U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pushed back against “the madness” of Democrat’s fears of potential future presidential criminality following the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling on Monday.
While stopping short of recognizing total immunity, the Court’s 6-3 ruling found that certain core presidential powers are immune from prosecution, a decisive win for former president Trump that delays his trial on charges relating to Jan 6 until after the November election.
This set off a wave of outrage by Democrats, from President Biden on down, over hypothetical scenarios in which the office of the president will “no longer be constrained by law.”
Speaker Johnson reacted to the president’s remarks, calling them “despicable” and “dangerous” and warning that the president is trying to “undermine the Supreme Court itself” by resorting to such rhetoric.
In an interview on Fox News Monday night, Johnson said, “Look, there’s all sorts of hyperbole tonight…and just this, fantastical, these hypotheticals they’ve made up [that] future presidents are going to turn into assassins and all the rest. It’s madness.”
In her dissenting opinion, Justice Sonia Sotomayor claimed that the Court’s decision “completely insulates presidents from criminal liability.”
Sotomayor wrote:
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.”
Some on the political left were even more unhinged, calling for President Biden to use that supposed immunity to order the November election canceled or to pre-emptively order a drone strike on Trump to prevent him from becoming president again.
Speaker Johnson was among a number of GOP leaders who celebrated the Court’s ruling as a blow against the weaponization of government, particularly special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election.