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.
How YOU can lower your council tax by challenging it
India's election commission directs political parties not to involve children in campaigning
UNGA convenes meeting following U.S. veto on Gaza in Security Council
UN asks Houthis to reconsider order to expel U.S., British nationals
Surging auto insurance rates squeeze drivers, fuel inflation
161 confirmed dead, 103 missing in Japan's quake
Michigan voters go to polls for 2024 U.S. presidential primary
7 shot dead in 2 locations in U.S. Illinois
What it's REALLY like to win the Lottery... by a couple who banked £2.2m
WHO warns of persistent threats from COVID