Schumer Moves To Blow Up Trump Immunity Ruling

 Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) unveiled on Thursday legislation that seeks to nullify the favorable Supreme Court ruling former President Donald Trump received last month on the issue of presidential immunity as he runs another campaign for the White House.

The “No Kings Act” would affirm no president or vice president, former or sitting, would be “entitled to any form of immunity (whether absolute, presumptive, or otherwise) from criminal prosecution for alleged violations of the criminal laws of the United States unless specified by Congress.”

Trump scored a victory one month ago when the Supreme Court ruled Trump’s claim of presidential immunity to shield himself from federal prosecution in a 2020 election case was valid for official acts, but not unofficial conduct, and handed the matter back to a lower court to parse out.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case in D.C., initially ruled against the immunity claim by saying Trump’s “four-year service as Commander in Chief did not bestow on him the divine right of kings to evade the criminal accountability that governs his fellow citizens.”

Schumer’s bill would also remove the high court’s appellate jurisdiction in legal challenges against the legislation. In addition to other restraints on constitutional challenges, the bill would allow the federal government to file actions in the “applicable” district court or the one in Washington, D.C.

The legislation “would be the fastest and most efficient method to correcting the grave precedent the Trump ruling presented. With this glaring and partisan overreach, Congress has an obligation – and a constitutional authority – to act as a check and balance to the judicial branch,” Schumer said.

A release from Schumer’s office said the legislation, as of Thursday, had 34 co-sponsors. They included Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), who was a co-chairman of President Joe Biden’s now-defunct re-election campaign.

 

The bill faces long odds of making it through Congress, as Republicans control the House and generally have been aligned with Trump. Democrats control the Senate, thanks to the small number of independents who caucus with them. However, the power balance could shift after the election.

Biden also revealed this week a proposal to reform the Supreme Court that included term limits, an enforceable ethics code, and a push for an amendment to crack down on presidential immunity. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) responded by calling the plan “dead on arrival” in the House.

Trump has begun using the Supreme Court’s ruling on immunity to fight a quartet of prosecutions. After being convicted in a New York hush-money case in May, a judge agreed to postpone sentencing until September, while Trump sought to reverse the verdict, citing the immunity decision.