The conservative-majority US Supreme Court has referred the question of Donald Trump’s criminal immunity as ex-president to lower courts, further delaying the holding of his federal trial in Washington, four months before the election.
Donald Trump hailed a “great victory” on Monday, July 1, following the decision of the United States Supreme Court on presidential immunity.
“This is a great victory for our democracy and our Constitution, I am proud to be American!”, wrote the former president on his Truth Social network.
The conservative-majority US Supreme Court has sent back to lower courts the question of Donald Trump’s criminal immunity as a former president, further delaying his federal trial in Washington, four months before the election.
Trump “thinks he is above the law”
With the voice of the six conservative judges against that of the three progressives, the Court considers that “the president does not enjoy any immunity for his unofficial acts” but that he “is entitled at least to a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”
The Republican “thinks he is above the law,” accused Joe Biden’s campaign team on Monday, believing that the decision “does not change the facts (…): Donald Trump cracked after losing the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overturn the results of a free and fair election,” according to a campaign adviser.
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 Joe Biden.
A historic conviction
The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled for March 4, and postponed sine die, had already been suspended for four months. 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.
Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything possible to go to trial as late as possible, at least after the presidential election. He was found guilty on May 30 by a New York court of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election.” His sentence will be pronounced on July 11. But this first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, in the least politically heavy 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 electoral interference in 2020. If he were elected again, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order an end to federal proceedings against him.
Clément Boutin with AFP Journalist BFMTV
