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Anyone who expected the Supreme Court to give clear guidance on the extent to which former President Donald Trump can be tried (and tried and tried) for the crimes of which he has been accused must surely be disappointed with the complexity of what the justices decided in Trump v. United States. The case was sent back to the lower courts for further proceedings.
But clarity shouldn’t have been expected, not least because there are, essentially, no precedents.
There’s much in Chief Justice John Roberts’s majority opinion to hearten the former president — part of the indictment brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith will be dismissed. But the prosecution, too, gets an important a piece of what it wanted.
And although the decision is being reported as a big win for Trump, I’m not sure that’s so.
To begin with, the court rightly rejected Trump’s absurd position that a former president can’t be prosecuted for his conduct in office unless he has been impeached and removed. The court also rightly rejected the absurd position of the special counsel that the president enjoys no immunity at all.
It’s obvious to everyone that a president cannot do the job if subject to the whims of any prosecutor who might decide to indict him after his term ends for a crime he supposedly committed in office; it’s equally obvious to everyone (well, almost everyone) that the same president, job to do or not, can’t be permitted to pull out a gun and shoot somebody for annoying him.