Supreme Court Hands Donald Trump Ultimate Power in Immunity Ruling

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump cannot be held accountable for some of the actions he took to overturn the 2020 election results.

The case, Trump v. United States, sprang out of Trump’s federal election interference trial as a preemptive defense, arguing that Trump could not be tried on conspiracy and obstruction charges due to presidential immunity privileges that he held during office—but few expected Monday’s outcome.

In a 6-3 ruling along ideological lines, the court ruled that some of the actions Trump was indicted for could be categorized as official acts during his presidency.

“Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” read the opinion’s syllabus. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts outlined that the president is not immune from criminal prosecution—except on some occasions.

“The President is not above the law,” Roberts wrote. “But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor feared for the future of a country that legally permits the executive branch authority to commit crimes under the cloak of the office, arguing that the court’s decision made a “mockery” of the Constitutional principle that “no man is above the law,” and that its “own misguided wisdom” gave Trump “all the immunity he asked for and more.”

“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law,” Sotomayor wrote. “Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

The decision from the conservative majority overturned a federal appeals court ruling that had unanimously rejected all three of Trump’s presidential immunity arguments in his January 6 case, “patiently, painstakingly, and unsparingly” dismantling his arguments in an “airtight” opinion, according to George Conway, a conservative attorney and ex-husband of former Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway.

“This opinion is so good, and so clear, so comprehensive, there’s nothing in it that could be possibly attacked. I don’t see how even the Supreme Court could write—I don’t see how any judge, any court, anywhere, including the Supreme Court, could write a better opinion that more accurately states what the law is and should be,” Conway told CNN in February before the Supreme Court opted to hear the case.

Monday’s decision effectively kills the January 6 trial, which would have been overseen by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump stayed up well past his bedtime Sunday and, like so many people who have a toxic relationship with social media, spent his night rage-posting about Nancy Pelosi.

At 12:30 a.m. E.T., Trump fumed at Pelosi’s Sunday morning appearance on MSNBC, where she described Trump’s debate last week as a “manifesto of lies” and recalled when she shredded a copy of his State of the Union address in 2020. This apparently roiled Trump, who falsely claimed Pelosi was “exposed by her daughter, a filmmaker, as being fully responsible for the lack of security on January 6th” before declaring Pelosi is “a sick ‘puppy,’ and always has been!!”

During her interview on MSNBC, Pelosi pointed out that it was Trump’s own inactions that aided in the riotous storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, likening it to Trump’s downplaying of Covid-19 and elevation of Covid-related conspiracy theories which, Pelosi and public health experts agree, greatly exacerbated the pandemic.

“This is a dangerous person and evil,” Pelosi told MSNBC.

Trump blamed Pelosi for the Capitol riot during his debate—but Pelosi didn’t block the National Guard from mobilizing as Trump supporters rioted at the Capitol. She doesn’t even have authority to reject them—and footage captured by her daughter on January 6, 2021 showed Pelosi desperately calling military contacts to ask why the National Guard hadn’t mobilized.

The morning after the debate, Pelosi pointed out the absurdity of Trump’s claim, telling reporters with CBS, “He thinks I planned my own assassination? He’s sicker than I thought.”

Donald Trump’s attempts to win over Black voters are still doing the exact opposite.

The Trump campaign suggested Saturday night that the owner of a Black barbershop in Atlanta was lying when he claimed he was never informed that the roundtable of Black conservatives he hosted last week was in benefit of the former president.

“The business owner signed an agreement with the Trump campaign and received payment for the time spent in his location for this event,” the campaign wrote in a post on X, sharing snapshots of the venue use contract, which refers to event security as the “Secret Service” and the campaign as “DJTFP24” and a “private political committee.”

Rocky Jones, the owner of Rocky’s Barber Shop, said he wanted to return the money (just $4,800, per the contract) once he discovered that the event for which he closed his shop was actually for Trump’s campaign. Jones claimed that a friend had reached out to him to set up the event, misrepresenting its purpose. Jones also said he had never been in contact with anyone from Trump’s team or campaign and that he never understood the intention of the event from the verbal communication he had received.

“I really take pride in my business,” Jones told Atlanta News First, noting that he had received multiple upset calls from his community over the event. “It’s never been about politics.… I feel like I’ve been betrayed.”

Jones had jumped at the opportunity under the impression that it was an opportunity to lift up other small, Black-owned businesses.

“Just me agreeing to do a Black, small business roundtable,” Jones said. “I thought it was something private.”

But when Trump called in to the event, Jones was shocked. “Why is the … ex-president calling somebody in my barber shop?” he said. “This has nothing to do with small Black businesses.”

The roundtable featured Representatives Byron Donalds and Wesley Hunt, as well as former Trump Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, but Trump himself failed to show. Instead, he opted to literally phone it in to discuss the tax cuts he intends to make for billionaires and the ultrarich should he win in November.

Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is promising retribution against President Joe Biden should Donald Trump be reelected in November.

During an interview Sunday with CNN’s Dana Bash, who moderated the presidential debate last week, the South Carolina Republican warned that Biden would get what was coming to him—and it would be all his fault.

“The Democrats keep calling President Trump a felon. Well, be careful what you wish for. I expect there will be an investigation of Biden’s criminality at the border,” said Graham. “This country is going to have a reset here, and, using Biden’s standard of glorifying political prosecutions, a Pandora’s box has been opened. Whether he steps down or not, accountability is coming to him.”

Trump was found guilty in May of 34 felony counts by a Manhattan jury, in a trial that Trump and his allies have insisted was rigged for him to lose. Now Trump’s allies want the same for Biden.

“Sir, you just warned of retribution,” Bash replied.

“Yeah. I warned that the Pandora’s box opened by the Democrats is going to be applied here,” Graham said.

He argued that Republicans deserved their own version of the House’s January 6 committee, which investigated crimes that occurred during the insurrection at the Capitol three years ago. Now Graham is seeking “a committee looking at border policies that have led to the rape and murder of lots of Americans.”

Graham also snidely complimented Bash on her laissez-faire handling of the presidential debate, during which Trump got to say basically whatever lie he wanted. CNN did fact-check his statements, but not until after the debate had actually ended. As a result, Republicans have been quick to gush over CNN and how much they loved the debate, despite attacking the hosts and network in the weeks leading up to it.

“You all did a good job. You let him talk. You’re not fact-checkers. You let him talk,” said Graham.

Marjorie Taylor Greene is furious that former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon is reporting to prison Monday.

On Sunday night, Greene posted an interview with Bannon for his War Room podcast on X (formerly Twitter) in support of the MAGA gadfly, calling his imprisonment “a DISGRACE to our country, and an affront to the principles of justice it was founded upon,” repeating conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection.

“I want to talk about the January 6 committee, Steve, because people need to understand how it was set up, why it’s illegitimate, and why it has been a complete failure in our Republican-controlled Congress not to have voted that the January 6 committee is completely illegitimate and completely wipe out these contempt of Congress charges that you’re going to prison for tomorrow,” Greene ranted.

Bannon has been trying to avoid prison ever since he was convicted in 2022 for contempt by a federal jury for refusing the House January 6 committee’s subpoena to testify regarding the Capitol insurrection. Earlier this month, a federal judge ordered him to report to prison after the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld his conviction.

While Greene lamented inaction by Congress, she didn’t mention that last week Speaker Mike Johnson held a secret vote with other Republican leaders to formally disavow the January 6 committee with the hope of allowing lawmakers to file a legal brief in support of Bannon with Congress’s backing. Greene also didn’t mention that Representative Barry Loudermilk then filed a brief to the Supreme Court arguing that witnesses in congressional investigations are allowed to ignore subpoenas that they feel are invalid—probably because that attempt failed when the Supreme Court denied Bannon’s application for release Friday.

The Supreme Court was essentially Bannon’s last shot at avoiding prison, and since he’s also awaiting charges from the state of New York about a fraudulent border wall charity scheme, Bannon will not be serving his time in a minimum security “Club Fed” prison camp. Instead, he’ll be in a low-security prison for nonviolent offenders.

Bannon was fortunate to escape prison over federal charges for the border wall scheme thanks to a pardon from Trump. Now his political activities will have to be conducted from behind bars.