Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday the “MAGA wing” of the Supreme Court issued the majority decision granting presidential immunity for official acts in office, as she backed Justice Sonia Sotomayer’s scathing dissent in the case.
“I agree with Justice Sotomayor about the immunity ruling from the MAGA wing of the Supreme Court,” Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee who lost to Trump, said in a post on the social platform X.
Clinton continued, quoting Sotomayor: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
“It will be up to the American people this November to hold Donald Trump accountable,” Clinton added.
The Supreme Court, in a 6-3 decision, ruled Monday that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution, a win for former President Trump that returns his federal election interference case to a lower court to determine whether actions he took in his efforts to overturn the election in 2020 merit protection.
The ruling was decided on ideological lines and stopped short of granting Trump the total immunity he sought in the case. Still, it helps Trump by making it less likely the case will head to trial before the 2024 presidential election this November.
The case now returns to district court, where proceedings have been paused while the high court weighed Trump’s immunity claims. Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the matter, must now weigh the issue for a second time, as well as other pending efforts by Trump seeking to toss the case.
Sotomayor issued a forceful 30-page dissent on Monday, joined by fellow liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She extensively read her dissent from the bench, a rarity reserved for when a justice wants to underscore sharp disagreements on a case.
“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency,” she wrote. “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law.”
“The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” her dissent read.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) similarly slammed the Supreme Court for its “disgraceful” decision, which, he said, “enables the former President to weaken our democracy by breaking the law.”
“This decision undermines the credibility of the Supreme Court, and suggests that political influence trumps all in our courts today,” Schumer said.
Ralph Nader — a four-time White House hopeful whose 2000 candidacy has been criticized as a “spoiler” in the race — attacked the decision, but put blame on Clinton for running a “blundering campaign” that let Trump ascend to the presidency.
“A dictatorial, unelected majority in the Supreme Court has just rendered America a dictatorial president above the law. Thank you Hillary Clinton, whose blundering campaign let the dictatorial Trump become president and led to a rightwing dictatorial majority on the Supreme Court,” he wrote in a post on X.
