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‘BFD’: Biden Plan to Reform ‘Rogue’ Supreme Court Hailed as ‘Remarkable’ by Experts
In what is being seen by legal experts as a “major” and “remarkable” change in his positions, President Joe Biden on Monday issued a three-point plan to reform the U.S. Supreme Court, after years of ethics scandals, largely by conservative justices, some of which have been called actual violations of federal law. President Biden had previously been opposed to certain court reforms.
“On top of dangerous and extreme decisions that overturn settled legal precedents — including Roe v. Wade — the court is mired in a crisis of ethics,” President Biden warned in a Washington Post op-ed. “Scandals involving several justices have caused the public to question the court’s fairness and independence, which are essential to faithfully carrying out its mission of equal justice under the law. For example, undisclosed gifts to justices from individuals with interests in cases before the court, as well as conflicts of interest connected with Jan. 6 insurrectionists, raise legitimate questions about the court’s impartiality.”
“Already our greatest modern president,” wrote constitutional law scholar and Harvard University Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe, President Biden “earns our gratitude yet again by calling for these essential reforms to #SCOTUS — and by moving to heal the wound this rogue Court inflicted on our Constitution when it put the presidency above the law.”
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President Biden’s three-point plan calls for a constitutional amendment “that makes clear no President is above the law or immune from prosecution for crimes committed while in office,” The White House says in an announcement. That amendment would be in direct response to the Supreme Court’s decision surprising many legal experts granting presidents broad, and “absolute” immunity for “official acts” while in office.
The President is also calling for term limits for Supreme Court justices, with each justice serving up to 18 years and each president appointing a new justice every two years.
“Term limits would help ensure that the Court’s membership changes with some regularity; make timing for Court nominations more predictable and less arbitrary; and reduce the chance that any single Presidency imposes undue influence for generations to come,” The White House says.
And finally, President Biden is calling for an enforceable code of ethics for Supreme Court justices “that require Justices to disclose gifts, refrain from public political activity, and recuse themselves from cases in which they or their spouses have financial or other conflicts of interest.
Wendy Weiser, vice president of the Brennan Center for Justice, called Biden’s plan, “a remarkable and historical step forward.”
“No one should have public power for so long; no one should be the judge in their own case; and no one should be above the law,” she wrote.
Notably absent from the President’s plan: some had expected him to endorse expanding the number of justices on the Court, from nine to at least 12. That would reflect the 12 judicial circuits, as well as the tremendous expansion in U.S. population and demographics since the last time the Court’s size was altered: well over a century ago, in 1869.
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Some Democratic U.S. Senators support expanding the Court via the Judiciary Act.
The New Republic’s Matt Ford observes, “Biden’s SCOTUS reform op-ed is curiously opaque on whether he supports term limits via amendment or legislation, which is the big split among advocates.”
Attorney Tristan Snell, who successfully prosecuted New York State’s $25 million civil case against Trump University, applauded the President’s three-count plan and called for a few additions: “Wonderful news — and then let’s add 4 more justices and a maximum age of 75.”
After Vice President Kamala Harris, the de-facto Democratic presidential nominee endorsed Biden’s plan, NYU professor of law Melissa Murray called it “Huge.”
Professor of law Leah Litman, who co-hosts a podcast on the Supreme Court with Professor Murray, says, “let’s take a moment to appreciate that it’s a BFD for a sitting Democratic President, a long time institutionalist who was opposed to court reform *four years ago* has now publicly endorsed court reform.”
“Biden’s change,” she adds, “is a testament both to how the current Court’s egregious behavior is offputting to normie Dems – and causes them to revisit their positions – and to the many organizers, commentators, etc beating the court reform drum.”
“This is major,” declared Maya Sen, Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. “Just a few years ago, Biden was against any kind of Court reform.”
President Biden’s call for reform has the backing of, among others, Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center for Justice, Constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis,
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
