Sotomayor Dissented 'With Fear for Our Democracy'

The Supreme Court delivered its historic ruling on presidential immunity Monday—and it was welcomed by Donald Trump, who is now immune from prosecution for "official acts" during his presidency. "Big win for our constitution and democracy," he wrote in an all-caps post on Truth Social. "Proud to be an American!" Other Republicans also praised the 6-3 ruling, while leading Democrats shared the dismay of the dissenting liberal justices.

• Dissents: "With fear for our democracy, I dissent," Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote. She said the ruling sends the message: "Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends," NBC News reports. "In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law." she wrote. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson warned that the ruling "breaks new and dangerous ground," creating immunity "applicable only to the most powerful official in our Government."

• House leaders: House Speaker Mike Johnson praised the ruling as a "victory for former President Trump and all future presidents, and another defeat for President Biden's weaponized Department of Justice and Jack Smith," the Guardian reports. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader, released what he called a statement "in connection with the Supreme Court decision to bend the knee to the Insurrectionist-in-Chief." He warned that the ruling "sets a dangerous precedent for the future of our nation."
• A 'dramatic expansion of presidential power': "As Justice Sotomayor's appalled dissent makes clear, this ruling is a dramatic expansion of presidential power—not just for Trump but for all presidents," Charlie Savage writes at the New York Times. "She cites the notorious World War II ruling that upheld the internment of Japanese Americans on the West Coast."
• A 'license for authoritarianism': Sen. Richard Blumenthal was among many Democratic lawmakers to condemn the decision—and members of the court—in strong terms. In posts on X, he called the ruling a "license for authoritarianism." Members of the court's conservative majority, he wrote, "will now be rightly perceived by the American people as extreme & nakedly partisan hacks—politicians in robes," he wrote.

• Ruling rebukes 'attempts to weaponize our legal system' against Trump: Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee praised the ruling, Politico reports. Its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, said the committee will "continue to oversee dangerous lawfare tactics in our judicial system." Another member, Sen. Marsha Blackburn, said the ruling "rebukes Democrats' blatant attempts to weaponize our legal system against Donald Trump."
• 'Absurd and dangerous': Eric Holder, the attorney general in Barack Obama's administration, slammed the "absurd and dangerous" ruling in a post on X. He wrote: "The Trump immunity decision says: a president CAN VIOLATE THE CRIMINAL LAW if he acts within his broadly defined "constitutional authority."
• Decision will be seen in context of Trump's connections: "No case to date has put Trump's personal interests so directly in the hands of the justices he appointed—and from whom he has expected a sympathetic hearing," Jess Bravin writes at the Wall Street Journal, noting that two other members of the court, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, "have familial ties to Trump's cause." "However ironclad the legal rationales behind their votes, the justices' actions cannot avoid being viewed in the context of such connections," Bravin writes.

(More US Supreme Court stories.)