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SUPREME COURT SAYS TRUMP HAS IMMUNITY FOR OFFICIAL ACTS: IS THE PRESIDENT NOW A KING?

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The Supreme Court has ruled that former President Donald Trump can’t be prosecuted for official acts taken as President. Trump immediately hailed the ruling. Dissenting Judge Sonia Sotomayor said the ruling “reshapes the institution of the presidency.”

Some say the ruling, in effect, makes the President akin to a king and is a major expansion of executive power. An overstatement? Perhaps – except the “oh, that’ll never happen” in recent years has become “OMG it happened.”

Reuters:

The U.S. Supreme Court found on Monday that Donald Trump cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken as president, but can for private acts, in a landmark ruling recognizing for the first time any form of presidential immunity from prosecution.

The justices, in a 6-3 ruling written by Chief Justice John Roberts, threw out a lower court’s decision rejecting Trump’s claim of immunity from criminal charges involving his efforts to undo his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden. The six conservative justices were in the majority. Its three liberals dissented.
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“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that former president have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Roberts wrote.

“At least with respect to the president’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity,” Roberts added.
And:

Trump hailed the ruling in a social media post, writing: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

Roberts said Trump’s case will be sent back to the lower courts for further review. The Supreme Court’s slow handling of the blockbuster case already had helped Trump by making it unlikely that any trial on these charges brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith could be completed before the election.

The court analyzed four categories of conduct contained in Trump’s indictment: his discussions with Justice Department officials following the 2020 election, his alleged pressure on then-Vice President Mike Pence to block certification of Biden’s election win, his alleged role in assembling fake pro-Trump electors and his conduct related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

The court found Trump was absolutely immune for conversations with Justice Department officials but returned the case to lower courts to determine whether Trump has immunity for the other three categories. The ruling marked the first time since the nation’s 18th century founding that the Supreme Court has declared that former presidents may be shielded from criminal charges in any instance.

Trump is the Republican candidate challenging Biden, a Democrat, in the Nov. 5 U.S. election in a 2020 rematch.

[…]Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, delivered a sharply worded dissent, saying the ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”

Sotomayor added: “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for bold and unhesitating action by the president, the court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”
Sotomayor said the ruling “reshapes the institution of the presidency.”

CBS News:

he Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former President Donald Trump is entitled to immunity from federal prosecution for official actions he took while in office, a landmark decision in the height of an election season that could further delay the start of his criminal trial in Washington, D.C.

The 6-3 decision along ideological lines tosses out a ruling from the federal appeals court in Washington that concluded Trump is not entitled to broad immunity from criminal charges stemming from an alleged scheme to hold on to power after the 2020 election. The justices sent the dispute back to the district court for further proceedings, and gave the court guidance about how to move forward.

The ruling is an expansion of presidential power, since it extends immunity from criminal prosecutions to former presidents for their official conduct. Never before had the Supreme Court considered whether a former commander in chief could face criminal charges as a result of conduct that occurred while in the Oval Office.

Trump is the first to have held the presidency and faced prosecution. He has pleaded not guilty to four charges stemming from an alleged effort to subvert the transfer of presidential power after the 2020 election.

The former president cheered the decision, calling it a “big win for our Constitution and democracy” in a social media post.

NPR’s Nina Totenbergwrites:

The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, ruled that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers — and is entitled to a presumption of immunity for his official acts, but lacks immunity for unofficial acts. But at the same time, the court sent the case back to the trial judge to determine which, if any of Trump’s actions, were part of his official duties and thus were protected from prosecution.

That part of the court’s decision likely ensures that the case against Trump won’t be tried before the election, and then only if he is not reelected. If he is reelected, Trump could order the Justice Department to drop the charges against him, or he might try to pardon himself in the two pending federal cases.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s decision, joined by his fellow conservatives. Dissenting were the three liberals, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Monday’s decision to send the case back to trial Judge Tanya Chutkan all but guarantees that there will be no Trump trial on the election interference charges for months. Even before the immunity case, Judge Chutkan indicated that trial preparations would likely take three months. Now, she will also have to decide which of the charges in the Trump indictment should remain and which involve official acts that under the Supreme Court ruling are protected from prosecution.

Even after Judge Chutkan separates the constitutional wheat from the chaff, Trump could seek further delays, as immunity questions are among the very few that may be appealed prior to trial.

Monday’s Supreme Court decision came months after the court agreed to hear the case Feb. 28 and scheduled arguments for two months later. Court critics have noted that the justices could have considered the case as early as in December, when Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith unsuccessfully sought review of the same questions later put forward by Trump.

All of this stands in stark contrast to the way the court has handled other presidential power cases. In 1974 the justices ruled against President Nixon just 16 days after hearing oral arguments. The vote was 8-0, with Justice William Rehnquist recusing himself because of his close ties to some of the officials accused of wrongdoing in the case. And this year the court took less than a month to rule unanimously that states could not bar Trump from the ballot.

LA Times:

The decision is a clear win for Trump. The court’s conservative majority agreed with his claims that an ex-president has a broad immunity from criminal charges. And the case was sent back to a district judge for further hearings that will take many months.

“The president enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the president does is official. The president is not above the law,” said Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. “But Congress may not criminalize the president’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the executive branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the framers has always demanded an energetic, independent executive. 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.”

This outcome all but assures Trump will not face a trial on these charges before the November election. And if he returns to office, he can order the Justice Department to dismiss the case.

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said “today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law …. The court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.” Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson agreed.

Before Monday, the Supreme Court had not ruled on whether a president or ex-president can be prosecuted for a crime.

The closest case came in July 1974, when a unanimous court rejected President Nixon’s claim of executive privilege and ordered him to turn over his White House tapes to investigators pursuing the Watergate scandal.

The Justice Department had maintained it would not bring charges against a president while in office. Government lawyers said the Constitution’s only remedy for law breaking by a president is impeachment.

But it had been long assumed that a former president could be indicted for crimes, including for actions that he took while in the White House.

Trump’s lawyers, however, argued that a former president was broadly shielded from prosecution for his “official acts.”

They also raised the specter of a partisan prosecution, since the former chief executive and this year’s Republican nominee for president is facing charges lodged by a Democratic administration whose president is running against Trump.

Atty. Gen. Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as a special counsel to investigate Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. And last year, he indicted the former president on charges of conspiring to prevent the counting of electoral votes that confirmed Biden had won the election.

Trump called his supporters to come to Washington on Jan. 6 when Congress was meeting to certify Biden’s victory. He urged them to “stop the steal,” and thousands of them rioted at the Capitol and broke into the building.

The special counsel hoped to bring the charges before a jury this spring, but Trump and his lawyers won several delays from the Supreme Court.

While Trump’s claim of absolute immunity was derided by legal experts, Smith and his lawyers took a similarly broad and unyielding position in the opposite direction. They said a former president had no immunity from criminal charges if a prosecutor won an indictment from a grand jury.

The special counsel’s position was accepted by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, the assigned trial judge, and upheld by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington.

However, it soon became clear that Smith’s position was not favored at the Supreme Court.

Photo 45093891 | Supreme Court © William Perry | Dreamstime.com