U.S. Supreme Court justices on Thursday quizzed lawyers for Donald Trump and Special Counsel Jack Smith about the former president’s claim of immunity from prosecution for trying to undo his 2020 election loss, posing questions about what happens if a president sells nuclear secrets, takes a bribe or orders a coup or assassination.
Trump appealed after lower courts rejected his request to be shielded from four election-related criminal charges on the grounds that he was serving as president when he took the actions that led to the indictment obtained by Special Counsel Jack Smith.
Michael Dreeben, representing the special counsel, told the justices that the Supreme Court has never recognized the kind of immunity that Trump seeks for a public official.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts signaled concern about relying merely on the “good faith” of the prosecutors to prevent abusive prosecutions against presidents if the Supreme Court rejects presidential immunity.
“Now you know,” Roberts told Dreeben, “how easy it is in many cases for a prosecutor to get a grand jury to bring an indictment. And reliance on the good faith of the prosecutor may not be enough in some cases - I’m not suggesting here” in Smith’s indictment of Trump.
I really fucking hate this Roberts angle - ‘but but what about using prosecutions to abuse a former president?’ As if there weren’t plenty of tools in the legal system to mitigate that possibility, AND as if history hasn’t already shown that the DOJ leans heavily, HEAVILY on the side of caution when considering legal action against a president.
And like congress hasn’t made that a pastime for the last 20 years.
Yeah, like where is the example of such abuse? Is this not the first such prosecution in American history? Seems absurd to me to suggest that there might be a problem of abuse, or that the criminal justice system doesn’t already set a high enough standard for conviction generally, or that this case doesn’t rise to a level of severity justifying prosecution.