The US supreme court utterly distorted the true threat to American democracy

‘In his presidential campaign, Trump has openly and repeatedly declared his intention to use the justice department as a tool of personal vengeance’ Illustration: Marcus Peabody/Guardian Design

In its extraordinarily disturbing decision earlier this week granting presidents wide-ranging immunity from criminal prosecution, the US supreme court dramatically mis-weighed a competing set of risks to our constitutional democracy.

On the one side of the scale, the court placed the possibility that a future rogue prosecutor will seek to settle political scores by indicting a former president for “insufficiently enforcing … environmental laws”.