Justices to consider whether former president is immune from prosecution over effort to overturn election loss to BidenFollowing is a slightly edited
current report by The Guardian:
The US supreme court will decide if Donald Trump can be prosecuted on election interference charges,
indicating it will move quickly in the immunity case. Trump’s team had viewed for months that the appeal would probably fall short on the law but would be an effective way to delay the impending trial, which had been due to begin in early March. The court on Wednesday agreed to decide Trump’s claim of immunity on charges brought by a special counsel involving his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss, again thrusting the nation’s top judicial body into the election fray as Trump seeks to regain the presidency.
The justices put on hold the criminal case being pursued by special counsel Jack Smith and will review a lower court’s rejection of Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution because he was president when he took actions aimed at reversing Joe Biden’s election victory over him. Trump’s lawyers had requested a stay of that ruling, warning of dire consequences for the presidency absent such immunity.
Trump has made it no secret that his overarching legal strategy is to seek delays, ideally beyond the 2024 election in November, in the hopes that winning re-election could enable him to potentially pardon himself or direct his attorney general to drop the charges.
Note: Textual emphasis in the above report was added.
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Following are edited excerpts from a current NPR report:
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments the week of April 22 in a high-stakes dispute over whether former President Donald Trump enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution. The order from the court on Wednesday keeps Trump's prosecution in the Jan. 6 case on hold for at least a few more months.
The justices said, in an unsigned order, that their review would be limited to a single question: "Whether and if so to what extent does a former President enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office."
The issue is one of first impression for the Supreme Court, since no former president has ever faced criminal charges.
The decision amounts to, at minimum, another short-term victory for Trump, and it means the trial originally set to begin in Washington, D.C., in early March could be delayed until late summer or even after Election Day in November. Special counsel Jack Smith had urged the Supreme Court to swiftly reject Trump's claims, arguing the charged crimes "strike at the heart of our democracy."
Three judges on the federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., unanimously sided with prosecutors this month. The panel said that Trump's immunity argument has virtually no limit. Indeed, at oral argument, when Trump's lawyer was pressed by the panel, he conceded that a president could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate his political rivals and still be free from any criminal prosecution.
The question of presidential immunity has never been resolved by the Supreme Court. In 1974, the justices ruled unanimously that Nixon, then still in office, had to comply with a subpoena for 64 White House tape recordings that were subsequently used as evidence in the prosecution of many top administration officials. The Nixon tapes case thus became the leading precedent suggesting that presidents do not have complete immunity for acts they commit while in office.
The contrary precedent, cited by Trump's lawyers, is a civil case that was decided eight years later that also involved Nixon. In that case, the court ruled 5-4 that the former president could not be sued by an Air Force whistleblower who claimed he was fired in retaliation for his disclosures about cost overruns.
The consequences of Wednesday's Supreme Court action remain murky at best. A judge in New York already has ordered jury selection to begin March 25 in a separate state case accusing Trump of recordkeeping violations for hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
All that can be said with certainty now is that the clock is ticking. If Trump regains the White House, he could order his Justice Department to drop the case related to the Jan. 6, 2021, siege on the Capitol or even attempt to pardon himself.
Two of the four charges against Trump in the federal prosecution could be wiped away if a majority of the Supreme Court judges determine that the Justice Department's charging strategy went too far.
entitled to absolute presidential immunity, but that the immunity applied regardless of Trump’s intent
in engaging in the conduct described in the indictment."
If Chump is granted immunity, it would set an absolutely terrible precedent.
It would just feed his (and other despots) tyrranical impulses.
Plus, going tangential would allow them to put off Dump's trial for a lot longer yet, maybe forever, which we know is their objective. Think how "creative" Ayatollah Alito could get with that one! (Citing another 12th-century treatise, perhaps?)