(Washington) The conservative-majority US Supreme Court on Monday sent Donald Trump’s criminal immunity back to lower courts, further delaying his federal trial in Washington.
Published at 8:35 a.m.
Updated at 10:38 a.m.
Selim SAHEB ETTABA
France Media Agency
By deciding on February 28 to take up this question, then by scheduling the debates almost three months later, the highest court of the United States had already considerably postponed the federal trial of the former Republican president for attempted illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election won by his Democratic successor Joe Biden.
The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled for March 4, and postponed sine die, had therefore been suspended for four months. The slim chances that it could still begin before the November 5 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden depended entirely on the scope and wording of the nine judges’ decision.
During the debates, if the judges were generally skeptical of the absolute immunity claimed by the Republican candidate, several, particularly among conservatives, insisted on the long-term repercussions of their decision.
“We are writing a rule for posterity,” observed Neil Gorsuch, referring to the unprecedented nature of the question.
“This case has enormous implications for the future of the presidency and the country,” added his colleague Brett Kavanaugh.
Appeal
Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the presidential election.
He was found guilty on May 30 by the New York courts of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to subvert the 2016 election.” He will be sentenced on July 11.
But this first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, in the least politically burdensome of the four procedures, also risks being the only one before the vote.
Because through appeals, Donald Trump’s lawyers managed to postpone other trials until further notice, at the federal level for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House and before the courts of the key state of Georgia for election interference in 2020.
If he were elected again, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order an end to federal proceedings against him.
