The Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling Monday morning that provides substantial immunity for former presidents for “official acts” taken in office.
During oral arguments earlier this year, Justice Samuel Alito questioned the political fallout of charging former presidents with a crime.
“Now if an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possible nullity after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent,” Alito asked.
“Will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail,” he added.
“If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into office knowing that there would be no potential full penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country,” said Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.