The US Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former US president Donald Trump is partially immune from prosecution for ‘official actions’ taken while he was in the White House, UK broadcaster BBC said.
The American apex court decided that Trump is immune from prosecution for official presidential duties.
The BBC report said the ruling makes it harder for prosecutors to pursue charges against Trump with respect to the January 6 Capitol Hill riots and claims of alleged election rigging.
This also reduces the chance that Trump could be tried before the November election. The justices returned Trump’s case to the trial court to determine what is left of special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump.
“BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” Donald Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, a social media site he owns.
“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court.
Roberts was joined by the other five conservative justices. The three liberal justices. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented.
“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a scathing dissent.
The justices knocked out one aspect of the indictment. The opinion found Trump is “absolutely immune” from prosecution for alleged conduct involving discussions with the Justice Department.
Trump is also “at least presumptively immune” from allegations that he tried to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to reject certification of Democrat Joe Biden’s electoral vote win on Jan. 6, 2021. Prosecutors can try to make the case that Trump’s pressure on Pence still can be part of the case against him, Roberts wrote.
Facing four criminal cases, Trump has been doing everything in his power to delay the trials at least until after the election.
On May 30, a New York court convicted Trump on 34 felony charges of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal in the final stages of the 2016 presidential campaign, making Trump the first former US president ever convicted of a crime.
The case against Trump related to the Capitol riot and his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results is heading back to a lower court for further proceedings.
The lower court will also decide whether two actions taken by Donald Trump were unofficial acts. The justices have decided that a lower court will review whether Trump’s efforts to allegedly alter state electoral votes and his creation of “false electors” lists were unofficial acts rather than part of his presidential role.
These issues are part of the conspiracy charges Trump and 18 others face in Georgia over the 2020 election results, which they deny.
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