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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

#391

Post by tivert »

Miner49er wrote: post #370
tivert wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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?

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

Because "official actions" doesn't mean "every action" or "every action attempting to use presidential authority," I think it has to be an action exercising the constitutional powers of the president.

For instance: for the purposes of simplicity, lets assume all legislation authorizing the president to take military action without prior congressional approval has been repealed, and the congress has not declared war on anyone or authorized the use of military force in any circumstances. The president then orders Seal Team 6 to assassinate a waitress who spilled coffee on him, ruining his lucky suit. That would be illegal order since the president does not have constitutional authority to take such action on his own without authorization by congress and that authorization does not exist.

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

#392

Post by dinglestepup »

heleninboodler wrote: post #278

Can't help but wondering if Joe is contemplating Seal Team Six's summer plans right about now.

Right, the best way to avoid fascism is to become a fascist before your opponent does. In the name of democracy, of course.

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

#393

Post by buildbot »

jimbokun wrote: post #360
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.

They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world. Is the Constitution perfect? No. But it's still fair to call them geniuses for what they accomplished. Also, you are arguing the Founders interpretation of the Constitution is the same as the current Supreme Court. I'm not sure they would agree, but there's no way we can ever know.

> They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world.

This is untrue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outline_of_San_Marino

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

#394

Post by criddell »

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.

Does it say anything about the person who carries out the order from the President?

If a member of Seal Team 6 did assassinate a political rival of the President, would they also be immune from prosecution? To me it sounds like the kind of order they would refuse.

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

#395

Post by ChildOfEru »

> (3) Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial. Pp. 30–32

For example, from my understanding this means that Nixon's tapes could never have been used in any form in a criminal trial regarding Nixon's actions.

In today's political environment I don't see an impeachment ever succeeding unless the opposing party has a super-majority in the US Senate.

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

#396

Post by greentxt »

I'm imaging an index that measures the semantic similarity between reddit and hn threads on a particular topic. I feel like adding that measure to front page to allow users to sort threads would be beneficial in increasing signal-to-noise and help hn maintain a more distinct brand identity.

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

#397

Post by itissid »

Barret mentioned that: If one bribes the president in appointment of an official - like an embassador - since the appointment of the embassador is an official act, under this ruling, one cannot bring this as evidence to the jury in a criminal trial because it was part of an official act.

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

#398

Post by rich_sasha »

jimbokun wrote: post #360
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.

They wrote the document defining the currently longest running continuous government in the world. Is the Constitution perfect? No. But it's still fair to call them geniuses for what they accomplished. Also, you are arguing the Founders interpretation of the Constitution is the same as the current Supreme Court. I'm not sure they would agree, but there's no way we can ever know.

Surely, the UK government predates the US, dating back to at least Cromwell, so 17th century, and tenuously as far as Magna Carta (and even Alfred tbe Great if you like, so deep deep medieval).

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

#400

Post by ClarityJones »

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...

It's not the man who's immune, but the office that he holds... if you intend the office to survive.
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