Posted on 07/01/24
| News Source: WSJ
The Supreme Court ruled Monday that former U.S. presidents retain significant immunity from prosecution for acts taken while in office, a decision that could hamper efforts to prosecute Donald Trump for his alleged attempt to subvert the 2020 election.
The president “may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court, joined in whole or part by Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
But “the President enjoys no immunity for unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official,” Roberts wrote.
The court previously has handed Trump victories in two separate cases stemming from his followers’ Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, where they sought to stop Congress from certifying President Biden’s victory.
On Friday, the court narrowed the scope of an obstruction charge federal prosecutors have filed against Jan. 6 rioters as well as Trump himself. The justices found that the offense was limited to interference with documents and other things required by an official proceeding—not obstructing an actual meeting of Congress. Lower courts will have to sort out the opinion’s impact on the Jan. 6 prosecutions.
That followed the court’s March decision restoring Trump’s eligibility for the Colorado ballot, after that state’s highest court disqualified the Republican candidate under a constitutional provision that bars former officeholders who engaged in insurrection or rebellion from future office. The Supreme Court said that states lacked authority to enforce the Reconstruction-era clause against federal candidates.