Fox News host Kayleigh McEnany blasted Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor for writing in a dissenting opinion that the court’s decision to grant former President Trump immunity for official acts “completely insulate[s] presidents from criminal liability.”
“The Sotomayor dissent I think can be described as apoplectic, hyperbolic,” McEnany, who served as White House press secretary under Trump, said before reading from Sotomayor’s opinion.
“When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,” Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion, which was joined by fellow liberal Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan.
“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. … Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote.
McEnany pushed back on such hypotheticals.
“The only problem with that is we have checks and balances in the form of Congress’s checks on the executive all throughout the Constitution,” McEnany said.
Trump applauded the Supreme Court’s decision, which is expected to be key to his ongoing criminal prosecution related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election’s result.
The ruling sends several big decisions back to the judge overseeing the federal case against Trump and whether specific actions leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot were protected by immunity.