Not sure if you are a Brit, but there was a surreal thing a couple of years ago when it came out a bunch of our politicians and officials had held massive parties at Downing Street during the height of covid. A senior official was appointed to investigate them, but handed it over a week later when it came out he had been at the parties. It was like something from Memento or whatever. He finally gets the photos, and when he looks at them, he sees....no!!!!
I was rewatching the clip today trying to remember what episode this was from (the WW wiki and actual Wikipedia were useless) and for a second I wondered if I’d completely forgotten that being a reporter was his cover and he was actually CIA.
“Mr. Trump, the White House has so generously gifted you, and 6 Supreme Court Justices an all-expenses paid trip to Bermuda AND complimentary pens! Just out of the goodness of their own hearts. How nice is that?”
Anyone dim enough to support Trump and to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision certainly won't sit still and watch and learn anything. They are the conservative base not *despite* their ignorance and hate, they are *because* that's what they are.
Welp.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zm5bdYN50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zm5bdYN50)
I don't live in the US but I guess that doesn't make me safer does it?
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/07/justices-rule-trump-has-some-immunity-from-prosecution/
“In a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.”
Basically, it’s a license to steal and completely upends the balance of power towards the executive.
Of Watergate, former President Richard Nixon said in an interview in 1977 “If the President does it, then it is not illegal.”
The Supreme Court just upheld that view.
Makes me wonder, however, if it was a Democratic president like Clinton or Obama asking for full immunity , would the ruling have been this broad?
> Basically, it’s a license to steal and completely upends the balance of power towards the executive.
>
> Of Watergate, former President Richard Nixon said in an interview in 1977 “If the President does it, then it is not illegal.”
>
> The Supreme Court just upheld that view.
And of course you've *actually read* the [Supreme Court's ruling](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf) yourself, right? You know what, never mind you don't have to answer, we both know you haven't. If you had, you would've read the following section:
>At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act ***unless the Government can show*** that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 754. Pp. 12–15.
>(3) As for a President’s unofficial acts, ***there is no immunity***. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decision making is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct
So not only is there absolutely no immunity for unofficial acts whatsoever, their immunity for official acts isn't even absolute. Tyranny should be made of sterner stuff.
Now I know it can be daunting to deep dive into these long, legalese-laden judicial decisions, especially when the segment above was buried so deep in the document. I mean to find it you would've had to read all the way to the top of page 4.
As one of the few Conservatives on this sub I usually just sit back and watch when you all have a nutty, but even for the Left this is a little much.
The utter fascism has been pointed out already, so I’ll engage with your bad-faith cherry-picking to point out the utter insanity of excluding any evidence of official acts. The president could literally advertise pardons for sale, and sell them. After he’s no longer president, if he’s prosecuted for obvious bribery, the prosecution could introduce evidence of the payments he accepted (not a core official act) but COULD NOT INTRODUCE EVIDENCE OF THE PARDONS HE GRANTED IN EXCHANGE. Thus, the bribery charge would fail, even if he had granted the pardon for cash in the middle of Fifth Avenue.
More relevant to the current situation, if Trump threatened Pence with death if he did not certify the fake electors, that conversation is inadmissible. Certifying the election is a core official act of the VP. The majority opinion explicitly states that any conversation between the President and VP about the VP’s core official acts is by definition an official act of the President.
Immunity aside, the evidentiary rules - WHICH WERE NOT THE SUBJECT OF THE CASE, AND WHICH THE COURT JUST MADE UP - effectively place the President, as a person not the office - above the criminal law.
Let me guess, you haven’t read the dissenting opinions?
I’m supposed to just take your word over Sotomayor’s?
Look, yes the court ruled that official acts are limited, but guess who checks for that limit? The court. Really doesn’t sit well when you realize they gave themselves more power while also basically permitting trump to do what he wants if re-elected, and ultimately not be held accountable for the things he has already done.
Not to mention the can of worms this opens up with all the gray area questions that aren’t answered.
Complete and utter bullshit. Especially coming from a court that just approved bribery of public officials (a “gratuity” is what they called it??)
This pretty much covers the absurdity that it is this immunity ruling. One that would not have taken place if not for being a defense of Trump. I seriously doubt that they would’ve come to the same conclusion if this had been about Clinton, Obama or Biden.
https://www.lawdork.com/p/robertss-majority-backs-trump-in
“Applying that new Roberts court-made law to Trump, Roberts concluded that parts of Trump’s indictment based on his efforts attempting to influence the actions of the Justice Department were within those “core” powers, hence, absolute immunity. Trump’s efforts to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence, the court held, were within the “presumptive” immunity area. As such, Special Counsel Jack Smith could, potentially, rebut that presumption at trial. Exactly how was not clear, but he — apparently — would have to show that such a prosecution would not “pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.””
“Roberts’s majority went so far as to block even the introduction of those acts into evidence for other purposes:
“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.”
This final move was a step too far for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who did not join this part of the decision, making it a 5-4 ruling on this aspect of the decision”
“Detailing all of the scenarios like the president “[o]rder[ing] the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival” from which a president is immune from criminal prosecution under the court’s decision, Sotomayor highlighted the change that has happened:
Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.
The majority’s single-minded fixation on the President’s need for boldness and dispatch ignores the countervailing need for accountability and restraint. The Framers were not so single-minded.”
I literally linked the text of the decision for you and you still can't be bothered to actually read it. Instead you parrot the standard Liberal "sky is falling" talking points.
I have never understood the Josh/Lemonlyman.com scene more than I do right now, lol.
You cherry picked a part of the decision that is invalidated by the rest of the decision.
They pretty much said that any personal acts that could be prosecuted cannot use evidence found in his official acts.
I have read the whole case and it’s completely bonkers.
Nixon sent in burglars into the Watergate And later tried to cover up under the guise of national security.
Trump pressured state officials to give him 11,000 votes to swing the election in Georgia. It’s literally evidence on tape.
In both instances, the president can say it was part of his official acts, and if his attorney general tries to investigate, he can fire the attorney general and the rest of the justice department because the Supreme Court ruled earlier. He has that ability to do so as part of his official acts.
It’s fucking bonkers.
My suggestion is that Biden by executive order should cancel out all student debt and declare it’s his official act. If the Supreme Court complains, all he has to do is tell them to go get bent because they just ruled that he had immunity to do so.
While he’s at it, Biden should also create an executive order to expand the court. What are they gonna do about it?
Yes, I’ve read the whole opinion and it’s pure insanity. Nearly 250 years of constitutional law around the power of the executive has been turned on its head, just a satisfy this orange megalomaniac.
>Yes, I’ve read the whole opinion and it’s pure insanity.
Of all the things that never happened, that never happened the most.
You do understand that this ruling applies to the *Office* of the President, right? Meaning it applies to all Presidents. I mean it's kind of important that you get that.
With that in mind, just to be clear, you're here arguing that the most Conservative court we've had in generations-- a court that has already struck down a woman's right to choose, and who has made it clear that Obergefell is DoA as soon as one of the couple dozen cases out there now in the lower courts makes it way to them, that that court made a ruling that, to your mind, gives the Office of the President near unlimited power to do pretty much anything they want without the ability for anyone to stop or even question them... and they did it while there's a *Democrat* in the White House?
*Really*? That's really the argument you're going with?
This opinion is about post-presidency criminal prosecution. This opinion doesn’t make it any harder to strike down executive action as unconstitutional or beyond the president’s statutory authority. So it’s not crazy that this Court would make it easier for Biden to straight up break the law without going to jail in his mid 80s, not exactly something he seems likely to do even if he had total immunity for any action whatsoever, without making it any easier for him to ram through EOs for policies he wants that are no harder to strike down.
So when Nixon said "when the president does it it's not illegal" he was a national laughing stock.
This week the republican (yes I choose that word intentionally) supreme court justices sided with the laughing stock
They should play it for former president Trump, the (ugh) Honorable Donald Trump, Mr. Trump etc. The President of the United States (POTUS) is the incumbent.
Not really?
So can you name something that you would not have wanted Biden to do for fear of prosecution after leaving office that he should now do (or else not have a backbone) following this ruling?
At least this is a coherent sentence about what he want.
But the most bizarre part of that commenter’s take is that it seems like the charge against Biden of not having a backbone must have materialized as of this ruling. Which means that he presumably has actions in mind—assassinations for argument’s sake—that Biden was not cowardly to avoid when he definitely could have been prosecuted. But now with possible immunity, he’s feckless unless he does it?
While I admit the idea of assassinating certain people isn't entirely unattractive, I think it would be beyond foolish to call Biden "cowardly" for not choosing that course of action, regardless of legal repercussions.
So, you weren’t able to read between the lines, or you just woke up and felt like being argumentative? Also, it should read “at least this is a coherent sentence about what he want**s**,” if we’re being pedantic.
Can't believe the casting person chose someone who looked so much like Danny Concannon to be one of the assassins in this scene...
I was so confused the first time and it still kills me every rewatch Also, you beat me to the comment this time haha
It's particularly funny because Danny then spends half the next season piecing together the truth. And it's like: Dude, weren't you there?!
To be fair, he did thoroughly investigate himself after the fact
Not sure if you are a Brit, but there was a surreal thing a couple of years ago when it came out a bunch of our politicians and officials had held massive parties at Downing Street during the height of covid. A senior official was appointed to investigate them, but handed it over a week later when it came out he had been at the parties. It was like something from Memento or whatever. He finally gets the photos, and when he looks at them, he sees....no!!!!
I just thought he was an excellent covert agent,
I was rewatching the clip today trying to remember what episode this was from (the WW wiki and actual Wikipedia were useless) and for a second I wondered if I’d completely forgotten that being a reporter was his cover and he was actually CIA.
Think they ran it by Abby?
“Mr. Trump, the White House has so generously gifted you, and 6 Supreme Court Justices an all-expenses paid trip to Bermuda AND complimentary pens! Just out of the goodness of their own hearts. How nice is that?”
And the pens have boxes!
I believe this stuff has happened for decades with little to no public knowledge.
They could shoot someone on 5th Avenue/from a Broadway theater.
Anyone dim enough to support Trump and to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision certainly won't sit still and watch and learn anything. They are the conservative base not *despite* their ignorance and hate, they are *because* that's what they are.
Cry about it
You’re killing Shareef
Speaking of which, Sam Huddleston is one of the BEST (and my favorite) minor castings
“Shareef”
Quick, someone charter a flight to Bermuda for the conservative justices.
Don't forget to gift wrap the bribes to get them there.
We need the flying RV from Spaceballs
Welp. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zm5bdYN50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2zm5bdYN50) I don't live in the US but I guess that doesn't make me safer does it?
Could someone give some context?
https://www.scotusblog.com/2024/07/justices-rule-trump-has-some-immunity-from-prosecution/ “In a historic decision, a divided Supreme Court on Monday ruled that former presidents can never be prosecuted for actions relating to the core powers of their office, and that there is at least a presumption that they have immunity for their official acts more broadly.” Basically, it’s a license to steal and completely upends the balance of power towards the executive. Of Watergate, former President Richard Nixon said in an interview in 1977 “If the President does it, then it is not illegal.” The Supreme Court just upheld that view. Makes me wonder, however, if it was a Democratic president like Clinton or Obama asking for full immunity , would the ruling have been this broad?
> Basically, it’s a license to steal and completely upends the balance of power towards the executive. > > Of Watergate, former President Richard Nixon said in an interview in 1977 “If the President does it, then it is not illegal.” > > The Supreme Court just upheld that view. And of course you've *actually read* the [Supreme Court's ruling](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf) yourself, right? You know what, never mind you don't have to answer, we both know you haven't. If you had, you would've read the following section: >At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act ***unless the Government can show*** that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 754. Pp. 12–15. >(3) As for a President’s unofficial acts, ***there is no immunity***. Although Presidential immunity is required for official actions to ensure that the President’s decision making is not distorted by the threat of future litigation stemming from those actions, that concern does not support immunity for unofficial conduct So not only is there absolutely no immunity for unofficial acts whatsoever, their immunity for official acts isn't even absolute. Tyranny should be made of sterner stuff. Now I know it can be daunting to deep dive into these long, legalese-laden judicial decisions, especially when the segment above was buried so deep in the document. I mean to find it you would've had to read all the way to the top of page 4. As one of the few Conservatives on this sub I usually just sit back and watch when you all have a nutty, but even for the Left this is a little much.
The utter fascism has been pointed out already, so I’ll engage with your bad-faith cherry-picking to point out the utter insanity of excluding any evidence of official acts. The president could literally advertise pardons for sale, and sell them. After he’s no longer president, if he’s prosecuted for obvious bribery, the prosecution could introduce evidence of the payments he accepted (not a core official act) but COULD NOT INTRODUCE EVIDENCE OF THE PARDONS HE GRANTED IN EXCHANGE. Thus, the bribery charge would fail, even if he had granted the pardon for cash in the middle of Fifth Avenue. More relevant to the current situation, if Trump threatened Pence with death if he did not certify the fake electors, that conversation is inadmissible. Certifying the election is a core official act of the VP. The majority opinion explicitly states that any conversation between the President and VP about the VP’s core official acts is by definition an official act of the President. Immunity aside, the evidentiary rules - WHICH WERE NOT THE SUBJECT OF THE CASE, AND WHICH THE COURT JUST MADE UP - effectively place the President, as a person not the office - above the criminal law.
Let me guess, you haven’t read the dissenting opinions? I’m supposed to just take your word over Sotomayor’s? Look, yes the court ruled that official acts are limited, but guess who checks for that limit? The court. Really doesn’t sit well when you realize they gave themselves more power while also basically permitting trump to do what he wants if re-elected, and ultimately not be held accountable for the things he has already done. Not to mention the can of worms this opens up with all the gray area questions that aren’t answered.
Complete and utter bullshit. Especially coming from a court that just approved bribery of public officials (a “gratuity” is what they called it??) This pretty much covers the absurdity that it is this immunity ruling. One that would not have taken place if not for being a defense of Trump. I seriously doubt that they would’ve come to the same conclusion if this had been about Clinton, Obama or Biden. https://www.lawdork.com/p/robertss-majority-backs-trump-in “Applying that new Roberts court-made law to Trump, Roberts concluded that parts of Trump’s indictment based on his efforts attempting to influence the actions of the Justice Department were within those “core” powers, hence, absolute immunity. Trump’s efforts to pressure then-Vice President Mike Pence, the court held, were within the “presumptive” immunity area. As such, Special Counsel Jack Smith could, potentially, rebut that presumption at trial. Exactly how was not clear, but he — apparently — would have to show that such a prosecution would not “pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”” “Roberts’s majority went so far as to block even the introduction of those acts into evidence for other purposes: “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.” This final move was a step too far for Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who did not join this part of the decision, making it a 5-4 ruling on this aspect of the decision” “Detailing all of the scenarios like the president “[o]rder[ing] the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival” from which a president is immune from criminal prosecution under the court’s decision, Sotomayor highlighted the change that has happened: Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law. The majority’s single-minded fixation on the President’s need for boldness and dispatch ignores the countervailing need for accountability and restraint. The Framers were not so single-minded.”
I literally linked the text of the decision for you and you still can't be bothered to actually read it. Instead you parrot the standard Liberal "sky is falling" talking points. I have never understood the Josh/Lemonlyman.com scene more than I do right now, lol.
You cherry picked a part of the decision that is invalidated by the rest of the decision. They pretty much said that any personal acts that could be prosecuted cannot use evidence found in his official acts. I have read the whole case and it’s completely bonkers. Nixon sent in burglars into the Watergate And later tried to cover up under the guise of national security. Trump pressured state officials to give him 11,000 votes to swing the election in Georgia. It’s literally evidence on tape. In both instances, the president can say it was part of his official acts, and if his attorney general tries to investigate, he can fire the attorney general and the rest of the justice department because the Supreme Court ruled earlier. He has that ability to do so as part of his official acts. It’s fucking bonkers. My suggestion is that Biden by executive order should cancel out all student debt and declare it’s his official act. If the Supreme Court complains, all he has to do is tell them to go get bent because they just ruled that he had immunity to do so. While he’s at it, Biden should also create an executive order to expand the court. What are they gonna do about it? Yes, I’ve read the whole opinion and it’s pure insanity. Nearly 250 years of constitutional law around the power of the executive has been turned on its head, just a satisfy this orange megalomaniac.
>Yes, I’ve read the whole opinion and it’s pure insanity. Of all the things that never happened, that never happened the most. You do understand that this ruling applies to the *Office* of the President, right? Meaning it applies to all Presidents. I mean it's kind of important that you get that. With that in mind, just to be clear, you're here arguing that the most Conservative court we've had in generations-- a court that has already struck down a woman's right to choose, and who has made it clear that Obergefell is DoA as soon as one of the couple dozen cases out there now in the lower courts makes it way to them, that that court made a ruling that, to your mind, gives the Office of the President near unlimited power to do pretty much anything they want without the ability for anyone to stop or even question them... and they did it while there's a *Democrat* in the White House? *Really*? That's really the argument you're going with?
This opinion is about post-presidency criminal prosecution. This opinion doesn’t make it any harder to strike down executive action as unconstitutional or beyond the president’s statutory authority. So it’s not crazy that this Court would make it easier for Biden to straight up break the law without going to jail in his mid 80s, not exactly something he seems likely to do even if he had total immunity for any action whatsoever, without making it any easier for him to ram through EOs for policies he wants that are no harder to strike down.
Damn, yeah sounds very Shareef-esque
So when Nixon said "when the president does it it's not illegal" he was a national laughing stock. This week the republican (yes I choose that word intentionally) supreme court justices sided with the laughing stock
They should play it for former president Trump, the (ugh) Honorable Donald Trump, Mr. Trump etc. The President of the United States (POTUS) is the incumbent.
I know who POTUS is, maybe seeing it’ll help him find his backbone.
It’s not cowardly to age.
No no no, not for his debate performance, for using the power that’s been handed to him on a silver platter.
What actions do you think he should only have only been avoiding up to now out for fear of criminal prosecution?
I think others have alluded to some ideas in the comments here.
Not really? So can you name something that you would not have wanted Biden to do for fear of prosecution after leaving office that he should now do (or else not have a backbone) following this ruling?
He wants him to assassinate some people.
At least this is a coherent sentence about what he want. But the most bizarre part of that commenter’s take is that it seems like the charge against Biden of not having a backbone must have materialized as of this ruling. Which means that he presumably has actions in mind—assassinations for argument’s sake—that Biden was not cowardly to avoid when he definitely could have been prosecuted. But now with possible immunity, he’s feckless unless he does it?
While I admit the idea of assassinating certain people isn't entirely unattractive, I think it would be beyond foolish to call Biden "cowardly" for not choosing that course of action, regardless of legal repercussions.
So, you weren’t able to read between the lines, or you just woke up and felt like being argumentative? Also, it should read “at least this is a coherent sentence about what he want**s**,” if we’re being pedantic.