'Crowned Trump king': Experts warn SCOTUS immunity decision 'death knell for democracy'

01 July 2024

Two hundred and three days after Special Counsel Jack Smith’s first request, the U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision along partisan lines on Monday ruled an American President has “absolute” immunity from criminal prosecution if his actions are “official acts” of Office.

Legal experts see Monday’s decision as “very pro-Trump,” a “big win” for the ex-president who is running for re-election despite having already been criminally convicted of 34 felonies in the State of New York, and facing another 54 criminal charges in state and federal courts.

During oral arguments in April, Trump’s attorney argued a president could order SEAL Team Six to assassinate his political rival and not be prosecuted if it could be considered an “official act.”

Dissenting from the majority opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor assailed the right-wing justices, writing:

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done,” she continued. “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.”

On MSNBC, former Acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal remarked that presidents now can “just slap the label ‘official acts’ on” anything to be immune from prosecution. Also on MSNBC, former FBI General Counsel and longtime DOJ official Andrew Weissmann called the opinion, “made up, whole cloth.”

Experts also say this ruling effectively turns presidents into kings.

“Justice Sotomayor’s dissent is one of the most terrified and terrifying pieces of judicial writing I’ve ever encountered,” warns Slate senior writer Mark Joseph Stern. He adds: “I just want to take a step back and say that I think the Supreme Court just fundamentally altered the structure and nature of democracy in America. It awards the president the measure of power and immunity that is much, much closer to a king or emperor than an elected official.”

Foreign policy, national security, and political affairs analyst David Rothkopf points to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s dissent, and writes, “the right wing on the court has killed the concept that no person is above the law. The founders must be turning in their graves. After 250 years, we once again are subordinate to a king.”

“The Supreme Court just granted Joe Biden the power of a King, counting on the fact that he won’t use it against, among other things, them,” adds Mother Jones editor-in-chief Clara Jeffery. “Good luck after that.”

Harvard Law’s Alejandra Caraballo called Monday’s ruling “a death knell for democracy.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal, pointing to Justice Jackson’s dissent warned, “the Court just crowned Trump King.”

“July 4, 1776 – we declare independence from a king,” writes national security attorney Brad Moss. “July 1, 2024 – the Supreme Court decides the president can basically be a king.”

Stern also writes, “The Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority establishes new principles—located nowhere in the text of the Constitution—that permanently shield the president from meaningful accountability when he weaponizes the tools of his office for criminal purposes. That is shocking.”

Constitutional law scholar and Professor of Law Eric Segall observed: “So Nixon would likely have been immune under the standard the Court makes up today.”

Constitutional attorney Andrew L. Seidel called the opinion “one of the most outrageous things ever.”

“This SCOTUS is drunk on power. It’s a founding principle of this nation that nobody is above the law. They betrayed it.”

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