8:57 am ET, April 25, 2024
Trump, Smith duel over meaning of foundational Marbury v. Madison decision
From CNN’s John Fritze
In addition to battling over whether former presidents are entitled to sweeping immunity from criminal charges, former President Donald Trump and special counsel Jack Smith have taken fundamentally different views of what is one of the Supreme Court’s most important decisions.
In Marbury v. Madison, Chief Justice John Marshall established the Supreme Court’s power to strike down laws enacted by Congress. According to Trump, the decision also stands for the proposition that courts are barred from reviewing official acts of a president.
“This court held that a president’s official acts ‘can never be examineable by the courts,’” Trump’s attorneys argued in briefs to the Supreme Court, “a doctrine that this court has reaffirmed over two centuries.”
“Marbury did not hold that a president’s official acts can never be examined in a court, and a host of cases from the founding to the present refute that claim,” the special counsel argued.
Instead, Smith said, that and subsequent cases established that courts would not review the acts of a sitting president. “That principle,” he argued, “has no application to criminal prosecution of a former president.”
Tags: Supreme Court hearing arguments Trump immunity case Live updates
