Supreme Court says Trump has absolute immunity for official acts only
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines ruled that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers and is entitled to a presumption of immunity for his official acts, but lacks immunity for unofficial acts. But at the same time, the court sent the case back to the trial judge to determine which, if any, of Trump's actions were part of his official duties and thus were protected from prosecution. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg is here with the latest. Hello, Nina.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Hi there.
MARTIN: You know, we've been waiting for this decision for some time now. You were in the courtroom. What was it like?
TOTENBERG: Well, as it always is in one of these very big cases, it was an extremely dramatic and somber moment. The chief justice, speaking for the majority, said that the president had immunity for most of the things he does and anything that is in his official capacity. And while he gave some statements that would suggest that obviously terrible conduct could be prosecuted, the gist of his opinion is that for most actions, the president, even after he leaves office, is likely to be immune.
He started out by noting that the presidency is different than any other branch of government because a single person is head of that branch, not nine people like on the Supreme Court, not hundreds of people like Congress. A single person embodies this office. And the suggestion in the majority opinion is basically that you can't do things that would intimidate a president, prevent him from doing what he should be doing and prevent him from taking bold and decisive action 'cause he would be worrying all the time that after he left office, he might be prosecuted. That was the gist of it.
And then there are some guidelines for the lower court to follow, but they are very president friendly - for example, conversations with the president and vice president over when Trump was supposedly trying to intimidate the vice president into making - saying that he - Trump - had won the election - the very - the court said - the court majority said, the presumption of correctness always has to go to the president. Only in those - in those rare cases where he has violated a core function of - he has exceeded the core functions of the presidency in a very terrible and obvious way can you prosecute him. And the court then sent the case back to the lower court. Now...
MARTIN: I wanted to hear what the liberals said...
TOTENBERG: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...In dissent in just one minute, but I just wondered whether the majority showed any sensitivity at all to the concerns raised by the minority during - well, which we - what we assumed would be in the minority during the oral arguments, where they raised some very compelling and dramatic examples of where a president could abuse his power. Did the majority show any sensitivity to that concern at all?
TOTENBERG: Well, certainly not really in the public announcement. The chief justice's opinion is very long. It's - and I don't know how he rebutted some of those charges that the minority made. But he really was stressing in his announcement that except for - that the president's core functions and the presidency itself need deference, need a presumption that they cannot be held to account in a criminal court and that that will be the rule from now on.
Justice Sotomayor, with whom Justice Kagan and Jackson joined in dissent, spoke at length in the courtroom about what the court had just done. She said, today's decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principles foundational to our constitution and system of government that no man is above the law relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for bold, unhesitating action by the president. The court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering to criminal and treasonous acts. I dissent - is the way she put it at the beginning. And she went on for - I didn't time it, but my guess is 15 minutes or 20 minutes in her dissent.
And it was a - you know, the majority of members of the conservative majority have spent their lives prior to being judges in the executive branch and being the assistance to the president in one way or another. And their view clearly was that presidents get worried by any sort of intervention that harms their process of deciding what to do. And interestingly, Justice Sotomayor said, you know, you do need to have some guard rails, and you have eliminated the guard rails here, is what she said in her dissent, concluding that, as she put it, because the risks and power the court has now assumed are intolerable, unwarranted and plainly antithetical to bedrock constitutional norms, we, today, cannot sign on to this opinion, even though it leaves a shred of possibility that some of these Trump charges could be tried - maybe - assuming, but it certainly wouldn't happen before November.
MARTIN: So before we let you go - we only have about a minute left - what happens next?
TOTENBERG: Well, what happens next is the court has reminded this case to the district court, the trial judge, who will now have to sort through the four charges against President Trump and say which ones might still be able to stand. And I should note that the president - former President Trump - has the right to appeal those decisions before any trial. It's one of the few things - immunity is one of the few things you can go back to for another bite at the apple before your trial. And so there's no possibility that this could happen before the November election. And at least two of the charges trying to pressure the Justice Department and one other, the court quite clearly says are out of bounds. So that's where we are.
MARTIN: That is NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg. Nina, thank you so much.
TOTENBERG: You're welcome.
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