Richard Nixon once said that “when the president does it, that means it’s not illegal.” Now the U.S. Supreme Court has more or less affirmed that stance.
The high court ruled on Monday that presidents—in this case, specifically, Donald Trump—can’t be prosecuted for official actions that are taken while they’re in office, but that they can be for private acts. The majority opinion in the 6-3 ruling was written by Chief Justice John Roberts; it threw out a lower court’s decision, which rejected Trump’s claim that he was immune from criminal charges stemming from his attempt to overturn President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.
What the Supreme Court’s ruling means
Effectively, the ruling could mean that a U.S. president can engage in criminal activity without legal repercussions, so long as they were acting in an official capacity. There are still some details to be worked out as to what the difference is between an official and private act—that will be determined by the lower courts.
“We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office,” Roberts wrote. “At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.”
How did dissenting justices respond to the ruling?
Writing in dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor weighed in with a warning that Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal said is “unlike anything I’ve ever seen in a Supreme Court opinion.”
“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law,” wrote Sotomayor, joined by justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.”
“With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
You can read the full court opinion and dissent here.