The Supreme Court on Monday handed former President Donald Trump a partial victory by kicking the future of his January 6 criminal case down to a lower court.
Justices rejected Trump’s claim that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from criminal charges related to actions that come under the scope of the presidency. But on a 6-3 vote, a majority of the high court decided that former presidents do hold some immunity.
Chief Justice Roberts wrote that in some circumstances, presidents must know that they have immunity from criminal prosecution otherwise their ability to do the job could be effected.
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Roberts wrote for the majority. “At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan must now decide how the court’s ruling will affect special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump for efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election. It’s not immediately clear how quickly Chutkan could move, but it seems unlikely the former president will face trial before the November election. In taking its time to craft this ruling, justices have essentially handed Trump another victory for his delay tactics.
It’s likely that Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial will now be his only trial before the election. If he were to win the election, he would likely scuttle the January 6 case and Smith’s other criminal case in Florida related to Trump’s hoarding of classified documents.
The ruling largely falls on the lines that appeared present during oral arguments. Conservative justices, including the Trump-appointed Neil Gorsuch, stressed that the case before them was of far more importance than just the facts of what the former president is accused of doing after the 2020 election.
“We are writing a rule for the ages,” Gorsuch said.
While at the time, more liberal justices recoiled at the thought of permanently placing the presidency above the law.
“The most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority could go into office knowing there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said during oral arguments. “I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”
The court’s ruling came after Justice Samuel Alito refused to recuse himself from the case. Democratic lawmakers had pressed Alito to step aside after The New York Times reported that a flag had been flown upside down at Alito’s Virginia home following the 2020 election, an established sign of distress that at the time was viewed as a symbol of solidarity for Trump’s false claims the election was stolen. Alito has said Martha-Ann Alito, his wife, decided to fly the flag upside down. In a letter to lawmakers, Alito said the flag was not intended to show support for the “Stop the Steal” movement.
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