Supreme Court says Trump has some immunity, delaying trial
Case back to lower court to determine when and whether Trump will go to trial
Washington: The US Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump has some immunity from criminal charges for trying to reverse the 2020 election results, all but ensuring that a trial won’t happen before the November election.
The justices, voting 6-3 along ideological lines, said a federal appeals court was too categorical in rejecting Trump’s immunity arguments, ruling for the first time that former presidents are shielded from prosecution for some official acts taken while in office. The majority ordered the lower courts to revisit the case to decide the extent of the allegations that are off limits to prosecution.
“The president is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “But Congress may not criminalise the president’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”
The court stopped short of tossing out the indictment, as Trump had sought. But the ruling’s timing nonetheless makes it a tactical triumph for the former president, effectively shutting the narrow window for Special Counsel Jack Smith to put Trump in front of a jury in Washington before Election Day on November 5.
Trump is now likely to reach the November election with only one of the four criminal cases against him having gone to trial. He was convicted in New York state court May 30 for falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. The Washington trial has been on hold while Trump pressed his immunity case.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented. Sotomayor said the decision is based on “misguided wisdom” and “reshapes the institution of the Presidency.”
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.
“It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.
Big win for democracy: Trump
Trump hailed the ruling. “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” he said on a post on his social media network Truth.
All three of the justices Trump appointed - Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett - joined the majority, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.
The majority said Trump was entitled to immunity for allegations related to efforts to press the Justice Department in intervene in the postelection contests. The court said other pieces of the indictment might involve official acts that triggered immunity for Trump, sending the case back to the trial judge to dig into the record and make a new round of findings.
Roberts went beyond saying that Trump’s official acts can’t be part of the indictment, saying that conduct can’t be used as evidence at trial. Doing so would “heighten the prospect that the president’s official decisionmaking will be distorted,” he wrote.
On May 30, a New York jury convicted Trump on felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign, making Trump the first former US president ever convicted of a crime.
His sentencing will take place on July 11.
By filing a blizzard of pre-trial motions, Trump's lawyers have managed to put on hold the three other trials, which deal with his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and hoarding top-secret documents at his home in Florida.
If reelected, Trump could, once sworn in as president in January 2025, order the federal trials against him closed.
Trump is accused of conspiring to defraud the US by promoting false claims of election fraud, pressuring the Justice Department to conduct sham investigations, pushing then-Vice President Mike Pence to undercut certification of Joe Biden’s victory and inciting a crowd to storm the Capitol.
The decision came in Trump’s appeal of a lower court ruling rejecting his immunity claim. The court decided the case on the last day of its term.
Trump, 78, is the first former US president to be criminally prosecuted as well as the first former president convicted of a crime. Smith’s election subversion charges embody one of the four criminal cases Trump has faced.
‘Misguided wisdom’
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.”
'The 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."
Trump had argued that he is immune from prosecution because he was serving as president when he took the actions that led to the charges. Smith had opposed presidential immunity from prosecution based on the principle that no one is above the law.
Rick Hasen, a professor of law at the UCLA School of Law and a critic of Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, said: “The Supreme Court has put out a fact-intensive test on the boundaries of the president’s immunity - with a huge thumb on the scale favoring the president’s immunity - in a way that will surely push this case past the election.”
During April 25 arguments in the case, Trump’s legal team urged the justices to fully shield former presidents from criminal charges - “absolute immunity” - for official acts taken in office. Without immunity, Trump’s lawyer said, sitting presidents would face “blackmail and extortion” by political rivals due to the threat of future prosecution.
The court’s conservative majority includes three justices Trump appointed.
In the special counsel’s August 2023 indictment, Trump was charged with conspiring to defraud the United States, corruptly obstructing an official proceeding and conspiring to do so, and conspiring against the right of Americans to vote. He has pleaded not guilty.