Watch The Exact Moment John Roberts Realizes He Whored Himself Out

They thought prostituting themselves wouldn’t mean losing control, but after accidentally falling in love they tragically learn they were just thought of as a whore by tacky oligarchs. No, it’s not the plot of Best Picture winner Anora — I mean, it is that too — but the very real human drama of Chief Justice John Roberts.

Roberts showed up at the State of the Union last night expecting to take in another evening of sitting stonefaced while pretending it’s not weird that the judicial branch attends the president’s annual report to Congress.

Instead, he had the emperor’s robes ripped off him by a bumbling chief executive who doesn’t understand the conservative judicial pantomime:

The first rule of Federalist Society Partisan Club is you do not talk about Federalist Society Partisan Club! The second rule is enjoy the Chick-fil-A. Except for Sam “Flagman” Alito, the conservative justices work hard to peddle the mythology that they aren’t die-hard Republicans reverse engineering contemporary GOP policy but conscientious jurists calling balls and strikes. They’ll make up reasons why Alexander Hamilton would’ve wanted them to give police total immunity or plead that you have to read their opinions and then not issue any opinions in increasingly consequential shadow docket cases — but they want you to know that they are always ALWAYS non-partisan.

In Trump v. United States — ending Trump’s federal criminal cases and inventing a new double-whammy to shield presidents from state cases — the Chief took great pains to characterize the ruling as entirely normal. Even though the argument in the case explicitly contemplated “using SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.” The opinion is laughably shoddy, but it plays the game.

Roberts and his buddies wanted Trump to win and they thought the electorate might balk if they found out some Russian agent lived in Trump’s pool locker stealing nuclear codes for four years or whatever lives in the Jack Smith report that Aileen Cannon and Pam Bondi do NOT want us to see. So he cobbled together this opinion to give his favored candidate a hand. Then he wrote an annual report scolding anyone who might scrutinize judicial opinions enough to suggest a judge might be a partisan hack.

Maybe Roberts believes his own mythology. It would be insane, but it’s possible. But whether his illusion was shattered or just his attempt to cover it up, Trump busted through it all when he said what everyone else already knew while patting the Chief on the chest.

“Thank you again,” he said, implying this is not the first time he’s thanked him. “Won’t forget it.”

As anyone who’s followed Trump’s career knows… he will absolutely forget it. Roberts might be coming to grips with all that right now.

Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter or Bluesky if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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