Politico: John Roberts Just Called Out the Trump Administration for Lying

But Thursday’s decision also has broader implications for the Supreme Court’s entire relationship to the Trump administration. One of the administration’s distinctive characteristics is its approach to truth and lying. All administrations sometimes hide, shade or slant the truth—and occasionally lie outright. The present administration is different in that it lies regularly, blatantly, heedlessly. In the census case, the Supreme Court, for the first time, called the administration on this behavior—ever so politely and by the slimmest of margins. But still. Now the question is whether it will have the stomach to do so in other cases—or even in this case, if it comes back to the court in the near future. [...]

One problem with that argument, though, is that the Supreme Court has previously held that where there is a strong indication of bad-faith government action, a court can look deeper. And today, a majority composed of Chief Justice Roberts and the four more liberal justices called shenanigans. Quoting the legendary judge Henry Friendly, for whom Roberts once clerked, the chief justice wrote that the Supreme Court is “not required to exhibit a naivete from which ordinary citizens are free.” In other words, if everyone can see that the administration is lying, the court isn’t required to pretend that it alone is blind. [...]

Why did the chief justice come out the other way this time? There are multiple possible explanations. Maybe it matters that one case was (at least ostensibly) about national security and the other was not. Maybe it matters that in the census case the person whom the chief justice had to call a liar (circumspectly—words like “lie” do not appear in the opinion) was a Cabinet secretary rather than the president himself. Maybe the evidence of deceit was more damning in the census case—though it was pretty clear in the entry-ban case, too. Maybe the lower court’s surpassingly thorough documentation of the problems with the administration’s position made the chief justice think he couldn’t pretend not to know without looking foolish. Whatever the case, this time Roberts refused to play the see-no-evil role.

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