JULY 1, 2024:
In the prosecution of Donald Trump for the events that transpired on January 6, 2021, the Court held that former Presidents are Constitutionally immune from prosecution for their “official acts” committed while serving as President. The Court left the question of which charges against Mr. Trump are for his “official acts” (and therefore would have to be dismissed) up to the trial court hearing the case. The vote on the Court was 6-3, with Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissenting.
Reporter’s Opinion: The only charge against Mr. Trump that even conceivably involves his “official acts” is the charge that he discussed his desire to overturn the Presidential election of 2020 with his subordinates in the Justice Department. The President has no “official” authority over the separately elected Vice President of the United States, or over the separately elected Congress’s duty to count the Electoral votes for President. If there was any validity whatsoever in the Court’s new “immunity” doctrine, the Court should have gone ahead and said that–all the majority Justices had to do to get there was to honestly read the Constitution. Not since March 5, 1857, when the Court handed down its decision in Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. 393 (1856 Term), has the Court issued such a bad decision, untethered, for the most part to any actual text in the United States’ Constitution.
Dan D. Rhea
RECENT RULINGS 