The Supreme Court decision granting Donald Trump broad criminal immunity has had no shortage of critics. But it’s still notable that a federal judge just came out with an op-ed in The Washington Post blasting the ruling authored by Chief Justice John Roberts.
In the opinion piece published Monday, Stephen S. Trott, a senior judge on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, wrote:
Under the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity, could President Richard M. Nixon have legally ordered his Plumbers to burgle the office of Daniel Ellsberg’s psychiatrist? Might they all have gotten away with it? It certainly looks that way to me, and I have a particular interest in this matter. As a young lawyer in the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office in 1971, I oversaw the burglary indictment of senior White House officials and White House operatives for breaking into the Beverly Hills office of Dr. Lewis Fielding.
It’s worth underscoring here that Trott was appointed to the federal bench by a Republican president, Ronald Reagan. He wrote that the result of the ruling from the court’s GOP majority in Trump v. United States is that: “The president and his agents are free to break the laws that apply to every other person in the nation.”
Not just the fact but the breadth of Trott’s critique is noteworthy, in his estimation of how the ruling would apply beyond former presidents.
Not just the fact but the breadth of Trott’s critique is noteworthy, in his estimation of how the ruling would apply beyond former presidents. That’s because a question raised by the immunity decision is whether and how it would extend beyond Trump (or another former president), because the decision focused on former presidents. The issue could need further clarification from the justices if it arises in a case against someone who was allegedly engaged in criminality with or at the direction of a president.
At any rate, Trott’s criticism is correct as he concludes: “Nowhere in the Constitution or the Federalist is there any provision, suggestion, or hint that the president can with impunity commit crimes against the state or lawlessly abuse citizens without recourse. But that is what the Supreme Court has left us: a kingdom within our republic.”
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