Supreme Court demolishes foundation of U.S. law to aid Trump in criminal prosecutions
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So anything much going on in the news? Enjoying these sleepy summer days with that much happening?

All right, we've got a bunch of stuff to cover tonight. First, the former president of the United States is going to be sentenced for 34 felony convictions next week on Thursday. The prosecutors who brought that case and who prosecuted in court that case against Donald Trump, they were due today to make their sentencing recommendation to the judge. In a New York State case like this,

It's not the jury that convicted Trump that will decide what his sentence is. It's the judge who oversaw the case. It's Judge Juan Merchan who will sentence Trump. The maximum sentence under law that Trump could face is four years in prison. It's very possible, however, that he might not get any prison time at all. Or if he does get a sentence of confinement, it's possible it could be home confinement. We just don't know.

On the one hand, what he's been convicted of, while it is 34 felonies, it's a nonviolent crime. And also, he's a first-time offender. He's never been convicted of anything before. Those would certainly cut against him getting any significant jail time.

On the other hand, he does have three other major felony criminal cases pending against him at this moment. He was fined by this judge for multiple violations of the court order in this case that required him to restrain himself from speaking about jurors and witnesses and court staff and the families of the judge and the lawyers in this case.

He's also shown absolutely no remorse whatsoever, which is the thing that judges are supposed to consider. So all of those factors serve as sort of aggravating context. Those might cut in favor of him getting jail time. Who knows? This is why a person with the job title judge makes a decision like this and not randos like you or me.

Before the sentencing, the judge will get three pieces of advice, essentially, to help him make his decision. He will get a not public-facing confidential recommendation on Trump's proposed sentence from the probation department. He will also get a sentencing recommendation from Trump's own lawyers, which presumably will be that he should get a cookie and a nice bag of treats because he's a good boy.

And presumably he will also get the sentencing recommendation from prosecutors as well. There is no rule about whether or not the prosecutor's sentencing recommendation is made public either before the sentencing or during the sentencing or after. That is all up to Judge Mershon as to whether he tells us what the prosecutors are asking for.

But I can also tell you tonight that it is not totally clear when the judge is going to get that sentencing recommendation from prosecutors. It was due in today, but then something happened today.

Immediately following today's seismic Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, Trump's lawyers asked the judge, advised the judge in the New York criminal case that they are going to ask him formally. They're going to file a motion asking him essentially to set aside Trump's guilty verdict, despite the jury's verdict in that case.

And after the defense, after Trump's lawyers notified the judge that they were going to ask him to set aside the verdict, prosecutors then didn't send in their sentencing recommendations as they had been expected to do. Now, as far as we know, the sentencing is still on.

But there is an element of uncertainty now as to what kind of a hitch this might be in finishing up this criminal case in which Trump has already been convicted. We can report tonight that Trump's lawyers have asked that the sentencing itself be delayed.

And we expect that Judge Mershon will consider delaying the sentence after he gets both that request from Trump's lawyers, but also after he hears from the prosecutors on that matter. Now that prosecutors have delayed submitting their sentencing recommendations, does that mean the sentencing itself will be delayed? Does that mean anything else material in terms of the sentence that Trump will likely face or when he will hear about it?

We don't know. We are waiting to hear from Judge Mershon. But even with all of this new uncertainty, we are in this remarkable place now. We are officially in the middle of this mess for the United States of America, where the Republican Party has...

nominated someone for president who set off a violent effort to overthrow the government the last time he lost an election, who was starting off the month of July 2024, the month in which the Republican Party's going to hold its nominating convention. He's starting off that month with the CFO

of his company serving time in Rikers with his campaign manager and senior White House advisor Steve Bannon reporting today to federal prison and who himself may be sentenced to Rikers or to New York State Prison, depending on what sentence he's about to get after his own conviction on nearly three dozen felony charges. Excellent job, Republican Party. Great choice. I love how Democrats are like, oh, how did we get into this mess?

It's true that not understanding how old 81 years old looks sometimes is maybe a Democratic Party mistake.

But Democrats are not the party that picked the guy whose charity was shut down as a fraud, whose fake university was shut down as a fraud, whose business was convicted on multiple felony fraud counts, whose CFO is quite literally in jail, who had one personal lawyer put in prison and the other has lost his law license, who has been charged under the Espionage Act for whatever this is that he was doing with highly classified documents, including, reportedly, nuclear secrets.

who was found liable by a jury for sexual assault, who has been charged with more than a dozen felonies under a RICO indictment in the state of Georgia, and who really has been found guilty by another jury of 30-plus felonies for which he is now awaiting a possible prison sentence. That's who you guys picked. I love that the worry in this instance is that the Democrats might have made a bad choice for their nominee. Only in America. Only in America.

I will say, in fairness, if the Democrats are going to change their nominee, they should maybe get on it. Don't take advice from me on this, but it seems like common sense that just waiting a while...

is the worst possible solution. If Vice President Kamala Harris or anyone else is going to take over the top of the ticket instead of President Biden, that candidate will need enough time to actually run a campaign and it's July. So I don't know if the Democrats are going to replace Joe Biden at the top of the ticket or if they should. The only person who can make this decision is the nominee himself, President Biden himself.

But I do know that the window to make this decision is right now, and it's about this wide. Speak now or hold your peace, Democrats, if you actually want a chance of competing here. Because meanwhile, the Republicans are delighted to be running their felon, the guy who really did sick the rioting mob on Congress. They're really running him while he is awaiting sentencing himself for a whole separate set of dozens of unrelated felony charges.

The case in which those 34 felony convictions against him were obtained is a case that took years to get into court, in part because while Trump was president, his Justice Department ordered federal prosecutors to stop their investigation of Trump in conjunction with that case. We know that from the former U.S. attorney in that federal district who wrote about it in his book. They ordered that investigation stopped. They ordered Trump's name

and descriptions of Trump's involvement in that criminal case stripped from public-facing documents in that case. So it took a while to finally get it into court, and it took state court prosecutors to do it. But now, thanks to the Supreme Court's immunity ruling today, we know for sure that that is the only case for which Trump will face trial before he is elected, if ever. And it seems important to note

Because we've now got certainty about that, it seems important to note that at the heart of that case, at the heart of that New York case in which he was convicted of all those felonies, the heart of that New York case in which he is right now awaiting sentencing, even as he is awaiting the Republican National Convention and his nominating speech, at the heart of that case is a lie.

A lie that he is still telling the American public even as he gets ready to get sentenced for being caught out in that lie and punished for it by a jury. He is sticking with the lie. He is trying to ride it back to the White House. He told the lie again in the debate last week. And so that's the second thing I want to talk about tonight, which is that I'm going to be back here tomorrow at this time. I know you are just getting used to me only being here on Monday nights instead of five nights a week.

Sorry. I'm here right now. I'm going to be here tomorrow at 9 p.m. Eastern. And I hope you will come back and watch. 9 p.m. Eastern, tomorrow night, Tuesday night, I am doing a special. It is an interview.

with the woman who is the subject of that ongoing lie from Donald Trump. She was the center of the criminal case against him, which resulted in his 34 felony convictions, and that will occasion his potential prison sentence next week. She was subpoenaed by the prosecution and served as the central witness in the prosecution's case. I have wanted to interview her for a very long time. Her testimony in the trial was legitimately shocking. She would like to elaborate on that testimony.

And so my interview with her is finally happening. My guest tomorrow night right here at 9 p.m. Eastern is Stormy Daniels. This will be her first U.S. interview since the guilty on all counts verdict in the case involving Trump's payment to her to keep her from speaking out about her experience with him.

Again, her testimony at that criminal trial was crucial to his conviction. It was legitimately shocking testimony. She would like to elaborate on that testimony, and she will do so here, 9 p.m. tomorrow night. We'll talk about the case. We'll talk about what's happened since the case. We'll talk about what's happened to her because of her role in that case. We'll talk about what it means for

what is coming next from Donald Trump if he is reelected to the presidency. Again, 9 p.m. Eastern, tomorrow, Tuesday night. I hope you will watch. Now, as we await Trump's sentencing in that case, this immunity ruling today from the Supreme Court is at hand. And I'm not a lawyer. It is, as far as I can tell, in my layman's understanding, it is as radical as anything I have ever seen from the United States Supreme Court.

I can certainly tell you that it is profoundly worse. It is a profoundly worse ruling than even the most pessimistic observers predicted. There was essentially one substantial aspect of immunity for Trump that Trump and his lawyers put to the court that they did not get. That was this sort of internally contradictory, confusing proposal they'd made that a president could only be criminally prosecuted for crimes if you first impeached him in the House and convicted him in the Senate.

The implication was that any failed impeachment effort would effectively immunize that behavior for life. That thing about impeachment being connected in that way to a criminal prosecution, the court threw that out as nonsense. But they gave him everything else he asked for and more. They gave him immunity in every other way that he asked for it, including for things his own lawyer conceded weren't among Trump's official acts as president.

Things that Trump's lawyer conceded were private acts were described in today's majority ruling as things for which Trump might nevertheless potentially get immunity. Here's how Justice Sonia Sotomayor put it in her dissent today. She said that the court, quote, refuses to designate any course of conduct alleged in the indictment as private, despite concessions from Trump's counsel.

She continues, when asked about allegations that private actors helped implement a plan to submit fraudulent slates of presidential electors to obstruct the certification proceeding, and Trump and a co-conspirator attorney directed that effort, Trump's counsel conceded the alleged conduct by Trump was private. She then says, quote, only the majority, meaning only the majority ruling in the court today,

thinks that organizing fraudulent slates of electors might qualify as an official act of the president. In other words, Trump may be even more protected from prosecution on the fake-electors thing than even Trump asked for. Justice Sotomayor's dissent is being cited widely today, not only because of its heat, it is considerably hot, but also because of the light that it sheds on the practical consequences of this ruling from the majority.

She says, quote, looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today's decision are stark. The court effectively creates a law-free zone around the president, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the founding. This new official act's immunity now lies about like a loaded weapon for any president that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain above the interests of the nation.

The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

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. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That's the majority's message today.

day. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the president is now a king above the law.

She closes, quote, "Never in the history of our republic has a president had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop." She says, quote, "With fear for our democracy, I dissent."

Justice Sotomayor's dissent was joined today by Justice Kagan and Justice Jackson. The three of them, and through Justice Sotomayor's writing this dissent, they have at least done us the favor of writing what's kind of a speaking dissent. It spells out, not in legalese, but in plain English, the stark consequences of this ruling today.

To his credit, actually, President Biden did the same tonight at the White House. He said, quote, "Today's decision almost certainly means there's no limits to what a president can do. This is a fundamentally new principle, and it's a dangerous precedent. The power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even the Supreme Court of the United States. The only limits will be self-imposed by the president alone." But there are two practical consequences of this ruling.

that I feel like I need help in understanding tonight. I am worried about both of them, I have to tell you, but I feel like I need expert advice in terms of understanding what they really mean. And so I'm going to ask for some help on two things in particular. The first is this, which is not from the dissent, but from the actual ruling.

It's talking about the part of the federal indictment against Trump for overthrowing the government stuff, for the January 6th stuff, the part of the indictment that relates to him trying to use the Justice Department, trying to employ the Justice Department basically as a tool in his scheme to overthrow the government and hold on to power after he lost the election.

On that point specifically, the ruling says this, quote, "...the indictment's allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose..."

do not divest the president of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the president cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Absolutely immune from anything related to his discussions with Justice Department officials.

My question is, doesn't that mean the president, any president here, is being given overt carte blanche from the court that he or she can tell the Justice Department to do anything for any reason and it can never be reviewed for the life of that president? Because if so, among other things, Richard Nixon would like his presidency back, please.

If everything that happens between a president and his Justice Department is absolutely immune from the criminal law, is absolutely immune from not only the prosecution but investigation by the courts as a potentially criminal matter, that means that the president can do things with the Justice Department that—I mean, what's the limit?

My second question is about what happens next in that federal case referenced there about January 6th. The justices in the majority today, with Chief Justice Roberts writing for them, said explicitly that they want portions of this case sent back to the district court. So not the part that relates to Trump talking to Justice Department officials, but the other parts of it.

They want those parts of the indictment sent back to the district court, meaning back to Judge Tonya Chutkin's courtroom in Washington, D.C., essentially for her to determine in her courtroom whether or not Trump's actions, as described in the indictment, were official and therefore immune, or were they not official, which might mean that charges on those matters can go ahead.

What does that mean exactly? What are the justices saying should happen in Judge Chetkin's courtroom and when? And what will that look like to an American public that really is actively considering right now whether to send this particular felon back to the White House thanks to the Republican Party of the United States? Joining us now is Nina Totenberg. She's NPR legal affairs correspondent. She's a longtime Supreme Court reporter who was there today.

for the ruling. Ms. Totenberg, it's a real pleasure and honor to have you with us tonight. Thank you so much for making time to be here. I'm very pleased to be here. I hope I have the answers to all of your questions. Let me ask about those last couple of points first. Can you explain a little bit about what the justices in the majority, what the ruling said today about a conversation between a president and Justice Department officials?

Well, what the court said is that the president is unlike—the presidency is unlike the other two branches of government. The House and Senate have hundreds of members. The judiciary has hundreds of judges. And at the top of it are nine Supreme Court justices. But the president is just one person, and he controls the entire executive branch, is basically what Chief Justice Roberts said.

And that means he controls the Justice Department, too. And he can call up the Justice Department and say, do this or don't do this, at least as I understood what the chief justice was saying. That is within his prerogative as the chief executive of the United States of America. And it's true that those of us who live through Watergate thought we had seen the Supreme Court say, well, you can't.

really corrupt the FBI and the rule of law through by ordering various members of the Justice Department to do corrupt things. But that, in fact, seems to be what the court is saying today is sort of off the table.

And that is a very huge difference from what those of us who've been around longer than we'd care to admit thought the rule of law was, at least after Watergate.

When it comes to stopping and starting criminal prosecutions or investigations for improper purposes, that's scary. I think particularly given the kinds of campaign rhetoric that we've heard from Mr. Trump heading into a potential second term. But I also think about the other things that the Justice Department does. I mean, I think about, I mean, the just, I think about, you know,

The use of force by the Justice Department and what the president could order in that regard. The hypotheticals involving the worst case scenarios, assassination of political rivals and these things are always brought up in terms of the military. But the U.S. military doesn't have any sort of

deployable force in the United States absent an invocation of the Insurrection Act. It would be the federal law enforcement agencies that are employed to use force, including deadly force, against America on American soil. And it would seem to at least edge into the president having immunity for improperly ordering that sort of thing as well.

I think that's at least a reasonable conclusion. I don't know whether the court would agree with that. But, you know, those of us who were at the original, at the oral argument, understood that the court was going to, as it were, divide the baby. It was very clear that a majority of the justices thought that

that at least this case should go back to the trial judge and she should decide which of these things were official actions and which weren't. And if they were official actions, they were much more likely to be protected—the president was much more likely to be protected from any sort of prosecution than if they were not official actions.

But the court went much further, to the astonishment of, I think, those of us who were at the oral argument and lots of scholars that I talked to today on both sides of the aisle, so to speak, who thought this was way more deferential to the president's power than any of them had expected. But

If you look at those five of those six justices spent their entire lives before becoming judges, as most of their lives, at least, being acolytes to presidents. They worked in the White House. They worked in the Justice Department and top positions. Brett Kavanaugh was staff secretary.

Staff secretary, I think was his title. He's the guy who decided what the president and who the president saw and the materials that went into the president. And most of these these guys felt for all of their lives that they the presidents were being harassed, harassed by the opposition party, harassed by plaintiffs, harassed in all kinds of ways that made their jobs very difficult to do.

And that is reflected in this decision today. And the only member of the conservative supermajority who dissented at all was Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who did not have that experience and who said, look, if you can show that he accepted a bribe, you

You have to be able to present that evidence in court. You can't limit the evidence because this opinion, besides everything else, says not only is the president basically immune from prosecution for a great many things. For those things that you can prosecute him for, you can't use the evidence of his—

wrongdoing if it involved official acts in order to prove to a jury that he did something bad. And she said, "That's basically where I'm getting off this vote. I don't agree with you. I agree with the dissenters." AMY GOODMAN: But even with her dissenting on that point, there's still five justices— AMY BRANGHAM: There's still five votes for what happened. AMY BRANGHAM: Still five votes.

Astonishing. It's, as you say, the astonishment that you saw among legal observers today. I don't qualify as a legal observer. I'm just a person. But the astonishment is real. Nina Totenberg, NPR legal affairs correspondent, national treasure. It's always an honor to have you here, whenever you can be here. Thank you so much. And it's always great for my ego when you introduce me that way. Thanks so much for having me. Take care.

All right. We've got much more to come here tonight on this very, very big news day. We've got a lot of guests stacked up, a lot of stuff to say, a lot of stuff to cover. Don't go away. From the Delta Sky Club. Welcome back, Ms. Klein. To the JetBridge. Delta Airlines relies on 5G solutions from T-Mobile for business to power operations and serve customers faster. Together, we're putting 5G into the hands of ground staff so they can better assist on-the-go travelers with real-time information throughout the airport. No.

This is elevating customer experience. This is Delta Airlines with T-Mobile for business. Take your business further at T-Mobile.com slash now. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to get new episodes of Morning Joe and the Rachel Maddow Show ad-free. Plus ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddow's original series, Ultra, Bagman, and Deja News.

And now, all MSNBC original podcasts are available ad-free and with bonus content, including How to Win 2024, Prosecuting Donald Trump, Why Is This Happening?, and more. Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts. I concur with Justice Sotomayor's dissent today. Here's what she said. She said, End of quote.

So should the American people dissent. I dissent. President Biden tonight at the White House responding to the Supreme Court's ruling that hands presidents, including himself, absolute immunity from prosecution for anything they can successfully argue was an official act.

The president name-checked Justice Sonia Sotomayor's blistering dissent, which she delivered from the bench at the court today. That dissent started, quote, "Today's decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle foundational to our Constitution and system of government that no man is above the law.

Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for bold and unhesitating action by the president, the court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. She said, quote, Because our Constitution does not shield a former president from answering for criminal and treasonous acts, I dissent.

And then she laid out the basis for her dissent. Normally, when Supreme Court justices dissent, they use the word respectfully, saying, I respectfully dissent. Today, Justice Sotomayor and also Justice Katonji Brown Jackson each struck the word respectfully and just wrote, I dissent.

And that is the kind of reaction we are seeing from legal scholars and experts everywhere today. NPR's veteran legal correspondent Nina Totenberg just telling us moments ago that legal observers and experts, including what she described as sort of the both sides of the aisle, meaning both sides of the ideological number line, were, in her words, astonished by how radical this ruling was today.

Sherrilyn Ifill, the former president and director counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, she responded to the ruling today by saying this. She said, quote, "Today's decision in Trump versus United States is a grotesque and hideous distortion of the rule of law by a majority of the highest court of the most powerful democracy in the world. The national and global implications of upending this core principle of democracy has potentially catastrophic national and global implications."

Catastrophic. Joining us now is Sherrilyn Ifill. She is now the Vernon E. Jordan Jr. Distinguished Chair in Civil Rights at Howard Law School. Ms. Ifill, it makes me happy to see your face. I'm really glad that you could be here tonight of all nights. Thank you for making the time. Of course.

So Justice Roberts criticized the liberal justices' dissent today, said they were striking a tone of chilling doom, essentially saying, calm down, ladies, accusing them of overreacting and of portraying this ruling's consequences as something that they are not. You clearly think the consequences of this ruling are, in your words, potentially catastrophic. Can you explain why you think so?

Yeah, I do. I do. Thank you so much, Rachel, for having me. That was part of what was so disturbing about Chief Justice Roberts' opinion. You know, if you're going to burn the house down, don't be mad that people call it arson. You know, this decision is—I talked about it being—you know, having catastrophic consequences, because

precisely of what Justice Sotomayor says about the rule of law. There is no question about what the rule of law means. It means that the law applies equally to all rich and poor people.

highborn and lowborn, black, white, Latino, it means that the one—that one principle of law applies to everyone equally. And the president, once he is no longer a president, is a citizen of the United States. And therefore, the presumption is that he is covered as well by the rule of law.

To shatter that today is so incredibly shocking that I think many people are back on their heels. And I say that it has global implications because our country is a tremendously influential country because of our

power, because of our history, because of our national identity that we have worked so hard to press to other nations. We have held ourselves up as an exemplar of democracy.

And for the highest court in our land to send a signal not only to those in this country but to the rest of the world that the rule of law is something that can be interrupted for a president of your same political party is incredibly dangerous.

And the worst part of it, Rachel, is this is not a theoretical conversation. We actually have experience with former President Trump. We know what he is capable of. We know the kind of excesses that he would like to and did engage in as president. So, this is not a case in which the court did not have before it the evidence of someone who would dangerously use the power that they so recklessly put in the hands of any president today.

I was interested in the way that Justice Sotomayor and her dissent kept going back to the particularities of the indictment and Trump's conduct, as if to say, this is not a theoretical matter. This is not something that we are describing or deciding in the abstract. I think making that exact point implicitly. Let me ask you about a very dark potential consequence of this. And this, again, was raised explicitly by Justice Sotomayor.

The implications of the hypothetical assassination scenario, let's say a president ordered

an element of the military to carry out an attack on somebody who he saw as a danger or as a political rival. The justices seem to have made clear that if the order to kill the person could be construed as something that was official, that the immunity matter is settled and that would actually be something for which a president could never be prosecuted.

Is it that simple? I mean, how would that actually work in the legal system? You know, it seems impossible to imagine that that could be what they mean, although the plain reading of what they wrote, that is what they mean. And we have a former president who, you'll remember, asked his defense secretary why they couldn't just shoot protesters, Black Lives Matter protesters, in the legs.

This is someone who actually thinks in that way. Now, one of the things that held Trump back when he was president was that very often the people around him would not carry out the things he asked them to do. He asked his White House counsel over and over again to fire Jeff Sessions, and he wouldn't do it.

He constantly asked people to do things, and they would ignore him, knowing that he wouldn't do it himself. He wouldn't do it himself because he was at that time unsure of his liability. Now he is sure that this Supreme Court thinks he would have no liability. So, first of all, we have a category of things he can do himself. He can strip—

military members from their ranks for not following his orders. He can accept cash bribes for pardons. There's a whole bunch of things he can do. But then he also can order others to do things. And the people that he's going to have, if he is elected in his Cabinet in his second round, are going to be people of considerably less restraint than those he had the first time around, and they were not particularly restrained.

So, what this court has opened up to us is a true danger. It has unleashed the full power of someone who has shown themselves to be utterly unfit to lead this country, someone who has no regard for restraint or ethics.

And the fact that you can litigate it later, the fact that you can, you know, return to the district court or that you can address these matters in a lower court to make their way back up to the Supreme Court won't change the fact that people will be harmed, that people can be harmed, and that our systems of government and that the rule of law can be even further degraded.

Somewhere along the way, there are a majority of justices on this court who decided that they needed to be the last word on everything, that they could no longer trust the apparatus of democracy. They could no longer trust federal agencies, thus overturning Chevron. They could no longer trust women to make decisions about their bodies. They could no longer trust university officials to decide how to build their classes.

And they could no longer trust the political system to decide fairly how to pick their representatives, so they couldn't interfere with partisan gerrymandering. Now they've decided that determining whether or not the law covers the president of the United States and how much it does and when it does and when it doesn't is fully in their hands. And they have just cut a wide swath

of the president's actions, powers, official and unofficial, that they have deemed barred from criminal prosecution. It's stunning. And I hope people understand how significant this is, how much this day is one that will be remembered.

as one that has very serious consequences for our understanding of the rule of law in this country. We had better wake up and understand the consequences of this election and understand the consequences of having allowed a Supreme Court to have this kind of power in which they believe they cannot be checked by any level of government in our society and not trust the American people to make decisions for themselves. I'm so alarmed. I'm so disturbed

But I would say I feel also a sense of resolve. I think they have fully shown themselves. This court has played its hand. Anyone pretending that we don't know what's going on with this court is doing that, is pretending.

And I think we now have to get very serious about what it means. We are allowed to protect our democracy, and we have to do so. We have to do so at the ballot box. And then, once we prevail in elections, we have to make real decisions about what we want to do to ensure the Supreme Court is ethical, that the Supreme Court is acting in a way that is democratic,

And we have to pass laws that will close all of these loopholes that have been left open because we had the temerity to believe that norms and ethics would guard us against certain kinds of conduct. That has not proven to be true, and so we have a lot of work to do. AMY GOODMAN: Yeah. And in the very near term, in four months, we will be making a decision about whether—about who should be in the Oval Office holding

what is now effectively unlimited and tyrannical power and what kind of person ought to be entrusted with that, which nobody should ever be entrusted with. But now that's what we have. Cheryl and I full now at Howard Law School. Again, seeing you here is a comfort to me because I trust you and I believe in you. Same to me. And I am grateful for your wisdom tonight. Thank you. All right.

We've got more news here ahead tonight, including what Sherrilyn Ifill was just talking about in terms of some of this going back to the district court. The expectation now that there actually will be, of all things, a big evidentiary hearing, sort of a mini trial.

on Trump's federal criminal indictment related to January 6th. It is an ironic and interesting next phase, given what happened today at the Supreme Court. We'll talk about that with Adam Schiff and much more to come. Stay with us tonight.

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He said immediately, quote, today's Supreme Court decision on Donald Trump's immunity claim is far worse than anything I imagined. Under this ruling, a president can order the assassination or jailing of their political rival and be immune. They can take a bribe in exchange for an official act and still be immune. They can organize a military coup to hold on to power and still be immune. Quote, if that sounds mad, that's because it is.

That was the response today from Congressman Adam Schiff, who knows something about trying to hold a president accountable. He was the lead prosecutor in the first impeachment of Trump. He then served on the January 6th investigation in Congress after Trump left office. Schiff has been a very frequent target of very explicit threats from Trump. Trump once posted ominously that Schiff, quote, has not paid the price yet.

for what he has done to our country. He also suggested Schiff should be arrested for treason. That was just days after he appeared to fantasize publicly about executing traitors. He said not just Schiff, but all members of the January 6th investigation should be put in jail.

Schiff and his colleagues say they are preparing for Trump to follow through on these threats if he becomes president again. Thanks to today's Supreme Court ruling, a second term President Trump would have broad new immunity from prosecution for actions he might take against his political enemies. And with looking at the ruling in one very straightforward way, it looks like he would have that immunity almost without limit.

Joining us now is Congressman Adam Schiff, member of the House Judiciary Committee, the Democratic nominee in this year's U.S. Senate race in California. Mr. Schiff, it's a real pleasure to have you here. Thank you for taking time. Good to be with you.

I feel like the seriousness of this ruling is sort of slowly sinking in over the course of the day. I think the initial headlines suggested that it might have had limited scope. But as your reaction indicates, and I think as we're all starting to understand now, this is one of the most far-reaching approaches they could have taken to this issue and goes far beyond what even, I think, conservative observers thought they would do. Do you think that's fair?

I think that's more than fair. It really is difficult to overstate what a dangerous precedent they have set, how they have essentially unshackled the presidency to commit crimes. The court really, without mincing words, has told the American people a

a president of the United States is fully authorized to commit crime. It is simple as that. The court has found that the rule of law applies to everyone with one exception. It does not apply to the president of the United States

The very person most in need of constraint because, of course, the president of the United States has the ability by virtue of the powers of that office to do the most damage by violating the law. So I don't think anyone could overstate just how destructive this president is that it comes a few days before July 4th. If you know, is another body blow. I'm usually an optimistic person, but it is hard not to see this.

as a dangerous precedent that will haunt us. And I would not be surprised if the Roberts Court is one day termed the infamous Roberts Court for this decision among others.

One of the practical consequences of this ruling is that for many of the provisions in the federal indictment of Donald Trump for January 6th for trying to overthrow the government in order to stay in power, the Supreme Court has essentially told

The district court told the trial court, Judge Chania Chutkan in Washington, D.C., that she should hold evidentiary hearings on what Trump did and whether the things that he did that are part of that indictment should be considered as official acts and therefore immune or whether they should be unofficial acts and unlawful.

I'm not quite sure if those are immune too, but they want her to do factual hearings on what he did. What are you expecting from that implication of today's ruling? What should the public expect?

Well, I don't think the public should expect to find much comfort in that. The Supreme Court did a few things today. It not only opened the door to presidential crime, but it also delayed any accountability for Donald Trump. It waited such a long time to issue, really to the very end to issue this decision. It remanded it to the lower court. It set such tight boundaries over

Over what actions the court could even consider to be personal in nature or non-official in nature as to thoroughly constrain a lower court, it held a whole categories of conduct like that involving the Justice Department essentially off limits for the district court to even consider.

Those hearings are not going to be like the January 6th committee because they're not going to be public. And the most dire consequence of all of this is that accountability is being pushed off until after the election. And should Donald Trump be elected, that accountability in the form of this prosecution will probably never come. A president can now lose

lose an election, seek to overturn the election, violate the law and constitution. And this Supreme Court has said there is nothing the American people can do about it. And I find cold comfort in the remand. I think it's just a delay tactic. They went so out of their way even to limit what evidence the court could hear.

The conversation between Donald Trump, for example, and the deputy attorney general, the acting attorney general, where he says, just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressman. That can't even be admitted in evidence at those hearings under this rule. This free court said you can't consider the president's motive. You can't consider the president's actions and words if it has the patina of officiality.

So I take very little comfort in the remand and the power of the district court to sort this out. Congressman Adam Schiff, I appreciate you taking time to talk through this and for being as blunt as you are. I agree with you in terms of those implications. And it's not worth sticking our heads in the sand about it. Congressman, sir, thank you very much. Thank you. All right. We'll be right back. Stay with us.

Just a reminder before I go tonight, I will be back here tomorrow, Tuesday night, for a special event. Tomorrow night, starting at 9 p.m. Eastern, from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern, I have an interview with Stormy Daniels. The criminal case about the payment to her to stop her from talking about her experience with Donald Trump.

is the case that will result in his sentencing on 34 felony convictions next week. In this interview, which is the first American interview she has done since her testimony in that case, she will describe her experience of testifying against Trump in that trial. She will elaborate on her testimony, which was legitimately shocking. She will talk about the threats and harassment that have gone along with her standing up to him.

I will tell you the interview is not easy material. It is not necessarily something you want to watch with your kids. But I will tell you she has a very compelling story to tell. She's also excellent company. She's really, really funny. You're going to want to hear what she says. But that's tomorrow night, 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. Eastern.

here on MSNBC. That's going to do it for me for now.

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