The Week Ahead

June 30, 2024

Here’s what’s happening in the week ahead:

The Supreme Court Still Isn’t Finished

Monday is, hopefully, the Court’s last opinion day for this term. We’ll be focused at 10:00 a.m. ET on whether we’ll finally learn the Court’s decision on Trump’s claim of presidential immunity from prosecution. The Court agreed to hear the case last February. Oral argument took place in late April. The case has been lingering ever since then. We don’t know for certain that the opinion will be handed down on Monday, but it is the last day the Court currently has scheduled for issuing opinions. Hopefully, we’re finally there.

If you want to follow along as the Court rules on Monday, you have two choices:

• Go straight to the Court’s website. Remember that immunity isn’t the only case left, so it’s possible that it will be decided tomorrow even if it’s not the first case.

• SCOTUS Blog runs a live feed while the Court is announcing decisions. They’re a little bit behind the Court’s website, since they have to wait for cases to be announced there and then post on their own site, but they provide context for what’s going on and some smart running commentary.

Once they’re finished, the Justices are free to leave on summer vacation.

Steven Bannon Will Finally Have To Report To Prison

On June 21, Bannon filed an emergency petition with the Supreme Court, a last desperate attempt to avoid serving his four-month prison sentence following a conviction for refusing to comply with a congressional subpoena. The court told him no only a week later.

That means Bannon has to report on Monday, or risk having the U.S. Marshal sent out to arrest him. That’s an unlikely scenario. Defendants who can afford it, and presumably Bannon can, prefer to report to the facility where they will serve their sentence rather than turning themself in at a U.S. Marshal’s office to be transported to their designated facility.

CNN reported that Bannon has been designated to Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Danbury, a low security federal correctional institution with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp in Connecticut. The report indicated Bannon would be housed in the low security portion of the prison, but given the short sentence he’s serving, it’s possible he could be sent to the adjacent minimum security camp. The prison camps are the least confining option among the federal prisons. They have dormitory-style housing, a relatively low staff-to-inmate ratio, and limited or no perimeter fencing. Inmates are focused on work and other rehabilitation programs.

Once he arrives, Bannon will be interviewed and screened by case management staff and by medical and mental health professionals. He’ll be assigned to his orientation program. The theory at the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is that the plans for an inmate to reenter the community begin on the first day of incarceration, so he will learn about the institution and the plan to prepare him to return home. Bannon will be issued clothing, hygiene items, and bedding. He can purchase other things like items for personal care, shoes, and some food, from the commissary. You can peruse the list of available items at FCI Danbury on the prison’s commissary list.

Last June, Bannon told Time Magazine that insofar as the prospect of serving his prison sentence went, “I don’t fear this at all … I’m a political prisoner.” But it turns out he fought tooth and nail to avoid going to prison. Now, time’s up, and Bannon won’t be released from prison until just a few days before the election in November.

The School Police Chief In Uvalde, Texas, Is Being Prosecuted

Pedro “Pete” Arredondo, the former chief of the school police force in Uvalde has been charged by a Texas grand jury. His team waited 77 minutes to confront the active shooter in the 2022 mass killing of school children at Robb Elementary School that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

Arredondo is currently out on bail. He is charged under state law with 10 felony counts of abandoning or endangering a child, one for each of the 10 children who survived the attack. Former school officer Adrian Gonzales, who was one of the first officers to enter the building after the shooting started, was also indicted. He faces 29 charges of abandoning his training and failing to confront the shooter.

It is unclear if more officers will be charged. It’s likely we’ll learn more in the weeks ahead, including whether these two are on track to plead guilty. If not, the community faces the prospect of reliving the events of the shooting when the case goes to trial. Survivors may have to testify if that takes place.

The charges follow the January report issued by the Justice Department that concluded local police commanders and state law enforcement were at fault for not immediately entering the classroom and killing the gunman, which would have saved lives. A jury acquitted the school resource officer who remained outside of Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 while a shooter killed 17 people, 14 of them students. That officer was charged with similar crimes under Florida law, seven counts of felony child neglect and three counts of culpable negligence.

In the Florida case, there was testimony from students and others that the situation was confusing and it wasn’t entirely clear where shots were coming from, although the prosecution vigorously disputed those accounts. In the Uvalde case, the Justice Department report and relative unanimity of those involved that officers remained outside for over an hour while a mass shooter was stalking students may have led authorities to believe that this prosecution is more likely to succeed.

Where Are You On Project 2025?

Heading into Independence Day, we are reminded of the importance of protecting the Republic. That means continuing to read Project 2025 and sharing information about it with others. A surprising number of people are still unaware of Project 2025 and of the plan to revamp the federal government so as to remove checks that would prevent Trump from implementing an extremist, far-right agenda if he becomes president again. 

The explicit goal of Project 2025 is to remake America into a conservative nation by focusing on “broad fronts that will decide America’s future.” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts identified those fronts as:

• Restoring the family as the centerpiece of American life and protecting children—protecting children has become code for everything from censoring books to discriminating against gay and transgender people.

• Dismantling the administrative state and returning self-governance to the American people—following the Supreme Court’s decision in Loper Bright, expect all sorts of court challenges of decisions made by administrative agencies, especially ones that protect Americans and their rights.

• Defending the nation’s sovereignty, borders, and bounty against global threats—we know what the first Trump administration did to migrants. The next go-round would be worse, with more cavalier violations of people’s human rights. One under-discussed aspect of this is the damage that would be done to our economy if immigrants were suddenly absent, including their positive impact as workers, taxpayers, and people who purchase goods and services in the economy.

• Secure God-given individual rights to live freely—what the Constitution calls “the Blessings of Liberty”—Project 2025, of course, doesn’t guarantee everyone the right to live freely, only those who fall within the minority of straight, white, Christians its proponents believe government should work for.

Lest folks be tempted to think there will be time to sort this out if Trump is reelected, the Project 2025 website makes clear that is not the case. One of the key “pillars” of the project is a plan to implement it in the first 180 days of the administration; in other words, the battle plan is ready to go. The website says, “The time is short, and conservatives need a plan. The project will create a playbook of actions to be taken in the first 180 days of the new Administration to bring quick relief to Americans suffering from the Left’s devastating policies.” The Project 2025 website emphasizes that implementation of the Project begins on day one, “Our goal is to assemble an army of aligned, vetted, trained, and prepared conservatives to go to work on Day One to deconstruct the Administrative State.” It also touts a “Presidential Administration Academy,” whose mission is “Preparing Political Appointees to be Ready on Day One.”

The claim on the website that Project 2025 is about “Building now for a conservative victory through policy, personnel, and training” isn’t empty political rhetoric. The plan is detailed and organized, down to sign-ups for people interested in working in the new administration. The only way to make sure Project 2025 doesn’t become the new American reality is to prevent Trump from taking office again. That means making sure as many American voters as possible are aware of it so they can understand what is at stake in this election. We can help to make that happen.

Special thanks to those of you whose paid subscriptions help me devote the necessary time and resources to putting the newsletter together in crazy weeks like the ones we’ve been experiencing lately. I’m deeply appreciative. But everyone is welcome here, and except for our “Five Questions” segments, the newsletter remains available to paid and unpaid subscribers alike.

We’re in this together,

Joyce