{"id":224,"date":"2024-07-01T21:23:35","date_gmt":"2024-07-01T21:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=224"},"modified":"2024-07-01T21:23:35","modified_gmt":"2024-07-01T21:23:35","slug":"opinion-the-supreme-court-gives-a-free-pass-to-donald-trump-and-future-presidents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friscotimes.org\/?p=224","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | The Supreme Court Gives a Free Pass to Donald Trump and Future Presidents"},"content":{"rendered":"


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In a stunning finale to its term on Monday morning, the Supreme Court delivered a gift of inestimable worth to Donald Trump and all future presidents who intend to violate the law and their oaths to the Constitution. In a 6-to-3 ruling<\/a>, the court\u2019s conservative majority said that official acts that are central to the presidency are given \u201cabsolute immunity\u201d from prosecution. Other acts, even those that reach to the outer edge of a president\u2019s official duties, are \u201cpresumptively immune,\u201d the court said, making them much harder to be prosecuted.<\/p>\n

The immediate effect of the decision \u2014 one of the most consequential ever produced by the court on the subject of presidential powers and constitutional government \u2014 was to delay indefinitely the prosecution of Mr. Trump for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. The vote this fall will now almost certainly move forward with no legal accountability for that act. But the long-term danger to the Constitution and the American government is even more serious, particularly given the real possibility that Mr. Trump, whose recent criminal conviction<\/a> in New York is only the latest demonstration of his contempt for legal boundaries, could be returned to office in just a few months.<\/p>\n

As of Monday, the bedrock principle that no one is above the law has been set aside. In the very week that the nation celebrates its founding, the court undermined the reason for the American Revolution by giving presidents what one dissenting justice called a \u201claw-free zone\u201d in which to act, taking a step toward restoring the monarchy that the Declaration of Independence rejected. Presidents can still be impeached for their crimes in office, but it is hard to see how they can ever be prosecuted. They can take once-unimaginable actions, like encouraging an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, with no fear of later going to jail or being held legally accountable.<\/p>\n

As Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a blistering dissent<\/a> along with the other two liberal justices, the ruling creates a series of \u201cnightmare scenarios\u201d for what a president is now allowed to do. \u201cOrders the Navy\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n