With Trump’s conviction by a New York jury on all 34 counts, there has been a lot of commentary to the effect that the judicial system worked. “ ,” Patrick Healy wrote in the . His colleague, the estimable Michelle Goldberg, in the same group discussion, added: “This is, I think, a reminder that Trump’s aura of invincibility can be pierced.
That he loses in court again and again and again.” And yet this was the least consequential of the four pending criminal cases against Trump. It involved fraudulent business dealings to disguise payoffs to a porn star, where the others, notably the Georgia election case and the federal case on the events of January 6th, involve stealing the Constitution.
But those other cases have been delayed into political oblivion. And some time in the next few days or weeks, the high court will hand down its ruling on whether a president is immune from prosecution entirely. , pro-Trump justices tried to fashion a distinction between a president’s acts in his official capacity, and other possibly illegal activities.
On that basis, Trump allies on the Court could contend that in his tampering with the Electoral College count in January 2021 or his blatant attempt to steal votes in Georgia, he was only trying, in his capacity as chief executive, to ensure the accuracy of the election and thus cannot be prosecuted. That of course is a whopper, in a long string of whoppers by the Roberts Court. In that respect, even though the general view has.
