Supreme Court hurts special counsel Smith's case: Trump will have presidential immunity in electoral interference case

Despite his tireless insistence against Donald Trump's presidential immunity defense argument to avoid prosecution for electoral interference in the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith has suffered a setback. The Supreme Court ruled that the former president does have such protection in the aforementioned case, thus rejecting the special counsel's request.

Six of the nine members of the Supreme Court took a position in favor of the argument that Trump does have presidential immunity in official actions he took while president.

"Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the ruling. "And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts."

However, Trump cannot count on that protection for non-institutional actions, even if he performed them when he was president: "There is no immunity for unofficial acts."

Now, the Supreme Court hands the decision back to lower courts, which will have to take into account that presidential immunity available to Trump in order to prosecute him or not.

This last ruling derives from the investigations undertaken by Smith for months to directly link Trump with the altercations on Jan. 6, 2021, both inside and in the surroundings of the Capitol. The former president has always defended his innocence and his total absence of responsibility with that incident that left five dead, several wounded and dozens arrested.