Former US President Donald Trump has appreciated the US Supreme Court's ruling on the scope of presidential immunity saying that former US presidents cannot be prosecuted for official actions taken while in office.
Trump faces criminal charges over his actions during the final days of his presidency, which includes attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
On July 1, the US top court gave Trump a partial victory, ruling that “he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity.”
The ruling can potentially delay two criminal cases of Trump beyond the presidential elections in November, since a lower court will first hear arguments on what constitutes an official action.
“Here, the court says the president is still subject to the law, but they’ve made that much, much narrower than it ever was before. These are certainly the kinds of powers that are much more familiar to dictators than they are to presidents of democratic countries, David Super, a law professor at Georgetown University was quoted as saying by Al-Jazeera.
The Supreme Court’s six conservative justices approved the ruling while their three liberal counterparts opposed it.
The timing of the trial is crucial because if Trumps wins the presidential election, he can appoint an attorney general who would seek the dismissal of this case and the other federal prosecutions he faces. In another scenario, he could even order a pardon for himself.
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has criticized the ruling on presidential immunity saying that the princliples on which the country was founded has been changed.
"This nation was founded on the principle that there are no kings in America. But with the Supreme Court decision, that fundamentally changed," Biden said.
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