Tag Archives: presidential power

Supreme Court rules 6-3 that Presidents are covered by limited immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office

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Important Takeaways:

  • The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of former President Donald Trump on Monday, holding in a 6-3 decision that presidents are covered by limited immunity from criminal prosecutions for actions taken while in office.
  • The decision is here.
  • The Court held, according to the summary of the decision:
    • Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
  • The Court also ruled that a president is entitled to a pretrial hearing on immunity that can be appealed all the way to the Supreme Court before a trial begins.
  • This means that any trial of the former president will take place after the November 5, 2024, election.
  • The case will now be remanded, and will likely result in the dismissal of some or all of the charges facing the former president in federal court in Washington, D.C., relating to the Capitol riot of January 6.

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Harris was briefly first woman to be acting U.S. president as Biden underwent colonoscopy

By Jeff Mason

BETHESDA, Md. (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden briefly transferred power to Vice President Kamala Harris Friday as he underwent a colonoscopy, making her the first woman to hold the presidential reins in U.S. history.

Biden, a Democrat, alerted leaders in Congress of the power transfer at 10:10 a.m. EST (1510 GMT) and took back control at 11:35 EST, the White House said.

The president was undergoing a routine physical at the Walter Reed military hospital outside Washington.

White House spokesperson Jen Psaki said Biden spoke to Harris and White House chief of staff Ron Klain after the procedure and was “in good spirits.”

Biden’s power transfer occurred while he was under anesthesia for the colonoscopy. Harris worked from her office in the West Wing of the White House during that time, Psaki said.

Harris is the first woman to serve as vice president of the United States; no woman has ever been president in the country’s nearly 250-year history.

The U.S. Constitution’s 25th Amendment lays out a process for the president to transfer power when he is unable to discharge his duties.

Presidential power has been transferred to the vice president before, when President George W. Bush had colonoscopies in 2002 and 2007.

Biden, who turns 79 on Saturday, is the oldest person to take office as U.S. president, leading to high interest in his health and well-being. Although speculation has persisted about whether he will run for re-election in 2024, he has said he expects to seek a second four-year term.

Biden has pledged to be more transparent about his health than predecessor Donald Trump. The Republican visited Walter Reed in 2019 for an undisclosed reason that a former press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, later revealed was for a colonoscopy.

Trump once had his doctor brief the press about the president’s health after questions were raised about his mental acuity.

Psaki said the White House would release a comprehensive written summary of Biden’s physical later on Friday.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason; additional reporting by Alexandra Alper and Katharine Jackson; Editing by Heather Timmons, Jonathan Oatis and Cynthia Osterman)

Democrats vow ‘sparks will fly’ over Trump’s Supreme Court pick

FILE PHOTO: Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh pictured at his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

By Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Senate Democrats plan to hammer President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh on his views on abortion and presidential power in hearings starting on Tuesday but the conservative judge looks likely to be confirmed.

“A good judge must be an umpire – a neutral and impartial arbiter who favors no litigant or policy,” Kavanaugh will say at the opening of the hearing, according to a selection of his remarks released in advance. “I don’t decide cases based on personal or policy preferences.”

Trump’s fellow Republicans hold narrow majority control of the Senate so they can approve Kavanaugh if they stay united. So far, there were no signs of defections, with the Senate likely to vote by the end of the month.

The hearing, expected to last four days, gives Democrats a chance to make their case against Kavanaugh ahead of November’s congressional elections.

“There will be sparks at this hearing. Sparks will fly, and there will be a lot of heat,” Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a member of the judiciary committee that will convene the hearings, said on Friday.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh, 53, to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who announced his retirement on June 27 at age 81. He is Trump’s second nominee to a lifetime appointment to the nation’s highest judicial body. Trump last year appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch, part of his push to make the courts more conservative.

Liberals are concerned Kavanaugh could provide a decisive fifth vote on the nine-justice court to overturn or weaken Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide.

Without Kennedy, the court is now split 4-4 between conservatives and liberals. Kennedy was a solid conservative but sided with the court’s liberals on some issues, including abortion and gay rights.

Beyond social issues, Kavanaugh is also likely to face questions about his views on investigating sitting presidents and the ongoing probe led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign.

Kavanaugh spent four years working for Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel who investigated former Democratic President Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Kavanaugh also spent more than five years working for Republican President George W. Bush.

In 2009, many years after the Starr inquiry, Kavanaugh wrote a law review article saying presidents should be free from the distractions of civil lawsuits, criminal prosecutions and investigations while in office.

As a judge, he has amassed a solidly conservative record since 2006 on the influential U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

With Senator John McCain’s death, the Republican Senate majority shrank to 50-49, but McCain’s replacement is likely be seated before a final vote on Kavanaugh, restoring the majority to 51-49 and providing the votes needed for confirmation.

Liberal activists have pinned their slim hopes to block Kavanaugh on two Republican senators who support abortion rights: Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. So far, neither has indicated she is likely to oppose Kavanaugh.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by David Gregorio and Bill Trott)