Immune-ish

Ed Morrissey has a pretty good summary of today's Supreme Court's ruling on Trump's immunity claims. Much of what is alleged against him fails before an immunity defense, such as anything in his core Constitutional duties, and most of what could conceivably be called his official duties, subject to a certain amount of potential rebuttal. Some of the allegations, however, could be considered outside his official duties, depending on how the evidence works out.

Justice Thomas would have thrown out the entire prosecution on the ground that the special counsel appointment was unauthorized, but he appears to have no allies on this issue.

4 comments:

E Hines said...

Thomas' concurring opinion struck me as unusually for him tangential to the larger question. Whether Smith was wrongly appointed isn't related to whether a President gets some measure of criminal immunity. Usually, Thomas' concurrences expand on or disagree with some aspect of the majority ruling.

Eric Hines

Grim said...

The theoretical division of core, nearby, and unofficial duties makes sense to me. When and whether immunity is a good idea for elected officials is debatable, I think.

Christopher B said...

Thomas was writing something Judge Cannon can cut and paste when she grants the motion to terminate the case.

Dad29 said...

Christopher B has it. Thomas' opinion is correct, even though he forced the insertion into the case at hand.

Should be fun to watch, as both a D.C. AND the Florida cases are now at 100% risk.