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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

#621

Post by adventured »

thallium205 wrote: post #606
sterlind wrote: post #552

> 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. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immu…

Judges and prosecutors also enjoy absolute immunity in their official capacities.

There are vast problems with federal agency immunity protections as well. Whether as a federal employee or a civilian, trying to sue a federal agency for something it has done wrong can be nearly impossible.

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

#622

Post by Aunche »

vlovich123 wrote: post #464

I think the saddest thing is how lying under oath during a Senate confirmation hearing doesn’t revoke the confirmation. Basically Kavanaugh did what everyone said he would and he overturned US v Nixon even though he lied about it during his confirmation even though before he argued repeatedly it was a bad decision. So either he lied or he miraculously changed his beliefs for the duration of the Senate hearing. https:…

Kavanaugh "lied" because in 1999, he criticized an aspect of the Nixon ruling but 19 years later, in a response to a softball question from a Republican senator, called it "one of the greatest moments in American judicial history", repeating what he wrote in 2016?

[0] https://transcripts.cnn.com/show/cnr/date/2018-09-05/segment...

[1] https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3383...

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

#623

Post by mschuster91 »

neogodless wrote: post #557
tines wrote: post #550

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is true. The constitution was designed with the idea of preventing a king from coming to power. The whole separation of powers thing presumes that an individual is bad, but groups are less bad.

I kind of (OK totally) need a history lesson / refresher. How was the Judicial Branch supposed to function? Because I don't believe it was supposed to be able to basically override the Legislative Branch. Just like the Executive Branch wasn't supposed to have unchecked power as long as it's "Official" business. How were the three Branches intended to keep each of the other in check?

By everyone doing their job and respecting the authority that the other branches had. Something like an executive outright ignoring court orders (e.g. Joe Arpaio [1]) is as unexpected as the legislative refusing to pass laws because it's gridlocked due to malfeasance on the side of the Republicans. There's a reason why the Supreme Court ended up playing such an important rule: Congress hasn't done shit in decades now, and the same goes for the States, the last Constitutional Amendment was passed in 1992 and the one before that in 1971. Something like the right to abortion should have been enshrined into a constitutional amendment loooong ago. EPA rules should have been set by law, not by executive order. The list goes on and on and on.

And the last failsafe the founders intended was the populace. Officials found breaking the law or be otherwise unfit of office were supposed to be at the very least not reelected by the populace - and yet, Arpaio was reelected for 24 years in a row, Biden was elected (he was better than Trump, but that doesn't mean someone of his age should have been president!), and Trump will most likely be reelected. The voters share a huge part of the blame.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jul/31/joe-arpaio-c...

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

#624

Post by davidw »

joshuaheard wrote: post #571
sterlind wrote: post #552

> 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. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immu…

Assassinating a political rival is not an official act.

You just have to drum up some flimsy excuse that sounds official, I guess.

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

#625

Post by spamizbad »

joshuaheard wrote: post #571
sterlind wrote: post #552

> 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. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immu…

Assassinating a political rival is not an official act.

What if the president deems it necessary out of national security interests?

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

#626

Post by munchler »

paulvnickerson wrote: post #604

So many people reacting irrationally and misunderstanding what the ruling says. The first few pages are very readable, and I encourage all to read [1] - Actions within the President's conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority: Absolute immunity, in accordance with constitutional separation of powers. - Other actions done within an official capacity: Presumptive (though not full) immunity, to "to safe-guard t…

The president already has official authority to drone strike terrorists. All he has to do now is make an official determination that his political opponents are terrorists.

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

#627

Post by unethical_ban »

tines wrote: post #574
joshuaheard wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assassinating a political rival is not an official act.

Says who? You can't ask me why I did it, according to the ruling. I could have had a good reason. And you can't use my private records, nor those of my assistants, either.

ATTN: The above comment is satirical and making a point. The point is that the majority says intent of an "official act" cannot be questioned.

So kind of how they said bribery is okay as long as it's not explicitly asked for and given as a "gift" after the fact, the majority holds that presidents can kill their political opponents as long as they "say" it was for national security.

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

#628

Post by lotsofpulp »

bloopernova wrote: post #608
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #546

Article III of the U.S. Constitution is incredibly brief [1]. I propose the Supreme Court be reconstituted such that for each case a panel of judges from the appellate courts is chosen by lot. They hear that case, write their opinion, and then go back to that work. New case, new lot. Having a permanent bench of judicial oligarchs made sense before telecommunication. It doesn’t anymore. Every ancient democracy used ra…

Prediction: trump wins presidency. Midterms swing hard towards Dems. Next president's Congress reforms supreme court.

How would a president reform the judicial branch? That power is in the legislature's hand.

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

#629

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

camgunz wrote: post #593
joshuaheard wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assassinating a political rival is not an official act.

Imagine Biden assassinating Trump under the pretense that Trump likely had other classified documents hidden away, or was too mentally unstable to be trusted with presidential secrets. This is the kind of action this ruling sanctions, entirely.

Which is why Biden must do this and immediately resign the presidency. Though he also needs to fix the Supreme Court so dubious territory even with the recusal.

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

#630

Post by tdb7893 »

friend_and_foe wrote: post #569
sterlind wrote: post #552

> 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. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immu…

This is factually incorrect, the president can be prosecuted for anything, he doesn't even have to commit a crime, but there's a special process for that called impeachment. This isn't new stuff and it has been understood to work this way for a couple hundred or so years, until very recently.

Even the majority opinion doesn't agree with you. Literally the only people I've heard make this argument are Trump's lawyers in this case and in fact during the impeachment proceedings they said the exact opposite. Impeachment is a separate process and the president doesn't need to be impeached to be charged with a crime.
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