President Joe Biden criticized the Supreme Court’s decision granting former and future presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts on the grounds that this confers executive office, and possibly Donald Trumpthe power “to do what he wants, when he wants to do it.”
Speaking from the Cross Hall of the White House on Monday evening, Biden criticized the decision of the six Republican-appointed justices who said presidents cannot cope criminal prosecution for official actsThe Supreme Court took up the case at the request of Trump, who is currently under indictment for illegally trying to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden.
Biden said the court’s decision “changed in every way, for all practical purposes” the principle that no man is above the law in America.
“This is a fundamentally new principle, and it is a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be limited by law… the only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone,” Biden said.
Referring to the genesis of the case Trump’s Legal Team had brought to court — the January 6 riot instigated by Trump to block the certification of Biden’s victory in the 2020 election — the president called it one of the darkest days in American history.
“The man who sent that mob to the U.S. Capitol now faces criminal conviction for what happened that day, and the American people deserve an answer in court before the next election,” he said.
Biden added that the court had done “a great disservice to the people of this nation” by effectively blocking any chance that Trump could be tried linked to the January 6 riot.
“The American people must now do what the Court should have been willing to do, but will not,” he continued.
“The American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s attack on our democracy on January 6th makes him unfit for public office…the American people must decide that Trump’s use of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide whether they want to re-entrust Donald Trump as president now, knowing that he will be more emboldened to do what he wants, when he wants.” Biden said.
The president’s remarks came less than 12 hours after the court issued its decision, in which a 6-3 majority rejected Trump’s suggestion of blanket immunity but said some of the actions described in the federal election interference indictment were related to his official acts and were protected.
“The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything he does is unofficial. The President is not above the law. But Congress cannot criminalize the President’s conduct in the exercise of the executive branch’s responsibilities under the Constitution,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority.
The court’s conservative majority granted him “presumptive immunity” for actions that the former president said fell within the “outer perimeter” of his official duties.
“Such immunity is necessary to preserve the independence and effective functioning of the executive branch, and to enable the President to exercise his constitutional functions without undue caution,” the justices wrote.
Biden, whose voice sounded much stronger than in his debate against Trump last week, concluded his speech by referring to Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s Dissentwhere she warned that Republican-appointed judges had made the president “a king above the law.”
“Out of fear for our democracy, I disagree…and so should the American people,” he said.
