WASHINGTON — The That of the Supreme Court Monday’s ruling in former President Donald Trump’s case over 2020 election interference makes it all but certain that the Republican will not appear in court in Washington ahead of the November elections.
In a 6-3 rulingthe justices said that former presidents are protected from prosecution for official acts, but do not have immunity for unofficial acts. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the lower court to determine whether the core aspects of the charges are unofficial versus official, and therefore potentially protected from prosecution.
Here’s what you need to know about the ruling and what comes next:
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In the majority judgment of the courtChief Justice John Roberts wrote that while “the president is not above the law,” he also “shall not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers.” Therefore, Trump is “entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official actions,” Roberts wrote.
The ruling means that Special Prosecutor Jack Smith cannot move forward with the core allegations in the indictment, or at least must defend their use in future proceedings before the judge.
For example, the justices struck down Smith’s use of allegations that Trump sought to exploit the Justice Department’s investigative power by ordering investigations into claims of voter fraud. It doesn’t matter, the justices said, whether the requested investigations were based on false allegations or for an improper purpose. Ultimately, the court said, “the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority.”
The justices said the lower court must “carefully analyze” whether other allegations involve official conduct for which the president would be immune from prosecution.
One issue that needs further analysis is Trump’s relentless harassment of then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the electoral votes on January 6, 2021. The justices said it was “ultimately the government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity” in Trump’s interactions with Pence and sent the question back to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.
The justices also ordered additional fact-finding into one of the most stunning allegations in the indictment: that Trump had participated in a scheme orchestrated by allies to recruit fake voters in swing states won by Democrat Joe Biden and falsely alleged declare that Trump had won in those states.
The Trump team had argued that the selection of alternate electors was consistent with Trump’s presidential interest in the integrity and administration of federal elections, citing as precedent an 1876 episode in which President Ulysses Grant sent federal troops to Louisiana and Mississippi to ensure that Republican electors were certified in those two cases.
Smith’s team, by contrast, presented the bogus electoral scheme as a purely private action that involved no presidential duty.
The conservative justices in their majority opinion did not answer the question of which side was right, saying instead that “determining whose characterization may be correct, and with respect to what conduct, requires a careful analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations.”
Unlike Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department, the judges said, “this alleged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular presidential function.” The necessary analysis is instead fact-specific and requires the assessment of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private individuals.”
This ruling makes it virtually impossible for a trial to take place before voters decide whether to return Trump to the White House.
No preparations for the trial have taken place in more than six months since Chutkan suspended the case in December to give Trump a chance to file his appeal. Chutkan had indicated that she would likely give the two sides at least three months to prepare for trial once the case returns to her court. That would have left the door open for the case to potentially go to trial before the election if the Supreme Court — like the lower courts — had ruled that Trump was not immune from prosecution.
However, the Supreme Court’s ruling could stall the case for months in legal wrangling over whether Trump’s behavior was official or unofficial.
The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson — sharply criticized the majority opinion in scathing dissents. In her minority opinion, Sotomayor expressed “fear for our democracy” and said the ruling unfairly portrayed presidents as “a king above the law.”
The justices who dissented from the majority ruling said the majority’s decision makes presidents immune from prosecution for actions such as ordering Navy Seals to assassinate a political rival, orchestrating a military coup to retain power or accepting bribes in exchange for a pardon.
“Even if these nightmare scenarios never happen, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has been irrevocably altered. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.
In a separate dissent, Jackson said the majority ruling “enters new and dangerous territory.”
“Simply put, the Court has now declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the United States can (under circumstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself,” Jackson wrote.
Trump was convicted of 34 felonies at his hush-money trial in New York in May and is expected to be sentenced on July 11. Each charge of falsifying business records carries a maximum sentence of four years in prison, but there is no guarantee Trump will get that much time. Other possibilities include fines or probation.
It seems almost certain that Trump’s two other criminal cases will not go to trial before the election.
An appeals court recently dropped Trump’s 2020 election interference case in Georgia. assesses the lower court’s ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to remain on the case. No trial date had been set in that case.
Trump was scheduled to go to trial in May in the other case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, over secret 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, saying the case was stalled by legal challenges. She has yet to reschedule.