The US Supreme Court once again postpones the federal trial of Donald Trump

The institution, at the top of the American judicial power, had been seized by the former president of the United States who claimed total immunity as part of the investigation into the assault on the Capitol by some of his supporters on January 6, 2021.

The US Supreme Court, with a conservative majority, on Monday, July 1, sent back to lower courts the question of Donald Trump’s criminal immunity as a former president, further delaying the holding of his federal trial in Washington, four months before the election.

By the voice of the six conservative judges against that of the three progressives, the Court considers that “the president enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts” but that he “is entitled to at least a presumption of immunity for his official acts.”

This decision is “a great victory for our democracy and our Constitution”Donald Trump immediately reacted, campaigning to return to the White House.

Former President of the United States “thinks he is above the law”, Joe Biden’s campaign team reacted on Monday, saying the decision “doesn’t change the facts (…): Donald Trump snapped after losing the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overturn the results of a free and fair election”according to the words of an electoral campaign advisor.

By deciding on February 28 to take up this question, then by scheduling the debates almost three months later, the highest court of the United States had already considerably postponed the federal trial of the former Republican president for attempted illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled for March 4, and postponed sine die, had already been suspended for four months. During the debates, if the judges were generally skeptical of the absolute immunity claimed by the Republican candidate, several, particularly among conservatives, insisted on the long-term repercussions of their decision.

“We are writing a rule for posterity,” thus observed Judge Neil Gorsuch, referring to the unprecedented nature of the question.“This case has enormous implications for the future of the presidency and the country,” added his colleague Brett Kavanaugh.

Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the presidential election.

He was found guilty on May 30 by the New York courts of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election.” His sentence will be pronounced on July 11. But this first criminal conviction – unprecedented for a former American president, the least politically serious of the four procedures – also risks being the only one before the vote.

Because through appeals, Donald Trump’s lawyers managed to postpone other trials until further notice, at the federal level for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House and before the courts of the key state of Georgia for election interference in 2020.

If re-elected, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order a halt to federal prosecutions against him.