Good morning. The U.S. Supreme Court handed Donald Trump an unprecedented legal shield – more on that below, along with a nurse-police partnership that’s paying off and the end to Calgary’s water woes. But first:
Today’s headlines
- Afghan Sikh sponsors made political donations to Sajjan’s riding association during the Kabul airlift campaign
- The Ontario Superior Court grants the University of Toronto an injunction against a pro-Palestinian encampment
- An air strike killed a family as an Israeli evacuation order sparked a panicked flight from southern Gaza
Outside the Supreme Court on Monday.DREW ANGERER/Getty Images
U.S. Politics
Unpacking Trump’s immunity
Monday’s Supreme Court immunity ruling is a big victory for Donald Trump – and belated vindication for Richard Nixon, who insisted to David Frost, nearly 50 years ago, that “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal.” The mind reels with the possibilities of this executive latitude: Accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Staging a military coup to hold onto power? Ordering the assassination of a political rival? As Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in her dissenting opinion, the president would be “immune, immune, immune.”
The 6-3 decision did assign different immunity to different presidential behaviour. There’s absolute immunity for core constitutional acts, which extends to matters touching immigration, terrorism and trade. There’s presumptive immunity for all other official acts, including conversations between the president and subordinates. And there’s no immunity for unofficial acts, though Sotomayor said the ruling “narrows the conduct considered ‘unofficial’ almost to a nullity.”
It’s a decision, she added, that “reshapes the institution of the presidency.” Here’s what that means for Trump’s outstanding criminal cases, for the coming U.S. election and beyond.
United States v. Trump
The Supreme Court ruling dismantles a decent chunk of the charges against Trump for seeking to overturn the 2020 election. He can no longer be prosecuted for any attempts to strong-arm the Justice Department into supporting claims of election fraud (he’s got absolutely immunity for that), and very likely can’t be prosecuted for pushing then-vice-president Mike Pence to throw the election his way, or for anything said publicly to foment the insurrection on Jan. 6 (presumptive immunity).
He could be prosecuted for pressing state officials to switch the results of the race, but it’ll now be up to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversees his Jan. 6 case, to determine which acts fall within the scope of Trump’s official duties. And this ruling may affect the other criminal cases against him. Trump moved quickly to have his hush-money conviction overturned; yesterday, the New York judge said he’d decide in September whether to set aside the verdict. Trump will almost certainly try the same in the Georgia racketeering and classified documents cases against him.
He's had a good week.Jeffrey Phelps/The Associated Press
Shaking up the election?
There’s very little chance that Trump will stand trial for subverting the 2020 election before the 2024 election rolls around. But as Chutkan works out which Jan. 6 charges constitute official acts, she’ll need prosecutors to present their evidence in a public hearing – so it’s possible a “mini-trial” could unfold in the final days of the presidential race. The Globe and Mail’s U.S. correspondent, Adrian Morrow, doesn’t think the airing of this evidence will change many minds: The specifics of Trump’s actions have been well-known for a long time. But a few swayed voters could make the difference in an election this close.
More significantly, Morrow says, “the hearing could put the spotlight on Trump at a time when he’d want it focused on other campaign issues: the border, for instance, or Joe Biden’s frailties. Publicly reviewing all the ways Trump tried to overturn the 2020 election could push some reluctant GOP voters to remain home, or could remind some reluctant Democratic supporters why they feel Trump is so dangerous.”
But Morrow suspects neither a mini-trial nor the Supreme Court ruling will alter who’s at the top of the Democratic ticket. “It remains to be seen if Democrats will push Joe Biden to go gentle into that good night,” he says. “The Supreme Court ruling definitely changes the stakes for Democrats, but I’m not convinced it will change their nominee.”
What happens next
Trump has made no secret of how he’d stretch the powers of the presidency. Among other promises, he has said he’d round up and deport millions of undocumented immigrants, fire tens of thousands of civil servants and replace them with loyalists, dismantle intelligence agencies, slap a 10-per-cent tariff on imports and put homeless people – who the Supreme Court just ruled can be jailed for sleeping outside – into “mental institutions.”
So if Trump isn’t defeated at the polls, and since he’s already escaped impeachment twice, what’s left to curb potential abuses of power? “It’s hard to answer because so much of this is unprecedented,” Morrow says. “Members of Richard Nixon’s own party put pressure on him to leave office once it became clear how much he had abused his power, but it’s hard to imagine that happening in the current hyper-partisan environment.” Besides, due to the Supreme Court, one man’s presidential overreach is now another’s official act.
The Shot
‘We had nothing to lose.’
Nurse Abbas Haidar, centre, helps keep people out of the ER.Dax Melmer/The Globe and Mail
A first-in-Canada project in Windsor, Ont., pairs ER nurses with police officers to offer medical care and social service referrals right on the street. Read more about how that’s helping tackle the city’s addictions crisis here.
The Wrap
What else we’re following
At home: Calgary’s water crunch is coming to an end, as restrictions on showers and toilet-flushing lift just in time for the Stampede – which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will no longer attend this year, sources say.
Abroad: With the Caribbean Sea in literal hot water, Hurricane Beryl is barrelling toward Jamaica.
Health care: Dismissive doctors, careless staff, therapists lobbing inappropriate questions – trans and non-binary Canadians face all sorts of barriers when it comes to accessing medical services.
Home care: Starting next year, a B.C. building code will require all new homes to easily accommodate anyone with a disability, but concerns from developers could mean serious delays.