Supreme Court opinion conferring broad immunity could embolden Trump as he seeks to return to power

WASHINGTON (AP) — In her dissent from a Supreme Court opinion that afforded former President Donald Trump broad immunity, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pondered the potential doomsday consequences: A president could pocket a bribe for a pardon, stage a military coup to retain power, order the killing of a rival by the Navy SEAL Team Six — and be protected from prosecution for all of it.

The scenarios may sound part of an apocalyptic future. But the plain reality of the 6-3 opinion is that it ensures presidents have a wide berth to carry out official acts without fear of being criminally charged and it could embolden Trump, who was impeached twice and faced four separate prosecutions over the last year and a half, as he eyes a return to the White House.

The outcome is significant because Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has been public about wanting to pursue the same boundary-obliterating conduct that defined his four years in office, spawned criminal and congressional investigations and raised thorny questions about the scope of presidential immunity that were resolved largely in his favor in Monday's landmark opinion.

“Over the long term, I think it will broaden what presidents are willing to do because they will see that there’s a gray zone that the Supreme Court laid out,” said Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer, who studies political history. The effect of the opinion, he said, will be to “broaden the scope of what's going to be permissible” and give presidents sufficient cover for acts that may veer into criminality.