On January 20, the Constitutional duty of administering the presidential oath of office fell again to the Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. The Chief Justice holds his position by virtue of his own oath to the Constitution.

Supreme Court Justice Oath of Office

Question

Does a Chief Justice of the Supreme Court violate his Constitutional Oath of Office by fulfilling his constitutional duty to preside over the administration of a President-elect’s oath-taking when the Court is in possession of evidence that the oath-taking was, and again will be, disingenuous, and for purpose of evasion?

Rhetorical or Serious?

The question seems rhetorical. It’s not. It’s serious. On January 20, 2025, the former president who violated election law by silencing a porn star, burying the story in a deal with a gossip tabloid; refused to honor the Constitutional peaceful transfer of power in 2021 and rallied the Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and his supporters in a violent insurrection that threatened his own Vice President‘s life; promised to pardon the January 6 insurrectionists; mastered the five principles of effective propaganda outlined by Third Reich Minister of Propaganda and Enlightenment Josef Goebbels; maneuvered the rule of law to evade trial; denounced the American justice system, courts, judges, prosecutors and court personnel as “rigged” against him; refused to surrender top secret national security documents after leaving office; and who continues to mock the juries that convicted him, and to use the powers of the presidency to exact retribution–– courts-marshal, imprisonment, or execution for treason––stood before Chief Justice John Roberts, ‘forgot’ to place his hand on two Bibles, raised the other hand, and “solemnly swore” the oath he had given no reason to trust.

Subversion by any other name is still subversion

A jury unanimously found the president-elect guilty on all 34 felony counts. Mr. Trump had already broken the presidential oath he took in 2017, but shrewd maneuvering through the state and federal court processes, Donald Trump is a convicted felon in the state of New York but has yet to be sentenced, and the more consequential federal indictments have been dropped. When Yogi Berra said “It’s not over til it’s over, “he had in mind the nine innings of a baseball game, but, like many other Yogi-isms, it describes real life beyond baseball.

If perception is nine-tenths of reality, the Supreme Court and the rule of law have lost. So has Congress. Oath-taking has become performative. The rule of law is at the point of implosion. It has been subverted by a well-heeled criminal well-practiced in using the law and judicial procedures to escape accountability under the rule of law. If there is a crack to be found, Donald Trump will find it and crawl through it unscathed.

It happened once. If we’re not careful, it can happen again.

History records moments like this. Ten years after conviction for “high treason” following the Beer Hall Putz, a failed coup attempt, Adolf Hitler rode the wave of public frustration and anger with the Weimar Republic to become Reich Chancellor and Führer. Six months after he took the oath of office, the Constitution was changed. It put Hitler where the Constitution had been. The United States Holocaust Museum tells the story.

Those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it

Following the death of President von Hindenburg in August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed power as Reich Chancellor and Führer. Shortly thereafter, on August 20, 1934, the longstanding oath taken by state officials was changed so that they no longer swore loyalty to the German constitution but rather to Hitler as head of state.

Although in retrospect this change seems to indicate another step in Hitler’s consolidation of power, at the time many would have understood it differently. By replacing “Constitution” with “Hitler,” the oath was meant to convey that Hitler’s will was the same as that of the nation and the people and that his will could not, by definition, contradict the imperative to ‘observe the law and conscientiously fulfill the duties’ of office. In this way, the oath appeared to equate Hitler’s authority with the constitution and to ensure that it would be limited by the primacy of law and duty in public office.”

Oath of Loyalty for All State Officials as of August 14, 1919: “I swear loyalty to the Constitution, obedience to the law, and conscientious fulfillment of the duties of my office, so help me God.”
[Translated from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1919, pp. 1419-1420.]

Oath of Loyalty for All State Officials as of August 20, 1934: “I swear I will be true and obedient to the Führer of the German Reich and people, Adolf Hitler, observe the law, and conscientiously fulfill the duties of my office, so help me God.”
[Translated from Reichsgesetzblatt I, 1934, p. 785.

Is one’s word one’s bond? Or is it subterfuge?

The Oath of Office to which President-elect Donald Trump swore for the second time was either what it appeared to be, or it wasn’t. Whether the German felon convicted of “High Treason” authentically swore to be loyal to the Constitution is a question no one can answer. Some oath-takers and their administrators are honest, but their personality disorders contort the language to equate the people’s constitution and the nation with themselves.

This commentary is not the product of the power of positive thinking, but Christ does not call me to be willfully blind. Sharing this commentary, I feel like Sir Alfred Hitchcock driving by a remote church in the Swiss Alps. Seeing a priest standing next to a little boy with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, Sir Alfred rolled down the rear window of his chauffeur-driven Bentley limousine and cried out, “Run, little boy! Run for your life!!!

God help us all!

Gordon C. Stewart, public theologian, Presbyterian Minister (HR), author of Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness (2017, Wipf and Stock), Brooklyn Park, MN, January 13, 2024.