Trump v. U.S. leaves it to ordinary Americans to check the presidency

Why does a president now need immunity to carry out the duties of president and commander in chief? What has changed to make this necessary?

We have never had a president who has been indicted on numerous felony charges, some of them stemming from his actions while he was president. Never before Donald Trump has the Supreme Court been asked by a former president to provide such a sweeping grant of immunity.

The decision by this court in Trump v. United States will go down in history as both dangerous and antidemocratic. How ironic that this court, just three days before our 248th birthday as a republic, effectively changed that republic into the quasi-monarchy our founders fought so hard to avoid.

Rich DiPentima, Portsmouth, N.H.

By ruling that presidents cannot be held criminally accountable for official acts, the Supreme Court risks creating a vicious cycle in which incumbents feel compelled to cling to power by any means necessary out of fear of being mercilessly targeted by their successors.

If Donald Trump — who already sees himself as persecuted — returns to office in January, he might fear the next Democratic administration would use expanded presidential immunity to take retribution against him. This fear might motivate Mr. Trump to retain power indefinitely and autocratically, since he, too, would now be much less constrained than previous presidents.

Such a dynamic would obviously undermine the system of elections and peaceful transfers of power that have underpinned our democracy for nearly 250 years.

Andrew Kaplan, San Francisco

I am not a lawyer, but I am an economist, which means that I have some professional understanding of how the rules of any game create incentives that affect human behavior. Our imperial Supreme Court has now fundamentally changed the rules of the presidential game. The president and the law can now become one and the same — the very situation that Americans revolted against 248 years ago.

Be warned that a reelected President Donald Trump would destroy the independence of the Justice Department beyond what he tried to do in his first term. At worst, the United States risks becoming a criminal regime such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq or Vladimir Putin’s Russia, in which enemies of an untouchable leader become targets. Just last week, Mr. Trump renewed his call for former congresswoman Liz Cheney to be tried for treason.

No, everybody is not corrupt, but to quote James Madison, “If men were angels … neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.” As everyone can plainly see, Mr. Trump is no angel. If democracy and freedom are to continue not only in America but also as a beacon to a troubled world, Americans must reject Mr. Trump in November.

Chris Gerrard, Rockville

The Supreme Court’s majority decision July 1 granting presidents immunity from prosecution for official acts reminded me of a famous scene from Robert Bolt’s play “A Man for All Seasons.”

When William Roper says he would cut down every law in England to get at the Devil, Sir Thomas More responds: “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”

What if, with his newfound immunity, President Biden ordered the FBI to seize without warrants the six justices in the majority and hold them incommunicado at some secret gulag in the wilds of northern Alaska?

Where would the justices turn, the laws that would have protected them being flat?

Rob Warden, Chicago

A search for accountability

The Supreme Court said there is a “presumptive immunity from criminal prosecution for a President’s acts within the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.” However, the court also said, “As for a President’s unofficial acts, there is no immunity.”

Why didn’t this standard decide the case? It is surely nowhere part of a president’s “official responsibility” — not even at the “outer perimeter” — to conspire to overturn an election that he lost and to prevent the winner of that election from taking office. That is what the former president has been charged with in the case. Under the court’s own standard, how can the former president be given immunity for such “unofficial acts”?

Walter Smith, Washington

In view of the Supreme Court’s decision holding Donald Trump immune from prosecution for official acts as president, it is worth revisiting some remarks by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). After calling Mr. Trump “morally responsible” for the acts of Jan. 6, 2021, and saying that Mr. Trump’s conduct was “a disgraceful dereliction of duty,” Mr. McConnell concluded that Mr. Trump could not be tried in the Senate because he was a private citizen.

It appears that Mr. McConnell made a serious mistake, since we now know that there is no other forum to adjudicate such acts. Mr. McConnell famously concluded, “[Mr. Trump] hasn’t gotten away with anything yet.” How about now?

Zachary Levine, Rockville

Much ado about nothing?

I don’t get all the liberal hand-wringing over the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity, and I’m a liberal. If a president commits an act not permitted by the Constitution, the president can be impeached. If he does something outrageous, such as give an order to assassinate a rival, the president can be brought up on charges.

Furthermore, the Supreme Court has given lower courts the task of actually hearing the evidence so that a judge — and the public, for that matter — can decide the issue. It’s a shame that the court took so long to issue a decision, but I think it reached the right one.

Douglas Brenner, Pine Plains, N.Y.

I don’t get the panic over the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity. Perhaps it is because things have gotten so ridiculous in the past eight years that my poor brain can’t take any more catastrophic news. Or just maybe, it’s because we’ve yet to see if this ruling truly means doomsday.

This was not a sweeping grant of total immunity. This decision has not wiped out all hope of a federal prosecution of Mr. Trump. Have the justices made it perhaps more difficult? Absolutely. But not every act is an “official act,” as even Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. has agreed.

Taking classified documents home while you’re president? Maybe an official act. Keeping and hiding them while you’re no longer president? I doubt it.

What’s truly most upsetting here is that it took so long for this decision to come, so that by the time a lower court judge has decided, Mr. Trump has appealed and it goes back to the Supreme Court, it will already be Election Day. But did any of us think the trial was going to happen before then anyway?

We already know what the highest court in the land seems to prioritize. We know that Mr. Trump should have been impeached and convicted by the legislative branch. There is hope, however, and it’s that fourth and most important branch of government composed of the voters. If the vote goes the way of a second Trump term, well, our country was already too far gone for the courts to save us from ourselves.

Mara Mindell, Austin

A constitutional corrective

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in the presidential immunity case, those of us who believe that no person should be immune from the criminal law should start working toward a constitutional amendment that restores this foundational principle. It will be, at best, a long road toward passage of such an amendment — it may be that none of us now alive will live to see it. But until such an amendment is passed, there will be neither liberty nor justice as the Founders intended.

Richard Joffe, New York

David Becker, the executive director of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, recently told The Post the public, rather than the courts, now plays the primary role in presidential accountability. He’s also correct that the “primary check” on abuse of presidential power is the vote. That is certainly true this November.

However, there is something more the people can do to protect our future. Together with our representatives, we can amend the Constitution to supersede Trump v. United States and restore it to the Founders’ clear intention: In the United States, there is no sovereign other than the people. Here is my suggestion for the language for a potential constitutional amendment:

“All officers of the United States government, including the President, Vice President, members of Congress and Justices of the Supreme Court, shall be subject to criminal prosecution for official and unofficial acts committed while in office that violate the laws of the United States or of the several states. This amendment shall apply upon ratification.”

Thomas S. De Luca Jr., Northport, N.Y.