Since February 12, 2024, the United States Supreme Court has had its finger in the pie of the effort to prosecute Donald Trump for actions prior to and on January 6 to subvert the 2020 election and retain power. On February 12, Trump's attorneys bypassed the normal appeals court flow and filed a motion directly with the USSC to halt his prosecution. Sixteen days later, on February 28, the USSC announced its decision to hear Trump's appeal. On April 25, the USSC heard oral arguments from the Trump team and from federal prosecutors regarding Trump's immunity claims. Finally, on July 1, 2024 --- TWENTY WEEKS -- ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY DAYS LATER -- the USSC announced its decision in the case.
What on earth could the members of the USSC have been doing for ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY DAYS in a case that should have been so easy to decide? Now we know.
The 6-3 conservative majority on the court was spending that time carefully crafting an opinion to further promote a ultra-conservative Unitary Executive theory of Presidential power, pretend to retain some semblance of prosecutorial threat to Presidents committing "private" crimes while explicitly stating a new principle of "presumptive criminal immunity" for "official" acts as President which appears NOWHERE in America's history nor in 250 years of legal precedent.
Here is the core of the decision, the entire second paragraph of the ruling.
Held: Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
Everything else after that paragraph in the forty three page ruling is frankly a smoke screen aimed at making this radical ruling appear reasoned and cautious.
How intellectually, historically and morally flawed is this ruling?
The majority opinion explicitly ignores 250 years of history and legal precedent to invent a concept of presidential immunity for official acts which has no basis in ANY of writings of the founders who crafted the Constitution, much less the ACTUAL CONSTITUTION itself.
The majority opinion explicitly ignores concessions made in oral arguments by Trump's counsel about acts which were PRIVATE acts and instead, attempts to reference those amid other distracting language conveying "we're not trying to decide everything for all scenarios now, those issues can be litigated in the future." As a result, even conduct Trump's own lawyer conceded had NO claim to immunity has been taken out of the settled column and placed back into jeopardy, requiring more litigation and delay that benefits Trump and delays the point at which the American public will see facts laid out in a trial. This approach also doesn't rule out having THOSE determinations appealed all the way back to the Supreme Court to trigger a future decision further cementing immunity protections of a President.
The majority opinion defines a completely new evidentiary shield that prevents any communication of a President in his official capacity (speaking with Administration officials or speaking publicly) from being used to prove the President's state of mind or thinking, even in prosecution for "private" acts not protected by the Court's new "official act" immunity. This eliminates VAST amounts of evidence involved with current charges for "private" acts regarding Trump -- possibly crippling the remaining "private" act cases against Trump. It also provides ANY future President a clear rule to follow to attach further safeguards against criminal prosecution. Just announce your crime and intent publicly speaking as President. Per this court decision, any such communication is excluded from use in prosecution.
The majority opinion attempts to appear to make a distinction between official acts where the President is performing unique Constitutional functions such as providing direction to the military and more mundane acts as if to say their ruling is not nearly as slanted to executive power as it sounds. Yet, the ruling says this:
But the breadth of the President’s “discretionary responsibilities” under the Constitution and laws of the United States frequently makes it “difficult to determine which of [his] innumerable ‘functions’ encompassed a particular action.” Id., at 756. The immunity the Court has recognized therefore extends to the “outer perimeter” of the President’s official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.” Blassingame v. Trump, 87 F. 4th 1, 13 (CADC).
That reference to "discretionary responsibilities" seems to cast a very ambiguous net around nearly any action a President might take while justifying it as vital to national security. And any leeway in such determinations that lean TOWARDS whatever the President claims to be "official" acts and those unique to the Constitutional powers of the President then attach that evidentiary cloak, limiting the ability and likelihood of turning up other information to prosecute acts still exempt from such sweeping immunity protections.
This ruling spends considerable time attempting to provide a big picture view avoiding hypotheticals about the potential abuses of some future theoretical President. At the same time, the ruling discounts all of the facts regarding an actual President who led multiple criminal efforts to manipulate events completely outside his role as President by filing knowingly false documents in sixty one state courts as CANDIDATE Trump and leading a conspiracy to alter electoral vote slates from five different states to reverse a loss and retain power.
So again... How intellectually, historically and morally flawed is this ruling?
Congratulations John Roberts. Your signature now appears on the single most destructive Supreme Court ruling in the history of the United States of America. Ahead of Plessy vs Ferguson, the "separate but equal" case of 1896. Ahead of Dred Scott vs. Sanford, the "slaves aren't citizens and have no standing to sue" case of 1857 that cemented the eventual moral grounding of the Civil War. You were already in the running for worst court decision for Citizens United vs. FEC that held that "money is speech" and billion dollar corporations have an "equal" right to speak as individuals with their billions of dollars but Trump vs. United States is now at the top of the list with everything else a distant second.
This decision is worse than than Dred Scott vs Sandford because it cannot be argued to merely reflect the unevolved morals of a society still selling slaves. This decision is worse than Plessy vs Ferguson which publicly reiterated a racist bias still held by a majority of citizens at the time. This decision is WORSE because it ignores 250 years of legal and moral evolution, rejects that entire realm of progress and lays out a roadmap for any current or future President to completely circumvent every check and balanced devised by the founding fathers these conservatives claim to worship in a naked exercise of power in the present. Because they have the votes to do it and "their guy" and "their party" benefits.
WTH
