Let's Unpack ThisThe Supreme Court will make a decision any day now on former President Trump’s immunity case. The justices will have to decide whether Trump is shielded from prosecution on charges that he tried to overturn the 2020 election. theSkimm reached out to Caroline Polisi, a white-collar and federal criminal defense lawyer and lecturer at Columbia Law School, to discuss the implications of the case. What is presidential immunity? “It’s not an easy answer … The legal arguments from this case derive from a 1982 SCOTUS decision (Nixon v. Fitzgerald) in which the Supreme Court did rule that presidents and former presidents enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability for conduct and actions that occurred while they were in office,” Polisi said. “That is the nexus of where this law is here. The Trump team has taken that fundamental idea of absolute presidential immunity for official acts and tried to expand it into the criminal context. We’re not talking just about: Is there immunity, or is there not immunity? I think it’s going to come down to what constitutes an ‘official act as a president.’” What do you expect the Supreme Court’s outcome will be in this case? “The way the Supreme Court took up this case [and] the wording that they used, it’s pretty clear they are going to find ... that former presidents do enjoy some form of limited criminal immunity for official acts that they undertook as president,” Polisi told theSkimm. “The devil is going to be in the details with respect to how they will define that test of what constitutes the distinction between a private act or a purely personal act. Or what is within the ‘outer perimeters of official conduct.’” What are the long-term implications of the court’s decision? “The Supreme Court doesn’t decide specific cases. They decide questions of law, so this is going to have extreme precedential value in terms of the ramifications on future and former presidents [and] how they view their job while in office.” PS: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. | Featured ExpertCaroline PolisiWhite-Collar and Federal Criminal Defense Lawyer, and Lecturer at Columbia Law School |
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Read more: How the SCOTUS Ruling Will Affect Trump’s Other Cases The Supreme Court’s Slow Pace Is Causing a June Pileup |