WASHINGTON – O of the Supreme Court Ruling Monday in former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case makes it all but certain that the Republican will not face trial in Washington before the November elections.
The Supreme Court did not reject – as Trump wanted – the prosecution alleging he illegally planned to stay in power after losing to President Joe Biden. But the ruling still represents a major victory for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, whose legal strategy focused on delaying the process until after the election.
Trump posted in capital letters on his social network shortly after the decision was announced: “GREAT VICTORY FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AMERICAN!”
The timing of the trial is important because if Trump defeats Biden, he could appoint an attorney general who will seek to dismiss this case and other federal lawsuits he faces. Or Trump could potentially ask for a pardon himself.
Check out the decision and what comes next:
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The court’s conservative majority held that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for official acts that fall within their “exclusive sphere of constitutional authority” and are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts.
The decision means that special advisor Jack Smith cannot pursue significant allegations in the indictment – or must at least defend their use in future proceedings before the trial judge.
The justices, for example, struck down Smith’s use of allegations that Trump tried to use the Justice Department’s investigatory power to undo the election results, holding that his communications with agency officials are clearly protected from prosecution.
The justices returned the case to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now “carefully review” whether other allegations involve official conduct for which the president would be immune from prosecution.
Among the issues for further analysis is the relentless insistence of then-Vice President Mike Pence not certify the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. The justices said it was “ultimately the government’s responsibility to rebut the presumption of immunity” in Trump’s interactions with Pence.
The order also directed additional review into several posts on X, then known as Twitter, that Trump made — as well as a speech he gave to supporters — on preparation for the riot at the US Capitol. Determining whether such communication represents official or unofficial acts, the judges said, “may depend on the content and context of each” and therefore needs more scrutiny.
The judges demanded new investigations into one of the prosecution’s most stunning allegations — that Trump had participated in a scheme orchestrated by allies. to enlist fraudulent voter lists in swing states won by Biden, who would falsely attest that Trump had won in those states.
Trump’s team argued that the selection of alternate electors was in line with Trump’s presidential interest in the integrity and proper administration of federal elections and cited as precedent an episode he said occurred in the disputed 1876 election.
Smith’s team, by contrast, portrayed the scheme as a purely private action that entailed no presidential responsibility.
The conservative justices, in their majority opinion, did not answer the question of which side was right, stating instead that “determining which characterization might be correct, and with respect to what conduct, requires a careful analysis of the extensive and interrelated allegations of the prosecution. ”
Unlike Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department, the justices stated that “this alleged conduct cannot be clearly categorized as falling within a specific presidential role. The analysis required is, instead, fact-specific, requiring the evaluation of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private persons.”
The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — sharply criticized the majority opinion in scathing dissents. Sotomayor gave a dramatic speech as she read her dissent from the bench, at times shaking her head and gritting her teeth as she said the conservative majority wrongly isolated the U.S. president as “a king above the law.”
“Ironic isn’t it? The man in charge of enforcing the laws can now simply break them,” Sotomayor said.
The dissenting justices said the majority decision makes presidents immune from prosecution for acts such as ordering Navy soldiers to assassinate a political rival, organizing a military coup to maintain power or accepting bribes in exchange for a pardon.
“Even if these nightmare scenarios never come to fruition, and I pray they never do, the damage has already been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has changed irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.
In a separate dissenting opinion, Jackson said the majority decision “breaks new and dangerous ground.”
“Simply stated: The Court has now declared, for the first time in history, that the most powerful official in the United States may (under circumstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself,” Jackson wrote.
The majority opinion accused the liberal justices of “fear-mongering” and adopting a “tone of chilling condemnation that is completely disproportionate to what the court actually does today.”
The case will now return to Chutkan, who will oversee the trial.
The trial was supposed to begin in March, but the case has been on hold since December to allow Trump to pursue his appeal. Chutkan had indicated at that time that he would likely give both parties at least three months to prepare for trial once the case returned to court.
That left the door open for the case to potentially go to trial before the election if the Supreme Court — like lower courts — had ruled that Trump was not immune from prosecution.
But the Supreme Court’s ruling that Chutkan must conduct further analysis is likely to tie the case up for months in legal wrangling over whether the actions in the indictment were official or unofficial.
Trump was convicted in May of 34 criminal charges at his silent trial in New York and is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. The falsifying business records charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, but there is no guarantee that Trump will receive prison time. Other possibilities include fines or probation.
It seems almost certain that Trump’s other two criminal cases will not go to trial before the elections.
An appeals court recently put Trump’s 2020 Georgia election interference case on hold while analyzes the decision of the first instance judge allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case. No trial date has been set in that case. Trump’s lawyers asserted presidential immunity in that case, although there has been no ruling.
Trump was scheduled to be tried starting in May in the other case filed by Smith, along confidential documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate after he left the White House. But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon canceled the trial date because the case became bogged down in legal issues. She hasn’t scheduled a new one yet. That case also involves an immunity claim from Trump’s team that prosecutors have disputed.
Last week, Cannon set the stage for more delays by agreeing to review a decision by another judge that allowed the introduction of crucial evidence related to allegations of obstruction of justice by Trump in the case.
One of the arguments Cannon made – that Smith was illegally appointed and that the case should be dismissed – found little favor in the Supreme Court.
A separate concurrence by Justice Clarence Thomas concluded that Smith’s appointment was improper, but no other justices agreed.
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Associated Press reporters Michelle L. Price in New York, Kate Brumback and Stephen Groves in Washington contributed.
