Presidential Immunity From Plato to Trump
The Supreme Court case of Trump v. U.S. was about more than special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Donald Trump, which continues under a superseding indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in Washington. The decision and the dissents contain a fundamental debate about the presidency that looks beyond the present personalities and campaign. Writing for the court, Chief Justice John Roberts concludes that the president has broad, though not unlimited, immunity from criminal prosecution. Outraged, the other side, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, declares that this makes him a king above the law and America not a republic (or a democracy).
The testy thrusts in the debate—“deeply wrong” from the minority and “tone of chilling doom” from the majority mocking the dissent—share the partisan heat of the case and the general bipartisan anger in our country. But this isn’t a new debate. In a separate lone dissent, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson takes it back to Plato, where, let a professor tell you, it begins.
