Photo: Steve Helber Associated Press Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, on June 29, the day after the first televised debate between him and U.S. President Joe Biden.
Mark Sherman – Associated Press in Washington
Posted at 9:46 a.m. Updated at 11:48 a.m.
- United States
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday extended the deadline in the criminal trial against Donald Trump, who is accused of plotting to overturn his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, effectively putting an end to the possibility that the former president will be tried before the Nov. 5 election.
In a historic 6-3 decision, the justices ruled for the first time that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts. However, the justices ordered the lower courts to determine precisely how to apply the ruling to Donald Trump's case, rather than doing so themselves.
This result poses an additional delay before Donald Trump can be tried in the case brought by special prosecutor Jack Smith.
The Court's decision in a second major case involving Donald Trump, along with his decision rejecting efforts to exclude him from the ballot due to his actions following the 2020 election, underscores the direct and perhaps uncomfortable role judges play in November's election .
“Under our constitutional separation of powers structure, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within his evidentiary and exclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he enjoys at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
Justice Roberts was joined by the other five conservative justices. The three liberal justices dissented.
“Today’s decision to grant criminal immunity to former presidents reshapes the institution of the presidency. “This makes a mockery of the fundamental principle of our Constitution and our system of government, that no one is above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a scathing dissenting opinion.
Justice Sotomayor, who read aloud a summary of her dissent in the courtroom, said the Court's protection of presidents “is as bad as it seems, and it is without merit “.
This judgment is the last of the session and it came more than two months after the court heard the arguments, much more slowly than in others epic high court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes case.
The former Republican president has denied doing anything wrong and said this suit and three others were politically motivated to try to prevent him from returning to the White House.
In May, Donald Trump became the first former president to be convicted in a New York court of a crime of falsifying business records to conceal a payment of money in exchange for the silence of a porn actress. who claims to have had sexual relations with him, which he denies. Three other charges still weigh against him.