ And I said, ‘No thank you.'”<\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-02-20T18:58:14.900Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n The president did say one rational thing, though, in response to a question about whether the Treasury will issue refunds to companies that paid the tariffs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey take months and months to write an opinion and they don\u2019t even discuss that point,\u201d he groused<\/a>. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don\u2019t keep the money, right? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n Why, yes, you would<\/em> \u2026 if you weren\u2019t completely preoccupied with slobbering all over the justices for finally handing in their homework. This omission guarantees that companies who paid these illegal levies won\u2019t get their money back without an expensive fight.<\/p>\n BASH: Let’s start with the big question \u2014 will you refund the roughly $134 billion taken by these tariffs?BESSENT: That’s not the big question. That’s bad framingBASH: Refunds are clearly gonna be up to youBESSENT: No no no. It’s not up to me or the administration. It’s up to the lower court<\/p>\n \u2014 Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com)<\/a> 2026-02-22T14:09:03.500Z<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n And if they do, it will be a windfall for their shareholders, not the consumers who paid for those tariffs in increased costs. It\u2019s functionally a transfer of wealth from consumers to American businesses, with an assist from a demented despot.<\/p>\n This is not the day that Chief Justice Roberts became a real jurist. This is three conservative justices who invited the president to pick consumers\u2019 pockets for a full year before eventually telling him to knock it off \u2014 once they\u2019d ensured that the chaotic fallout would persist for the rest of his term. We will not be applauding like trained seals because the person who left the bath running and flooded our collective house eventually wandered back and turned off the taps.<\/p>\n The most important Supreme Court decision this century was Trump v. US<\/em>. Roberts, Barrett, and Gorsuch all flubbed that one, agreeing that the president can do crimes with impunity. The fact that one time they actually did their damn jobs is no cause for celebration. It\u2019s the bare, bloody minimum.<\/p>\n Subscribe to read more at Law and Chaos\u2026.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The post You Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Gotta Hand It To Chief Justice Roberts<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n No cheers for Chief Justice Roberts!<\/p>\n After Friday\u2019s tariff ruling<\/a>, the usual suspects chimed in to glaze the three conservatives who ruled that Trump can\u2019t impose a constantly shifting tariff regime based on whichever country he\u2019s trying to stick up on a given day.<\/p>\n Adam Liptak, chief legal affairs correspondent at the New York Times called it<\/a> \u201ca declaration of independence,\u201d congratulating the \u201ccontrolled, cerebral chief justice\u201d for staring down \u201cthe biting, brazen president.\u201d<\/p>\n Times opinion columnist David French suggested<\/a> that Learning Resources v. Trump<\/em> \u201cmay prove to be the most important Supreme Court decision this century.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn this day the presidency is stuffed back into its box. On this day the separation of powers prevails. And on this day the Constitution holds,\u201d he gushed.<\/p>\n Over at the Wall Street Journal, the Editorial Board celebrated<\/a> the \u201cmonumental vindication of the Constitution\u2019s separation of powers,\u201d winking that \u201cYou might call it the real tariff Liberation Day.\u201d<\/p>\n Only George Will at the Washington Post tempered his criticism<\/a>. While lauding the ruling as a \u201cdefibrillator to Congress,\u201d he chided conservatives for \u201csomething the court has been dilatory about elaborating and timid about enforcing: a nondelegation doctrine.\u201d Please, Mister Manly Chief Justice, enforce your made-up \u201cmajor questions doctrine\u201d harder<\/em>!<\/p>\n No doubt the Chief Justice appreciates the lovefest, but his adoring fans should take a breath. Trump\u2019s claim that he can shout \u201cEmergency!\u201d and steal Congress\u2019s tariff power was stupid a year ago when the first challenges were filed. It was stupid in May, when a three-judge panel of the Court of International Trade declared<\/a> them unlawful, for the exact same reasons just reached by the Supreme Court. It was stupid in August when the Federal Circuit agreed, but sent it back to the trial court to figure out what the hell to do after SCOTUS blew up nationwide injunctions in Trump v. CASA<\/em>. And it was stupid in September when the Supreme Court granted cert, effectively staying the CIT\u2019s injunction and allowing Trump to collect the illegal levies.<\/p>\n At any point, the justices could have put a stop to this nonsense. But, faced with the choice to tell the president \u201cno\u201d in the first instance or let him steal hundreds of billions of dollars, Chief Justice Roberts said, \u201cEh, let\u2019s go with door number two. Seems like the safer option.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n American taxpayers footed the bill for this fecklessness, as importers passed the cost on to consumers. And because the justices dithered, presumably to let Justice Kavanaugh polish his 63-page turd of a dissent, the meter kept running for four months.<\/p>\n After the opinion came down Friday, Trump gave a rambling press conference<\/a>, in which he called the majority justices \u201clap dogs for the RINOs and the radical left Democrats\u201d and praised Kavanaugh, \u201cwhose stock has gone so up, you have to see, I\u2019m so proud of him.\u201d There was also a lengthy airing of his fantasy of being kissed by a steel worker.<\/p>\n The president did say one rational thing, though, in response to a question about whether the Treasury will issue refunds to companies that paid the tariffs.<\/p>\n \u201cThey take months and months to write an opinion and they don\u2019t even discuss that point,\u201d he groused<\/a>. \u201cWouldn\u2019t you think they would have put one sentence in there saying that keep the money or don\u2019t keep the money, right? I guess it has to get litigated for the next two years.\u201d<\/p>\n Why, yes, you would<\/em> \u2026 if you weren\u2019t completely preoccupied with slobbering all over the justices for finally handing in their homework. This omission guarantees that companies who paid these illegal levies won\u2019t get their money back without an expensive fight.<\/p>\n And if they do, it will be a windfall for their shareholders, not the consumers who paid for those tariffs in increased costs. It\u2019s functionally a transfer of wealth from consumers to American businesses, with an assist from a demented despot.<\/p>\n This is not the day that Chief Justice Roberts became a real jurist. This is three conservative justices who invited the president to pick consumers\u2019 pockets for a full year before eventually telling him to knock it off \u2014 once they\u2019d ensured that the chaotic fallout would persist for the rest of his term. We will not be applauding like trained seals because the person who left the bath running and flooded our collective house eventually wandered back and turned off the taps.<\/p>\n The most important Supreme Court decision this century was Trump v. US<\/em>. Roberts, Barrett, and Gorsuch all flubbed that one, agreeing that the president can do crimes with impunity. The fact that one time they actually did their damn jobs is no cause for celebration. It\u2019s the bare, bloody minimum.<\/p>\n Subscribe to read more at Law and Chaos\u2026.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n Liz Dye<\/a>\u00a0produces the Law and Chaos\u00a0Substack\u00a0<\/a>and\u00a0podcast<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0You can subscribe by clicking the logo:<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n No cheers for Chief Justice Roberts! After Friday\u2019s tariff ruling, the usual suspects chimed in to glaze the three conservatives who ruled that Trump can\u2019t impose a constantly shifting tariff regime based on whichever country he\u2019s trying to stick up on a given day. Adam Liptak, chief legal affairs correspondent at the New York Times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":144667,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/law-and-chaos-logo-liz-dye-300x153-ahPQGj.jpg?fit=300%2C153&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144666\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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