The Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump is partially protected from prosecution – at least for the time he was president. This could open the door to abuse of office. At least that’s how Joe Biden sees it.
US President Joe Biden has sharply criticized the decision of the US Supreme Court to grant Donald Trump partial immunity. Biden spoke on Monday (local time) of a “dangerous precedent”. Four months before the presidential election, the Supreme Court had previously ruled that official acts of US presidents are generally protected against later prosecution, but not “unofficial” acts. According to media reports, Trump is already trying to have his conviction in the hush money trial overturned.
From a practical perspective, the decision almost certainly means “that there are no limits to what a president can do,” Biden said in a speech at the White House. “This is a fundamentally new principle and it is a dangerous precedent.” The president’s powers would no longer be limited by the law.
Majority conservative Supreme Court grants US president partial immunity
The conservative-dominated Supreme Court referred the case back to a lower federal court for further review on Monday. Specifically, it concerns an indictment filed against Trump last year for his attempts to retroactively overturn his 2020 election defeat to Biden. The lower court must now examine the extent to which the indictment relates to “official” or “unofficial” actions.
The immunity decision was made by the court with the votes of its six conservative judges against the votes of the three left-liberal judges. Trump himself had ensured the clear conservative majority on the powerful court by appointing three ideologically conservative judges to the Supreme Court during his term in office.
The lawsuit against Trump pending in federal court in Washington concerns, among other things, his role in the storming of the Capitol in Washington in January 2021. Special Counsel Jack White, who brought the charges against the US President, had already taken the view before the Supreme Court decision that at least part of the charges concerned “private” and unofficial actions.
Trump calls decision “great victory for democracy”
Trump described the Supreme Court decision on his online network Truth Social as a “great victory for the Constitution and democracy.” It gives him another important time gain: It means that the trial in a federal court in Washington on his attempted election manipulation will not begin before the election on November 5.
In the election, Republican Trump wants to run again against Democrat Biden. The trial was originally scheduled to start in early March, but it was suspended due to the unresolved immunity issue.
Trump is playing for time in all of his legal disputes. If he wins the election, he would then probably instruct the federal judiciary to drop the charges against him. In addition to the charges relating to his election interference in the federal court in Washington, this would affect another case in a federal court in the state of Florida, which concerns his taking secret government documents to his private residence.
Decision could affect criminal proceedings against Trump
A total of four criminal charges have been brought against the 78-year-old former president. He has also been sued by the Georgia state judiciary for his election interference. It is also completely unclear when the trials for the charges in Georgia and the document scandal could begin.
In contrast, in the New York trial against Trump regarding a hush money payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels, a guilty verdict was already reached at the end of May. The jury found Trump guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business documents to cover up the hush money – making him the first former US president in history to be convicted of a criminal offense. The New York judge plans to announce Trump’s sentence on July 11.
Several US media outlets have now reported that Trump’s lawyers have sent a letter to the judge in charge to have the conviction overturned and the sentence postponed in light of the Supreme Court decision.
