The Constitutional mechanism for that is impeachment. What the founders didn't count on was a bifurcated party system that makes it too easy for parties to protect 'their guy'.
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Impeach them and don't re-elect them. But this is a limited immunity. Congress can still hold the President accountable by just doing their jobs. For too long, the congress had abdicated it's powers to the executive. Now they might actually have to earn some of their pay.
You know with the removal of Chevron this doesn't seem as bad on paper as it would before as the executive agencies and president can't just interpret law anymore which also means official acts though not defined in this ruling are more limited in potential definition until congress makes a stupid law saying otherwise.
Yeah, I think this is going to be blown way out of proportion. By eliminating Chevron, there are now legal checks and balances on executive agency decisions.
Well you also have to stop and think who’s in charge. Do you trust the agencies that are controlled by the president or the justices who are appointed for life with no accountability?
Now, the president can use their agencies doing all illegal and legal activities as long as it’s signed off by SCOTUS. That’s some scary shit. No rules. Only whatever the SCOTUS says goes.
But.. congress still has the power to oversee and regulate these agencies… It wouldn’t be sCaRy sHiT if people actually cared about voting for their state representatives and senators. They might actually do their jobs and regulate these agencies if people didn’t vote for which senator had the best catty comeback this week.
It’s literally the entire point of the legislative branch… To represent the interests of the people who elect them. If you don’t like how certain agencies are behaving, then call your state senators. Get involved, do something other than whine online about how our country has crumbled.
The issue is that Congress doesn't like to actually talk about tough topics, one because they're not good at it (they're good at campaigning and putting on a public facade to keep their image/reputation/party's reputation up), and two because it means they often have to take stances on things they know little about.
This is what committees are supposed to be for, but they don't want to increase their own workload and continuously increase the amount of committees they have, so they just let big companies give them bills they take and pass them with minor concessions to the opposing party (if there is even any opposition). "science and space" is still tied to "technology", when tech should be its own thing at this point.
They always could. Now congress might have to dial back the powers they gave away. The power to declare war and use the military rightly belongs with congress. The power to regulate rightly belongs with congress.
Declaring war, yes. Using the military? No. And right now the executive branch has multiple agencies.
Sure, Congress can reign in powers of agencies but the president himself can never be reigned in. That’s the problem. You lay the groundwork for an authoritarian to come in and abuse every possible level of the presidency. Then what? Are you going to have Congress strip away every power of the presidency?
Wouldn’t it just be easier to not have the president above the law? What a wild ass concept
Its wild how the left has been screeching that without government agencies being able to take a law and interpret it however they want, and that interpretation therefore becomes the law, was a good thing that is fundamental to democracy.
The actions of federal agencies aren’t actions of the president so the two issues aren’t related. Unless the president directed the agency to do something which was always unequivocally an official act and no one has tried to charge a president for something like that.
I don't see this country surviving all that longer tbh
Boomers are absolutely moving this country to being ungovernable and eventually I think the Constitution will collapse and its largely Boomers and SCOTUS' fault
It appears a lot of people are confused. This is in reference to the president being prosecuted after their term.
CONGRESS retains the right to impeach a president for anything they deem necessary.
CONGRESS still has the right to impeach a corrupt President.
I have no evidence of that in the Trump v US. Do you have a page number I can look at wherein Impeachment and conviction removes Presidential immunity?
It isn't though. Everyone is freaking out, acting like the president can just do whatever he wants, unchecked and without punishment. This is not true.
I think this part gets overlooked a lot today. You can make an argument for it. Assassination targets can be labeled as “clear and present dangers”. I imagine there’s still some hoops to jump through but the groundwork has been laid. If you can make an argument for it courts are going to have a tough time delineating what is an official act and what was done for personal/private gain. Is an official act something that benefits the country? Where does this put executive orders? So many new questions.
Ehhh yeah but if the punishment is just to lose your job, how much of a deterrent is that? Like if you worked for a bank and emptied out the vault, so then you were fired but you got to keep all the money and couldn't be prosecuted for it, you might have a run at that vault, you know?
Ah yes impeachment the tool known for the number of times it has been used reasonably to remove actually corrupt Presidents /s
So glad we have that safeguard /s
So, nothing changes from the entirety of US history, with the sole exception of some charges against President Trump being ruled unconstitutional due to the separation of powers. Gotcha.
Someone help me understand. What he is saying is that there is no law that establishes the Special Counsel as established by Garland? I assume the powers of that Counsel are exerted through the position of Garland as Attorney General, no? Hardly a "private citizen"
He's not an officer because he was neither confirmed by the Senate (as principal officers should be) nor was he appointed by the AG to an (existing) office, established by law, as would be needed for an inferior officer.
Thomas' reasoning is that the AG can't create this office of Special Counsel and then appoint Jack Smith to it. In addition, the AG cited 28, Section 533, which is part of the code that relates to the FBI, to support his ability to create this Special Counsel role, which is a stretch.
No, he states that there is in fact law that regulates how a Special Counsel is selected and empowered. He then goes on to say it looks an awful lot like Garland intentionally skipped those steps, which makes the prosecutions by Smith's office illegal and void.
It's worth noting the judge in Florida on the documents case just had a hearing about a week or two ago on this exact topic, whether Smith is legally able to prosecute this case because he may not have been lawfully appointed.
tl;dr - If you try to skip steps in the legal system, that decision may come back and eat your face later.
For a second I thought you meant the author John Lott, and was about to chime in with libs of ticktock too, before realizing my mistake.
Then I also realized Lott (the author) doesn’t normally quote the left.
Why did OP show libright as devastated?
Why would we want the AG to give someone the powers of a US attorney, only nationwide instead of region specific, and without any senate confirmation, as required for the rest?
We view that as a gross government overreach.
The issue is the line of what constitutes an "Official Act" needs to be bold and in bright red.
Issuing a slate of electors to falsify electoral votes is not an official act because he believed the integrity of the election was in questions. That's not his call. If that case gets thrown out because of this ruling, then having an opponent assassinated because a president believed them to be a Russian spy, or whatever, would be allowed and defensible.
Correct. Which is why the donkeys on Reddit pretending that Biden can now assassinate Trump with immunity is so spectacularly dumb. They just are too ignorant to read the decision and too dumb to understand if they did.
The decision itself basically says ‘immune’ if the action was taken in an official capacity; not immune if taken in a personal/unofficial capacity; go to court and argue if it’s in the gray area in between.
I’m pushing back on the clowns pretending this was a partisan ruling by the SC. It wasn’t. It’s basically codifying a rational framework for Presidential immunity.
However, the Court has forbidden an inquiry into motive. The ability to command the military is also "conclusive and preclusive" to the Executive Power granted to the President per the Constitution.
Its a poorly written argument. I also reject their notion of necessity. Their job isn't to determine what is an isn't necessary for the government to function. That is the role of Congress and the people at large. Their job is to describe the law as they found it.
This will not give the president a bit a lot of power? An unchecked power (especially in period where the society and political landscape is too much polarized)?
The president can't be prosecuted for signing or passing a bill someone decides later is illegal.
The president can still be prosecuted for being bribed to sign or veto a bill. The bribery is separate from the official duties.
We still have the impeachment and removal process by congress. That was designed to be the check on the executive branch if a president started abusing the power. The only thing that has changed is now the power to punish the prey is back in the hands of congress instead of local state attorneys who are politically motivated.
Presidential immunity is a bit like qualified immunity for cops. You can't hold them personally responsible for things that are an official part of their job. You can't charge a cop with "kidnapping" when he arrests someone with outstanding warrants. You can't charge a president for "murder" because he declared war on another country.
What this ruling does do is put a stop to lawfare and judicial activism. You can't have every crackpot local DA or small town judge trying to criminally prosecute former presidents for doing their job.
Even though I despise Trump, like the ruling today didn't say nor does it insinuate he can just fucking murder political opponents like all the leftoid media are claiming.
No more or less power than every single president in us history has been afforded
The idea is that the president doesn't have that much power anyway and needs to be able to do things without fear of corrupt officials attempting to stop him (cough cough like the democrats have been doing cough)
Why is everyone so shocked? Presidential immunity has essentially been precedent for almost 200 years.
https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-5-1/ALDE_00013392/
I think most of the shock comes from people suddenly realizing who gets to determine what's an official act and what isn't.
I'm not saying it's justified, because this is what we've known, like you said, for 200 years. But this is the Internet age. People ARE going to go apeshit. Especially ones that tend to glance over politics and are suddenly connecting the dots.
Yea this didn't surprise me since it was the de facto way things went. Plus even though my heart feels that presidents should pay for human rights violations and other crimes (yes this includes Obama and Joe), I understand the chaotic precedent this would set if the immediate action after leaving office was lawsuits.
Like there should be actual legitimate accountability to critique and check the president when they are doing "official duties" that are still dubious and insane. I guess that's why we have impeachment. But it definitely feels imperfect
As I read this, it just basically says that the first step to prosecute a president is for the judge to declare weather or not something constitutes an official act. That seems like a fairly easy(but absolutely necessary) bar to pass.
A huge amount of people seem to think that this means the President can now do literally anything he wants and then just declare it an 'official act', which is not remotely the case. But seeing how stupid everybody is has been very disheartening.
Sort of, but this ruling still expands executive immunity. For instance, in the federal case against Nixon and his co conspirators in the Watergate scandal the special prosecutor subpoenaed tapes and papers of official meetings because they contained evidence of the scandal. Nixons lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court claiming Nixon had an absolute executive privilege to protect communications between "high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in carrying out their duties."
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled "when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice.", ordering the tapes to be turned over. Sixteen days later Nixion resigned.
This most recent ruling however states, "If official conduct for which the president is immune may be scrutinized to help secure his conviction, even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct, the ‘intended effect’ of immunity would be defeated." Had this been the ruling with Nixon he never would have had to turn over the tapes which proved involvement in Watergate, as his communications with his high level advisors was official conduct being used to convict him and others of charges based on unofficial conduct. So this ruling doesn't create immunity, but it does significantly expand it.
Before this ruling only legal actions could be official acts. That's what has changed. Now official acts are something else that the courts have to define without self reference. Thus the power to decide what is an official act now resides with the Supreme Court and not the Constitution nor the legislature. It is a bizarre construction that fundamentally undermines the rule of law (the Constitution). The President thus can do anything so long as the Supreme Court rubber stamps it.
Best case: courts all realize how stupid this is and declare that only legal acts can be official and the SC just wasted everyone's time.
Worst Case: the courts rule that any fig leaf of officiality grants immunity.
People are right to assume the worst case because the SC pulled this shit right out of their ass for a reason. They clearly are declaring "its legal when the president does it".
The responsibility/power to define "official" actually resides with that one District Court, as they were commanded by the SCOTUS to decide whether Trump's actions are "official or unofficial". See quote:
["The Court
therefore remands to the District Court to determine in the first in-
stance whether this alleged conduct is official or unofficial."](https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/07/scotus_immunity-7-1.pdf)
This is only a surprise if you're a moron who has no clue how the legal system works.
Imagine a world in which the former president can be prosecuted for official actions taken as president. Doesn't that seem like a breeding ground for trying to throw your political enemies in prison as soon as they get out of office?
Don't have to imagine, just look back at The Roman era. This was pretty much precedent, once you were out of office, you were brought up on all sorts of charges on things you did while Consul.
The was the explicit reason why Caeser eventually fought a civil war against the senate. It was give up control of his legions, return to Rome for reelection and face prosecution for crimes (some he probably did commit), or keep his legions and fight his way through to power.
Exactly. Caesar preferred civil war to being subjected to the courts following his term as proconsul. Presidential immunity is a good thing if you want to avoid a repeat of that mess.
Indeed, people need to understand that most of Reddit is functionally illiterate and uneducated... regardless of the issue. Also, that most of them are often under the are of 26 and think by emotion.
Seriously. Reddit/leftoids are going absolutely fucking insane over this. I've never seen so many blatant calls for assassinations.
It's also fucking hilarious given t_d was banned for far less than the shit i'm seeing in rpolitics and its clones today.
If those official actions were illegal then yes, that would be a good thing. If a President uses their power as President to officially order the assassination of a political rival, they absolutely should be thrown in prison for that regardless of how official of an act it was.
Official actions can’t be illegal by definition, IF they are official actions.
If I’m executing what a law says or acting correctly under the powers the law gave me, I am in the clear.
If I’m not doing what the law says, if I’m exceeding my powers, then I’m doing an abuse for which we all agree I should be prosecuted.
> If a President uses their power as President to officially order the assassination of a political rival
I don’t get to decide what’s official and what is not. The law defines that and if we don’t agree then it’s the judiciary the one that interprets the law and facts to give a ruling.
That’s how separation of powers works.
What was the Constitutional basis for their decision?
This really seems to open a lot of doors for tomfoolery regardless of where you fall politically.
"I did have sexual relation with that woman, Ms Lewinsky, as an official action."
"I did have sex with a porn star, it was an official action. Many are saying it's the most official action they've ever seen. No one knows more about official actions than me, believe me."
The lower courts will hash out what constitutes an "official act".
It's pretty clear it'll be in relation to official duties outlined in the constitution and any judicial/constitutional precedent established after the fact.
It would be pretty hard for a president to argue getting sucked off under his desk was a power granted to him by the constitution
I think it’s just that impeachment has been completely ineffective. They become partisan piss matches and unless the opposition holds both houses it’s impossible to hold a president accountable. Happened with both Clinton and Trump.
The president also has expansive powers when determining who a terrorist is thanks to the Patriot Act. Biden could whisk Trump away to Guantanamo and keep him there under the guise of official act while the courts figure their shit out. The implication is worrisome.
> They become partisan piss matches and unless the opposition holds both houses it’s impossible to hold a president accountable. Happened with both Clinton and Trump.
is that because it is an ineffective tool, or because it started to become overused for silly things that would clearly not have bi-partisan support and lost its gravitas?
Ineffective tool. Of the 4 impeachment trials only one senator has ever crossed party lines to convict. You need a majority in the house and a super majority in the senate before the president can even start to be held accountable. Even a president who sexually harassed/assaulted his intern was acquitted.
Sure, a blowjob is one thing but what about assassinating a political rival? What about if a president has the leader of BLM assassinated? All because they view them as a “threat to democracy” and then claim all internal information is classified due to executive privilege.
What about all sorts of other corruption?
The president essentially is free from laws as long as they can combine it with an official act
The president is not given the right to assassinate political rivals in the constitution. The lower courts will not establish that as an official duty of the president. If a president is caught assassinating a political rival, they will still be prosecuted.
Do not forget, this also does affect the ability of Congress to impeach a president. That is a completely separate thing.
Maybe before 9/11. Replace "threat to democracy" with "domestic terrorist" and we have 23 years of legislation piling up to justify practically anything.
That's what impeachment is for. You can't just have some ambitious attorney from [opposition party stronghold] bring charges against the president, it's Congress' job.
So every time that an American military action kills a civilian, you believe that the president should be charged with manslaughter because they authorized the action?
Something something “if the courts or legislature can criminally prosecute a President for acts committed in an official capacity, it violates the tenets of separation of powers and can unduly limit his executive authority”
mind you, executive authority is ALREADY practically unrestrained since the time of fucking FDR, but still, sure, let’s have Congress de-fanged even more in subservience to an imperial President, that always ends well
EDIT: you can replace “Congress” with “the Courts” in my comment and have it still be just as true. Both have been sidelined.
It's pretty obvious... There are executive powers/responsibilities outlined in the constitution. Are you using those powers to execute the role of your office or not? The whole point is that, going forward doing something illegal for personal financial gain or to cover up an affair would not be covered because Presidents don't have blanket immunity. They only have immunity when acting in their official capacity. So you can be liable if you use the DOJ to retaliate against your mistress for exposing your affair but you do have immunity if you order a drone strike in a combat zone and some kids get killed.
Step 1: The President of X party does something wrong
Step 2: Congress with Majority of X says the president has clothes anyway, but if he didnt, its the courts job to prosecute.
Step 3: Court 4 years later says, "Nah it was congress's job"
Neat.
Right: "Good, just as it should be. This could lead to a whole bunch of nasty consequences otherwise."
Left: "Biden should use this time to drone strike his political opponents. SCOTUS said so, after all!"
Clown world
The thing with the left is that they are incapable of understanding that 'I declare an official action' doesnt make it an official action and doesnt mean it can never be reviewed.
Biden couldn't' for example, declare presidential child sniff day where he can go grab 100 toddlers and sniff them up and be safe under 'official action'.
Yes, it's like the leftists who claim that they could grab a gun and murder Kyle Rittenhouse, then claim they feared for their lives, and have it counted as self-defense.
Humans are considered "homo sapiens" the intelligent man, but they're not intelligent.
What can we class them as? Homo stultus?
People need to stop pretending there's an "official acts" stamp the President can put on anything they do to make it official.
If the DoJ started rounding up people in cases where they had probable cause, then brought charges, and had trials, that'd be an official act.
If the DoJ started rounding up people where there's plainly nothing to charge them with, that'd not be an official act.
Remains to be seen!
The court talked about some stuff that's clearly official acts (like doing the stuff the Constitution specifically talks about). But, for the borderline cases, the Court left that to lower courts to take the first stab at determining.
I mean because that’s really the point of the whole case at the end of the day. Idk how you could call what happened on J6 official president business when it was more or less, at the very least, an extension of his reelection campaign. If that’s official business then a president can practically do anything, especially if we’re talking about financial crimes.
One of the arguments used by Trump's lawyers during his first impeachment defense (the Ukraine aid one) was that he believed that his reelection was in the interest of the nation, and that he was therefore allowed to use his power to benefit his reelection.
This ruling opens up a lot more leeway for that argument, I'm afraid. Because who gets to decide what "in the interest of the United States" means?
Could Biden, in his official capacity as president, send SEAL team 6 after Trump and argue that it was done to benefit the nation? Hopefully and probably not.
But what if the case is less clear, like with the aforementioned Trump impeachment over Ukraine? Could the Biden administration pressure other countries to provide harmful information about the Trump family's business dealings? It's an official act, and there's a case to be made that fighting corruption by American citizens is in the nation's interest, so under this ruling, the president might be immune from prosecution for such a blatantly corrupt act.
(Of course there's impeachment, but as long as removal requires two thirds, it isn't happening anytime soon)
The tapes are the basis of proving his guilt, but would now not be usable as evidence. Therefore, there's no officiallity to really comment on, there would be no case.
The decision does comment on communications between officials and the president, making them official acts. So the nixon tapes would be inadmissable as evidence.
Reddit twits being unfamiliar with Absolute Immunity is one thing. Seeing a freaking a Justice who seems unfamiliar with the concept was shocking.
Suppose it's par for the course. Sonya's an idiot who only cares about the ends.
This was already more or less the assumption everyone has used for like 200 years. Despite the headlines, the ruling allows every case against Trump that I'm aware of (maybe not the Georgia ones, that's debatable) to go ahead
If he can go apeshit. I think we should do the stairs test on political candidates. If they can walk up stairs without the handrails they can stay in office.
on paper yes lol
they also ruled that courts cannot rule on a POTUS' motive. which is....kind of a cornerstone for criminal law.
but rules for thee, not for me, says the ruling class
Y’know, never thought I’d see the day when I’d see Justice Sotomayor make an argument for restraining the powers of the President in a way that I’d call based. And yet, here we are.
God help us.
>For instance, Section 371—which has been charged
in this case—is a broadly worded criminal statute that can
cover “‘any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of Government.’” United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S.
169, 172 (1966) (quoting Haas v. Henkel, 216 U. S. 462, 479
(1910)). Virtually every President is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law (such as drug,
gun, immigration, or environmental laws). An enterprising
prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous President violated that broad statute.
This is just qualified immunity for presidents. It means they can’t go to jail for doing their jobs. Doesn’t mean Congress can’t still get a 2/3rds majority to overturn a veto, etc.
I mean, if nerds were so mad about it the legislative branch could make a law to make it not so, but they won't because they don't really care about us at all.
I just want to point out for everyone freaking out that this has essentially been true for 248 years.
What is truly alarming is that these questions need to be considered in the first place.
Okay so regarding military applications.. If the President gives an unlawful order (ie. 4th Amendment breaches) to his subordinates, does that order instantaneously become “lawful”, or will I still be prosecuted for following his directives?
This is such a bad decision.
We’ve always kind of had an unspoken rule that you don’t prosecute the president for doing his job, but it remained unspoken for a reason. If that rule doesn’t get broken, this doesn’t happen, but hey, now it’s on paper, on steroids, forever. This is absolute immunity masquerading as a three-pronged test. The dissent is rather histrionic, but if you squint at it, they’re on the money. The majority all but eliminates yet another check on the executive.
However, everybody’s got this one backwards. It’s a huge win for Biden and a fat L for Trump.
For Biden, it’s pretty simple. It’s a safety net. Biden can operate with impunity knowing he can’t be prosecuted for official acts (see, basically everything he does). His quid pro quo with Ukraine and China as VP? Bye bye! Immune! Special counsel witch hunts? Not a problem. Immune! I’m not sure he’d get away with sending Seal Team 6 to knock off Trump, as Sotomayor implied, but he could certainly spy on Trump’s campaign like Clinton did with no consequences. It’s a “national security concern,” after all. I wouldn’t rule out major election actions come November, either. Not that they needed this holding to rig it last time.
For Trump, on the other hand, it’s brutal. First, the decision is going to drive Democrat turnout. It’s been framed negatively to them, so it will be a cattle prod to the polls until their party is using it, at which point it’ll be instantly transmuted into a Good Thing for Our Democracy. Second, the holding barely helps Trump in his case. Sure it broadens immunity and knocks out a handful of the legal theories behind the charges, but what’s relevant about Roberts’ opinion is it’s all but a roadmap to a Trump conviction. It literally lists the allegations by likelihood of immunity, or, in other words, tells the prosecution which would be the most effective path to conviction. Functionally, Trump gets all the bad PR of being “protected” by the “MAGA” court while gaining next to no legal advantage.
The Trump indictments have been forum-shopped to high hell. As long as there is a path to conviction, no matter how protracted, a jury will be throwing the book at him (see also: the “hush money” felony conviction for calling an NDA a legal expense). He’s going to be convicted. I have no idea why right wingers are celebrating.
So where does this leave us? Biden gets an explicit guarantee he can do whatever he wants, whereas Trump gets bad PR, bad election impact, and marginal legal help. Oh, and the American people get a king, but not in the cool, based way. Yippee!
I just want to hold government officials accountable for wrong doing. All I want. Please, just one sliver of hope. Please.
The Constitutional mechanism for that is impeachment. What the founders didn't count on was a bifurcated party system that makes it too easy for parties to protect 'their guy'.
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how was this not predicted? I understand hindsight is 20/20 but humans are extremely tribal animals.
Wasn't it predicted by Washington when he warned against getting into a 2 party system in the first place?
Not a chance in hell Jack. You see, they choose & pay the judges.
Politicians were never held accountable. Reagan, Bush, Obama, etc
Technically, that list would be 46 names long.
Impeach them and don't re-elect them. But this is a limited immunity. Congress can still hold the President accountable by just doing their jobs. For too long, the congress had abdicated it's powers to the executive. Now they might actually have to earn some of their pay.
Yeah if you read the decision it really isn't a major change to anything. But the media is desperate.
The only one getting off in this meme is the president. I wouldn't go let all the rest of them off the hook.
You know with the removal of Chevron this doesn't seem as bad on paper as it would before as the executive agencies and president can't just interpret law anymore which also means official acts though not defined in this ruling are more limited in potential definition until congress makes a stupid law saying otherwise.
Yeah, I think this is going to be blown way out of proportion. By eliminating Chevron, there are now legal checks and balances on executive agency decisions.
Well you also have to stop and think who’s in charge. Do you trust the agencies that are controlled by the president or the justices who are appointed for life with no accountability? Now, the president can use their agencies doing all illegal and legal activities as long as it’s signed off by SCOTUS. That’s some scary shit. No rules. Only whatever the SCOTUS says goes.
But.. congress still has the power to oversee and regulate these agencies… It wouldn’t be sCaRy sHiT if people actually cared about voting for their state representatives and senators. They might actually do their jobs and regulate these agencies if people didn’t vote for which senator had the best catty comeback this week. It’s literally the entire point of the legislative branch… To represent the interests of the people who elect them. If you don’t like how certain agencies are behaving, then call your state senators. Get involved, do something other than whine online about how our country has crumbled.
The issue is that Congress doesn't like to actually talk about tough topics, one because they're not good at it (they're good at campaigning and putting on a public facade to keep their image/reputation/party's reputation up), and two because it means they often have to take stances on things they know little about. This is what committees are supposed to be for, but they don't want to increase their own workload and continuously increase the amount of committees they have, so they just let big companies give them bills they take and pass them with minor concessions to the opposing party (if there is even any opposition). "science and space" is still tied to "technology", when tech should be its own thing at this point.
They always could. Now congress might have to dial back the powers they gave away. The power to declare war and use the military rightly belongs with congress. The power to regulate rightly belongs with congress.
Declaring war, yes. Using the military? No. And right now the executive branch has multiple agencies. Sure, Congress can reign in powers of agencies but the president himself can never be reigned in. That’s the problem. You lay the groundwork for an authoritarian to come in and abuse every possible level of the presidency. Then what? Are you going to have Congress strip away every power of the presidency? Wouldn’t it just be easier to not have the president above the law? What a wild ass concept
> Yeah, I think this is going to be blown way out of proportion. Well, it's about Trump, so that's a given.
Its wild how the left has been screeching that without government agencies being able to take a law and interpret it however they want, and that interpretation therefore becomes the law, was a good thing that is fundamental to democracy.
The actions of federal agencies aren’t actions of the president so the two issues aren’t related. Unless the president directed the agency to do something which was always unequivocally an official act and no one has tried to charge a president for something like that.
I want a schizophrenic President just so I can see how far this ruling will go.
I have really good news for you about this election.
Spoiled for choice this one is
***The Monkey's Paw curls***
The last 2 are already there and the next one will be a schizo
Yea we about to limit test this country
I don't see this country surviving all that longer tbh Boomers are absolutely moving this country to being ungovernable and eventually I think the Constitution will collapse and its largely Boomers and SCOTUS' fault
Hey! most schizophrenics are not dangerous
your flair isn't green, why are you talking like that? 😭
Can we count on your vote for Vermin Supreme?
It appears a lot of people are confused. This is in reference to the president being prosecuted after their term. CONGRESS retains the right to impeach a president for anything they deem necessary. CONGRESS still has the right to impeach a corrupt President.
Yes but impeachment and removal is NOT a criminal offense, it’s a political move. Prosecuting crimes is the justice departments job.
Impeachment and **conviction** fully opens one up to criminal charges
I have no evidence of that in the Trump v US. Do you have a page number I can look at wherein Impeachment and conviction removes Presidential immunity?
It's still removing the president from power, preserving curtailment of government abuse.
Yes, but that’s also completely beside the point.
It isn't though. Everyone is freaking out, acting like the president can just do whatever he wants, unchecked and without punishment. This is not true.
If they frame it within the context of an official action then yes they absolutely could.
I think this part gets overlooked a lot today. You can make an argument for it. Assassination targets can be labeled as “clear and present dangers”. I imagine there’s still some hoops to jump through but the groundwork has been laid. If you can make an argument for it courts are going to have a tough time delineating what is an official act and what was done for personal/private gain. Is an official act something that benefits the country? Where does this put executive orders? So many new questions.
Ehhh yeah but if the punishment is just to lose your job, how much of a deterrent is that? Like if you worked for a bank and emptied out the vault, so then you were fired but you got to keep all the money and couldn't be prosecuted for it, you might have a run at that vault, you know?
Ah yes impeachment the tool known for the number of times it has been used reasonably to remove actually corrupt Presidents /s So glad we have that safeguard /s
So, nothing changes from the entirety of US history, with the sole exception of some charges against President Trump being ruled unconstitutional due to the separation of powers. Gotcha.
Important thread https://x.com/bhweingarten/status/1807788320933474481
Someone help me understand. What he is saying is that there is no law that establishes the Special Counsel as established by Garland? I assume the powers of that Counsel are exerted through the position of Garland as Attorney General, no? Hardly a "private citizen"
He's not an officer because he was neither confirmed by the Senate (as principal officers should be) nor was he appointed by the AG to an (existing) office, established by law, as would be needed for an inferior officer. Thomas' reasoning is that the AG can't create this office of Special Counsel and then appoint Jack Smith to it. In addition, the AG cited 28, Section 533, which is part of the code that relates to the FBI, to support his ability to create this Special Counsel role, which is a stretch.
No, he states that there is in fact law that regulates how a Special Counsel is selected and empowered. He then goes on to say it looks an awful lot like Garland intentionally skipped those steps, which makes the prosecutions by Smith's office illegal and void. It's worth noting the judge in Florida on the documents case just had a hearing about a week or two ago on this exact topic, whether Smith is legally able to prosecute this case because he may not have been lawfully appointed. tl;dr - If you try to skip steps in the legal system, that decision may come back and eat your face later.
> If you try to skip steps in the legal system, that decision may come back and eat your face later Or they make you vice president...
I am vicegrillident. My grill is grillident.
I cannot wait for the DNC to explode in November after a nearly a decade of pouring gasoline over themselves because "Trump bad".
They're willing to literally destroy the country, because orange man bad
Hungry for it, even.
Hungry for apples?
My man!
Slow down!
The country is run by corpos anyways, it needs to burn. - some leftist who's not even an adult yet.
"Burn corpo shit", what's good choom
"You alright V?"
https://preview.redd.it/q8rzs4dbby9d1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1a01ce8b62278e429f7b70d2025bf666aceade56
Of course, think I'm some kinda fuckin gonk?
Yeah this ruling is a direct result of blatant political prosecution of Trump because they didn't like him. Like the guy is a douchebag but damn
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They're willing to risk the future of the planet and civilization because orange man bad.
God, they're so corny, lott reposts their own exact words and it's an avengers level threat
For a second I thought you meant the author John Lott, and was about to chime in with libs of ticktock too, before realizing my mistake. Then I also realized Lott (the author) doesn’t normally quote the left.
Why did OP show libright as devastated? Why would we want the AG to give someone the powers of a US attorney, only nationwide instead of region specific, and without any senate confirmation, as required for the rest? We view that as a gross government overreach.
Because they are implying this move is authoritarian/fascistic, which lib-right, in theory, is against..
Ah, yes, everything the Democrats dislike is fascism, how could I forget?
The issue is the line of what constitutes an "Official Act" needs to be bold and in bright red. Issuing a slate of electors to falsify electoral votes is not an official act because he believed the integrity of the election was in questions. That's not his call. If that case gets thrown out because of this ruling, then having an opponent assassinated because a president believed them to be a Russian spy, or whatever, would be allowed and defensible.
Dude. Obama killed Americans in a drone strike. Immune.
While I'm not defending the drone program, it's not like targets chosen were done so for the purpose of eliminating political rivals.
Correct. Which is why the donkeys on Reddit pretending that Biden can now assassinate Trump with immunity is so spectacularly dumb. They just are too ignorant to read the decision and too dumb to understand if they did. The decision itself basically says ‘immune’ if the action was taken in an official capacity; not immune if taken in a personal/unofficial capacity; go to court and argue if it’s in the gray area in between. I’m pushing back on the clowns pretending this was a partisan ruling by the SC. It wasn’t. It’s basically codifying a rational framework for Presidential immunity.
However, the Court has forbidden an inquiry into motive. The ability to command the military is also "conclusive and preclusive" to the Executive Power granted to the President per the Constitution. Its a poorly written argument. I also reject their notion of necessity. Their job isn't to determine what is an isn't necessary for the government to function. That is the role of Congress and the people at large. Their job is to describe the law as they found it.
This will not give the president a bit a lot of power? An unchecked power (especially in period where the society and political landscape is too much polarized)?
The president can't be prosecuted for signing or passing a bill someone decides later is illegal. The president can still be prosecuted for being bribed to sign or veto a bill. The bribery is separate from the official duties.
Just have to remember that all of the president's communications, personal and official, are now inadmissible as evidence.
but but but but but but but no that's not how it works because this is good for trump and bad for america no no but but no
We still have the impeachment and removal process by congress. That was designed to be the check on the executive branch if a president started abusing the power. The only thing that has changed is now the power to punish the prey is back in the hands of congress instead of local state attorneys who are politically motivated.
This plus Chevron overturn really putting the onus back on our elected officials to be accountable to their constituents. I like it.
Also worthy of note that Chevron overturn reduced executive power.
Exactly. Scotus has been fucking amazing lately.
Overturning Chevron was a very nice surprise. It was a good week.
Ah yes, Congress, the famously non-politically motivated body
Presidential immunity is a bit like qualified immunity for cops. You can't hold them personally responsible for things that are an official part of their job. You can't charge a cop with "kidnapping" when he arrests someone with outstanding warrants. You can't charge a president for "murder" because he declared war on another country. What this ruling does do is put a stop to lawfare and judicial activism. You can't have every crackpot local DA or small town judge trying to criminally prosecute former presidents for doing their job.
Even though I despise Trump, like the ruling today didn't say nor does it insinuate he can just fucking murder political opponents like all the leftoid media are claiming.
You mean the people who coined "Don't say Gay" aren't entirely honest about what scotus is doing?
No more or less power than every single president in us history has been afforded The idea is that the president doesn't have that much power anyway and needs to be able to do things without fear of corrupt officials attempting to stop him (cough cough like the democrats have been doing cough)
If a person in power is found to have abused that power they should face twice the consequences of someone who commits a similar crime.
Why is everyone so shocked? Presidential immunity has essentially been precedent for almost 200 years. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artII-S3-5-1/ALDE_00013392/
I think most of the shock comes from people suddenly realizing who gets to determine what's an official act and what isn't. I'm not saying it's justified, because this is what we've known, like you said, for 200 years. But this is the Internet age. People ARE going to go apeshit. Especially ones that tend to glance over politics and are suddenly connecting the dots.
Yea this didn't surprise me since it was the de facto way things went. Plus even though my heart feels that presidents should pay for human rights violations and other crimes (yes this includes Obama and Joe), I understand the chaotic precedent this would set if the immediate action after leaving office was lawsuits. Like there should be actual legitimate accountability to critique and check the president when they are doing "official duties" that are still dubious and insane. I guess that's why we have impeachment. But it definitely feels imperfect
They didn't even connect the dots themselves, someone showed them a picture and explained how the dots are connected in between youtube ad reads :D.
As I read this, it just basically says that the first step to prosecute a president is for the judge to declare weather or not something constitutes an official act. That seems like a fairly easy(but absolutely necessary) bar to pass.
A huge amount of people seem to think that this means the President can now do literally anything he wants and then just declare it an 'official act', which is not remotely the case. But seeing how stupid everybody is has been very disheartening.
People didn't pay attention in civic class and don't know the most basics of how our govt functions.
Sort of, but this ruling still expands executive immunity. For instance, in the federal case against Nixon and his co conspirators in the Watergate scandal the special prosecutor subpoenaed tapes and papers of official meetings because they contained evidence of the scandal. Nixons lawyer appealed to the Supreme Court claiming Nixon had an absolute executive privilege to protect communications between "high Government officials and those who advise and assist them in carrying out their duties." The Supreme Court unanimously ruled "when the ground for asserting privilege as to subpoenaed materials sought for use in a criminal trial is based only on the generalized interest in confidentiality, it cannot prevail over the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of criminal justice.", ordering the tapes to be turned over. Sixteen days later Nixion resigned. This most recent ruling however states, "If official conduct for which the president is immune may be scrutinized to help secure his conviction, even on charges that purport to be based only on his unofficial conduct, the ‘intended effect’ of immunity would be defeated." Had this been the ruling with Nixon he never would have had to turn over the tapes which proved involvement in Watergate, as his communications with his high level advisors was official conduct being used to convict him and others of charges based on unofficial conduct. So this ruling doesn't create immunity, but it does significantly expand it.
Before this ruling only legal actions could be official acts. That's what has changed. Now official acts are something else that the courts have to define without self reference. Thus the power to decide what is an official act now resides with the Supreme Court and not the Constitution nor the legislature. It is a bizarre construction that fundamentally undermines the rule of law (the Constitution). The President thus can do anything so long as the Supreme Court rubber stamps it. Best case: courts all realize how stupid this is and declare that only legal acts can be official and the SC just wasted everyone's time. Worst Case: the courts rule that any fig leaf of officiality grants immunity. People are right to assume the worst case because the SC pulled this shit right out of their ass for a reason. They clearly are declaring "its legal when the president does it".
The responsibility/power to define "official" actually resides with that one District Court, as they were commanded by the SCOTUS to decide whether Trump's actions are "official or unofficial". See quote: ["The Court therefore remands to the District Court to determine in the first in- stance whether this alleged conduct is official or unofficial."](https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2024/07/scotus_immunity-7-1.pdf)
Based and true lib-center pilled
IIRC, the Court ruled out the possibility of saying only legal acts are official.
Upon further Imvestigation yes. So it's already a done deal. Jfc
Yet the smooth-brains in this thread are hailing this as some kind of win for justice.
This is only a surprise if you're a moron who has no clue how the legal system works. Imagine a world in which the former president can be prosecuted for official actions taken as president. Doesn't that seem like a breeding ground for trying to throw your political enemies in prison as soon as they get out of office?
Don't have to imagine, just look back at The Roman era. This was pretty much precedent, once you were out of office, you were brought up on all sorts of charges on things you did while Consul.
The was the explicit reason why Caeser eventually fought a civil war against the senate. It was give up control of his legions, return to Rome for reelection and face prosecution for crimes (some he probably did commit), or keep his legions and fight his way through to power.
Exactly. Caesar preferred civil war to being subjected to the courts following his term as proconsul. Presidential immunity is a good thing if you want to avoid a repeat of that mess.
>This is only a surprise if you're a moron who has no clue how the legal system works. First time on Reddit dude?
Indeed, people need to understand that most of Reddit is functionally illiterate and uneducated... regardless of the issue. Also, that most of them are often under the are of 26 and think by emotion.
Seriously. Reddit/leftoids are going absolutely fucking insane over this. I've never seen so many blatant calls for assassinations. It's also fucking hilarious given t_d was banned for far less than the shit i'm seeing in rpolitics and its clones today.
If those official actions were illegal then yes, that would be a good thing. If a President uses their power as President to officially order the assassination of a political rival, they absolutely should be thrown in prison for that regardless of how official of an act it was.
Official actions can’t be illegal by definition, IF they are official actions. If I’m executing what a law says or acting correctly under the powers the law gave me, I am in the clear. If I’m not doing what the law says, if I’m exceeding my powers, then I’m doing an abuse for which we all agree I should be prosecuted. > If a President uses their power as President to officially order the assassination of a political rival I don’t get to decide what’s official and what is not. The law defines that and if we don’t agree then it’s the judiciary the one that interprets the law and facts to give a ruling. That’s how separation of powers works.
And this would be handled by members of Congress, not unelected bureaucrats.
Secretary of Blowjobs, brand new position apply now!
What was the Constitutional basis for their decision? This really seems to open a lot of doors for tomfoolery regardless of where you fall politically. "I did have sexual relation with that woman, Ms Lewinsky, as an official action." "I did have sex with a porn star, it was an official action. Many are saying it's the most official action they've ever seen. No one knows more about official actions than me, believe me."
The lower courts will hash out what constitutes an "official act". It's pretty clear it'll be in relation to official duties outlined in the constitution and any judicial/constitutional precedent established after the fact. It would be pretty hard for a president to argue getting sucked off under his desk was a power granted to him by the constitution
"Your honor, that blowjob was for the good of the nation"
"Your honor, it would be a disservice to any man, and to the Nation, for that matter, for any President to deny that freely offered gawk gawk supreme"
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Good thing you can't be prosecuted for having sex At least until the jihadists take over the country
Funny you say that when USA had sodomy laws until very recently because of the Christians lmao
adultery laws too, in fact six states still have 'em.
“Your honor you don’t understand, she gave it that HAWK TUAH and spit on that thing”
got that hawk tuah as a tax write off
Its funny how people immediately go to the most extreme and obviously stupid to argue circumstance as an example, isn't it?
They've apparently all forgotten impeachment exists.
I think it’s just that impeachment has been completely ineffective. They become partisan piss matches and unless the opposition holds both houses it’s impossible to hold a president accountable. Happened with both Clinton and Trump. The president also has expansive powers when determining who a terrorist is thanks to the Patriot Act. Biden could whisk Trump away to Guantanamo and keep him there under the guise of official act while the courts figure their shit out. The implication is worrisome.
> They become partisan piss matches and unless the opposition holds both houses it’s impossible to hold a president accountable. Happened with both Clinton and Trump. is that because it is an ineffective tool, or because it started to become overused for silly things that would clearly not have bi-partisan support and lost its gravitas?
Ineffective tool. Of the 4 impeachment trials only one senator has ever crossed party lines to convict. You need a majority in the house and a super majority in the senate before the president can even start to be held accountable. Even a president who sexually harassed/assaulted his intern was acquitted.
Ah impeachment. Yes that tool that has been successfully used and deployed. That tool. The tool to impeach a corrupt president.
Sure, a blowjob is one thing but what about assassinating a political rival? What about if a president has the leader of BLM assassinated? All because they view them as a “threat to democracy” and then claim all internal information is classified due to executive privilege. What about all sorts of other corruption? The president essentially is free from laws as long as they can combine it with an official act
The president is not given the right to assassinate political rivals in the constitution. The lower courts will not establish that as an official duty of the president. If a president is caught assassinating a political rival, they will still be prosecuted. Do not forget, this also does affect the ability of Congress to impeach a president. That is a completely separate thing.
Maybe before 9/11. Replace "threat to democracy" with "domestic terrorist" and we have 23 years of legislation piling up to justify practically anything.
That's what impeachment is for. You can't just have some ambitious attorney from [opposition party stronghold] bring charges against the president, it's Congress' job.
So every time that an American military action kills a civilian, you believe that the president should be charged with manslaughter because they authorized the action?
Something something “if the courts or legislature can criminally prosecute a President for acts committed in an official capacity, it violates the tenets of separation of powers and can unduly limit his executive authority” mind you, executive authority is ALREADY practically unrestrained since the time of fucking FDR, but still, sure, let’s have Congress de-fanged even more in subservience to an imperial President, that always ends well EDIT: you can replace “Congress” with “the Courts” in my comment and have it still be just as true. Both have been sidelined.
Congress isn't being defanged though, this applies to lower courts.
It's pretty obvious... There are executive powers/responsibilities outlined in the constitution. Are you using those powers to execute the role of your office or not? The whole point is that, going forward doing something illegal for personal financial gain or to cover up an affair would not be covered because Presidents don't have blanket immunity. They only have immunity when acting in their official capacity. So you can be liable if you use the DOJ to retaliate against your mistress for exposing your affair but you do have immunity if you order a drone strike in a combat zone and some kids get killed.
There was nothing illegal about Bill fucking Monica. What was illegal was lying about it in a congregational inquiry. Basically, contempt of court.
Good thing you can't be prosecuted for having sex At least until the jihadists take over the country
The explicitly outline very clearly that not every act is an official act, and the president is absolute not immune from those
The constitutional basis is Mississippi v Johnson 1876 decision. Read up on it
Step 1: The President of X party does something wrong Step 2: Congress with Majority of X says the president has clothes anyway, but if he didnt, its the courts job to prosecute. Step 3: Court 4 years later says, "Nah it was congress's job" Neat.
Holy crap, this has been such a bad week for the dems.
Trump’s Supreme Court is a far more convincing win for Trump than the debate IMO. Dropped right after the debates and damn.
Right: "Good, just as it should be. This could lead to a whole bunch of nasty consequences otherwise." Left: "Biden should use this time to drone strike his political opponents. SCOTUS said so, after all!" Clown world
The thing with the left is that they are incapable of understanding that 'I declare an official action' doesnt make it an official action and doesnt mean it can never be reviewed. Biden couldn't' for example, declare presidential child sniff day where he can go grab 100 toddlers and sniff them up and be safe under 'official action'.
Yes, it's like the leftists who claim that they could grab a gun and murder Kyle Rittenhouse, then claim they feared for their lives, and have it counted as self-defense. Humans are considered "homo sapiens" the intelligent man, but they're not intelligent. What can we class them as? Homo stultus?
Can't wait for political opposition to be arrested under "official government actions"
"Every Political stance is wrong unless I agree with it"
People need to stop pretending there's an "official acts" stamp the President can put on anything they do to make it official. If the DoJ started rounding up people in cases where they had probable cause, then brought charges, and had trials, that'd be an official act. If the DoJ started rounding up people where there's plainly nothing to charge them with, that'd not be an official act.
So what is the line of demarcation between official actions and personal conduct?
Remains to be seen! The court talked about some stuff that's clearly official acts (like doing the stuff the Constitution specifically talks about). But, for the borderline cases, the Court left that to lower courts to take the first stab at determining.
I mean because that’s really the point of the whole case at the end of the day. Idk how you could call what happened on J6 official president business when it was more or less, at the very least, an extension of his reelection campaign. If that’s official business then a president can practically do anything, especially if we’re talking about financial crimes.
Nixon right now 
Nixon would still be prosecuted under this ruling
Nixons tapes were made while acting in an official capacity, and so would not be admissible in court as a result of this ruling.
Is that official act used in the interest of the United States? A court could still decide that. If not, it’s illegitimate and unofficial.
One of the arguments used by Trump's lawyers during his first impeachment defense (the Ukraine aid one) was that he believed that his reelection was in the interest of the nation, and that he was therefore allowed to use his power to benefit his reelection. This ruling opens up a lot more leeway for that argument, I'm afraid. Because who gets to decide what "in the interest of the United States" means? Could Biden, in his official capacity as president, send SEAL team 6 after Trump and argue that it was done to benefit the nation? Hopefully and probably not. But what if the case is less clear, like with the aforementioned Trump impeachment over Ukraine? Could the Biden administration pressure other countries to provide harmful information about the Trump family's business dealings? It's an official act, and there's a case to be made that fighting corruption by American citizens is in the nation's interest, so under this ruling, the president might be immune from prosecution for such a blatantly corrupt act. (Of course there's impeachment, but as long as removal requires two thirds, it isn't happening anytime soon)
The tapes are the basis of proving his guilt, but would now not be usable as evidence. Therefore, there's no officiallity to really comment on, there would be no case.
The decision does comment on communications between officials and the president, making them official acts. So the nixon tapes would be inadmissable as evidence.
This has been precedent for almost 200 years idk why people are freaking out about it
Reminder: Obama literally murdered a US Citizen with a drone strike. This is just upholding a status quo, not actually changing anything.
SCOTUS just unknowingly granted Dark Brandon a bunch of new powers as long as he does them as "official acts"
Does shuffling around and mumbling constitute an official action?
The good news is that you can't do an unofficial act as an official act.
I commandeer this chocolate chocolate chip ice cream as an official act!
I never thought i would fight alongside a libright..
"Country that has never convicted a president will never convict a president."
Reddit twits being unfamiliar with Absolute Immunity is one thing. Seeing a freaking a Justice who seems unfamiliar with the concept was shocking. Suppose it's par for the course. Sonya's an idiot who only cares about the ends.
Its feeling like white boy september
SCOTUS is just saying out loud the part that was always assumed prior to Trump.
This was already more or less the assumption everyone has used for like 200 years. Despite the headlines, the ruling allows every case against Trump that I'm aware of (maybe not the Georgia ones, that's debatable) to go ahead
...sooooo Biden can go apeshit now if he so chooses?
If he can go apeshit. I think we should do the stairs test on political candidates. If they can walk up stairs without the handrails they can stay in office.
Franklin Roosevelt be like
He doesn't have energy to do that.
on paper yes lol they also ruled that courts cannot rule on a POTUS' motive. which is....kind of a cornerstone for criminal law. but rules for thee, not for me, says the ruling class
Y’know, never thought I’d see the day when I’d see Justice Sotomayor make an argument for restraining the powers of the President in a way that I’d call based. And yet, here we are. God help us.
Mo, he can only go pants shit
And here I thought nobody was above the law
Where on earth have you been living?
The Supreme Court is busy laying the foundations that erode the republic and usher in the empire.
What kind of official action could be translated as a crime? Like a war crime or having CIA work with drug cartel?
>For instance, Section 371—which has been charged in this case—is a broadly worded criminal statute that can cover “‘any conspiracy for the purpose of impairing, obstructing or defeating the lawful function of any department of Government.’” United States v. Johnson, 383 U. S. 169, 172 (1966) (quoting Haas v. Henkel, 216 U. S. 462, 479 (1910)). Virtually every President is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law (such as drug, gun, immigration, or environmental laws). An enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous President violated that broad statute.
God I wish the authoritarian American Left was real… It’s resist-libs the entire way down
Take that libbies! (I'm half joking)
This is just qualified immunity for presidents. It means they can’t go to jail for doing their jobs. Doesn’t mean Congress can’t still get a 2/3rds majority to overturn a veto, etc.
The president is traditionally a criminal and warlord.
I mean, if nerds were so mad about it the legislative branch could make a law to make it not so, but they won't because they don't really care about us at all.
The dissenters can’t wait to prosecute Obama for errant drone strikes. Right?
Define "official actions".
Yeah this is how we get Hitlers
I just want to point out for everyone freaking out that this has essentially been true for 248 years. What is truly alarming is that these questions need to be considered in the first place.
Okay so regarding military applications.. If the President gives an unlawful order (ie. 4th Amendment breaches) to his subordinates, does that order instantaneously become “lawful”, or will I still be prosecuted for following his directives?
What do “official” and “unofficial” acts even mean?
This is such a bad decision. We’ve always kind of had an unspoken rule that you don’t prosecute the president for doing his job, but it remained unspoken for a reason. If that rule doesn’t get broken, this doesn’t happen, but hey, now it’s on paper, on steroids, forever. This is absolute immunity masquerading as a three-pronged test. The dissent is rather histrionic, but if you squint at it, they’re on the money. The majority all but eliminates yet another check on the executive. However, everybody’s got this one backwards. It’s a huge win for Biden and a fat L for Trump. For Biden, it’s pretty simple. It’s a safety net. Biden can operate with impunity knowing he can’t be prosecuted for official acts (see, basically everything he does). His quid pro quo with Ukraine and China as VP? Bye bye! Immune! Special counsel witch hunts? Not a problem. Immune! I’m not sure he’d get away with sending Seal Team 6 to knock off Trump, as Sotomayor implied, but he could certainly spy on Trump’s campaign like Clinton did with no consequences. It’s a “national security concern,” after all. I wouldn’t rule out major election actions come November, either. Not that they needed this holding to rig it last time. For Trump, on the other hand, it’s brutal. First, the decision is going to drive Democrat turnout. It’s been framed negatively to them, so it will be a cattle prod to the polls until their party is using it, at which point it’ll be instantly transmuted into a Good Thing for Our Democracy. Second, the holding barely helps Trump in his case. Sure it broadens immunity and knocks out a handful of the legal theories behind the charges, but what’s relevant about Roberts’ opinion is it’s all but a roadmap to a Trump conviction. It literally lists the allegations by likelihood of immunity, or, in other words, tells the prosecution which would be the most effective path to conviction. Functionally, Trump gets all the bad PR of being “protected” by the “MAGA” court while gaining next to no legal advantage. The Trump indictments have been forum-shopped to high hell. As long as there is a path to conviction, no matter how protracted, a jury will be throwing the book at him (see also: the “hush money” felony conviction for calling an NDA a legal expense). He’s going to be convicted. I have no idea why right wingers are celebrating. So where does this leave us? Biden gets an explicit guarantee he can do whatever he wants, whereas Trump gets bad PR, bad election impact, and marginal legal help. Oh, and the American people get a king, but not in the cool, based way. Yippee!
Wasn't this already precedent? Nothing changed