The Supreme Court further delays Trump's federal trial with a decision with serious consequences

The American Supreme Court majority conservative has again delayedé the federal trial of Donald Trump on Monday, with a decision on the limits of immunity criminal prosecution of a president which makes it virtually impossible to hold this trial before the election in four months.

By deciding on February 28 to take up this question, then by scheduling the debates almost three months later, the highest court in the United States had already considerably postponed the federal trial of the former -Republican president for attempting to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

By the voice of the six conservative judges against that of the three progressives, the Court considers that “the president does not enjoy any immunity for his unofficial acts” but that he “is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts”.

It therefore returns the case to the court of first instance to determine which acts are potentially immune from criminal prosecution, with the burden on the prosecution to demonstrate that they are not when they were carried out in the exercise of its functions.

This decision is “a great victory for our democracy and our Constitution,” Donald Trump immediately welcomed.

The Republican candidate “thinks he is above the law”, reacted Joe Biden's campaign team, estimating that the decision “does not change the facts (…): Donald Trump broke down after losing the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overturn the results of an election,” according to a campaign advisor.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in his opinion of disagreement joined by his two progressive colleagues, criticizes the majority of the Court, in its “obsession” that a president can act without fear, of “ignoring the equivalent necessity of restraint”.

Beyond the case of Donald Trump, this decision has “irrevocably modified the relationship between the president and the people he serves,” she writes, by transforming him into “a king above the law in every use of his power official”.

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According to Steven Schwinn, professor of constitutional law at the University of Illinois at Chicago (north), “to the extent that Donald Trump was trying to drag the issue out until after the election, he totally succeeded.”

“The Court's decision provides an obvious how-to for a president who would like to immunize himself from prosecution for potentially criminally reprehensible actions, simply by interlocking them with official actions”, he emphasizes.

The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled for March 4, and postponed sine die, had already been suspended for four months.

During the debates , if the judges were generally skeptical of the absolute immunity claimed by the Republican candidate, several, particularly among conservatives, had insisted on the long-term repercussions of their decision.

“We are writing a rule for posterity”, observed Neil Gorsuch, referring to the unprecedented nature of the question.

“This case has enormous implications for the future of the presidency and the country,” added his colleague Brett Kavanaugh.

The American Supreme Court, July 1, 2024 in Washington © AFP – Drew ANGERER

Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is doing everything possible to go to trial as late as possible, in any case after the presidential election.

He was convicted on May 30 by a New York court of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election.” His sentence will be pronounced on July 11.

But this first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, in the least politically heavy of the four procedures, now risks being also the only one before the vote.

Because through appeals, Donald Trump's lawyers managed to postpone other trials until further notice, at the federal level for retention of classified documents after his departure from the White House and before the courts of the key state of Georgia (southeast) for electoral interference in 2020.

S' he was elected again, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order an end to federal proceedings against him.

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