The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that former presidents — including Donald Trump — have absolute immunity for core official acts, but that not all acts are official.
The 6-3 ruling itself was a "mixed bag," according to legal analysts giving commentary on the decision via X. They walked through the opinion, saying that what has changed is that a president can claim "official acts" and declare his or her innocence.
It means that President Joe Biden can order the military to arrest or even kill Trump, they said.
"The president is now a king above the law," as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent.
The majority ruled that it was down to a lower court to decide if Trump's actions of Jan. 6 were official.
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"Instead, they have established a test that his attempted coup cannot meet, back to D.C. for a mini-trial," said former ethics czar Norm Eisen. "The court does repudiate Trump's outlandish version of immunity, but it is absurd that they took almost 7 months to do so. I agree with the dissenters on what the test should be, but now we need to push for a mini-trial applying the test ASAP."
"I don't ever want to f-----g hear again that Roberts is an institutionalist," said political scientist Miranda Yaver.
University of Texas law professor Lee Kovarsky said, "MISREPORTING HAPPENING: I'm seeing a number of news breakers reporting that Trump has absolute immunity for all official acts. This is wrong. He has absolute immunity for "core" presidential powers and there is only a PRESUMPTION of immunity for the rest of official acts."
As Politico's Kyle Cheney wrtote, the case was essentially sent back to Judge Tanya Chutkan to decide if Trump's Jan. 6 actions were official acts. She will decide, for example, whether Trump's communication with Vice President Mike Pence, pressuring him to throw the election to the states, was official.
Civil rights lawyer Matthew Segal explained, "The legal system had one job after Jan. 6, which was to make clear that the President of the United States cannot do what Trump did. This is... not that."
"The Supreme Court just gave Biden unequivocal immunity to order the military to take action against Trump. Today. Right now," lawyer Bradley Moss wrote.
In a thread from The Nation's legal commentator, Elie Mystal, quoted a part of Chief Justice John Roberts' decision.
"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. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts," Roberts wrote.
The analyst then lamented, "You can't use like EVIDENCE against the President either."
"Welp, that's all folks," Mystal also said. "The President is immune from prosecution so long as he says he committed crimes as part of his 'official' duties. So ends the part of the American experience where our leaders were bound by the rule of law. Thanks for playing."
