Former President Donald Trump appears at Manhattan criminal court before closing arguments in his hush money trial in New York, Tuesday, May 28, 2024. (Spencer Platt/Pool Photo via AP)
For its 248th birthday, America finds itself in a unique position unlike any before it: A former president turned convicted felon 34 counts over has been granted immunity for “official acts” by the U.S. Supreme Court. With that decision, a pall has been cast over other criminal charges Donald Trump faces in multiple venues and perhaps nowhere more pressing than in Washington, D.C., where special counsel Jack Smith alleges Trump engaged in a sweeping conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election, defrauded the United States, obstructed official proceedings and intimidated voters.
Praveen Fernandes, vice president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, told Law&Crime this week that the American public is well within its rights to look at the court’s decision and be “troubled” by it.
The court, Fernandes said, made an “unconscionable delay in deciding the case” — the justices heard oral arguments in April after deciding in February to take up the matter — therefore making it “nearly impossible” for special counsel Jack Smith to bring the case about an alleged attempted coup to a verdict before the presidential election in November.
“This is damaging for our justice system and informed election choice, and it also erodes public confidence in the Constitution as a mechanism for accountability. It’s an important reminder that even seemingly clear constitutional or statutory provisions rely upon the judges who interpret them,” Fernandes said.
In light of the high court’s 6-3 decision, prosecutors in each venue where Trump is charged now face the challenge of reshaping their cases and preparing for an inevitable onslaught of new filings by Trump’s defense attorneys. Historically, Trump’s lawyers have consistently raised motions in each venue to dismiss his indictments on immunity grounds but now they have the backing of the Supreme Court to bolster them as voters, meanwhile, will only be able to look on and wait to learn what fate will befall one of the nominees for the White House.
Law&Crime takes a look at key developments in Trump’s cases in New York, Florida, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.
NEW YORK
CRIMINAL
The Supreme Court’s immunity decision has already thrown a wrench into the works of Trump’s sentencing for his 34 count criminal felony conviction. Trump was slated for sentencing on July 11 but now that’s off the calendar. There was no pushback from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and it has been rescheduled to Sept. 18.
In that vein, far from New York, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has called on the U.S. Supreme Court to halt any sentence in the hush-money case until after 2024.
OF NOTE: This week the office of the New Jersey Attorney General opted against renewing Trump’s liquor licenses at his golf clubs since he was convicted of nearly three dozen felonies across the river in New York.
Left: Alvin Bragg (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II). Right: Donald Trump (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik).
FLORIDA
CRIMINAL
Trump’s lawyers on Friday told U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon that the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling “guts” much of Smith’s theory of the case against the former president, and argued that the matter should, for the most part, be put on hold.
Trump’s lawyers also asked Cannon to set an evidentiary hearing where they can discuss “further disclosures” by special counsel Jack Smith over the handling of 15 boxes and challenge Smith’s already lengthy refutation of Trump’s insistence that prosecutors ruined important exculpatory evidence.
Background: This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, and partially redacted by source, shows boxes of records being stored on the stage in the White and Gold Ballroom at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla. (Justice Department via AP). Inset bottom left to bottom right: Special Counsel Jack Smith (AP Scott Applewhite), U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (U.S. Senate via AP), Donald Trump (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell).
GEORGIA
CRIMINAL
Nothing to report from Georgia where the fake electors and racketeering case is on ice until 2025.
OF NOTE: Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s co-defendant in the currently on-hold fake electors case was disbarred from practicing law in New York this week over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. Giuliani also filed documents this week seeking to convert his Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding to Chapter 7 liquidation since he has so far failed to appeal the $148 million judgment imposed on him for defaming former Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss. Bankruptcy lawyers meanwhile say Giuliani is “trying to game the system“ as a discovery threat looms.
Rudy Giuliani (Photo via Rey Del Rio at Getty Images)
WASHINGTON D.C.
SUPREME COURT
The impact of the high court’s 6-3 decision this week granting Trump immunity for some of his actions around Jan. 6 while in office will ripple out for years but there is also, of course, the immediate impact that will give prosecutors at the Justice Department pause.
The ruling appeared to take a hacksaw to key charges in Trump’s Jan. 6 election subversion indictment and in particular, the scheme the former president allegedly engaged in with former Justice Department lackey Jeffrey Clark.
With his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas gifted the judge overseeing Trump’s case in Florida a reason to blow up the espionage case by declaring that he did not believe Smith was lawfully appointed.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor was blunt in her assessment of the majority’s ruling with her dissent, saying the court has now made the office of the U.S. president a monarch “above the law” and that her fellow jurist’s only reached their conclusion courtesy of their “judicial activism.”
Sotomayor’s dissent was fierce: “The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world,” she wrote. “When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson excoriated the majority’s opinion too, writing that the court’s new vision of the law has resulted in “aggrandizing power in the Judiciary and the Executive, to the detriment of Congress.”
That view would not be shared by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation. The conservative think tank is the creator of the far-right agenda known as Project 2025 and Roberts appeared on Steve Bannon‘s podcast this week to hail the majority’s decision while declaring America was in the throes of its “second American revolution” and so long as those opposed to it fell in line, that revolution would be a “bloodless” one.
CRIMINAL
The Jan. 6 election subversion criminal trial is in limbo after the high court’s immunity decision but it is safe to say that in the days ahead, a new flurry of filings by prosecutors and Trump’s defense attorneys will soon appear on the federal docket.
OF NOTE: Trump darling Steve Bannon is finally in prison; he surrendered this week and is expected to be released just ahead of Election Day. And while Trump may have immunity, a reminder that his throngs of followers do not: a man accused of assaulting police and waving an anti-government Three Percenters flag atop the media tower on Jan. 6 was arrested this week. And similarly: Sound familiar? A school board member among the first wave of rioters was sentenced this week and has declared he would not step down amid calls for him to do so.
A protester holds a sign and American flag balloons in front of the Supreme Court while waiting for the court to announce its decision on presidential immunity in Washington on Monday, July 1, 2024. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call via AP Images)
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