Is Trump immune from criminal prosecution? Supreme Court will soon decide major question

The Supreme Court isexpected to rule imminently on whether Donald Trump is immune from criminal prosecution for his attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.

His defense has already been shot down by the federal judge overseeing the election interference case against him as well as a unanimous panel of appeals court judges, who wrote that Trump’s attempts to stay in power were “an unprecedented assault on the structure of our government.”

The question is now in the hands of the nation’s highest court.

An answer – expected by the end of this week – could have profound consequences for holding former presidents accountable for crimes committed while in office.

But the court’s decision to take up the case – and wait until the final days of its current session to issue a ruling – ensures that voters will not see a verdict in the trial to determine if he unlawfully conspired to overturn an election before they cast their ballots in the next one this November.

The court also is expected to soon decide whether Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021 can be charged with obstruction, adding to the politically volatile decisions from the court’s conservative majority-dominated bench and its three Trump-appointed justices.

A federal investigation into Trump’s efforts to subvert the 2020 election are detailed in a 45-page indictment outlining three alleged criminal conspiracies and the obstruction of Joe Biden’s victory, culminating in a mob’s violent breach of the Capitol to stop it.

After months of evidence and witness testimony under an investigation helmed by special counsel Jack Smith, a grand jury voted to indict Trump in August 2023.

Two months later, Trump’s attorneys argued that