The conservative-majority US Supreme Court is due to rule on Monday on Donald Trump’s claim of absolute criminal immunity as a former president, but its decision, the most anticipated of this session, could further delay his federal trial in Washington.
By deciding on February 28 to take up this question, and then setting the debates for nearly three months later, the highest court in the United States has already considerably postponed the federal trial of the former Republican president for attempting to illegally reverse the results of the 2020 election won by his Democratic successor Joe Biden.
The entire procedure for this trial, initially scheduled to start on March 4 and postponed indefinitely, has therefore been suspended for four months. The slim chances that it can still begin before the November 5 election between Donald Trump and Joe Biden depend entirely on the scope and wording of the decision of the nine judges.
In particular, they could refer the case back to lower courts to determine which acts are likely to escape prosecution, which would inevitably lead to further delays, while the organisation of the trial, once the suspension is lifted, is expected to take more than two months.
During the debates, while the justices were generally skeptical of the absolute immunity claimed by the Republican candidate, several, particularly among conservatives, insisted on the long-term repercussions of their decision.
“We are writing a rule for posterity,” Neil Gorsuch observed, referring to the unprecedented nature of the question.
“This case has enormous implications for the future of the presidency and the country,” added his colleague Brett Kavanaugh.
Appeal
Targeted by four separate criminal proceedings, Donald Trump is pulling out all the stops to be tried as late as possible, in any case after the presidential election.
He was found guilty on May 30 by the New York courts of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to subvert the 2016 election.” He will be sentenced on July 11.
But this first criminal conviction, unprecedented for a former American president, in the least politically burdensome of the four procedures, also risks being the only one before the vote.
Because through numerous appeals, Donald Trump’s lawyers have managed to postpone until further notice the other trials, at the federal level for withholding classified documents after he left the White House and before the courts in the key state of Georgia (southeast) for electoral interference in 2020.
If re-elected, Donald Trump could, once inaugurated in January 2025, order a halt to federal prosecutions against him.
