It long had seemed that the “stall” would be the worst thing the Supreme Court could do when it came to Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution. How naive.Delay there will be. The six justices in the Republican-appointed supermajority held, “A former president is entitled to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his ‘conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.’” They added, “There is no immunity for unofficial acts.
It came crashing to an end during Watergate and after revelations about the misuse of intelligence and law enforcement by Nixon’s predecessors.The presidential immunity concocted today would have blessed most of Nixon’s crimes. Nixon ordered his White House counsel to pay hush money to burglars in an Oval Office meeting on March 21, 1973. Presumptively an official act? He dangled clemency before E. Howard Hunt, one of the conspirators.