When the Supreme Court set out to decide Donald Trump’s bid for presidential immunity, the justices were aiming to establish "a rule for the ages." Instead, the court left a muddle that both Trump and his prosecutors now hope to exploit. Their efforts may send the case hurtling right back to the justices, perhaps within months, Politico reports. The July 1 immunity ruling was viewed as a major victory for Trump because it declared him “absolutely immune” from being prosecuted for some of the actions he took while attempting to subvert the 2020 election. Thee ruling is littered with ambiguities, ill-defined standards and unanswered questions about many of the other acts Trump undertook, constitutional experts say. “You could understand this as sort of an exercise in kicking the can down the road,” said University of Virginia law Prof. Sai Prakash.
The case is back before U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who must figure out how to take the high court’s fuzzy pronouncements and apply them to the specific allegations in the indictment brought by special counsel Jack Smith. Chutkan asked the special counsel and Trump’s team to give her proposals Friday about how — or whether — the case can proceed. Trump has argued that the ruling is so sweeping that it should unravel all four of his criminal cases. On Thursday, prosecutors asked for an additional two weeks to sort through what they called “the new precedent.” Trump’s lawyers, who have repeatedly sought delays in the case, readily agreed to this one. If Chutkan rules that significant aspects of the case can proceed toward a trial, Trump is virtually certain to appeal again a process that could require the justices to clarify just how broadly the scope of presidential immunity sweeps. “It may be that the effort to actually apply this test that the court has handed down will only further illustrate just how fundamentally lawless this opinion is,” said University of Pennsylvania law Prof. Kate Shaw. “I don’t think it sets forth anything like an administrable test, and I think that this next phase will only underscore that set of failings.”,” Prakash said. “I’m sure the court hopes this case goes away.”
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