US Supreme Court says Donald Trump immune for ‘official acts’ as president

Unlock the US Election Countdown newsletter for free

The stories that matter on money and politics in the race for the White House

Donald Trump is shielded from criminal prosecution for actions taken in his official capacity as president but not for private actions, the US Supreme Court has ruled, in a landmark decision that will impact the legal contours of the presidency for years to come.

In a 6-3 vote, the high court on Monday held that a former president has absolute immunity from actions taken to exercise his “core constitutional powers” and “is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts”. But there “is no immunity for unofficial acts”, it added.

The decision would allow proceedings to resume in one of the most serious criminal cases against Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential election, who is charged in federal court with seeking to overturn the results of the 2020 vote. 

But it could still take a while for the case to come to trial. Lower courts will now probably have to draw the boundaries between a president’s personal and official acts, reducing the likelihood of any verdict before November’s election, in what amounts to a win for Trump ahead of the vote and a blow to Jack Smith, the Department of Justice special counsel who brought the federal indictment.

The momentous presidential immunity case has thrust the Supreme Court once again into the heart of a fraught presidential election mere months before the vote in November, while establishing new standards of accountability for the country’s most powerful office.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who penned the majority opinion, noted that lower courts had not determined which of Trump’s alleged conduct “should be categorised as official and which unofficial”.

That process “raises multiple unprecedented and momentous questions about the powers of the president and the limits of his authority under the constitution”, he added.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberal justices, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. She said the majority’s decision “reshapes the institution of the presidency” and “makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law”.

The court’s majority “invents immunity through brute force” and “in effect, completely insulate[s] presidents from criminal liability”, Sotomayor added.

The high court had ruled on presidential immunity from civil liability, but this is the first time it has made a determination with respect to criminal cases. The decision adds clarity to a particularly complex aspect of US law. No statute grants presidential immunity from criminal charges, and case law is limited.

The DoJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The decision will not affect Trump’s criminal case in New York state court, where he was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, in connection with “hush money” payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels in a bid to throw out damaging stories about him in the lead-up to the 2016 general election. Trump is set to be sentenced in that case on July 11.

Have your say

Joe Biden vs Donald Trump: tell us how the 2024 US election will affect you

He has also been charged in Georgia state court in a racketeering case related to the 2020 election.

Trump said in a social media post: “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!”

A senior campaign adviser for Joe Biden, the Democratic party nominee for November, said the ruling “doesn’t change the facts, so let’s be very clear about what happened on January 6: Donald Trump snapped after he lost the 2020 election and encouraged a mob to overthrow the results of a free and fair election”.