SCOTUS immunity ruling 'littered with ambiguities' as federal judge grapples with Trump election case

09 August 2024

When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its controversial 6-3 immunity ruling in Trump v. the United States on July 1, scathing criticism came from both the left and the right.

Progressive attorney Elie Mystal argued that the ruling is incredibly dangerous because it grants presidents "absolute" immunity — not merely "qualified" immunity — from criminal prosecution for "official" acts. And conservative retired Judge J. Michael Luttig, a prominent figure in right-wing legal circles, slammed the decision as "abominable."

Meanwhile, in an article published by Politico on August 9, reporters Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney stress that the ruling is full of "ambiguities."

"The July 1 immunity ruling was widely viewed as a major victory for Trump because it declared him 'absolutely immune' from being prosecuted for some of the actions he took while attempting to subvert the 2020 election," the Politico journalists explain. "But the ruling is littered with ambiguities, ill-defined standards and unanswered questions about many of the other acts Trump undertook, constitutional experts say."

University of Virginia law professor Sai Prakash told Politico that the ruling is "sort of an exercise in kicking the can down the road."

Gerstein and Cheney note that special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case against Trump is now "back in front of" Judge Tanya Chutkan.

"On Thursday evening, (August 8), however, prosecutors asked for an additional two weeks to sort through what they called 'the new precedent' the Supreme Court issued more than a month ago and come up with a plan about how to move forward," the reporters observe. "Trump's lawyers, who have repeatedly sought delays in the case, readily agreed to this one."

Kate Shaw, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School in Philadelphia, is among the legal experts who has been vehemently critical of the Trump v. the United States ruling.

Shaw told Politico, "It may be that the effort to actually apply this test that the Court has handed down will only further illustrate just how fundamentally lawless this opinion is. It's not only, in my view, wrong as a matter of constitutional theory; I don't think it sets forth anything like an administrable test, and I think that this next phase will only underscore that set of failings."

Read Politico's full report at this link.

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