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A wild, pivotal week for our democracy.
We saw the first-ever criminal trial of a former president — and yet, somehow, it wasn’t the most important news story. No, that was the Supreme Court’s hearing yesterday on whether Donald Trump — and the presidency in general — is above the law (either expressly through criminal immunity or by default through procedural delays).
Today the Supreme Court heard oral argument on former President Trump’s claim that he’s absolutely immune from criminal prosecution.
Although Trump has successfully stymied the federal election interference case for months by raising this defense, both the district court and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals quickly and unanimously ruled that presidents have never been understood to be above the law and have no immunity from criminal prosecution. A clear cross-ideological majority of legal commentators, including Protect Democracy, agreed with those decisions and called for the Supreme Court to affirm them quickly.
And here we are again.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed a set of foreign aid bills that included aid for Ukraine over the objections of the right wing of the Republican Party. Now, because of that bipartisan victory, members of his own party are threatening to remove Mike Johnson from the speakership. The infighting is only getting worse.
Tomorrow the Supreme Court will hear arguments in Donald Trump’s immunity case. As I and eighteen other retired four-star generals and admirals and former secretaries of the Army, Navy and Air Force explained in a friend-of-the-court brief, Trump’s extraordinary claim of presidential immunity threatens our national security and leadership role in the world.
It is also completely unnecessary.
Amanda Carpenter, writer and editor at Protect Democracy, said part of the problem is that politicians are fearful because of heated rhetoric.
“If you are afraid to do your job out of fear, our institutions can no longer function,” she said.
Could the 2024 election be stolen?
If you listened to the On Point discussion on NPR this week with Jessica Marsden and Larry Lessig on Larry’s new book (with Matt Seligman), How to Steal a Presidential Election, you might have come away confused on this pressing question.
The Violence and Democracy Impact Tracker (VDIT)—compiled by Protect Democracy and Johns Hopkins University’s SNF Agora Institute—found that 100 global scholars it surveyed consistently ranked threats including intimidation, direct threats, and physical harm to American electoral processes among their top five areas of concern. Since August of 2022, the group has found that incidents of such threats and harassment are widespread, and the apprehensions they engender cut across party lines, particularly among women and people of color, who are often targeted.
Many legal scholars have warned that the executive authority to pardon people is uniquely broad and that it can apply to anyone who has committed an alleged crime or is anywhere in the legal process, whether they have been charged, convicted, or sentenced. However, Protect Democracy, a group founded by lawyers who worked in the Obama White House, has argued Trump’s vow to pardon Jan. 6 defendants could conflict with other parts of the Constitution and therefore be met with pushback from federal courts.
Don’t let tawdry elements of the first-ever criminal trial of a U.S. president distract from the most chilling, autocratic aspect of these legal proceedings: How Trump deliberately puts people who uphold the rule of law in danger.
Instead of focusing on presenting a sober, respectful defense, Trump is using this trial, as well the others he faces, as an opportunity to attack the judiciary, using his tremendous profile to weaken it as an institution of accountability.
On their website, the advocacy group Protect Democracy warns that democracy is in danger but tells readers that “Together, we can preserve democracy for future generations.” The group is nonpartisan and cross-ideological.
Kristy Parker is a Special Counsel with Protect Democracy. Previously, she served in trial attorney and leadership roles for 15 years in DOJ’s Civil Rights Division and for four years in the Torts Branch of DOJ’s Civil Division. After graduating from Harvard Law School, she clerked on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.
Defeating authoritarianism is going to take all of us. Everyone and every institution has a role to play. Together, we can protect democracy.
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