Justice Samuel Alito Questions if Criminal Prosecution of Former President 'Destabilizes the Functioning of Our Country'
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Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito on Thursday questioned if the criminal prosecution of an incumbent — who narrowly lost an election — could lead to the destabilization of the country as a whole as opposed to the incumbent knowing he could leave office peacefully.
Alito made the remark on Thursday, as the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether Trump is immune from prosecution on charges of attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. It appears, during the arguments, that a majority of Supreme Court justices agreed with former President Donald Trump’s attorneys’ arguments.
This artist sketch depicts, from left, Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, and Associate Justice Elena Kagan at the Supreme Court during arguments over whether former President Donald Trump is immune from prosecution in a case charging him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 25, 2024. (Dana Verkouteren via AP)
“If a president has the authority to pardon himself before leaving office and the D.C. Circuit is right that there is no immunity from prosecution, won't the predictable result be that presidents on the last couple of days of office are going to pardon themselves from anything that they might have been conceivably charged with committing?” Alito asked the government’s Michael Dreeben.
Dreeben said he doubted that, asserting that it “presupposes a regime that we have never had except for President Nixon and as alleged in the indictment here.”
“Presidents who are conscious of having engaged in wrongdoing and seeking to shield themselves, I think the political consequences of a president who asserted a right of self-pardon that has never been recognized, that seems to contradict a bedrock principle of our law that no person shall be the judge in their own case. Those are adequate deterrents, I think, so that this kind of dystopian regime is not going to evolve,” he continued, prompting Alito to pose the following question regarding the consequences of not allowing the departing president to exit office peacefully.
“Let me end — end with just a question about what is required for the functioning of a stable democratic society, which is something that we all want,” Alito said.
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“I'm sure you would agree with me that a stable democratic society requires that a candidate who loses an election, even a close one, even a hotly contested one, leave office peacefully if that candidate is — is the incumbent,” he continued, prompting an “of course” from Dreeben.
“All right. Now, if a — an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy?” Alito posed, adding, “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.”
As Breitbart News reported, “A federal trial court ruled in [special council Jack] Smith’s favor that Trump is not immune from prosecution, but Smith’s prosecution in D.C. has been on hold until the Supreme Court weighs in, likely in late June.”
The case is Trump v. United States, No. 23-939 in the Supreme Court of the United States.
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