Monday, following the announcement of the Supreme Court decision granting presidents and former presidents immunity for so-called official acts, Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley called the ruling a win for former President Donald Trump.
Lower courts will decide if the act, should it be the basis for a prosecution, is an official or an unofficial act of the presidency.
“Well, this is along the lines of what many of us anticipated — that the court did not go with absolute immunity on everything,” he explained. “But did say that there’s absolute immunity when it comes to court constitutional powers. We’re still going through the opinion to see if there’s any assistance on where that line is to be drawn. This case is going to have to go back to the district court, which is going to have to try to sort of thread this needle to determine what in the case would not fall under these protections.”
“But this is obviously a win for President Trump in the sense that the special counsel was already arguing, as well as the lower court, that there was very little immunity here to be concerned with,” Turley added. “The counsel for the government was assuring the court they didn’t have much to be concerned with here in terms of any changes in the status of the case. That’s clearly not what won the day. The court is saying we do need lines here drawn to protect presidents so they have some breathing room.”
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