Supreme Court grants Trump some immunity. Are presidents now above the law?
In a historic ruling on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court endorsed an expansive view of presidential immunity that appears to protect broad swaths of conduct by the commander in chief from judicial review.
The decision represents a significant victory for former President Donald Trump. Mr. Trump brought the case after lower courts ruled that the Department of Justice may prosecute him over his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election before and during the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot.
While the high court rejected Mr. Trump’s claims of absolute criminal immunity, it does say former presidents are entitled to “presumptive immunity” for official acts. The decision all but ensures that the Justice Department’s case won’t go to trial before the 2024 election, when voters again will be choosing between Mr. Trump and President Joe Biden. In the longer-term, the implications also could be quite significant.
The 6-3 decision broke along the court’s ideological divide, which on Monday seemed more like a chasm. The justices disagreed on not just the legal questions at issue, but the broader implications of the case. The public reaction to the ruling has echoed this ideological dissonance.
The court’s conservative supermajority, like GOP officials and right-wing commentators, describe the decision as
