Hearing on Trump immunity kicks off

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Publication title: Cape Times, The (Cape Town, South Africa)

The ruling by the nation’s highest court could have far-reaching implications for the extent of executive power – and Trump’s multiple legal issues as he seeks the White House again

And while most constitutional law experts expect Trump to suffer a legal defeat, he may already have scored a political victory.

By taking the case, the court’s nine justices delayed, perhaps indefinitely, the start of Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Democrat Joe Biden. John Sauer, representing Trump, told the court that “without presidential immunity from criminal prosecution there can be no presidency as we know it.

“Every current president will face de facto blackmail and extortion by his political rivals while he is still in office,” Sauer said.

Speaking to reporters in New York before entering a Manhattan courtroom for his hush money trial, Trump complained that the judge presiding over his case did not allow him to attend the Supreme Court hearing.

“I would have loved to have been there, I should be there, but this judge would not allow it to happen,” the Republican presidential candidate said, adding that without immunity “you’re going to become a ceremonial president.” The question of whether an ex-president is immune from prosecution is an untested one in American jurisprudence because, until Trump, no former White House occupant had been charged with a crime.

Special Counsel Jack Smith filed the election conspiracy case against 77-year-old Trump in August and had pushed for a March trial start date.

But Trump’s lawyers filed a blizzard of motions seeking to postpone the case against him, including the claim that an ex-president enjoys “absolute immunity.”

Two lower courts flatly rejected that...