Reactions and Highlights of the Supreme Court Decision on Trump’s Immunity (2024)

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Here are some key excerpts from the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.

In the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., the conservative supermajority explained that Congress has no authority to pass criminal laws regulating powers that the Constitution assigns exclusively to presidents. Where the two branches share overlapping authority, presidents may or may not have immunity depending on whether applying criminal law to those specific facts would dangerously intrude on the functions of the executive branch.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by her liberal colleagues, wrote a vehement dissent, portraying the ruling as a sharp expansion of presidential power — not just for Mr. Trump but for all presidents. She cited the famous World War II ruling that upheld the internment of Japanese Americans in the West to invoke the fear that presidents may feel freer to abuse their power.

At earlier stages of the Trump case, lower court judges had ruled that Mr. Trump had no immunity from prosecution over the allegations in the indictment regardless of whether the acts were official or unofficial. The Supreme Court sent the case back to the Federal District Court judge who would oversee any trial, Tanya S. Chutkan, to conduct that analysis. The majority, however, declared that Mr. Trump is clearly immune from prosecution for his alleged interactions with Justice Department officials in trying to enlist their help in overturning the 2020 election.

Even as Chief Justice Roberts wrote that a president talking to a vice president counted as an official act, he suggested that it might not qualify for immunity in the context of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign on his vice president at the time, Mike Pence, to disrupt the certification of Electoral College votes. He noted that Congress has legislated extensively to define the vice president’s role in that task and that the president plays no direct part in it, suggesting that allowing a prosecution based on that act would not unduly impair executive branch functions. By contrast, the chief justice suggested that another context — a president talking to a vice president about casting a tiebreaking 51st vote in the Senate on legislation that is part of the White House’s agenda, for example — more likely would be immune. But he still left that issue to Judge Chutkan to consider.

During oral arguments, a Justice Department lawyer had suggested that even if the court were to rule that presidents are immune for official acts, prosecutors should still be able to introduce evidence about Mr. Trump’s official acts to help the jury understand the unofficial ones that would be the basis of charges. If so, a ruling that presidents have immunity for official actions would not have been particularly disruptive to the case prosecutors want to present to the jury. But in a major victory for Mr. Trump, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion ruled out letting prosecutors use testimony or records about any official acts that are subject to immunity.

One of the court’s six conservatives, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, split from her colleagues on that issue. In a concurring opinion, she said she agreed with the three liberal judges in dissent that prosecutors should be allowed to use such evidence under certain circ*mstances. As an example, she pointed to a hypothetical bribery case, saying it would “hamstring the prosecution” not to be able to tell the jury about an official act that an ex-president had taken a bribe to perform.

In a footnote, Chief Justice Roberts addressed Justice Barrett, saying “of course” prosecutors could tell the jury that a president had taken an official act in a bribery case; they just could not present documents and testimony inviting the jury to scrutinize a president’s motivation and the legitimacy of that official action.

The five-justice majority’s declaration that official actions that are subject to presidential immunity cannot be used as evidence could matter for evidence about the inflammatory speech Mr. Trump delivered to his followers ahead of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol or any of his postings on Twitter leading up to the 2021 riot. It is established that speech that is protected by the First Amendment can be used as evidence about a defendant’s related crimes. But while leaving the first crack to Judge Chutkan, Chief Justice Roberts’s opinion raised the possibility that Mr. Trump’s words may count as official actions; and so would apparently be inadmissible at trial.

The Georgia case has also been stalled by a pretrial appeal over the issue of whether the Fulton County district attorney, Fani T. Willis, should step down from the case because of her romantic involvement with a lawyer she hired to manage the prosecution. The state appellate court is not expected to rule on the matter until after the November presidential election.

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Republicans responded to the ruling with triumph, and Democrats with dismay.

Other Republicans also praised the ruling as a rejection of what they characterized as Democrats’ using the government against Mr. Trump for political purposes.

Senator Steve Daines of Montana, who leads Republicans’ Senate campaign arm, said the Supreme Court had ended a “sad chapter of Joe Biden’s weaponization of the Justice Department.” Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, called the decision “another setback for the Democrat Party’s illegal and unconstitutional crusade to outlaw dissent, jail the opposition leader, impose authoritarian rule, replace democracy with the deep state and liberty with leftwing oligarchy.”

The Justice Department operates independently of the president, and there is no evidence that President Biden has had any involvement in its prosecution decisions.

Mr. Trump wants to eliminate the department’s independence and has called for prosecuting his political opponents, purging federal agencies of civil servants who might oppose his policies and greatly expanding executive power.

Democrats expressed fear for the future of American democracy, as Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson did in their dissenting opinion. “Simply frightening. May God have mercy on this nation,” Jaime Harrison, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, wrote alongside Justice Sotomayor’s quote: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

Mr. Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said on a call with reporters that the Supreme Court had “handed Donald Trump the keys to a dictatorship.” Shortly before that, the Biden campaign put out a statement saying that the ruling did not change the facts of Mr. Trump’s actions leading up to and on Jan. 6, 2021: “Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election,” it said.

“Our democracy has been gravely wounded,” Eric H. Holder Jr., who served as attorney general under President Barack Obama, wrote in a post on social media, saying the Supreme Court had given presidents free rein to commit crimes. “There is no basis in the Constitution for this Court constructed monstrosity.”

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York said the Supreme Court had been “consumed by a corruption crisis” and pledged to file articles of impeachment, though she did not specify against which justices. Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Clarence Thomas have been under scrutiny because a flag associated with the “Stop the Steal” movement flew outside Justice Alito’s house after the 2020 election, and Justice Thomas’s wife was involved with efforts to overturn the election.

Supreme Court justices can be impeached, but only one has been — more than 200 years ago — and Republicans currently control the House.

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, called Monday “a sad day for America” and added, “Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president.”

The district court judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s trial in Washington will have to determine whether his specific actions are protected under the ruling. That will take time and very likely delay a trial past the election — at which point, if Mr. Trump wins, he could order the Justice Department to end the case.

“I don’t see how this case could go forward before the election,” Alina Habba, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, said on Fox News.

Outside groups focused on democracy also condemned the ruling.

“The Court has issued an instruction manual for lawbreaking presidents,” said Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. “Make sure you conspire only with other government employees. You’ll never be held to account.”

Michael Gold, Simon J. Levien and Mattathias Schwartz contributed reporting.

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Anticipation and family members of some justices filled the court for the momentous decision.

It was indeed not the case that most observers inside and outside the court were counting down to: on the scope and limits of presidential immunity.

In the audience was Michael Dreeben, a former deputy solicitor general who argued for the government in that case. Mr. Dreeben was greeted by several people before proceedings began, and as the justices spoke on the immunity case, he took notes on a small pad and occasionally twiddled his pen. But he showed little emotion as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. delivered the majority opinion, effectively ruling against him in deciding that presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution.

The parents of Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh and the wife of Chief Justice Roberts, Jane Roberts, were also in attendance. Justice Neil M. Gorsuch was absent.

Chief Justice Roberts preemptively addressed possible criticism of the ruling as he emphasized that the decision “does not protect any particular president, but the presidency,” and added that presidential immunity did have limits.

“Saying it so doesn’t make it so,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor sharply countered at the beginning of her dissent from the bench, a rare moment that underscored her profound disagreement with the majority.

Justice Sotomayor, who dissented on behalf of the other liberal members of the court, cut a note of exasperation through her lengthy speech, seemingly to sporadically add “imagine that,” “think about that,” and “interesting, history matters right?” as she read from her written words. When discussing and rebutting the majority, she looked several times to her colleagues on her immediate left, Justice Clarence Thomas and Chief Justice Roberts. They did not return her gaze.

“We fear for democracy,” she said in conclusion.

The court then turned to lighter matters, as the chief justice concluded the term and recognized retiring workers for their service.

“On behalf of my employees — colleagues” — he said, misspeaking to laughter. “On behalf of my colleagues, I thank the employees.”

At the sound of the buzzer and prompted by a staff member, the audience then rose as the justices filed out, concluding the last day of official business until the new term in the fall.

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A vehement dissent laments a vast expansion of power that makes the president ‘a king above the law.’

“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, in an opinion joined by the other two Democratic appointees, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Insulating the president of the United States — the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world, she noted — from criminal prosecution when he uses his official powers will allow him to freely use his official power to violate the law, exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, or other “evil ends.”

“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.”

Justice Sotomayor also wrote that how the majority had applied the new standard of immunity to official acts to Mr. Trump’s case specifically was “perhaps even more troubling.” Its analysis, she added, operated as a “one-way ratchet” — helping the defense but offering no help to the prosecution.

For example, she wrote, the majority declared that all of Mr. Trump’s actions involving Vice President Mike Pence and the Justice Department counted as official conduct but did not designate any actions in the indictment as falling into the non-“core” category of official conduct that it said could be prosecuted. Nor did it designate as clearly private actions any of several things that Mr. Trump’s team had conceded looked unofficial, like Mr. Trump’s interactions with a personal lawyer.

Justice Sotomayor railed in particular that the majority had declined to rule out immunity for Mr. Trump’s role in organizing fake slates of electors, pressuring states to subvert the legitimate election results, and exploiting the violence of the Jan. 6 riot to influence the certification proceedings.

“It is not conceivable that a prosecution for these alleged efforts to overturn a presidential election, whether labeled official or unofficial under the majority’s test,” would pose any danger of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch, she wrote, adding that “the majority could have said as much,” but did not.

Sometimes justices conclude their dissents with a softening and polite qualifier, writing “Respectfully, I dissent.” Justice Sotomayor instead concluded this one harshly: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”

She disagreed with the majority’s holding that the Constitution does not permit prosecutors to tell a jury about an ex-president’s official actions that are relevant to some private action being charged. As an example, she pointed to a hypothetical bribery case, saying it would “hamstring the prosecution” not to be able to tell the jury what official act an ex-president took a bribe to perform.

In a footnote of the majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts addressed Justice Barrett’s example of a bribery case. He disagreed that the court’s ruling meant prosecutors could not mention any official act, saying “of course” prosecutors could point to the public record to show that a president performed the official act in question. What prosecutors may not do, Chief Justice Roberts wrote, is admit testimony or private records that would invite a jury to scrutinize the president’s motivations for the act and second-guess its propriety.

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Thomas and Alito took part in the case, despite calls for their recusal.

Virginia Thomas, known as Ginni, helped shape the effort to overturn the 2020 election. “Biden and the Left is attempting the greatest Heist of our History,” Ms. Thomas wrote in a text message to Mark Meadows, President Donald J. Trump’s chief of staff, during the fraught weeks between the 2020 presidential election and the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Justice Thomas has not given a public explanation for remaining on the case, and he has taken part in other cases arising from the election and the 2021 attack. But he recused himself in October from a case concerning John Eastman, a conservative lawyer who had advised Mr. Trump. Justice Thomas, for whom Mr. Eastman had served as a law clerk, gave no reasons for his decision to disqualify himself from that case.

Justice Alito has been more forthcoming. He explained why he would not recuse from the case in a letter to Democratic lawmakers in May after The New York Times reported that flags that have been used to support the “Stop the Steal” movement had been displayed at his homes in Virginia and New Jersey.

The justice said his wife, Martha-Ann, was responsible. “My wife is fond of flying flags,” he wrote. “I am not. She was solely responsible for having flagpoles put up at our residence and our vacation home and has flown a wide variety of flags over the years.”

The court recently adopted a code of conduct for the justices. It allows individual justices to make their own decisions about recusal.

One provision of the code says that “a justice is presumed impartial and has an obligation to sit unless disqualified.”

A second provision says that “a justice should disqualify himself or herself in a proceeding in which the justice’s impartiality might reasonably be questioned, that is, where an unbiased and reasonable person who is aware of all relevant circ*mstances would doubt that the justice could fairly discharge his or her duties.”

The flags displayed at his properties, Justice Alito wrote, did not require him to recuse from the case. “A reasonable person who is not motivated by political or ideological considerations or a desire to affect the outcome of Supreme Court cases,” he wrote, “would conclude this event does not meet the applicable standard for recusal.”

Indeed, he wrote, he had an obligation to sit and hear the case.

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Then, he posed a hypothetical situation about a president giving away an ambassadorship for a bribe. Roberts said that prosecutors should be allowed to introduce not only evidence about the bribe (a private act) but also the ambassadorial appointment (an official act) — otherwise, the jury would hear about only one side of the quid pro quo.

While Trump’s lawyers requested immunity for anything he did while in office, during oral argument they suggested they would be pleased if the court set this broad “outer perimeter” standard.

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Chief Justice Roberts says Trump’s pressuring of Pence was certainly official conduct, but leaves open the question of whether it counts as the core kind for which Trump has absolute immunity, or a lessor kind where he has only a presumption of immunity that can be overcome.

But despite telegraphing that likely result, the Supreme Court does not just say that. It instead sends the issue back to Judge Chutkan.

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Presidents are partly shielded from prosecution, the Supreme Court rules.

The decision amounted to a powerful statement by the court’s conservative majority that presidents should be insulated from the potential that actions they take in carrying out their official duties could later be used by political enemies to charge them with crimes.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said Mr. Trump had at least presumptive immunity for his official acts. He added that the trial judge must undertake an intensive factual review to separate official and unofficial conduct and to assess whether prosecutors can overcome the presumption protecting Mr. Trump for his official conduct.

If Mr. Trump prevails at the polls, the issue could become moot since he could order the Justice Department to drop the charges.

The liberal wing, in some of the harshest dissents ever filed by justices of the Supreme Court, said the majority had created a kind of king not answerable to the law.

Broad immunity for official conduct is needed, the chief justice wrote, to protect “an energetic, independent executive.”

“The president therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote. “That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy or party.”

The alternative, the chief justice wrote, is to invite tit-for-tat political reprisals.

“Virtually every president is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law (such as drug, gun, immigration or environmental laws),” he wrote. “An enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous president violated that broad statute. Without immunity, such types of prosecutions of ex-presidents could quickly become routine.”

In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision was gravely misguided. In a rare move and sign of deep disagreement, she summarized her dissent from the bench, making off-the-cuff remarks that underscored her frustration.

“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.”

In her own dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that “the court has now declared for the first time in history that the most powerful official in the United States can (under circ*mstances yet to be fully determined) become a law unto himself.”

Mr. Trump embraced the outcome on social media, celebrating the ruling. “Big win for our constitution and democracy,” he wrote in all-capital letters. “Proud to be an American!”

President Biden warned that the decision set a dangerous precedent. “The power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States,” he said, urging voters to prevent his Republican rival from winning a second term. “The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone.”

The chief justice’s opinion recounted the events surrounding the assault on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, in an understated, almost antiseptic summary, while the dissents called them a singular threat to democracy. And where the chief justice stressed the importance of protecting all presidents, the dissents focused on Mr. Trump.

Chief Justice Roberts wrote that it was not the Supreme Court’s job to sift through the evidence and to separate protected conduct from the rest. “That analysis,” he wrote, “ultimately is best left to the lower courts to perform in the first instance.”

But he issued guideposts for Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, of the Federal District Court in Washington, who is overseeing the case.

Mr. Trump, the chief justice wrote, is “absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials.”

He added that Judge Chutkan should determine whether prosecutors can overcome Mr. Trump’s presumed immunity for his communications with Vice President Mike Pence.

“We therefore remand to the district court to assess in the first instance, with appropriate input from the parties, whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the vice president’s oversight of the certification proceeding in his capacity as president of the Senate would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the executive branch,” he wrote.

Other parts of the indictment against Mr. Trump, the chief justice said, require “a close analysis of the indictment’s extensive and interrelated allegations.”

That includes, he wrote, Mr. Trump’s statements on Jan. 6, among them ones he made at the rally on the Ellipse.

“Whether the tweets, that speech and Trump’s other communications on Jan. 6 involve official conduct may depend on the content and context of each,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in a characteristically noncommittal passage.

He added, in a kind of refrain that ran through his opinion: “This necessarily fact-bound analysis is best performed initially by the district court.”

In all, the majority opinion was a broad defense of executive power and a detailed recipe for delay.

It was joined by the other Republican appointees: Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and, in part, Amy Coney Barrett.

In dissent, Justice Sotomayor wrote that “the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark.”

“The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding,” she wrote, adding: “The president of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution.”

She gave examples: “Orders the Navy’s SEAL team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold on to power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”

Chief Justice Roberts rejected the prosecutors’ arguments that evidence about official acts could be presented to the jury for context and information about Mr. Trump’s motives.

Mr. Trump contended that he was entitled to absolute immunity from the charges, relying on a broad understanding of the separation of powers and a 1982 Supreme Court precedent that recognized such immunity in civil cases for actions taken by presidents within the “outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities.

Lower courts rejected that claim.

“Whatever immunities a sitting president may enjoy,” Judge Chutkan wrote, “the United States has only one chief executive at a time, and that position does not confer a lifelong ‘get out of jail free’ pass.”

A unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit agreed. “For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the panel wrote in an unsigned decision. “But any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as president no longer protects him against this prosecution.”

In agreeing to hear the case, the Supreme Court said it would decide this question: “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.”

The court heard two other cases this term concerning the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6.

In March, the court unanimously rejected an attempt to bar Mr. Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which makes people who engage in insurrection ineligible to hold office. The court, without discussing whether Mr. Trump was covered by the provision, ruled that states may not use it to exclude candidates for the presidency from the ballot.

On Friday, the court ruled that federal prosecutors had improperly used an obstruction law to prosecute some members of the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6. Two of the four charges against Mr. Trump are based on that law. In a footnote on Monday, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “if necessary, the district court should determine in the first instance” whether those charges may proceed in light of the decision last week.

The court decided the case restoring Mr. Trump to the ballot at a brisk pace, hearing arguments a month after agreeing to and issuing its decision a month after that.

The immunity case has moved at a considerably slower tempo. In December, in asking the justices to leapfrog the appeals court and hear the case immediately, Jack Smith, the special counsel overseeing the prosecution, wrote that “it is of imperative public importance that respond­ent’s claims of immunity be resolved by this court.” He added that “only this court can definitively resolve them.”

The justices denied Mr. Smith’s petition 11 days after he filed it, in a brief order without noted dissents.

After the appeals court ruled against Mr. Trump, he asked the Supreme Court to intervene. Sixteen days later, on Feb. 28, the court agreed to hear his appeal, scheduling arguments for almost two months later, on the last day of the term. Another two months have passed since then.

At the argument, several of the conservative justices did not seem inclined to examine the details of the charges against Mr. Trump. Instead, they said, the court should issue a ruling that applies to presidential power generally.

“We’re writing a rule for the ages,” Justice Gorsuch said.

The court’s announcement of that rule on Monday elicited some of the sharpest dissents ever by justices of the Supreme Court.

Justice Jackson, for instance, said the practical consequences of the majority opinion “are a five-alarm fire that threatens to consume democratic self-governance and the normal operations of our government.”

Before reading from her prepared remarks, Justice Sotomayor appeared to address the chief justice directly: “Saying it so doesn’t make it so.”

She quoted mockingly from the majority’s opinion on how criminal prosecutions would have an even more chilling effect on the ability of a president to take “bold and unhesitating action.”

“Think about that — that makes no sense,” she said.

In her written dissent, Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Jackson and Elena Kagan, said: “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.”

Justice Sotomayor ended her opinion in unusual fashion. “With fear for our democracy,” she wrote, “I dissent.”

Chief Justice Roberts said the dissents were overwrought.

“They strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate,” he wrote, “to what the court actually does today — conclude that immunity extends to official discussions between the president and his attorney general, and then remand to the lower courts to determine ‘in the first instance’ whether and to what extent Trump’s remaining alleged conduct is entitled to immunity.”

Linda Qiu contributed reporting.

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In taking up Trump’s immunity claim, the Supreme Court bolstered his delay strategy.

There is now only a slender possibility that Mr. Trump could still face a jury in the case, in Federal District Court in Washington, before Election Day.

Given the Supreme Court’s leisurely pace in issuing its decision and the amount of legal business left to conduct in the trial court, the odds are steep that voters will not get a chance to hear the evidence that Mr. Trump sought to subvert the last election before they decide whether to back him in the current one.

If Mr. Trump is successful in delaying the trial until after Election Day and he wins, he could use the powers of his office to seek to dismiss the election interference indictment altogether. Moreover, Justice Department policy precludes prosecuting a sitting president, meaning that, once sworn in, he could most likely have any federal trial he is facing postponed until after he left office.

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