Activists decry Supreme Court immunity decision as an assault on democracy

The U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Donald Trump’s election interference case, granting U.S. presidents broad immunity from criminal charges, prompted outrage from pro-democracy activists in Wisconsin Monday.

In the 6-3 opinion, the Court ruled that U.S. presidents enjoy full immunity from criminal charges for their official “core constitutional” acts, and sent back to lower courts a federal case against President Donald Trump on charges connected with the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.

“Today the U.S. Supreme Court has made it loud and clear that there are certain people within the U.S. — the wealthy, the well-connected, the very powerful — that get to live above the law,” said Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, at a news conference held outside the federal courthouse in Madison Monday afternoon.

“It’s bizarre that because he’s president — well, he was president — that he gets to enjoy certain privileges, certain rights, that everyday folks like us don’t get to enjoy,” Ramos said.

The Court decision, written by Chief Justice John Roberts, said that a president has no immunity for unofficial acts. But it sent back to the trial court the question of whether Trump’s alleged conduct to spread false information about the 2020 election and conspiring to overturn the results was an unofficial act or qualified as official presidential action.

Trump is charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of, and attempt to obstruct, an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. Trump was indicted in August 2023 on allegations that he knowingly spread falsehoods to his supporters, plotted with co-conspirators to overturn election results in seven states and eventually worked his base into a frenzy that culminated in the violent attack on the Capitol the day Congress was to certify electoral votes.

In response to the ruling, a coalition of groups, including the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the public interest law firm Law Forward held press conferences in front of the federal courthouses in Milwaukee and Madison to castigate the decision.

“The U.S. Supreme Court ought to be ashamed of itself — how they handled this case and how they rendered this decision today,” Ramos said. “The court can try and paint this however they want to legally, but the fact is, it chose to play partisan politics instead of doing their job and doing the right thing.”

Speakers at the events were flanked by supporters from SEIU and other groups, including a half-dozen who wore mock judicial robes and cloth banana tops that framed their faces.

“I thought we lived in a republic, but apparently we live in a banana republic,” Ramos said.

The six bananas wore placards around their necks with the last names of the six justices who concurred in the Roberts opinion. “All engineered delays in this case [that] helped Trump avoid a jury verdict in his criminal conspiracy to overturn the last election before the American people can vote in the next one,” Ramos said.

The Court’s ruling Monday came more than four months after the justices accepted the appeal of a lower court ruling denying Trump immunity from criminal charges for his actions in attempting to thwart the transfer of power to Joe Biden, who won the 2020 election.

Ramos contrasted that delay with the court’s faster action on other cases, including its ruling that overturned a Colorado decision blocking Trump from that state’s ballot for “insurrection.”

“Those justices have ensured irreconcilable showdown in the fall between the ordinary operations of the criminal justice system, which would require Trump’s speedy pretrial and trial proceedings, and the ordinary functioning of the presidential election system in which both nominees are free to campaign,” Ramos said.

“Here in America, we hold sacred, the core values of democracy: that our leaders, whether elected or appointed, must respect our will and govern in our interest, not seize power, commit crimes and rule over us,” said Jeff Mandell, cofounder and general counsel of Law Forward. “The concept of absolute immunity for anyone is incompatible with government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

Mandell called Monday’s ruling “disappointing, but not surprising.” He ticked off a series of decisions, including canceling the national right to abortion two years ago and, last week, shifting critical decisions about protecting health and safety from federal agencies to the courts.

“Today’s decision underscores the importance of holding accountable those who enabled Trump’s efforts to seek to overturn the will of the people and to deter those who might seek to do so again in a future election,” Mandell said. “The efforts to hold Trump’s co-conspirators, including those who designed and implemented the fake electoral scheme that began in Wisconsin and metastasized all across the country, are more vital now than ever.”

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