Trump: ‘Obama Owes Me Big’ for Immunity Ruling that Could Block Russiagate Prosecution

President Trump’s admission that presidential immunity could help President Obama evade prosecution for what Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard calls “treasonous conspiracy” amounts to a reckoning with the consequences of the 47th president’s most consequential legal victory. The 47th president told reporters on Friday that the ruling of Trump v. United States “probably helps” Mr. Obama “a lot … The immunity ruling, but it doesn’t help the people around him at all. But it probably helps him a lot. He’s done criminal acts, there’s no question about it. But he has immunity, and it probably helps him a lot… he owes me big, Obama owes me big.”Mr. Trump was referring to the Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump that official presidential acts are presumptively immune from prosecution, while unofficial ones are bereft of protection. Some acts within the “conclusive and preclusive” authority of the president, a six justice majority concluded, are accorded “absolute” immunity. The ruling upended Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Mr. Trump for election interference.Chief Justice Roberts’s majority opinion reversed a district court judge, Tanya Chutkan, as well as the District of Columbia Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, both of which rejected immunity. Judge Chutkan went so far as to deny that Mr. Trump possessed the “divine right of kings.” A unanimous appellate panel held that “President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant.”The Chief, though, wrote that the “President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity.” The ruling adds that “immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office” — Mr. Obama, say, as well as Mr. Trump. Justice Neil Gorsuch made a similar argument during oral arguments, insisting that he and his colleagues were intent on “Writing a rule for the ages.”As Mr. Trump noted on Friday, immunity only appears to attach to the president, though some members of his camarilla have argued in court that the overhang of protection ought to protect them as well. Attorney General Bondi has created a “strike force” to “investigate these troubling disclosures fully and leave no stone unturned to deliver justice.” Ms. Gabbard’s “disclosures” suggest that Mr. Obama worked to concoct intelligence that Russia interfered on Mr. Trump’s behalf in the 2016 election. Two lawmakers — Senators Cornyn and Graham — this week threw their support behind the appointment of a special prosecutor to probe what they in a statement describe as “the extent to which they manipulated the U.S. national security apparatus for a political outcome.” Such a special counsel would report to Ms. Bondi, just as Mr. Smith reported to Attorney General Garland. The ruling of Trump, still relatively fresh, has not yet been extensively litigated in lower courts. Mr. Trump has tried and failed — so far — to use it to vacate his 34 convictions in the Stormy Daniels hush money case as well as the civil verdicts in the E. Jean Carroll defamation cases. It could be that the Supreme Court will eventually hear both of those appeals.While both Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Trump have accused Mr. Obama of “treason,” the Constitution ordains that treason “shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” The parchment adds that “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.” Mr. Obama’s office noted in a statement that it “does not normally dignify the constant nonsense and misinformation flowing out of this White House with a response. But these claims are outrageous enough to merit one.” The 44th president adds that “these bizarre allegations are ridiculous and a weak attempt at distraction.”

Trump: ‘Obama Owes Me Big’ for Immunity Ruling that Could Block Russiagate Prosecution

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