The Supreme Court ruled Monday that former president Donald Trump and other presidents enjoy a significant degree of immunity for actions taken as president, a decision that could reverberate not just in Trump\u2019s criminal cases but also for future presidents.<\/p>\n
The court split 6-3 along ideological lines in finding that a president is a) absolutely immune for actions taken while exercising his \u201ccore constitutional powers\u201d and b) entitled to the presumption of immunity for all official acts.<\/p>\n
It said this was \u201crequired to safeguard the independence and effective functioning of the Executive Branch, and to enable the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution.\u201d<\/p>\n
The court did find, though, that a president is not immune from prosecution for unofficial acts.<\/p>\n
That last finding opens the door to the continuation of Trump\u2019s 2020 federal election-subversion trial. But the decision takes some Trump conduct off the table and leaves plenty up in the air. That should lead to an even more protracted legal battle that appears even likelier to push the proceedings beyond the 2024 election, in which Trump is the presumptive Republican nominee.<\/p>\n
Below are some takeaways from the ruling.<\/p>\n
While Trump didn\u2019t get the \u201cabsolute\u201d immunity he initially sought for all acts \u2014 oral arguments suggested that it was unlikely he would \u2014 the decision is clearly a political victory. He got more than many predicted, and it should tie up his case.<\/p>\n
The justices didn\u2019t delve deeply into extensive details of what is and isn\u2019t fair game in Trump\u2019s trials. They instead mostly set broad parameters and sent the case back to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to consider how those parameters affect the case.<\/p>\n
A few key points:<\/p>\n
The court ruled that Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for any conduct \u201cinvolving his discussions with Justice Department officials\u201d \u2014 a significant segment of his federal indictment. For instance, this would seem to take off the table Trump\u2019s interactions with Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, a key figure who has been indicted in Georgia alongside Trump, as well as other top Justice Department officials telling Trump his voter-fraud theories were wrong.<\/span> All of which means some of Trump\u2019s conduct can still be prosecuted, but some cannot. And figuring out what can and cannot be is to be determined.<\/p>\n The other crucial point: The court ruled not only that Trump can\u2019t be prosecuted for certain conduct, but also that conduct for which he is immune can\u2019t even be used as evidence against him. So his interactions with Justice Department officials, for instance, can\u2019t be used to establish a criminal conspiracy to overturn the election.<\/p>\n On this point, one of the six conservative justices in the majority dissented.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Constitution does not require blinding juries to the circumstances surrounding conduct for which Presidents can be held liable,\u201d Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in a concurrence.<\/p>\n She added: \u201cTo make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo, the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo, even if the quo, standing alone, could not be a basis for the President\u2019s criminal liability.\u201d<\/p>\n While Trump can still technically be prosecuted, the decision will lead to plenty of uncertainty and \u2014 most crucially for the 2024 election \u2014 probably delay matters even further. Trump wasn\u2019t expected to face trial before the election; this reduces whatever chance existed.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because Chutkan will have to consider which parts of the prosecution\u2019s case are now permitted. And that could lead to lengthy arguments and consideration. Such decisions could also lead to lengthy appeals. Chutkan previously stated she would give Trump\u2019s legal team three months to prepare for a trial should the case be sent back to her. That meant the earliest trial date was already October, irrespective of the new decisions that will have to be made.<\/p>\n The Supreme Court\u2019s majority suggested that certain aspects of the indictment will have to be revisited \u2014 including comments Trump made on Jan. 6 itself.<\/p>\n \u201c[The indictment] includes only select Tweets and brief snippets of the speech Trump delivered on the morning of January 6, omitting its full text or context,\u201d the majority wrote. \u201cWhether the Tweets, that speech, and Trump\u2019s other communications on January 6 involve official conduct may depend on the content and context of each.\u201d<\/p>\n It added: \u201cThis necessarily factbound analysis is best performed initially by the District Court.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s tempting to view this decision in the context of Trump\u2019s trials, because that\u2019s the immediate concern. But it will also have far-reaching implications for future presidents, including for a potential second Trump term.<\/p>\n The court\u2019s liberal wing raised a giant red flag on that front, casting the decision as empowering future presidents to take drastic actions.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most striking arguments in the case revolved around hypotheticals about just what a grant of immunity could mean in the future.<\/p>\n The court\u2019s liberals say much is now on the table. Justice Sonia Sotomayor went the furthest in her dissent.<\/p>\n \u201cOrders the Navy\u2019s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune,\u201d Sotomayor wrote. \u201cOrganizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.\u201d<\/p>\n Sotomayor added: \u201cThe relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.\u201d<\/p>\n Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was more measured, warning only that a president could now be immune from such charges.<\/p>\n \u201cThus, even a hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics \u2026 or one who indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup \u2026 has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority\u2019s new Presidential accountability model,\u201d Jackson wrote.<\/p>\n The decision lands as Trump appears to be an increasing favorite to reclaim the White House in the 2024 election after President Biden\u2019s poor debate performance Thursday, and Trump has at the very least demonstrated a tendency to push the limits of the law and presidential power.<\/p>\n The decision could provide Trump a road map for exploiting those powers, and the liberal justices clearly fear what he might do with that.<\/p>\n \u201cWith fear for our democracy, I dissent,\u201d Sotomayor concluded.<\/p>\n The ruling caps a remarkably bad five-day period for Democrats.<\/p>\n First came Biden\u2019s awful debate performance Thursday. Then came a pair of Supreme Court rulings Friday limiting government prosecutions of Jan. 6 defendants \u2014 a significant PR victory for Trump \u2014 and giving the right a long-sought tool to challenge federal agency officials.<\/p>\n Now comes a ruling that significantly complicates the government\u2019s case against Trump, at the least, and could empower Trump to wield executive power in more extreme ways in a second term.<\/p>\n Given that prospect, which Democrats so fear, it\u2019s likely that Monday\u2019s ruling will add even more urgency to internal party debates about how to proceed in the 2024 election \u2014 and whether Biden is the right candidate to carry the torch forward.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The Supreme Court ruled Monday that former president Donald Trump and other presidents enjoy a significant degree of immunity for actions taken as president, a decision that could reverberate not just in Trump\u2019s criminal cases but also for future presidents. The court split 6-3 along ideological lines in finding that a president is a) absolutely […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5719","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIt ruled that he is presumed immune from prosecution for pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence to overturn the election on Jan. 6, 2021, because Trump\u2019s acts \u201cinvolve official conduct.\u201d It said the burden is on the government to prove that prosecuting Trump for this wouldn\u2019t \u201cpose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.\u201d<\/span>
\nIt left open the possibility that Trump can be prosecuted for other actions, particularly those with regard to people outside the executive branch and in the states. It ruled that \u201cthis alleged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular Presidential function.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n