Chief Justice John Roberts Letter: Chief Justice John Roberts shares quote of the day amidst constitutional crisis fears

Chief Justice John Roberts said the Constitution remains a solid foundation for the country; It’s a message that comes after a tumultuous year in the country’s judicial system, with major Supreme Court decisions on the horizon. The nation’s founding documents remain “firm and unshakable,” Roberts said, citing a century-old quote from President Calvin Coolidge. “True then, true now,” Roberts wrote in his annual letter to the judiciary.

Wednesday’s letter comes after a year in which lawyers and Democrats have raised fears of a possible constitutional crisis as supporters of Republican President Donald Trump push back against decisions that slow his sweeping conservative agenda.

At one point in March, Roberts weighed in with a rare rebuke after Trump called for the removal of a judge who ruled against him in a case involving the deportation of Venezuelan immigrants accused of being gang members.
The chief justice’s letter Wednesday focused largely on the nation’s history; this includes an early 19th-century case that established the principle that Congress should not remove judges for contentious decisions.

He also called on the justices to “continue to decide the cases before us in accordance with our oath of office, to grant equal rights to the poor and the rich, and to continue to faithfully and impartially discharge all of our duties under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

While the Trump administration faces backlash in lower courts, it has enjoyed a winning streak of nearly two dozen in the Supreme Court’s emergency brief. The court’s conservative majority has allowed Trump to move forward for now on banning transgender people from the military, rolling back billions of dollars in congressionally approved federal spending, acting aggressively on immigration and removing Senate-confirmed leaders of independent federal agencies.
The court also handed Trump several defeats last year, including over his effort to deploy the National Guard to U.S. cities. Other major issues awaiting the high court in 2026 include Trump’s effort to end birthright citizenship and a decision on whether he can unilaterally impose tariffs on hundreds of countries.

Roberts’ letter made little reference to these issues. The book opened with a history of the seminal 1776 pamphlet “Common Sense” written by Thomas Paine, “a recent immigrant to Britain’s North American colonies,” and ended with Coolidge’s exhortation to “find solace” in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence “amidst all the confusion of partisan politics.”