How the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling ‘transforms’ the US presidency | Donald Trump News

Washington DC – The Supreme Court’s decision on the scope of presidential immunity will “transform” the United States government, experts say, warning that the decision could undermine the rule of law in the country.

On Monday, the US high court weighed in on broad claims made by former President Donald Trump that his actions while in office were immune from prosecution. He currently faces criminal charges for his conduct during the final days of his presidency, when he was accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The court handed Trump a partial victory, ruling that former US presidents cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken while in office. “He is entitled to at least presumptive immunity,” the court majority wrote.

Monday’s ruling will likely delay two of Trump’s criminal cases beyond the November presidential election, as a lower court will first have to hear arguments over what constitutes official action.

But beyond its immediate effect, the decision will have a “notable” impact on presidential powers, said David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University.

“This fundamentally transforms the presidency,” Super told Al Jazeera. “Here, the court says the president is still subject to the law, but they’ve made it much, much narrower than ever before. These are certainly the types of powers that are much more familiar to dictators than to presidents of democratic countries.”

The Supreme Court’s six conservative justices approved the decision on Monday, while their three liberal counterparts opposed it.

The decision

The majority argued that unless official actions were protected from legal repercussions, a president could face reprisals from political opponents upon leaving office.

But in the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts explained that there are limits to presidential immunity.

“The President does not enjoy immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official,” Roberts wrote.

“The president is not above the law. But Congress cannot criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”

Presidents can still be prosecuted for robbing a liquor store, as Super said, but not for any decision made within their powers under the Constitution.

Indeed, in its Monday ruling, the Supreme Court gave specific examples of where Trump’s behavior in the election subversion case constituted official actions.

For example, the court ruled that conversations between Trump and Justice Department officials are “absolutely immune” from prosecution.

Federal prosecutors argued that Trump tried to improperly influence the Justice Department to overturn his 2020 defeat to Democratic President Joe Biden. Trump, prosecutors said, also used “the power and authority of the Department of Justice to conduct false investigations of election crimes.”

But by calling Trump’s conversations with agency officials “official actions,” experts fear the Supreme Court may have endangered the Justice Department’s independence.

Although the president appoints the attorney general, prosecutors are expected to operate without political interference and apply the law equitably in accordance with long-standing standards.

‘Assassinate a political rival? Immune’

While a lower court will decide how Monday’s ruling affects Trump’s criminal case, Claire Finkelstein, a professor of law and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania, said the ruling’s “real importance” is that it could allow future presidents act with impunity.

“The long-term significance of this decision should not be underestimated,” Finkelstein told Al Jazeera in a television interview.

“What it says is that if Donald Trump becomes president again, he could use his official capacity – in particular his fundamental constitutional functions – to subvert the law, to protect himself from criminal liability, to distort justice in ways that favor him.”

Matt Dallek, a political historian and professor at George Washington University, also called the court’s ruling “terrible.”

“The decision is an attack on constitutional limits to protect against abuses of power,” he told Al Jazeera.

In her dissent, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor also strongly rejected the ruling.

“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and, possibly, in the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, according to the majority’s reasoning, he will now be exempt from criminal prosecution,” she wrote. “Order Navy Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune.”

Super, the law professor, said Sotomayor’s statement is not hyperbolic. The president is the commander-in-chief of the armed forces.

“There is no other official who can override the president in command of the armed forces. And so, if he gave an order to the military, he would be absolutely immunized by this decision,” he told Al Jazeera.

Before Trump, no former US president had been indicted. The former president faces four sets of criminal charges, including two related to electoral subversion.

Earlier this year, he was convicted in New York on charges of falsifying business documents to cover up hush-money payments made to a porn star before the 2016 presidential election.

Trump has denied any wrongdoing in all cases, describing the accusations against him as a “witch hunt” driven by political rivals – most notably Biden. He is running against Biden in the 2024 presidential race.

‘Radical’

Trump, however, is not the first president to test the limits of presidential immunity. Richard Nixon could have faced charges over the Watergate scandal – when he used government resources to spy on political rivals – but was pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, in 1974.

In response to another case against Nixon, the Supreme Court concluded that presidents were also immune from civil damages.

Several Ronald Reagan administration officials were also indicted in the Iran-Contra affair, which saw the US illegally sell weapons to Iran to finance a rebel group in Nicaragua. But Reagan, who denied knowledge of the complex transactions, never faced charges.

More recently, Barack Obama’s administration refused to bring legal charges against executive branch officials who authorized torture during George W Bush’s presidency.

Chris Edelson — assistant professor of government at American University and author of Power Without Constraint: The Post 9/11 Presidency and National Security — said that in modern history, U.S. presidents have exercised power without “significant” constraints.

“The difference now is that the court approved this and we have a presidential candidate who has made it clear that he will try to govern as a dictator,” Edelson told Al Jazeera.

Trump said last year that he would only be dictator on the first day in office, to “close the border”.

Edelson also called the court’s decision “radical.” He drew a comparison to the Nixon era, when sweeping claims of presidential immunity sparked protests.

“When Richard Nixon said in a television interview in 1977 that when the president does something it means it is not illegal, that was seen as a breathtaking statement,” he said.

“The court said today that Nixon was indeed right.”

Brian Osgood contributed to this report.