Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts

apnews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

381–390 of 1001 posts

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

#381

Post by stetrain »

cma256 wrote: post #355
janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

> A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible. AFAIK it only mandates it for the President. We're free to elect representatives and Senators how we please.

There is only a mandate for how the electoral votes cast by states determine who becomes president, but now how states cast those votes.

Some states cast them all for the popular winner in that state. Some split them proportionately among the top scoring candidates. Some states have agreed to a pact that, if enacted by enough states, will switch those states to casting their votes for the national popular vote winner.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Intersta....

In theory a state could hold ranked choice votes among any number of candidates and cast their electoral votes for the final ranked choice winner.

Even the primary system is something managed at the state level.

So a lot could be done but it requires changing state laws or potentially state constitutions.

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

#382

Post by riskable »

legitster wrote: post #177
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?

The ruling says that 3 of the 4 indictments against Trump can proceed so long as prosecutors make a case that the President was acting outside of his duties. A president being incompetent or immoral in his line of duty is an issue for voters or congress to decide on. But a White House bogged down in lawsuits or petty criminal charges would cease to function.

If a president assassinates his political rivals I don't think you can say it's, "an issue for voters or congress to decide on." That would be impossible, since anyone the voters wanted to replace the sitting executive or his allies would just be arrested or murdered outright (as an official act, no less!).

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

#383

Post by TeeMassive »

janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

It also goes the other way. A recourse against the only elected official of the executive is also political in itself. Without immunity, any of the thousands of prosecutors could charge, blackmail and kidnap any predidents during and after their terms. This would make Presidents effectively answer to the courts and not the people.

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

#384

Post by sirspacey »

hartator wrote: post #111
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…

> The Constitution does not say that war must be declared for the armed forces to operate. It does. Armed forces killing people is a state of war. If not, it's policing then it's under the judiciary authority, not the president.

Not quite. This is a great survey of the many issues & opinions on the topic that have been at play since the beginning of the Constitution: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S8-C11-3....

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

#385

Post by stetrain »

beaeglebeachedd wrote: post #337
janalsncm wrote: post #241

Maybe we can stop acting like the Founding Fathers were political geniuses. They created a system where the only real recourse against a president is political, and a political system where political recourse is essentially impossible. A two party system is the logical conclusion of a first past the post voting system, which they have created. It is a bug, and fixing it is also effectively impossible.

The 10th amendment was supposed to restrain the federal government to a few enumerated powers. It was gutted via interstate commerce being everything, and you can't give it up because people will start screaming about the civil rights act or the EPA or something. President, as envisioned by founders, should barely even matter outside of war.

There was also a pretty significant constitutional crisis in the middle of that that involved an actual war between states with the deaths of many Americans to settle it.

Whether we have adequately updated the constitution along the way to cover the new realities is a valid question, but governing by just what the original founders wrote doesn't have a great track record either.

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

#386

Post by lapcat »

theshrike79 wrote: post #376
lapcat wrote: post #65

> 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. 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.

So the US shouldn't be able to conduct any kind of military operations against any country they haven't declared war on?

Correct.

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

#387

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

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…

It seems a lot is assumed in that one sentence. Did he give an order that said 'Overthrow!"? If not, what, exactly, did he do? And this may be a part of the issue. Everything is a hyperbole wrapped in performative anger.

In other words, can you name an action that you deem unofficial that would qualify as 'overthrow"?

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

#388

Post by legitster »

nprateem wrote: post #223
legitster wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ruling says that 3 of the 4 indictments against Trump can proceed so long as prosecutors make a case that the President was acting outside of his duties. A president being incompetent or immoral in his line of duty is an issue for voters or congress to decide on. But a White House bogged down in lawsuits or petty criminal charges would cease to function.

Which they can't because official duties haven't been defined. Trump can now continually appeal his actions were official, delaying charges until after November when, if he wins the election, he can instruct the DoJ to drop the case.

> Unlike Trump’s alleged interactions with the Justice Department, this alleged conduct cannot be neatly categorized as falling within a particular Presidential function. The necessary analysis is instead fact specific, requiring assessment of numerous alleged interactions with a wide variety of state officials and private persons. And the parties’ brief comments at oral argument indicate that they starkly disagree on the characterization of these allegations. The concerns we noted at the outset—the expedition of this case, the lack of factual analysis by the lower courts, and the absence of pertinent briefing by the parties—thus become more prominent. We accordingly remand to the District Court to determine in the first instance—with the benefit of briefing we lack—whether Trump’s conduct in this area qualifies as official or unofficial.

The majority opinion is pretty clear that of the indictments, 3 have pretty good grounds to proceed.

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

#389

Post by riskable »

qqtt wrote: post #317

It's really impossible to understand and determine before hand how the court would rule on any of these theoretical cases that may result as a consequence of this decision. It is up to further cases to actually establish was constitutes "official" versus "unofficial" capacities as President and we can absolutely not guess before hand what that entails. From the decision, it seems that only those duties constitutional…

> The President is ultimately largely beholden to Congress. The government cannot sink into a dictatorship without the explicit approval of the majority of Congress.

This is nonsense. The President can just assassinate all of their political rivals in Congress that would hold them to account. Before this ruling there was an assumption that any such actions would be prosecuted after the President was no longer in office (assuming they didn't have enough power to interfere with a free election). Now that can't realistically happen.

There's a reason why folks are saying this ruling, "paves the way to a dictatorship"!

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

#390

Post by idiotsecant »

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…

This is an extra fun opinion because it lets the court selectively interpret which acts are official and which are not. If it's a politician they agree with ideologically all their acts are official. If not, the offending acts are clearly unofficial.

The silence from the people who once decried the 'activist court' now that it's an ally of the slow fascist transformation is deafening.

Post reply on HN