Trump's double victory in the U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court affirms absolute immunity for official acts in Trump case, renders Jan. 6 trial before election unlikely.

Supreme Court rules in favor of Jan. 6 Capitol riot participant who challenged obstruction conviction. The challenge was brought by Joseph Fischer, one of more than 300 people charged with obstruction by the Justice Department.

The US Supreme Court ruled Monday that former President Donald Trump enjoys absolute immunity from prosecution for “official acts” during his presidency — without saying whether his alleged 2020 election subversion falls under that, writes ‘The New York Post’.

The nation’s top court instead left it up to the lower courts to decide what constitutes an “official act” by a sitting president.

In a 6 to 3 decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts, the panel stressed that the “president is not above the law,” and that “not everything the President does is official.” All three liberal justices dissented.

The high court’s ruling vacated an earlier decision by a lower court judge rejecting the immunity theory and cleared the way for more appeals by the former president that could set the trial schedule back months or years, if it ever happens.

“Like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity. But unlike anyone else, the President is a branch of government, and the Constitution vests in him sweeping powers and duties,” Roberts wrote in a lengthy 43-page decision.

“Accounting for that reality — and ensuring that the President may exercise those powers forcefully, as the Framers anticipated he would — does not place him above the law; it preserves the basic structure of the Constitution from which that law derives.

Roberts further stressed that “Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled in favor of a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot who challenged his conviction for a federal "obstruction" crime, FOX News informs.

In a 6-3 decision, the high court held to a narrower interpretation of a federal statute that imposes criminal liability on anyone who corruptly "alters, destroys, mutilates, or conceals a record, document, or other object, or attempts to do so, with the intent to impair the object's integrity or availability for use in an official proceeding."

The ruling reverses a lower court decision, which the high court said swept too broadly into areas like peaceful but disruptive conduct, and returns the case to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, who will have the opportunity to reassess the case with Friday's ruling in mind.

The case stems from a lawsuit filed by Joseph Fischer — one of more than 300 people charged by the Justice Department with "obstruction of an official proceeding" in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. His lawyers argued that the federal statute should not apply, and that it had only ever been applied to evidence-tampering cases.

The Justice Department argued that Fischer’s actions were a "deliberate attempt" to stop a joint session of Congress directly from certifying the 2020 election, thus qualifying their use of the statute that criminalizes behavior that "otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do" and carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.

However, Chief Justice John Roberts said the government stretched the law too far. 

Since the Supreme Court concluded the lower courts interpreted the instruction statute too broadly, the case now goes back to the D.C. federal appeals court to decide whether under the new narrower legal standard, the obstruction component of the case against Fischer — and presumably other Jan. 6 defendants — can go forward.

The Justice Department must now decide whether to go ahead and drop the obstruction charge for defendants facing other Jan. 6-related criminal counts, or wait until the courts have fully resolved the question. For those defendants only charged with obstruction under this statute, the DOJ must decide whether to now drop its prosecutions entirely.

The Supreme Court's recent decision to give immunity from prosecution to Donald Trump in the case of "some official acts" taken during his tenure in office. Democrats have responded with outrage at the 6-3 decision with much of their political hopes resting on the strategy of burying Trump in as many legal battles as possible to keep him from running for president again.

Democrats are now flooding social media and the news feeds with suggestions that the SC decision makes it possible for Joe Biden as president to eliminate the conservative competition "as a part of his official duties," Zero Hedge notes.

“President Biden, acting within the scope of his official duties, could dispatch the military to take out the conservative justices on the Court” - Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).

Amercan democracy in all its reality!!!

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