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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

#361

Post by venusenvy47 »

impalallama wrote: post #316
w10-1 wrote: post #150

The essence, from the majority opinion https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf > nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. > And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. > Testimony or private records of the Pres…

> Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial Wouldn’t this have made it impossible to prosecute Nixon for Watergate?

This is the big red flag for me. A court can't review whether the conduct was official. This seems like the court wants to remove the checks and balances between the government branches.

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

#362

Post by fallingknife »

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.

In the military chain of command an order is only an order when it is a lawful order. The president does not have any power to issue an unlawful order. That would be outside of his constitutional powers and not an official act.

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

#363

Post by anon291 »

Buttons840 wrote: post #259
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 President is not above the law." What does that even mean if it's impossible to prosecute the President? What does that even mean?

It's not impossible to prosecute a president though. If he commits murder... that's not an official act. It's not part of the duties of his office in any reasonable take.

Or, if the President uses his powers to assassinate a governor -- again, explicitly not an official act, as the president has no authority over state elections.

If anyone bothered to read the constitution, it clearly lays out the sorts of things that could be construed as official, and the sorts of things that are not. The President does not have unlimited authority. His scope of authority is rather small, even if several important things fall under it. Part of the problem is the pervasive idea in American electoral politics that the president has some sort of power to 'promise' various laws and such. It's so silly since no President can possibly do that.

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

#364

Post by jimbokun »

grotorea wrote: post #268

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...

[flagged]

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

#365

Post by woodruffw »

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 be clear: Sotomayor is interpreting the majority decision, not stating her own opinion. She's opposed to the interpretation in question.

(I can't tell whether the OP was confused by this, but the linked Tweet has enough people being confused by it to make it worth mentioning.)

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

#366

Post by vessenes »

alphabetatheta wrote: post #151
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…

This is a terrible take. The Supreme Court case severely limits even the use of evidence to prosecute a President. The majority ruling says that as long as something is done in "official" capacity the intentions don't matter. EDIT: This ruling probably retroactively clears Nixon from Watergate. It would make it illegal to use the tapes as evidence against him.

Would it? I am skeptical about this take and I am skeptical of Sotomayer’s take. What official capacity would Nixon have been undertaking? What official capacity would a seal team six assassination of trump be designated as?

I’m also skeptical of her dissent strategy; dissents are key places to limit a ruling. Why not just say what seems crystal clear and say ‘nothing about this ruling should be taken to mean calling something an official act as a fig leaf for criminality is okay; it’s not okay to assassinate a political rival ever.’ Instead she says it might be okay by the ruling. I dislike this approach in the extreme; it feels like grandstanding and complaining about the Roberts court rather than engaging with her own substantial influence.

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

#367

Post by fallingknife »

ceejayoz wrote: post #231
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.

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.

It can't be used to distinguish between an official act and an unofficial act. That wouldn't make sense anyway.

Motive can be used to defeat the presumptive immunity for an official act.

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

#368

Post by throwawaymaths »

dooglius wrote: post #133
throwawaymaths wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in practice, not really much of a change. Did FDR stand trial for interning Japanese people? Ok, ok he died too soon. Would he have ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States?use...

Note v. United States, not v. FDR

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

#369

Post by bsimpson »

vundercind wrote: post #273
citizen_friend wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

We had an attempted coup already. That this case was directly related to. I don’t even mean the very public storming of Congress during the certification of electors, but multiple attempts by the then-President to subvert the election process. The guy who did it’s probably about to be President again and just got a lot more legal cover. Folks need to read up on how democracies fail. Shit’s getting real iffy here.

I have a difficult time reasoning about Trump in the age of constant hysteria. Trying to keep a clear head and an even keel has me discounting a lot of the "sky is falling" alarmism. It has me afraid that there are actual pieces of the sky falling that I'm filtering out.

All the "will you peacefully cede power" talk before the election sounded like alarmist clickbait, but he was weirdly resistive to admitting he lost, and there are a lot of batshit crazy people who seem to follow whatever he says (see also, Jan 6).

[edit] the score on this post proves its own point. Its vacillated between +4 and 0 since I posted it an hour ago, and there are plenty of hyperbolic people in the replies. Being "OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING" about everything just adds noise that makes it hard to identify truly bad things.

On a site that ostensibly has an ethos of "be curious, not ideological," it's sad to see so many people peering only through the lenses of ideology and panic.

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

#370

Post by Miner49er »

tivert wrote: post #357
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…

>> 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. Wouldn't something like that be essentially an illegal order and therefore invalid? And/or something that would be trivial to fix (e.g…

How can it be an illegal order when this decision makes all of the Presidents "official actions" legal?
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