Immunity to Trump: US Supreme Court sceptical. And 56% of Americans are against

Smith's team is calling for a speedy resolution. The court generally issues its final opinions by the end of June, about four months before the elections.

56% of Americans believe that former President Donald Trump should not have immunity from prosecution for actions taken during his presidency, with 28% in favour and 17% unsure, according to a Marquette Law School poll. The pollsters asked the question referring to both Trump and 'former presidents'. In the former case, 55% of Republicans polled believe the tycoon should be granted immunity, while the percentage drops to 32% with the wording 'former presidents'. In the Dem sample, only 4% think Trump should be given immunity and 9% believe the same for 'former presidents'.

Trump, the first former president accused of crimes, had said on Thursday he wanted to be at the Supreme Court. Instead, he was in a New York courtroom, where he is on trial on charges of falsifying corporate documents to conceal damaging information from voters when he directed cash payments to a former porn star - Stormy Daniels - to hush up his allegations that they had a sexual relationship. meet.

Trump's lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions against former occupants of the Oval Office would become routine and presidents could not act as commander-in-chief if they had to worry about criminal charges.

Lower courts have rejected these arguments, including a unanimous three-judge panel in an appellate court in Washington, D.C.

The election interference conspiracy case brought by Smith in Washington is just one of four criminal cases Trump faces.

Smith's team argues that the men who wrote the Constitution never intended presidents to be above the law and that, in any case, the acts of which Trump is accused - including participating in a scheme to enlist fake voters in battleground states won by Biden - are in no way part of the official duties of a president.

Almost four years ago, all nine judges rejected Trump's request for absolute immunity from subpoena by a district attorney for his financial records. That case took place during the Trump presidency and involved a criminal investigation, but no indictment.

Justice Clarence Thomas, who would have prevented the subpoena from being executed because of Trump's responsibilities as president, nevertheless rejected Trump's claim of absolute immunity and pointed to the text of the Constitution and how it was interpreted by the people who ratified it.

"The text of the Constitution... does not grant the president absolute immunity," Thomas wrote in 2020.

The court's lack of apparent support for the kind of blanket immunity Trump seeks has led commentators to speculate as to why the court took up the case in the first place.

Phillip Bobbitt, a constitutionalist at Columbia University Law School, said he was concerned about the delay, but saw value in a decision that amounted to 'a definitive expression by the Supreme Court that we are a government of laws and not of men'.

The court might also be more concerned about how its decision might affect future presidencies, Harvard Law School professor Jack Goldsmith wrote on the Lawfare blog.

But Kermit Roosevelt, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, argued that the court should never have considered the case because an ideologically diverse group of the federal appeals court in Washington had properly addressed the issue.

"If he wanted to take the case, he should have proceeded more quickly, because now, most likely, that will prevent the process from being completed before the election," Roosevelt said. "Even Richard Nixon said that the American people deserve to know if their president is a crook. The Supreme Court seems to disagree."

The court has several options to decide the case. The judges could reject Trump's arguments and unseal the case so that US District Judge Tanya Chutkan can resume trial preparations, which she says could take up to three months.

The court could end the prosecution of Smith by declaring for the first time that former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts performed while in office.

He could also clarify when former presidents are protected from prosecution and state that Trump's alleged conduct is easily surmountable.