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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

#251

Post by ffgjgf1 »

sowut wrote: post #225
lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

[flagged]

Because there isn’t? Just frame the assassination as fighting domestic terrorists or some other nonsense.

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

#253

Post by sjs382 »

yongjik wrote: post #121

IANAL so could someone explain to me - does this ruling apply to the "porn actress hush money" trial or is it a separate issue? (I'd like to think that there's no way it's an "official act" of a president, but again, IANAL.)

Kind of. From CNN: https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-immunity-suprem...

> Donald Trump’s legal team will likely use Monday’s SCOTUS opinion as they challenge the New York hush money criminal verdict itself on appeal, a source familiar with their thinking tells CNN.

> Trump’s team thinks the SCOTUS option could be used to challenge portions of Hope Hicks testimony as well as some of the tweets entered in as evidence, according to the source familiar.

> CNN earlier reported the Trump team sees the opinion as “a major victory” because in addition to using it to try to get charges tossed, they can also use this opinion to get evidence related to official acts tossed in all cases — not just federal — which can hurt prosecutors’ ability to prove what charges are left.

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

#254

Post by dh2022 »

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…

Re: war analogy. Executing all allied generals at the end of the war would enable opponents who elevate winning generals at the end of the war. Guess which side would win?

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

#256

Post by inglor_cz »

chx wrote: post #228
lolinder wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

The problem is that official vs unofficial designation does not exist. The Supreme Court just invented it out of thin air. Further https://www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-sup... > the court has left nearly no sphere in which the president can be said to be acting “unofficially.” And more importantly, the court has left virtually no vector of evidence that can be deployed against a president to prove…

Doesn't this difference exist de facto?

Trump murdering his business partner at a dinner because they had a fallout is pretty clearly unofficial, while Trump ordering assassination of the Tyrant of Ruritania is official, albeit probably immoral and/or dangerous to boot.

Of course the grey zone between those two poles is going to be pretty wide.

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

#258

Post by ApolloFortyNine »

zeroonetwothree wrote: post #18
afavour wrote: post #8

I'm dismayed by this ruling but I'm curious: can someone defend it? I'm able to understand the counter-perspectives to my own on many hot-button issues (2nd amendment, abortion bans) but this one seems very nakedly bad. But maybe I'm just not seeing the counterpoint?

If presidents could be prosecuted for their official acts then the next time the other party takes over they will just immediately find various crimes their predecessor “committed” (there are probably 10s of 1000s of them).

People forget that Obama actually did some questionable things too. He greenlit drone strikes that killed at least 2 Americans, not to mention civilian casualties. And he was the president that the 'holding camps' at the border (not sure what to call them) were started.

No one (that I know of) seriously thought he should go to prison for those acts, but honestly the argument seems pretty easy to be made without some sort of immunity.

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

#259

Post by Buttons840 »

lolinder wrote: post #179
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…

To give the majority opinion its own voice: > The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energ…

> "The President is not above the law."

What does that even mean if it's impossible to prosecute the President? What does that even mean?

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

#260

Post by thih9 »

saucetenuto wrote: post #216
blue_dragon wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Guess again! Roberts explicitly calls out orders to the military as covered by absolute immunity. EDIT: and motive is explicitly barred from review too.

Do you have a source? I didn’t find this in the article, could you add a quote - or link if it’s from elsewhere?
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