Blaze News investigates: Will SCOTUS immunity ruling deal knockout punch to cases against Trump?

The Supreme Court recently ruled that former President Donald Trump does have some measure of presidential immunity for actions taken in his official capacity as president. This ruling has roiled the ongoing criminal cases against Trump, as prosecutors scramble to plan their next moves and Trump's defense team plans a series of countermoves.

Blaze News spoke with a number of legal experts, including both prosecutors and criminal defense attorneys, as well as attorneys for constitutional legal organizations to get a sense for how these developments will impact both the pace and the substance of Trump's criminal trials.

Trump currently faces four separate prosecutions, all of which at least potentially are impacted by the Supreme Court's ruling.

One of the cases brought against Trump is led by Special Counsel Jack Smith, alleging that Trump attempted to overturn the 2020 presidential election outcome by spreading false election-fraud claims. The indictment listed four counts against Trump, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S., conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights. Another, currently being tried in Florida, charges the former president with improperly handling classified documents. This case has been dismissed, for now, by U. S. District Judge Eileen Cannon. A third trial centering on alleged payments made by Trump as hush money to Stormy Daniels ended in May. A fourth state prosecution brought by DA Fani Willis charges Trump with violations of Georgia state law based on post-election calls to Georgia state officials.

The motion that gave rise to the Supreme Court's ruling was filed in the Special Counsel case. Trump's legal team had argued that the entire prosecution was unconstitutional because it interfered with his inherent authority as the leader of the executive branch to ensure that the laws of this country are faithfully executed and that therefore he should enjoy total immunity from prosecution.

'It throws a wrench into all the plans to try to get Trump on this lawfare.'

The motion to dismiss the case was heard by the Supreme Court, which ruled on July 1 that Trump has "absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority." Additionally, the former president has "at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts." And, lastly, the justices determined that Trump has "no immunity for unofficial acts."

"Determining whether and under what circumstances such a prosecution may proceed requires careful assessment of the scope of Presidential power under the Constitution. The nature of that power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President's exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity," the ruling read.

While liberals, including some of the justices in the Supreme Court's minority, practically hyperventilated about the decision, many legal observers, including criminal defense attorney David W. Fischer, described the court's ruling as "expected."

"Since Members of Congress, judges, and governors enjoy some type of immunity for their official acts, and the President already has sweeping immunity from civil lawsuits, the Supreme Court's decision was a surprise to nobody except partisan legal analysts on MSNBC," Fischer told Blaze News.

The corporate media has framed Smith's case against Trump as an "election interference" case, but America First Legal Vice President Dan Epstein told Blaze News that this is not accurate, noting that it is actually "about whether Trump interfered with a government function."

"The reality is that he was acting within the scope of his Constitutional and official duties. For any case involving the former President, as long as he acted consistently with his constitutional powers and his discretionary powers, then he should be immune from judgement," Epstein said.

'Devil's in the details': The specifics of the high court's opinion

While the Supreme Court ruled on Trump's immunity motion and provided some guidelines for lower courts to use when determining which of Trump's actions are covered by presidential immunity, it declined to rule on specifics or define what constitutes an official act, noting that "no court thus far has drawn that distinction." The decision will be left up to the lower courts, as the Supreme Court is "a court of final review and not first view."

Will Chamberlain, senior counsel with the Article III project, told Blaze News that the special counsel case against Trump would likely be "delayed for years" as a result of the ruling.

"It's not just because the Supreme Court reversed and sent it back down for a hearing at the district court," Chamberlain explained. "The way that the Supreme Court has dealt with this, is said, 'The only question that we're going to resolve now: Is there such a thing as presidential immunity for official acts? Yes.' But the contours of what that immunity looks like and how it applies to specific facts in the indictment, none of that has been settled by the Supreme Court."

"I think we're looking at years of litigation," he said.

The lower courts were accused of "render[ing] their decisions on a highly expedited basis" despite the case's "unprecedented nature," the opinion remarked.

The Supreme Court noted that presidential immunity "extends to the 'outer perimeter' of the President's official responsibilities, covering actions so long as they are 'not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority.'" It also mentioned that such immunity equally applies to all officials in the Oval Office.

'Fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals.'

When considering what constitutes an official versus nonofficial act, the justices explained that the courts may not inquire about the president's potential motives.

"Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on 'every allegation that an action was unlawful,' depriving immunity of its intended effect," the ruling stated.

Former federal prosecutor and former Trump attorney Jim Trusty told Blaze News that the court's determination was "largely predictable" but noted that "as is typical in precedent-making cases, the devil's in the details."

"Specifically, the prohibition against considering motive in classifying official vs. personal acts is huge. It basically means the Court wants a categorical (broad) approach to the immunity boundaries, and that it will not accept anti-Trump cynicism affecting the lower court decisions," Trusty explained.

In its opinion, the Supreme Court noted that the prosecution's allegations against Trump involving his discussions with the acting Attorney General "are readily categorized in light of the nature of the President's official relationship to the office held by that individual." However, the court also contended that Trump's conversations with former Vice President Mike Pence and other state officials, as well as his comments to the public, "present more difficult questions."

The ruling explained that Trump's interactions with Pence are "at least presumptively immune from prosecution," regarding allegations that Trump attempted to pressure Pence to reject the 2020 electoral votes.

"The question then becomes whether that presumption of immunity is rebutted under the circumstances. It is the Government's burden to rebut the presumption of immunity. The Court therefore remands to the District Court to assess in the first instance whether a prosecution involving Trump's alleged attempts to influence the Vice President's oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch," the opinion read.

Additionally, it contended that prosecuting a president for official actions "poses a far greater threat of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch than simply seeking evidence in his possession." The threat of potential criminal prosecution for official acts may prompt "hesitation to execute the duties of his office fearlessly and fairly," the justices presented.

"A President inclined to take one course of action based on the public interest may instead opt for another, apprehensive that criminal penalties may befall him upon his departure from office," the opinion noted.

Associate Justices of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson shared dissenting opinions, arguing that the ruling placed Trump "above the law."

'The politics and optics would be devastating.'

However, the Supreme Court's opinion contended that presidential immunity actually "preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives." The ruling accused the prosecution of "fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals."

"The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next," the opinion read.

The high court vacated the Washington, D.C., Court of Appeals' prior ruling and sent the case back to be reconsidered based on its opinion. It stated that Trump "assert[ed] a far broader immunity than the limited one the Court recognizes," but some legal analysts are calling the ruling a major victory for the former president.

A big win for Trump in the federal cases?

Trusty told Blaze News that the Supreme Court's verdict presents "a huge problem" for Special Counsel Jack Smith and specifically contended that the grand jury process for both federal cases was "heavy-handed and overreaching."

"The prosecutors put many witnesses before the grand jury to discuss things that turn out to be within the category of official acts," Trusty explained. "At first blush, Jack Smith was facing a paring down of his indictment, where official acts would need to be redacted but the case could continue forward. But the SCOTUS opinion specifically establishes that the indictment process needs to be clean of immunized information being presented to the grand jury."

He told Blaze News that the Department of Justice's "best course of action" may be to "dismiss the current indictment and re-present a stripped down (i.e., more legitimate) case to a new grand jury." However, Trusty said the DOJ will have "no interest in going that route, as the politics and optics would be devastating."

"But that would actually be the prudent thing to do at this juncture," Trusty added.

In a statement to Blaze News, Epstein called the court's opinion "the right decision based on the clear meaning of the Constitution."

"America First Legal made this argument clear in our amicus brief. It was the right decision, and it was the obvious decision," Epstein said.

Chamberlain told Blaze News that he anticipated the Supreme Court would grant Trump some presidential immunity, but he "didn't expect them to make such a broad holding when it came to evidence of official acts being admissible, even in cases where the official acts themselves are not being charged in the indictment."

"The end result here is, I think President Trump's going to win, in which case, obviously, this prosecution will be just dropped on day one of his presidency," Chamberlain continued. "I think the Georgia case against President Trump is now fatally flawed. And there's a big question about whether or not some of the other people in the Georgia indictment — people like Jeff Clark, who is the assistant attorney general — if their cases also need to be dismissed because evidence of official acts was included."

He added, "The Florida case also has some official acts because it deals with the period of time right around the end of the presidency when President Trump allegedly took classified documents down to Mar-a-Lago." Notably, the district judge who dismissed this case did so on the unrelated basis that Smith's appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional — a position that was adopted by Justice Thomas in his concurring opinion.

Fischer told Blaze News that the Supreme Court's recent ruling ensures that the federal cases against Trump will not proceed until 2025. He noted that a Trump election win would mark the end of the cases.

'A legitimate shot of obtaining a new trial.'

After attempting to "fast-track" the case, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan "now has her hands tied," Fischer stated.

"Even if she orders a trial before the election, Trump's lawyers can appeal her rulings on immunity-related evidentiary issues, which will delay the trial well into 2025," he said.

What's next for the New York case?

Some legal analysts did not anticipate that the Supreme Court's opinion would impact the New York criminal case against Trump, in which the former president was found guilty on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records stemming from so-called hush money payments Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen claims he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about an alleged affair she had with Trump in 2006, well before his presidency.

Acting Justice Juan Merchan recently agreed to postpone sentencing in the case after Trump's legal team requested permission to file a motion to overturn the jury's guilty verdict in light of the high court's immunity ruling. Trump's attorneys claimed that District Attorney Alvin Bragg's prosecutors secured the verdict, in part, by submitting evidence during Trump's time as president, therefore potentially falling within his official acts.

In an interview with CNN, Trump's attorney Will Scharf laid out the argument.

"The Supreme Court was very clear that for acts that fall within the outer perimeter of the president's official responsibilities, acts that are presumptively immune from prosecution, that evidence of those acts cannot be used to try essentially private acts," Scharf said. "At the very least, we deserve a new trial where those immune acts will not come into evidence, as the Supreme Court dictated today."

Chamberlain called the Supreme Court's opinion "a very, very good holding for President Trump," adding that "there's a very good shot that the judge in New York will have to declare a mistrial. There won't even be a sentencing."

"I mean, if he's [Merchan] going to follow the law, he's probably going to have to declare a mistrial," he told Blaze News. "The other problem for Judge Merchan and Alvin Bragg is that the verdict form was not specific."

Chamberlain explained that some verdict forms include an interrogatory format that lists various questions posed to jurors, but "apparently that wasn't done in New York."

"That's another reason I think a mistrial is likely there," he told Blaze News. "The immunity holding, and especially the component that says you can't even include evidence of it — it throws a wrench into all the plans to try to get Trump on this lawfare."

Fischer told Blaze News that he believes Trump has "a legitimate shot of obtaining a new trial" because Merchan "clearly erred in allowing immunity-challenged evidence to get in front of the jury."

"Also, Trump could potentially file an appeal challenging the court's immunity ruling, which could push sentencing back until after Inauguration Day. If the case is not resolved by Trump's potential inauguration, all New York proceedings would have to stop during his presidency and Trump would not be a convicted felon," Fischer added.

In a statement to Blaze News, Epstein remarked that the alleged payments were "part of his presidency," not before it.

"That means he exercised his judgment not as a private citizen but as a President. Compare that to Bill Clinton. In the Clinton v. Jones case, all the facts of that case existed when he became president. The facts of the Bragg case overlap with when Trump was president," Epstein stated. "Second, notwithstanding the validity of the prosecution's theory — if that theory is correct, then it is automatic that he is immune. The Office of Legal Counsel took the position that candidate Trump's communications after he received the nomination as president were presumptively privileged. Accordingly, if his acts have the presumption of privilege, then that is the presumption of immunity."

Under the Supreme Court's opinion, testimony from some of the witnesses in the New York case who shared interactions they had with Trump after he was elected "should have been off-limits," Trusty said.

"I think January 6 and Georgia are the most damaged cases by this opinion's reach, but there are arguments relating to the Mar-a-Lago indictment and possibly the Bragg prosecution that have some vitality to them," he told Blaze News.

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