Politics
Listen Live: Supreme Court Considers Trump's Full Immunity Claim in 2020 Election
Washington — The Supreme Court meets Thursday to consider whether former President Donald Trump is entitled to broad immunity from federal prosecution, embarking on a blockbuster dispute that will be crucial to the fate of his 2020 election case in Washington , D.C.
The issue in the case known as Trump v. United States is whether the former president can face criminal charges for allegedly official actions while in the White House. This dispute, arising from federal lawsuits brought by special counsel Jack Smith, is the second to come before the justices during their current term, with significant consequences for Trump's political future.
The Supreme Court has never before considered whether a former president is immune from criminal prosecution, and the outcome of the legal battle will determine whether Smith's case goes to trial. The court has a 6-3 conservative majority and Trump appointed three of its members.
If Trump prevails, it would end his federal prosecution in Washington. But if the Supreme Court sides with the special prosecutor — who won his case in two lower courts — and the justices reject Trump's claims of broad immunity, proceedings in the case could resume. However, it is unclear how soon the trial would begin.
A Smith victory would also raise the stakes for Trump's 2024 election, since he could order the Justice Department to drop criminal charges against him if he takes back the White House.
Arguments should last at least an hour. D. John Sauer, former solicitor general of Missouri, is expected to make the case for Trump, and Michael Dreeben, counsel to the special prosecutor, will appear on behalf of Smith and his team of prosecutors.
In this legal battle, the justices will consider whether the doctrine of presidential immunity extends to criminal prosecutions for acts committed by a former president while in office.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that a president was exempt from civil liability for acts performed within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties. But it has never before been questioned whether this broad immunity protects the country's chief executive from criminal charges. Trump is the first former president in the country's history to be prosecuted. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the charges against him were politically motivated.
These debates will be the last of the current term of the Supreme Court, during which the justices have taken up numerous disputes directly or indirectly involving Trump. In March, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not block Trump from the 2024 ballot by invoking a rarely invoked provision of the 14th Amendment, overturning a blockbuster ruling by Colorado's highest court that found him ineligible for president due to his actions surrounding the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol.
The proceedings will also run parallel to the historic criminal trial involving Trump taking place in Manhattan, where he is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records. The former president has pleaded not guilty to the charges and unsuccessfully tried to have them dismissed on immunity grounds. The judge overseeing that trial denied a request that Trump be excused from attending oral arguments at the Supreme Court.
The case for Trump's immunity
The dispute over presidential immunity stems from four charges against Trump in connection with his alleged attempt to overturn the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election. The former president has pleaded not guilty to all counts. accusation last year, and proceedings in that case have been on hold for months while the immunity case worked its way through the federal courts.
Two lower courts in Washington rejected Trump's claim that he was immune from criminal charges related to conduct that occurred while he was still in the White House. His lawyers asked the Supreme Court to overturn those decisions, telling the justices that Trump's actions after the election were “official” in nature and therefore protected from prosecution.
The question before the justices is “whether and to what extent a former president enjoys presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his term in office.”
Highlighting the historic charges against Trump, his lawyers said their unprecedented nature proves that presidents are largely immune from criminal charges.
“From 1789 to 2023, no president, former or current, has faced criminal charges for his official actions – for good reason,” they wrote in a filing last month. “The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot maintain its vital independence, if the president is subject to criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office.”
Former President Donald Trump appears in court for his “hush money” trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on April 23, 2024 in New York. Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images
Sauer is expected to reiterate his previous assertions that Trump's actions between the November 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol attack were taken in the course of his official duties, not in his capacity as a presidential candidate.
“Once our nation crosses this Rubicon, every future president will face de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and will be harassed by politically motivated lawsuits after leaving office, over his most important decisions. sensitive and most controversial,” he warned before the Supreme Court. deposit. “This bleak scenario would result in a weak and hollow president, and would therefore be ruinous for the American political system as a whole.”
Trump's legal team also claimed that presidents can only be prosecuted if they have first been impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate. Trump was impeached by the House on a single article of incitement of insurrection after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, but acquitted by the Senate.
The special prosecutor, meanwhile, argues that the Constitution does not provide the president with absolute immunity from criminal prosecution, particularly when related to the private act of campaigning.
In a brief filed with the Supreme Court earlier this month, Smith's team wrote that “no presidential power at issue in this case authorizes the President to claim immunity from general federal criminal prohibitions to supporting the charges: fraud against the United States, obstruction of official functions.” procedures and denial of the right to vote.
The special prosecutor alleges that Trump engaged in a criminal conspiracy to retain power, and that his actions were all taken to achieve a private goal: remaining in the White House for a second term. In his filings with the Supreme Court, Smith wrote that Trump's alleged conduct “thwarts fundamental constitutional provisions that protect democracy.”
The special prosecutor wrote earlier this month that there are “layered safeguards” when a criminal case is initiated, which “provide assurance that prosecutions will be reviewed according to rigorous standards and that no presiding need not be deterred from fulfilling his responsibilities by knowing that he is submissive.” liable to prosecution if he commits federal crimes.
Smith's team refuted Trump's lawyers' claim that the charges against the former president lacked historical legal precedent.
“The lack of prosecution of former presidents until this case does not reflect the notion that presidents are exempt from criminal liability; rather, it highlights the unprecedented nature of the petitioner's alleged conduct,” argued the special prosecutor.
Prosecutors wrote in their filing that although the Supreme Court holds that a former president cannot be criminally prosecuted for official acts, Trump's alleged conduct was a “private scheme with private actors to achieve a private goal: the petitioner’s efforts to remain in power through fraud.” “
A plan to overturn the outcome of the presidential election is “the paradigmatic example of conduct that should not be immune, even if other conduct should be,” they said.
Lower court losses
The trial in Trump's case was scheduled to begin in March, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who had been assigned to preside over it, scrapped that timeline after the former president appealed her initial ruling that he could be criminally charged.
The proceedings have been on hold since December, and even though the Supreme Court clears the way for prosecution of Trump, its review of the matter has delayed the case.
In his December ruling rejecting Trump's full immunity, Chutkan wrote that “the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a free pass for life to “get out of jail”” prosecutions.
The former president appealed this decision. In an attempt to speed up the trial, Smith asked the Supreme Court to bypass the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and take the rare step of considering the immunity issue before for the Court of Appeal to rule.
The justices denied that request, allowing the D.C. Circuit to hear and decide the case first.
The appeals court's three-judge panel ruled unanimously against Trump in February, allowing the lawsuits to move forward.
“For the purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump has become a Trump citizen, with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the panel, consisting of judges Karen LeCraft Henderson, Michelle Childs and Florence Pan, wrote in his opinion. “But any executive immunity that might have protected him while he was president no longer protects him from these prosecutions.”
The justices warned that “Trump's position would cause the collapse of our system of separate powers by placing the president beyond the reach of all three branches.”
The former president then asked the Supreme Court to intervene, which it accepted at the end of February. A decision is expected by the end of June.
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