The US Supreme Court will hear arguments Thursday on whether Donald Trump, as a former president, should be
immune from criminal prosecution for acts he committed while in office.

The ruling could have far-reaching implications for the extent of US executive power — and Trump’s multiple legal issues as he seeks the White House again.

And while most constitutional law experts expect Trump to suffer a legal defeat, he may already have scored a political victory. By taking the case, the court’s nine justices delayed — perhaps indefinitely — the start of Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election won by Joe Biden.

The question of whether an ex-president is immune from prosecution is an untested one in American jurisprudence because, until Trump, no former White House occupant had been charged with a crime.

“Famously, Richard Nixon engaged in criminal law-breaking,” said James Sample, a constitutional law professor at Hofstra University.

“But because he resigned, and (successor) Gerald Ford then pardoned him, we have never had to squarely address the notion of a criminal prosecution against a former president.”