The Court’s immunity ruling is unhinged and dangerous
There
are “unique risks,” six right-wing justices warned, that if a president were
required to answer criminal charges, his energies would be “diverted.” He might
become “unduly cautious,” less willing to take “bold and unhesitating
action.”
But
if you’ve followed even a shred of news, you know this reasoning is utterly
unhinged — and dangerous. The risk the right-wing majority refuses to consider
is that a president might “boldly” and “unhesitatingly” try to overturn our
constitutional democracy.
The
real danger isn’t that an “unduly cautious” president will worry too much about
being charged with crimes. The danger is that a faithless president can use the
enormous powers of the presidency to overturn an election he lost. That’s what
nearly happened after the 2020 election — a matter the majority says not one
word about..
In
the oral argument of the case, Trump’s attorneys were asked about the seemingly
absurd notion that a president would be immune to prosecution if he officially
ordered the assassination of a political rival. They didn’t dispute it. And now the Supreme Court
just adopted that absurd theory.
Similarly,
a president would now enjoy “absolute immunity” from prosecution if he told the
attorney general, “Forge evidence that my opponent sold secrets to China and
arrest him for treason.” He could freely sell national secrets to Russia.
Auction pardons. Or assassinate unfriendly judges.
Where
does this outrageous theory come from? Not the Constitution.
The
six right-wingers’ ruling has no basis in law or logic — and turns the lessons
of our history upside down. The Constitution includes no language granting
the president immunity from criminal charges, and the Founding Fathers were
dead set against an all-powerful executive.
The
Founders considered it a feature, not a fault, that under the proposed
Constitution the president would be restrained. They maintained the president
wouldn’t pose a threat to liberty because he wouldn’t be above the law, unlike
the King of England.
As Alexander Hamilton wrote, former presidents who’d
committed crimes during their presidency would thereafter be “liable to
prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law.”
The
conservative majority of the Supreme Court acknowledged, in theory, that a
president is not 100 percent above the law. Even Trump’s own lawyers
conceded the point.
Nonetheless,
the six ignored Trump’s concessions and will now require his federal criminal trial to go through a
time-consuming process to assess the immunity
claims. That will delay the trial until after the election — which could give
Trump the power to fire all of the prosecutors and dismiss the charges against
himself if he wins.
Why
would the conservative justices do all this to protect Trump? So they can
continue to impose their right-wing power on America.
The
extremists currently enjoy a six-three Supreme Court majority. But Justice
Thomas is 76 and Justice Alito is 74. Their seats could become vacant in the
next four years and potentially flip. By protecting Donald Trump from
prosecution, they’re trying to prevent that outcome.
The
upcoming election could determine whether the far-right majority is flipped on
its head — or paves the way for a deeper assault from extreme judges and
politicians.
Mitchell Zimmerman is an attorney, longtime social activist, and author of the anti-racism thriller Mississippi Reckoning. His writing can also be found on his Substack, Reasoning Together with Mitchell Zimmerman. This op-ed was distributed by OtherWords.org.