And with that ruling, a U.S. District Court judge in Washington made it official what many have been saying for months. Specifically, the ruling applies to members of the president's staff, who claimed immunity from congressional investigation because they are or were members of the president's staff.
Lawyers for the president have claimed that not only is the president immune from prosecution but so also are members of his staff, whether still on the job or after they leave. But this raises the question of where that immunity might end, if ever. The ruling, by Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court in Washington, calls this "a fiction that has been fastidiously maintained over time through the force of repetition" by administration lawyers.
The ruling is likely to be appealed, and the issue of presidential immunity eventually will make its way to the Supreme Court. This could take months, but whether the case is settled before Election Day next November is a wide open question.
Meanwhile, members of the public face the continuing argument between the White House and Congress over who's in charge.
Attorney General William Barr has said the Constitution supports presidential authority over other government branches. Others, including Judge Jackson, stress the concept of three co-equal branches of government. In her ruling, Judge Jackson wrote that the Constitution "vests the legislature with the power to investigate abuses of official authority when necessary to hold government officials, up to and including the president, accountable."
Or as many observers have pointed out, no one is above the law. And that includes the president.
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