SUPREME COURT: TRUMP has ABSOLUTE IMMUNITY — What Does that Mean?
Summary
Transcript
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Friends, I want to share with you the details about this Trump immunity ruling that just came out from the Supreme Court as it’s getting ready to take its summer recess. So this comes from a blog called scotisblog.com. As always, I have links for you in my Substack, which is a free blog newsletter. That’s peggyhall.substack.com. And the headline is Justices Rule. Trump has some immunity from prosecution. So in a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, meaning what is spelled out in the Constitution, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.
So this decision left opened the possibility that the charges brought against Donald Trump by special counsel Jack Smith, alleging that Trump conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election. That can still go forward to the extent that the charges are based on his private conduct, rather than his official access. All is still going to be worked out in court. This is not the final say by the Supreme Court. So what happens next is the case is now returned to the lower courts for them to determine whether the conduct at the center of the charges against Trump was official or unofficial.
And this is going to be a question that even if it leads to the conclusion that the charges can proceed, it almost certainly will further delay any trial in the case, which originally had been scheduled to begin on March 4th of this year. So now it’s currently on hold. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts emphasized that the president is not above the law, but the justices, Sotomayor and Kagan and Jackson, they dissented and they issued a statement that said, if a future president misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide by will not provide a backstop.
Now let me ask you what say you in earlier videos back when the FBI rated Trump’s home, I took what I think was an interesting perspective, also saying that no one is above the law. Now it should be done according to the law. And as has come out, there was a lot of funny business related to that, just like there was a lot of funny business related to those January 6th prisoners that also had a surprise visits from the FBI. So all of that should be investigated. But what happened is the decision now is the latest chapter in a case that began last year when Trump was indicted on four counts arising from Smith’s investigation into the January 6th attacks.
The indictment contended that Trump created, and I quote, widespread mistrust through pervasive and destabilizing lies about election fraud, and then conspired to undermine a bedrock foundation of the United States federal government, which is the nation’s process of collecting, counting and certifying the results of the presidential election. So I know many of you have been following this from day one. Many of you are very skeptical. I’ll just say, as am I, in terms of what we were shown. I remember I was on fake book back in the day and I was seeing the live footage and it just not did not add up for me at all.
And there are others that just look at that as complete political theater. But even if you were to take it at its face value, do you believe that Trump actually destabilized the election results? So I’m curious as to your comments as well. So Trump asked to have the charges against him thrown out, arguing that he’s immune from prosecution because he was president. And the judge turned that down in early December saying that the presidency does not confer, and I quote, a lifelong get out of jail free pass. So then Smith went to the Supreme Court later that month asking the justices to weigh in on Trump’s immunity without even waiting for the US Court of Appeals to rule on Trump’s appeal because that’s what his appeal was that he is immune.
But the justices actually didn’t do that until recently. So Trump then went to the Supreme Court and two weeks later, the justices agreed to take up the case and they scheduled the argument for late April. And now we have the ruling that came out on the last day before the Supreme Court’s summer recess and basically two months after the oral argument and a majority of the court rejected the DC court’s reasoning that Trump was not immune. As an initial matter, Roberts explained in his 43 page ruling that presidents have what he calls absolute immunity for their official acts when those acts relate to the core powers granted to them by the constitution.
For example, the power to issue pardons, veto legislation, recognize ambassadors and make appointments. But when it comes to the president’s other official acts, Robert continued, there is on the one hand, the concern that allowing criminal charges against a former president for his official acts would affect his decision making while in office. So Robert says a president inclined to take one course of action based on the public interest may instead opt for another apprehensive that criminal penalties may befall him upon his departure from office. On the other hand, Roberts noted the public has an interest in fair and effective enforcement of criminal laws.
So weighing those two sets of interest, Roberts concluded a president should have immunity from criminal prosecution for his official but not unofficial acts unless at the very least, prosecutors can show that bringing such charges would not threaten the power and functioning of the executive branch. So turning to some of these specific allegations against Trump, the majority ruled that Trump cannot be prosecuted for his alleged efforts to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain states to replace their legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors. All right, so that was one of the charges with regard to the allegation that Trump attempted to pressure his former Vice President Pence in his role of president of the Senate to reject the state’s electoral votes or to send them back to the state legislatures.
The court deemed Trump presumptively immune from prosecution on the theory that the president and vice president are acting officially when they discuss their official responsibilities. What do you think about that interpretation? All right, I continue again, this comes from the SCOTUS blog, the Supreme Court of the United States. On the other hand, Roberts observed the vice president’s role as president of the Senate is not an executive branch role. The court therefore left it for the district court to decide whether prosecuting Trump for this conduct would intrude on the power and operation of the executive branch.
So the bottom line is that this ruling, this opinion from the Supreme Court is not the end of the line. It is the case is still being returned to the lower courts to be settled with the referees stating that the rules of the immunity when it comes to the actions, his official actions that he took while in office, that’s what they need to rule on. Were these official actions or were they private and personal? Okay, let me finish up here. Roberts rejected the government’s contention that even if Trump has immunity for his official acts, prosecutors can still use evidence about those official acts to make their case to a jury, for example, to prove that Trump knew that his election fraud claims were false.
Very, very interesting. So Roberts pushed back against the dissenters, including Sotomayor and Katanji Brown Jackson, describing them with a chill, as a chilling tone of doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today. So he kind of gave them a diss. He portrayed the ruling as a relative, his ruling as a relatively narrow one or that the majority ruling as a relatively narrow one that decides only that immunity extends to official discussions between the president and his attorney general. And then that has to be remanded, meaning returned to the lower courts for them to determine whether the other acts alleged in the indictment are entitled to immunity.
So there you have it, friends. That basically sums it up. It ain’t over until it’s over. This is the ping pong game that happens with the Supreme Court, appeals courts and the lower courts. So I will be following this because you’ve asked me to give you my opinion on it. And I would like to hear from you, what you think, are you following this? What do you think is going to happen in related news? There just was some breaking news that came out as I was researching for this story about the 43 indictments that Trump was found guilty of in terms of his business statements, that that case is now he’s not going to be sentenced until September.
So rather than before the Republican National Convention, I don’t think that would have had any effect on the convention myself. But I would like to hear what you have to say. I normally don’t cover a lot of politics on this channel. You might find that ironic as it’s called The Healthy American, but it’s all about the American spirit that can do the independence of our independence, that we have the right to our own individual liberty, not a common good. That’s really what this channel stands for. And so many of you have asked me to continue to speak out and teach about your rights, how to stand up for them, and also the rights of your animals.
So many of you like me have been pet parents or currently are, and you are very concerned about the heavy handedness of the government in your states when it comes to the rabies, the neutering, the microchipping, and all of this other stuff. So I will be doing more videos about that. And I also will be interviewing some holistic vets. So many of you are asking me for more of this content. And it’s something that’s very near and dear to my heart. I do want to thank you again for all of your heartfelt messages in my time of intense grief, and deep loss and sorrow over my 14 year old girl Teddy bear, my Rottweiler, and then my 19 year old LC kitty cat, they were the last of the remaining pack of five that we had.
So it’s quite empty and lonely and very sad in our home. And I do look forward to the day when there may be more little heartbeats and furry feet to keep us company. So thank you everybody for being on board. And I look forward to seeing you in an upcoming video get all of the written content or the written analysis from my videos over at my sub stack peggy hall.substack.com. Absolutely free. See you soon, everybody. [tr:trw].
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