Supreme Court to rule on Trump's immunity as historic end of term nears

Lina Portman4 days ago

0 3 minutes read

Mark Sherman
| Associated Press

Washington – During the last ten days of June, at a frantic pace of its own making, the Supreme Court affected a large part of American society in a torrent of decisions on abortion, firearms, the environment, health, the opioid crisis, stock fraud and homelessness.

And, as the Court meets for the final time this quarter on Monday, an unusual move in July, the most anticipated decision of the quarter awaits: whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution for his role in the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.

The court will also decide whether state laws limiting how social media platforms regulate content posted by their users violate the Constitution.

The immunity case was the last to be debated, on April 25. It is therefore not unusual that it is one of the last to be decided. But when the Court rules on Trump's immunity could be as important as the final decision.

By keeping the case until early July, the justices reduced or even eliminated the possibility that Trump would have to be tried before the November election, regardless of the court's decision.

In other epic court cases involving the presidency, including the Watergate tapes case, judges have acted much more quickly. Fifty years ago, the court issued its ruling requiring President Richard Nixon to turn over recordings of Oval Office conversations just 16 days after hearing arguments.

Just this quarter, the Court moved in less than a month to rule unanimously in Trump's favor that states cannot invoke the post-Civil War Insurrection Clause to exclude him from the ballot due to his refusal to accept Democratic President Joe Biden's victory four years ago.

Delaying the start of trials has been a main goal of Trump's lawyers in the four criminal cases against him. Only one trial was held and it resulted in his conviction for falsifying business records to conceal a payment of money to cover up the silence made during the 2016 presidential election to a porn actress who claimed to have had sex with him, which he denies. Trump is the first former president to be convicted of a crime.

The Supreme Court's handling of the immunity case, which began when the justices rejected an initial plea for immunity in December, has led critics to say the court has so far granted Trump “immunity by delay”. A federal appeal unanimously rejected Trump's immunity request in February, and the justices agreed weeks later to hear Trump's appeal.

The court hearing the case also includes three Republican-appointed justices — Amy Coney Barrett, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Two other justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, have rejected calls to step down from the case because of concerns about their impartiality.

The justices voted 6-3 on Friday to narrow the federal obstruction charge that has been used against hundreds of Jan. 6 defendants, as well as against Trump. In this case, Alito and Thomas again took part in the proceedings and five conservatives were in the majority. Chief Justice John Roberts, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch were the other three.

Conservative judges generally don't side with defendants, said Kim Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

“But this is a Trump thing, and so the scheduling is less of a surprise than a disappointment,” Roosevelt said. “Increasingly, it appears that a majority of this Court is willing to bend the normal rules to favor Trump.”

The other big unresolved issue – state laws to regulate social media platforms – could also have an ideological tinge.

The court is evaluating efforts in Texas and Florida to limit how Facebook, TikTok, X, YouTube and other social media platforms regulate content posted by their users.

While the details vary, both laws were aimed at addressing complaints from conservatives that social media companies were liberal-leaning and censoring users based on their views, particularly those on the political right.

The Florida and Texas laws were signed by Republican governors in the months after Facebook and Twitter, now X, decided to suspend Trump over his posts related to the Capitol riot by his supporters.

On Wednesday, judges dismissed a lawsuit filed by other Republican-led states against the Biden administration over allegations that federal officials improperly compelled platforms to remove controversial posts related to COVID-19 and election security.

Lina Portman

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