SCOTUS Sends Trump Case Back to DC Court With Bolstered Presidential Immunity Standards

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:28 pm

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on July 1 that presidents have immunity from prosecution for official acts, bolstering former President Donald Trump’s defenses against criminal charges he faces over his efforts to contest the 2020 election results.

“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. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion states. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Trump had challenged the legal viability of a federal criminal indictment in Washington D.C., brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith last August.

Smith had charged Trump in D.C. for conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights stemming from his efforts to challenge the 2020 election results and the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump insisted Smith’s case attempted to criminalize lawful actions within the scope of the president’s office.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett supported Roberts’ ruling. Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson took the dissenting view.

Part of Smith’s case focused on allegations Trump, as president, urged Justice Department officials to investigate claims of election fraud and elevate these fraud claims by sending official letters to certain states in which he was contesting the election results. Smith further alleged Trump threatened to replace Justice Department officials who resisted his calls to investigate his election fraud claims.

“The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s ‘conclusive and preclusive’ authority,” Roberts wrote.

The chief justice also concluded the executive branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute and that the president, as head of the executive branch, has “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—at his own discretion.

“The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials,” Roberts continued.

The court ruling does not outright end Smith’s D.C. prosecution against Trump. Instead, the case is remanded back to the lower courts, now with Trump enjoying a renewed presumption of innocence for some of his presidential actions, which Smith’s team will have to overcome to proceed.

On allegations that Trump improperly pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification of the 2020 election results, the court’s majority held that the allegation implicates official conduct and Trump is “at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct.” The question for the lower court to now handle is whether Trump’s presumed presidential immunity is overcome by other circumstances in the interaction.

On allegations Trump’s communications with state election officials were unofficial acts, the Supreme Court neither sides with the prosecution or with Trump’s claims that he was acting within the scope of his presidential authority. The high court again instructed the lower courts to conduct a “fact-specific analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations.”

Further, on allegations Trump played a role in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, through various public communications, the Supreme Court’s majority again asks the lower courts to determine whether or not Trump made those communications in his official capacity.

The July 1 ruling comes just days after the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Fischer v. United States that obstruction of an official proceeding—a charge levied against hundreds of defendants in the various Jan. 6 Capitol breach cases—could only be a valid charge if there was evidence that a defendant “impaired the availability or integrity for use in an official proceeding of records, documents, objects, or other things used in an official proceeding, or attempted to do so.”

The court’s rulings in Fischer v. United States and Trump v. United States create new procedural hurdles for Smith’s team to contend with to convict him in a federal criminal trial.