It’s difficult to understand the angry reaction in some quarters to the Supreme Court’s ruling that Donald Trump is entitled to immunity for his “official acts”—i.e., the actions he took in pursuit of the responsibilities assigned to the President by the Constitution. The decision thus far could not have been otherwise.

Article II Section 1 of the Constitution says: “The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.” So whatever “executive power” is, the President has it. Article II also designates the President as the commander in chief of the armed forces and enjoins him to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed.”

Because the extent and elements of “executive power” aren’t specified in the Constitution, questions about whether the President’s actions were authorized must be resolved by determining whether they fall within the reasonable scope of “executive power.”

How the President discharges these responsibilities, of course, could be controversial, but to charge him criminally for actions he is authorized to take by the Constitution has no legal foundation. In effect, it would take back some of the unspecified powers all prior Presidents have used.

None of this means that “the President is above the law,” as some have said, and it is an absurdity to use this slogan. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, from which the President, Congress, and Judiciary derive their respective powers. None of them has power over the other two. In the end, if there is an unresolvable conflict, it can only be settled by an election.

Although Congress (with the President’s approval) can make laws that authorize the President to act or restrain him from acting—thus supplementing the Constitution’s general language—neither Congress nor the judiciary has the authority to arraign the President for violating the Constitution, since neither body has authority over the President, who derives his powers from the same Constitution.

Nevertheless, it is possible that the Supreme Court could determine what the term “executive power” meant at the time the Constitution was written, and hold that some specific power the President proposed to use was not among the “executive powers” that the Constitution had authorized. In the famous case where President Truman tried to seize the steel mills during the Korean War, the Court determined that “executive power” did not include the authority to take this action. 

Now we can see why the Court in Trump v. US was willing to grant immunity to Trump where he was acting in a manner that was consistent with traditional executive power. In this case, the Court literally does not have the authority to restrict the President’s activity when the President—a co-equal branch—was simply doing what the Constitution had authorized.

Where the President is not pursuing traditional executive actions, the Court might be reluctant to determine that he has exceeded his powers. The President’s reasons for acting may bring his action within traditional bounds. Accordingly, in these cases, the Court held that the President had “presumptive immunity” and sent the matter to a trial court to determine the President’s motives and purposes so the Supreme Court can better determine whether the action was consistent with traditional executive power.

An interesting question is why, after almost 250 years, this is the first time the Supreme Court has been asked to determine whether a President is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for carrying out what he describes as his official duties.

The answer is probably that Donald Trump came up in a different environment than his predecessors. He did not follow the same path to power or come to accept the standards that had automatically been accepted by those who climbed the customary political ladder from local official to the presidency. 

Unlike his predecessors, he never saw the presidency as a sacred trust, but only as an effective way to carry his ideas into effect or satisfy his will to power, and it should be no surprise that he has run the presidency much like he ran his life and business. These are the standards of his background, not those of prior Presidents.

That’s also why he is the first President to take actions in office—like trying to retain top secret documents after leaving office or to overturn an election—that violated all prior norms, making him the first President who had to ask the Supreme Court for immunity from some of the charges against him.

The Supreme Court’s decisions have thus far seemed correct. Eventually, the Court will have to decide whether interfering with the 2020 election falls within traditional executive powers. If not, Trump will eventually face charges after he leaves office, even if he wins re-election this year.

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