Former president Donald Trump said he would have preferred to be in D.C. this morning as the Supreme Court reviews his claim that he is immune from prosecution for actions taken while president.
Instead, he’s stuck 200 miles north in a New York courtroom for day seven of his hush money trial.
And he’s not happy about it.
“He thinks he’s superior,” Trump fumed last week about New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who denied requests from Trump’s lawyers to excuse him for a day so he could attend today’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court.
So Trump was not present as the highest court in the land reviews an unprecedented claim that could have far-reaching impacts on at least three of his criminal trials: that he is shielded from criminal prosecution for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
The stakes in that case — Trump v. United States — are high. A ruling in favor of Trump would upend the special counsel’s election interference case against him. Special counsel Jack Smith has charged Trump with four felonies in connection to his effort to overturn the election: conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to obstruct the formal certification in Congress of Joe Biden’s win on Jan. 6, 2021, obstructing a congressional proceeding and conspiracy against rights – in this case, the right to vote.
A ruling in favor of Trump would also throw his two other criminal cases into a tailspin. Trump has brought up the issue of presidential immunity in another election-interference case in Georgia and in a classified documents case in Florida.
However, the Supreme Court review would not affect Trump’s criminal trial, which began this month in New York and resumed Thursday with cross-examination. He’s charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments.
Former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker returned to the witness stand this morning to be cross-examined by Trump’s legal team. Pecker, who detailed Tuesday the publication’s “catch and kill” strategy, is expected to recount discussions he had with former Trump lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen about other potentially damaging stories involving Trump and women that they tried to keep from becoming public.
The immunity case is the final case of the Supreme Court’s blockbuster term — and one of the most consequential cases on its docket.
The special counsel’s office underscored the gravity of the case in its brief to the court. “The proposition that a former President is immune from federal criminal liability for conduct that would overturn his electoral defeat contravenes bedrock constitutional principles and threatens democracy itself,” the office argued.
The justices will probably rule before the term ends in late June or early July, potentially pushing the D.C. election interference trial well into the presidential election season.
The question before the justices Thursday was “whether and if so to what extent does a former president enjoy presidential immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his tenure in office.”
“Trump is accused of using false claims of massive voter fraud to pressure state officials, the Justice Department and former vice president Mike Pence to change the results; scheming with others to submit to Congress slates of phony electors from swing states and to get lawmakers to toss out lawful ballots; and encouraging supporters to gather at the Capitol, where a violent mob stopped the vote count for many hours,” per Washington Post reporter Ann E. Marimow.
“I think that there likely will be some justices who think that there should be immunity for certain kinds of things that are core to the role of the President. So the question is, where do they draw the line?” former federal judge Jeremy Fogel told The Washington Post. “I think we’ll get a pretty good sense from the argument.”
Once the Supreme Court issues a ruling, U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing D.C.’s election interference case, would need to determine how it applies to the specific allegations against Trump.
“She would need to separate out which alleged actions count as official conduct, as opposed to a private action, a process that could include requesting legal briefs from each side over a period of weeks,” Marimow wrote.
If Trump is reelected in the meantime, he could press the Justice Department to drop the federal charges against him.
(c) 2024, The Washington Post · Tobi Raji, Theodoric Meyer, Leigh Ann Caldwell
