Immunity from Prosecution

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      Special Counsel Is Said to Be Planning to Pursue Trump Cases Past the Election

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      Jack Smith plans to continue two criminal cases against Donald J. Trump until Inauguration Day if the former president wins, according to a person familiar with his thinking.The special counsel Jack Smith plans to pursue his two criminal cases against former President Donald J. Trump through the election and even up until Inauguration Day if Mr. Trump wins the presidential race, according to a person familiar with Mr. Smith’s thinking.Mr. Smith believes that under Justice Department regulations, his mandate as special counsel and his authority to keep the cases going do not depend on a change of administration and extend until he is formally removed from his post, the person said.As a practical matter, that means that the special counsel’s office is prepared to push forward for as long as possible on the two indictments it has filed against Mr. Trump. One of those, brought in Washington, has accused the former president of plotting to subvert the 2020 election. The other, filed in Florida, has charged Mr. Trump with holding on to a trove of highly sensitive classified documents after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to retrieve them.Mr. Smith’s decision to keep the cases going, reported earlier by The Washington Post, comes as a landmark Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity this week has effectively postponed the election interference case until after voters go to the polls in November.At the same time, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case in Florida, has declined to set a trial date as she grapples with an ever-expanding constellation of legal issues and court hearings.A spokesman for Mr. Smith declined to comment about his plans for the two cases.It is not unusual that a special counsel like Mr. Smith would seek to continue prosecuting cases under his command even after a change of presidential administrations. The Justice Department regulations governing special counsels give prosecutors like him day-to-day independence from the attorneys general who appointed them.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How Partisan Media Covered the Trump Immunity Decision

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      Liberal and conservative media outlets alike on Monday gave top billing to the news that the Supreme Court granted former President Donald J. Trump significant immunity from prosecution.But the similarities stopped there.Liberal outlets criticized the ruling as a biased move from a conservative Supreme Court. They said it only heightened the stakes for November’s general election, since the decision complicates the criminal case that accuses Mr. Trump of trying to overturn the last election.Many conservative outlets offered a relatively straightforward assessment of the decision, which left to lower courts to decide which aspects of Mr. Trump’s conduct were protected from prosecution. But several conservative commentators nonetheless celebrated the 6-3 decision and admonished Democrats who opposed it.Here’s how a selection of outlets covered the news:FROM THE LEFTMeidasTouchThe court’s ruling found Mr. Trump was immune from being prosecuted for “official” acts during his presidency, but said he was not immune from being prosecuted for “unofficial” conduct.Such broad immunity was needed to maintain “an energetic, independent executive,” according to the majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. The ruling also said a district court would have to decide what entailed official and unofficial conduct, including Mr. Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021. That process would likely delay any trial of Mr. Trump until after November’s election.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Manhattan Prosecutors Agree to Delay Trump’s Sentencing

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      Donald J. Trump’s lawyers want to argue that a Supreme Court decision giving presidents immunity for official acts should void his felony conviction for covering up hush money paid to a porn star.Manhattan prosecutors on Tuesday agreed with Donald J. Trump’s request to postpone his criminal sentencing so that the judge overseeing the case could weigh whether a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling might imperil his conviction, new court filings show.It is up to the judge to determine whether to postpone the sentencing, though with both sides in agreement, it seems likely he would do so.Mr. Trump, who was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his cover-up of a sex scandal during his 2016 presidential campaign, was scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. He faces up to four years in prison, though he could receive as little as a few weeks in jail, or probation.On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Mr. Trump broad immunity from prosecution for official actions taken as president, dealing a major setback to his federal criminal case in Washington, where he is accused of plotting to overturn his 2020 election loss.Although the Manhattan case does not center on Mr. Trump’s presidency or official acts — but rather personal activity during his campaign — his lawyers argued on Monday that prosecutors had built their case partly on evidence from his time in the White House. And under the Supreme Court’s new ruling, prosecutors not only cannot charge a president for any official acts, but also cannot cite evidence involving official acts to bolster other accusations.In a letter to the judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan, Mr. Trump’s lawyers argued that the conviction should be set aside. They also asked Justice Merchan to postpone the sentencing while he considered their request.In response to the letter from Mr. Trump’s lawyers, the district attorney’s office wrote that prosecutors did not oppose Mr. Trump’s request to delay the sentencing.“Although we believe defendant’s arguments to be without merit, we do not oppose his request for leave to file and his putative request to adjourn sentencing pending determination of his motion,” wrote Joshua Steinglass, one of the assistant district attorneys who tried the case against the former president.Mr. Trump’s lawyers proposed filing their court papers on July 10, and the district attorney’s office said it would respond two weeks later.This is a developing story and will be updated. More

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      Supreme Court Immunity Ruling Escalates Long Rise of Presidential Power

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      Beyond Donald J. Trump, the decision adds to the seemingly one-way ratchet of executive authority.The Supreme Court’s decision to bestow presidents with immunity from prosecution over official actions is an extraordinary expansion of executive power that will reverberate long after Donald J. Trump is gone.Beyond its immediate implications for the election subversion case against Mr. Trump and the prospect that he may feel less constrained by law if he returns to power, the ruling also adds to the nearly relentless rise of presidential power since the mid-20th century.It had seemed like a constitutional truism in recent years when more than one lower-court opinion addressing novel legal issues raised by Mr. Trump’s norm-breaking behavior observed that presidents are not kings. But suddenly, they do enjoy a kind of monarchical prerogative.“The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in an outraged dissent joined by the court’s other two liberals. “In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.”Dismissing those worries, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, argued that presidents stand apart from regular people, so protecting them from prosecution if they are accused of abusing their powers to commit official crimes is necessary.“Unlike anyone else,” he wrote, “the president is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Is Partly Shielded From Prosecution in Election Interference Case

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      The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that former President Donald J. Trump is entitled to some level of immunity from prosecution, a decision that may effectively delay the trial of the case against him on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.The vote was 6 to 3, dividing along partisan lines.Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., writing for the majority, said Mr. Trump had immunity for his official acts.“The president is not above the law,” the chief justice wrote. “But Congress may not criminalize the president’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the executive branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent executive. The president therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.”In dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the decision was gravely misguided.“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency,” she wrote. “It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law.”The justices said there was a crucial distinction between official and private conduct and returned the case to the lower courts for additional analysis.The court’s ruling raises the possibility of further delay in the case against former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to subvert the 2020 election.Tom Brenner for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Justice Alito Is Holding Trump to a Different Standard

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      I mentioned it in passing in my Friday column, but I was struck — disturbed, really — by one specific point made by Justice Samuel Alito during Thursday’s oral arguments in Trump v. United States.Alito began innocuously enough: “I’m sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is the incumbent.”“Of course,” answered Michael Dreeben, the lawyer arguing the case for the Department of Justice.“Now,” Alito continued, “if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?”The implication of Alito’s question is that presidential immunity for all official acts may be a necessary concession to the possibility of a politically motivated investigation and prosecution: Presidents need to be above the law to raise the odds that they follow the law and leave office without incident.If this sounds backward, that’s because it is.There have been, in the nearly 236 years since Americans ratified the Constitution, 45 presidents. Of those, 10 sought but did not win re-election. In every case but one, the defeated incumbents left office without incident. There was no fear that they would try to overturn the results or subvert the process, nor was there any fear that their successors would turn the power of the state against them. Thomas Jefferson did not try to jail John Adams after the close-fought 1800 election; he assured the American people that “we are all republicans, we are all federalists.” Jimmy Carter did not sic the F.B.I. on Gerald Ford in the wake of his narrow victory; he thanked him for “all he has done to heal our land.”By Alito’s lights, this should not have been possible. Why would a president leave if he could be prosecuted as a private citizen? The answer is that the other nine people who lost had a commitment to American democracy that transcended their narrow, personal or partisan interests.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Prosecutors Ask Supreme Court to Reject Trump’s Immunity Claim in Election Case

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      The filing was the main submission from Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting the former president. The case will be argued on April 25.Jack Smith, the special counsel prosecuting former President Donald J. Trump on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, urged the Supreme Court on Monday to reject Mr. Trump’s claim that he is immune from prosecution.“The president’s constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed does not entail a general right to violate them,” Mr. Smith wrote.The filing was Mr. Smith’s main submission in the case, which will be argued on April 25.He wrote that the novelty of the case underscored its gravity.“The absence of any prosecutions of former presidents until this case does not reflect the understanding that presidents are immune from criminal liability,” Mr. Smith wrote. “It instead underscores the unprecedented nature of petitioner’s alleged conduct.”He urged the justices not to lose sight of the basic legal terrain.“A bedrock principle of our constitutional order,” he wrote, “is that no person is above the law — including the president.” He added, “The Constitution does not give a president the power to conspire to defraud the United States in the certification of presidential-election results, obstruct proceedings for doing so or deprive voters of the effect of their votes.”Mr. Smith urged the court to move quickly, though he did not directly address the pending election.When the Supreme Court said in February that it would hear the case, it set what it called an expedited schedule. But it was not particularly fast, with oral arguments scheduled about seven weeks later. That delay was a significant partial victory for Mr. Trump, whose trial had been expected to start March 4.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More