For observers of the Supreme Court, Monday brought another controversial ruling and another stern rebuke from Hawaii’s two Democratic U.S. senators.
In short order following the announcement that the high court had ruled former president Donald Trump has absolute immunity for exercising "core" constitutional powers and presumptive immunity for official acts while in office, Sen. Mazie Hirono took to X (formerly Twitter) and Sen. Brian Schatz released an official statement decrying the long-awaited decision.
“Despite today’s ruling from the MAGA Court, no one is above the law, including former presidents,” Schatz said. “We all saw with our own eyes Trump’s repeated—and in the case of January 6th, violent—efforts to overturn the completely legitimate results of the 2020 election. He deserves to be held accountable for his crimes, just as any other American would.”
The court’s ruling in Trump v. United States effectively ensures that the former president will not have to stand trial for his alleged hand in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election until after the upcoming General Election in November.
Trump was indicted last August for conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights.
While Trump’s defense team had lobbied the court to dismiss the charges outright on the basis of absolute immunity, Monday’s 6-3 still overturns a lower court ruling that Trump had no claim to immunity from federal prosecution and returns to the lower court the task of determining what constitutes Trump’s execution of official duties.
Democrats have openly worried that if Trump wins back the presidency, he could either pardon himself or appoint an attorney general willing to dismiss his pending federal cases.
“Trump has announced if reelected, he wants to be a dictator on ‘Day 1,’” Hirono posted to her X account. “Today, his hand-picked Supreme Court majority went further, effectively giving him free rein for Day 1 and every day that follows, Constitution be damned.
“By declaring on the one hand that presidents have immunity for their ‘official acts’ and then with the other hand broadening the scope of those official acts, the Court makes a mockery of our cherished Constitutional tradition that no one is above the law,” she wrote.
Hirono cited Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s stinging dissent that “it seems history matters to this Court only when it is convenient. See, e.g., Bruen; Dobbs” as well as Sotomayor’s examples of potential abuse of presidential immunity, from ordering the assassinate of a political rival to staging a coup to remain in power to accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon.
“Make no mistake,” Hirono tweeted, “with the guardrails gone, a reelected President Trump would label everything he did—no matter how partisan, extreme or overtly criminal—‘official,’ and based on this ruling, he’d get away with it.
“With the radical Supreme Court majority firmly behind him, Donald Trump continues marching toward becoming Dictator-in-Chief,” she continued. “The only thing that can stop him is we, the people.”