For those rightly concerned about the timing of Donald Trump’s federal Jan. 6 trial, Thursday’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court gave plenty of reasons for worry. Moreover, the court’s conservative majority seemed inclined to define presidential immunity from prosecution in a way that could undermine some of the charges in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment.

Much of the court’s questioning went well beyond the immediate issue of Trump’s immunity for the criminal acts alleged. The court’s conservatives focused almost exclusively on abstract questions of immunity for future presidents rather than the charges against the former president. Even the more moderate members of the conservative majority seemed preoccupied with the difficulty of drawing the line between official and unofficial acts, assuming that the former deserve extensive protection from prosecution.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett read a litany of acts from the indictment and asked Trump’s lawyer whether they were official or not. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. indicated that the line between public and private presidential conduct is hard to draw, saying he was concerned that the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals “did not get into a focused consideration of what acts we’re talking about or what documents we’re talking about.”

At best, the court’s questioning augurs an opinion setting out general principles of immunity and necessitating a remand to the lower courts to apply the justices’ guidance. As Justice Neil M. Gorsuch put it, “We’re writing a rule for the ages.” That would add further delay to a schedule that already seems to be putting a trial shortly before or beyond the November election.

And that wasn’t even the most serious implication for Smith’s case.

The conservative justices’ questioning of Michael Dreeben, the special counsel’s well-regarded Supreme Court specialist, was sharp and fast. And their questions to both sides suggested they might conclude that inquiring into a president’s motives for certain acts would violate the constitutional separation of powers. That would point to a decision requiring the courts to set aside all evidence of a president’s malign intent.

If motive has to be disregarded in determining whether the president’s actions are official or not, it could undermine much of the case against Trump — including, for example, his brazen attempt to strong-arm the Department of Justice into falsely informing Georgia officials that the state’s election results were flawed.

Such a limitation might even provide immunity in the hypothetical extreme proposed during arguments before the D.C. Circuit: a president ordering Navy Seals to assassinate a political opponent. The force of that example is that it shows how an official act could have a patently malign motive.

As Justice Elena Kagan interjected in reference to the implications of her colleagues’ questions and Trump lawyer John Sauer’s response: “You’re asking us to say that a president is entitled … for total personal gain, to use the trappings of his office.” Exactly right.

Gorsuch threw another lifeline to Trump’s lawyer, asking whether he would accept a definition of official acts like the one in the D.C. Circuit’s opinion in Blassingame vs. Trump, which concerned presidential immunity from civil suits. That case drew a distinction between Trump’s acts as an officeholder and as an office-seeker. Applying it to the criminal case would likely immunize Trump for some of the conduct in the indictment, in particular his allegedly corrupt use of the Justice Department, though he would presumably remain on the hook for political conduct such as organizing false electors.

It got worse for the prosecution. More or less out of nowhere, Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh suggested that one of the charges against Trump, conspiracy to defraud the United States, relies on a statute that is so broad and vague that it could be misused by future prosecutors against future presidents. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. jumped in to second the suggestion, taking up a criticism of the prosecution that Trump’s lawyers hadn’t even raised.

Since the court just heard arguments in a separate case that could invalidate two of the four charges against Trump — those under a federal obstruction statute — an opinion invalidating another charge could force Smith to soldier on with only one remaining charge against Trump, conspiracy against rights. That charge relies on the electorate’s right to have votes counted, which is a somewhat indirect approach to accountability for Trump’s pernicious post-election conduct.

That’s not all. Kavanaugh also raised the Trump team’s suggestion that perhaps Congress should have to make a “clear statement” of intent to apply any criminal law to the president, a stratagem the court previously conjured to deal with separation-of-powers concerns. Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out that it would in effect excuse a president for violations of most of the federal code.

Dreeben hardly had time to make his points until the end of the nearly three-hour argument, when Kagan gave him some room to do so. Kagan also asked the special counsel’s representative a friendly question getting at the possibility that the court could limit its decision to the charges against Trump to permit the trial to go forward expeditiously. But the odds that the court will take that guidance now look extremely slim.

Going into Thursday’s showdown, the critical question was whether the court’s opinion would permit the trial to go forward without further proceedings. In the wake of the arguments, that seems more unlikely than ever. Indeed, the court’s questions raised the additional alarming prospect that it could confer the kind of expansive presidential immunity that would further weaken the constitutional principle that a president is not a king.

Harry Litman is the host of the “Talking Feds” podcast and the Talking San Diego speaker series. @harrylitman

Alabama lawmakers on Thursday advanced legislation that could see librarians prosecuted under the state’s obscenity law for providing “harmful” materials to minors, the latest in a wave of bills in Republican-led states targeting library content and decisions.

The Alabama House of Representatives voted 72-28 for the bill that now moves to the Alabama Senate. The legislation comes amid a soaring number of book challenges — often centered on LGBTQ content — and efforts in a number of states to ban drag queen story readings.

ALABAMA LAWMAKERS ADVANCE BILLS ENSURING BIDEN APPEARS ON NOVEMBER BALLOT

“This is an effort to protect children. It is not a Democrat bill. It’s not a Republican bill. It’s a people bill to try to protect children,” Republican Rep. Arnold Mooney, the bill’s sponsor, said during debate.

The Alabama bill removes the existing exemption for public libraries in the state’s obscenity law. It also expands the definition of prohibited sexual conduct to include any “sexual or gender oriented conduct” at K-12 public schools or public libraries that “exposes minors to persons who are dressed in sexually revealing, exaggerated, or provocative clothing or costumes, or are stripping, or engaged in lewd or lascivious dancing, presentations, or activities.”

Under the process laid out in the bill, a librarian in a public library or public K-12 school could face a misdemeanor charge if the librarian fails to remove material or cease conduct that violates the state’s obscenity law within seven days of receiving a written complaint from the public.

Opponents argued that proposal would threaten librarians with criminal prosecution at the whims of community members who disagreed with their decisions on books and programs.

“This process will be manipulated and used to arrest librarians that you don’t like, and not because they did anything criminal. It’s because you disagree with them,” Rep. Chris England, a Democrat from Tuscaloosa, said during debate.

Craig Scott, president of the Alabama Library Association, said libraries already have longstanding procedures for reviewing the suitability of content and for the public to submit challenges if they disagree with a decision.

“Why are they coming into libraries or thinking that they can come in and run the place better than us as professionals?” Scott said in a phone interview. He predicted the state will lose “lawsuit after lawsuit” if the bill becomes law.

A judge in July temporarily blocked Arkansas from enforcing a similar law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors.

Scott, who began his career in 1977, said he has never seen anything like the current climate. He said the Gadsden Public Library where he works has seen one person — who eventually obtained a role in library governance — challenge 30 books. Most of the book challenges are related to books with content about gender identity. But they also have included a book about a boy who wants to become a ballet dancer, he said.

“We are for the entire community. We have to be. We’ve got some books in here that are far right. We’ve got some books on the far left. But the library is for the entire community. We’ve got to stay in the middle as best we can, and they want to push us way off to the far right,” Scott said.

Republican Rep. David Faulkner, who worked on a substitute version of the bill that was approved by the House, disputed that the bill could have wide-ranging impact. He said courts have long interpreted what is obscene material.

The law takes away immunity that K-12 and public libraries had under the obscenity law, but it puts limits on when prosecutions could occur, Faulkner said.

“It’s only going to be a misdemeanor, and it’s only if, after knowing about the material, they didn’t do anything about it,” he said.

Rep. Neil Rafferty, a Democrat from Birmingham, said he was concerned that the bill’s language would allow someone to “target and harass people who might be dressed up in a Halloween costume” or wearing summer clothing that someone considered too revealing.

“I feel like this is a violation of the First Amendment, and it’s easily going to be abused,” he said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves.

Standing in the middle of a solar farm in Yolo County, Newsom announced the state now had battery storage systems with the capacity of more than 10,000 megawatts — about 20% of the 52,000 megawatts the state says is needed to meet its climate goals.

“This is critical to how we achieve 100% clean energy by 2045,” Newsom said. “Batteries allow us to use clean energy captured by solar and other renewable sources at all times of the day, especially when solar generation drops after the sun goes down.”

The ultimate goal, he said, is to slow climate change.

“As the hots get hotter, the drys get drier, the wets get wetter, simultaneous droughts, and rain bombs, we have to address these issues with a ferocity that is required of us and we’re doing just that in California,” he said.

Asked by reporters if California now had enough battery storage so that residents no longer had to worry about blackouts during times of high power use, Newsom laughed.

“We have a lot of work to do still in moving this transition, with the kind of stability that’s required,” the governor said. “So no, this is not today announcing that blackouts are part of our past.”

Battery storage installations work by receiving excess solar and wind power and releasing it later, especially from 4 to 9 p.m. when the state’s grid is most under stress.

Last year, Newsom appointees voted to extend the operation of the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant another five years to bolster the reliability of Calfornia’s grid and avoid rolling blackouts. The aging nuclear facility and its twin reactors had been scheduled to shut down.

In August 2020, a major heat event fueled by the climate crisis forced some of the state’s first rotating power outages in decades, as the ongoing transition to green energy lagged behind demand. Californians narrowly avoided rolling blackouts in 2022 as a record-breaking heat wave broiled almost every corner of the state for days.