Supreme Court Trump Immunity Ruling Already Having Terrifying Effects

The work to undo Donald Trump’s criminal charges—and his recent conviction—in light of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity has already begun.

Hours after the ruling Monday, the former president’s legal team requested that Judge Juan Merchan set aside Trump’s hush-money conviction and delay the sentencing scheduled for next week, citing the Supreme Court’s expansion of presidential immunity.

Trump’s attorneys argued that some evidence presented in the case constituted official presidential acts, according to a copy of a letter obtained by the Associated Press. That could refer to some of the communication Trump had about his former fixer Michael Cohen, which his legal team had previously attempted to redact from the trial on the same presidential immunity claim. But that was before the Supreme Court expanded the definition of immunity.

“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 consequential ruling. “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

The high court’s decision already effectively killed Trump’s federal election interference trial, which sought to hold Trump accountable for his role in the effort to overturn the 2020 election results and the far-right mob that stormed the U.S. Capitol building on January 6. Now it could overturn one of the few cases where Trump is being held accountable.

Trump was accused of using Cohen to sweep an affair with porn star Stormy Daniels under the rug ahead of the 2016 presidential election. He was convicted on 34 felony charges in May for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime in the first degree. Merchan could sentence Trump to up to four years in prison on the charges. He could also impose probation, supervised release, or order Trump to do community service or pay fines.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr couldn’t help but laugh at the mention of Donald Trump’s erstwhile strategist Steve Bannon sitting in a federal prison cell.

During an interview on Fox News’s Your World Monday night, host Neil Cavuto asked Barr what impact he believed that presidential immunity, which Trump was freshly granted by the Supreme Court earlier that day, would have on Trump’s behavior if reelected to the White House. Cavuto asked Barr if he thought Trump would even care about being punished if he’d be 82 years old by the time he left office.

“Well, I would say, you know, the president acts through people,” said Barr. “And maybe he wouldn’t worry about it, although I think he would, but his, the people who are around him and are being asked to do things, certainly I think are going to make sure that they’re behaving within the law.”

“I understand people’s concern given his frequently incendiary rhetoric, I’m just saying, having experienced working with a person and being a subordinate of his,” Barr continued. “You know, Bannon says I’m the first person to go to prison under President Trump. I don’t lose any sleep over it. I’m not worried about that.”

Cavuto laughed, before pointing out, “I think he’s in prison right now, himself.”

Barr burst into laughter.

“I don’t mean to make light of that,” Cavuto said, moving on to his next question.

Bannon chaotically reported to Danbury federal prison in Connecticut on Monday, after being found guilty on two counts of contempt of Congress. In recent weeks, the former Trump strategist made several desperate attempts to avoid jail time, all of which were clearly unsuccessful. While the American system of mass incarceration is no laughing matter, perhaps the MAGA mastermind will reenter society with a new perspective on prison abolition?

During his appearance on Fox News, Barr also took aim at Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent in the immunity case, in which she slammed the majority opinion for making the president a king by giving him the immunity to assassinate his political enemies.

“The president has the authority to defend the country against foreign enemies, armed conflict and so forth. He has the authority to direct the justice system against criminals at home. He doesn’t have authority to go and assassinate people. So whether he uses the SEAL team or a private hitman, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t make it a carrying out of his authority. So all these horror stories really are false,” Barr said.

This isn’t the first time that Barr has downplayed the violent rhetoric of his former boss. In April, Barr claimed that Trump would “lose his temper” and “blow off steam” by calling for the execution of his enemies, but said, “I doubt he would’ve actually carried it out.” In just the past 24 hours, the possibility of Trump following through on any of his wild remarks promising violent retribution has become all the more real.

After the Supreme Court essentially gave him absolute immunity for “official acts,” Donald Trump decided to take aim at the man tasked with investigating his federal misdeeds: special counsel Jack Smith.

In a Truth Social post shortly after midnight Tuesday, the former president and convicted felon reveled in the fact that Smith’s election interference case against him is all but dead.

“A really bad day for Deranged Jack Smith, the wacko prosecutor used for Crooked Joe Biden’s attack on his Political Opponent. Today, as in the past, the Supreme Court gave the Deranged One a high level SPANKING!” Trump posted.

“His ‘real’ bosses, Andrew Weissmann and Lisa Monaco, not to mention Merrick Garland, whose once great reputation has been shattered by these Thugs, and his constant defense of Crooked Joe, must be furious at him. Garland ought to call an end to this never ending HOAX, and let people focus on bringing back Greatness to America!” Trump added.

Trump’s gloating follows his son Donald Trump Jr.’s mockery of Smith on Monday, referring to the special counsel in an X (formerly Twitter) post about “corrupt prosecutors” in Washington, D.C. It’s a post that will seem ironic if the elder Trump wins in November, as all of those federal prosecutors, who ultimately report to the U.S. attorney general, will surely lose their independence thanks to the Supreme Court. Their ruling states that the president can have free rein to wield the Justice Department as he sees fit.

The Trump family certainly won’t be calling any prosecutors who work for them “corrupt.” They’ll need them to keep away any investigations into their business practices, or their use of the presidency to make money. The only means of keeping presidential corruption in check may be the weak and Hail Mary threat of impeachment.

House Speaker Mike Johnson appeared on Fox News Monday night to downplay the alarming implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States, which grants Trump absolute immunity from federal prosecution for crimes he committed in office.

“No one who is elected to that office [of the president] is going to be prone to this kind of crazy criminal activity,” Johnson argued in defense of the Supreme Court ruling, ignoring that the case was brought to the bench after the former president was charged with committing crazy criminal activity. “What the court is saying here follows common sense, and, of course, our Constitution as well,” Johnson added.

Johnson’s comments came in response to a statement from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries stating that Congress would engage in “aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution.” Prior to Jeffries’s statement, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issued a declaration that she would be pursuing articles of impeachment against the Supreme Court, which she described as being “consumed by a corruption crisis beyond its control.”

Trump brought the case to the Supreme Court in an effort to undermine his federal election interference case, arguing that any actions he took as president, such as conspiring to submit fake electors to fraudulently win an election, were inherently official presidential duties. In addition to ruling that presidents are shielded from prosecution for their “core” constitutional duties, the Supreme Court also limited what evidence can be brought against them to prosecute criminal “private” activities and suggested the federal case against Trump can’t continue. The combination essentially makes presidential power limitless and holding Trump to account effectively impossible.

As Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her dissent, which Johnson wrote off alongside widespread condemnation of the Supreme Court decision as “all sorts of hyperbole,” the decision effectively turns presidents into “a king above the law” based on ahistorical reasoning that “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government.” Johnson cast these criticisms aside, describing concern for the death of the rule of law simply a “charade.”

Hunter Biden is finally making good on his threat to sue Fox News.

The president’s son filed a lawsuit against Fox News on Monday, alleging that the conservative media company violated New York state’s revenge porn law by illegally publishing his nude photographs and videos, as part of a miniseries imagining his trial for charges that were never brought.

The suit alleges that explicit photographs of Biden were included in the miniseries The Trial of Hunter Biden: A Mock Trial for the American People without his consent. The program depicts a fictionalized mock trial in which the president’s son is sued for allegations of bribery and foreign lobbying—charges that have never been formally brought against him. 

Fox News “unlawfully published numerous intimate images (both still and video) of Mr. Biden depicting him in the nude, depicting an unclothed or exposed intimate part of him, as well as engaged in sex acts,” the court documents said.

In the suit, Biden accuses Fox News of using the miniseries in an attempt to “harass, annoy, alarm and humiliate him and tarnish his reputation.”

Biden is seeking compensatory and punitive damages from Fox News and its parent company Fox Corporation for causing “severe emotional distress, humiliation, and mental anguish” for its own financial gain. 

“The miniseries is fictionalized; it is not a news event. It was made for the purpose of trade and advertising, and merely exploits Mr. Biden’s name, image, and likeness for Fox’s commercial benefit,” the lawsuit says.

Biden is also hoping to prevent Fox from ever again airing his nude images without his consent.   

In April, lawyers for Biden published a letter warning that they would bring legal action against Fox for the company’s “relentless” attacks against him, accusing the media giant of “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame” the president’s son. Soon after, the miniseries was yanked from Fox’s website out of an “abundance of caution,” Fox said in a statement to CNN. 

Monday’s suit alleges that the network failed to remove promotional material and clips of the series, and that the show is still available to view on third-party platforms. 

Fox News has already released a statement criticizing Biden and the lawsuit. “This entirely politically motivated lawsuit is devoid of merit,” said Fox News in a statement to Forbes. “The core complaint stems from a 2022 streaming program that Mr. Biden did not complain about until sending a letter in late April 2024.” 

The company also maintained that its coverage of Biden was consistent with the First Amendment.