Sotomayor's 'batsh*t' dissent on Trump immunity has left in uproar over 'SEAL Team 6' remark (2024)

Fantasies about assassinations and coups filled Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s “batsh*t” dissent in former President Donald Trump’s immunity case that read like a fearmongering audition for corporate media.

“Order the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.”

In a 6-3 ruling Monday that melted more snowflakes nationwide than climate hysteria, the Supreme Court determined that, while “not above the law,” a president did hold “absolute immunity” for official acts while in office.

Naturally, the judicial activists of the bench saw fit to react with a doomsaying session akin to claims of insurrection from the defunct January 6 unselect committee that treated the breach of the U.S. Capitol as an attack exceeding the killing of nearly 3,000 people on September 11, 2001.

Joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sotomayor asserted the ruling created “a law-free zone around the President,” allowing the executive branch to put his “own interests…above the interests of the Nation.”

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,” argued the dissent with reference to hypotheticals posed during oral arguments. “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune.”

“Immune, immune, immune,” she railed before concluding, “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

As word of Sotomayor’s farcical take began circulating, reactions on social media didn’t stop at poking holes in the jurist’s inane arguments. They also made certain to highlight how the member of the highest court in the land had appeared to engage in an all-out Trump Derangement Syndrome struggle session in a dissent that “reads like a legalese version of Orange Man bad.”

Crikey, Sotomayor’s dissent reads like a legalese version of Orange Man bad.

— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) July 1, 2024

Embarrassing

— (@RaisedInnABarn) July 1, 2024

The wise latina. What a disgrace.

— Jonathan Blackstone (@Hen263zz) July 1, 2024

Honing in on the concluding remarks from the Supreme Court justice, Newsweek senior editor-at-large and onetime federal appellate judge clerk Josh Hammer contended that she’d done an outstanding job in setting herself for a future role as a talking head on cable news, “Someone get Sonia Sotomayor a MSNBC contributor contract.”

Our Democracy(TM)

— Palm Beach Freedom Institute (@PalmInstitute) July 1, 2024

Do ya think she was weeping while writing that?

— Lawrence Kansas (@ku_ndfanaz11) July 1, 2024

See Also

Hypothetical SEAL Team 6 political assassination resurfaces in Supreme Court presidential immunity dissentSCOTUS Ruling Allows President to Send Seal Team 6 to Kill Political Opponents?Hypothetical SEAL Team 6 political assassination resurfaces in Supreme Court presidential immunity dissentJustice Sonia Sotomayor warns of Trump immunity 'nightmare'

She’s setting up for a future gig in the fake news media.

— Harry Almada/BornFreeinArizona (@AlmadaHarry) July 1, 2024

Of course, along with the hand-wringing and pearl-clutching from the openly leftist side of the bench, keyboard kvetchers across the Internet leveraged Sotomayor’s words to reach hyperbolic extremes over how U.S. Navy SEALs could be utilized by a sitting president.

How bad was today’s Supreme Court decision?

If reelected Trump could assassinate his political opponents as long as he cited a statute or constitutional provision for doing so.

We are in real danger.

— Marc E. Elias (@marceelias) July 1, 2024

Politico’s Sam Stein had a case of the vapors as he highlighted the opinion with the caption, “genuinely shocking that a Court justice is now on record that the Court has sanctioned that a president can order Seal Team Six to assassinate his political opponent.”

As another propagandist pushed the same take, a retaliatory slam on what the opinion meant had one social media user assert, “No, the Court just ruled 6-3 you can’t read English. Assassinating an opponent is not an official act.”

PSA: The Supreme Court did not rule that a President could use SEAL Team 6 to murder a political opponent

That would be an unofficial act outside the constitutional scope of the office of the President

It would be murder

Just b/c a loser judge wrote that in a dissenting…

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 1, 2024

If you’re trying to substitute Sotomayor’s incoherent babbling for the actual majority opinion, you’d be correct.

— T. Ford (@ChimayBlue) July 1, 2024

I would pay for the past 5 days of entertainment I’ve gotten from left wing freakouts.

And it’s gonna get better.

— The_Salmon_Mousse (@jumbotron74) July 1, 2024

See Also

Analysis | 4 takeaways from the Supreme Court’s Trump immunity decision

That wasn’t what was ruled pic.twitter.com/cOmbt3NQoi

— Brianna Price (@briprice661) July 1, 2024

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