“Unlikely Trump will ever be tried for the crimes he committed,” says ex-Judge J. Michael Luttig
It’s not a hard question, or at least it hasn’t been before: Does the United States have a king – one empowered to do as they please without even the pretext of being governed by a law higher than their own word – or does it have a president? Since Donald Trump began claiming he enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, two courts have issued rulings striking down this purported right, recognizing that one can have a democracy or a dictatorship, but not both.
“We cannot accept former President Trump’s claim that a President has unbounded authority to commit crimes that would neutralize the most fundamental check on executive power – the recognition and implementation of election results,” states the unanimous opinion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, issued this past February, upholding a lower court’s take on the question. “Nor can we sanction his apparent contention that the Executive has carte blanche to violate the rights of individual citizens to vote and have their votes cast.”
You can’t well keep a republic if it’s effectively legal to overthrow it. But at oral arguments last week, conservative justices on the Supreme Court – which took up the case rather than cosign the February ruling – appeared desperate to make the simple appear complex. Justice Samuel Alito, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, argued that accountability was what would actually lead to lawlessness.
Nope, shame them.
Legit Biden needs to challenge it directly and have Trump’s daughter and her husband arrested and jailed on charges he must fully admit are false and politically motivated. Say the Saudi money was to pay for classified information or something, they would either have to rethink their choice or the precedent is set with a Democrat in office which would allow literal and complete political control of the government.
They aren’t going to make such a ruling until after the election, if Trump wins they might grant immunity but they’ll never make that ruling with Biden still in power. Biden wouldn’t get away with it, there’s nobody around that would support it (unlike GOP’s unconditional support for Trump). They also won’t have any problem striking down Biden’s actions and then later approving Trump’s (or just ignoring them)
Biden could do it now and it would be legal until ruled otherwise, the present court is myopic and it will bite them.
You underestimate how fast they would work to get it declared illegal
No, that’s literally my intention.
They can’t delay it that long, they have to issue a decision by the end of their current term, which ends when they go into summer recess in late June/early July. Granted, they could theoretically say “screw the rules” and not issue a decision until after the election, but that’s literally never been done, and if it did everyone would start ringing the alarm bells because it’s a crystal clear sign they’re corruptly abusing their power for Trump’s benefit. (Yes, I know they’re already doing this, but what they’re doing right now is blowing hard enough on a dog whistle to draw side-eye glances from passers by, while delaying a decision past the end of term would be like blowing a train whistle right next to your face.)
If they do decide to help Trump, the most likely path will be waiting until the last minute to issue a decision and then punting it back to the lower court for further review.
The outcome I’ve seen suggested is that they send it back to the lower court with minimal instructions, then waiting for the case to make it back to SCOTUS later