The Supreme Court ‘Must’ Be Expanded After Trump Ruling, Oversight Panel Member Argues

0
262

With reactions continuing after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week that gave presidents and former presidents a layer of immunity from criminal prosecution for some actions taken within their legal roles, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) — an outspoken member of the House Oversight Committee — insisted that the nation’s highest court must be expanded.

It’s a proposal that has already circulated, though — particularly with Republicans still controlling the House — it faces steep odds. But Garcia is not alone among Democrats in pushing this kind of solution.

“I’ve long supported expanding the Supreme Court. This court has collapsed and lost all integrity and ethics. We must expand the court,” said the Congressman.

The actual immunity granted by the conservative Supreme Court members’ decision does have broad sweep. “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,” said the conservative court majority’s holdings. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”

Among the concerns stemming from that holding is that it’s apparently now in the court system’s purview to handle what is and isn’t legally protected. The majority’s decision teed up further proceedings in Trump’s underlying case on whether some of the conduct alleged of him falls within these fresh protections.

“The majority of my colleagues seems to have put their trust in our Court’s ability to prevent Presidents from becoming Kings through case-by-case application of the indeterminate standards of their new Presidential accountability paradigm,” wrote Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the only Supreme Court member so far to be nominated by President Joe Biden. “I fear that they are wrong. But, for all our sakes, I hope that they are right.”