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Former presidents are immune from prosecution for official actions taken while in the White House, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday, 1st July 2024, but do not have immunity for unofficial acts — a broad new definition of presidential power that may stand for generations and will likely mean more months of delay for Donald Trump’s pending election-interference trial. The 6-3 decision along ideological lines appears to rule out one set of allegations in Trump’s federal election-interference trial, involving his conversations with Justice Department officials after Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, and signals other parts of the case against him may proceed only after additional lower court rulings. The majority left it up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which crimes alleged in the indictment were unofficial acts by the then-president — a formula that seems likely to further narrow the scope of the charges Trump faces and add significant time and further appeals to the case.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said, the president “enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor in her dissent for the minority said the majority’s grant of immunity “reshapes the institution of the presidency” and “makes a mockery of the principle” that “no man is above the law.”
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