Supreme Court sends Trump immunity case back to lower court

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court ruled Monday for the first time that former presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution, extending the deadline in Washington's criminal case against Donald Trump on charges that he plotted to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss and ending any prospect that the former president could be tried before the November election.

In a historic 6-3 decision, the court's conservative majority, including all three justices appointed by Trump, narrowed the case against him and sent it back to the lower court to determine what remains of special counsel Jack Smith's indictment.

The courts’ decision in a second major case involving Trump this term, along with its decision rejecting efforts to exclude him from the ballot because of his actions after the 2020 election, underscores the role the justices are playing in the November election. Last week, the court also limited an obstruction charge that Trump faced and used against hundreds of his supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Under our constitutional separation of powers structure, the nature of presidential power gives a former president absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within his conclusive and exclusive constitutional authority, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the Court. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.

Roberts insisted that the president is not above the law. But in a sharp dissent in favor of the three liberal justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote: “In every exercise of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”

Sotomayor said in her ruling: “Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from accountability for his criminal and treasonous acts, I disagree.” Sotomayor said the decision violates the fundamental principle of our Constitution and system of government that no one is above the law.

She said the protection given to presidents by the Court was as bad as it seemed and was unfounded.

Shortly after his decision was released, Trump posted in capital letters on his social media: GREAT VICTORY FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND OUR DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!

Smith's office declined to comment on the decision.

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President Joe Biden's campaign said in a statement that the Supreme Court's immunity ruling does not change the facts about the events of January 6.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer denounced the decision as shameful, made with the help of the three Trump-appointed judges.

This undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court and suggests that political influence trumps everything in our courts today, the New York Democrat said.

The judges threw out one aspect of the indictment. The opinion concluded that Trump was absolutely immune from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.

Trump is also at least presumptively immune from allegations that he tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of Democrat Joe Biden's election victory on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors may try to argue that Trump's pressure on Pence can still be part of the case against him, Roberts wrote.

The court ordered a factual analysis of one of the most striking allegations in the indictment — that Trump engaged in a scheme to enlist fake voters in key Biden-won states who would falsely claim that Trump had won. The two sides had starkly different interpretations of whether that effort could be considered official, and conservative justices said determining which side is right would require additional analysis at the trial court level.

Roberts' opinion further restricted prosecutors by prohibiting them from using official acts as evidence to try to prove that a president's unofficial actions violated the law. One example not relevant to this case but that came up during the argument was the hypothetical payment of a bribe in exchange for an ambassadorial appointment.

Under Monday's ruling, a former president could be prosecuted for accepting a bribe, but prosecutors could not mention the official act, the appointment, in their case.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who joined the other justices in Roberts' case, dissented on that point. The Constitution does not require jurors to be blind to the circumstances surrounding the conduct for which presidents can be held responsible, Barrett wrote.

The task of determining how to proceed will fall to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who will preside over Trump's trial.

Trump could still be tried, said Derek Muller, a Notre Dame law professor. But it remains almost impossible that he will be tried before the election.

David Becker, an election law expert and executive director of the nonprofit Center for Election Innovation and Research, called the scope of Trump's immunity incredibly broad and deeply troubling.

Almost everything a president does with executive power qualifies as an official act, he said on a call with reporters after the decision. He added that for any unscrupulous individual in the Oval Office who might lose an election, the way I read this decision is that it could be a road map for them to seek to stay in power.

The decision is the last of the session and comes more than two months after the court last heard arguments, much more slowly than in other epic high court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes affair.

The former Republican president has denied doing anything wrong and said this lawsuit and three others were politically motivated to try to prevent him from returning to the White House.

In May, Trump became the first former president to be convicted of a crime, in a New York court. He was found guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a hush-money payment made during the 2016 presidential election to a porn actress who claims she had sex with him, which he denies. He still faces three other charges.

Smith is leading the two federal investigations into the former president, both of which have resulted in criminal charges. The Washington case focuses on Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election after he lost to Biden. The Florida case revolves around the mishandling of classified documents. Another case, in Georgia, also focuses on Trump’s actions after his 2020 defeat.

If Trump's trial in Washington does not take place before the 2024 election and he is not granted four more years in the White House, he will likely be tried shortly thereafter.

But if he wins, he could appoint an attorney general who would seek to have this case and the other federal charges he faces dismissed. He could also seek a pardon if he wins the White House. He was unable to pardon the New York state court conviction.

Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a separate opinion saying that Smith's appointment as special prosecutor was illegitimate. No other justices agreed, but the issue has been central to recent debates in the Florida case over classified documents.

The Supreme Court that heard the case included three Trump-appointed justices, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Barrett, and two justices who chose not to retire after questions were raised about their impartiality.

Thomas’ wife, Ginni, attended the rally near the White House where Trump spoke on January 6, 2021, but she did not go to the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters attacked it shortly afterward. After the 2020 election, she called the outcome a robbery and exchanged messages with then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, urging him to stand firm with Trump as he falsely claimed there was widespread voter fraud.

Justice Samuel Alito said there was no reason for him to recuse himself from the cases following New York Times reports that flags similar to those carried by the Jan. 6 rioters were flying over his homes in Virginia and on the Jersey Shore. His wife, Martha-Ann Alito, was responsible for displaying the inverted American flag in January 2021 and the Appeal to Heaven banner in the summer of 2023, he said in letters to Democratic lawmakers responding to their requests for recusal.

Trump's trial was scheduled to begin on March 4, but that was before he requested court-approved delays and a full review of the matter by the nation's highest court.

Before the Supreme Court got involved, a trial judge and a three-judge appeals panel had unanimously ruled that Trump could be sued for actions taken while he was in the White House and in the period leading up to January 6.

In this criminal case, former President Trump became a Trump citizen, with all the defenses of any other criminal defendant, the appeals court wrote in February. But any executive immunity that might have protected him while he was president no longer shields him from this prosecution.

In December, Judge Chutkan ruled against Trump's request for immunity. In her decision, she said that the office of president does not confer a lifetime pass to get out of prison.

___

Associated Press journalists Lindsay Whitehurst, Alanna Durkin Richer, Eric Tucker, Stephen Groves, Farnoush Amiri, Michelle Price and Ali Swenson contributed to this report.

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