The Daily Fuckup

The Supreme Court’s July 1 immunity ruling did not end Donald Trump’s criminal case, and it did not give him a free pass. It drew a line instead: former presidents have absolute immunity for conduct within their exclusive constitutional authority, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial conduct. The justices sent the case back so lower courts could separate the two.

That narrow holding has not stopped Trump from selling the decision as something larger. Within hours, he posted in all caps that it was a “BIG WIN,” and he and his allies began using the ruling as proof that presidential power should be treated as far more insulated from criminal scrutiny than the Court actually said. The legal record is more limited than the slogans. The opinion protects official acts, but it also leaves room for prosecution tied to private conduct.

The distinction matters because the work is not finished. The Court said trial judges still have to decide which alleged acts were official and which were not, and it also restricted how prosecutors may use official acts as evidence in some circumstances. That means the case returns to a lower court for a line-by-line fight over the conduct alleged in the indictment, not a final judgment that Trump is beyond reach.

For Trump, the political value is obvious. The ruling lets him argue that the presidency should come with broader legal shielding, especially when conduct can be described as part of the office. But the opinion itself is not a blanket immunity ruling, and it did not bless the notion that a president can commit crimes with impunity. It preserved a protected zone for official action, left unofficial conduct exposed, and handed the next round of litigation back to the trial court.