The conservative-majority US Supreme Court on Monday extended the president’s criminal immunity, a victory for Donald Trump, whose federal trial has been delayed once again, while his opponent Joe Biden denounced a “dangerous precedent”.
By deciding on February 28 to take up this question, then by scheduling the debates nearly three months later, the highest court in the United States had already considerably postponed the federal trial of the former Republican president for attempting to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.
By a majority of six to three – conservative justices against progressives – the Court held that “the president enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts” but that he “is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts.” Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts justified this decision by “constant principles of separation of powers.”
The Court therefore refers the case back to the court of first instance to determine which acts are potentially immune from criminal prosecution. The burden is on the prosecution to demonstrate that they are not when they were carried out in the exercise of its functions.
Donald Trump welcomed the “historic decision,” saying it invalidated most of the charges in the four criminal proceedings against him.
In a televised address, Joe Biden denounced a decision that creates a “dangerous precedent”, because the powers of the president “will no longer be limited by law”.
With this jurisprudence, Donald Trump will be “emboldened to do what he wants, when he wants” in the event of victory in the November presidential election, his Democratic opponent estimated.
– “Roi” –
Beyond the case of Donald Trump, this decision “redefines the institution of the presidency” by transforming its holder into “a king above the law in every use of his official power”, wrote Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent joined by her two progressive colleagues.
“When the president does it, it means it’s not illegal,” jokes John Dean, White House counsel at the time of the Watergate scandal in 1974, citing then-President Richard Nixon’s line of defense. “Upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States in 2024,” he concludes.
According to Steven Schwinn, a constitutional law professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, “to the extent that Donald Trump was trying to drag this out until after the election, he was completely successful.”
The decision “will seriously hamper the prosecution of a former president since his official and unofficial actions are so often intertwined,” he worries.
In the absence of a real trial before the vote, “there could be detailed hearings on the facts incriminated in the indictment to determine on which ones immunity applies, which will allow the population to be reminded of all of Trump’s acts and the events of January 6” 2021, nevertheless underlines the former federal prosecutor and professor of criminal law Randall Eliason.
The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled to start on March 4, had already been suspended for four months.
– “For posterity” –
During the debates, while the judges were generally skeptical of the absolute immunity claimed by Donald Trump, several insisted on the long-term repercussions of their decision.
“We are writing a rule for posterity,” observed conservative Neil Gorsuch, referring to the unprecedented nature of the question.
Targeted by four criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything he can to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the presidential election.
Found guilty on May 30 by the New York courts of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a plot to pervert the 2016 election”, he will be sentenced on July 11.
But according to several American media outlets, Donald Trump’s lawyers sent a letter to the judge in this case on Monday, to reverse the conviction and postpone the sentencing in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.
This first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, will in all probability be the only one before the vote.
Through numerous appeals, Donald Trump’s lawyers have managed to postpone until further notice the other trials, at the federal level for withholding classified documents after he left the White House and before the courts in the key state of Georgia (southeast) for electoral interference in 2020.
If re-elected, he could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order a halt to federal prosecutions against him.
