I overslept and then had to hop into my car for my first radiation treatment. So I'm a little late to the news. On the bright side, I'm now 1/28th of the way to a healthy prostate.
And now the news. The big news, obviously, is that the Supreme Court finally roused itself to rule on Donald Trump's immunity from federal prosecution for his actions related to January 6. To recap things, there are four charges against Trump:
- Conspiracy to defraud the United States.
- Conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
- Obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding.
- Conspiracy against rights.
#2 and #3 are based on violations of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, which the Court already tossed out on Friday when it ruled that Sarbanes-Oxley couldn't be used to prosecute the January 6 rioters.
#1 and #4 are more complicated. The Court ruled that some aspects of the indictment are subject to immunity and some aren't:
- Trump is absolutely immune against charges of talking with the Attorney General or other members of the Justice Department.
- Trump is probably immune against charges of trying to pressure the vice president.
- He is also probably immune against charges related to tweets or other forms of public communication.
- Trump might be immune against charges of conspiring with state officials to change the official vote count.
However, because this is a unique case, the Court didn't rule on the questionable immunity charges. Instead, it remanded them back to the district court for further fact finding and consideration. After that, of course, it will get appealed to a circuit court and then finally land back in the lap of the Supreme Court.
This will delay things a very long time. Long enough that if Trump wins in November he'll have ample time to kill the prosecution entirely. If he doesn't, though, how are these things likely to go?
My read of the opinion is that the only part of the indictment that will remain standing is the charge of conspiring to influence state legislatures to investigate election fraud. The three liberals on the Court are on board with that, and so is Amy Coney Barrett:
The indictment alleges that the President “asked the Arizona House Speaker to call the legislature into session to hold a hearing” about election fraud claims. The President has no authority over state legislatures or their leadership, so it is hard to see how prosecuting him for crimes committed when dealing with the Arizona House Speaker would unconstitutionally intrude on executive power.
I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of the other conservative justices agreed with this. That would leave prosecutor Jack Smith with a very stripped down case aimed solely at Trump's actions with regard to state officials. That might be enough and it might not.