Supreme Court justices appeared prepared Thursday to provide some protection from criminal prosecution, although former President Trump’s lawyers said presidential immunity could extend to attempted coups and assassinations of political opponents. expressed skepticism about the claim.
Such a ruling could create a new cycle of legal battles and delay President Trump’s trial to overturn the federal election. — and his other trials — Past the election.
Conservative and liberal judges alike peppered Trump’s lawyers with hypothetical situations and asked how far the former president’s claim of blanket immunity would hold up.
Chief Justice John Roberts asked whether a president who took bribes to appoint someone to an ambassador post could be prosecuted, while liberal Justice Elena Kagan asked whether a president who sold nuclear secrets could be prosecuted. asked whether immunity would be granted.
Fellow liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked whether presidential immunity would protect “fundamentally evil” acts, such as ordering the military to eliminate political opponents.
D. John Sauer, who argued the case on behalf of Mr. Trump, said most of the hypotheticals could fall under the standard of presidential immunity.
“That well could be an official act,” Sauer said in response to Sotomayor’s scenario.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor attends a Women’s Day celebration at the Constitutional Court in Madrid on March 4, 2024. (Eduardo Parra, Europa Press, via Getty Images)
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the third liberal justice on the court, questioned whether Mr. Trump’s claims effectively rendered the presidency lawless.
“I’m trying to understand what’s preventing the Oval Office from becoming a hub of criminal activity in this country,” Jackson said.
President Trump maintains that the president has absolute immunity for acts of official conduct while in office, and that this immunity applies even after he leaves office. He and his lawyers argue that his efforts to block the transfer of power after losing the 2020 election also fall under the protections.
If the courts agree with Mr. Trump’s arguments, many of his criminal charges could be dismissed. Even if the court doesn’t go that far, the decision could delay action in some of Trump’s cases until after the presidential election.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, who attended Thursday’s arguments, argued that only sitting presidents are immune from criminal prosecution, and that the broad scope proposed by Trump would give a free pass to criminal activity.
Michael Dreeben, an adviser to Mr. Smith’s team, said: “Taken together, some of the questions suggest that the entire gamut of federal criminal law, including bribery, sedition, and murder, is all off limits.” ” he said.
Smith sat alongside Dreeben in the defense bench, while several other attorneys involved in the case sat in the second row of the packed courtroom gallery. Gregory Singer, a lawyer on Trump’s trial team, was seen chatting and laughing with prosecutors Molly Gaston and Thomas Windham as they waited for the trial to begin.
The justices spent more than two hours considering the scope of the president’s immunity, with some appearing to support Mr. Trump’s theory that the president cannot be prosecuted for some actions even after he leaves office.
Because many of the justices portrayed the case as involving not just Trump but the president’s power in general, the justices tried the case without naming Trump, labeling him as the “defendant” or “the president.” petitioner,” and even “former president.” .
Justice Brett Kavanaugh said, “This case has profound implications for the presidency, the future of the presidency, and the future of our country.”
The justices spent ample time asking what actions qualify as official acts that entitle the president to immunity, or personal actions that do not.
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Accepting such claims could have multiple benefits for Trump. If the justices partially side with Trump, the case could be sent back to district court for further consideration, and Trump’s trial would likely be delayed until after the election. . If Trump is re-elected, the Justice Department will almost certainly drop the charges.
A decision in the Trump v. United States case is expected by the end of June, but the special counsel is urging the high court to act quickly.
Following the court’s decision, Justice Amy Coney Barrett investigated whether prosecutors could simply drop charges deemed exempt while proceeding with “private conduct only.”
Kavanaugh and Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that while the “core” official duties of the presidency are fully protected, other official duties may be prosecuted if Congress specifically says that certain crimes apply to former presidents. proposed a more nuanced framework in which it could be targeted.
Gorsuch told Sauer: “You and your colleagues on the other side share a common ground: no one is above the law, and the president can be prosecuted even after he leaves office for his personal actions.” It seems like there is,” he said.
“The question then becomes, as we have been considering here today, how do we distinguish between public and private acts that may or may not be subject to some immunity?”
Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett were all nominated to the court by Trump.
Prosecutors said Trump was not charged with any actions that would be considered presidential.
“We’re not trying to hold the president criminally liable for exercising or discussing the exercise of the power to appoint or remove — no,” Dreeben said.
“What we are seeking to bring criminal charges against is a conspiracy to use fraud to subvert the election, and one of the ways they did that was to enlist the Department of Justice in this. “If the petitioner had won, nothing would have changed in the case.”
Mr. Jackson expressed frustration that his colleagues had accepted the “fundamental assumption” that some official actions have impunity, and that presidents must use He noted that he has access to “the best lawyers in the world.”
“Why would a situation arise where the president could say he should perform official acts without any responsibility to abide by the law?” she asked.
He said broad immunity could “embolden” the president to commit criminal acts and rejected claims by Trump’s lawyers that the risk of prosecution would “wither away” during his presidency.
“I think if a person with that kind of power, the most powerful person in the world with the most power, could become president knowing that he could commit a crime with no chance of being punished, I think we would have had a real significant reverse problem,” Jackson said.
This article was updated at 3:24 p.m.
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