Author: admin

(WASHINGTON) — Nearly two years after the Supreme Court’s monumental 2024 decision granting President Donald Trump sweeping immunity from prosecution, the ruling’s broader impact on American government is beginning to come into focus as Trump and his lawyers repeatedly invoke the case in an effort to get the justices to endorse expansive presidential power.

“That’s not a coincidence, it’s a strategy,” said James Sample, a constitutional scholar at Hofstra Law and ABC News legal contributor. “They’re not just invoking a precedent, they’re building an architecture.”

An ABC News review of the unprecedented 29 Trump emergency applications to the Supreme Court in his second term found that nearly a third directly cited Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion in the immunity case, Trump v. U.S.

Trump attorneys reference portions of the court’s immunity decision at least 21 times to argue for “unrestricted” presidential power to fire executive branch employees; unreviewable control over “matters related to terrorism, trade and immigration;” and absolute authority as commander-in-chief to deploy troops to aid domestic law enforcement.

The Constitution “creates an ‘energetic, independent executive,’ not a subservient executive,” Solicitor General John Sauer wrote the court, quoting Roberts, in a September request to allow Trump to remove Federal Reserve Board Governor Lisa Cook.

“These aren’t random citations,” Sample said. “The White House Counsel’s Office has read that opinion very carefully, and they are using it methodically.”

The court is still crafting a decision in the Cook case but has generally embraced the administration’s broad view of presidential authority to remove federal employees and supervise agencies.

Since January 2025, however, the justices have not referenced Trump v. U.S. to justify any of its decisions in favor of the Trump administration, leading some court analysts to question why the conservative majority has avoided explicitly invoking its own precedent.

“We just don’t know yet what this case means, and it will be up to a future Supreme Court to define it,” said Sarah Isgur, SCOTUS blog editor and ABC News legal contributor.

On several occasions, Trump appeals relying on the immunity decision have been rejected.

The court declined to embrace Trump administration claims in April 2025 that the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was interwoven with the president’s “important foreign relations responsibilities,” which Roberts had indicated in the immunity decision were off limits for judicial review.

A majority of justices also rejected Trump’s argument that a lower court block on his National Guard deployment in Chicago infringed on core constitutional powers as commander-in-chief, which were detailed in Roberts’ opinion in the immunity case.

“They have been making a more powerful president — with more complete control over the executive branch and its employees,” said Isgur of the high court’s conservative majority, “but also a weaker presidency that has to go back to Congress if it wants to move the law in any meaningful way.”

Some legal scholars note the Trump v. U.S. decision also broke new ground by putting in writing the idea that the president has exclusive authority to enforce federal law and unchecked prosecutorial discretion — an endorsement that some say has had at the very least a psychological impact on the president and his team.

Roberts’ opinion enshrines the idea that “investigation and prosecution of crimes is a quintessentially executive function” and that the president has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute.”

“The Justice Department will likely use [the ruling’s] discussion of the exclusive power over prosecution and investigation to push the bounds of this discretion,” wrote Harvard Law professor and former assistant attorney general during the George W. Bush administration Jack Goldsmith in a recent law review article.

Trump has asserted himself as the nation’s top law enforcer in his second term, personally directing the attorney general and other top officials on whom to investigate and whom to prosecute.

Trump has pushed indictments of many of his perceived opponents, including former FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, California Sen. Adam Schiff, and former special counsel Jack Smith.

When six Democratic members of Congress posted a video telling military service members that they had the right not to carry out unlawful orders, Trump said the “traitors” should be “arrested and put on trial.” Efforts to secure an indictment subsequently failed.

The Supreme Court’s opinion in the Trump immunity case explicitly enshrines the president’s right to active involvement in the cases and others like them.

“The president may discuss potential investigations and prosecutions with the Attorney General and other Justice Department officials to carry out his constitutional duty to ‘take care that the laws be faithfully executed,'” Roberts wrote, quoting Article II of the Constitution. Later, Roberts adds on behalf of the court, a president has “exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials, and the president cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority.”

“Those quotes are also just true as a matter of the Constitution,” Isgur said. “That’s what a president is supposed to do. What’s new is using criminal prosecutors for partisan purposes — and there’s no quotes about that in the case.”

A majority of Americans, 55%, believe Trump is using the Justice Department to file unjustified criminal charges against his opponents, according to a November 2025 Marquette Law School poll; 45% think the charges have been justified.

At the same time, most Americans — 56% — disapprove of the way the Supreme Court is handling its job, compared with 44% who approve, the Marquette poll found.

“The Court has traditionally proceeded cautiously and carefully when marking out exclusive presidential power because the president is known to run hard when the Court recognizes such power. But it did the opposite in Trump v U.S.,” Goldsmith argues.

“The Court issued an incautious and overly broad ruling on exclusive presidential powers that presidents will use to their advantage against the other branches,” Goldsmith wrote, “until the Court, in more considered reflection, acknowledges its imprudence and alters course.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) — Vice President JD Vance is in Hungary on Tuesday, meeting with Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of President Donald Trump, ahead of the country’s April 12 election which could threaten Orbán’s long hold on power.

Orban faces criticism over the decline of democracy in the country as he and his allies have destroyed checks and balances and taken control of the country’s media.

He faces a strong challenge from opposition leader Peter Magyar, who was once part of the prime minister’s party but launched his own in 2024 and began attacking Orbán’s Fidesz party over alleged corruption.

The authoritarian leader has long been a close ally of Trump and was among the first European leaders to endorse him in the 2016 presidential election. Orbán’s nationalist party has become a model for MAGA populists, particularly for its aggressive stance on immigration.

Orban met with Trump three times in 2024, one of those visits coming after Trump won the 2024 election. Orbán has spoken several times at the Conservative Political Action Conference, known as CPAC.

Most recently, Orbán, also an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, visited Trump at the White House in November, where he received a special exemption from sanctions imposed on Russian oil because of its invasion of Ukraine. Hungary is a major importer of Russian energy and the sanctions would have impacted the country’s already weakening economy.

While Hungary is a member of the European Union, Orbán has repeatedly attacked it and clashed with his European counterparts on several issues, including Russia’s war in Ukraine, using his veto power to try to block the EU’s efforts to support Ukraine.

Trump has already endorsed Orban in his reelection bid and has praised him, calling him “strong and powerful.”

During his visit, Vance will hold bilateral meetings with Orbán and publicly deliver remarks on the U.S.-Hungary partnership.

In a statement to ABC News, a spokesperson for Vance said that the vice president is looking forward to his visit and building “on the progress President Trump and Prime Minister Orbán have made on many key issues, including energy, technology, and defense.”

Vance’s trip to Hungary follows Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s visit in February, during which he reinforced the Trump administration’s support of the embattled Orbán.

“I can say to you with confidence that President Trump is deeply committed to your success because your success is our success, because this relationship we have here in Central Europe through you is so essential and vital for our national interests in the years to come,” Rubio said then.

In early 2025, Vance delivered blistering remarks at the Munich Security Conference, where he made the argument to European lawmakers to pay attention to the interests of conservative voters, take stronger actions on immigration and that Europe was moving towards censorship and away from Democracy.

Vance’s remarks were not well received by many European allies, with German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius saying at the time that it appeared that Vance was comparing parts of Europe to “authoritarian regimes,” calling it “unacceptable.”

 

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

(WASHINGTON) —  President Donald Trump on Monday shared new details about the harrowing lengths a U.S. aviator shot down in Iran went through to keep himself alive and the scope of the mission to rescue him.

“Despite the peril, the officer followed his training and climbed into the treacherous mountain terrain and started climbing toward a higher altitude, something they were trained to do in order to evade capture,” Trump recounted in a briefing on the operation to the media. “He scaled cliff faces, bleeding rather profusely, treated his own wounds, and contacted American forces to transmit his location.”

Trump said the weapons system officer, who ejected along with the pilot from an F-15 fighter jet, was “injured quite badly” and stranded in an area “teeming” with members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, militia and local authorities.

The pilot was rescued in a separate and challenging broad daylight mission on Friday.

But finding the second aviator, who landed miles away, was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.

Trump said the U.S. has taken out Iran’s radar and air defense capabilities but the F-15 was shot down by a shoulder-launched, heat-seeking missile.

“They had probably a little luck because you got to get lucky,” the president said.

Trump said the second rescue mission involved involved “hundreds” of service members and 155 aircraft, including four bombers, 64 fighters, 48 refueling tankers, 13 rescue aircraft and others, as well as efforts to deceive the Iranians about where U.S. forces were searching.

“We had seven different locations where they thought, and they were very confused,” Trump said of the Iranians.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described Iran’s military as “embarrassed and humiliated” by the rescue.

Trump said the Central Intelligence Agency was responsible for finding “this little speck” in the mountainous area in which he was hiding.

Ratcliffe, the CIA director, said the U.S. deployed both human assets and “exquisite technologies that no other intelligence service in the world possesses” to locate the weapons system officer on Saturday, who was “concealed in a mountain crevice, still invisible to the enemy, but not to the CIA.”

Ratcliffe said some of the unique capabilities the CIA used are ones that only the president can deploy and that he would not publicly divulge what they were.

“As an agency, the CIA possesses unique capabilities that only the president can deploy. Some of these capabilities fall under covert action authorities. And because covert means exactly that, I’m not going to be able to tell you everything that you want to know,” Ratcliffe said.

Ratcliffe said finding the downed aviator was “comparable to hunting for a single sand of grain of sand in the middle of a desert.”

“This was also a race against the clock, as it was critical that we locate the downed aviator as quickly as possible, while at the same time keeping our enemies misdirected,” he added.

Hegseth said once the airman turned on his transponder, his first message was “God is Good.”

“In that moment of isolation and danger, his faith and fighting spirit shown through,” Hegseth said. 

Trump said once it was determined that the two airplanes used to ferry in troops and equipment could not take off from the soft, wet sand in the makeshift landing area, “we blew them up to smithereens” so that the technology they carried couldn’t be captured by the Iranians.

“And we had a contingency plan, which was unbelievable, where lighter, faster aircraft came in and they took them out. We blew up the old planes. We blew them up to smithereens, because we had equipment on the planes that, frankly, we’d like to take, but I don’t think it was worthwhile spending another four hours there taking it off,” he said.

ABC News’ Mariam Khan contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.