This has to be one of the worse courts in the last 100 years.
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
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
>I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. I'm fairly sure there's a full and complete list of these is explicitly in the Constitution.
> I'm fairly sure there's a full and complete list of these is explicitly in the Constitution. Roberts disagrees in the decision (p. 17): > Distinguishing the President’s official actions from his unofficial ones can be difficult. When the President acts pursuant to “constitutional and statutory authority,” he takes official action to perform the functions of his office. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 757. Determining whe…
That's what happens when the unitary Executive and the Commerce Clause expand to devour the entire constitution. If we wanted to reduce the expansiveness of executive power (the Bush Doctrine), Obama was given the mandate to do it, but instead went out of his way to codify the practices which a lot of people thought had been illegal.
To borrow from a similar claim: with the combination of the "Due Process" interpretation that backed the al-Awlaki killing (where Holder explained that due process was simply a term designating whatever process that they do, and could entirely occur in one's own head), and this judgement, Trump could have stood in the middle of 5th Avenue and shot somebody and could not be charged for it. So can Biden.
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edit:
Ten Years after the al-Awlaki Killing: A Reckoning for the United States’ Drones Wars Awaits
https://mwi.westpoint.edu/ten-years-after-the-al-awlaki-kill...
> From the Magna Carta to the US Constitution, citizens have sought ways to protect themselves from the arbitrary exercise of sovereign power. The drone strike on al-Awlaki reversed this historical process with an executive process. From the so-called “Terror Tuesday” or “targeting Tuesday” meetings where President Obama personally approved targets for drone strikes to the drafting of the legal logic justifying the extrajudicial killing of an American citizen, the strike on al-Awlaki was the result of decision making within the executive branch. Completely absent from the proceedings was the judiciary, which acts as a crucial buffer and neutral arbiter between the citizen and the executive.
> In its own defense, the Obama administration argued that due process was not the same thing as judicial process and presented the test that it used to justify the targeted killing. While some observers have emphasized the narrowness of the legal standard, it was crafted specifically to target al-Awlaki, therefore reinforcing just how discretionary this exercise of executive power was. Furthermore, it was conceived of and adjudged constitutionally sufficient by attorneys who had previously opposed executive overreach during the Bush administration.
[It's interesting that the al-Awlaki killing was over speech, too. So while the executive branch is not allowed to exercise prior restraint over speech, Presidents are now constitutionally immunized for murdering people to keep them from speaking.]
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#73Immunity for things they do as part of their official duties. I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. 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. I don’t know if th…
This is really just the formal ruling that qualified immunity is applied to the presidency. Just like with other qualified immunity, it'll be messy to figure out what should be covered an what is not.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#74At least with this one they've rescued us from doing national politics like a banana republic. You can't arrest Presidents for doing things they had the total latitude to do as Presidents. We can't have the courts deciding whether Presidents had good or illegitimate reasons for any arbitrary decision that they made during their presidency. It's madness. If a president took a bribe for a position, prosecute him for ta…
You're missing the entire point. Now the president can't be prosecuted for taking a bribe, even if he publicly declares that's the reason for doing so.
> Now the president can't be prosecuted for taking a bribe
they can still be impeached and removed from office for basically any reason whatsoever. Maybe the won't goto jail but their presidency would be over.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
If presidents could be prosecuted for their official acts then the next time the other party takes over they will just immediately find various crimes their predecessor “committed” (there are probably 10s of 1000s of them).
But isn't that the status quo? Why didn't that happen when Obama left office? It's not like the Republicans were lacking a desire for retribution against him. "there are probably 10s of 1000s of them" also feels a little lacking to me. Do we have concrete examples?
> Why didn't that happen when Obama left office?
What illegal acts did Obama do, while POTUS, yet outside of his 'official duties', what would warrant prosecution?
Remember the context for this decision: Trump's participation in the events of January 6:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
You know, the insurrection in which people have been found guilty of seditious action:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_proceedings_in_the_Ja...
Were his January 6 actions part of his official duties?
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
The problem is, the people who make the call of what is or is not an official duty are often in thrall to the President in one way or another. This is a disaster for rule of law.
Well obviously… otherwise a politician paid by putin could remove the ability for the president to fire the nuclear weapons. You can’t have randos deciding what the leader can do. The question is, will everyone surrounding a president allow the president to commit mass cullings or nuke California. And the answer is clearly not, outside of delusional fantasy scenarios. Trump wasn’t even allowed to build a wall, and yo…
> You can’t have randos deciding what the leader can do.
These aren't randos; they're federal prosecutors that are hired by the sitting President of the United States.
Let's say that even if there is a decision that Trump's acts aren't related to his official duties and he somehow gets punished for those charges (I wouldn't hold my breath). How does this not give Biden and future Presidents a way to seriously abuse their power with a hope that they're not held accountable for it? Before it was just a hypothetical. Now we've crossed the Rubicon and established that there are scenarios in which a President can have unlimited power.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
I believe the argument conservatives have been trying to make that aligns with the court's ruling is mostly about some very specific fear that an incoming or current president could prosecute former presidents and therefore crush dissent. So basically you have the right scared of former presidents being unjustly targeted in a way that threatens the democratic process, and then you have the left scared that the immuni…
> if these matters could be handled on a case by case basis rather than in some black and white "former presidents can" vs "former presidents can't" be prosecuted way That's largely what's happening here. The President _can_ be prosecuted for things that fall outside of the official role as President. This is not a blanket immunity.
Defining what is considered “official” and more importantly, what is absolutely not official is now at issue and where things get sticky.
Certainly a president carrying out actions that call for prosecution would make the claim that those actions were either official or required to carry out the official duties of the office.
Any hope of justice now depends entirely on being able to draw that line and agree about where it’s drawn.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#78Immunity for things they do as part of their official duties. I suppose it’s reasonable but the question will now turn to what is actually an official duty. The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable. 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. I don’t know if th…
> The opposite holding, where they are liable for everything, would be untenable
Only where their actions were already criminal under the law. This is the problem. No-one should be above the law.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#79> 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.
There is the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force that a lot of the expanded War on Terror activity are nominally authorized under according to the Executive. Challenging that is up to Congress as afaik there's no standing for a random person to sue.
Re: Supreme Court rules ex-presidents have immunity for official acts
#80I'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?
You have a whole congress and senate to hold them accountable. If they haven’t, then why should a random prosecutor in a city court be able to issue an arrest warrant and prosecute the leader of the country?
Without immunity you’ll get the kind of shit they’ve done with trump, but against sitting presidents. Imagine if Obama had been arrested every time he entered Texas because the locals just feel like prosecuting him to send a message.