Big news Tuesday in Washington: a court declared that the United States is not a monarchy.
Donald Trump has been officially told that he is not above the law and must answer for the crimes with which he is accused.
“For the purposes of this criminal case, former President Trump became citizen Trump, with all the defenses of any other defendant in a criminal case,” the three judges of the Court of Justice unanimously ruled. appeal from the District of Columbia.
A precedent, we are told, because never, in two and a half centuries of history, has any president been deviant enough to be accused in four criminal cases. No court had therefore had to ask whether a president enjoys immunity for any criminal act committed during his presidency.
The Supreme Court has also not yet had the opportunity to say whether the Earth revolves around the Sun, or whether it is the other way around. It seems self-evident.
The three judges, who heard the case urgently, therefore rendered a tightly woven 57-page decision to explain the obvious.
A president enjoys civil immunity for acts committed in the exercise of his functions: we cannot claim damages from him for a bad decision, for example. But it has long been established that a president must respond to court summons for criminal cases – as a witness, in particular. The court also notes that President Gerald Ford “pardoned” his successor Richard Nixon for the Watergate affair. Why a pardon if there is immunity?
Trump’s central argument was that a president would be restricted in his room to maneuver if he feared being sued next. For example in acts of war.
The analogy does not hold, replies the court: already, by being able to be dismissed (impeached), his power is not unlimited.
Judges also enjoy immunity for acts performed in the exercise of their functions. But, the court recalls, if they accept a bribe “in the exercise of their duties”, they are committing a crime and will be prosecuted.
Trump’s lawyers said a president must first be impeached before being criminally prosecuted. And that since Trump’s impeachment failed, it would put him on trial for a second time for the same thing. It is not the same thing at all, said the court: theimpeachment is a political trial and does not prevent any judicial criminal trial for similar facts.
In 1882, the Supreme Court wrote that in this country the “sole supreme power” is the law itself, and that all state officials, from the highest to the lowest, are “creatures” of law, subject to limits.
It would be a dazzling paradox if the president, the ultimate guardian of the laws according to his oath, was the only one excluded from their application.
This is all magnificent. But already, this request for immunity has made it possible to postpone the first of the four criminal trials on the schedule. The case of the January 6 insurrection had been set for the first week of March in Washington. The judge withdrew it.
Now, in addition to requesting a review of this decision by the 11 judges of the same Court of Appeal (with zero chance of success), Trump can obviously go to the Supreme Court. He has 45 days to do so, which takes us to the end of March. It will then take time for the Supreme Court to decide whether it hears it (which requires the support of four judges considering the question sufficiently important). If it is heard, the case would have to be heard in record time to obtain a judgment before November 5.
A significant portion of Republican voters (around half, according to polls, including one in four pro-Trump voters) say they will stop supporting him if he is convicted. Not surprisingly, another poll shows that the majority of Americans want a verdict before the election.
This strange election year has therefore become a political-judicial time trial. The Supreme Court was believed to have delved to the extreme into electoral politics in Gore v. Bush. We hadn’t seen anything yet.
The case is clearly of historic significance to warrant being heard by the Supreme Court. But hearing it has already disrupted the judicial and political calendar. At the same time, no expert expects the Supreme Court, no matter how “right” it may be, to side with Trump on this immunity issue. She could pass her turn. Or hear it while going very fast. Or do as usual and decide in a year, a year and a half…
Meanwhile, on Thursday, America’s highest court will have to start by deciding whether Trump’s name should be removed from the ballot for participation in an insurrection (I can’t get used to writing that kind of sentence).
This year will be as judicial as it is political.