The justice system that has dealt Donald J. Trump so many brutal blows over the past six months has delivered one of the most significant pieces of good news for him since the start of his campaign.
The U.S. Supreme Court, with its conservative supermajority cemented by a Trump appointee, ruled Monday to grant the former president partial immunity from prosecution as he seeks to fend off charges brought by special counsel Jack Smith related to Trump's efforts to block the transfer of power after the 2020 election.
The broad outlines of the ruling — that the president is entitled to substantial protections for official conduct — had been predicted by political and court observers for months, but Trump nevertheless trumpeted it as a victory.
“A HUGE WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY. PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!” Trump wrote in capital letters on Truth Social.
The decision means the case will almost certainly be delayed until after the November election, and if Trump wins, the Justice Department will almost certainly drop the case, people close to Trump have said.
For President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who is seeking a second term, the verdict would not have been the most helpful outcome to his efforts to portray Trump as dangerous. It would have affirmed the indictment. Mr. Biden's team immediately highlighted the verdict as evidence of the existential threat that the sitting president says his predecessor and potential successor pose to the country.
A statement from a senior adviser to the Biden campaign said, “Today's ruling does not change the facts, so let's be clear about what happened on January 6th: After losing the 2020 election, Donald Trump lost his temper and encouraged a mob to overturn the results of a free and fair election. Mr. Trump is running for president as a convicted felon for the same reason that he stood by while a mob violently attacked the Capitol – he is not above the law and will do anything to gain and keep power.”
Republicans were quick to point out that the ruling was another example of the good fortunes (some of his own making, like the Supreme Court he built) that Trump has so often experienced as he stretched the system beyond its limits, sometimes beyond what he intended.
When Trump faced impeachment trial for the events of January 6, 2021, Republican senators one after another argued that the criminal justice system was better equipped to hold him accountable as a reason not to convict him in the Senate. Those same Republicans are now supporting Trump for a second term, one in which the former president would have pledged a maximalist approach to executive power, following the Supreme Court's sweeping definition of exempt official acts from prosecution.
In an interview with the Fox News website, Trump claimed he had been harassed “for years” by Democrats, including former President Barack Obama and Biden.
“And now the court has ruled,” Trump said, later adding, “Now I'm free to campaign like anybody else. We're leading by a large margin in every poll, and we're going to Make America Great Again.”
Trump has always campaigned on his own terms, mixing daytime golf outings with a few rallies a month and a handful of court appearances of his own choosing in 2023 and early 2024. He has seemed to savor those moments and the media attention that followed.
But the joy largely vanished when his Manhattan trial began in April in what was almost certain to be the only criminal trial he would face before Election Day.
After a six-week trial, Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, which prosecutors said he did to hide hush money payments to porn actresses during his 2016 campaign.
A ruling in the case is scheduled for July 11, and the Supreme Court's decision is unlikely to delay it. While some in Trump's camp worry that could happen, few observers believe Judge Juan M. Marchan would put Trump in jail or under house arrest during the presidential campaign.
Trump has no qualms about being a convicted felon, but politically, the conviction benefited his candidacy in the short term: He raised an astounding amount of money, while a broad swath of Republicans suddenly called for him to indict Democrats in retaliation.
While the Supreme Court has taken a first step in outlining the immunity clause, it's unclear what will happen next. The Supreme Court sent the matter back to Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must now decide whether to hold a mini-trial to determine which allegations in the special counsel's indictment constitute official duties and whether he may be spared prosecution following Monday's Supreme Court ruling.
The details of these proceedings could be problematic for Trump, depending on the scope of matters Judge Chutkan allows to be heard. The fact that a pro-Trump mob stormed the Capitol on January 6th, and that Trump blatantly lied in the weeks after the election about winning the 2020 election, are clearly disadvantages to Trump, who has swing votes.
So Trump's allies were relieved that the first question at last week's debate with Biden was about the economy, not about the storming of the Capitol, which Trump continues to defend.
A mini-trial could bring renewed attention to what happened that day in Washington, but Trump's legal team has become so adept at postponing the issue that a trial may not take place before the election — and even if one does take place, it will be a long way from an actual trial on Trump's actions to stay in power.
Still, the hope of this mini-trial may be the best option for Democrats who want to keep the spotlight on Trump's actions to undermine the election.
“Mr. Trump's attempt to overturn the results of the election he lost in 2020 was not an act of authority by the president,” Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in a statement. “It was the act of an authoritarian narcissist seeking to subvert democracy in order to cling to power, and he must be held accountable for his actions.”