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Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

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Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#231

Post by ceejayoz »

blue_dragon wrote: post #207
treeFall wrote: post #98

>The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. I would consider this an extreme knee jerk take, but it's Sotomayor saying it. https://x.com/mikedebonis/status/180…

My naive assumption is that ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival is not an official nor constitutionally authorized power, and thus would be prosecutable.

The President is the Commander in Chief; issuing orders to the military is very much an official act.

"But not for this! This would be clearly corrupt!" you may say, but the decision addresses that as well; the President's motive for the "official act" cannot be introduced as evidence!

> In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#232

Post by margalabargala »

saghm wrote: post #103
margalabargala wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The President shouldn't have the legal authority to conduct any drone strikes without a declaration of war from Congress. We've been ignoring the Constitution for a very long time. What part of the Constitution are we ignoring? According to the Constitution, the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces. The Constitution does not say that war must be declared for the armed forces to operate. Thus, ord…

> What part of the Constitution are we ignoring? There are a number of amendments that could be pretty reasonable argued to give citizens the right not to get killed by drone strikes.

Citizens, sure. That's a much weaker claim than what the parent said, which is "The President should not be able to conduct drone strikes without an act of Congress".

Drone striking (or otherwise killing) citizens without due process seems unconstitutional. Drone striking foreign targets does not have those constitutional protections.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#233

Post by rtkwe »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #189
rtkwe wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that a lot of the expanded War on Terror activity are nominally authorized under according to the Executive. Challenging that is up to Congress as afaik there's no standing for a random person to sue.

And Congress notably passed the dang thing and has pointedly refused to come back and limit it or curtail the admittedly expansive interpretations subsequent presidents have made of it, so I very much doubt they're going to ding a given president now .

Correct there's been several attempts to revoke or limit the 2001 AUMF and Congress has decided not to each time. It's pretty clear what is being done under the auspices of it too so failing to address the interpretation becomes a tacit endorsement at least at the institutional level. Personally I think it's been stretched to breaking but the fix is pretty simple and up to Congress.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#234

Post by jameshart »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #178
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extreme to the point of silliness. If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed.

It is, frankly, moon logic. The President is commander-in-chief, ergo, they are immune from prosecution when issuing an order to the military, even if the order is illegal? Because the Constitution says the President can issue orders and doesn't say anything about whether those orders need to be legitimate or justifiable in any sort of national context? Repeat for the Justice Department, or Immigration, or any of the…

Really does a number on the ‘unlawful order’ doctrine for military accountability. Has SCOTUS made ‘just following orders’ a valid legal defense?

They’ve also made much of the fact that the presidential authority to pardon is constitutionally unreviewable, so even if the president orders someone to commit a crime, he can pardon them preemptively. His appointment power is similarly in the constitution, so he can also fire and replace them until he finds someone willing to do it.

Are we really left with ‘if the president were to issue illegal orders to his staff, Congress would definitely impeach him’?

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#235

Post by belorn »

OgsyedIE wrote: post #149
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extreme to the point of silliness. If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed.

In practice the court will say whatever POTUS tells it to say, lest an 'official act' remove some of the members of the court and their loved ones.

Under the same line of thought, soldiers in the military will always follow what their commander say, least order to comes to remove a soldier and their loved ones.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#236

Post by squidbeak »

WalterBright wrote: post #205
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #4

Immunity for things they do as part of their official duties. I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. Could Obama be prosecuted for ordering drone strikes that unintentionally killed two Americans? It seems like that world would hamstring the president far too much. I don’t know if th…

Obama ordered Bin Laden killed. Should he be prosecuted for that? Remember that the President can still be impeached for "high crimes and misdemeanors".

I'm unclear why ordering the death of one of his nation's worst foes, whose network was still at war with the US, could ever be illegal?

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#237

Post by lenerdenator »

doctorpangloss wrote: post #206
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extreme to the point of silliness. If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed.

> If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed. Everyone thinks lines don't get crossed, until they do.

And if the last nine years have proven anything, most of the system will say "well, that wasn't technically a line, just something we've always done a certain way that was up for change at any moment's notice should one person decide to do so."

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#238

Post by ajuc »

injidup wrote: post #166

Perhaps the simple solution is that all presidents should serve 15 years in jail after serving their term. Then only extremely socially minded people would dare to do the job. There was a similar sci fi story I read. At the end of a war the rule was that all allied ( not enemy ) generals would be executed. The idea was that war was such a horrible concept that to lead one would require extreme sacrifice and social co…

If there's no downside you just do your worst.

Look at it from the perspective of the president near the end of their term.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#239

Post by danielmarkbruce »

bcrosby95 wrote: post #204
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extreme to the point of silliness. If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed.

Official acts are still official regardless of the underlying reason and according to this case courts aren't even allowed to examine those reasons.

"official acts" have yet to be defined.

Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

#240

Post by crazygringo »

treeFall wrote: post #98

>The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. I would consider this an extreme knee jerk take, but it's Sotomayor saying it. https://x.com/mikedebonis/status/180…

I see a lot of people here in the comments claiming that this is still knee-jerk, or silly, or obviously that would not be an "official act".

To the contrary -- this is an explicit example that came up during oral arguments, where a Trump lawyer specifically claimed that indeed, Trump could not be convicted criminally of this (unless he had first been impeached and convicted).

Nowhere in the majority opinion does it try to draw some kind of line against this. And indeed, the President is constitutionally "commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States", and the opinion states this authority is "conclusive and preclusive".

Quite simply, according to this decision, anything the president commands the Navy to do, including a Navy Seal, is an official act because it a power explicitly granted by the constitution, and thus immune from prosecution.

To repeat: this specific scenario was brought up during oral arguments, indeed as one of the main arguments that was also widely reported. This is not a far-flung wacko example Sotomayor came up with herself -- it's the very heart of the case. The fact that the opinion does not even attempt to explain why this would still be considered criminal, and the fact the Sotomayor is confirming why it would be allowed, is not a misreading or a mistake. It is clearly intentional and genuinely scary.

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