Like cadaverous specters rising out from the tomb of King George III, the Supreme Court docket’s conservative majority took a serious step towards restoring one thing akin to absolute monarchy to a rustic that declared its independence from the English king in 1776.
The excessive court docket ruling came in review of the federal case brought against former President Donald Trump for his actions encouraging the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, and it shocked each conservative and liberal authorized consultants. The justices declared that the President of america has whole immunity from authorized penalties for official acts that fall inside their “unique sphere of constitutional authority,” thereby placing the president above the regulation, in contrast to another citizen.
In her sharp dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “By no means within the historical past of our Republic has a President had cause to consider that he can be immune from felony prosecution if he used the trimmings of his workplace to violate the felony regulation. Shifting ahead, nonetheless, all former Presidents shall be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that workplace misuses official energy for private achieve, the felony regulation that the remainder of us should abide won’t present a backstop.”
Sotomayor mentioned the “totally indefensible” ruling makes the president “a king above the regulation.”
Followers of Trump, after all, are applauding the court docket’s Republican-appointed majority for backing their man, however, sooner or later, it could daybreak on them that this new immunity from prosecution applies to President Joe Biden and all future Democratic presidents. Will they be so enthused to dwell underneath a king that’s not one in all them?
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