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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

#771

Post by Red_Leaves_Flyy »

glial wrote: post #683
pyuser583 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. The Founders envisioned an extremely weak criminal justice system, especially for "their class of people." Defendants were given extremely strong protections, and convictions were the exception, not the rule. The Founders were more concerned about facing a duel than a criminal conviction. So they added other mechanisms for presidential accountability: impeachment, elections, and the weakness of the office. Thes…

> The Founders were more concerned about facing a duel than a criminal conviction. This is because "their class of people" were an honor-based society, in which reputation was the currency of power, and people with honor were expected to prioritize the national interests above their own. That is no longer the case. In other words, there hasn't been a duel. So there should be another enforcement mechanism for making P…

A combination of meaningful threat to life, assets, family or freedom is what the duel accomplished. With the courts packed by unqualified partisan hacks it seems we’re facing an unprecedented danger to democracy and the American experiment.

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

#772

Post by [deleted] »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #68
lenerdenator wrote: post #47

Earlier 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…

[deleted]

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

#773

Post by WillPostForFood »

autoexec wrote: post #536
throwadobe wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone seems to be calling this "blanket immunity" but that's not right. It's immunity for official acts which are the prerogative of the president. Basically the president is allowed to do all presidential things without having to worry about whether it will be deemed illegal. This doesn't mean that the president cannot be tried for some illegal act that was not their official duty. Murdering someone, for example.

Ordering the murder of someone is their official duty as commander in chief of the military. The only thing they have to do is say they feel that a person was a threat to national security.

Given your example, under this decision, the President could be charged, and the courts would have to decide whether it was an official act. Was it the murder of their mistress? Then obviously not official. Was it the murder of a terrorist planning an attack? Probably official. Is there some grey area in the middle that will really hard to decide? Probably. This was a moderate decision that defers making broad rules and lets courts decide on a case by case basis.

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

#774

Post by csb6 »

ensignavenger wrote: post #731
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…

How do you conclude that? It is my understanding that the Nixon tapes were recordings of conversations Nixon had with campaign staff as a candidate, and as the Supreme Court held, actions taken as a candidate are not official actions and are therefore not subject to immunity.

If this ruling would have been in force back then, Nixon could have argued that the conversations were done in his official role as president. For example, a conversation with his chief of staff about ordering the CIA perform a coverup could be considered “official business” since he was talking to a top executive branch official and directing an executive branch agency to take an action.

The distinction between “official” and “unofficial” becomes meaningless when a president can use their official powers to do illegal things that benefit themselves in an unofficial capacity. Hence the absurd conclusion that, apparently, a president cannot be prosecuted for assassinating their opponent using Seal Team 6.

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

#775

Post by HaZeust »

Ancapistani wrote: post #722
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…

> Out of context this is quite reasonable and level headed. That's why I'm opposed to making changes to the way the Court is selected and empaneled. The fact that it's inconvenient for one party right now is irrelevant. It'll be inconvenient for the other party soon enough. > In context of the hyper partisan landscape US politics are today, doesn’t seem likely without a supermajority opposition to be able to bring ch…

>The fact that it's inconvenient for one party right now is irrelevant. It'll be inconvenient for the other party soon enough.

I hate to dive into conspiratorial thought; but with a ruling so brazen, they might think this, and a few other steps, will bid them enough time to not worry about the other party having a slice of their same cake for the foreseeable future.

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

#776

Post by kristjansson »

marcell wrote: post #469
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?

Generally the way to hold a president accountable is to impeach him and remove him from office. Under this ruling, the court system is generally not a way to keep him accountable. So it’s not that there is no accountability or way to “punish”, a rogue president, it’s just a different method of accountability than what applies to you and me.

> Generally the way to hold a president accountable is to impeach him and remove him from office.

Impeachment is a political solution to political disagreements. This opinion makes most disagreements with 'official acts' a political question, to be settled by election or impeachment.

Critically (and thankfully) it rejects outright the idea that impeachment is the _only_ mechanism restraining a president. Criminal liability is still a viable mechanism for holding a president responsible for all unofficial acts, and potentially for some official acts.

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

#778

Post by danielmarkbruce »

leotravis10 wrote: post #484
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I'm leaving this here for you to read: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40848935

Awesome. Media coverage.

The actual ruling: https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/SCOTUSTRU...

We are in an age where the media cannot be trusted. Gotta read the source documents.

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

#779

Post by TeaBrain »

InTheArena wrote: post #291
brightball wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

President's can still be impeached as a result of their official acts. It seems that is intended to be the outlet for prosecuting the Executive Branch. Am I wrong there?

Nope - and this is a key point. The framers intended there to be a mechanism to hold a president accountable - impeachment. But it is badly formed, and has never been used, even though arguably it should have been in every case it was used in.

There have been impeachment proceedings started against four presidents, all of which would qualify as it being used, even if the presidents weren't successfully impeached. Impeachment proceedings have been completed against 3 presidents and in all cases the senate vote failed to meet the 2/3 supermajority. An impeachment inquiry was also started against Nixon, but he resigned before the house could vote. One could argue that the impeachment inquiry in that case was successful.

The procedure for impeaching federal judges is similar, in that the vote needs first to pass the house, then a supermajority of the senate. In 2009, federal judge Thomas Porteous Jr, was successfully impeached by congress. Congress then also voted to prohibit him from holding future federal office.

https://guides.loc.gov/federal-impeachment/thomas-porteous

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

#780

Post by 1668911361 »

asdff wrote: post #447

Can anyone pencil out the real danger of this position? Sotomayors opinion seems to posit that a president can receive a bribe and pardon someone for that and this is an official, immune act. However, I don't think soliciting a bribe would be considered an official act of the POTUS, and by what I have been able to understand from this opinion would still be subject to prosecution. I also think that this opinion seems…

One danger, to quote Barrett's in-part concurrence (p.66 of the ruling) is:

> The Constitution, of course, does not authorize a President to seek or accept bribes, so the Government may prosecute him if he does so. [... citations ...] Yet excluding from trial any mention of the official act connected to the bribe would hamstring the prosecution. To make sense of charges alleging a quid pro quo, the jury must be allowed to hear about both the quid and the quo, even if the quo, standing alone, could not be a basis for the President’s criminal liability.

(I wanted to quote Barrett since she's a Trump-appointed justice.)

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