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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

#711

Post by munchler »

demosthanos wrote: post #670
munchler wrote: post #626

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, we should definitely fix the fact that the President can order hits on US citizens. That's a pretty obvious problem regardless of whether they can technically be prosecuted for it, and doesn't really change the merits of the question at hand. All this case says is we shouldn't leave a President's legal culpability for any given action up to prosecutorial discretion. If they're using their official powers they'r…

> If they're using their official powers they're not culpable

So the President's job is to faithfully execute the law, but he is allowed to break the law while he's executing the law? C'mon.

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

#712

Post by Ancapistani »

woooooo wrote: post #657
claytongulick wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lifetime appointment of Supreme Court justices is done specifically so that they aren't financially influenced by politics and party. I.e. their job doesn't depend on them ruling the "right" way. There are pros and cons to different approaches. There are differences at the state level for judges, being appointed vs elected. Each has problems. In TX, for example, judges are heavily influenced by mob mentality - th…

That all sounds great in theory but.. waves hands at Clarence Thomas

Approximately half the country loves Thomas, and agrees with him. The fact that the perspective of each member of the Court is effectively frozen in time when they are appointed is intentional.

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

#713

Post by garaetjjte »

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…

Who decides what cases are heard in this scheme?

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

#714

Post by Buttons840 »

woooooo wrote: post #657
claytongulick wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lifetime appointment of Supreme Court justices is done specifically so that they aren't financially influenced by politics and party. I.e. their job doesn't depend on them ruling the "right" way. There are pros and cons to different approaches. There are differences at the state level for judges, being appointed vs elected. Each has problems. In TX, for example, judges are heavily influenced by mob mentality - th…

That all sounds great in theory but.. waves hands at Clarence Thomas

Indeed. It's already the case Clarence Thomas's way of life may depend on whether or not he rules the way certain friends and acquaintances want.

His job is safe, but much of his salary--no, not quite the right word--much of his overall reward is dependent on what powerful friends want him to do.

Ultimately, people don't care about keeping their job--who the hell likes their job?--people want to keep their compensation, and for the US Supreme Court, their compensation can easily be controlled by powerful third parties.

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

#715

Post by cushpush »

dagmx wrote: post #26
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?

I can’t defend the ruling based on the actual effects, because it puts someone above the law. However one could argue that this is the logical extension of qualified immunity for police officers which is precedent the court has already set. To be clear though, I think qualified immunity of any sort shouldn’t be allowed. It’s a subversion of any kind of fair justice.

Diplomatic Immunity

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

#716

Post by adriand »

kemotep wrote: post #310

My limited understanding of the ruling: The ruling states that the President is immune from prosecution while exercising official duties of the office of President but can be investigated by a special counsel that is appointed by an act of Congress, and if successfully impeached and convicted can then be charged with said crimes. “Unofficial” acts are not protected by this immunity but a special counsel is still requ…

This ruling seems to open the door to a president being immune from, say, commanding SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival.

“In its ruling, the Supreme Court decided there was no question that Mr. Trump enjoyed immunity from being prosecuted for one of those methods: his efforts to strong-arm the Justice Department into validating his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud. That was because the justices determined that Mr. Trump’s interactions with top officials in the department were clearly part of his official duties as president.” [1]

One of the president’s official duties is to direct the military to take actions that protect the country. Biden can reasonably claim Trump is a threat to democracy, and can officially request him to be killed. Right? If not why not?

1: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/01/us/politics/supreme-court...

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

#717

Post by karmajunkie »

claytongulick wrote: post #658
ChildOfEru wrote: post #395

> (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 condu…

> 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. It's supposed to be hard to do. Impeachment is intended to be reserved for egregious violations or actions that most of congress (and by proxy, the citizenry) agree on.

it’s supposed to be hard. not impossible. and it’s pretty clear at least to me that the authors of the constitution very clearly intended presidents like trump to be thrown out of office.

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

#718

Post by Vegenoid »

jmward01 wrote: post #414

The reality with this ruling is it will embolden future presidents to do things that are to their advantage even if they think those actions may be illegal. Presidents don't need more protection from people. We the people need more protection from them.

This is the best way I've heard it put. The United States was founded to escape rulers who were above the law, and the Constitution was created to protect it. For the justices who claim to be primarily driven by the constitution to make this ruling seems bizarre, and it's hard for me to see it in any other way than partisan bias.

The president does not need this power and protection. The past 2 years are the first time this 'prosecuting a former president' thing has been an issue, and there are lots of unusual circumstances around it. To give the president such power in response to this seems like a very, very, very bad idea.

Presidents do not need protection from the people, the people need protection from presidents.

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

#719

Post by tootie »

throwaway4220 wrote: post #411
ChildOfEru wrote: post #395

> (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 condu…

Nixon resigned knowing an impeachment was pending. I cannot imagine that ever happening today.

We are still paying the price for Watergate. The Saturday Night Massacre was Nixon's attempt to use his executive authority to prevent his investigation. The loyalist who ended up being his third AG of the day was Robert Bork. First Ford declined to prosecute, then Reagan nominates Bork to the SC and suddenly SC appointments become combative partisan affairs

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

#720

Post by Bluestrike2 »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #573
metabagel wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Democrats have also tried to impeach the last 4 Republican presidents.

That's a rather misleading take. Reagan was threatened with impeachment twice--first by a group of eight representatives over his invasion of Grenada, and later by a lone Representative, Rep. González, over Iran-contra--but it never went anywhere in either instance. González later introduced two resolutions against George H.W. Bush over the Gulf War that were ignored. Those were promptly ignored and died in committee. There was a much larger push to impeach George W. Bush over Iraq and other behaviors, but even there, party leadership ultimately chose to squash the impeachment effort.

When you're talking about such a small number of representatives, it's tough to suggest that "Democrats" did anything as a political party. A few lone voices do not denote a party's position, especially when party leadership was against it.

For that matter, most all of those impeachment efforts at least had a degree of legitimate purpose. One might disagree as to whether actions such as circumventing arms embargoes via illegal arms deals to fund rebel groups prohibited by Congress or (potentially) lying about a foreign nation in order to justify a war are in fact impeachable, but it's difficult to argue that weighing the possibility of impeachment wasn't at least rationally justifiable.

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