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Ruling without precedent Perhaps what is most troubling about the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling is a level of dishonesty not expected from Chief Justice John Roberts. The language he relied on to conclude that some presidential immunity could be “conclusive and preclusive” comes from Youngstown v. Sawyer, a case that limited rather than expanded presidential power. In Youngstown, Justice Robert Jackson did not say that a president has “conclusive and preclusive immunity.” He said that a presidential claim of such immunity should scrutinized by courts with caution, presumably, in context, meaning skeptically. Justice Jackson was the chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials in 1946. He would have put Hitler on trial for war crimes had Hitler survived World War II. Jackson knew well the dangers of giving the head of state too much power. Roberts perverted Jackson’s words, violated Jackson’s principles and stated a doctrine with no legal precedent. Jay Chafetz, Walnut Creek