WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents have absolute immunity for official acts in Donald Trump's challenge to election subversion charges, setting a test for the lower courts that could further delay the former president’s election subversion trial.
“The President is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative supermajority. “But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”
The 6-3 ruling gave former presidents absolute immunity for duties within their core powers and some immunity for other official actions. But the court did not decide how their ruling applied to Trump, noting that the current posture of the case did not require the justices to weigh in on where the charges in the D.C. case fell in or outside of the immunity bubble.
“Because we need not decide that question today, we do not decide it,” Roberts wrote.
In a withering dissent, the three liberal justices accused the court of making a mockery of the Constitution’s promise that no man is above the law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the majority gave Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.
“With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” the Barack Obama appointee wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Trump claimed his former position as the country’s chief executive entitled him to immunity from criminal charges. The argument expanded on the high court’s 1982 ruling in Fitzgerald v. Nixon, where the justices absolved presidents from civil liability for official actions.
The former president faces four criminal charges in D.C. for conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights. Special counsel Jack Smith claims Trump created a fake elector scheme and attempted to obstruct the presidential transfer of power.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to his four charges and the 87 other criminal counts he faces outside of Smith’s D.C. case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the District of Columbia and a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit both rejected Trump’s presidential immunity claim.
The court’s ruling sends the case back to Chutkan to decide which, if any, of Trump’s charges are outside of immunity granted by official presidential acts.
The president’s core constitutional powers include commanding the military, granting pardons, overseeing foreign relations, managing immigration and appointing judges. Congress and the courts, Roberts wrote, cannot act or examine the president’s actions in this realm.
Roberts said that absolute immunity gets downgraded when the president’s actions fall outside those core areas.
“The reasons that justify the President’s absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of his exclusive authority therefore do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress,” Roberts wrote.
Looking at the court’s prior ruling on presidential privileges, Roberts noted that Richard Nixon was granted absolute immunity from civil liabilities connected to his official acts. However, Roberts said, the court rejected a presidential immunity claim from Thomas Jefferson during the treason trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr.
“Criminally prosecuting a President for official conduct undoubtedly poses a far greater threat of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch than simply seeking evidence in his possession, as in Burr and Nixon,” Roberts wrote.
Roberts said criminal prosecutions presented a greater danger, threatening to chill bold executive branch actions.
“The Framers’ design of the Presidency did not envision such counterproductive burdens on the ‘vigor[]’ and ‘energy’ of the Executive,” Roberts wrote.
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