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US Supreme Court ruling rattles Trump legal cases
It will result, at the very least, in delays to any further trials of Trump, and may lead to cases being thrown out altogether, say legal experts
A view of the US Supreme Court, following the ruling on former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's bid for immunity from federal prosecution for 2020 election subversion in Washington on Monday. — Reuters
The US Supreme Court ruling that a former president has broad immunity from criminal prosecution has thrown a legal wrench into the cases facing Donald Trump.
The ruling will result, at the very least, in delays to any further trials of Trump, and may lead to cases being thrown out altogether, legal experts said.
Here's where things stand with the four criminal cases against the 78-year-old Republican presidential candidate:
In May, Trump was convicted in New York of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had a sexual encounter with the real estate tycoon.
Trump's lawyers immediately seized upon the Supreme Court decision to ask the judge who presided over the hush money case to have the jury's guilty verdict set aside.
Judge Juan Merchan said he will rule on the Trump motion on September 6, and delayed sentencing — if still necessary — until September 18.
Sentencing in the case, the first criminal conviction of a former US president, had been scheduled to take place on July 11.
Each of the charges facing Trump carries up to four years in prison, but legal experts say that as a first-time offender, he would be unlikely to be jailed.
Trump faces four federal felony charges in Washington related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Joe Biden.
The case was scheduled to begin on March 4 but was frozen until the Supreme Court ruled on Trump's immunity claim.
In its ruling, the high court — which includes three justices nominated by Trump — said a former president has "absolute immunity" from criminal prosecution for core official acts taken while in office, but not for unofficial acts.
Asha Rangappa, a former FBI agent and legal analyst, said the ruling complicates Special Counsel Jack Smith's bid to bring Trump to trial in the election case.
"The big issue is the distinction between official acts and non-official acts and determining which things that are alleged in each indictment fall into those categories," Rangappa told AFP.
"It's not just that you can't prosecute someone for official conduct, if conduct is official, you cannot even use it as evidence, motive or intent for another crime," she said.
Steven Schwinn, a law professor at the University of Illinois Chicago, said that aspect of the ruling is going to "seriously hamstring the prosecution in showing that Trump's unofficial behaviour was illegal".
District Judge Tanya Chutkan will now have to hold a series of pre-trial hearings to parse the charges against Trump, making a trial before the November election — in which Trump is expected to face off again against Biden — extremely unlikely.
Trump's lawyers have sought repeatedly to delay his cases until after the November vote, when he could potentially have the federal charges against him dropped if he wins the presidency.
Trump is accused in Georgia of involvement in a criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election result in the southern state, where Biden won by some 12,000 votes.
Evidence includes a taped phone call in which he asked Georgia's secretary of state to "find" enough votes to reverse the result.
Eighteen co-defendants were indicted along with Trump on racketeering and other charges, including his former personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The Supreme Court ruling may leave the door open for the Georgia case to proceed because communications with state election officials may be considered unofficial conduct.
"I think it's hard to argue that when President Trump calls up the Georgia secretary of state and asks them to find votes that that's part of the president's official responsibilities," Schwinn said.
However, the Georgia case has also been roiled by a bid by Trump and other co-defendants to have district attorney Fani Willis disqualified following revelations that she had a romantic relationship with the man she hired as a special prosecutor.
Judge Scott McAfee rejected the bid and it is now before an appeals court.
Trump is accused in an indictment filed in Florida of endangering national security by holding onto top secret documents after leaving the White House.
Trump allegedly kept the files — which included records from the Pentagon and CIA — unsecured at his Mar-a-Lago home and thwarted efforts to retrieve them.
The charges include 31 counts of "willful retention of national defense information," each punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
He also faces charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice and making false statements.
District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, has already indefinitely postponed the trial and has shown herself to be "incredibly sympathetic" to the former president, Rangappa said.
"She appears to be looking for any way out or at least any way to delay it," she said. "She now has a hook."
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