Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.
“A divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly…
“The decision left open the possibility that the charges brought against former President Donald Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith – alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election – can still go forward to the extent that the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official acts… The case now returns to the lower courts for them to determine whether the conduct at the center of the charges against Trump was official or unofficial.” SCOTUSblog
The left criticizes the decision, arguing that it will prevent the prosecution of presidents who break the law.
“The court’s majority made a flimsy distinction between the immunity they are granting to presidents for ‘core powers’ and ‘official’ acts – terms whose precise meanings they don’t define – and the criminal liability that Trump and other presidents still have for ‘unofficial’ acts. But these distinctions are likely to collapse if any prosecutor, be it Smith or someone else, actually attempts to use them…
“That’s because the scope of the presidential office and its powers are so broad that its ‘core’ powers are difficult to tell from its extraneous ones, and ‘official’ and ‘unofficial’ acts by the president are likely to prove ambiguous… Richard Nixon’s status as a criminal and crook was once summarized by recounting his ominous declaration: ‘Well, when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.’ The court has now taken that vulgar absurdity and made it law.”
Moira Donegan, The Guardian
“As Sotomayor points out in dissent, Article II uses vague language that could, according to the majority, immunize cartoonishly unlawful actions from prosecution…
“For example, Article II gives the president the exclusive authority to command the armed forces; under Roberts’s formulation, it is not clear what (if anything) would prevent a president from invoking this authority to order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival…
“In retrospect, Trump’s error on January 6 might have been charging mere civilians with the task of overthrowing the government; had he instead commissioned the army to march to the Capitol and murder Mike Pence, he’d be more or less legally bulletproof.”
Jay Willis, Balls and Strikes
“How much worse would things get in a second [Trump] term? The most urgent danger is his possible abuse of the legal system, because as the dissent suggests, if every conversation between the president and the Justice Department is considered a protected official act, there is no limit to the kinds of illegal conduct that could be plotted, even fabricating evidence.”
Editorial Board, New York Times
At the same time, many argue that “a very substantial portion of the [Trump] case is likely still subject to prosecution. If you look at what the chief justice describes as Trump’s interactions with persons outside the executive branch — state officials, private parties, and the general public — Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to convince state officials that election fraud had tainted the popular vote count in their states and therefore to change the electoral votes, developed and effectuated a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors…
“All of that may remain fair game… There’s a slew of evidence: The emails from Ken Chesebro and John Eastman and Jim Troupis and the fake electors, and there’s witnesses. I don’t see how Trump proves some of this stuff was official — that’s the meat of it.”
Norm Eisen, New York Magazine
The right supports the decision, arguing that presidents must be permitted to perform their duties without fear of future prosecution.
The right supports the decision, arguing that presidents must be permitted to perform their duties without fear of future prosecution.
“The Court properly reads the Constitution to offer absolute immunity for actions within the core plenary powers of the executive. This means that a President can’t be prosecuted for actions related to national security, intelligence, or foreign policy. He can’t be prosecuted, for example, for deaths that occur from ordering a drone strike. And he can’t be prosecuted for his communications with the Attorney General…
“But the Court rejected Mr. Trump’s claim that all presidential acts have absolute immunity. The Chief writes that a President has only ‘presumptive immunity’ from prosecution for official acts outside of his core constitutional powers, and that unofficial acts have no immunity. Mr. Trump couldn’t shoot someone on Fifth Avenue, as he once joked, and be immune…
“Democrats on Monday denounced the Court for favoring Mr. Trump and complicating Mr. Smith’s prosecution. But the Court is doing its job of protecting the constitutional order. If they’d take a breath, Democrats would notice that the Justices made it more difficult for Mr. Trump to prosecute Mr. Biden. The immunity ruling underscores the mistake Democrats have made in using lawfare to disqualify a presidential candidate.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“In Federalist No. 70, Alexander Hamilton explained that the executive branch is embodied in a single person, the president, to avoid the ‘habitual feebleness and dilatoriness’ inherent in multimember bodies like Congress. A unitary president ensures vigor in the exercise of executive power for the benefit of the nation…
“‘A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government’ [wrote Hamilton]… Any prosecution of a president based on his official acts harms the presidency’s effectiveness. The court has sent a clear message to prosecutors like Mr. Smith: You’d better have a strong case.”
David B. Rivkin Jr. and Elizabeth Price Foley, Wall Street Journal
“The high court's common sense holding simply extended the same legal protection to presidents that is already enjoyed by legislators and jurists. It's well settled in law that those in the judicial and legislative branches have significant immunity from lawsuits or prosecutions based on their official actions…
“Indeed, the Constitution's Speech or Debate Clause, shields members of Congress from legal harassment or even criminal prosecution based on things they do as part of their legislative responsibilities. This deters the executive branch from using sham or vituperative legal process to achieve political results. Judges have their own brand of immunity, for the same reason.”
Mark R. Weaver, Newsweek
