U.S. Supreme Court takes a chainsaw to the most consequential criminal case against Trump
In dissent to the court's 6-3 decision, liberal judges warn: 'The president is now a king above the law'
Here's one thing we can state with virtual certainty: The United States Supreme Court has taken a chainsaw to the most consequential criminal case against Donald Trump.
It has delayed, damaged, and perhaps permanently disfigured the federal case against Trump for what prosecutors have called his attempt to steal the 2020 election.
In a 6-3 ruling on Monday, the court set strict guidelines for prosecuting a president, and instructed a lower court to sort through them before starting any trial over his efforts to undo the 2020 election result.
In doing so, the court's conservative majority has effectively ensured Trump will not stand trial for his acts in 2020 before November's election that could return him to power.
This means Trump has now successfully delayed every criminal case he faced but the least serious of the four: his New York hush-money trial, which resulted in a conviction that has had minimal political impact.
Monday's decision, critics say, has made a mockery of the justification from some high-ranking Republicans who opposed impeaching Trump in 2021: The justice system would hold him accountable, they said.
Trump's supporters were overjoyed. "We're pretty excited this morning," Trump lawyer Will Scharf told Fox News, shortly after Monday's court decision was released.
"I think this is about the absolute best decision we could have expected."
Broader legal impacts
Monday's ruling directly impacts the election-overturning case, but it could have broader repercussions. Trump's lawyers have already cited the Supreme Court in an effort to toss out his recent New York conviction related to hush-money payments.
Here's what we don't know: Whether prosecutors might still manage to air some of the evidence against Trump in pre-trial hearings before the election.
Monday's decision forces them to fight a long, complex battle over which of the four charges in the election interference case, and which pieces of evidence, will satisfy the Supreme Court.
It's unclear how soon that battle will begin and whether it might return the issue to news headlines before Americans vote on Nov. 5, in what some liken to a mini-trial.
"That [would] put this in the spotlight," Charlie Hunt, a political scientist at Boise State University, told CBC News on Monday.
"Although, legally speaking, [Monday's decision is] a win for Trump, I don't think this issue is going away anytime soon."
What the Supreme Court did Monday was establish a high standard for prosecuting acts committed by a president.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor expressed fear for U.S. democracy.
"In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law," she wrote. "He now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. [Let's say he] orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon?
"Immune. Immune, immune, immune."
The ruling: What's immune, what's not, what's a maybe
The former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, after perusing the ruling, suggested that with a court like this, his ex-boss would never have had to quit in disgrace over Watergate, and then be pardoned by his successor
"Nixon would've survived," John Dean, who pleaded guilty in the Watergate scandal, told CNN.
"He would've walked."
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts accused the dissenters of unwarranted hyperbole: "They strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today."
To be clear, the ruling does not approve political assassinations. It's silent on that matter. It lays out more general guidelines, with instructions for future litigation.
The court separates presidential acts into three buckets: Clearly immune from prosecution, clearly not immune, and unclear.
What's clearly immune? Official acts in office. The court defines this broadly: According to the ruling, speaking to a government employee, in this case the attorney general, about fighting the election result, unquestionably qualifies for immunity.
This slashes off bits of the January 6 case. In special counsel Jack Smith's indictment, there are 51 references to Trump's conversations with the acting attorney general and deputy attorney general; the case would presumably have to move forward without them.
"It definitely blows up the case," Lee Kovarsky, a law professor at the University of Texas, told a panel Monday hosted by the Lawfare blog.
"The case isn't going to go forward anytime soon. … Of course if Trump wins the election then he's either going to dismiss the prosecution or self-pardon."
This was the one part of the ruling that drew a rebuke from conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett; such conversations, she opined, are legitimate evidence.
The ruling says a president can be charged for acts clearly unrelated to his official role, although not while he's still in office.
Up ahead: Delays
Then there's a grey area. Remember Trump urging his vice-president, Mike Pence, to block the election certification? Or pressing Georgia election officials to find him 11,780 votes in that state?
There are arguments for and against these being official acts, immune from prosecution, according to Monday's ruling.
Whether these were private acts by an election candidate, or official acts by a sitting president faithfully enforcing federal election laws, will be up to the courts to decide.
Monday's ruling punted those issues back to the Washington, D.C. circuit court handling the Jan. 6 case, which sets up a protracted battle.
Whatever the lower court decides, said legal analyst Roger Parloff, it could be appealed back to the Supreme Court, with untold delays.
"It's breathtaking," he told the Lawfare panel Monday.
As for this case, an attempt to prosecute Trump over one of the bleakest events in U.S. political history, Parloff made a prediction.
"This will never, ever go to trial."
At the very most, before the Nov. 5 election, there might be that so-called mini-trial, where the parties fight over what evidence is admissible in a case that might be dead.
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