Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has a new plan to ensure Donald Trump spends the rest of his life in prison. Amid Democrats’ argument over Joe Biden’s senility, Schumer changed the subject and promised to declare Trump’s actions surrounding January 6 as “unofficial” by law.
This comes after the Supreme Court issued a mixed opinion on the matter in overdue June, finding that “official” acts are indeed subject to presidential immunity, but “unofficial” acts are not. This set off a long legal battle that will require the special counsel prosecuting Trump to examine each act in court to determine which category it falls under.
SEE: Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity
Of course, Democrats were not content, because this development effectively meant that the former president would not be tried before Election Day. With similar delays in the other Trump cases, their longed-for knockout punch was thwarted.
Schumer believes he has a plan to get around this and speed things up. On Monday, the Senate majority leader announced that he wants to classify all of Trump’s actions before January 6 as “unofficial” actions, thus avoiding the lengthy court battles that have been scheduled.
Schumer announces in the Senate that he will work on a bill to classify former President Trump’s actions leading to the Jan. 6 attack on Congress as “unofficial” acts, making them ineligible for immunity under the recent Supreme Court ruling.
– Alex Bolton (@alexanderbolton) July 8, 2024
I have no idea what constitutional power Schumer thinks he has that would allow such a move to happen. There is a separation of powers, and the legislature has never been able to dictate what qualifies as an official act of the president. If it could, there would be no actual official acts, because any hostile Congress could arbitrarily and whim decide to remove such a qualification.
If there is immunity for presidents, and the Supreme Court says there is (at least at some level), then logically it cannot be overridden by the legislative branch. Otherwise it would not be “immunity.” If a president has allegedly committed a violation that deserves punishment, there is already a remedy for it. It’s called impeachment, and Schumer and Co. have already failed in their pursuit of it on January 6.
Besides, the Republican-led House of Representatives would never approve legislation reclassifying Trump’s actions, so the maneuver is doomed to fail anyway. It’s nothing more than a talking point to keep January 6 in the news. It will likely fail because the majority of the American public has made it clear that they simply don’t care. They want real solutions to real problems, not endless persecutions of political opponents based on events that happened four years ago.
Ultimately, all of this will have to be tried in court, and that won’t happen anytime soon. Barring a miracle, it certainly won’t happen before November. Schumer’s attempt to shortcut the whole thing is crystal clear and will fail.
