The Supreme Court of the United States today returned to a lower instance the question of whether former President Donald Trump has immunity from criminal prosecution for trying to overturn the last presidential election.
A conservative judicial majority ruled that former presidents have entitlement to broad immunity associated with acts done in office, but she did not definitively rule on Trump’s case. The fate of the election indictment is now uncertain, US media reports.
The dispute returns to a federal judge, who suspended the trial in order to hear Trump’s objection ex-president charged with, among other things, conspiracy to suppress Americans’ suffrage. Even before today’s verdict, it was highly unlikely that the trial would reach a resolution before the November presidential election, in which Trump is running again. According to the AP agency, this probability is now decreasing further.
The Supreme Court completely disagreed with Trump’s argument that ex-presidents cannot be prosecuted for any acts while in office that could be considered an official act. Trump’s representative expressed the opinion that ordering a coup or the assassination of a political opponent can be considered such a step.
According to the verdict of six conservative members of the Supreme Court there is absolute immunitywhich applies to acts falling under “fundamental constitutional powers,” he explains daily The New York Times (NYT). Ex-presidents are also entitled to “at least a presumption of immunity from prosecution for all their official acts”. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts,” he continues decision.
Lower courts have broadly rejected Trump’s challenge. Now, first-instance judge Tanya Chutka is tasked with assessing which parts of the ex-president’s indictment for attempting to disrupt the approval of election results are based on official acts and which are not. According to the website Politico it can take months to discuss these issues.
Some media reports that parts of the indictment brought by special investigator Jack Smith are now doomed to fail. Above all, they mention allegations that Trump is trying to use the Department of Justice to challenge his defeat. These acts, according to the verdict, cannot even be used in court as evidence to support other charges. A question mark also hangs over the use of Trump’s post-election statements, as Chief Justice John Roberts said that “most of the president’s public communications” probably fall under “official duties.”
After losing in 2020, Trump did not recognize the result of the election and instead declared it fraudulent, even though the election was perfectly regular according to the authorities. In addition to inciting supporters, he exerted pressure on officials who were involved at various levels in confirming the results, and his allies tried to wrongfully attribute victories to him in several states. Because of his post-election campaign, activists demanded Trump’s exclusion from the upcoming elections, but the Supreme Court sided with the ex-president in this matter as well.
Whereas then the court was almost one, now there are three Liberal members called the majority’s decision a “mockery” of the core principle that everyone is equal before the law in the US. “In any exercise of his official power, the president is now a king above the law. . . . With concerns for our democracy, I dissent,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, without concluding her opinion with the usual phrase of “respectful” dissent.
The US Supreme Court dealt with presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for the first time. Before Trump, no ex-president of the USA had ever faced indictment, the Republican president from 2017 to 2021 was the target of as many as four last year, and in one case the jury already recognized his guilt. In addition to the federal election process, today’s decision could affect the impeachment in the state of Georgia, which is also related to Trump’s bid to reverse his defeat in 2020.
Trump said in a statement issued just after the Supreme Court decision that he was proud to be an American. “A big victory for our constitution and democracy,” he wrote on the social network Truth Social. If Trump were to return to the White House after the November election, he could sweep federal charges against him off the table, but the president has no control over state charges.
The team of US President Joe Biden, who is likely to face Trump again in the race for the White House, said that the facts about the ex-president remain the same. “He thinks he is above the law and is willing to do anything to gain power for himself and to hold on to it,” the statement said.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
