What Does the Supreme Court's Decision on Trump's Immunity Mean? 6 Questions Answered

In a landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that former presidents enjoy at least some immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” in office, regardless of their political views, politics or party, but said that protection does not cover everything.

Read the Supreme Court's full decision on Trump and presidential immunity

The Supreme Court's three liberal justices issued a dissenting opinion. Monday's decision “reshapes the institution of the presidency and could have serious and long-term consequences for American democracy,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote.

While the Supreme Court will be tasked with determining the specific parameters of the Supreme Court’s decision, one thing is clear: For Trump, the decision is a victory. He and his legal team have sought to dismiss or delay all four criminal cases pending against him. And this latest Supreme Court decision makes it difficult to see how the 2020 federal election case could be decided before the next Election Day.

Shortly after the court's decision was released, the former president declared in capital letters on his social media: “Great victory for our Constitution and our democracy. Proud to be an American.”

What will happen to the federal criminal charges against Trump, especially if he is reelected? Here are five quick questions about the court's decision.

In short, what does the judgment say?

At the heart of Trump v. United States was a legally untested question that had not been brought before the Supreme Court until now: Could a president be immune from criminal prosecution for official acts committed while in office?

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is unofficial. The President is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

But, Roberts added, the system of separation of powers designed by the framers of the Constitution always required a vigorous and independent executive. The president therefore cannot be sued for exercising his fundamental constitutional powers and is entitled, at a minimum, to presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.

The court's three liberal justices argued that granting a president immunity from prosecution made him a king above the law.

Let the president break the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, use his official power for nefarious purposes, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. Because if he knew that he might one day be held accountable for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and courageous as we would like him to be. That is the message of the majority today.

How does the court define an official act and an unofficial act?

Chief Justice Roberts defined three different categories of presidential acts:

Official acts that rely on fundamental constitutional powers, for which immunity must be absolute. Official actions within the outer perimeter of official responsibility, which require at least presumptive immunity. Unofficial actions during the exercise of his functions, against which the President enjoys no immunity.

According to Roberts, some actions, such as those involving the attorney general or the Justice Department, fall into the first category. They are easily categorized based on the nature of the president's official relationship with the office held by that person and therefore fall under absolute immunity.

Other interactions, Roberts writes, become more complicated.

These include Trump's conversations with then-Vice President Mike Pence, who was responsible for overseeing the certification of the Electoral College votes on January 6, 2021.

The indictment's allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the vice president to take particular actions related to his role in the certification proceedings therefore involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct, Roberts wrote.

The question then becomes whether this presumption of immunity is rebutted in the circumstances, he added.

Roberts acknowledged the wide range of other conduct mentioned in Trump's indictment, including false claims of election fraud, the alleged fake voter scheme and his actions on January 6.

The court asked the trial court to determine whether these actions, involving state governments, private actors and the public, were taken in an official or unofficial capacity.

Determining which characterization may be correct, and with respect to what conduct, requires a factual analysis of the indictment's numerous and interrelated allegations, Roberts wrote.

What did the court say about Trump and the government's arguments?

Trump claims far broader immunity than the limited one recognized by the Court, Roberts writes.

Trump's legal team, invoking the impeachment clause, has argued that the federal government's case against him should be dismissed because a conviction by the U.S. Senate is a necessary step before criminal charges. Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives but acquitted in his Jan. 6 impeachment trial.

But Roberts wrote that the clause does not cover what happens if a president is never impeached. Nor do it and other historical documents address the question of how immunity from prosecution applies to a former president.

For its part, the Justice Department takes a similarly broad position, asserting that the president enjoys no immunity from criminal prosecution for any action.

The burden is on the government to rebut the presumption of immunity, Roberts wrote.

One of the key takeaways from Monday’s decision is that the justices have mixed views on the question of presidential immunity, said Steve Vladeck, a federal court expert and professor at Georgetown University Law Center. In the courts’ decisions, the majority has sometimes said yes, sometimes no.

Another important point: The Court considered whether prosecutors in the trial of a former president could cite as evidence official acts for which the president could not otherwise be prosecuted. The majority answered in the negative.

This is actually a very important case, if a little technical, and it will put a damper on not only the prosecution of former President Trump, but also future efforts to hold presidents accountable if they commit crimes while in office, Vladeck said.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett parted ways with her fellow conservative justices on this point.

In another opinion, Barrett wrote that the Constitution does not require that juries be blinded to the circumstances surrounding the conduct for which presidents may be held liable and that evidentiary rules already exist to address concerns about jury prejudice on a case-by-case basis.

She largely agreed with the majority view that former presidents enjoy some degree of immunity for official acts they performed while in office. However, she wrote that a president under prosecution can challenge the constitutionality of a criminal law as applied to the official acts alleged in the indictment. If that challenge fails, he will still face trial.

What was the dissent?

The Supreme Court's decision is part of an ideological logic. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson all dissociated themselves from the conservative majority.

Sotomayor wrote in her dissenting opinion that the courts' decision to grant the former president criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency.

This constitutes a mockery of the fundamental principle of our Constitution and our system of government, according to which no man is above the law, she added.

Sotomayor wrote that the president, under the majority's reasoning, will now be protected from prosecution for various actions while in office.

The judge cited a few examples. Order Navy Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immunized. Stage a dissident military coup to retain power? Immunized. Accept a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immunized. Immunized, immune, immune.

Even if these nightmare scenarios never come to pass, the damage is done, Sotomayor writes.

The relationship between the president and the people he serves has changed irrevocably. In every exercise of his official power, the president is now a king above the law.

What does this decision mean for the January 6 case?

Watch the video in the player above.

Because the Supreme Court has not determined which of Trump's actions were off-the-record acts, special counsel Jack Smith will have to wait for the lower district court to rule, which will take some time, said Chris Geidner, a longtime Supreme Court reporter who publishes the Law Dork newsletter.

“You'll have briefings, you'll probably have hearings, before we even get to a point where Jack Smith knows what's allowed to go to trial,” he told PBS News' William Brangham on Monday.

If Smith had received clear definitions from the Supreme Court, he could have more quickly determined what could remain in the federal indictment, Geidner added.

The case is unlikely to be decided before Americans go to the polls in November. Ahead of Monday's landmark decision, experts criticized the Supreme Court for being slow to advance Trump's immunity bid.

Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case over Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election, will set the trial date. She had previously promised to give Trump’s legal team about 90 days to prepare.

In December, Chutkan rejected Trump's request for immunity, ruling that the US presidency does not provide a lifetime pass to “get out of prison without risk.”

What does this decision mean for the presidency and for possible future cases?

Today's decision gives even more power to the office of the presidency, whether the president is a Democrat or a Republican, Vladeck said.

It also takes away power from Congress, which passes criminal laws that presumably apply to the president, and takes away power from the courts, which are supposed to hold presidents accountable when they commit wrongdoing, Vladeck said.

More importantly, Vladeck said, it moves power away from the people, because the only option left for holding presidents accountable is impeachment, a process that is weak enough on its own that it is hard to imagine being particularly effective in a late second presidential term.

Kyle Midura of PBS News reported for this article.

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