The US supreme court on Monday handed down a decision that changed everything for Donald Trump, who in the months leading up to his third run for office has been doing his best to delay and dodge prosecution over his failed coup attempt in 2020.
In ruling that presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution in connection with their actions in office, the court has offered Trump a powerful assist in his attempts to avoid accountability – and guaranteed him broad legal protections as president in the event that he is re-elected in November.
How did this case come about?
In August 2023, federal prosecutors charged Trump with four felonies related to his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The indictment, which Trump has repeatedly challenged in court, described the former president’s attempts to spread the falsehood that widespread fraud had occurred during the election – and when attempts to use the legal system to overturn the election results failed, he turned his efforts to block the certification of the election on 6 January 2021.
From the start, Trump has attempted to cast the prosecution as unfair, overzealous and politically motivated – and has pushed to delay the trial until after the 2024 presidential election in November.
He has also sought to challenge the basis for the prosecution itself, arguing that presidents are immune from criminal liability for their actions in office. After two lower courts rejected Trump’s claim that presidential immunity should shield him from the prosecution, he appealed to the supreme court.
How did the supreme court rule?
In a 43-page opinion written by the Chief Justice John Roberts on behalf of the court’s 6-3 conservative majority, the court ruled that presidents enjoy “absolute immunity” for actions that fall within the scope of the office’s “core constitutional powers”. The opinion outlines some examples from the federal government’s prosecution that fall under that category.
The allegations relating to Trump’s interactions with officials in the Department of Justice to pursue “sham” investigations into the 2020 election are off the table. Similarly, Trump’s threats to fire then acting attorney general Jeffrey Rosen if he did not comply with Trump’s post-election scheme will not be admissible in court as evidence of wrongdoing.
According to the ruling: “Trump’s threatened removal of the Acting Attorney General likewise implicates ‘conclusive and preclusive’ Presidential authority,” meaning Trump is “absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with justice department officials”.
What are the limits to presidential immunity?
The supreme court ruled that while the president enjoys “absolute immunity” when exercising “core constitutional powers”, the office only enjoys “presumptive” immunity from prosecution relating to official actions. And the ruling clearly states the president is not immune from prosecution related to “unofficial” actions.
Critically, prosecutors cannot even submit documents or other materials relating to actions that fall under the scope of the president’s core constitutional powers as evidence in court.
So, which acts fall outside the president’s ‘core constitutional powers’?
The short answer: it’s not clear.
Roberts explicitly outlines in the ruling that certain kinds of activities – like the president’s interactions with justice department officials – fall within the bounds of the executive branch’s core constitutional powers. The court declined to find whether other actions, like Trump’s attempts to persuade state officials to overturn the election or his involvement in the plot to submit slates of fake electors from swing states, are prosecutable.
In a concurring opinion, conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett offered a glimpse of how she would interpret that kind of question, arguing that the president has “no authority over state legislatures or their leadership”, and writing that she found it “hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power”.
The ruling also leaves open the question of whether or not Trump can be prosecuted for his attempts to pressure the former vice-president Mike Pence to stop the certification of the 2020 election – calling on the US district court in Washington to assess the question “with appropriate input from the parties”.
It will be up to judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, to interpret the evidence – and it would be possible for Trump to appeal her findings back up to the supreme court.
In an interview with CNN, Will Scharf, an attorney representing Trump, claimed that Trump’s role in assembling slates of false electors would count as an “official act” – offering a preview of the former president’s defense moving forward.
What does it mean for Trump’s various criminal cases?
Judge Juan Merchan in New York on Tuesday delayed Trump’s sentencing in his criminal hush-money trial, which had originally been scheduled for 11 July, to 18 September after the former president’s legal team asked the court for a delay in light of the supreme court’s immunity ruling.
Meanwhile, the federal government’s prosecution will also be delayed until Chutkan assesses the evidence and determines which aspects of the prosecution fall under the scope of official and unofficial activity.
This will likely stall any verdict until after the November election.
