US Supreme Court says Trump has some immunity in election case

The US Supreme Court ruled on July 1 that former President Donald Trump is entitled to substantial immunity from prosecution on charges of trying to overturn the last election, a blockbuster decision in the heat of the 2024 campaign that vastly expanded presidential power.The vote was 6-3, dividing along partisan lines. Its immediate practical effect will be to further complicate the case against Trump, with the chances that it will go before a jury before the election now vanishingly remote and the charges against him, at a minimum, narrowed.The decision amounted to a powerful statement by the court’s conservative majority that presidents should be insulated from the potential that actions they take in carrying out their official duties could later be used by political enemies to charge them with crimes.Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, said Trump had at least presumptive immunity for his official acts. He added that the trial judge must undertake an intensive factual review to separate official and unofficial conduct and to assess whether prosecutors can overcome the presumption protecting Trump for his official conduct.If Trump prevails at the polls, the issue could become moot since he could order the justice department to drop the charges.The liberal wing, in some of the harshest dissents ever filed by justices of the Supreme Court, said the majority had created a kind of king not answerable to the law.Broad immunity for official conduct is needed, the chief justice wrote, to protect “an energetic, independent executive”. medium111432685“The president therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Roberts wrote. “That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy or party.”The alternative, the chief justice wrote, is to invite tit-for-tat political reprisals.“Virtually every president is criticised for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law (such as drug, gun, immigration or environmental laws),” he wrote. “An enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous president violated that broad statute. Without immunity, such types of prosecutions of ex-presidents could quickly become routine.”In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision was gravely misguided. In a rare move and sign of deep disagreement, she summarised her dissent from the bench, making off-the-cuff remarks that underscored her frustration.“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency,” she wrote. “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”In her own dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that “the court has now declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the US can (under circumstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself”.Trump embraced the outcome on social media, celebrating the ruling. “Big win for our constitution and democracy,” he wrote in all-capital letters. “Proud to be an American!” medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/R2a8NWLXqV4?si=PycF8NuSCZJzER2iPresident Joe Biden warned that the decision set a dangerous precedent. “The power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the US,” he said, urging voters to prevent his Republican rival from winning a second term. “The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”The chief justice’s opinion recounted the events surrounding the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in an understated, almost antiseptic summary, while the dissents called them a singular threat to democracy. And where the chief justice stressed the importance of protecting all presidents, the dissents focused on Trump.Roberts wrote that it was not the Supreme Court’s job to sift through the evidence and to separate protected conduct from the rest. “That analysis,” he wrote, “ultimately is best left to the lower courts to perform in the first instance.”But he issued guideposts for Judge Tanya Chutkan, of US District Court in Washington, who is overseeing the case.Trump, the chief justice wrote, is “absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with justice department officials”.He added that Chutkan should determine whether prosecutors can overcome Trump’s presumed immunity for his communications with former Vice-President Mike Pence.“We therefore remand to the district court to assess in the first instance, with appropriate input from the parties, whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the vice-president’s oversight of the certification proceeding in his capacity as president of the Senate would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch,” he wrote. medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/Dc4_RFeKaz4?si=uXJTTG_-MyOU8IMOOther parts of the indictment against Trump, Roberts said, “require a close analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations”.That includes, he wrote, Trump’s statements on January 6, among them ones he made at the rally on the Ellipse.“Whether the tweets, that speech and Trump’s other communications on January 6 involve official conduct may depend on the content and context of each,” Roberts wrote in a characteristically noncommittal passage.He added, in a kind of refrain that ran through his opinion: “This necessarily fact-bound analysis is best performed initially by the district court.”In all, the majority opinion was a broad defence of executive power and a detailed recipe for delay.It was joined by the other Republican appointees: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and, in part, Amy Coney Barrett.In dissent, Sotomayor wrote that “the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark”.“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, adding: “The president of the US is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.” medium nocaptionhttps://youtu.be/sEPlpZuJzu0?si=HQ8gHmXzIbMasKAFShe gave examples: “Orders the Navy’s SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organises a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”Roberts rejected the prosecutors’ arguments that evidence about official acts could be presented to the jury for context and information about Trump’s motives.Trump contended that he is entitled to absolute immunity from the charges, relying on a broad understanding of the separation of powers and a 1982 Supreme Court precedent that recognised such immunity in civil cases for actions taken by presidents within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities.Lower courts rejected that claim.“Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy,” Chutkan wrote, “the US has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get out of jail free’ pass.”A unanimous three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. “For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defences of any other criminal defendant,” the panel wrote in an unsigned decision. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.”In agreeing to hear the case, the Supreme Court said it would decide this question: “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”