Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Monday endorsed Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s scathing dissent in the case, saying the “MAGA wing of the Supreme Court” had shaped the majority’s decision to grant presidential immunity for acts committed while in office.
“I agree with Justice Sotomayor on the Supreme Court’s MAGA immunity decision,” Clinton, the Democratic candidate who lost to Trump in the 2016 presidential election, said in a post on the social platform X.
“I vote no, because I fear for our democracy,” Clinton said, quoting Sotomayor.
“It will be up to the American people this November to hold Donald Trump accountable,” Clinton added.
The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution, a victory for former President Trump and sending his federal election interference case back to lower courts to decide whether his actions in trying to overturn the 2020 election merited protection.
The ruling was ideologically based and fell short of granting Trump the complete immunity he sought in the case, but it is still a win for Trump as it makes it less likely the case will go to trial before the 2024 presidential election this November.
The case was sent back to district court, where it has been paused while the Supreme Court considers Trump’s immunity claims. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, will now have to reconsider the issue, as well as Trump’s other pending efforts to have the lawsuit dismissed.
Justice Sotomayor wrote a forceful, 30-page dissent on Monday, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. Justice Sotomayor reads lengthy dissents from the court, a rarity when justices want to highlight their sharp disagreements on a case.
“Today’s decision to grant a former president immunity is a sea change for the presidency,” she wrote. “It makes a mockery of the fundamental principle underlying our Constitution and political system: that no man is above the law.”
“The relationship between the President and the people has been irrevocably altered. In every exercise of public power, the President is now a king above the law,” her dissent said.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, similarly blasted the Supreme Court’s “disgraceful” decision, saying it “enabled a former president to break our laws and undermine our democracy.”
“This decision undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court and suggests that political influence prevails above all else on the court today,” Schumer said.
Ralph Nader, a four-time bidder for the White House whose 2000 bid has been criticised for “distracting” the campaign, criticised the decision but blamed Clinton for “missteps” that allowed Trump to become president.
“An autocratic, unelected majority on the Supreme Court has given America an authoritarian president who ignores the law. Thanks Hillary Clinton, her failures have given us an autocratic Trump presidency and a right-wing autocratic majority on the Supreme Court,” he said in a post on X.
