Supreme Court: Trump has immunity for official actions, not private ones

2024-07-01 17:57:29, Kosova & Bota CNA

Supreme Court: Trump has immunity for official actions, not private ones

Former American president, Donald Trump. Source, Reuters

The Supreme Court of the United States decided on Monday that the former American president, Donald Trump, cannot be prosecuted for official actions he took during his time in office.

In a 6-3 split decision, the court ruled that while former presidents enjoy immunity for actions taken within their constitutional authority, they do not enjoy immunity for actions taken in a private capacity.

This is the first time that the US Supreme Court has declared that former presidents can be protected from criminal charges in any instance.

The six conservative Supreme Court justices voted for the people, while the three liberal justices dissented.

"We concluded that, consistent with our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power requires that the former president have some immunity from prosecution for official actions during his time in office," said the Chief Justice, John Roberts.

"At least in relation to the exercise of the right of essential constitutional power by the president, his immunity should be absolute. He has the right to immunity for other official actions as well," he said.

Robert said Trump's case will be sent to lower courts for further review.

The Supreme Court analyzed four categories of conduct contained in the indictment against Trump: Trump's discussions with Justice Department officials after the 2020 election, the pressure he allegedly put on then-Vice President Mike Pence to stop the certification of Biden's victory , his alleged role in rallying a false electorate in his favor, and his conduct in connection with the January 6, 2020 attack on the Capitol.

The court found that Trump has full immunity for talks with Justice Department officials, but sent the case back to lower courts to decide whether Trump has immunity for the other three categories.

This decision was made by the Supreme Court after Trump's appeal of the decision of a lower court, which had rejected his claim of immunity.

Trump is the Republican candidate who is challenging the Democratic president, Joe Biden, for the November 5 US presidential election.

Today's Supreme Court decision also reduces the likelihood that Trump will face trial before the election on charges that he conspired to overturn the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Trump had argued that he was immune from criminal prosecution because he was serving as president when he committed the actions he is accused of today./ REL