US President Donald Trump provides an update on the so-called Operation Warp Speed program, the joint initiative of the Department of Defense and HHS that has entered into agreements with several drug manufacturers in an effort to accelerate the search for effective treatments for the ongoing coronavirus disease (COVID -19) pandemic, in a speech from the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, US, November 13, 2020.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
The Supreme Court on Thursday appeared likely to reject former President Donald Trump’s sweeping claim of absolute immunity from prosecution for acts while in office — but the court also challenged parts of the federal election interference case against the former president.
The Question before the court — whether a former president can be prosecuted for official acts done while in office — was central to special counsel Jack Smith’s case accusing Trump of illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to the president Joe Biden.
Smith sat in the courtroom Thursday as attorney Michael Dreeben argued the government’s case.
In the early hearing, Justice Sonia Sotomayor sounded skeptical of Trump’s lawyers’ argument that a president should be immune from prosecution for anything an official conducts while in office.
“I find it hard to think that forging documents, submitting false documents, ordering the assassination of an adversary, accepting a bribe, and countless other laws that could be broken for personal gain, that anyone would say it would be reasonable for a president or any public official,” Sotomayor told Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer.
Later in the hearing, several conservative justices appeared to take seriously that the prospect of impeachment could have a chilling effect on a sitting president.
“I’m not concerned about this case, but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on allegations of their motives,” said Judge Neil Gorshus.
Judges appointed by Republican presidents also took issue with specific parts of Smith’s case against Trump. Justices Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh both expressed skepticism about a key part of the election-meddling case against Trump, known as the fraud conspiracy statute.
The high court’s final ruling has profound implications for some of Trump’s other pending criminal cases that hinge on his conduct in the White House.
Along with Smith’s case in Washington, Trump is accused in Georgia of trying to reverse his loss to Biden in that state’s 2020 contest.
Trump has repeatedly argued that if a president is at risk of criminal prosecution for official acts, then the president is effectively hindered, or “chilled” as Sauer put it, on his actions and decisions by fear of future prosecution.
But Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson expressed the opposite concern.
“You seem concerned that the President is catching a cold,” he told Sauer. “I think we would have a really significant opposite problem: if the President wasn’t cool, if somebody with that kind of power, the most powerful person in the world with the most power could take office knowing that there would be no possible penalty for committing crimes”.
“I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is to turn the Oval Office into, you know, a headquarters for criminal activity in this country,” he added.
Trump was not at the Supreme Court to hear the oral arguments because he had to attend his criminal trial in New York.
The former president is on trial in Manhattan Supreme Court for allegedly falsifying business records when, after becoming president in 2017, he reimbursed his then-lawyer for a $130,000 payment to a porn star.
Attorneys for Trump and Smith began arguing at 10 a.m. before the nine judges, three of whom were nominated by Trump during his first term as president.
The Supreme Court agreed to take over the case after two lower courts rejected Trump’s claim that he is immune from the indictment brought by Smith.
Supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump wave a flag at the Supreme Court as the court hears a lawsuit filed by Texas to overturn President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory in Washington, U.S., December 11, 2020.
Joshua Roberts | Reuters
By addressing the immunity issue, the high court effectively delayed by months the election interference case, which is pending in the US District Court in Washington, DC. decisions on the end of the term, which usually ends in late June or early July.
Even if the justices reject Trump’s argument and allow Smith’s case to be retried, it may not go to trial until after the Nov. 5 presidential election. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, sought to delay all four of his pending criminal trials last November.
The federal election meddling trial was originally scheduled to begin March 4.
Some legal experts criticize Trump knocked court to keep Trump’s immunity claim alive after a federal appeals court in D.C. forcefully threw it out in early February.
The Supreme Court “has already unduly delayed this issue,” Norm Eisen, a lawyer and former aide to House Democrats on Trump’s first impeachment, said on a conference call Wednesday.
Smith’s indictment charges Trump with four criminal counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Smith claims that Trump tried to overturn the 2020 results by spreading false allegations of voter fraud, organizing pro-Trump fake voter drives in states won by Biden and trying to take advantage of a violent mob of Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 2021.
This is developing news. Check back for updates.