WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Supreme Court made its long-awaited decision about presidential immunity. It ruled, 6-3, that former president Donald Trump has immunity for “official acts,” the court said on Monday.
Determining what are official acts would be for the lower court to decide. The additional delay is expected to end any possibility for the Jan. 6 case to take place before the election.
“The courts are effectively turning a blind eye to some of the worst excesses of self-aggrandizing political power at the expense of democracy that our country has ever witnessed,” Hofstra University constitutional law professor James Sample told Patch.
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Sample said the oral arguments gave a window into how the justices might rule.
“[They] were taking seriously, the proposition that a president might even be immune for having Seal Team Six assassinate a political opponent,” he said. “Justice Sotomayor and Justice Jackson in dissent point out that reasoning in the majority’s opinion would seem to cover that.”
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Trump called the decision a “big win for our Constitution and for democracy,” in an interview with Fox News Digital.
Sample had a different take during a Monday morning phone call.
“The idea that the Supreme Court is now an accessory to an insurrection is tragic, sad and produces an incentive structure moving forward that should be terrifying to anyone who believes in the rule of law.”
With the legal wrangling in the lower court to figure out what were official acts related to Jan. 6, Sample said that will take “immeasurable amounts of time.”
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