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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

#901

Post by kaba0 »

paulddraper wrote: post #871
adriand wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This ruling seems to open the door to a president being immune from, say, commanding SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Immune from judicial prosecution. Not immune from Congressional prosecution. --- This isn't a unique concept. For example, if SEAL Team 6 improperly kills someone on a mission, they aren't prosecuted in criminal court; they are court-martialed. There is accountability, but due to the un…

And they can be pardoned by the president after the fact.

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

#902

Post by kaba0 »

mandmandam wrote: post #820
DEADMINCE wrote: post #818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Out of context this is quite reasonable and level headed. In context of the hyper partisan landscape US politics are today, doesn’t seem likely without a supermajority opposition to be able to bring charges against a president, In context though, it's quite terrifying given how much the US has fallen into tribalism. Half the population wouldn't convict a certain candidate no matter what they did.

[flagged]

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

#903

Post by aredox »

paulddraper wrote: post #871
adriand wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> This ruling seems to open the door to a president being immune from, say, commanding SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. Immune from judicial prosecution. Not immune from Congressional prosecution. --- This isn't a unique concept. For example, if SEAL Team 6 improperly kills someone on a mission, they aren't prosecuted in criminal court; they are court-martialed. There is accountability, but due to the un…

If Biden sends SEALs to kill Trump, do you think Democrats in Senate would impeach him? (Reminder, you need a 2/3 majority in that chamber).

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

#904

Post by aredox »

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…

The ruling also doesn't clearly define what is official, and that one must presume everything is "official" unless proven otherwise, and that anything "official" cannot be included as evidence.

Clarence Thomas even wrote openly that the concept of a special counsel is illegal.

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

#905

Post by spacechild1 »

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...

> And even let to Caesar fighting to keep himself in office at all times to avoid inevitable prosecution

That's exactly what Silvio Berlusconi did in Italy.

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

#906

Post by mrkeen »

awb wrote: post #851
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 think it’s consistent with the philosophy that States should curtail the powers of the President through constitutional amendments. It’s a strict constructionist interpretation, where the judiciary shouldn’t fix problems that the people, congress and States have the power to fix. In the example of the President (Commander in Chief) directing the military to thwart political enemies, I think a strict constructionist…

> I think it’s consistent with the philosophy that States should curtail the powers of the President through constitutional amendments.

Who's going to hold him to that?

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/supr...

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

#907

Post by jMyles »

rayiner wrote: post #843
adriand wrote: post #716

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Okay, but invert that hypothetical. The American President orders a lot of people killed, including sometimes U.S. citizens. More commonly, they order things that result in significant loss of life, which could be prosecuted as negligent or reckless homicide. Should former presidents be subject to prosecution for those decisions? Remember that criminal laws are often extremely broad, and you can use conspiracy and ot…

> More commonly, they order things that result in significant loss of life, which could be prosecuted as negligent or reckless homicide.

> Should former presidents be subject to prosecution for those decisions?

Yes! That war crimes have become normal behavior for US Presidents doesn't mean that we now need more legal frameworks for protecting from prosecution of them.

It seems to me that, if we are to actually become a nation of laws and not of men, we need to acknowledge and account for the crimes in office of virtually every president. And if that's too difficult to do, politically speaking, then we simply aren't what we say we are.

> Remember that criminal laws are often extremely broad, and you can use conspiracy and other legal theories to make someone liable who didn’t perform the actual killing.

This is also a huge problem. It seems that many of us walk around unknowingly subject to capricious prosecution for felonies (according to one author, three felonies a day[0]). How can we have equal protection under the law when any of us can be prosecuted at any time, and the matter of which of us are is one of political discretion?

---- > What I feel like the dissent misses completely, which is quite ironic given Justice Sotomayor’s history in private practice, is that not having any sort of immunity means trusting every prosecutor in the country

While the dissent is unsatisfying in some ways (including following the trend of exhaustive and distracting analysis of the particular facts of the case instead of sharp focus on the ostensibly simpler constitutional issues), you are mistaken, as the phenomenon you are describing is contemplated at length - 9 pages (13-21) are committed to this analysis [1].

0: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6611240-three-felonies-a...

1: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

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

#908

Post by [deleted] »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #856
lunarboy wrote: post #585

Surely the "impeachment exists" arguments are in bad faith. Otherwise, I'm convinced they've abandoned reason. Impeachment process takes time, and in that window, the president can do whatever. POTUS can even mobilize the army (an official power) to block congress from meeting, since apparently the motive behind the use of official power doesn't matter. If they can't meet, how are they going to impeach.

Impeachments take time because the impeachments we’ve had so far have tended to be political theater. I have no doubt that if there was a bi-partisan super-majority wanting to remove the president, they’d hop on a Zoom call and have it done by the close of business. Edit: My example was going to be if the President addressed the nation and declared himself to be king… but Biden literally just did that, reluctantly ac…

[deleted]

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

#909

Post by jeegsy »

adriand wrote: post #716
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…

I think we need to remember that Presidents have gotten away with a whole lot in the past. Many a blind eye before Trump came on the scene. Now that the seal has been broken, we were on course for a whole lot of these post presidency prosecutions in the future. I think the SC was sensitive to that and wanted to nip it in the bud.

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

#910

Post by georgeplusplus »

adriand wrote: post #716
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…

If you have to resort to such an extreme scenario then the ruling probably is a good one.
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