The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump has “presumptive immunity” for official actions taken as president, complicating but not killing special counsel Jack Smith’s election meddling case.
The court also ruled that Trump was not immune for “unofficial conduct.” And “not everything the President does is official,” the majority determined.
But the decision effectively removes any chance that a high-profile criminal case against the presumptive Republican presidential candidate will lead to a trial before the November 5 election.
The 6-3 ruling, which was dissented by the court’s three liberal justices, sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
“The president is not above the law,” wrote Chief Justice John Roberts for the majority.
“But Congress may not criminalize the President’s actions in carrying out the Executive Branch’s responsibilities under the Constitution,” Roberts said.
That means the president is “absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for acting in an area of ​​exclusive constitutional authority,” Roberts wrote.
That includes actions such as granting pardons or removing executive officers appointed by the president, he wrote.
The president also enjoys “at least immunity from criminal prosecution” for actions taken “at the outer perimeter of official responsibility,” the majority concluded.
Those standards are “required to preserve the independence and effective functioning of the Executive Branch,” the chief justice said.
In practice, that means the president is immune from prosecution “unless the Government can demonstrate that applying criminal sanctions to the conduct would not result in ‘dangerous interference with the authority and functions of the Executive Branch,'” Roberts wrote.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor in a blistering dissent wrote, “this majority project will have disastrous consequences for the President and for our democracy.”
“The relationship between the President and the people he serves has changed irrevocably. In every exercise of official power, the President is now king above the law,” he wrote.
“When he exercises his official power in any way, according to the majority’s reasoning, he will now be insulated from criminal prosecution,” Sotomayor wrote.
“Commanding the 6th Navy Seal Team to kill a political rival? Immunity. Organizing a military coup to seize power? Immunity. Taking bribes in exchange for a pardon? Immunity. Immunity, immunity, immunity.”
“Fearing for our democracy, I disagree,” he wrote.
Trump celebrated the decision after it was released Monday morning.
“GREAT VICTORY FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AMERICAN!” he wrote in Social Truth.
Trump is charged in a four-count indictment with an illegal conspiracy to overturn his loss to President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.
The case in the Washington, DC, federal court has been put on hold after Trump said he is immune from prosecution for official actions taken while he was president. Lawyers for Trump have argued that the former president cannot be prosecuted for official acts in office unless impeached and impeached by Congress.
Trump was impeached in the House for disrupting the uprising on January 6, 2021, when a crowd of supporters stormed the US Capitol and temporarily blocked lawmakers from confirming Biden’s election victory. He was acquitted in the Senate, where the Constitution requires a two-thirds vote to secure a conviction.
The pause in the election case forced Chutkan to postpone Trump’s trial, which was originally scheduled to begin on March 4.
Critics were outraged when the high court decided to address the immunity question, instead of allowing the appeals court’s decision to reject Trump’s immunity claim.
The intervention of the Supreme Court ensured an additional month of delay and threatened to try to go through the November 5 election.
The election case is often considered the most serious of the four criminal charges filed against Trump as he seeks another term as president.
