In a harsh speech delivered at the White House, US President Joe Biden condemned the Supreme Court’s decision – who yesterday granted partial immunity to Donald Trump -, issuing a stern warning about a possible second term for the former president.
“There are no kings in America. Each of us is equal before the law. No one, No one is above the law, not even the president of the United States“, the president’s words reported by CNN. “With the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, the situation has changed radically. For all practical purposes, There are virtually no limits to what the president can do. It is a fundamentally new principle and it is a dangerous precedent because the power of the office will no longer be limited by lawincluding the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden thundered in his speech at the White House.
Biden’s political speech
The speech, CNN explains, “particularly political, comes at a critical time for Biden’s campaign, with the outgoing US leader trying to fend off lingering concerns about his age, exacerbated by his performance in last week’s presidential debate. His volatile performance has sparked anxiety among some of his major donors and raised uncomfortable questions for Democrats about the wisdom of his candidacy” and whether he can “stay in the White House for another four years.”
During the speech, “Biden appeared alert, reading energetically from a teleprompter in the White House Cross Hall. But he did not answer questions, walking away immediately after his five-minute written statement,” the US broadcaster notes.
In the speech, “Biden referred to the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and called it ‘one of the darkest days in American history.’ He said the court’s decision made it unlikely that Trump would face trial on criminal charges related to that riot before the election.”
“I know I will respect the limits of the presidential powers that I have had for three and a half years, but any president — including Donald Trump — will now be free to ignore the law,” Biden said. The outgoing president, who has made protecting democracy a central tenet of his campaign, then described the decision as a broader pattern of the Supreme Court undermining “a wide range of long-standing legal principles” and that voters will now have the final say in holding Trump accountable.
“The American people must decide whether they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump, knowing now that he will be even more emboldened to do what he wants whenever he wants,” Biden warned, adding: “I agree with Justice Sotomayor’s dissent, which held that ‘in every use of official power, the president is now king above the law. Fearing for our democracy, I dissent.’ The American people should dissent, too. I disagree,” President Biden said.
The Supreme Court, CNN explains, with the favorable votes of the 6 conservative-leaning justices and the opposing votes of the three liberals, has ruled that Trump can claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took as president before leaving office, probably delaying the trial on the charges related to his actions on January 6, 2021.
The ruling thus overturns a February federal appeals court ruling that the former president did not enjoy immunity for alleged crimes committed during his presidency to manipulate the results of the 2020 election.
Biden has repeatedly warned that the limits of the president’s power now depend solely on the officeholder and the choices the president makes, and that Trump would be a danger in that role.
The court’s decision technically allows special counsel Jack Smith to move forward with his case against Trump, but it leaves many technical issues unresolved, making it increasingly unlikely that a trial could begin before the November election. Smith’s case now returns to the lower courts, which must consider the specific steps Trump took to overturn the 2020 election results and whether those actions were official, and therefore covered by immunity, or private.
The majority said Trump’s conversations with the Justice Department — his efforts to try to implicate officials in an attempt to overturn the election — were blanketed in absolute immunity. For other official actions and more routine powers held by the president, the court said there was at least some immunity and largely deferred to lower courts to resolve the issue. That’s a process that could take weeks or even months.
Perhaps more importantly, CNN notes, “the Court’s majority made clear that official records cannot be considered evidence at all in a potential trial, which could make it much harder for Smith to win. Chief Justice John Roberts also wrote that lower courts might not consider the former president’s motives, which could allow Trump’s lawyers to argue that he wasn’t trying to overturn an election in his favor at all.”
The Supreme Court’s decision had an immediate effect: Trump’s legal team filed a brief seeking to challenge the former president’s conviction in his criminal trial in New York based on the high court’s ruling on presidential immunity, a source told CNN.
Trump’s lawyer then submitted the letter to Judge Juan Merchan asking permission to file a motion to contest the verdict, the source told CNN. If the judge allows Trump to file the motion, it could delay the tycoon’s sentencing — scheduled for next week — to allow the parties to continue working on the case after the latest developments.
