Trump enjoys broad immunity in election interference case

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that former President Donald Trump has immunity from lawsuits for any official acts he took while in office to overturn his 2020 reelection defeat, but no immunity for unofficial acts. The top U.S. court left it to lower courts to decide when Trump could be sued.

The 6-3 decision, issued on the final day of the court's current term, virtually guarantees that Trump will not face trial in the case until after the Nov. 5 election, in which he is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee and must face President Joe Biden, the Democrat who defeated him in 2020.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing related to the outcome of the 2020 election, but has long falsely claimed that irregularities in voting and vote counting cost him another four-year term in the White House.

If he loses the November election, he could go to trial soon after in the case related to the 2020 election, but if he wins, he could order his attorney general, the nation's top prosecutor, to drop the case.

Biden rebukes court

Biden spoke briefly from the White House Monday evening, condemning the decision.

“No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States,” Biden said.

He vowed to continue to respect the limits of presidential power, but warned that future presidents might not do so.

“Any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law,” Biden said.

The president said Monday's decision was the latest in a “series of attacks in recent years on a broad range of long-established legal principles in our nation” by the court, citing rulings against abortion rights and civil rights-era voting laws among decisions that “undermine the rule of law in this nation.”

Decision 6-3

The court's decision fell along ideological lines, with six conservatives in the majority and a minority of three dissenting liberal members.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said Trump could not be sued for exercising his core constitutional powers and was entitled, at a minimum, to presumptive immunity from prosecution for all of his official acts.

But Roberts said: “The president has no immunity for his unofficial actions, and not everything he does is unofficial. The president is not above the law.”

The court, meanwhile, dismissed part of prosecutor Jack Smith's case against Trump, alleging that the former president tried to use the Justice Department to bolster his claims of election fraud and submit lists of fake Trump voters in states won by Biden.

The president can discuss possible investigations and prosecutions with his attorney general and other Justice Department officials to fulfill his constitutional duty, Roberts wrote. Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.

FILE – With the White House in the background, then-President Donald Trump addresses supporters at a rally in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021.

The court asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to review Trump’s indictment before the trial begins, for charges that should be dismissed because they are based on his official acts, while leaving open unofficial acts that could form the basis of a prosecution against Trump. The court said Chutkan cannot investigate the president’s motives.

The court's dissenting justices fiercely opposed the decision, with Justice Sonia Sotomayor writing that it ridicules the fundamental principle of our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.

Trump celebrates

Trump welcomed the decision, declaring in all caps on his Truth Social platform: “Great victory for our Constitution and our democracy. Proud to be an American.”

This is the first time the Supreme Court has ruled on whether a former president can be criminally prosecuted for acts committed while in office or whether he is immune from prosecution. The decision appears to leave that question to be decided on a case-by-case basis, based on individual circumstances.

American jurisprudence is based on the principle that no one is above the law, that everyone has the same freedoms, but also that everyone is liable to prosecution if the laws are violated. Once again, the decision seems ambiguous, and other decisions remain to be made.

Trump made a categorical statement about executive immunity, saying that in trying to overturn his election defeat four years ago, he was acting officially as president in trying to maintain the integrity of the result, insisting that he lost only because of election fraud and irregularities.

Trump lost five dozen lawsuits claiming he was denied reelection to a second four-year term, and to this day he frequently repeats the same false claim, only occasionally saying he lost reelection to Biden.

Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith accused Trump in a four-count indictment filed in Washington nearly a year ago of conspiring to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election, engaging in a conspiracy to reverse his defeat in order to stay in power.

Smith accused Trump of seeking help from Justice Department officials to validate his claims that widespread fraud had prevented him from being reelected. The indictment alleges that he and his top aides pressured state lawmakers to draw up false electoral rolls by claiming that he had won states where the vote count favored Biden.

The indictment describes how Trump pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to block or delay the certification of Biden's victory as Congress considered the final vote count at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

FILE – Trump supporters are seen gathering outside the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 6, 2021. Protesters, before mobs stormed the Capitol building, claimed, without evidence, that Democrats cheated in the 2020 presidential election.

In the United States, the outcome of the presidential election is not determined by the popular vote but by a vote in the Electoral College. The national election is actually a state-by-state vote in each of the 50 states, with the most populous states holding the most votes in the Electoral College.

Trump has argued in the case that the Supreme Court ruled that his actions were not criminal in order to maintain his position in office but rather to preserve the integrity of the election and that he could not be prosecuted. Trump's lawyers have argued that his actions were central to Trump's official responsibilities as president.

In one case, his lawyers even argued that a president could not be prosecuted for using the military to assassinate a rival unless he was first impeached through congressional proceedings.

After the verdict, Biden’s campaign said: “Let’s be very clear about what happened on January 6. Donald Trump snapped after losing the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Trump is already running for president as a convicted felon for the same reason he stood by as the mob violently attacked the Capitol: He believes he is above the law and will do anything to gain and maintain power.”

Civil and criminal acts

Other court rulings have held that presidents enjoy limited immunity from civil lawsuits challenging actions they take.

But Monday's case is the first time the court has ruled on presidential immunity as it relates to a president's alleged criminal acts, and as such it could also set a precedent for all future presidents, not just Trump.

As the case continued earlier this year, Trump publicly argued at press conferences and political rallies that all US presidents should be granted immunity from criminal prosecution after leaving office, because otherwise political rivals newly elected to the White House would immediately seek to indict their former adversaries.

Trump has already been convicted of 34 counts in a New York state court. In late May, a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to conceal a $130,000 cash payment to a porn star just before his successful 2016 election campaign to silence her claim, denied by Trump, that she had a one-night stand with him in 2006.

Trump will go to trial on July 11 and could be placed on probation or imprisoned for up to four years.

In addition to the election interference case in Washington, Trump also faces two other criminal charges, one for interfering with the outcome of the 2020 election in the southern state of Georgia, where he narrowly lost to Biden, and another accusing him of hoarding national security documents at his oceanfront retreat at Mar-a-Lago rather than turning them over to the National Archives as he was required to do when he left office in early 2021.

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