The Court has been rattled from attacks. But the damage could already be done.
Now this Supreme Court Justice betrayed the Court in a shocking confession.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor took aim at the Court’s 2024 presidential immunity ruling in her first public appearance since the start of President Trump’s second term, warning that the decision puts the Court’s legitimacy at risk.
Speaking in Louisville, Kentucky, Sotomayor fielded questions on a range of topics, including public trust in the Court. It marked her first public remarks since Trump returned to the White House last month, and she wasted no time criticizing the ruling.
“If we as a court go so much further ahead of people, our legitimacy is going to be questioned,” she cautioned. “I think the immunity case is one of those situations. I don’t think that Americans have accepted that anyone should be above the law in America. Our equality as people was the foundation of our society and of our Constitution.”
The 6-3 ruling in Trump v. United States determined that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts but not for unofficial ones. It was a major blow to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case, which had attempted to charge Trump with a variety of crimes stemming from his post-2020 election actions.
Sotomayor, who authored the dissent joined by liberal Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, lashed out at the decision, calling it a “mockery” of constitutional principles.
“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law,” she argued.
Her dissent took a particularly dramatic tone, warning that “moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity” and claiming that if a president “misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop.” She concluded with a dire pronouncement: “With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
Sotomayor made it clear that she took the ruling personally, telling the Louisville audience that she “had a hard time with the immunity case” and insisting that the Constitution does not exempt presidents from prosecution once out of office.
She then escalated her warnings about the Court’s future, suggesting that its credibility is at stake if it continues along the current path.
“And if we continue going in directions that the public is going to find hard to understand, we’re placing the court at risk,” she said.
Despite her dire predictions, the White House dismissed the criticism, with a spokesperson telling Fox News Digital, “This historic 6-3 ruling speaks for itself.”
Sotomayor also implied that the Court’s recent decisions—including its landmark reversals of Roe v. Wade, affirmative action, and the Chevron doctrine—were destabilizing the country.
“I think that creates instability in the society, in people’s perception of law and people’s perception of whether we’re doing things because of legal analysis or because of partisan views,” she claimed, though she stopped short of directly accusing her conservative colleagues of partisanship.
This isn’t the first time Sotomayor has voiced frustration with the Court’s direction. In 2023, following the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, she admitted to feeling “a sense of despair” over the ruling, though she did not reference the case by name.
Still, she insisted she would not give up the fight.
“It’s not an option to fall into despair,” she declared. “I have to get up and keep fighting.”
While Sotomayor’s rhetoric may resonate with progressives, her increasingly emotional critiques of the Court’s rulings suggest that the left’s frustration is reaching a boiling point as Trump’s Supreme Court reshapes the legal landscape.
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