Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Monday that Democrats would pursue legislation to classify actions taken by former President Donald Trump surrounding the events of Jan. 6 as “unofficial” and therefore not immune from prosecution.
That vow comes on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling last week that Trump is immune from prosecution for certain actions he took while fighting to subvert the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.
“We, Democrats, will not let this stand unaddressed,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “The Constitution makes plain that Congress has the authority to check the judiciary.”
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, meanwhile, defended the court’s actions and said Democrats were misreading the decision.
“Democrats seem to want to turn Washington into the Hague,” McConnell said in his own floor remarks. “Their problem with the Supreme Court isn’t that they won’t be able to prosecute a President for unofficial criminal activity — because they still can. Their problem is that they won’t be able to prosecute official actions that they don’t like.”
