Subject: Re: Twenty Weeks to Topple a Republic
What on earth could the members of the USSC have been doing for ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY DAYS in a case that should have been so easy to decide?

Reaching a decision on a contested point of law that was already handled on an expedited basis. One hundred and forty days is fast - in nearly all other circumstances, this case would have been heard as part of their next term, since it was filed so late. Normally it takes several years for a case to get from lower court to a SCOTUS decision. This was fast for the Court.

Nor is this an easy case, because it's pretty well established that there are separation of powers limits to the scope of Legislative authority over the Executive. To use a trivial example, we know Congress can't make it a crime for the President to grant a pardon - because the Pardon power is given by the Constitution to the Executive, and it is generally understood to be unlimited. Congress lacks the power to pass laws restricting or limiting the Pardon power of the President, and that includes criminal laws as well. The President is given the power to decide how and when to exercise the Pardon power, and Congress doesn't get a say in that - regardless of whether they try to have their say using a civil or criminal statute.

Again, that's the trivial example. Things get much less clear when we're talking about criminal laws of general applicability which purport to criminalize actions that are often legal, but are crimes when done for corrupt purposes or prohibited intent. But since both of the lower court rulings were categorical denials that any immunity could exist in any situation, they were probably wrong. I'm not even sure that the dissent would disagree that there might exist some scenario in which Congress tries to criminalize something that they're forbidden from criminalizing (like the Pardon power), and that immunity might be appropriate in that context. Which makes the decision to take up the case, and to take the short time to decide it that they spent, probably correct - no matter what you think of the final opinion.