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“You could be in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and you wouldn’t lose voters, okay?” Donald Trump uttered this memorable phrase in 2016, before being elected president. It brought to the point in a drastic way how all the atrocities that he allows and that would likely spell the end of a career for most other politicians, seem to bounce off him. About a year ago, the scene of such a crime took place in a New York court. It wasn’t about the question of whether Trump’s hypothetical shot would cost voters, but about legal consequences. And Trump’s lawyer argued: As long as his client is president, he enjoys complete immunity. This applies to everything he did before and during his time in the White House, including murder. The judge asked if that meant local authorities were completely tied up and couldn’t even investigate Trump. “That is correct,” said the lawyer.
Trump’s representatives in court have reaffirmed this immunity argument over and over again in recent years. It is by no means out of nowhere. For decades, the US Department of Justice has ordered that the incumbent president not be charged or prosecuted. That would make your job more difficult and, therefore, is unconstitutional. Special counsel Robert Mueller cited this past year as one of the reasons why, following his investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections, he would not recommend charges against Trump for obstruction of justice.
Of course, this rule only applies at the federal level; it does not affect legal disputes that take place in individual states. Trump’s lawyers have also claimed immunity in such disputes. Trump has not always been successful with strategy, but it has often helped him slow things down significantly and thus avoid immediate threats to himself.
Many starting points for proceedings against Trump
There are many possible starting points for taking legal action against Trump. At the federal level, for example, one could pick up the thread of the Mueller investigation, which the president regularly flogged as a “witch hunt.” In his final report, the door was left wide open for future proceedings. Even if Trump subsequently claimed “full discharge” of the obstruction of justice and conspiracy with Russia charges, Mueller noted that his report did not exonerate the president or conclude that he had committed a crime. If he were convinced that Trump had not committed an obstruction of justice, he would also say so. Instead, he listed ten examples that could be construed as an obstruction of justice. These include Trump’s firing of James Comey as director of the federal FBI and his attempt to remove Mueller from office. New research could be based on this.
Because the protective shield of “immunity” will probably disappear soon. Trump still refuses to officially admit his electoral defeat, and has tried to use the lawsuits and political influence to turn the outcome in his favor. But he grudgingly initiated the move to Joe Biden, and in all likelihood he will no longer be president as of January 20. The federal authorities then have free rein to take action against him, and in all other legal cases he can no longer dispute the alleged immunity. A key question will be how much political will Biden and his administration will have to prosecute his predecessor.
