What is Presidential Immunity?
Broadly speaking, this refers to the legal theory that presidents, past and present, have some degree of protection from legal liability. In the context of Monday’s Supreme Court decision, this is a ruling that Trump and other presidents are entitled to total immunity from prosecution for actions taken in the exercise of “core constitutional powers” and a presumption of immunity for acts conducted in official capacity. It does not provide immunity for private or unofficial acts.
Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said presidential immunity is necessary to ensure a “vigorous and independent administration” and to avoid a “self-defeating administration” in which “successive presidents can indict their predecessors but cannot carry out their duties boldly and fearlessly for fear that they may be next.”
But the majority opinion is The Washington Post reported that the government could potentially overturn the presumption of immunity for former presidents’ official acts if it could prove that prosecuting certain conduct would not infringe on “the powers and functions of the executive branch.”
How did the Supreme Court define “official” and “unofficial” conduct?
The Supreme Court has ruled that a president’s official acts can extend to any action so long as they do not “clearly or manifestly exceed” his authority.
The report said Trump’s official conduct that exempts him from prosecution also includes discussions with Justice Department officials after the 2020 presidential election in which he tried to persuade them to aggressively pursue his baseless claims of election fraud.
However, while Trump’s attempts to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to change the election results could be considered official acts and give him “presumed immunity,” prosecutors could argue that charges related to his communications with the vice president about the certification of President Biden’s victory do not interfere with executive branch functions, The Washington Post reported.
Meanwhile, Trump’s interactions with state officials and private citizens as he sought to overturn the results of the 2020 election “cannot be neatly classified as official conduct,” the Supreme Court majority said. The court ordered the district court in Washington, D.C., to “determine first whether Mr. Trump’s conduct in this area was official or informal.”
The Supreme Court said the president’s “most official communications are likely to fall well within the scope of his official responsibilities” and therefore are covered by the immunity.
What does the presidential immunity ruling mean for President Trump?
In the short term, the ruling will likely favor Trump in Washington’s election interference tactics. In the case he faces, his argument for presidential immunity led to Monday’s ruling.
The case, which is being heard in District Court in Washington, in which Trump faces four charges related to accusations that he conspired to overturn the results of the January 6 election, has been heavily affected by the Supreme Court’s decision, which will delay the trial while the justices determine which of his actions are “officially” and immune from prosecution, and which are “unofficially” and actionable. It is highly unlikely that a trial will take place before the November election.
Of the other two criminals The ruling could also affect an election interference lawsuit filed against Trump in Georgia, among many other lawsuits. It is unclear whether it will affect a Florida lawsuit over classified documents discovered at Mar-a-Lago after his presidency. His lawyers are already challenging his New York conviction for covering up hush money payments to adult film actresses that took place before he became president.
More broadly, critics of the Supreme Court decision, including President Biden, have warned that Trump could be emboldened by a possible second term, knowing he will enjoy immunity for conduct that previously could have been prosecuted.
What was the argument against the ruling?
The decision was divided along ideological lines, with the Court’s conservative majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh (the last three appointed by Trump), ruling in favor of the former president, and liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan dissenting.
In a scathing dissent, Sotomayor listed the actions protected by the ruling as including a president staging a military coup, assassinating a rival or accepting bribes in exchange for pardon. The “egregiously erroneous” ruling “reconstructs the presidency” and “makes a mockery of the bedrock principle of our Constitution and political system: that no man is above the law,” she wrote.
“The long-term implications of today’s decision will be severe,” she wrote, adding that “in every exercise of public power, the President is now a king above the law.”
