An Indictment against the Justice Department of a U.S. Repented to the 2004 US Supreme Court Proton and Prosecutor Sessions
“The president therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy or party.”
The chances of a trial before the election seem to be vanishingly remote. Mr. Trump would be able to order the Justice Department to drop the charges if he were to win the election.
She wrote that the decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the presidency. “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”
Roberts wrote that “Trump has a far broader immunity than the limited one we have recognized” but the opinion also undermined some charges against the former president.
Other parts of the indictment against Mr. Trump, the chief justice said, “requires a close analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations.”
High-Energy Rulemaking of the Pro-Trump Mob: The Supremum vs. the Immunity Case
She gave some examples, like the one where the Navy’s Seal Team 6 ordered to assassinate a political rival. Immune. A military coup is being planned to hold onto power. Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
“Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy,” Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington wrote, “the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get out of jail free’ pass.”
Section 3 of the 14th amendment says that people who engage in insurrection are ineligible to hold office, and the court unanimously rejected an attempt to bar Mr. Trump from the ballot. The court, without discussing whether Mr. Trump was covered by the provision, ruled that states may not use it to exclude candidates for the presidency from the ballot.
The court ruled on Friday that federal prosecutors used an obstruction law to prosecute certain members of the pro-Trump mob. Two of the four charges against Mr. Trump are based on that law.
Monday’s Supreme Court decision came months after the court agreed to hear the case Feb. 28 and scheduled arguments for two months later. The justices can have considered the case as early as late December when Jack Smith, the Justice Department’s special counsel, unsuccessfully sought a review of the questions put forward by Trump.
The immunity case is moving at a slow pace. In December, in asking the justices to leapfrog the appeals court and hear the case immediately, Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the prosecution, wrote that “it is of imperative public importance that respondent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this court.” He added that “only this court can definitively resolve them.”
Some of the conservatives seemed to be less interested in examining the details of the charges against Mr. Trump. The court should not issue a ruling that applies to presidential power in general, they said.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s decision, joined by his fellow conservatives. Dissenting were the three liberals, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“No court has thus far considered how to distinguish between official and unofficial acts,” he wrote, while chiding the lower courts for rendering “their decisions on a highly expedited basis.” He said the lower courts “did not analyze the conduct alleged in the indictment to decide which of it should be categorized as official and which unofficial.”
Even after Judge Chutkan separates the constitutional wheat from the chaff, Trump could seek further delays, as immunity questions are among the very few that may be appealed prior to trial.
Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of lying to accountants about his dealings with Daniels, who had threatened to ruin Trump’s presidency if he didn’t pay off her. A 12-person Manhattan jury reached the unanimous decision.
Former President Donald Trump’s criminal sentencing has been delayed until Sept. 18 following a request from his legal team after the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. Trump is expected to be named the GOP’s presidential nominee later this month.
The next day, prosecutors for the Manhattan district attorney said in a letter to New York Judge Juan Merchan that though they believe the arguments for a delay are without merit, they will not oppose the request.
Pre-encing Donald J. Trump at the New York Post Office of the Attorney General’s Office & New York City Department of Parole
Following the verdict, Trump had a routine pre-encing interview with the New York City Department of Parole. The prosecutors for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and Trump’s legal team submitted sentencing recommendations last month. Those documents have not been released to the public — though he is not expected to face jail time.