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Donald Trump is shielded from criminal prosecution for actions taken in his official capacity as president but not for private actions, the US Supreme Court has ruled, in a landmark decision that will impact the legal contours of the presidency for years to come.
In a 6-3 vote, the high court on Monday held that a former president has absolute immunity from actions taken to exercise his “core constitutional powers” and “is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts”. But there “is no immunity for unofficial acts”.
The decision would allow proceedings to resume in one of the most serious criminal cases against Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, who is charged in federal court with seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 vote.
But it could still take a while for the case to come to trial as lower courts will now probably have to draw the boundaries between a president’s personal and official acts, reducing the likelihood of any verdict before November’s election.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the majority opinion, noted that lower courts had not determined which of Trump’s alleged conduct “should be categorised as official and which unofficial”.
That process “raises multiple unprecedented and momentous questions about the powers of the president and the limits of his authority under the constitution”, he added.
The high court had ruled on presidential immunity from civil liability, but this is the first time it has made a determination with respect to criminal cases.
The decision adds clarity to a particularly complex aspect of US law. No statute grants presidential immunity from criminal charges, and case law is limited.
The opinion stems from an indictment obtained by Jack Smith, a special counsel appointed by the US Department of Justice, which accused Trump of meddling with the 2020 election.
It will not affect Trump’s criminal case in New York state court, where he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, in connection with “hush money” payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a bid to throw out damaging stories about him in the lead-up to the 2016 general election. Trump is set to be sentenced in that case on July 11.
