Donald Trumpās claim that he has absolute immunity for criminal acts taken in office as president is an insult to reason, an assault on common sense and a perversion of the fundamental maxim of American democracy: that no man is above the law.
More astonishing than the former presidentās claim to immunity, however, is the fact that the Supreme CourtĀ took the case in the first place. Itās not just that thereās an obvious response ā no, the president is not immune to criminal prosecution for illegal actions committed with the imprimatur of executive power, whether private or āofficialā (a distinction that does not exist in the Constitution) ā but that the court has delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the former presidentās reckoning with the criminal legal system of the United States.
In delaying the trial, the Supreme Court may well have denied the public its right to know whether a former president, now vying to be the next president, is guilty of trying to subvert the sacred process of presidential succession: the peaceful transfer of power from one faction to another that is the essence of representative democracy. It is a process so vital, and so precious, that its first occurrence ā with the defeat of John Adams and the Federalists at the hands of Thomas Jeffersonās Republicans in the 1800 presidential election ā was a second sort of American Revolution.
Whether motivated by sincere belief or partisanship or a myopic desire to weigh in on a case involving the former president, the Supreme Court has directly intervened in the 2024 presidential election in a way that deprives the electorate of critical information or gives it less time to grapple with what might happen in a federal courtroom. And if the trial occurs after an election in which Trump wins a second term and he is convicted, then the court will have teed the nation up for an acute constitutional crisis. A president, for the first time in the nationās history, might try to pardon himself for his own criminal behavior.
Iām not saying a former president should have no immunity, but they should have practically no immunity.
I can envision no rule by which legitimate crimes could be prosecuted while preventing bad actors. The whole system relies on at least some number of people having good intentions.
Which is why weāre in the trouble that we are. Have you seen how the GOP is acting lately? Anyone who holds the country above their King is being purged.
I am alarmingly aware. But no rule can fix that.