Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Hands Trump a Historic Win in Immunity Case
Welcome to July! It’s only the first of the month, but we’ve already got fireworks going off in the nation’s capital, where the Supreme Court handed down a landmark 6-3 ruling, decided along ideological lines, that held that former presidents have considerable immunity from criminal prosecution for their actions while in office.
“At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the decision for the court’s conservative majority. “As for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity.” Only unofficial conduct would not be protected from prosecution.
Roberts wrote that such immunity is necessary to ensure that the president can be as “energetic” and “vigorous” as the framers of the Constitution envisioned.
The decision is a major victory for former President Donald Trump, as it wipes out one set of crimes alleged in Trump’s indictment in the January 6 election subversion case and makes it more than likely that the trial in that case will be delayed past the November elections — and might never happen. If Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, wins another term, he could have the case dropped or seek to pardon himself. In a social media post, he hailed the decision: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”
The court decision means that Trump’s conversations with Justice Department officials regarding the 2020 election are shielded and other elements of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s case must be analyzed by District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine whether they involve official or unofficial conduct.
An invitation to corruption and criminality?: In a scathing dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, said the majority’s decision reshapes the presidency in ways that run counter to the historical evidence and established nature of the office and that could be disastrous for U.S. democracy, turning the nation’s top executive into “a king above the law.”
“It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, which was joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President ... the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”
In a separate dissent, Jackson wrote that, under the majority’s system, a president who admits to having political rivals assassinated or who instigates an unsuccessful coup could be deemed to be immune from prosecution. “In the end,” she wrote, “under the majority’s new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud, or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends.”
The court’s majority said the dissenters were “fear mongering” and striking a “tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the court actually does today.”
SCOTUS Chevron Decision Could Make the IRS’s Job Much Harder
The Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the so-called Chevron rule is expected to affect virtually all federal agencies, including the IRS. Howard Gleckman of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center says the decision could make it harder for the IRS to write regulations that address the many gray areas of tax law that have not been clearly defined by Congress.
“Regulatory flexibility is especially important for tax law,” Gleckman says. “Congress frequently leaves it to Treasury and IRS to fill in statutory gaps, either because taxes are so complex or because lawmakers cannot agree on how to address a specific issue. Indeed, lawmakers often leave implementation of tax law to the IRS and Treasury because they know they can, thanks in large part to Chevron.”
That flexibility could be sharply reduced thanks to the high court decision. At the same time, the Supreme Court said that Congress could explicitly provide flexibility to regulatory agencies. But the limits of that flexibility may be hard to define for lawmakers — and an inviting arena for political combat in what Gleckman calls a “hyper-partisan environment.”
“Repealing Chevron extends the Court’s recent enthusiasm for weakening executive branch power,” Gleckman says. “But it may upend the way Congress writes tax law, create an administrative mess for Treasury and the IRS, and complicate life for taxpayers who crave and deserve legal clarity.”
White House Requests $4 Billion for Baltimore Bridge, Disasters
The Biden administration has requested $4 billion in emergency funding from Congress to help pay for the replacement of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, as well as for additional disaster relief spending.
In a letter sent Friday to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said she was reiterating her October request for emergency funding, citing the bridge collapse as well as “the devastating fires on Maui last summer, and tornado survivors in Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and throughout the Midwest.”
About $3.1 billion of the request is for highways and bridges damaged by disasters throughout the U.S., including the Baltimore bridge.
The White House repeated its commitment to covering the full cost of the Baltimore bridge cleanup and replacement. No specific number was cited for the bridge project but estimates put the cost close to $1.7 billion.
Key Part of Biden Student Loan Plan Resumes
A federal court on Sunday lifted an injunction against an element of the Biden administration’s student loan repayment program, known as SAVE, for Saving on a Valuable Education.
The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said it would allow a provision in SAVE that lowers monthly payments for some student loan debtors from 10% of discretionary income to 5%, reversing a hold placed last week. The rule will take effect today, July 1, as scheduled.
The SAVE program has 8 million enrollees. In addition to lowering the required monthly payment, the program sets payments for those earning $32,800 or less per year to $0. It also provides loan forgiveness for those who owe less than $12,000 and have made payments for at least 10 years.
Fiscal News Roundup
- 'Five Alarm Fire': Supreme Court Immunity Ruling Raises Fears About Future Lawless Presidents – NBC News
- Majority Opinion Has Echoes of Famous Nixon Quote – CNN
- Republicans Tout Supreme Court Immunity Ruling as Victory in ‘Weaponization’ Fight – The Hill
- The Supreme Court Rules for a North Dakota Truck Stop in a New Blow to Federal Regulations – Associated Press
- Supreme Court Ruling Creates Health Policy Ripples – The Hill
- Biden Team Works Furiously to Quell Any Democratic Revolt After Debate – Washington Post
- How Conservative Judges Secured a ‘Chain Saw’ to Derail Environmental Rules – Washington Post
- Biden Requests $4B From Congress to Address Baltimore Bridge, Natural Disasters – Politico
- Bets on Republican Sweep Drive Treasury Yields Higher – Wall Street Journal
Views and Analysis
- 4 Takeaways From the Supreme Court’s Trump Immunity Decision – Aaron Blake, Washington Post
- Trump Immunity Ruling Invites Presidents to Commit Crimes – Timothy L. O’Brien, Bloomberg
- With Immunity Ruling, Supreme Court Raises the Stakes in 2024 Race – Steve Benen, MSNBC
- What The Supreme Court’s New Curbs on Regulatory Power Could Mean for Tax Law – Howard Gleckman, Tax Policy Center
- What the Chevron Decision Means for Health Policy – Rachel Roubein, Washington Post
- How the Supreme Court's Massive Chevron Decision Will Affect Climate Policy – Ben Geman, Axios
- Any Budget Deal Should Preserve Parity – Bobby Kogan and Jessica Vela, Center for American Progress
- 12 Experts on What Biden Needs to Do After His Debate Debacle – Politico
- Biden Ought to See Macron’s Drubbing in France as a Danger Sign – Dan Balz, Washington Post