Supreme Court hears Trump's immunity claim in election interference case

The justices on Thursday took up for the first time whether a former president has absolute immunity from criminal charges for actions he took while in office, as Trump claims. He is the first former president to be charged with crimes., where he is standing trial on charges that he falsified business records to keep damaging information from voters when he directed hush money payments to a former porn star to keep quiet her claims that they had a sexual encounter.

Trump’s lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions of former occupants of the Oval Office would become routine and presidents couldn't function as the commander-in-chief if they had to worry about criminal charges.

The election interference conspiracy case brought by special counsel Jack Smith in Washington is just one of four criminal cases confronting Trump, the first former president to face prosecution. He already is standing trial in New York on charges that he falsified business records to keep damaging information from voters when he directed payments to a former porn star to keep quiet her claims that they had a sexual encounter.

“The text of the Constitution … does not afford the President absolute immunity,” Thomas wrote in 2020. The court also may be more concerned with how its decision could affect future presidencies, Harvard law school professor Jack Goldsmith wrote on the Lawfare blog.

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