In the Supreme Court's last argument of the term, justices will decide whether or not former President Donald Trump has "absolute immunity" from prosecution for acts he performed while he was president.
The ruling will be a major statement on the scope of presidential power, and will help determine when Trump's trial on charges that he plotted to overturn the results of the 2020 election would begin.
Justices heard nearly three hours of oral arguments on Thursday and appeared ready to reject Trump's claims, The Associated Press reported.
Thane Rosenbaum, CBS News Legal Analyst, said Trump's legal team is leaning on a previous Supreme Court ruling from the 1980s, which held that presidents are immune from civil liability for official acts. They argue that without some degree of immunity, presidents could spend their lives fighting off civil cases.
"In 1982 in Nixon versus Fitzgerald, Richard Nixon, long after he left the White House, was sued by a disgruntled Air Force employee who got fired for civil damages. And the Supreme Court took a look at that and they ultimately said that a president can't be found liable for civil damages for actions that he took within the scope of his employment, even if it's on the outer fringe of the scope of employment. As if to say, as long as he's doing his job, you can't expose him to civil liability for the rest of his life," Rosenbaum told KCBS Radio. "That's one of the arguments... the prior court in 1982 took a look at this in civil court, tell us why it makes a difference in criminal court. If Donald Trump was acting within his official duties, why should he be exposed to criminal prosecution?'"
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan previously rejected Trump's claims of immunity, saying that the office of the presidency does not come with a "lifelong 'get-out-of-jail-free' pass." A federal appeals panel upheld Chutkan's ruling in February, saying that "former President Trump has become citizen Trump," for the purposes of the case an that "any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution."
Special Counsel Jack Smith has said that the acts Trump is charged with -- participating in a scheme to enlist fake electors in battleground states won by President Joe Biden -- are in no way part of a president's official duties. That's another topic justices will have to decide.
"I do think that there's going to be a lot of discussion about Donald Trump saying, 'Look, even if I wasn't running for president, if 70 million people have doubts about the election, I've got to check this out. I've got to call people, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. I want to make sure that it was done right. That was my job. Yes, I was running for presidency and it affected me. But I needed to look into this,'" Rosenbaum said. "Is Donald Trump trying to stay in the White House an official act, or was that personal as opposed to doing the work of the people?"
If the Supreme Court decides to uphold the lower court's ruling rejecting Trump's immunity claim, the case would go back to Chutkan and the clock would restart on trial preparations (which are expected to take at least three months). That would potentially allow for the case to go to jurors before the November election.
If the justices reverse the lower court and agree with Trump that presidents cannot be prosecuted for conduct relating to official acts, the case would stop in its tracks.
"What I'm afraid is going to happen is the Supreme Court will rule narrowly and say, 'We need the lower court to look at this more closely to make a certain factual findings and then come back,'" Rosenbaum said. "If that happens, you know that the case goes back on ice until after the election. And you know, Donald Trump wants that. He wants time."
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