The Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday met to examine for the first time a controversial Supreme Court ruling handing former President Donald Trump and future presidents broad legal immunity for official acts of office. In a hearing which brought together constitutional scholars and former Justice Department officials, Democrats who have bristled at the high court’s decision again made the case that it threatened constitutional separation of powers by shielding presidents from prosecution for a range of conduct if they can arguably be considered “official acts.” The Supreme Court held in July that presidents enjoy absolute legal immunity for their core powers and presumptive immunity for actions in the “outer perimeter” of their official duties — though the justices left the definition of official acts up for interpretation, Courthouse News reports. And the 6-3 decision also observed that Trump would be immune from prosecution for any conversations he may have had with Justice Department officials as he attempted to overturn the 2020 election, during which the former president tried to get the agency to pressure states to reconsider their electoral votes.
Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, one of the leading Democrats on Supreme Court oversight, blasted the immunity ruling as a “grandiose partisan leap,” and pointed out that the court’s majority opinion relied on a novel interpretation of legal immunity laid out in the Constitution. Whitehouse also suggested that the decision was key in helping Trump avoid a criminal trial before the presidential election. Vermont Senator Peter Welch pushed back on the perception that Democrats’ opposition to the immunity ruling chipped away at the powers of the presidency. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, the GOP's ranking member on the Judiciary Committee, suggests that Democrats are targeting the court's conservative majority as political retaliation for a series of recent rulings. In the weeks after the Supreme Court’s July decision, Democrats unveiled legislation aimed at papering over the justices’ ruling on presidential immunity. The No Kings Act, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, would affirm that presidents do not have immunity for actions that violate U.S. criminal law. The measure would also block the high court from litigating a president’s challenges to their legal immunity.
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