WASHINGTON (AP) — On the left and right, Supreme Court justices seem to agree on a basic truth about the American system of government: No one is above the law, not even the president.
“The law applies equally to all persons, including a person who happens for a period of time to occupy the Presidency,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in 2020.
Less than a year earlier, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, then a federal trial judge, wrote, “Stated simply, the primary takeaway from the past 250 years of recorded American history is that Presidents are not kings.”
But former President Donald Trump and his legal team are putting that foundational belief to the test on Thursday when the high court takes up Trump’s bid to avoid prosecution over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden.
Trump’s lawyers argue that former presidents are entitled to absolute immunity for their official acts. Otherwise, they say, politically motivated prosecutions of former occupants of the Oval Office would become routine and presidents couldn’t function as the commander-in-chief if they had to worry about criminal charges.
Oklahoma prosecutors charge fifth member of anti
Protests at US campuses are pressing colleges to cut financial ties with Israel
Dairy cattle must be tested for bird flu before moving between states, agriculture officials say
A portrait by Gustav Klimt has been sold for $32 million at an auction in Vienna
Microsoft and Amazon face scrutiny from UK competition watchdog over recent AI deals
Pascal Siakam leads resurgent Pacers offense in 125
Los Angeles marches mark Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day
Wisconsin prison inmate pleads not guilty to killing cellmate
Xizang reports soaring exports of local agricultural specialties in Q1
Former Labour minister Frank Field dies from cancer aged 81: Tributes pour in for 'formidable' ex