The Supreme Court Honors Immunity Law And Sends Trump’s Case To Lower Court

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday sent a criminal case against former president Donald Trump back to the lower court and ordered him to be reimbursed for his costs by the United States government.

The High Court asked the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to reconsider its case in light of a ruling last week in which it held that sitting presidents were not immune from investigation. 

The Court also ordered the government to pay Trump $3,232.80 of his legal expenses.

On remand from the D.C. Court of Appeals, Judge Tanya Chutkan has ordered “further proceedings consistent with the Supreme Court’s opinion” she reacted to here.

The ruling by Chutkan was a rejection of Trump’s argument that the immunity he allegedly had while in office still should be considered ongoing, with his claim to invincibility rendering him exempt from accountability as a citizen. 

“The President is not above the law,” the ruling said. “But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.”

The D.C. court would be responsible for determining whether Trump’s actions in regards to the 2020 election qualify as such, and those determinations could eventually end up with consideration by the Supreme Court once more. All of that seems so very far off given the election is in November.

This week, a bill filed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is equally blunt that no presidents should be “entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal prosecution for alleged violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”

Had the Trump prosecution precedent held, had it not been overturned by a Supreme Court intervention – all of which looked inevitable after just one term under President Joe Biden and every other president into future generations would be charged with crimes for sundry acts.

The bill by Schumer tries to shift jurisdiction for the back and forth in those cases from the Supreme Court, where every last one of its current Justices was appointed by a Republican president or serves as one, which it has side-stepped on similar issues dozens of times since 2006.