The Supreme Court ruled Monday that any president, current or former, is now immune to prosecution for official acts, with no immunity for acts deemed unofficial.
“The nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution” for undoubtedly official acts, the majority opinion states.
The Court ruled on a 6-to-3 ideological margin to find presidents immune from prosecution for official acts.
A presidential official act is “any decision or action on any question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy, which may at any time be pending, or which may by law be brought before any public official, in such official’s official capacity, or in such official’s place of trust or profit,” according to the U.S. Code.
This means that official acts could include a military coup or assigning a military group, such as the Navy’s SEAL Team 6, to assassinate political rivals, as stated by Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissension.
“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor wrote.
Members of the all-Democrat New Mexico Congressional delegation expressed similar apprehension to the ruling.
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“Trump and his (Make America Great Again) Supreme Court are systematically destroying fundamental freedoms and pillars of our democracy one by one,” Rep. Teresa Leger Fernàndez said. “They took away women’s freedoms. They sabotaged our rights to clean air and water. Three days before Independence Day, they took a sledgehammer to the democratic ideal that no one is above the law.
“This decision doesn’t just protect Trump, already a felon, from criminal charges for official acts—it also creates a dangerous precedent that could allow him or another reckless President to do unimaginable harm with no consequence,” Leger Fernàndez said.
Leger Fernàndez’s House colleague Rep. Melanie Stansbury expressed equal concern.
“Nothing is more perilous to the future of our democracy than unchecked power,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury said in a press release. “Frighteningly, that is what the conservative majority on the Supreme Court appears to be poised to give Donald Trump today in their Presidential immunity ruling. The Court delayed this decision to the absolute final day of their session, effectively stalling Trump’s prosecution before the 2024 election.”
The case now goes back to the U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine from which charges Former President Donald Trump is immune.
