Supreme Court rules Trump is entitled to some immunity in January 6 case

Our live coverage of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling has concluded. Please scroll through the posts below for details on what happened on Monday. And read our takeaways here.

President Joe Biden on Monday ripped the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, which ruled that presidents have an absolute immunity from prosecution for core official acts, and issued a stern warning over a possible second term for former President Donald Trump.

Biden repeatedly warned that the limits of the president’s power now solely rest with the choices made by the holder of the office. He said Trump would be a danger in that role.

Read more about Biden’s speech

With its immunity ruling on Monday, the Supreme Court granted former President Donald Trump’s wish of all but guaranteeing that his criminal trial for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election will not go to trial before the 2024 election in November.

It also granted presidents in general a definitive “absolute immunity” from prosecution for core official acts and said presidents should be presumed immune for a much more expansive list of acts.

In the view of the majority comprised of the six conservative justices on the court, the decision does not place presidents in general, and Trump in particular, above the law. But the three liberals dissented with a warning about how elevating a president will affect American democracy.

The decision has the near-term result of delaying Trump’s trial while a court in Washington, DC, considers which criminal activity that Trump is accused of can be considered “unofficial.” It also has the long-term effect of placing presidents in a different system of justice than other Americans.

Here are some key lines from a landmark ruling:

Read more of the analysis of the Supreme Court’s ruling here.

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As last summer came to a close, the four criminal cases that had been brought against former President Donald Trump posed both extraordinary political peril as well as the very real threat that the 2024 Republican White House front-runner would be convicted by multiple juries before the first ballot was cast.

What a difference a year made — or, perhaps more accurately, didn’t make.

With Monday’s Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling likely preventing a trial in the federal election subversion case before the election, Trump is poised to avoid pre-election trials in the three most significant criminal prosecutions he faces.

He was convicted in the fourth. But the hush money case brought by the Manhattan district attorney was widely viewed as the least serious and most tangential to the choice voters will make on November 5, as it used a controversial legal theory to target conduct that has been publicly known for nearly a decade.

It is possible that he won’t even receive prison time in the case.

Americans will go to the polls this fall without a verdict on whether Trump broke federal and state laws by seeking to overturn the 2020 election, or whether his hoarding of sensitive government documents post-presidency violated national security statutes.

November’s election will not only select the country’s next leader. It will determine Trump’s legal fate. If elected, it’s widely expected that Trump will make the federal prosecutions against him go away, either by ordering his attorney general to dismiss them or by pardoning himself.

Read more about how the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling impacted Trump’s criminal cases.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, a potential running mate to President Donald Trump, on Monday called the Supreme Court’s ruling that Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts “a big win” for the country.

The Republican governor argued that the court’s ruling “isn’t a ruling for President Trump” but “for presidents.”

“This ruling also protects Joe Biden from immunity against official acts in office and we need to have immunity for presidents of the United States, particularly when we’re in times, like we are now, we’re conducting war in these proxy wars around the world,” he said.

He accused Democrats of being upset over the ruling because “they see it as stopping what they were actually doing, which was political warfare” against Trump, as the court’s decision will likely further delay a trial on the federal election subversion charges against Trump.

Asked what he would’ve done if he were in former Vice President Mike Pence’s shoes on January 6, 2021, Burgum said, “This hypothetical is one that’s not going to happen. President Trump, he wins, he serves four years. He won’t be on the ballot again.”

After the Supreme Court on Friday limited the Justice Department’s ability to pursue obstruction charges against January 6 defendants, prosecutors are now trying to parse out what the decision means for the affected cases. 

In one case against alleged Oath Keeper Donovan Crowl, prosecutors asked Monday for a one- to two-month delay in his sentencing, citing the need “to evaluate the impact of the Court’s decision in Fischer on the defendant’s case.” 

Prosecutors, in their request to delay, said that the Supreme Court did not “reject the application” of the obstruction statute “to January 6” as a whole. 

Within hours of the Supreme Court ruling in the Joseph Fischer case, trial-level judges in the DC District Court started reopening cases against January 6 rioters, indicating they may be re-sentenced.  

The Justice Department has indicted in several cases that it needs more time to consider the impact of the Fischer opinion. Prosecutors also may try to shore up the evidence in some January 6 cases to meet the standard set by the Supreme Court.

According to the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC, about 249 cases involved the obstruction charge out of more than 1,400 people charged in the Capitol riot. 

Following a bench trial before Federal Judge Amit Mehta in July of last year, Crowl was found guilty of two counts, including conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, the charge at the center of the Supreme Court decision. 

In March, Mehta initially allowed Crowl’s sentencing to be delayed until after the Supreme Court decided on the Fischer case, after a request from his defense attorney. 

In a separate January 6 case on Monday, defendant Thomas Robertson — a former Virginia police officer who was sentenced to more than seven years for his actions on January 6 — has asked the federal judge overseeing his case to hold a re-sentencing hearing in the wake of the Fischer decision.  

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis looks on during a hearing in the case of the State of Georgia v. Donald John Trump at the Fulton County Courthouse on March 1, 2024, in Atlanta.

The Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity could reshape the criminal case against former President Donald Trump in Georgia related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the Peach State.

The Georgia case has been paused while an appeals court weighs whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified – an unrelated decision that is not expected to come until after the November presidential election.

If Willis is allowed to remain on the case, proceedings at the trial court level would be allowed to resume – meaning Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee would have to go through the same analysis on presidential immunity that the US Supreme Court is requiring in the federal election subversion case. Under that test, Trump is entitled to some immunity for official acts as president and none for unofficial acts.

Trump’s lead attorney in the Georgia case, Steve Sadow, argued in January that the state-level charges should be dismissed on immunity grounds.

Prosecutors had been waiting for the Supreme Court to weigh in before responding to Sadow’s motion.

Willis’ office did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on Monday.

CNN legal analyst Michael Moore said the Supreme Court decision will undoubtedly complicate the Georgia case, noting that evidence related to official acts – that the justices said are immune from prosecution – would be excluded from the Georgia case, too.

That “creates a major problem in the Georgia case because Willis is relying largely on the state’s anti-racketeering statute,” Moore said.

“The usual benefit of that charge is that each defendant can be held accountable for the bad acts of their co-defendants,” Moore said, but if certain Trump conduct is not considered criminal, “how can the co-defendants have conspired to commit criminal acts?” he added.

But Anthony Michael Kreis, an attorney who has closely monitored the Georgia RICO case, said the impact on the case “should be minimal.”

“By and large, because the crux of the alleged criminality rests on Trump reaching out to state officials seeking a particular electoral outcome for his private benefit, the overall impact should be minimal because that conduct falls outside the ambit of official presidential functions,” he said.

Defense attorneys in the Georgia case say any decision from McAfee on presidential immunity would be subject to appeal, potentially all the way back up to the US Supreme Court. Other issues, like the Supremacy Clause, could also come into play.

More than four hours after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, the White House shared a brief reaction.

That statement does not invoke former President Donald Trump, but obliquely references what it casts as Trump’s efforts to tear down the justice system.

The Biden campaign shared a more fulsome statement minutes after the ruling was issued.

In the majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts justified the partial granting of immunity to Donald Trump with an explanation that seemingly echoed one of former President Richard Nixon’s most infamous quotes from the Watergate era.

Roberts wrote that, “The ‘justifying purposes’ of the immunity … we recognize today, are not that the President must be immune because he is the President; rather, they are to ensure that the President can undertake his constitutionally designated functions effectively, free from undue pressures or distortions.”

This appeared to push back against the notion that the conservative majority was granting Trump, or any future president, special protection because of the fact that they are the president. It was evocative of Nixon’s widely panned assertion in a 1977 post-resignation interview that, “when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” 

Instead, Roberts said the decision was grounded in past rulings and writings from the Founding Fathers, including the Federalist Papers, which were cited by the majority.

People gather outside the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.

Here’s a look at the key takeaways from Monday’s historic Supreme Court ruling that granted Donald Trump partial immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case and handed the former president a significant win during his reelection bid.

Trump got a bigger win than expected: For starters, the Supreme Court ruled that for “core” presidential activity, Trump has the absolute immunity he had sought. The majority said that Trump’s conversations with the Justice Department – his efforts to try to get officials on board with his effort to overturn the election – were covered with absolute immunity. For other official actions and more routine powers held by the president, the court said there is at least some immunity and it largely deferred to lower courts to sort that out. That’s a process that could take weeks or even months. Perhaps even more important, the majority made clear that official acts cannot be considered at all as evidence in a potential trial, which could make it much harder for Smith to prevail.

What’s next in the federal case against Trump? The next steps are likely to be more hearings, written arguments and even proceedings with witness testimony and debates over evidence before US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC. Once Chutkan works through the legal issues, it’s possible that more appeals of her preliminary decisions could put the case on hold again – adding in significant delay.

Liberals tear into majority for creating “a king above the law”: The nation’s long-held principle that no one is above the law was washed away by a ruling that means that in “every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said as she took the rare step of reading her dissent from the bench on Monday in a move that underscored how aggrieved the liberal bloc of the court is. “With fear for our democracy, I dissent,” she wrote at the end of her 30-page dissent.

Trump’s nominee Barrett pushes for a swift trial: Justice Amy Coney Barrett, Trump’s last appointee to the high court before leaving office, expressed frustration with how the court was sending the case back to lower courts for more proceedings and more delay in a short concurrence that failed to gain support from any of her colleagues.

Posterity vs. Trump: There was a clear tension through the course of the case between justices who wanted to limit the decision to the facts surrounding Trump’s effort to overturn the election and the broader concerns about presidential immunity for all future presidents. In the end, Roberts repeatedly framed the court’s decision as one made for posterity rather than any single president. The immunity, he wrote, “applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office, regardless of politics, policy, or party.”

Read more takeaways on the Supreme Court ruling here.

CNN’s Katelyn Polantz contributed to this report.

A close look at the majority opinion, the concurrences and dissents — which span nearly 120 pages in total — show how Donald Trump’s boundary-pushing tenure forced the nation’s highest courts to grapple with how much power our presidents should have.

On nearly 20 occasions, the opinions cite previous Trump-related rulings that addressed questions about his susceptibility to state criminal investigations, congressional probes about his personal, and his potential civil liability for the January 6, 2021, insurrection.

The Supreme Court ruling in Trump v. Vance — a landmark 2020 case that said state prosecutors can subpoena a sitting president as part of a criminal investigation — is mentioned at least 11 times in Monday’s opinions. That case stemmed from Trump’s efforts to resist a subpoena in the New York state inquiry into his business dealings.

The majority on Monday cited the Vance case to point to the “unrivaled gravity and breadth” of the presidency, and that “the independence of the Executive Branch” might be undercut if it was routinely under criminal scrutiny. They raised these points while concluding that Trump has some immunity in his federal election subversion indictment. 

The justices’ opinions repeatedly brought up Trump v. Mazars, another Supreme Court ruling about Trump’s efforts to resist a congressional subpoena. They also referenced a consequential DC Circuit Court of Appeals decision about Trump’s potential liability for January 6, in civil cases brought by police officers and lawmakers.

All of these cases helped define the bounds of presidential immunity from legal scrutiny.

Federal prosecutors and courts need to keep “moving forward” with the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump, even with the Supreme Court’s immunity decision, Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina said on Monday.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took in the waning days of his presidency in a decision that will likely further delay a trial on federal election subversion charges pending against him. 

Rep. Bennie Thompson is seen before a House Homeland Security Committee hearing titled "Havoc in the Heartland: How Secretary Mayorkas' Failed Leadership Has Impacted the States," at the US Capitol on January 10 in Washington, DC. 

Former January 6 Committee chairman Bennie Thompson called the Supreme Court “lawless and corrupt,” stating that the court has “chosen partisanship over their duty to do impartial justice.”  

As chairman of the select committee, Thompson played an integral role in dissecting Donald Trump’s involvement in the Capitol insurrection following his electoral loss.

The biggest question now that the Supreme Court has decided Donald Trump is entitled to some immunity from prosecution: What happens next in special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case against the former president?

Assuming Smith stays the course, written arguments and even proceedings with witness testimony and evidence are likely to be next before US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC.

The special counsel’s office has not responded yet publicly to the decision, and there is nothing at the moment on Chutkan’s docket indicating what next steps will be taken in the trial court.

Those are likely to come in the days after the Supreme Court hands the opinion down formally to the federal courts in DC. The mechanism for sending a case back down usually takes as a long as a month, but the high court could act more quickly — particularly if a party asks it to.

Once Chutkan works through the legal issues, it’s possible that more appeals could put the case on hold again. This is why it may be unlikely for Trump to go to trial this year, if at all. But courts can be hard to predict.

Where does immunity apply? The Supreme Court put one set of allegations against Trump — regarding his and his allies’ efforts to weaponize the Justice Department — in the bucket of absolute immunity.

For the several other categories of allegations, Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion said that the lower courts will have to go through a process of “fact-specific” and perhaps “challenging” analysis.

The Supreme Court said that that Trump’s pressure campaign on then-Vice President Mike Pence to help him overturn the election is “presumptively” immune, and put the burden on the prosecutors to rebut the presumptive immunity.

As for Trump’s state-level efforts to overturn the results, including the fake electors scheme, the high court told lower courts to analyze what of that conduct was an official act and what was not. Roberts said that analysis will require an “assessment of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private persons.”

Read more about the implications of the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and catch up on the four criminal cases Trump faces.

Donald Trump’s legal team will likely use Monday’s SCOTUS opinion as they challenge the New York hush money criminal verdict itself on appeal, a source familiar with their thinking tells CNN.

Trump’s team thinks the SCOTUS option could be used to challenge portions of Hope Hicks testimony as well as some of the tweets entered in as evidence, according to the source familiar.

CNN earlier reported the Trump team sees the opinion as “a major victory” because in addition to using it to try to get charges tossed, they can also use this opinion to get evidence related to official acts tossed in all cases — not just federal — which can hurt prosecutors’ ability to prove what charges are left.

Remember: The hush money case and 2020 election subversion case, which is at the center of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, are two of four criminal cases Trump faces while running again for president.

While the Supreme Court said that presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts, the justices didn’t define exactly what actions are official and which are unofficial.

But the high court did address a few of former President Donald Trump’s actions:

Chief Justice John Roberts said the trial court will have to assess what of Trump’s alleged conduct is immunized under the new test handed down by the high court, and the opinion said that additional briefing will be needed for the trial court to do so.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent claims that the majority’s ruling would allow presidents to be immune from prosecution should they order Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival, organize a military coup to hold onto power or accept a bribe in exchange for a pardon.

“President is now a king above the law,” Sotomayor declared. Justices Jackson and Kagan also joined this dissent.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaks to journalists following a roundtable discussion on Supreme Court Ethics conducted by Democrats of the House Oversight and Accountability Committee at the Rayburn House Office Building on June 11 in Washington, DC.

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said she plans to file articles of impeachment given the Supreme Court ruling on Monday that would give Donald Trump limited immunity against criminal prosecution based on his time in office.

It’s unclear who Ocasio-Cortez plans to file impeachment against, but she has been active in efforts to increase accountability from the Supreme Court and investigate potential ethics violations of its justices.

Ocasio-Cortez first called for Justice Clarence Thomas’ impeachment on X in 2023 following a bombshell ProPublica report that detailed his travel paid for by Republican donor Harlan Crow, which included trips on the donor’s yacht and private jet.

Also last year, she reiterated on the impeachment call in an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union,” asking for an inquiry into the matter and saying it was “the House’s responsibility to pursue that investigation in the form of impeachment.”

The post was updated with background on Ocasio-Cortez’s previous statements regarding the Supreme Court.

Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison said the Supreme Court’s decision that Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took as president “underscores the stakes of this election.”

“It’s hard to believe, but Trump has only become more unhinged in the years since he lost to Joe Biden, promising to be a dictator on ‘day one,’ suggesting the ‘termination’ of our Constitution to overturn valid election results, and warning of a ‘bloodbath’ if he loses again. The only thing standing between Donald Trump and his threats to our democracy is President Biden – and the American people will stand once again on the side of democracy this November,” the DNC chair said.

The Supreme Court has “stripped the guardrails of democracy,” former Republican Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois said in a post on X following this morning’s immunity decision

Speaking to CNN’s Dana Bash, Kinzinger described the Supreme Court’s ruling as “really disappointing.” 

While he accepted that there had to be some immunity for presidents, he said he believed the Supreme Court should have dispatched the case quickly, and could not understand the delay in handing down the decision.

More background: The former representative served as one of two GOP members on the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot. The panel concluded its work in December 2022 and laid out a case for the DOJ and the public that there is evidence to pursue charges against Trump on multiple criminal statutes.

Last week, Kinzinger announced he was endorsing Biden as president.

House Speaker Mike Johnson talks to reporters at the US Capitol on June 28, in Washington, DC. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Monday that the recent Supreme Court ruling, which grants Donald Trump limited immunity on actions taken during his presidency, is a “victory” in Trump’s favor.

Johnson’s words echo Trump’s narrative that the efforts by special counsel Jack Smith were politicized, which has caught wind among Republican lawmakers and justices. The House Appropriations Committee released a proposal last week that would involve nearly $1 billion in cuts to the Justice Department.

Meanwhile, Justice Clarence Thomas on Monday raised questions about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the Constitution when he appointed Jack Smith as special counsel. 

Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell — and two of the top contenders for his leadership position next Congress, Senate GOP Whip John Thune and Sen. John Cornyn — have not weighed in yet on the Supreme Court’s decision.

The Biden campaign said the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity “doesn’t change the facts,” and doubled down on allegations that former President Donald Trump “snapped” when he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

The Biden campaign also attacked the “conflicted and compromised” Supreme Court Monday after its ruling that presidents have immunity for “official acts,” and accused the court of handing former President “Donald Trump the keys to a dictatorship.” 

“Donald Trump is still the single greatest threat to our democracy,” Officer Harry Dunn, a former US Capitol police officer who was on duty during the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack said during a Biden-Harris campaign call with the media. “It’s true even more, even more, and especially with this ruling right now.” 

Dunn said he didn’t “need nine Supreme Court justices to tell me that Donald Trump was responsible for January 6” and said a pro-Trump mob attacked the Capitol “in his name, on his orders.” 

New York Rep. Dan Goldman, who ran the first impeachment against Trump, said the “decision by the conflicted and compromised, Supreme Court has set back our democracy dramatically.” The congressman said that if Joe Biden is not elected in November “we will not have a democracy that we have known for 250 years.”

Asked if Biden himself would speak about the decision — and if his level of public activity would increase after last week’s widely panned debate performance — Quentin Fulks, Biden-Harris 2024 principal deputy campaign manager, said he didn’t have any events to announce.  

This post has been updated with additional reactions from the Biden campaign.

No cameras are allowed inside the US Supreme Court while opinions are read, but sketch artist Bill Hennessy captured the scene.

Here are some of the sketches:

Members of the media and public watch as the US Supreme Court reads opinions on July 1 in Washington, DC.

United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts speaks on July 1 in Washington, DC.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan speaks on July 1 in Washington, DC.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks on July 1, in Washington, DC.

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson speaks on July 1 in Washington, DC.

In a landmark decision with implications on the presidential race, six Supreme Court justices ruled that Donald Trump should have limited immunity from criminal prosecution, specifically on “official” actions taken during his presidency, punting it to the lower courts to determine what actions are considered official or unofficial. Three justices dissented.

Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett made up the majority opinion, while Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson made up the minority.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer looks on during a news conference on June 5 in Washington, DC. 

Shortly after the Supreme Court’s decision, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer condemned the majority’s ruling, calling it “a sad day for our democracy.”

The New York Democrat also said “the very basis of our judicial system is that no one is above the law. Treason or incitement of an insurrection should not be considered a core constitutional power afforded to a president.”

Other congressional Democrats have also expressed outrage over the decision.

Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries said in a statement that the immunity decision “sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation.”

Jeffries added, “No one, including the twice-impeached former President, should be above the law. The Constitution is sacredly obligatory upon all. That’s what makes America special.”

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dubbed the ruling as “disastrous,” blaming an “extreme right-wing Supreme Court” for drastically weakening “accountability if a president attempts to use their office for criminal purposes.”

Rep. Frederica Wilson of Texas criticized the court, accusing them of not upholding the tenant of “equal justice under law.” She also highlighted that three Trump-appointed justices sided with the former president in the ruling.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi also slammed the court’s decision. “Today, the Supreme Court has gone rogue with its decision, violating the foundational American principle that no one is above the law,” the California Democrat said. Adding that the court put itself on “trial with this decision — and its credibility has been further diminished in the eyes of all those who believe in the rule of law.”

This post has been updated with additional reactions from Democrats.

Demonstrators, members of the media, and bystanders gather outside the Supreme Court on July 1 in Washington, DC.

The tension inside the Supreme Court’s ornate courtroom was palpable from the minute the justices took their seats on Monday. 

As she announced the first opinion of the day – a case dealing with a Federal Reserve regulation – Justice Amy Coney Barrett quipped that she knew it wasn’t the decision everyone was waiting on, prompting chuckles from inside the room. 

Minutes later, as Chief Justice John Roberts read the majority opinion in the immunity case, veteran Supreme Court litigator Michael Dreeben, who represented the special counsel in the case, vigorously took notes but wore a poker face that revealed little about his thoughts.

Justice Clarence Thomas sat upright and uncharacteristically still throughout the reading of the opinion – a stark contrast to the beginning of the hearing, when the stalwart conservative was leaning far back in his chair, as he often does, rocking back contemplatively. 

Justice Brett Kavanaugh listened attentively, looking directly at Roberts and Justice Sonia Sotomayor as they read their respective opinions the courtroom. Others took notes and occasionally looked down or off into the courtroom. 

Perhaps underscoring the jitters that can often accompany such an historic moment, Roberts misspoke while thanking his colleagues, referring to them as his “employees” before correcting himself. 

The courtroom and justices erupted into laughter – a sharp relief from the atmosphere of tense anticipation that characterized the morning. 

Roberts read through the administrative announcements after all of the opinions were released, noting that the court would hand down an orders list on Tuesday morning.

J.D. Vance shakes hands with former President Donald Trump during a rally hosted by the former president at the Delaware County Fairgrounds on April 23, 2022 in Delaware, Ohio.

GOP Sen. JD Vance, one of Donald Trump’s possible VP contenders, posted on X that the Supreme Court’s immunity decision is, “a massive win, not just for Trump but the rule of law. I’m still digesting but this may well destroy all of Jack Smith’s case against the president.”

Vance included a picture of Trump’s reaction to the ruling within his post, where he wrote on Truth Social, “BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND DEMOCRACY.”

United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas 

Conservative Justice Clarence Thomas, who joined the court’s majority opinion, wrote separately to raise questions about whether Attorney General Merrick Garland violated the Constitution when he appointed Jack Smith as special counsel. 

Pushing fringe legal theory about the legality of Smith’s appointment in 2022 has been part of Donald Trump’s defense strategy in his classified documents criminal case in Florida, which also was brought by the special counsel. Trump’s attorneys have argued that Garland does not have legal authority to appoint someone as special counsel who hasn’t been confirmed by the Senate. 

Thomas, too, appears to support that argument.  

No other justice joined Thomas’ concurrence.

Chief Justice John Roberts picked up and embraced one of the central themes raised by former President Donald Trump in his arguments: That allowing prosecutors to look back at actions taken by a former president would potentially chill his ability to do the job.  

“And if a former president’s official acts are routinely subjected to scrutiny in criminal prosecutions, “the independence of the executive branch” may be significantly undermined. 

More context: Throughout the course of the oral arguments in April, several justices were keen to separate the broader constitutional questions raised by the case from the specifics of Trump’s case. Their decision, they said, was focused on what happens in the future.  

“The president is not above the law,” Roberts wrote. “But Congress may not criminalize the president’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the executive branch under the Constitution.” 

This post has been updated with more details from the opinion.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise praised the Supreme Court’s immunity decision in a statement on Monday.

GOP Sen. John Barrasso also hailed the Supreme Court’s decision as a “victory for democracy against Democrat lawlessness.”

“The election will be decided at the ballot box, not in a courtroom,” Barrasso wrote on social media.

Former US President Donald Trump walks on stage to deliver the keynote address at the Faith & Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Policy Conference at the Washington Hilton on June 22, in Washington, DC.

Former President Donald Trump hailed the Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, calling it a big win for the Constitution and democracy.

Trump’s legal team called the court’s decision a “major victory” and said they believe it is possible that Jack Smith’s case is now completely undermined because any communication the former president had with then-Vice President Mike Pence or Department of Justice officials could be considered official, precluding it from being introduced at trial. 

The team also said it could even help Trump in the classified documents case.

Remember: The initial view from the legal team does not necessarily mean that’s how the legal process will ultimately play out.

This post has been updated with additional reactions from Trump’s legal.

In one rare win for special counsel Jack Smith, the Supreme Court easily rejected Trump’s suggestion that he couldn’t be prosecuted criminally because he was not impeached and convicted by Congress.

Trump had argued the Constitution’s impeachment clause meant that only presidents who were impeached and removed from office could be prosecuted.   

But Roberts said that would mean that a president who evades impeachment for one reason or another,” such as by resigning from office before an impeachment proceeding got underway, would “never be held accountable for his criminal acts.” 

Trump speaks to supporters from The Ellipse near the White House on January 6, 2021, in Washington, DC. 

There’s a lot of legal jargon to get your head around today, so here’s a quick reminder what the Trump immunity case centers around in the first place.

The initial indictment that was appealed to the Supreme Court relates to former President Donald Trump and his allies alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The indictment alleges Trump and a co-conspirator “attempted to exploit the violence and chaos at the Capitol by calling lawmakers to convince them … to delay the certification” of the election.

It also alleges another co-conspirator pushed then-Vice President Mike Pence to “violate the law” to delay President Joe Biden’s victory.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all four counts, and sought immunity from the charges. His initial attempts to seek immunity were rejected in February, but today the Supreme Court found he should have immunity from decisions taken in a professional capacity. It will now be up to lower courts to decide what actions count as professional actions, rather than personal.

While it’s unclear how lower courts will decide which elements of the indictment Trump can be granted immunity for, one crucial piece of evidence relates to a January 2, 2021, phone call between then-President Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

In the call, Trump “lied” in an attempt “to induce him” to overturn the election and find the exact number of votes to flip his defeat in Georgia, prosecutors said in the indictment.

Special counsel Jack Smith arrives to speak to members of the media at the US Department of Justice building in Washington, DC, on August 1, 2023.

The court made clear that unofficial actions do not receive immunity and special counsel Jack Smith has long made clear that he feels he could continue the case based on those unofficial actions. In that sense, if Smith narrowed his indictment, lower courts could hear the Trump trial this year.  

But the court also left a lot of work for lower courts to sort out on what constitutes an official act versus a private one.  

“Certain allegations – such as those involving Trump’s discussions with the Acting Attorney General — are readily categorized in light of the nature of the president’s official relationship to the office held by that individual,” Roberts wrote. “Other allegations – such as those involving Trump’s interactions with the vice president, state officials, and certain private parties, and his comments to the general public – present more difficult questions,” Roberts wrote.  

But Roberts said lower courts that must decide whether those actions “are subject to immunity, that analysis ultimately is best left to the lower courts to perform in the first instance.” 

Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law, said the discussion of evidence makes it even more difficult for the special counsel.

“Even more striking than the majority’s recognition of both categorical immunity from ‘core’ acts and ‘presumptive’ immunity from other official acts is the Court’s insistence that immunized conduct can’t even be used as evidence​ in a trial for conduct for which a former president is not otherwise immune,” Vladeck said.

“That’s a huge issue both in Trump’s case and going forward, because it will make it much harder to prove that former presidents committed crimes for which they can be tried, even if they’re not necessarily immune from being tried for such offenses,” he added.

Rep. Jim Jordan attends a press conference on June 12, in Washington, DC.

Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, a staunch ally of Donald Trump’s, has taken aim at special counsel Jack Smith following the Supreme Court’s decision that Trump could claim immunity for some actions he took while he was president.

Jordan called Smith “hyper-partisan” and claimed the decision showed he could not “weaponize the rule of law to go after the Administration’s chief political rival.”

“We hope that the Left will stop its attacks on President Trump and uphold democratic norms,” he wrote on X.

Former President Donald Trump will likely not face court before the November election for charges relating to his role in attempting to reverse the election result in 2020, but the district judge will have to hold an evidentiary hearing, CNN’s legal analyst Elie Honig said.

But Honig said the case could have a series of implications for other legal matters, including the Georgia election subversion case brought against the former president.

“They’re going to have to contend with this immunity problem as well,” Honig said.

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on Tuesday, February 7, 2023.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote in a separate dissent that the majority’s ruling “breaks new and dangerous ground” by granting immunity “only to the most powerful official in our Government.”

She said that her conservative colleagues were “discarding” the nation’s long-held principle that no one is above the law.    

The liberal justice described the impact of the court’s ruling in dark terms, saying that “even a hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics or one who indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup, has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority’s new Presidential accountability model.”    

“In the end, then, under the majority’s new paradigm, whether the President will be exempt from legal liability for murder, assault, theft, fraud, or any other reprehensible and outlawed criminal act will turn on whether he committed that act in his official capacity, such that the answer to the immunity question will always and inevitably be: It depends,” Jackson wrote. 

United States Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett at the 2023 Antonin Scalia Memorial Dinner that is part of the Federalist Society's 2023 National Lawyers Convention at the Washington Hilton Hotel on November 9, 2023, in Washington, DC. 

In a concurrence, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020, expressed frustration with how the court was sending the case back down for more proceedings.   

“I would have framed the underlying legal issues differently,” Barrett said.  

She suggested that because Trump’s wholesale challenge to the indictment had failed, at least some of the case could go forward. 

Barrett took issue with how the court had ruled that evidence from Trump’s official acts should be excluded from the trial, writing that there was no reason to depart from the “familiar and time-tested procedure” that would allow for such evidence to be included. 

Presidential historian Tim Naftali said today’s decision would make it “much harder for the American people to protect themselves from a corrupt president.” 

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took in the waning days of his presidency. 

Naftali said that the fact that a district court had to decide which elements of Trump’s presidency had immunity was “chilling.”

Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion said that the trial court will have to assess what of Donald Trump’s alleged conduct is immunized under the new test handed down by the high court. 

The opinion said that additional briefing will be needed for the trial court to do so. 

Roberts said there was a lack of “factual analysis” in the previous lower court opinions rejecting Trump’s immunity. Roberts pushed back on a dissent from Jackson that “would have us exhaustively define every application of Presidential immunity.” 

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor speaks in December 2023.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor did not hold back in her dissent.

The justice did not end the dissent with the traditional “respectfully” language.

The Supreme Court’s decision allowing former President Donald Trump limited immunity in the January 6 case allows the Trump legal team to further litigate and potentially push the case past November, CNN chief legal correspondent Paula Reid noted.

In his majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts said that presidents do need immunity for their official acts.

But, the chief added, not everything is official.

“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law,” Roberts wrote. “But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.” 

The opinion was 6-3, with Chief Justice John Roberts writing the majority opinion and the three liberals dissenting.

Former President Donald Trump delivers remarks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland, on Saturday, February 24.

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Donald Trump may claim immunity from criminal prosecution for some of the actions he took in the waning days of his presidency in a decision that will likely further delay a trial on federal election subversion charges pending against him.  

In the most closely watched case before the Supreme Court this year, the ruling rejects a decision from a federal appeals court in February that found Trump enjoyed no immunity for alleged crimes he committed during his presidency to reverse the 2020 election results.  

The Supreme Court ruled Monday that former presidents are entitled to immunity from prosecution for official actions – but not his private conduct.  

CNN is continuing to review the decision.  

The Supreme Court Monday issued its ruling in the blockbuster dispute over whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges.  

CNN reporters are reviewing the decision and will bring you the top lines as soon as we get them here.

Read the decision here:

The Supreme Court Monday issued its ruling in the blockbuster dispute over whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges.  

Trump filed the appeal at the Supreme Court in February to stop Smith’s high-profile criminal case from moving forward.  

CNN is reviewing the decision.

Former President Donald Trump’s immunity challenge in the Supreme Court has the potential to be one of the hardest to parse for meaning in real time.

Here’s some possible outcomes:

No immunity: The simplest outcome would be for the Supreme Court to rule that former presidents are not entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution. That was the conclusion the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit reached in February in a unanimous opinion.

That ruling could allow Trump’s trial to get underway almost immediately.

Some degree of immunity: The justices could reach more broadly by granting some degree of immunity for “official” actions. Based on the oral arguments, it appeared there was support for doing so.

That outcome would raise a number of substantial questions, including what counts as an “official” action. Trump based most of his argument on a 1982 decision called Nixon v. Fitzgerald in which the Supreme Court ruled that presidents enjoy “absolute immunity” from civil lawsuits for official actions to the “outer perimeter” of their duties.

Sending the case back for trial: The Supreme Court’s decision could explicitly make clear that some of Trump’s actions were private. Or it could set a standard for lower courts to use to decide what’s official and what’s not. How the justices deal with that will determine how quickly – or whether – prosecutor Jack Smith’s case can proceed. It could also raise the possibility of further pre-trial legal wrangling, unless the Supreme Court explicitly ruled out appeals of those decisions.

Read more about what the case could mean here.

 Demonstrators rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on June 28 in Washington, DC. 

With the Supreme Court set to decide on Donald Trump’s immunity claims today, two recent polls show widespread negative views of the Supreme Court — with most of the public opposing the former president’s immunity claims.

In an AP-NORC poll released last week, just 16% of US adults expressed a great deal of confidence in the Supreme Court, with 44% saying they had only some confidence in the institution, and 40% that they had hardly any confidence at all. A 58% majority of Democrats reported having hardly any confidence in the Supreme Court.

About two-thirds of US adults said they had little or no confidence in the Court’s handling of presidential power and immunity (66%) or elections and voting (63%), similar to the numbers on other issues including abortion and gun policy. And 70% said they believed justices on the Supreme Court were “more likely to shape the law to fit their own ideologies,” with just 28% saying justices were “more likely to provide an independent check on other branches of government by being fair and impartial.”

A May survey from Marquette Law School found public approval of the Supreme Court standing at 39%, with 61% disapproving. The Court’s numbers have been consistently underwater in Marquette’s polling since the 2022 Dobbs decision.

US adults said, 60% to 30%, that Trump should not have immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, while those asked a broader question about whether “former presidents” should have immunity said, 71% to 16%, that they should not. A 61% majority of Republicans asked about Trump specifically said he should be immune from criminal prosecution.

The US Supreme Court on April 23 in Washington, DC.

During oral arguments in April, the Supreme Court appeared ready to reject former President Donald Trump’s claims of sweeping immunity and the broad protections he has sought to shut down his federal election subversion case, but also reluctant to give special counsel Jack Smith carte blanche to pursue those charges.

After nearly three hours of oral arguments, several of the justices seemed willing to embrace a result that could jeopardize the ability to hold a trial before the November election.

Much of the hearing focused on whether there should be a distinction between official acts by Trump pursuant to his presidential duties and his private conduct.

Here are key takeaways from today’s oral arguments:

Continue reading more takeaways from the arguments.

The Supreme Court’s most closely watched dispute this year — a case questioning whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges — also has the potential to be one of the hardest to parse for meaning in real time.

In between Trump’s initial demand for total immunity and an appeals court ruling earlier this year that found he’s entitled to no protection at all is a murky gap with massive practical implications for whether he can be tried before the November election.

At issue is special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 election, including with his actions on January 6, 2021, though the court’s decision could have implications for other criminal cases against Trump as well.

In addition to the bottom line ruling about whether Trump is immune from prosecution could be important clues about how quickly the matter will go to trial.

Read more about the case’s implications.

Former President Donald Trump claimed in an interview aired Monday that the Supreme Court’s ruling on his immunity case will have a “bigger impact on Joe Biden” as the nation’s highest court prepares to issue a decision on Monday resolving the question of whether Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges.

“The immunity statement that’s coming out, they say on Sunday, on Monday, that is going to be very interesting to see what happens, but I think it has a bigger impact on Joe Biden than it has on me, actually,” Trump said on The John Fredericks Show.

Trump did not give any reasons as to why it would have a bigger impact on Biden than himself.

For context: Trump has argued that without immunity, presidents would be hamstrung in office, always fearful of being second-guessed by a zealous prosecutor after leaving the White House.

Justices of the US Supreme Court during a formal group photograph at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC, on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022.

During oral arguments in April, it appeared that the majority of Supreme Court justices were not willing to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion case outright. However, they signaled that they may punt it back to lower courts, which would delay a trial and hand a strategic win to former President Donald Trump, CNN chief legal correspondent Paula Reid said.

“It’s pretty clear from what we heard that the majority of justices are not willing to just toss out the special counsel’s case,” Reid said after oral arguments in the case ended.

There is a possibility the case could be brought back to the justices a year from now “after more litigation at the lower-court level, or if Trump is reelected, he can make this case go away. So, even if he’s not likely poised for a legal win at the high court, strategically, it sounded like this is going to be a win for him,” Reid said.

Remember: The issue of determining whether Trump’s actions were “private” or “official” is central to the former president’s claim that his efforts to overturn the 2020 election were part of his official duties as president — and therefore subject to immunity from prosecution.

The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its final opinions of the term this morning, resolving the question of whether former President Donald Trump may claim immunity from federal election subversion charges.

Overstepping their unofficial end-of-June deadline by a single day, the nine justices will assemble on the bench for a final time before rising for their summer recess – likely leaving in their wake a flurry of legal wrangling over their last decisions.

By far, the case of greatest consequence that is still outstanding is the question of whether Trump is entitled to the sweeping immunity he is seeking from special counsel Jack Smith’s election subversion charges. Here are key things to know:

Read more about Trump’s immunity case ahead of today’s Supreme Court ruling.

Pro-Trump rioters rally at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 6, 2021.

The Supreme Court on Friday limited the power of prosecutors to pursue obstruction charges against those who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, narrowing a law that could have tacked years onto the sentences of hundreds of defendants.

The decision also has implications for former President Donald Trump, who was charged with the same crime — though that impact appears to be more limited than some initially predicted. 

Here are some key takeaways from the decision:

Charges against Trump are likely not affected: Even before the court’s decision was handed down Friday, Special Counsel Jack Smith made clear that the obstruction charges against Capitol rioters were based on different circumstances than the obstruction charge involved in Trump’s federal election interference case.

Smith has argued in court filings that the indictment’s allegations against Trump, particularly regarding the fraudulent electors plot, represent a far more sweeping case.

The Supreme Court’s opinion did not address the fake electors scheme specifically. But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, nodded to the possibility that the obstruction statute would be violated “by creating false evidence – rather than altering incriminating evidence.”

The likely best-case scenario, an adviser to Trump’s legal team told CNN, is that the new ruling weakens the obstruction charges against Trump, rather than prompting the charge to be dismissed.

Trump celebrates anyway and looks to immunity ruling: Politically, though, the former president — who has frequently sought to undercut the criminal justice system — appeared eager to frame the decision as a major loss for the Justice Department.

Trump called the decision a “BIG WIN!” on social media.

What is far more important for Trump is the Supreme Court’s pending decision on his argument for sweeping immunity on charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. That decision is expected to land Monday.

Read a full breakdown of the Supreme Court’s January 6 ruling.

Former President Donald Trump sits in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City, on May 30. Later that day, he was found guilty on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first of his criminal cases to go to trial.

Donald Trump was found guilty in May 2024 on 34 counts of falsifying business records in the hush money trial in Manhattan criminal court.

Trump became the first former president in US history to be convicted of a felony, and with his third presidential bid under way for 2024, the stakes are high for both him and the country.

Catch up on what you need to know about Trump’s four cases:

Here’s a recap of each case: 

Track the criminal cases against Trump.

Former President Donald Trump departs the courtroom after being found guilty on all 34 counts in his hush money trial at Manhattan Criminal Court on May 30, in New York City.

A Manhattan jury found Donald Trump guilty of all 34 charges of falsifying business records on May 30, an unprecedented and historic verdict that makes Trump the first former president in American history to be convicted of a felony.

Not only is Trump the first former president to be found guilty of a felony, he’s also the first major-party presidential nominee to be convicted of a crime in the midst of a campaign for the White House. And if he defeats President Joe Biden in November, he will be the first sitting president in history to be a convicted felon.

The verdict in the hush money trial was announced after jurors deliberated for nearly 12 hours over two days.

It will ultimately be up to voters in November to decide the significance of the guilty verdict delivered by 12 ordinary New Yorkers, which, on a legal basis, does not prevent him from being elected president again.

“This was a rigged, disgraceful trial. The real verdict is going to be November 5, by the people, and they know what happened here and everybody knows what happened here,” Trump said after leaving the courtroom, slamming the presiding judge and the prosecutor who brought the case. “We didn’t do anything wrong. I’m a very innocent man,” he said as he vowed to continue fighting.

Judge Juan Merchan set Trump’s sentencing date for July 11, 2024, at 10 a.m, just days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.

Read more about Trump’s conviction.