Trump Gets (Some) Immunity: Here’s What That Means For His Criminal Cases
KEY FACTS
The Supreme Court ruled Trump and other presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for their “core constitutional powers”—like appointing officials—and are presumed to be immune from punishment for any “official acts” while in office, but can still be charged for acts that weren’t part of their official duties.
Trump’s case has been on pause while the immunity dispute plays out, and the court’s ruling means the lower court will have to decide whether Trump is or isn’t immune from prosecution for various acts outlined in his indictment—and the case can’t go to trial until that’s resolved.
Trump’s alleged scheme to overturn the election had four different components, prosecutors have alleged: pressuring state officials and legislators to change the election results; a “fake elector” scheme in which state officials submitted false slates of electors to Congress; using the Justice Department to push his election fraud claims and pressuring then-Vice President Mike Pence not to certify the election results.
Trump’s activity with the DOJ was part of his constitutional powers and he’s immune from being charged based on it, the Supreme Court ruled, but U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who’s overseeing the trial, will have to decide whether those other acts are immune from prosecution or not.
Trump’s conversations with Pence are “at least presumptively immune from prosecution,” but Chutkan will still have to decide whether he should still face charges under the circumstances, the Supreme Court said.
More unclear are Trump’s interactions with state officials and public comments he made ahead of the Jan. 6 riot, as the Supreme Court said the lower court will have to still consider whether those were official acts or if they were unofficial—for example, if Trump were speaking as a candidate at the time rather than as the president.
WHAT WE DON’T KNOW
When Trump’s federal election case will go to trial. It’s unclear how long the proceedings to determine whether or not Trump is immune for each act will take: MSNBC host and lawyer Katie Phang predicted Saturday Chutkan would “put the pedal to the metal” and decide those issues swiftly in order to resume the case—but Trump could still appeal her ruling, dragging things out further. Chutkan has previously said it would take about three months for Trump’s case to go to trial once it restarts. That means there’s no possible way the trial could begin before October at the earliest if the immunity issue was resolved by the end of the month, though it’s likely to be later. Once the trial gets underway—if it does—parties in the case have predicted it would take approximately eight to 12 weeks to play out before there’s a verdict. That means it’s certain there will not be a verdict by Election Day.
WHAT DOES THE IMMUNITY RULING MEAN FOR TRUMP’S OTHER PENDING CASES?
Trump’s other ongoing criminal cases could also be affected by the immunity ruling. Trump has claimed to have immunity in his federal case for allegedly withholding White House documents, as he argues he decided to “designate the records [he brought back to Mar-a-Lago] as personal” while still in office. It remains to be seen whether that could be upheld as an “official act” in court that would be eligible for immunity. Trump has also alleged immunity in his state case in Georgia for trying to overturn the 2020 election, making an argument that’s substantially similar to the one he’s made in the federal election case. The trials in both of those cases have already been indefinitely delayed, and the newfound immunity issues are likely to delay them further.
HOW COULD THE IMMUNITY RULING IMPACT HIS HUSH-MONEY CASE CONVICTION?
Trump has already been convicted on 34 felony counts in a separate criminal case stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign. While Trump did not try to claim immunity to get out of those charges—only bringing up immunity in a more limited way to keep prosecutors from using some evidence from 2018, when he was president—lawyer Asha Rangappa noted on X that Trump could try to point to that evidence and use it to argue the court should throw out his conviction as he appeals the verdict.
TANGENT
Legal experts have heavily criticized the Supreme Court for dragging its feet on the Trump immunity case and waiting until the last day of its term to rule, rather than ruling swiftly to keep the case moving forward—and potentially going to trial before the election. “It does not take weeks to explain why [Trump’s]
arguments are wrong,” University of Michigan law professor Leah Litman wrote in a June op-ed for The New York Times, suggesting the court’s delay in ruling is because of the “hidden hand of politics” and justices trying to help out Trump. “There are, of course, explanations that have nothing to do with politics for why a ruling still hasn’t been issued. But the reasons to think something is rotten at the court are impossible to ignore.”
KEY BACKGROUND
Trump faces four felony charges in his federal case for trying to overturn the 2020 election, and has pleaded not guilty to the charges. The ex-president asked the court to dismiss the charges against him because he claimed to have immunity for actions taken while in office, an argument that’s become a consistent legal defense for Trump as litigation has piled up against him since he left office. Judges had routinely rejected it, however, and Trump went to the Supreme Court in the election case after both Chutkan and a panel of appeals court judges ruled against him and said he wasn’t immune. Trump has continued to claim presidents have to have immunity even when their actions “cross the line,” and his lawyer argued in court that presidents should potentially even be immune for ordering political rivals to be assassinated. The Supreme Court’s ruling was not as sweeping as Trump had wanted, with Chief Justice John Roberts noting for the court that the ex-president “asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one the Court recognizes.” The court’s opinion broke down along ideological lines on Monday, with the court’s six conservative justices granting Trump some immunity while the three liberal justices dissented. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argued the court’s ruling “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
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