In the United States, the Supreme Court is moving toward rejecting Donald Trump's blanket immunity claim

The question seems to have started. However, the Supreme Court has never heard of these conditions. Should a President of the United States benefit from special immunity, protecting him from future criminal prosecution for acts committed during his term of office? Nine justices of the nation's highest judicial system on Thursday, April 25, examined arguments in favor of blanket immunity for Donald Trump in the course of his former activities.

An audacious bid aimed at neutralizing the charges against him in a multi-faceted coup attempt between his November 2020 defeat by Joe Biden and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by his supporters.

“We write a conclusion for posterity”, Judge Neil Gorsuch warned, stressing the unprecedented nature of the debate, the intensity of which no one can escape with less than seven months to the US presidential election. Two logics emerged in the judges' comments and questions. On the one hand, the three so-called liberal magistrates were keen to underline the grave dangers of de facto impunity for the president. On the other hand, their conservative colleagues wondered about the danger of political exploitation of the criminal proceedings against former presidents who had lost immunity.

Doubt

The expected meeting point between the two sides is shared skepticism about the need for total immunity. It would mark a break, a balance of power and an upheaval in the implementation of the President's mandate.

“Everything is interest [de la Constitution] Isn't the president a king, should the president not be above the law? » Featured by Elena Kagan. He asked Donald Trump's lawyer if he needed immunity for selling nuclear secrets to an adversary. “What happens if a president orders the military to stage a coup? », she added. Her colleague Sonia Sotomayor agreed. “If the President decides that his rival is corrupt and orders the army or someone to assassinate him, is that an official act that gives him immunity?”she asked herself.

The Conservative majority seemed particularly keen to address the scope of partial immunity. This includes drawing a clearer distinction between official and private acts of the President, which is one of the main points of contention in this file. So Michael Drieben, who represented the Justice Department on Thursday, assumed that the promotion of fraudulent alternate lists of voters by the end of 2020 by Donald Trump and his advisers would not come under one. “Official Conduct”.

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