The Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity means that the president can attempt to overturn elections, according to one of Trump’s lawyers.
Will Scharf told CNN’s Kaitlin Collins Monday night that “alternate slates of electors have been a method used by previous presidents, most notably Ulysses S. Grant, to ensure the integrity of prior elections.”
“We believe the assembly of those alternate slates of electors was an official act of the presidency,” Scharf said, referring to the attempts by Trump allies to subvert the 2020 election results in different states. “That’s what we argued before the Supreme Court.”
Scharf: We believe the assembly of those alternate slates of electors was an official act of the presidency. pic.twitter.com/JNczpFCSJZ
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 2, 2024
After the 2020 election, Trump and his allies tried to present fake electors in states across America to flip results in his favor, including Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Mexico, Nevada, and Arizona, resulting in criminal charges in many cases. In Georgia, Trump himself was charged, along with 18 of his allies, but the case is in limbo while an appeals court considers whether prosecutor Fani Willis should be thrown off of the case.
The nation’s highest court seems to have opened the floodgates for any kind of presidential crimes, so long as the president can argue it was an “official” act. Now, sitting presidents can argue they cannot be prosecuted, evidence cannot be collected against them, and the Justice Department is not independent of the White House. There are probably more devastating interpretations yet to come. Meanwhile, Trump is attempting to get his hush-money conviction thrown out over how some of the evidence was collected.
