Court Undoes Trump Sentencing Day

July 11, 2024

Donald Trump won’t be sentenced today for his criminal conviction, even if it was red-circled on the calendar. The Supreme Court took care of that.

The court’s six-member majority last week carved out a significant loophole in our nation’s overarching ideals by granting Trump substantial immunity in his election interference case. In so doing, the court wrote its own version of one of Our Common Purpose’s core principles. Its revision reads something like this: We Are A Nation Of Laws — Equally Applicable To All Except Those Who Occupy The Oval Office.

The decision focuses entirely on which if any presidential actions are subject to judicial review, and the answer is not much.  The court pays lip service to “the president is not above the law” then launches into a lengthy rendition of all the ways he is above the law. Trump and all other occupants of the Oval Office have:

 Absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for conduct while performing their official duties.

 “Presumptive immunity” for actions taken within “the outer perimeter” of their official responsibilities so long as they are “not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.” As one important example, a “presumptive privilege” protects presidential communications because it “relates to the effective discharge of a president’s powers.”

 No immunity for “unofficial acts,” although the court couldn’t even leave that alone. Noting that there is not always a clear line between personal and official affairs, it warned that any claims that objectionable actions were unofficial in nature “must be fact specific and may prove to be challenging.”

This broad grant of immunity led the court to dismiss outright one of the election interference charges, to presume another also to be covered by immunity unless somehow it can be shown otherwise, and to leave the door cracked open on the other two. The case was sent back to U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to sort through which actions were official versus unofficial, and ultimately whether there is enough left to even bother.

Whatever gets decided will surely make its way back to the Supreme Court, unless of course Trump is re-elected and puts a stop to the whole darn thing. The decision also left the other criminal cases against him in disarray.

His scheduled sentencing today didn’t escape, even though it involves crimes that pre-dated his presidency. Judgment day on this matter has now been postponed until Sept. 18, if it happens at all, while Judge Juan Merchan considers how the high court’s ruling affects the case.

That means we won’t learn, at least for now, whether the sentence to be handed down would have treated Trump like any other citizen convicted of similar wrongdoing. Read more on this. The question of whether we are, at this high exalted level, a nation of laws equally applicable to all has now been rendered largely moot by the Supreme Court’s landmark decision.

Trump’s motion dealt only with immunity.  The court’s expansive interest in setting apart his official versus unofficial acts all but forecloses weighing more relevant distinctions such as determining which presidential actions are taken in the interest of the public versus out of self -interest.  We’ll hold off looking at that subject until another day soon.