Washington – The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald Trump Federal immunity from prosecution The landmark decision, which concerns official actions taken while in office and comes in the middle of election season, could further delay the start of a criminal trial in Washington, DC.
The 6-3 ruling along ideological lines was that Trump Broad immunity not permitted The Supreme Court has reopened a case stemming from criminal charges stemming from an alleged plot to retain power after the 2020 elections. The justices sent the dispute back to a district court for further review and gave guidance to the court on how to proceed going forward.
The decision expands presidential power by extending former presidents' immunity from criminal prosecution for their official conduct. The Supreme Court has never before considered whether a former commander in chief could be subject to criminal prosecution as a result of actions in the Oval Office.
Trump is the first person to be indicted while in office. He pleaded not guilty The four charges are Allegedly attempted subversion The transfer of presidential power following the 2020 election.
The former president welcomed the verdict in a social media post, calling it a “major victory for our Constitution and democracy.” The special counsel declined to comment.
Trump vs. the United States
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While concluding that former presidents have broad legal protection from prosecution for acts committed within the scope of their official duties, the Supreme Court rejected Trump's argument that he enjoys blanket and absolute immunity unless impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate, a decision that would have ended the federal prosecution by special counsel Jack Smith.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the majority opinion. He divided presidential acts into three categories: official acts that are part of the president's “core constitutional powers,” other official acts that are outside the scope of the president's “exclusive powers,” and unofficial acts. The president has “absolute” immunity from the first category, “constructive” immunity from the second, and no immunity from the third.
“The president does not enjoy immunity from non-official conduct, and not all of his acts are official. The president is not above the law,” Roberts wrote. “But Congress cannot criminalize the president's acts in the exercise of executive responsibilities under the Constitution.”
The ruling instructed the district court to review some of the charges in the indictment to determine whether they fall within the scope of the immunity, making a trial before the November presidential election highly unlikely.
In the indictment, Smith accused Trump of conspiring with Justice Department officials to pressure states to overturn the election results. The Chief Justice wrote that because “the President may not be prosecuted for acts within his exclusive Constitutional powers,” Trump “cannot be prosecuted for conduct related to his consultations with Justice Department officials.”
“The indictment alleges that the requested investigation was a sham.[s]”Or even if proposed for an improper purpose, it does not divest the President of his exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Department of Justice and its personnel,” Roberts told the court.
As for Smith's argument that Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence on Jan. 6, 2021, to delay Congress' certification of the electoral votes, the Supreme Court said it was up to the government to rebut the presumption that Trump enjoys immunity.
As for other conduct alleged in the indictment against Trump – his efforts to compile a false electoral roll, his contacts with outside lawyers to carry out that plan, and his urging of supporters to gather in Washington on January 6 – the court ruled that protection from prosecution “depends on the context of the allegations.”
The Supreme Court directed the district judge presiding over the case to “carefully analyze whether the remaining charges in the indictment constitute conduct that would exempt the President from prosecution. The parties and the district court must also satisfy themselves that there is sufficient evidence to support the charges in the indictment in the absence of such conduct.”
The court's conservative majority also said testimony or private records of the president or his advisers investigating such conduct would not be admitted as evidence at trial.
Minority dissenting opinion
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joining Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented, saying the decision “reconstructs the presidency” by exempting the president from criminal liability and that the conservative majority had created “an unliteral, ahistorical, and unjustified immunity that puts the president above the law.”
“This makes a mockery of a fundamental principle of our Constitution and political system: no one is above the law,” the three liberal justices wrote.
Sotomayor said the conservative majority acknowledged that a former president could be prosecuted for personal conduct, but did not place any specific limitations on the ruling. She argued that the line the majority drew between official and non-official conduct narrowed the scope of what would be considered non-official conduct.
“The majority now supports an expansion of presidential immunity never before recognized by our Founding Fathers, a sitting president, the executive branch, or even President Trump's lawyers,” Sotomayor wrote. “Established principles of the Constitution are of little use to the majority in this case, and so they are ignored.”
She also rejected concerns that the threat of criminal charges would chill future presidential actions, pointing in part to the “safeguards” necessary for federal criminal prosecutions.
“Most people seem to think that allowing former presidents to escape accountability for violations of the law and barring a sitting president from prosecuting those violations somehow respects the independence of the executive branch,” Sotomayor wrote. “It does not. Rather, it undermines that independence and elevates the man who holds the office above the office itself.”
Sotomayor called the decision “very wrong” and warned it would have long-term consequences.
“The Supreme Court has effectively created a lawless zone around the president, upending the status quo that has existed since the founding of our country,” she said.
Sotomayor cited several examples raised in lower court cases to define the scope of presidential immunity and said the Supreme Court's decision would allow a president to avoid prosecution for crimes such as ordering SEAL Team Six to assassinate a political opponent, plotting a military coup to stay in power or accepting bribes in exchange for a pardon.
“In all exercises of public power, the president is now a king above the law,” she said.
Sotomayor concluded her remarks by saying, “I fear for our democracy and oppose this bill.”
Trump's immunity claim
Trump, who is presumed to be the Republican presidential nominee, has sought to delay trials in lawsuits related to the 2020 election. Two other indictmentsuntil after the next presidential election. If Trump wins against President Biden in November, he could order the Justice Department to drop the federal charges against him or grant himself a pardon, although the constitutionality of such moves has yet to be tested.
In addition to the allegations in Washington, Trump Indicted in South Florida Trump has been indicted in federal court since leaving the White House for allegedly mishandling classified government documents. He has pleaded not guilty to 40 federal charges in Georgia. Trump also faces charges in Fulton County, Georgia for allegedly trying to overturn the results of the state's 2020 election, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges in that state.
The dispute over presidential immunity has plunged the Supreme Court into a politically tense legal battle just months before the election. Former President Biden has argued he is being unfairly targeted in an effort to protect Biden, but there is no evidence that the charges brought by a special counsel appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland are politically motivated.
This is also the second time this term that the Supreme Court has decided a case with significant political or legal implications for President Trump. The unanimous decision States cannot use an obscure provision in the 14th Amendment that bars former insurrectionists from holding public office to ban votes for Trump.
Trump appointed three of the court's nine justices, expanding the court's conservative majority to 6-3. He had essentially asked the court to rule that former presidents are insulated from accountability by the judicial system.
The Supreme Court heard arguments in Trump's appeal in late April, its final session. The arguments were held in parallel with Trump's historic six-week criminal trial in New York, where 12 jurors were selected to represent him. found him guilty on 34 state felony charges of falsifying business records.
The landmark ruling makes Trump the first former president to be convicted of a crime. He vowed to appeal.The process could take months or even years to complete. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced in Manhattan on July 11.
The hearing on Trump's criminal case was unprecedented, raising issues the Supreme Court has never addressed before in a case related to the 2020 election. During oral arguments, the conservative justices seemed keenly aware that their ruling would apply to all future presidents and concerned about the impact it could have on whoever occupies the Oval Office in the coming years.
Trump's lawyers had asked the justices to overturn lower court decisions that had allowed him to be prosecuted, including a unanimous decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. They argued that the unprecedented nature of the charges against Trump demonstrates that the president has broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official conduct.
But Smith and his team of prosecutors have argued that no one is immune from the law, including a former president. They have argued that Trump's actions fell outside the scope of his official duties as president and were part of a private plot to stay in power.
