SCOTUS Immunity Decision: Read Justice Sotomayor’s Terrifying Dissent
SCOTUS Immunity Decision: Read Justice Sotomayor’s Terrifying Dissent
In a 6-3 decision issued Monday morning, the conservative supermajority of the Supreme Court handed down a decision in a case against Donald Trump, in which the former president faced prosecution for his alleged attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
The decision ruled that Trump has "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for all "official acts" he took while in office. While all three liberal judges dissented, including Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, Sonia Sotomayor's dissent opinion was particularly striking. The historic decision, she wrote, effectively ensures “the President is now a king above the law.”
“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world,” Sotomayor continued. “When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done.”
She later added, “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. “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,” Sotomayor concluded.
Read the entire decision here.
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