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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

#951

Post by stevenAthompson »

willmadden wrote: post #923
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…

That's wrong. The President can still be impeached and convicted by Congress. What this prevents is the weaponization of partisan courts anywhere in the Country against a President for actions they took while in office.

The president may now murder anyone in congress who disagrees with him, as long as he writes the order on presidential letterhead, so they aren't much of a real threat are they?

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

#952

Post by slibhb »

Vegenoid wrote: post #718
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 ti…

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

I know this sounds good but is it true? I've never needed protection from the president but presidents are occasionally shot at and sometimes killed. Presidents need the secret service because they do, in fact, need protection from the people.

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

#953

Post by atoav »

dantheman wrote: post #949
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…

You mean like Obama assassinating a US citizen?

To be honest I'd rather live in a world where Obama¹ assassinating an US citizen would land him and everybody involved in prison than in a world where it does not.

¹ Obama and any other person in the same position

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

#954

Post by rsr »

dantheman wrote: post #949
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…

You mean like Obama assassinating a US citizen?

Yes.

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

#955

Post by commandlinefan »

scelerat wrote: post #920
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…

The Seal Team 6 example keeps getting batted around and that's unfortunate because it would be an extreme and obviously outrageous attack which would attract much unwanted attention. Part of the ruling was that conversations between DOJ and President constitute the President's official duties and "therefore" (per the three judges appointed by Trump, one who expressed sympathies with Jan 6 rioters, and yet another who…

> order the AG to investigate and prosecute political opponents

So... exactly what they've been doing for the past four years already?

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

#956

Post by dang »

browserman wrote: post #681
rayiner wrote: post #654

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d be okay with that, but only if we have a review process where all Warren Court decisions are re-vetted by the newly constituted Supreme Court. You can’t spend half the 20th century having “judicial oligarchs” rewrite the constitution and then complain when a few court decisions go the other way. But what would be more fun is for the current Supreme Court to adopt the “emanations from penumbras” philosophy of judg…

[flagged]

You can't attack another user like that, regardless of how right you are or feel you are, or how wrong they are or you feel they are.

Since you've been doing it repeatedly, as well as breaking the site guidelines many other threads, as well as using HN primarily for political battle, I've banned the account.

For clarity: no, that's not because of your views—it's because you're expressing your views in ways that are egregiously breaking HN's rules. Many other users who share your views have no problem expressing them within the site guidelines, and that's completely fine.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

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

#957

Post by BatmansMom »

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 thought the strict constructionist arguments fell apart when the dissent quoted the Constitution which says even if a president is impeached, they “shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.” Art. I, §3, cl. 7

I don't see how any interpretation of this text could imply that the president is immune from criminal prosecution. It clearly says a president is not immune from criminal penalties, how could they write this while also considering the president immune for offical acts?

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

#958

Post by alsaaro »

scelerat wrote: post #920
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…

The Seal Team 6 example keeps getting batted around and that's unfortunate because it would be an extreme and obviously outrageous attack which would attract much unwanted attention. Part of the ruling was that conversations between DOJ and President constitute the President's official duties and "therefore" (per the three judges appointed by Trump, one who expressed sympathies with Jan 6 rioters, and yet another who…

The Seal Team 6 example is batted around because it is specifically cited by Trump's legal counsel as an official act that isn't bound by law -- the conservative Supreme Court has endorsed this.

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

#959

Post by tristanb »

enceladus06 wrote: post #936
snickerbockers wrote: post #853

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. * Bush fabricated evidence to start a war and never got prosecuted. * Obama's administration literally sold guns to a Mexican drug cartel for no apparent reason. * Reagan had iran/contra * various different "collateral damage" fuckups under every administration during my lifetime where dozens of civilians are killed but nobody cared because they're poor, brown, and not American * Kennedy authorized the CIA to r…

As an Independent who is not voting for Trump or Biden and has largely stopped following the election drama: Starting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan post-September 11 (Bush -- Republican), and the Gulf of Tonkin incident which led to the Vietnam conflict (LBJ -- Democrat) these were much more costly and problematic than the issues that happened while Trump was president. The United States should concentrate on its…

What would it take to encourage you to vote? Surely sometimes it is worth voting for something that is not perfect, to protect the greater good?
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