Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a sharp dissent to the high court’s majority opinion in Trump v. United States, which found presidents have immunity for official acts.
In the 6-3 majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that a president does not hold immunity for unofficial acts but that “he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.” Sotomayor and the two other justices appointed by Democrats disagreed, and in Sotomayor’s dissent, she wrote she did so “with fear for our democracy.”
“Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law,” Sotomayor wrote. “Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for ‘bold and unhesitating action’ by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.”
“Because our Constitution does not shield a former President from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent,” she added.
The dissent argued there is no constitutional basis for the immunity the majority outlined, even borrowing a line from the 2022 majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overruled Roe v. Wade, to jab at that same coalition.
“Whenever the President wields the enormous power of his office, the majority says, the criminal law (at least presumptively) cannot touch him. This official-acts immunity has ‘no firm grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent,'” Sotomayor wrote, quoting Dobbs.
The justice, who was appointed by then-President Barack Obama in 2009, ended her dissent by expressing concern about the effect the ruling could have on actions by future presidents.
“Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be,” Sotomayor wrote. “That is the majority’s message today.”
“Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor added.
In her own dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson echoed her concerns over the majority ruling on Monday.
“The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm. I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right,” Jackson wrote.
“In the meantime, because the risks (and power) the Court has now assumed are intolerable, unwarranted, and plainly antithetical to bedrock constitutional norms, I dissent,” she concluded.
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The majority decision on Monday dealt a significant blow to special counsel Jack Smith’s 2020 election case against Trump, with a trial in the case likely being delayed. With the ruling, the high court sent most of the indictment back to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to decide whether alleged actions were in the scope of official acts.
Trump is set to face sentencing for his guilty conviction in his hush money case in New York on July 11 but appears unlikely to have any more trials before the election on Nov. 5 due to delays in the Georgia 2020 election case and federal classified documents case.