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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

#261

Post by downWidOutaFite »

treeFall wrote: post #185
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…

Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?

The ruling is extremely wishy washy about what is official vs unofficial, and keeps saying that it is very hard to determine, and even prohibits prosecutors from using certain legal tactics to determine if something is official or unofficial.

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

#262

Post by enragedcacti »

ameister14 wrote: post #169
enragedcacti wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its more like "immunity for any action within the realm of presidential power, regardless of motive or criminality". Accepting a bribe in exchange for a pardon would be A-ok on the basis that pardoning is a “conclusive and preclusive” authority of the president. > The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. Literally no one was arguing for this and there are much more reasonable in…

No, the act undertaken in exchange for the bribe would be under the immunity umbrella but the act of taking the bribe would not.

> The President’s authority to pardon, in other words, is “conclusive and preclusive,” “disabling the Congress from acting upon the subject.”

> Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions on subjects within his “conclusive and preclusive” constitutional authority. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. We thus conclude that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.

Further evidence is that Sotomayors makes the claim in no uncertain terms and that the majority makes zero effort to dispute it.

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

#263

Post by alistairSH »

Clubber wrote: post #229
alistairSH wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like qualified immunity (usually for police), but applied to POTUS. You want public servants to be able to do their jobs without fear of time-wasting litigation. But, if you grant blanket immunity, the poilice (or POTUS) are free to do whatever they want. We're quite clearly tilted way over into "do what they want" territory.

I believe qualified immunity only protects from direct civil litigation but not criminal.

Yep, it's a rough analogy, not a perfect match.

And, given the state of policing and justice in the US, civil litigation is often the only way to get any relief for over-zealous policing. And QI makes that bar even higher than it should be.

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

#264

Post by Goronmon »

treeFall wrote: post #185
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…

Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?

Does she not understand the difference?

Explain the difference.

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

#265

Post by haroldp »

chasd00 wrote: post #106
runjake wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Could Obama be prosecuted for ordering drone strikes that unintentionally killed two Americans? If you're referring to Anwar Al-Awlaki and his son, both US citizens, it was intentional . If you're not referring to this, Obama's already done this without getting charged. Being POTUS is an unenviable job. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki Edit: Since people are assuming my views on this topic, I'll say th…

on a tangent, was the drone operator charged? iirc "just following orders" only goes so far.

No. It seems unlikely that the drone pilot would have all of that information beyond where the target was, that would be necessary to make an informed decision about participating in an extrajudicial execution of an American citizen.

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

#266

Post by brokencode »

treeFall wrote: post #185
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…

Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?

Just call it necessary for national security with some BS reasoning and thin or made up evidence and suddenly it’s an official act. There are so many ways a president could twist pretty much anything into an official act.

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

#267

Post by sf_rob »

MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #224
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.

Article II of the constitution specifically gives the POTUS the authority to command the armed forces. The limit is declaring war, which is vested in Congress. So it seems reasonable that commanding Seal Team 6 is specifically a constitutionally authorized power and within an official duty.

And every war since Vietnam has been a police action or military operation.

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

#268

Post by grotorea »

It's interesting that even in the Roman Republic the immunity ended after the end of your term, and you could be prosecuted for official acts taken during it. And even let to Caesar fighting to keep himself in office at all times to avoid inevitable prosecution. https://theconversation.com/from-caesar-to-trump-immunity-is...

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

#269

Post by jasonjayr »

chasd00 wrote: post #34
grecy wrote: post #10

"Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity, If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backs…

A president can still be impeached and removed, they may not "serve their debt to society" but the harm can be stopped by the states.

With the speed at which the impeachment and removal can take, with this new interpretation, it seems significant and lasting damage take take place before anything could be done.

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

#270

Post by buildbot »

treeFall wrote: post #185
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…

Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?

This was argued by Trump's defense team, it’s not a hypothetical

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/pressed-...

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