IMPEACHMENT/SUPREME COURT/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “As Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. prepares to preside over the impeachment trial of President Trump, he issued pointed remarks on Tuesday [12-31-19] in his year-end report on the state of the federal judiciary that seemed to be addressed, at least in part, to the president himself. The two men have a history of friction, and Chief Justice Roberts used the normally mild report to denounce false information spread on social media and to warn against mob rule. Some passages could be read as a mission statement for the chief justice’s plans for the impeachment trial itself…The nominal focus of the report was the importance of civics education, but even a casual reader could detect a timely subtext, one concerned with the foundational importance of the rule of law.”
–Adam Liptak, “Impeachment Trial Looming, Chief Justice Reflects on Judicial Independence,” The New York Times online, December 31, 2019