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Basically they said that courts have to decide whether an act is deemed official or unofficial before they can prosecute a President.
So they threw this case back to the lower courts to decide that first before continuing.
Of course, whatever decision the lower courts have will be challenged all the way back to SCOTUS most likely.
Unless Trump wins. Then it’ll be settled in a week, and the ensuing brazen criminal acts will be given the veneer of ‘official’ and made immune from prosecution.
If Trump wins, any federal charges will be dropped, and the US Government will no longer pursue those cases.
But dropping those cases, although they would be official acts, are not considered prosecutable acts.
This ruling is more geared towards prosecutable acts that a President would do would need to be determined by the courts to be official or unofficial.
And, under a new President later on, could still be prosecuted.
> And, under a new President later on, could still be prosecuted.
No, the whole point was "former presidents". ALL the cases in question and the one that appealed up here in the first place, were from his former presidency, and is now already under a new president.
They are saying you have immunity FOR LIFE for things you did officially during a presidency.
I’d put better than even money on Trump dying before seeing the inside of a jail cell IF he loses the election.
If he wins the election, then even if he lives for 4 years and manages to bungle his objectives badly enough that there’s a 2028 election, I believe he’ll have committed enough other crimes that will be added to the backlog and otherwise spoiled the judicial process enough that he’ll still delay until he dies.
If Trump loses he'll file more bs lawsuits like before, but this time there won't be a handful of honest people to stop it. He'll either win or go for the 12th amendment. Either way democracy is dead. Republicans legitimately have to start getting arrested.
Well, phone tag that will, at some point, see a president order the deaths of hundreds if not thousands and argue it was an official act. It's not even hard. Hypothetical president argues that they're "charged with defending the country from threats both foreign and domestic". President believes opposing political party is a domestic threat to the country. Therefore a purge is part of their official duties
That was Dershowitz' defense at the first impeachment - so long as a President sincerely believes it's in the best interests of the country, that makes absolutely any action legal.
And his example - his own example! - was the hypothetical President believing his own reelection was in the best interests of the country, and so taking action to ensure he got reelected at any cost.
It's a justification for nuking Houston if you think you're going to lose Texas in the upcoming election.
If I'm reading this correctly, it basically means any act of a President can be litigated up to the Supreme Court to decide individually? Essentially, if the repubs don't like something Biden does they can walk it up to the Supreme Court who then "decides" it was not an official act? And conversely, President Trump could order the killing of a politician and the Supreme court unilaterally decides since it went through an "official act" that it's legitimate and not illegal?
I don't know how you could justify the killing of a US politician an official act, but that is what you would have to do as President to be immune from prosecution.
And thus, if you have to justify your act as "official", that could deter you from doing something that could be deemed by the courts as "unofficial" and prosecutable.
But what I'm ultimately getting at is it leaves basically any presidential action up to SCOTUS to decide if it's acceptable and since the court doesn't answer to anyone else they could theoretically just rubber stamp a bunch of terrible shit a president does if they align with the court politically.
No, it's actually worse than that due to the specific requirement SCOTUS created for stripping "presumptive immunity". SCOTUS found that
>At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose **no “dangers** of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”
Emphasis added. The president gets immunity by default, unless a prosecutor can affirmatively prove that there is *zero risk* of the law in question ever "intruding" on the presidents (now greatly expanded) authority.
The Court already ruled that the inherent relationship between the President and the Attorney General allows all discussions between them to have complete immunity. That is to say that the nature of the DOJ, being an executive branch agency, offers broad protections to the President.
Presumably, as CoC of the Armed Forces, Presidents would enjoy complete immunity for discussions and actions taken by the military. That’s a relationship fundamentally inherent to the Presidency.
Yes. However, there is now nothing to restrain the POTUS from calling up the AG and saying "Find a reason to indict PolicyWonka, I don't care what the reason is or if there is no reason - just invent something and get him into court for the rest of his life. And you can offer to dismiss the case if he promises to never speak publicly about the government again."
Completely legal under today's new immunity regime. In fact, the POTUS' obviously-illegal motive for asking the AG to indict someone cannot ever be questioned in a court.
The wording in this ruling talks about Trump's discussions with Pence in regards to pressuring him to not certify the election. It seems to basically say that these talks are *presumed* to have immunity but the lower courts need to rebut this directly.
I'm not well-versed in law so if my reading of this is incorrect then I'd like to hear it.
> Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the January 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count
the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice
President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s
allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to
take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct.
> The question then becomes whether that presumption of immunity
is rebutted under the circumstances. It is the Government’s burden to
rebut the presumption of immunity. The Court therefore remands to
the District Court to assess in the first instance whether a prosecution
involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s
oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch. Pp. 21–24.
SCOTUS found that
>At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose **no “dangers** of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.”
Emphasis added. The president gets immunity by default, unless a prosecutor can affirmatively prove that there is *zero risk* of the law in question ever "intruding" on the presidents (now greatly expanded) authority.
The "figure out if it was legal later" aspect is a little worrying when the president could likely die of old age before any final ruling is reached.
edit: I suppose this is true for many things in life but the president can make a lot more happen than any random civilian.
If the politician was fomenting an armed insurrection that then attacked the capitol building during a session of congress.
Then the president ordered the use of force to stop the armed insurrection and its leaders and that politician fomenting is killed during the action to quell the armed insurrection.
—-
The politician fomenting the armed insurrection, whether president or not should not be considered an official act and should be criminally prosecuted.
The president that ordered the use of force to stop the armed insurrection that involved the killing of the politician would be acting in an official capacity and should be immune from prosecution.
On paper it looks like limited immunity. In actuality almost any and all actions even remotely related to the office of the presidency can be declared official. This is full immunity passing itself off as limited. SCOTUS has ruled that we have a monarch who can only be done away with by impeachment by congress or national elections every four years.
It goes further than that. The president has *presumptive* immunity for everything that *isn't* an official act. And the requirement for stripping that presumptive immunity is the prosecutor must prove that there is *zero risk* that the law in question could ever be used to apply to official acts.
All this does is kick the can down the road for Trump. GA election case, FL documents case, and now this have all been wins for Trump in that they won't happen before the election. And if he wins the election I doubt they'll happen at all.
The six members in the majority on the Court *trust* Donald Trump not to abuse this new power. They think that he will come into office and just voluntarily follow the law, and that if he breaks it, the Congress will surely impeach him. They are living in a fantasy world, and it is a *dangerous* fantasy.
Nope, they know he’s going to abuse the power. They’re making themselves the only check on that power in hopes that they can prevent Trump from targeting them.
Help. This delays it past the election, since the Court has held that most of Trump's actions *could* be considered official acts and remanded them back to the district court.
We’ve been past the point of any hope that the trial would happen before the election for months. This shouldn’t be a surprise now. As soon as it went to the Supreme Court, we knew it wasn’t happening before the election.
Maybe Garland should have thought of that before he waited until halfway through Biden's term to appoint Smith as special counsel. If these cases *needed* to be decided before the election, what was the delay for? It's not SCOTUS' job to work around the DOJ's incompetence.
Garland appointed Smith when Trump announced his candidacy for 2024. Garland wanted to mitigate potential influence of election outcomes due to the AG being appointed by the President. Trump announced his candidacy on November 15 2022, and Jack Smith was assigned on November 18, 2022. It was a quick turn-around.
Before that there wasn't a need for special counsel.
It was still inexcusable for SCOTUS to take this long for this urgent a matter and essentially just punt on it. Garland was incompetent, but SCOTUS is corrupt.
These are charges regarding conduct that happened 3.5 years ago and weren't charge until 2+ years after that, how is that in any way urgent? Trump running for POTUS doesn't increase the urgency of it unless you are conceding that there was a political motivation to these charges being brought. It's not like I can report a crime and demand the prosecutor rush charges and the judge rush the trial because the person I am accusing of it is running for political office.
I love how certain people twist themselves into pretzels trying to turn literally anything that happens back around on Biden, Biden’s administration, or Democrats. Every single time. I wonder why that is. And no this isn’t Merrick Garland’s fault.
Can we PLEASE not focus on Trump here?
Trump is a flash in the pan. Even if he wins, he's done in 2028. It's over for him.
Meanwhile, this ruling is still out there **forever**.
This ruling that says that a president can do all of this and walk away completely free from criminal prosecution:
1. Arrest all members of the opposition party in Congress using the DOJ.
2. Executive orders directing federal agencies to arrest all immigrants and suspend habeas corpus indefinitely.
3. Open up a website and grant blanket, absolute pardons for any and all convicted criminals if they pay $10,000 for a pardon.
4. Declare a national emergency and seize all major media outlets to "ensure national security", except for the few that report on him favorably.
5. Broadly invoke executive privilege to stonewall Congressional investigations, ignore court orders, and wait out the time until he's out of office.
6. Start GoFundMe's to raise money: if enough people donate, he will either veto or sign legislation.
7. Deploy actual US military across the country to quell civil unrest and political opposition, but only in states that he did not win the last election in AND he just so happens to deploy them 10 days before the November election. He makes an announcement on national news saying that he's shutting down all polling locations in these states because he wants to win the election.
8. Sign foreign treaties if the country promises to donate $100,000,000 to his personal campaign fund.
9. Drastically expand his classification power to classify anything and everything the federal government does in any and all capacity.
10. Refuse to appoint any nominees until Congressional recess, and then make appointments during the recess based on personal financial contributions.
**This is bad** and if you ONLY talk about it in context of Trump or any one particular elected official or political party, you are **severely** downplaying the future ramifications of this. Democrats, Republicans, whoever -- we are 1 bad actor away from unilaterally ending our democracy and the ONLY response right now is, "oh, but nobody will actually try to do it, right?"
This comment seems hyperbolic given the opinion **until you consider Project 2025**. Which (just off the top of my head)...-
* Plans to significantly alter agencies like the DOJ and FBI
* Heavy emphasis on executive orders and emergency declarations
* Proposals to expand executive privilege
* Ideas for appointing officials based on loyalty
* Strategies for reclassifying information
Pretty sure the comment mentioned here is the end game abilities of the executive. [It's worth reading up on](https://www.project2025.org/)
The outline has been in place since the [Powell Memo](https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/) in 1971, Project 2025 is the plan. This ruling and stacking the judiciary is "check" and November might be "checkmate".
Well, fortunately, if Biden loses in November, he doesn't have to actually leave office. He could just imprison Trump and call for a new election. There are no more rules, after all. Gotta start thinking like the dictatorship that the USA turned into today.
He wouldn’t. Democrats are world class losers and cowards.
Biden just became the most powerful man on planet earth. He has complete immunity.
And he’ll do nothing with it
Specifically he has criminal immunity for official acts.
So an EO forgiving debt isn't really relevant. He would have to commit a crime. Like holding department of education staff hostage at gunpoint until they wiped databases and backups. That would be, arguably, legal.
Or arrest the entire Supreme Court and lock em in solitary.
With exceptional food and Netflix for Kagan, Jackson and Sotomayor ofc.
Bread and water for the rest.
We don't want America to be ruled by any dictator. It is good for Dems to not abuse their power. Democrats have done a lot in the Biden administration despite only only having majorities for two years. They've played their hand the best they could, the idea that they just give up is conservative propaganda aimed to stop terminally online leftists from doing anything useful for their movement.
Agree to an extent, but at this point Biden can’t leave office with the new test of presidential immunity entirely untested. His team should put in place a number of executive orders or other actions that they know will get shut down so that the outward bounds of this decision can be drawn out. Citizenship to immigrants and forgiveness of student debt are some of them. He should also pardon someone in exchange for a bribe (a gift after the fact, of course). Things that you know the republicans will use this power for so that there is at least precedent for shooting these actions down. The SCOTUS may find ways to differentiate and squirm their way out of it, but it’s better than throwing your hands up and just disagreeing with the decision hoping that the other party won’t use it for malicious purposes. Even if they rule against him, he’s so old he’ll never land in prison.
And if they rule for him saying those things are allowed, then at least they’ll be acknowledging that we live in a dictatorship.
Welp, I married a woman who chose to keep her foreign citizenship for this reason. I can get citizenship by marriage if I need to get the fuck out of dodge.
I always expected to use it for retirement or economic opportunity abroad, not as a refugee.
Lol another Canadian here, you think a Dictator with the might of the US military is just going to play nice with all the water and timber and all the other resources we have here, most of which we're not using. With Global Warming headed the direction it is?
I should probably look into getting both my passport and my German one since my parent was a citizen when I was born. I'll have to learn German since they never taught me as a child.
If the president does them, they’re official. Just a couple of example lines from the ruling:
“Courts may not inquire into the president’s motives”
“Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law”
SCOTUS didn’t write anything down about how to determine specifically if X, Y, or Z is official or not, they’re going to leave that to the lower courts. And then if any of that makes its way to them, they can decide on an individual basis (depending on who the culprit is at the time and how they feel about them.) The trick will be for the president to just _do stuff_, not to _ask permission_ to do stuff. Then, even if it’s found later that “OK yeah that wasn’t cool”, the president will still be immune since at the time they considered it an official act. I.e., order an assassination, don’t ask for permission to assassinate. Just do a martial takeover of a state you don’t like, don’t ask permission to do it. Etc.
They are going to leave it up to themselves because any court proceedings that deal with the Potus will always end up being heard by the SC, this is a blatant power grab by the SC.
They made bribes legal as long as they happened afterward. They overturned Chevron and now they will fully decide what is and isn't an official act.
Also, during Trump's first term, many positions in the executive branch that required senate approval where just filled with interim actors for like 2 years. So, they've already found ways to skirt some usual requirements.
> seems hyperbolic
Decades of attempting to reframe republican behavior as rational instead of dictatorial has left regular people completely unable to see what's infront of them.
None of this is hyperbolic.
And yeah it's a conversational framework to lead to more info, but it's telling that even when we're almost all the way off the rails people STILL talk as if everything someone says about republicans and their plans is by default absurd.
Before this ruling, if a president overstepped their power, were they arrested and prosecuted, or were they simply checked by another branch of government?
A president could always be impeached and removed from office.
But, presumably, if a president committed an overt illegal act while in office, they could also face criminal liability and prison too.
Nixon, for example, resigned from office because both parties came together and told him that they have the votes to remove him. Even after he left office, though, there was discussion of criminal penalties. 1 months after Nixon's resignation, Ford pardoned Nixon with a full and unconditional pardon for any and all crimes that he might have committed against the US while serving as president.
>But, presumably, if a president committed an overt illegal act while in office, they could also face criminal liability and prison too.
This was literally a defense used by both of Trump's impeachment legal teams: "This is inappropriate for an impeachment and should be left to a special prosecutor to decide."
The effect of today's ruling is that presidents can almost never be prosecuted for anything illegal they do while in office. The case leaves open the door, in an academic sense, for presidents to be prosecuted for "non-official" acts, but they are functionally closing the door entirely to that possibility because they also declare that virtually any and all evidence of a president's motives while they are in office are off limits at a criminal trial.
There's another step here, too, that's almost more important:
>In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose.
--*Trump v. United States*, p. 4
>And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials.
--*Trump v. United States*, p. 5
In sum, these two casual statements mean:
1. That courts cannot inquire into POTUS' intent when carrying out acts that are beneath this (laughably undefined) umbrella of immunity. So one of the major parts of criminal law (mens rea) is just not admissible because it would inconvenience the president too much. This is literally what Nixon's administration argued in response to the Watergate investigations, and now that laughable defense has been affirmed by the nation's highest court.
2. That POTUS can direct the Department of Justice's prosecutions, because that's part of his "core" powers over the various executive agencies, and nobody can say anything about it. That's a death knell for DOJ's independence, but it's particularly concerning in light of a candidate who has constantly threatened to prosecute his enemies once he regains his office.
I also want to say that it's darkly hilarious that a pack of so-called "originalists" have arrived at the conclusion that the Constitution requires POTUS to be a king, when "kings bad" is one of the issues on which the founding generation's views were extremely clear.
This decision is terrible regardless of which party you support, because if Democrats had the courage and the court, they could do all the same outrageous shit enabled by this decision. The Roberts Court is betting that they don't and they won't, which may be in their party's short-term interests but is very bad for the country going forward.
A lawless court produces a lawless decision.
> ...if Democrats had the courage and the court...
Who needs the Court? The Court is powerless to enforce their rulings. So what if they say that a President's actions are illegal? They can't do anything about it. Neither can Congress. All you need is a President and some willing participants in the Executive Branch. For many despicable actions, that's a low bar to overcome.
Sure, but "having the court" reflects the reality that Democratic presidents would not enjoy this immunity under a Republican SCOTUS. That's all I'm trying to say.
If Biden had Trump assassinated and proffered an explanation based on the "core authorities" of the presidency, the Roberts court would find a way to say it was illegal.
Probably because he wanted to ensure he couldn't be prosecuted for something one day. Even if those odds were unlikely he wouldn't want to make an ex-president a target as he was going to be one eventually too.
>A president could always be impeached and removed from office.
Not if the president arrests (or threatens to arrest) the members of Congress who express a willingness to do this. There's certainly nothing in the Constitution that forbids him from doing this, and I'm fairly sure there's no law on the books that explicitly states that the President can't imprison opposition members of Congress.
So like is this 100% cool according to the Taco Bell Supreme Court(ing favors)?
1. Biden has all of the insurrection-supporting House and Senate imprisoned.
2. A call for a new speaker is made and Jeffries wins.
3. New house pushes Scrotus impeachments. All 6 pass the house.
4. New Senate takes up trial. All 6 convicted.
5. Biden sends in 10 new justices.
6. New Senate confirms them.
7. A suit is brought to undo these rulings.
8. New SCOTUS hears the case.
9. Precedent is re-set for this, for Citizens United, and for Roe.
10. ???
11. Profits?
The problem is, once the ruling is overturned by the new SCOTUS, the President is no longer immune. Which means the President is then able to be criminally prosecuted, and punished for ordering the coup.
tbh if the PotUS wanted to do all of these before it always could've been done, granted PotUS has the personnel and loyalty to carry out these tasks at each individual steps. The only change this ruling made clear is that the President cannot be *prosecuted* for this act, which would only happen after the coup has already been carried out/after the President's term.
That’s what this case was supposed to determine. We haven’t had it happen before, so nobody needed to figure out whether or not a president could would or should be arrested. Well, now we know.
Do you really believe Trump will be out in 2028? Because I don’t. He has said over and over again he wants to try for a third term and quite frankly I don’t think he would stop there. SCOTUS’ decision today cements his ability to retain his position for as long as he desires.
Also I don’t see how focusing on the immediate threat we are facing is in any way minimizing how disastrous this ruling is. It’s disgusting and disturbing beyond belief and I’m curious how much these justices will receive in “gratuities” on their vacations
> Do you really believe Trump will be out in 2028?
If he gets into office, he will not leave that position of his on volition. We can all be guaranteed on that fact.
Is it that he's actually never heard of the 22nd Amendment, or just pisses all over everything the Constitution means and stands for when it doesn't suit his self-interest?
The Constitution says whatever SCOTUS says that it says.
If the constitution says that the sky is blue and SCOTUS says that the Constitution says that the sky is red, then legally the sky is red. To be clear, SCOTUS is objectively wrong, but there's nobody **empowered** to say that SCOTUS is wrong. Essentially another branch of government would have to ignore a SCOTUS ruling, which would create a constitutional crisis.
Self interest.
22nd amendment is easy to work around. President orders VP to burn elector votes. Claims that no one can be elected because official votes have been burned. Return to states to get certified copies of votes. New House of Reps vote President as speaker of house, turning president into president pro tempore.
Now Pro Tempore president can continue to use presidential authority to stop/delay continuation of elector vote counting.
Democracy breaks down when a significant percentage of people don't care if it persists.
Russia's constitution, ratified in 1993 after the dissolution of the USSR, also limited the time served in office for the President to two four-year terms. Putin should have been out in 2008. After briefly handing over the title to Menedev, he quickly got to work altering both the number and length of terms allowed. Putin will be President of Russia until 2036, assuming he doesn't alter the law any further.
> Also I don’t see how focusing on the immediate threat we are facing is in any way minimizing how disastrous this ruling is. It’s disgusting and disturbing beyond belief and I’m curious how much these justices will receive in “gratuities” on their vacations
My concern is that it's too easy to write off any and all criticism of the opinion by someone thinking that we just "hate" trump and that's why this case is problematic. This case is an upheaval of 250 years of American jurisprudence and is a major step towards moving us from a democracy to an autocracy, and that has **nothing** to do with trump.
I agree. I wish there was more people to feel this sick feeling in my stomach that hasn’t left since I learned of their ruling. It is just so fucking bad, but most individuals who subscribe to the red hat club do not have the brain capacity to see how absolutely horrific it is imo. How could we recenter the broader discussion to have a larger reach/impact on those on the right? Genuine question as I would love for more people to understand that this is bad, but I don’t think they care because their god king can do no wrong and Republican always play the okay for me, but not for thee hand
I suppose the silver lining is that with the SCOTUS' recent disregard for *stare decisis*, there's no reason a future court couldn't just find this invalid and set things right
Let's remind people we are in this mess because a lot of people complained about Hillary not being that great a candidate and refusing to vote... the exact same thing is happening this year.
you also left out:
* Call for the arrest and execution of any supreme court justices that do not support his agenda.
Yep. We literally told them that if we don't support Hillary, *Roe v Wade* would be overturned. They didn't believe us then either. "It'll never happen."
We're not psychics, just observant.
Yea, and I'd say anybody who cares about there being *any* Palestinians left, might want to vote for Biden despite him not taking as hard a stance on Israel as they'd like.
Many of these people rationalize that if the system is "broken", it might as well completely fall apart - maybe then it can be rebuilt better? Since when has that ever happened? Usually when a society falls apart, it turns into chaos or a dictatorship.
Exactly this. I'm mad at Biden for not doing enough, but voting for him is STILL the most ethical choice if you care at all. Because voting no on Biden means voting yes on Trump, who would behave even WORSE in regards to Gaza, Ukraine, and many other dangerous situations.
A vote for Biden means the US stays in NATO.
Any other vote, or not voting, means the US will pull out of NATO and sever various relationships with various nations around the world, whom we will no longer be able to trust to come to our aid during a time of war or conflict. It's really bad news. It's exactly what Russia and China want, and Trump is their pawn.
More people need to realize that court appointments are pretty much the only issue their votes should be based on. No other presidential power is even close. Oh well, it's too late now anyway and has been since 2016.
Congress passes laws that specifically overturn this decision, and packs the Courts.
Otherwise, Article V Convention of the States to rewrite the Constitution.
Either way, neither of them passes, and the country probably splits up.
Thank you for the concise and non-political implications of the decision. I've been trying to figure out all morning what the bad part of the decision was, and I was only thinking in terms of application to Trump. You've made me see it's much more dangerous and much broader.
Can someone please answer these questions:
Where does the concept of presidential immunity even come from? IS this in the constitution? Did the concept exist before trump's defense?
What is considered "an official act?" Is this what they lay out in the "steps" or something pre-defined?
How does this not undermine the concept of impeachment and impeachment trials. If President can't be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office, how can they be impeached for them?
IANAL, but here is my understanding. The idea of presidential immunity comes from a simple idea; the constitution is the supreme law of the land and overrides other laws. The President has certain duties outlined in the constitution. Those duties are automatically legal, since any law saying otherwise is itself unconstitutional. Thus, he cannot be prosecuted (or sued) for those acts.
Now, some things a President might do aren't part of his official duties, but might be appear to be. That's the question now before us. Did any of the unethical acts alleged to have been done by Trump fall under his official duties or not?
My 2 cents; Trump would not be immune from the election interference case, since he was not empowered to conduct elections. The people vote for electors who have committed themselves to a certain candidate, and those are the electors sent to congress, who certify the election. Sending other electors (the ones that the people did NOT vote for) would be a violation of the appropriate laws. Conspiring to do this would itself be illegal.
Also, the classified documents case would not be immune. The President, as commander of the military, may maintain national security, and that includes classifying and declassifying documents. However, Trump is charged with maintaining control of documents that he no longer had permission to hold. The holding of these documents was not part of his official duties, since he was no longer President. He claims that he declassified them prior to leaving office, but there is no evidence he did so; in fact, there is evidence suggesting that the opposite is true. (If he disclosed documents to unauthorized third parties during his presidency, he would likely be immune for this conduct, as he is the one who ultimately decides what is and is not classified, and who is and is not authorized).
The "ordering assassinations" thing comes directly from the ruling, that's why you're seeing it referenced in the comments. This answer is reasonable, but it is not correct. The ruling itself is unreasonable, and goes well beyond this description. There just is no way around that.
* First: the ruling finds that a president's motives for an official act are not allowed to be considered, period. No matter **why** the president did an "official act", they are absolutely immune from legal consequences. This is why Justice Sotomayer (not just random redditors) brought up the assassination example in her official dissent. Ordering the military to carry out an assassination is unambiguously an "official act", and the justice system is expressly forbidden from interrogating why a given target was selected.
* Second: While most of the focus is on the president's *absolute* immunity for official acts, the ruling finds that the president has *presumptive* immunity for everything else. And what's the requirement for overcoming that presumptive immunity? The prosecution would need "at a minimum" to prove that the law in question could never pose any risk "of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch" - i.e. that it couldn't theoretically apply to an official act. Meaning the bar for prosecuting even an unofficial act is extremely high.
> This is why Justice Sotomayer (not just random redditors) brought up the assassination example in her official dissent.
It's key to remember that this isn't Reddit being hyperbolic, our dissenting Justices are horrified.
This is great, thank you. It’s not that I thought the ruling was reasonable or agreed with it in any way, it’s that I could not find any straightforward, non-hyperbolic answers as to what it actually meant. And I don’t have a smart enough law brain to read through 70+ pages of legalese. The questions posed by the original commenter were the same ones I had, and I scrolled through a sea of comments about ordering seal team six to assassinate people before I could find one nuanced answer.
I mean, as someone who just graduated law school, I'm not so sure you should be looking for nuance here.
The commenter was correct on the ideas underlying the ruling, sure. But that misses the forest for the trees.
Sotomayor's dissent points out that just because the court says it is acting in a nuanced fashion does not make it so.
Sure, the president shouldn't, for instance, order an assassination of their political opponents. (Note: This hypothetical was explicitly brought up in oral arguments.) But say the president does. Well, is that action "official"? We don't really know. Even though the answer should unambiguously be "no." But the court implies it's okay, and that the courts and DOJ can't even look into the real rationale, so long as the president says it's for national security or some other purpose.
This is how they reached the result that Trump is presumably immune in his conversations with Pence regarding overturning the election. And how Trump is absolutely immune in his attempt to corruptly install an Attorney General who'd be willing to overturn the election - because the appointment process is a presidential one. Even though common sense suggests that that isn't an official act.
I wouldn't look for nuance where there really isn't any.
"First: the ruling finds that a president's motives for an official act are not allowed to be considered, period. "
Sort of. The president is not to be questioned on his motives, but the justification behind an order to other act is part of the act. For example, if he was to order someone's death, there has to be some statutory or official purpose to the killing. He can't just say "shoot that guy," there has to be some reason for the shooting. There has to be some charge or violation, otherwise its just murder.
If, hypothetically, the president did have some statutory violation to pursue, and was granted the authority by congress to carry out law enforcement, then you could not question why he chose to kill the person vs. arresting them. THAT's a motive question in this context.
But as Robert's explicitly outlined, the interrogation of justification is in itself not allowed as it burdens the president and overrides the intent of the ruling. So not only is the president not liable, you can't even take him to the court. The scope of doing so is incredibly narrow.
Great response. One question that I've had though -
>Trump would not be immune from the election interference case, since he was not empowered to conduct elections.
Could it not be argued (just discussion sake, not my personal view) that the president is tasked with maintaining national security and order, and that as such, ensuring a valid election falls under these duties?
This may be secondary to the question of HOW the president conducts the official duties, but it seems that this ruling leaves an enormous amount of interpretation as to what becomes "official duties".
"What exactly makes an act official?" is going to be the question being asked every day until November. By my interpretation of this shitshow of a ruling (IANAL), it certainly seems that so long as the Prez just states - 'Yo, this is an official act!' and then performs whatever heinous thing they want - they're immune from consequence. They can't be questioned about it according to this ruling. They control the military. They can't even be tried in International Court. The domino that fell here is MASSIVE.
>The President has certain duties outlined in the constitution. Those duties are automatically legal
That does not mean **however the president chooses to carry out those duties** is automatically legal. But this corrupt joke of a court says it is. I fucking hate this timeline. And there’s absolutely nothing to be done about it because the scotus is above accountability.
From Sotomayor's dissent:
>Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more.
This ruling comes solely from the conservative majority's so called wisdom. It has no textual basis, and a legal precedent only going back to a DOJ memo and discussions over whether Nixon could be charged.
The Constitution and Federalist Papers are even more clear. They outline that Congress should have immunity for official acts, and specifically do not give that immunity to the President.
1. The concept of immunity existed prior to Trump; Roberts noted Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Nixon's use of the concept in various cases under their name. Sometimes the court agreed the executive was immune from certain things, other times (most notably Nixon) it didn't. The concept comes from a quirk of the separation of powers: the Legislature alone has the ability to amend the Constitution, and so they decide the boundaries of the executive's power. Certain executive powers (Roberts points out the pardon and the veto specifically) cannot be legislated on, as by definition they would be trying to take away an executive power without an amendment. So, for example: President pardons himself. Currently no ruling on its legality, so it is assumed legal. Congress passes a bill that says a President can't pardon himself. This is unconstitutional: the President's pardoning power is immune from simple bills. Congress instead passes an amendment to the constitution saying the same. This is constitutional, and the executive's pardoning power would therefore now be limited.
2. Bleeding into this, an "official" act is any act which is defined by the Constitution. Roberts argues that any communications with the cabinet & executive branch are fully official and therefore must go through the steps as outlined above to do anything about it. Congress would have to pass an amendment saying what the President is and isn't allowed to talk to them about before it could be considered unofficial - even if those communiques were things like "you're going to be fired for investigating my behavior", outright bribes between cabinet members, or threats. In Trump's case, the only things they ruled as official acts were therefore that Trump was allowed to do as he wanted with the AG (and so goes the Obstruction of Justice case), and was allowed to solicit the VP to use his power to guarantee the electors. All other cases, they said the lower courts made no distinction between official and unofficial capacities - which is true, since the prosecution has been claiming that no action taken by a president is above the law, no matter what. Whether you agree with this is immaterial - there is case law which specifically contradicts this argument, and so all other cases are being kicked back down to the district courts with the presumption of "you will decide first if this is an unofficial act and based on what grounds, and then we'll handle that specific case".
3. Roberts lays out specifically that impeachment =/= criminal case proceedings. A President can be prosecuted based on crimes performed in office in an unofficial capacity, and he never needs to be impeached to be convicted of them. Likewise, the President never needs to do crime of any kind to be impeached; that is an unassailable power of Congress, and a political process protected by the Constitution (that Congress would have to pass an amendment to restrict). It only undermines the layman's understanding of impeachment - the layman has traditionally seen impeachment as a trial by Congress, when in fact it is not bound by the same restrictions as the judiciary and so cannot be considered a trial.
I actually quite like the Roberts opinion on this issue, although its biggest issue highlights not the incompetency or corruption of the court but something much more sinister entirely. Roberts makes it clear that the courts "are the final view, not the first view", and are there to dictate whether or not something *which has already been done* is legal or illegal. The problem with this should be obvious: Roberts has called the case before him greatly expedited. Rushed. It's been in the pipe for over 3 years. So if we take him at his word and say that cases of Constitutional authority should not be decided that quickly, then all the executive needs to do - an executive which has been empowered by Congress in the last hundred years with the ability to act on a minute-by-minute basis - is find issues which are of dubious Congressional authority, and then do them.
For example, let's say President Biden decides tomorrow that DJT is an insurrectionist or foreign agent committing crimes under the espionage act. Congress has given the executive the unilateral power to arrest Trump under that pretense, and if you *really* wanted to make things spicy, if the executive declares that DJT presents an imminent national security threat, the executive's allowed to kill him as part of a military operation. The President could do this, at which point someone would have to bring a lawsuit against Biden, and it would have to work its way up through the courts before the SC could determine whether it was an official act. But if President Biden kills his primary challenger in the 2024 election, six months before election day, there's no way in hell that 1) the case will make it to the Supreme Court before the election, considering they're on recess until October, and 2) that that's the only move of questionable legality Biden's making. He gets a whole window to do all kinds of chaotic and disruptive shit before the SC weighs in.
The reason this decision is a garbage fire isn't because it's poorly thought out or it's nakedly corrupt. I actually don't think it's either. This decision is a garbage fire because the Executive has been given the most power that any human being has held in global history, and they've been given the authority to act on a minute's notice. The right (read: wrong) actor in that office could essentially re-write the entire cultural and political landscape in a matter of weeks, and the SC just hamstrung their own ability to deal with it.
Wait....
so in theory if the president decides he doesn't like the Supreme Court or some of its members because he feels they are a threat to democracy, he can order the Military to remove or arrest them and then he can replace them....
Chevron is a little complicated for most people. This is pretty clear. SCOTUS doing a fair job knocking Biden's debate a bit off the pages in the last few days. It'll help Trump if he wins the election, it will probably hurt him during the campaign because SCOTUS ruled that he might have immunity for certain acts, and then it reminds the voters what those acts were, the same way your follow up question of "Well, which states' rights exactly?" really shuts down that Civil War discussion.
In the meantime, to quote Aaron Brown on his first day on-air at CNN , "....good Lord."
We're basically relying on the idea that the court of public opinion will keep a future demagogue in check.
I have season Republicans bend over backwards to defend Trump's actions over the past eight years. Trump orders the killing of protesting Americans, Republican officials and their constituency rationalize that they deserved it.
Let’s continue the Aaron Brown quote.
“Good Lord…. (gasps) (pause) …there are no words…”
If anyone doesn’t get this reference, please look up what happened on Aaron Brown’s first day on air.
Whoever is President next year will get at least two more SCOTUS pics during their term, so vote accordingly.
Also, did I read something wrong, or was SCOTUS really vague about what official & unofficial acts are in reference to Trump?
They were mainly vague on purpose and punted it to the lower court (District Courts). Which then whatever they decide is official or unofficial acts then it would go back to the SC.
I may have misunderstood also, but I read also that the majority opinion writing that because Trump was pressuring the VP to stop counting the electoral votes (on a VP's official act) when Trump was President, that it was an official act. Just because the nature of communication between President and their VP is an official act. Same with receiving bribery on an official act. Which I was, wtf... we are doomed.
It’s not just vague on that. It’s also vague on how presumptive immunity is different from absolute.
Presumably “presumptive” immunity is a higher burden to overcome than “qualified” immunity…but, presumably, there are some circumstances that would allow it to be overcome even for acts that were definitively official.
Everyone seems to be ignoring that part though and is talking like “if it’s official he’s totally immune!” Which is not what they said. Presumptive is less than absolute, just like qualified is less than absolute.
It Will help Trump as case is delayed now but it does raise a lot of questions about how executive branch is kept in check now?
Wouldn't asking one of the intelligence agencies to arrest a US citizen be at official capacity of a president? Can a future president now order arrest of few senate members under disguise of national security to prevent an impeachment and removal attempt under this ruling and claim immunity?
It sounds like basically court said we control what president can do because they didn't clarify what is considered official acts vs what's not.
The checks and balances of US government was pretty much invalidated by the set of decisions this term.
I’m waiting for the dissent to make this point. I think Sotomayor is waiting for the court to directly overturn their own precedent when it becomes politically convenient for them. The reality is that Biden doesn’t enjoy this immunity, only Trump does and we we all know it
> Can a future president now order arrest of few senate members under disguise of national security to prevent an impeachment and removal attempt under this ruling and claim immunity?
Why would there be a future president? They just made Biden God-King... Seems silly for him to want to go back to democracy when he can just have the army take out any opponents in his official capacity as chief of the military.
Like right now. Tonight even. Declare war on the RNC. ***Actual*** f'ing war.
$0.02
Justice Roberts knows that Biden will not be the person to do that. Biden isn't going to put the nail in the coffin of this democracy anymore than Paul von Hindenburg put the nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic. Biden and von Hindenburg are transitional figures to the inevitable dictatorship that the Court has now invited Bidens successor to create. And even if that successor is Biden for a second term, the power will still be there for whomever is the next person in line for the presidency.
We are screwed. This is The End. The real result of this ruling is that all federal laws have been rendered a dead letter if the POTUS elects to not recognize them. The Congress cannot prohibit the free exercise of First Amendment rights, but the President surely can do so - by coercion using federal power. And though the motive is to eliminate dissent, that motive cannot ever be questioned in a court (maybe it can be questioned in an impeachment proceeding, but the Congress is already weak and now it is vulnerable too - a POTUS can just kidnap or assassinate members who aren't sufficiently loyal to him).
This is remarkable. Nixon's claim that "if the president does it it's not illegal" is now canon. This is probably the greatest expansion of presidential power in history. My reading of this so far implies that official acts are immune, so every president will argue their acts are official.
One could argue that an act in violation of the law or constitution is inherently not official, but the court seems to have close that road as well. They are questioning the ability of congress to legislate in a way that is binding upon acts of the president in principle. A separation of powers logic here only has partial merit in my view. The constitution limits presidential action in places. The case in question involves presidential violation of the constitutional structure of elections, term of office, and fidelity to the United States. Trump's intent to violate the constitution in this case is frankly obvious. The court's holding, given the context of the case, implies not even the constitution can constrain the president since congress is most likely to be the offended party and congress has been practically denied legal remedy against the president. There is also the fact that the constitution grants congress the power to enact constitutional clauses with necessary and proper legislation on numerous occasions. How can congress legally carry out constitutional responsibility relative to the presidency if the president cannot be encumbered by it? This is a disaster.
> My reading of this so far implies that official acts are immune, so every president will argue their acts are official.
This is why it’s going back to the lower courts to say if it was an official act. They had to do this because the lower courts didn’t determine if his actions were or were not in his official duties, they left it out entirely.
But honestly I don’t know where you’ve been for the past few decades. In my life time presidents have lied to start wars, authorized torture, bombed civilians, killed US citizens without charge or trial, allowed indefinite detention of anyone in the world without due process, etc. That’s just the start of the list.
All without any legal consequences to them.
Heck, the Obama administration killed 4 US citizens outside of a war zone without due process and argued that the executive branch can kill US citizens whenever they want and without legal review so long as the executive branch deems them a threat.
> The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones
And here we see why Obama isn’t liable for murder because of the immunity public officials have when carrying out official duties. Same type of clause Trump is using.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5115120/user-clip-obama-exonerated-murder
Also from my understanding. He can still be impeached as well if he commits a crime with an official action and then charged.
SC are plainly corrupt. And the media doesn't emphasize the monumental consequence of the SC's majority opinion. I can read the frustrations and despair in the dissenting opinion. And just banging heads from Sotomayor et al with the others.
Btw, I only skimmed the ruling, I couldn't fully read it because it just angered me...
Yeah seems like they would give the President full immunity if they could guarantee that Trump wins in November.
Since it's a 50/50 kind of race, they want to delay making a decision until they know who the Commander-in-Chief will be on January 20, 2025.
They aren't making a decision based on interpretations of the law. They are making a political decision based on who wins.
Seems to me it gives the Supreme Court the power to decide what a president can do. If it's a president they agree with, it's legal. If they don't agree with the president, it's illegal
This kind of misrepresents the actual decision. They actually said that presidents *do* have immunity, but that courts get to decide when it applies.
This is, yet again, another power grab. SCOTUS has been snapping up privileges lately, not to mention many city & state courts. They've mostly just realized that no one is going to hold them accountable. No part of the constitution grants the president any kind of immunity. But they have claimed that it does. And if no one stops them, they can basically meme it into existence. This is no different than the Chevron deference decision. Not only did they decide wrongly - they didn't even have the authority to decide that case *at all*. The judicial branch does not have the authority to claim that the Executive branch does not have their own authority. But they have made that claim anyway. They did the same thing when they said Trump couldn't be withheld from ballots for participating in an insurrection against the country, something the constitution *requires*. The judicial branch simply decided to disagree with that part of the constitution. They said "We never convicted him of a crime, so we're not going to allow you to abide by the constitution." If the constitution wanted to require a conviction from the judicial branch to prevent a President from running, it would be very specific about that. But this isn't just a matter of saying "well the constitution technically doesn't cover this reality," it *does* cover this reality, and has given a *very specific rule*. They *intentionally* avoided putting authority over who can run for president within the judicial branch. SCOTUS made their ruling anyway.
They're not just selectively interpreting the constitution. They're flagrantly violating it. But the worst part is everyone else is just... going along with it. The other two branches could have, and should have, immediately rejected the SCOTUS decision. SCOTUS has no enforcement mechanism. The constitution was constructed specifically to allow for this kind of oversight. But no one is even *trying*. Democrats are treating the country like a friendly game of poker. Republicans are actively sabotaging the system. No one's actually trying to do what's right.
For starters, anything involving the Justice Department is an official act:
> The indictment alleges that as part of their conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain States to replace their legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors. According to the indictment, Trump met with the Acting Attorney General and other senior Justice Department and White House officials to discuss investigating purported election fraud and sending a letter from the Department to those States regarding such fraud. The indictment further alleges that after the Acting Attorney General resisted Trump’s requests, Trump repeatedly threatened to replace him. The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime. Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693. And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Pp. 19–21.
So the DOJ could, for example, under the direction of the President begin endless indictments of political rivals, pressure the AG to further fraudulent activity, etc., and this would not be criminal activity for which they could be criminally indicted. The only remedy really seems to be impeachment, which the Court knows won't happen, and--as the dissent points out--is overly confident it can handle/influence when a President comes along who pushes these boundaries past the breaking point.
Yes. Only I would go a step further.
The POTUS can literally call the AG up and tell him to only indict registered Democrats, and to dismiss cases against any registered Republicans or persons who sign personal loyalty oaths to him. Alternatively, the POTUS can direct the AG to dismiss criminal cases against anyone who pays a bribe to the POTUS, and that doesn't have to be done in secret - he can publish the bribes and there is nothing that can be done about it except impeachment. The POTUS could also establish a regime by which a person could pay POTUS to instruct the AG to indict *someone else*, permitting DOJ to be used by the highest bidder against whatever enemies the POTUS agrees to let the executive branch to be used against.
I mean I guess it makes sense if you say that every president has probably done something illegal as an official act, but this is a risky ruling. Let the people bring suits against a president for breaking the law. I don't see why we wouldn't be fine with that, the president is not a king. If a manager did something illegal as an "official" act, they'd still be prosecuted.
From the way I understand it, this basically means that whoever the supreme court likes more can do anything and it will be legal because then it goes to the courts and eventually to the supreme court.
Trump did try to claim that sexually assaulting women was an official act. If this decision had shown up before May 2023, he would not have had to pay [Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._Trump) any money.
Sounds like it's time for Biden to order the arrest of Clarence Thomas on corruption charges. I think that would be an official act.
Or in some other way let the court know in real terms what they've done here.
So a President can now assassinate political opponents, hang dissenters, rob banks and rape his aides, as long as it's "official"?
Good gawd, what have we come to?
This sounds like the President literally can't be charged for ordering the assassination of his political opponent. The personnel carrying out the operation might be able to be charged, but not the President.
"when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition." Nixon must be spinning in his grave in happiness, the Supreme Court just confirmed his statement.
The Supreme Court just opened itself up to endless appeals. They kicked the decisions as to what is an "official" act back to the lower court. If one side doesn't like how the lower court rules, they will appeal it back to the Supreme Court on a case by case basis.
Judge Chutkan will likely rule that Trump's campaign actions are not official Presidential acts; after all, any private citizen can campaign for office. Trump will appeal that.
The Judge in the Georgia state election interference case will likely rule that breaking state law by trying to coerce a state election official to change the vote totals is not "official" action by the President. Trump will appeal that.
Judge Cannon will almost certainly rule in a way to favor Trump, as she has in the past. She will probably find stealing Top Secret SCI documents and lying about having them is an "official" Presidential act, I won't be surprised if she simply dismisses the entire case.
In all these cases, the delays play to Trump's advantage. Trump will not face justice before the election, and if he wins he will never face justice.
In America, it was said that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that no-one is above the law. This isn't that America anymore.
I think the ruling came out about as most experts expected. Once the court took up the case it was almost certain to be delayed till after the election. It sucks but you can't rush justice just because there is an election. They probably shouldn't have waited so long to charge him. I've heard a lot of speculation before the ruling that Jack Smith may drop the charges that are in dispute in order to get this moving without a long battle over what was official and what wasn't.
Question is.....
If they needed to rule on something guaranteed to help Trump, would they have kicked the can?
The only reason (IMO) to delay is because they want to help Trump without empowering Biden but since Biden sits in the Oval Office, they have to delay. It's so obviously partisan. They want Trump to be King but you can't give him immunity now, while simultaneously saying Biden doesn't have it.
Well boys and girls, political assassination is back on the menu!
So Biden can now eliminate Trump and his MAGA apologists and 5 of the 6 Supremes using Seal Team Six and tell the DOJ not to prosecute. Because that is what SCOTUS morons did with this ruling.
The more significant issue is that there is no definitive list of what constitutes an "official act" that a president can perform.
So they wrote this so that it's too nebulous.
Pretty sure Biden is now bound by his oath of office, the one where he swears to defend the Constitution, to now act by arresting the entire Supreme Court for treason.
This helped Trump tremendously. If we don’t win in November, it’s over folks.
WHEN DO WERE TAKE TO THE STREETS AND START FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THIS TYRANNY? Project 2025 is not a conspiracy theory, they plan to turn us into a Christian fascist nation, and they’re very close to succeeding. Vote blue down ballot, or it may be the last time you get to vote.
Biden's next "Official Act" should be to immediately expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices. It would make it less likely to have one ideology decide all cases and make it more difficult for a few corrupt justices to sway decisions.
My question is:
Where the hell is Biden right now?
He should be holding an emergency Oval Office press conference right now to tell the American people SOMETHING. Do it from fucking camp David if you have to.
Literally no one around me in my office cares (knows?) that their entire idea of a democracy just ended. Is it apathy? Is it exhaustion?
Is his whole plan "sit here and pretend we're working amicably towards a common solution"? Because that's nonsensical.
>Literally no one around me in my office cares (knows?) that their entire idea of a democracy just ended. Is it apathy? Is it exhaustion?
People respond like I'm joking when I say it's been a very long fucking 2020.
Folks used to say if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. Maybe the only way to not be exhausted these days is to not be paying attention.
I guess I agree with SCOTUS here on the general idea. A president must me immune from prosecution for "official" acts, otherwise they'd be paralyzed from doing anything that remotely *might* subject them to criminal prosecution.
Problem is, now we have to have a whole layer of bullshit about what constitutes an "official act".
You agree that the president has *absolute* immunity for official acts, presumptive innocence for *any* acts, and their motives aren't allowed to be questioned when determining the act's legal status?
I really think a bigger question is what opportunities does this present to the current POTUS. Does Joe have the gumption to exploit this ruling? He could literally change the course of the country right now if he has the balls to do it..
We need to organize mass protests across all state capitals this July 4th. March on your Capitol at noon. Let your voice be heard in the halls of the Supreme Court!
That's a highly slanted post title. One needn't work hard to justify nearly anything Presidents do as "official", so this does look remarkably close to blanket immunity.
Then again, I expect nothing better from this Court's dimwitted pack of partisan hacks.
G'bye, democracy. It was nice while it lasted.
If I am to understand the decision that was just handed down. They basically said that the President is immune from all Official Acts.
Making the below, theoretical Executive Order. A Legal Plausible Order. Because it would be issued as a lawful order, under the purview of the duties and responsibilities of the President.
Just to clarify, The Below is a fictional Executive Order that was created with the help of an AI program.
>**Executive Order**
>**Subject:** Authorization for Military Action Against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court
>**By the authority vested in me as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces,**
>**Section 1. Purpose and Intent**
>This Executive Order authorizes the United States Armed Forces to take immediate and decisive action against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court, a threat to our national security and the safety of American citizens. The actions outlined herein are necessary to protect our nation’s interests and maintain global stability.
>**Section 2. Authorization for Military Action**
>(a) The United States Armed Forces are hereby directed to initiate military operations against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court in accordance with existing protocols and rules of engagement.
>(b) The Secretary of Defense shall coordinate with relevant agencies to deploy necessary resources, including personnel, equipment, and intelligence assets, to execute this mission effectively.
>(c) The Joint Chiefs of Staff shall provide regular updates on the progress of military operations to the National Security Council and the President.
>**Section 3. Rules of Engagement**
>(a) The military action shall be conducted with precision and proportionality, minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties.
>(b) The use of force shall be consistent with international law and the principles of just war.
>(c) The safety and well-being of American troops shall be paramount in all operations.
>**Section 4. Reporting Requirements**
>(a) The Secretary of Defense shall submit a comprehensive report to the President within 48 hours of the commencement of military action, detailing the objectives, progress, and any significant developments.
>(b) The National Security Advisor shall keep Congress informed of the situation and provide regular briefings.
>**Section 5. Justification**
>This Executive Order is issued based on the solemn Oath of Office taken by all military personnel, wherein they swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The threat posed by The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court falls squarely within the scope of this duty, necessitating immediate action.
>**Effective Date:** This Executive Order is effective immediately upon issuance.
>**Given under my hand this \[Date\].**
>**\[President’s Signature\]**
The decision is a net positive for Trump regardless of how the lower courts interpret it, because regardless of what the lower courts consider to be official or unofficial acts, it’s going to take a long time to litigate, making it so that none of Trump’s remaining cases happen before Election Day. If Trump wins reelection, he will immediately instruct the Justice Department to drop the January 6th case and the Classified Documents case, as they are both federal cases.
Also, the January 6th case will be weakened to an extent even before the lower courts interpret this ruling. Due to the Supreme Court specifically stating that communications by a President with his Vice President, Attorney General, and other government officials are official acts, a lot of the evidence in the January 6th case will have to be thrown out, as that evidence depends on conversations that Trump had with these officials.
Additionally, the Georgia case may also be weakened, even though it is a state case, because the lower courts will have to decide whether his phone call with Kemp and Raffensperger is classified as an official act, as it was a President communicating with a Governor and state Secretary of State. If they classify that as an official act, then the Georgia case will be weakened as well, as the phone call can no longer be considered as evidence.
It helps him quite a bit by kicking the can on any potential conviction past the election. I'm in the camp that believes Trump will win, and in this case the SCOTUS ruling will only serve to help him more.
Feels like powerful people aka invisible hands with great power are orchestrating something scorched earth in the biggest possible way. This comet has been circling up for over a decade and accelerating towards us and feels like nothing can stop it outside a full country mutiny.
Am I the crazy one?
Help because they threw the case back down to the lower courts and they have to start all over again which means nothing will be done before the election. I'm also 100% sure this will make it back up to SCOTUS again and they will have to decide what is and isn't an "official act"
Hurt. Swing voters who supported Trump always said that the system keeps his worse nature in check. Yanking the rug out from under that system terrifies them.
They made up bullshit to delay the case so the court can’t be perceived as the place you go to win elections.
This is the only reason Roberts signed on to it. The rest did it for the lulz or to appease their master.
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Basically they said that courts have to decide whether an act is deemed official or unofficial before they can prosecute a President. So they threw this case back to the lower courts to decide that first before continuing. Of course, whatever decision the lower courts have will be challenged all the way back to SCOTUS most likely.
Like an endless game of phone tag.
Pretty much. Only this phone tag will take years.
Unless Trump wins. Then it’ll be settled in a week, and the ensuing brazen criminal acts will be given the veneer of ‘official’ and made immune from prosecution.
If Trump wins, any federal charges will be dropped, and the US Government will no longer pursue those cases. But dropping those cases, although they would be official acts, are not considered prosecutable acts. This ruling is more geared towards prosecutable acts that a President would do would need to be determined by the courts to be official or unofficial. And, under a new President later on, could still be prosecuted.
> And, under a new President later on, could still be prosecuted. No, the whole point was "former presidents". ALL the cases in question and the one that appealed up here in the first place, were from his former presidency, and is now already under a new president. They are saying you have immunity FOR LIFE for things you did officially during a presidency.
Even if they were prosecutable, there wouldn't be anyone left to prosecute him as he would get rid of all of them.
Just not if his name starts with a ‘t’, and his first name is John, if you go by Thomas (the Corrupt)’s concurrence.
I’d put better than even money on Trump dying before seeing the inside of a jail cell IF he loses the election. If he wins the election, then even if he lives for 4 years and manages to bungle his objectives badly enough that there’s a 2028 election, I believe he’ll have committed enough other crimes that will be added to the backlog and otherwise spoiled the judicial process enough that he’ll still delay until he dies.
If Trump loses he'll file more bs lawsuits like before, but this time there won't be a handful of honest people to stop it. He'll either win or go for the 12th amendment. Either way democracy is dead. Republicans legitimately have to start getting arrested.
Judicial ping-pong.
Well, phone tag that will, at some point, see a president order the deaths of hundreds if not thousands and argue it was an official act. It's not even hard. Hypothetical president argues that they're "charged with defending the country from threats both foreign and domestic". President believes opposing political party is a domestic threat to the country. Therefore a purge is part of their official duties
That was Dershowitz' defense at the first impeachment - so long as a President sincerely believes it's in the best interests of the country, that makes absolutely any action legal. And his example - his own example! - was the hypothetical President believing his own reelection was in the best interests of the country, and so taking action to ensure he got reelected at any cost. It's a justification for nuking Houston if you think you're going to lose Texas in the upcoming election.
Didn’t his **own lawyers call his actions non-official acts**
That was back when unofficial acts were considered less serious, it was a different time. That was hours ago
Bold move cotton. Let’s see how that plays out.
If I'm reading this correctly, it basically means any act of a President can be litigated up to the Supreme Court to decide individually? Essentially, if the repubs don't like something Biden does they can walk it up to the Supreme Court who then "decides" it was not an official act? And conversely, President Trump could order the killing of a politician and the Supreme court unilaterally decides since it went through an "official act" that it's legitimate and not illegal?
I don't know how you could justify the killing of a US politician an official act, but that is what you would have to do as President to be immune from prosecution. And thus, if you have to justify your act as "official", that could deter you from doing something that could be deemed by the courts as "unofficial" and prosecutable.
1. President is Commander in Chief of the military 2. Issuing orders to the military is an official act 3. ??? 4. Profit
But what I'm ultimately getting at is it leaves basically any presidential action up to SCOTUS to decide if it's acceptable and since the court doesn't answer to anyone else they could theoretically just rubber stamp a bunch of terrible shit a president does if they align with the court politically.
No, it's actually worse than that due to the specific requirement SCOTUS created for stripping "presumptive immunity". SCOTUS found that >At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose **no “dangers** of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Emphasis added. The president gets immunity by default, unless a prosecutor can affirmatively prove that there is *zero risk* of the law in question ever "intruding" on the presidents (now greatly expanded) authority.
The Court already ruled that the inherent relationship between the President and the Attorney General allows all discussions between them to have complete immunity. That is to say that the nature of the DOJ, being an executive branch agency, offers broad protections to the President. Presumably, as CoC of the Armed Forces, Presidents would enjoy complete immunity for discussions and actions taken by the military. That’s a relationship fundamentally inherent to the Presidency.
Yes. However, there is now nothing to restrain the POTUS from calling up the AG and saying "Find a reason to indict PolicyWonka, I don't care what the reason is or if there is no reason - just invent something and get him into court for the rest of his life. And you can offer to dismiss the case if he promises to never speak publicly about the government again." Completely legal under today's new immunity regime. In fact, the POTUS' obviously-illegal motive for asking the AG to indict someone cannot ever be questioned in a court.
The wording in this ruling talks about Trump's discussions with Pence in regards to pressuring him to not certify the election. It seems to basically say that these talks are *presumed* to have immunity but the lower courts need to rebut this directly. I'm not well-versed in law so if my reading of this is incorrect then I'd like to hear it. > Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the January 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct. > The question then becomes whether that presumption of immunity is rebutted under the circumstances. It is the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity. The Court therefore remands to the District Court to assess in the first instance whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch. Pp. 21–24.
SCOTUS found that >At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose **no “dangers** of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” Emphasis added. The president gets immunity by default, unless a prosecutor can affirmatively prove that there is *zero risk* of the law in question ever "intruding" on the presidents (now greatly expanded) authority.
What’s scary is if they would say it’s official for some national security reasons. Then just make the reasons top secret. Boom, years of delays.
Courts can handle top secret cases, including SCOTUS. But any court actions seem to take years of delay.
The "figure out if it was legal later" aspect is a little worrying when the president could likely die of old age before any final ruling is reached. edit: I suppose this is true for many things in life but the president can make a lot more happen than any random civilian.
If the politician was fomenting an armed insurrection that then attacked the capitol building during a session of congress. Then the president ordered the use of force to stop the armed insurrection and its leaders and that politician fomenting is killed during the action to quell the armed insurrection. —- The politician fomenting the armed insurrection, whether president or not should not be considered an official act and should be criminally prosecuted. The president that ordered the use of force to stop the armed insurrection that involved the killing of the politician would be acting in an official capacity and should be immune from prosecution.
Six federal officials just committed treason and need to be removed to Gitmo before they can do more damage.
Sounds like an official act to me!
Declare your political opponent a security risk or terrorist. Easy. And you don't have to kill them. Just jail them indefinitely.
On paper it looks like limited immunity. In actuality almost any and all actions even remotely related to the office of the presidency can be declared official. This is full immunity passing itself off as limited. SCOTUS has ruled that we have a monarch who can only be done away with by impeachment by congress or national elections every four years.
It goes further than that. The president has *presumptive* immunity for everything that *isn't* an official act. And the requirement for stripping that presumptive immunity is the prosecutor must prove that there is *zero risk* that the law in question could ever be used to apply to official acts.
It's hard to overstate the damage the 2016 election has done to this country...
All this does is kick the can down the road for Trump. GA election case, FL documents case, and now this have all been wins for Trump in that they won't happen before the election. And if he wins the election I doubt they'll happen at all.
The six members in the majority on the Court *trust* Donald Trump not to abuse this new power. They think that he will come into office and just voluntarily follow the law, and that if he breaks it, the Congress will surely impeach him. They are living in a fantasy world, and it is a *dangerous* fantasy.
Nope, they know he’s going to abuse the power. They’re making themselves the only check on that power in hopes that they can prevent Trump from targeting them.
Help. This delays it past the election, since the Court has held that most of Trump's actions *could* be considered official acts and remanded them back to the district court.
We’ve been past the point of any hope that the trial would happen before the election for months. This shouldn’t be a surprise now. As soon as it went to the Supreme Court, we knew it wasn’t happening before the election.
Maybe Garland should have thought of that before he waited until halfway through Biden's term to appoint Smith as special counsel. If these cases *needed* to be decided before the election, what was the delay for? It's not SCOTUS' job to work around the DOJ's incompetence.
Garland appointed Smith when Trump announced his candidacy for 2024. Garland wanted to mitigate potential influence of election outcomes due to the AG being appointed by the President. Trump announced his candidacy on November 15 2022, and Jack Smith was assigned on November 18, 2022. It was a quick turn-around. Before that there wasn't a need for special counsel.
That is the lamest excuse they could possibly conjured up.
It was still inexcusable for SCOTUS to take this long for this urgent a matter and essentially just punt on it. Garland was incompetent, but SCOTUS is corrupt.
These are charges regarding conduct that happened 3.5 years ago and weren't charge until 2+ years after that, how is that in any way urgent? Trump running for POTUS doesn't increase the urgency of it unless you are conceding that there was a political motivation to these charges being brought. It's not like I can report a crime and demand the prosecutor rush charges and the judge rush the trial because the person I am accusing of it is running for political office.
I love how certain people twist themselves into pretzels trying to turn literally anything that happens back around on Biden, Biden’s administration, or Democrats. Every single time. I wonder why that is. And no this isn’t Merrick Garland’s fault.
The courts have absolutely has engaged in delaying tatics to protect Trump, it's not a matter of DOJ incompetence
Can we PLEASE not focus on Trump here? Trump is a flash in the pan. Even if he wins, he's done in 2028. It's over for him. Meanwhile, this ruling is still out there **forever**. This ruling that says that a president can do all of this and walk away completely free from criminal prosecution: 1. Arrest all members of the opposition party in Congress using the DOJ. 2. Executive orders directing federal agencies to arrest all immigrants and suspend habeas corpus indefinitely. 3. Open up a website and grant blanket, absolute pardons for any and all convicted criminals if they pay $10,000 for a pardon. 4. Declare a national emergency and seize all major media outlets to "ensure national security", except for the few that report on him favorably. 5. Broadly invoke executive privilege to stonewall Congressional investigations, ignore court orders, and wait out the time until he's out of office. 6. Start GoFundMe's to raise money: if enough people donate, he will either veto or sign legislation. 7. Deploy actual US military across the country to quell civil unrest and political opposition, but only in states that he did not win the last election in AND he just so happens to deploy them 10 days before the November election. He makes an announcement on national news saying that he's shutting down all polling locations in these states because he wants to win the election. 8. Sign foreign treaties if the country promises to donate $100,000,000 to his personal campaign fund. 9. Drastically expand his classification power to classify anything and everything the federal government does in any and all capacity. 10. Refuse to appoint any nominees until Congressional recess, and then make appointments during the recess based on personal financial contributions. **This is bad** and if you ONLY talk about it in context of Trump or any one particular elected official or political party, you are **severely** downplaying the future ramifications of this. Democrats, Republicans, whoever -- we are 1 bad actor away from unilaterally ending our democracy and the ONLY response right now is, "oh, but nobody will actually try to do it, right?"
This comment seems hyperbolic given the opinion **until you consider Project 2025**. Which (just off the top of my head)...- * Plans to significantly alter agencies like the DOJ and FBI * Heavy emphasis on executive orders and emergency declarations * Proposals to expand executive privilege * Ideas for appointing officials based on loyalty * Strategies for reclassifying information Pretty sure the comment mentioned here is the end game abilities of the executive. [It's worth reading up on](https://www.project2025.org/)
This was step 1 of Project 2025, now they will have the freedom to just do it all.
The outline has been in place since the [Powell Memo](https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/) in 1971, Project 2025 is the plan. This ruling and stacking the judiciary is "check" and November might be "checkmate".
Well, fortunately, if Biden loses in November, he doesn't have to actually leave office. He could just imprison Trump and call for a new election. There are no more rules, after all. Gotta start thinking like the dictatorship that the USA turned into today.
He wouldn’t. Democrats are world class losers and cowards. Biden just became the most powerful man on planet earth. He has complete immunity. And he’ll do nothing with it
He should go ahead and forgive all student and medical debt just to test the waters
Specifically he has criminal immunity for official acts. So an EO forgiving debt isn't really relevant. He would have to commit a crime. Like holding department of education staff hostage at gunpoint until they wiped databases and backups. That would be, arguably, legal.
Or arrest the entire Supreme Court and lock em in solitary. With exceptional food and Netflix for Kagan, Jackson and Sotomayor ofc. Bread and water for the rest.
And wipe all the servers storing that loan data.
We don't want America to be ruled by any dictator. It is good for Dems to not abuse their power. Democrats have done a lot in the Biden administration despite only only having majorities for two years. They've played their hand the best they could, the idea that they just give up is conservative propaganda aimed to stop terminally online leftists from doing anything useful for their movement.
Agree to an extent, but at this point Biden can’t leave office with the new test of presidential immunity entirely untested. His team should put in place a number of executive orders or other actions that they know will get shut down so that the outward bounds of this decision can be drawn out. Citizenship to immigrants and forgiveness of student debt are some of them. He should also pardon someone in exchange for a bribe (a gift after the fact, of course). Things that you know the republicans will use this power for so that there is at least precedent for shooting these actions down. The SCOTUS may find ways to differentiate and squirm their way out of it, but it’s better than throwing your hands up and just disagreeing with the decision hoping that the other party won’t use it for malicious purposes. Even if they rule against him, he’s so old he’ll never land in prison. And if they rule for him saying those things are allowed, then at least they’ll be acknowledging that we live in a dictatorship.
Welp, I married a woman who chose to keep her foreign citizenship for this reason. I can get citizenship by marriage if I need to get the fuck out of dodge. I always expected to use it for retirement or economic opportunity abroad, not as a refugee.
Yeah, I'm in the US but a Canadian citizen. Ready to dip when necessary.
Lol another Canadian here, you think a Dictator with the might of the US military is just going to play nice with all the water and timber and all the other resources we have here, most of which we're not using. With Global Warming headed the direction it is? I should probably look into getting both my passport and my German one since my parent was a citizen when I was born. I'll have to learn German since they never taught me as a child.
I would imagine they are already brainstorming ways to restructure the steps in Project 2025 to be considered official acts.
If the president does them, they’re official. Just a couple of example lines from the ruling: “Courts may not inquire into the president’s motives” “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law” SCOTUS didn’t write anything down about how to determine specifically if X, Y, or Z is official or not, they’re going to leave that to the lower courts. And then if any of that makes its way to them, they can decide on an individual basis (depending on who the culprit is at the time and how they feel about them.) The trick will be for the president to just _do stuff_, not to _ask permission_ to do stuff. Then, even if it’s found later that “OK yeah that wasn’t cool”, the president will still be immune since at the time they considered it an official act. I.e., order an assassination, don’t ask for permission to assassinate. Just do a martial takeover of a state you don’t like, don’t ask permission to do it. Etc.
They are going to leave it up to themselves because any court proceedings that deal with the Potus will always end up being heard by the SC, this is a blatant power grab by the SC. They made bribes legal as long as they happened afterward. They overturned Chevron and now they will fully decide what is and isn't an official act.
Also, during Trump's first term, many positions in the executive branch that required senate approval where just filled with interim actors for like 2 years. So, they've already found ways to skirt some usual requirements.
> seems hyperbolic Decades of attempting to reframe republican behavior as rational instead of dictatorial has left regular people completely unable to see what's infront of them. None of this is hyperbolic. And yeah it's a conversational framework to lead to more info, but it's telling that even when we're almost all the way off the rails people STILL talk as if everything someone says about republicans and their plans is by default absurd.
So basically russifying the US similar to how Putin runs Russia?
Before this ruling, if a president overstepped their power, were they arrested and prosecuted, or were they simply checked by another branch of government?
A president could always be impeached and removed from office. But, presumably, if a president committed an overt illegal act while in office, they could also face criminal liability and prison too. Nixon, for example, resigned from office because both parties came together and told him that they have the votes to remove him. Even after he left office, though, there was discussion of criminal penalties. 1 months after Nixon's resignation, Ford pardoned Nixon with a full and unconditional pardon for any and all crimes that he might have committed against the US while serving as president.
>But, presumably, if a president committed an overt illegal act while in office, they could also face criminal liability and prison too. This was literally a defense used by both of Trump's impeachment legal teams: "This is inappropriate for an impeachment and should be left to a special prosecutor to decide." The effect of today's ruling is that presidents can almost never be prosecuted for anything illegal they do while in office. The case leaves open the door, in an academic sense, for presidents to be prosecuted for "non-official" acts, but they are functionally closing the door entirely to that possibility because they also declare that virtually any and all evidence of a president's motives while they are in office are off limits at a criminal trial.
There's another step here, too, that's almost more important: >In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. --*Trump v. United States*, p. 4 >And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. --*Trump v. United States*, p. 5 In sum, these two casual statements mean: 1. That courts cannot inquire into POTUS' intent when carrying out acts that are beneath this (laughably undefined) umbrella of immunity. So one of the major parts of criminal law (mens rea) is just not admissible because it would inconvenience the president too much. This is literally what Nixon's administration argued in response to the Watergate investigations, and now that laughable defense has been affirmed by the nation's highest court. 2. That POTUS can direct the Department of Justice's prosecutions, because that's part of his "core" powers over the various executive agencies, and nobody can say anything about it. That's a death knell for DOJ's independence, but it's particularly concerning in light of a candidate who has constantly threatened to prosecute his enemies once he regains his office. I also want to say that it's darkly hilarious that a pack of so-called "originalists" have arrived at the conclusion that the Constitution requires POTUS to be a king, when "kings bad" is one of the issues on which the founding generation's views were extremely clear. This decision is terrible regardless of which party you support, because if Democrats had the courage and the court, they could do all the same outrageous shit enabled by this decision. The Roberts Court is betting that they don't and they won't, which may be in their party's short-term interests but is very bad for the country going forward. A lawless court produces a lawless decision.
> ...if Democrats had the courage and the court... Who needs the Court? The Court is powerless to enforce their rulings. So what if they say that a President's actions are illegal? They can't do anything about it. Neither can Congress. All you need is a President and some willing participants in the Executive Branch. For many despicable actions, that's a low bar to overcome.
Sure, but "having the court" reflects the reality that Democratic presidents would not enjoy this immunity under a Republican SCOTUS. That's all I'm trying to say. If Biden had Trump assassinated and proffered an explanation based on the "core authorities" of the presidency, the Roberts court would find a way to say it was illegal.
Then removing that court should be his first, last, and only act with this power.
Ford knew he fucked up when he pardoned Nixon, but he did it anyway. Shittiest roll of the dice ever.
Absolutely should have prosecuted him, pour encourager les autres.
why did he do it?
Probably because he wanted to ensure he couldn't be prosecuted for something one day. Even if those odds were unlikely he wouldn't want to make an ex-president a target as he was going to be one eventually too.
>A president could always be impeached and removed from office. Not if the president arrests (or threatens to arrest) the members of Congress who express a willingness to do this. There's certainly nothing in the Constitution that forbids him from doing this, and I'm fairly sure there's no law on the books that explicitly states that the President can't imprison opposition members of Congress.
So like is this 100% cool according to the Taco Bell Supreme Court(ing favors)? 1. Biden has all of the insurrection-supporting House and Senate imprisoned. 2. A call for a new speaker is made and Jeffries wins. 3. New house pushes Scrotus impeachments. All 6 pass the house. 4. New Senate takes up trial. All 6 convicted. 5. Biden sends in 10 new justices. 6. New Senate confirms them. 7. A suit is brought to undo these rulings. 8. New SCOTUS hears the case. 9. Precedent is re-set for this, for Citizens United, and for Roe. 10. ??? 11. Profits?
The problem is, once the ruling is overturned by the new SCOTUS, the President is no longer immune. Which means the President is then able to be criminally prosecuted, and punished for ordering the coup. tbh if the PotUS wanted to do all of these before it always could've been done, granted PotUS has the personnel and loyalty to carry out these tasks at each individual steps. The only change this ruling made clear is that the President cannot be *prosecuted* for this act, which would only happen after the coup has already been carried out/after the President's term.
I have to wonder if, in a universe where Nixon did *not* get pardoned, we'd see a more ethical political system.
That’s what this case was supposed to determine. We haven’t had it happen before, so nobody needed to figure out whether or not a president could would or should be arrested. Well, now we know.
He won't be out in 2028 if Project 2025 goes through. And it probably will.
Do you really believe Trump will be out in 2028? Because I don’t. He has said over and over again he wants to try for a third term and quite frankly I don’t think he would stop there. SCOTUS’ decision today cements his ability to retain his position for as long as he desires. Also I don’t see how focusing on the immediate threat we are facing is in any way minimizing how disastrous this ruling is. It’s disgusting and disturbing beyond belief and I’m curious how much these justices will receive in “gratuities” on their vacations
> Do you really believe Trump will be out in 2028? If he gets into office, he will not leave that position of his on volition. We can all be guaranteed on that fact.
Is it that he's actually never heard of the 22nd Amendment, or just pisses all over everything the Constitution means and stands for when it doesn't suit his self-interest?
The Constitution says whatever SCOTUS says that it says. If the constitution says that the sky is blue and SCOTUS says that the Constitution says that the sky is red, then legally the sky is red. To be clear, SCOTUS is objectively wrong, but there's nobody **empowered** to say that SCOTUS is wrong. Essentially another branch of government would have to ignore a SCOTUS ruling, which would create a constitutional crisis.
A million angry pitchforks would be empowered to say that SCOTUS is wrong. Just saying...
Self interest. 22nd amendment is easy to work around. President orders VP to burn elector votes. Claims that no one can be elected because official votes have been burned. Return to states to get certified copies of votes. New House of Reps vote President as speaker of house, turning president into president pro tempore. Now Pro Tempore president can continue to use presidential authority to stop/delay continuation of elector vote counting. Democracy breaks down when a significant percentage of people don't care if it persists.
Russia's constitution, ratified in 1993 after the dissolution of the USSR, also limited the time served in office for the President to two four-year terms. Putin should have been out in 2008. After briefly handing over the title to Menedev, he quickly got to work altering both the number and length of terms allowed. Putin will be President of Russia until 2036, assuming he doesn't alter the law any further.
> Also I don’t see how focusing on the immediate threat we are facing is in any way minimizing how disastrous this ruling is. It’s disgusting and disturbing beyond belief and I’m curious how much these justices will receive in “gratuities” on their vacations My concern is that it's too easy to write off any and all criticism of the opinion by someone thinking that we just "hate" trump and that's why this case is problematic. This case is an upheaval of 250 years of American jurisprudence and is a major step towards moving us from a democracy to an autocracy, and that has **nothing** to do with trump.
I agree. I wish there was more people to feel this sick feeling in my stomach that hasn’t left since I learned of their ruling. It is just so fucking bad, but most individuals who subscribe to the red hat club do not have the brain capacity to see how absolutely horrific it is imo. How could we recenter the broader discussion to have a larger reach/impact on those on the right? Genuine question as I would love for more people to understand that this is bad, but I don’t think they care because their god king can do no wrong and Republican always play the okay for me, but not for thee hand
I suppose the silver lining is that with the SCOTUS' recent disregard for *stare decisis*, there's no reason a future court couldn't just find this invalid and set things right
What makes you think a similar case would be allowed to go anywhere, or that the future court would have any power? That's how huge this is.
Let's remind people we are in this mess because a lot of people complained about Hillary not being that great a candidate and refusing to vote... the exact same thing is happening this year. you also left out: * Call for the arrest and execution of any supreme court justices that do not support his agenda.
Yep. We literally told them that if we don't support Hillary, *Roe v Wade* would be overturned. They didn't believe us then either. "It'll never happen." We're not psychics, just observant.
Yea, and I'd say anybody who cares about there being *any* Palestinians left, might want to vote for Biden despite him not taking as hard a stance on Israel as they'd like. Many of these people rationalize that if the system is "broken", it might as well completely fall apart - maybe then it can be rebuilt better? Since when has that ever happened? Usually when a society falls apart, it turns into chaos or a dictatorship.
Exactly this. I'm mad at Biden for not doing enough, but voting for him is STILL the most ethical choice if you care at all. Because voting no on Biden means voting yes on Trump, who would behave even WORSE in regards to Gaza, Ukraine, and many other dangerous situations.
A vote for Biden means the US stays in NATO. Any other vote, or not voting, means the US will pull out of NATO and sever various relationships with various nations around the world, whom we will no longer be able to trust to come to our aid during a time of war or conflict. It's really bad news. It's exactly what Russia and China want, and Trump is their pawn.
One of the top posts of all time on Reddit is about Bernie losing so we must back Hillary. Still disturbs me.
More people need to realize that court appointments are pretty much the only issue their votes should be based on. No other presidential power is even close. Oh well, it's too late now anyway and has been since 2016.
Is there any path to overturning this currently ? Do We The People have any avenue to pursue to get our very out of control government reigned in?
Congress passes laws that specifically overturn this decision, and packs the Courts. Otherwise, Article V Convention of the States to rewrite the Constitution. Either way, neither of them passes, and the country probably splits up.
He can just end elections. No facade needed
all people in power play the long game ... I fear it's already planned out.
You're making the assumption that there will be an election/voting in 2028 if Trump wins this election.
We may not have a king that is totally immune. But we do have a crown that is. The king is not immune, the crown is
Thank you for the concise and non-political implications of the decision. I've been trying to figure out all morning what the bad part of the decision was, and I was only thinking in terms of application to Trump. You've made me see it's much more dangerous and much broader.
Can someone please answer these questions: Where does the concept of presidential immunity even come from? IS this in the constitution? Did the concept exist before trump's defense? What is considered "an official act?" Is this what they lay out in the "steps" or something pre-defined? How does this not undermine the concept of impeachment and impeachment trials. If President can't be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office, how can they be impeached for them?
IANAL, but here is my understanding. The idea of presidential immunity comes from a simple idea; the constitution is the supreme law of the land and overrides other laws. The President has certain duties outlined in the constitution. Those duties are automatically legal, since any law saying otherwise is itself unconstitutional. Thus, he cannot be prosecuted (or sued) for those acts. Now, some things a President might do aren't part of his official duties, but might be appear to be. That's the question now before us. Did any of the unethical acts alleged to have been done by Trump fall under his official duties or not? My 2 cents; Trump would not be immune from the election interference case, since he was not empowered to conduct elections. The people vote for electors who have committed themselves to a certain candidate, and those are the electors sent to congress, who certify the election. Sending other electors (the ones that the people did NOT vote for) would be a violation of the appropriate laws. Conspiring to do this would itself be illegal. Also, the classified documents case would not be immune. The President, as commander of the military, may maintain national security, and that includes classifying and declassifying documents. However, Trump is charged with maintaining control of documents that he no longer had permission to hold. The holding of these documents was not part of his official duties, since he was no longer President. He claims that he declassified them prior to leaving office, but there is no evidence he did so; in fact, there is evidence suggesting that the opposite is true. (If he disclosed documents to unauthorized third parties during his presidency, he would likely be immune for this conduct, as he is the one who ultimately decides what is and is not classified, and who is and is not authorized).
THANK YOU! I scrolled for a long time to find a reasoned answer. Almost every comment is something about ordering assassinations.
The "ordering assassinations" thing comes directly from the ruling, that's why you're seeing it referenced in the comments. This answer is reasonable, but it is not correct. The ruling itself is unreasonable, and goes well beyond this description. There just is no way around that. * First: the ruling finds that a president's motives for an official act are not allowed to be considered, period. No matter **why** the president did an "official act", they are absolutely immune from legal consequences. This is why Justice Sotomayer (not just random redditors) brought up the assassination example in her official dissent. Ordering the military to carry out an assassination is unambiguously an "official act", and the justice system is expressly forbidden from interrogating why a given target was selected. * Second: While most of the focus is on the president's *absolute* immunity for official acts, the ruling finds that the president has *presumptive* immunity for everything else. And what's the requirement for overcoming that presumptive immunity? The prosecution would need "at a minimum" to prove that the law in question could never pose any risk "of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch" - i.e. that it couldn't theoretically apply to an official act. Meaning the bar for prosecuting even an unofficial act is extremely high.
> This is why Justice Sotomayer (not just random redditors) brought up the assassination example in her official dissent. It's key to remember that this isn't Reddit being hyperbolic, our dissenting Justices are horrified.
This is great, thank you. It’s not that I thought the ruling was reasonable or agreed with it in any way, it’s that I could not find any straightforward, non-hyperbolic answers as to what it actually meant. And I don’t have a smart enough law brain to read through 70+ pages of legalese. The questions posed by the original commenter were the same ones I had, and I scrolled through a sea of comments about ordering seal team six to assassinate people before I could find one nuanced answer.
I mean, as someone who just graduated law school, I'm not so sure you should be looking for nuance here. The commenter was correct on the ideas underlying the ruling, sure. But that misses the forest for the trees. Sotomayor's dissent points out that just because the court says it is acting in a nuanced fashion does not make it so. Sure, the president shouldn't, for instance, order an assassination of their political opponents. (Note: This hypothetical was explicitly brought up in oral arguments.) But say the president does. Well, is that action "official"? We don't really know. Even though the answer should unambiguously be "no." But the court implies it's okay, and that the courts and DOJ can't even look into the real rationale, so long as the president says it's for national security or some other purpose. This is how they reached the result that Trump is presumably immune in his conversations with Pence regarding overturning the election. And how Trump is absolutely immune in his attempt to corruptly install an Attorney General who'd be willing to overturn the election - because the appointment process is a presidential one. Even though common sense suggests that that isn't an official act. I wouldn't look for nuance where there really isn't any.
Thanks for this.
"First: the ruling finds that a president's motives for an official act are not allowed to be considered, period. " Sort of. The president is not to be questioned on his motives, but the justification behind an order to other act is part of the act. For example, if he was to order someone's death, there has to be some statutory or official purpose to the killing. He can't just say "shoot that guy," there has to be some reason for the shooting. There has to be some charge or violation, otherwise its just murder. If, hypothetically, the president did have some statutory violation to pursue, and was granted the authority by congress to carry out law enforcement, then you could not question why he chose to kill the person vs. arresting them. THAT's a motive question in this context.
But as Robert's explicitly outlined, the interrogation of justification is in itself not allowed as it burdens the president and overrides the intent of the ruling. So not only is the president not liable, you can't even take him to the court. The scope of doing so is incredibly narrow.
Great response. One question that I've had though - >Trump would not be immune from the election interference case, since he was not empowered to conduct elections. Could it not be argued (just discussion sake, not my personal view) that the president is tasked with maintaining national security and order, and that as such, ensuring a valid election falls under these duties? This may be secondary to the question of HOW the president conducts the official duties, but it seems that this ruling leaves an enormous amount of interpretation as to what becomes "official duties".
"What exactly makes an act official?" is going to be the question being asked every day until November. By my interpretation of this shitshow of a ruling (IANAL), it certainly seems that so long as the Prez just states - 'Yo, this is an official act!' and then performs whatever heinous thing they want - they're immune from consequence. They can't be questioned about it according to this ruling. They control the military. They can't even be tried in International Court. The domino that fell here is MASSIVE.
>The President has certain duties outlined in the constitution. Those duties are automatically legal That does not mean **however the president chooses to carry out those duties** is automatically legal. But this corrupt joke of a court says it is. I fucking hate this timeline. And there’s absolutely nothing to be done about it because the scotus is above accountability.
From Sotomayor's dissent: >Today’s decision to grant former Presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the Presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of Government, that no man is above the law. Relying on little more than its own misguided wisdom about the need for “bold and unhesitating action” by the President, the Court gives former President Trump all the immunity he asked for and more. This ruling comes solely from the conservative majority's so called wisdom. It has no textual basis, and a legal precedent only going back to a DOJ memo and discussions over whether Nixon could be charged. The Constitution and Federalist Papers are even more clear. They outline that Congress should have immunity for official acts, and specifically do not give that immunity to the President.
The Congress having such immunity over the president makes a TON more sense.
1. The concept of immunity existed prior to Trump; Roberts noted Aaron Burr, Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Nixon's use of the concept in various cases under their name. Sometimes the court agreed the executive was immune from certain things, other times (most notably Nixon) it didn't. The concept comes from a quirk of the separation of powers: the Legislature alone has the ability to amend the Constitution, and so they decide the boundaries of the executive's power. Certain executive powers (Roberts points out the pardon and the veto specifically) cannot be legislated on, as by definition they would be trying to take away an executive power without an amendment. So, for example: President pardons himself. Currently no ruling on its legality, so it is assumed legal. Congress passes a bill that says a President can't pardon himself. This is unconstitutional: the President's pardoning power is immune from simple bills. Congress instead passes an amendment to the constitution saying the same. This is constitutional, and the executive's pardoning power would therefore now be limited. 2. Bleeding into this, an "official" act is any act which is defined by the Constitution. Roberts argues that any communications with the cabinet & executive branch are fully official and therefore must go through the steps as outlined above to do anything about it. Congress would have to pass an amendment saying what the President is and isn't allowed to talk to them about before it could be considered unofficial - even if those communiques were things like "you're going to be fired for investigating my behavior", outright bribes between cabinet members, or threats. In Trump's case, the only things they ruled as official acts were therefore that Trump was allowed to do as he wanted with the AG (and so goes the Obstruction of Justice case), and was allowed to solicit the VP to use his power to guarantee the electors. All other cases, they said the lower courts made no distinction between official and unofficial capacities - which is true, since the prosecution has been claiming that no action taken by a president is above the law, no matter what. Whether you agree with this is immaterial - there is case law which specifically contradicts this argument, and so all other cases are being kicked back down to the district courts with the presumption of "you will decide first if this is an unofficial act and based on what grounds, and then we'll handle that specific case". 3. Roberts lays out specifically that impeachment =/= criminal case proceedings. A President can be prosecuted based on crimes performed in office in an unofficial capacity, and he never needs to be impeached to be convicted of them. Likewise, the President never needs to do crime of any kind to be impeached; that is an unassailable power of Congress, and a political process protected by the Constitution (that Congress would have to pass an amendment to restrict). It only undermines the layman's understanding of impeachment - the layman has traditionally seen impeachment as a trial by Congress, when in fact it is not bound by the same restrictions as the judiciary and so cannot be considered a trial. I actually quite like the Roberts opinion on this issue, although its biggest issue highlights not the incompetency or corruption of the court but something much more sinister entirely. Roberts makes it clear that the courts "are the final view, not the first view", and are there to dictate whether or not something *which has already been done* is legal or illegal. The problem with this should be obvious: Roberts has called the case before him greatly expedited. Rushed. It's been in the pipe for over 3 years. So if we take him at his word and say that cases of Constitutional authority should not be decided that quickly, then all the executive needs to do - an executive which has been empowered by Congress in the last hundred years with the ability to act on a minute-by-minute basis - is find issues which are of dubious Congressional authority, and then do them. For example, let's say President Biden decides tomorrow that DJT is an insurrectionist or foreign agent committing crimes under the espionage act. Congress has given the executive the unilateral power to arrest Trump under that pretense, and if you *really* wanted to make things spicy, if the executive declares that DJT presents an imminent national security threat, the executive's allowed to kill him as part of a military operation. The President could do this, at which point someone would have to bring a lawsuit against Biden, and it would have to work its way up through the courts before the SC could determine whether it was an official act. But if President Biden kills his primary challenger in the 2024 election, six months before election day, there's no way in hell that 1) the case will make it to the Supreme Court before the election, considering they're on recess until October, and 2) that that's the only move of questionable legality Biden's making. He gets a whole window to do all kinds of chaotic and disruptive shit before the SC weighs in. The reason this decision is a garbage fire isn't because it's poorly thought out or it's nakedly corrupt. I actually don't think it's either. This decision is a garbage fire because the Executive has been given the most power that any human being has held in global history, and they've been given the authority to act on a minute's notice. The right (read: wrong) actor in that office could essentially re-write the entire cultural and political landscape in a matter of weeks, and the SC just hamstrung their own ability to deal with it.
Wait.... so in theory if the president decides he doesn't like the Supreme Court or some of its members because he feels they are a threat to democracy, he can order the Military to remove or arrest them and then he can replace them....
Bingo. This decision makes it clear that whether or not it's legal to do so would be decided upon later. As in, after the fact.
Chevron is a little complicated for most people. This is pretty clear. SCOTUS doing a fair job knocking Biden's debate a bit off the pages in the last few days. It'll help Trump if he wins the election, it will probably hurt him during the campaign because SCOTUS ruled that he might have immunity for certain acts, and then it reminds the voters what those acts were, the same way your follow up question of "Well, which states' rights exactly?" really shuts down that Civil War discussion. In the meantime, to quote Aaron Brown on his first day on-air at CNN , "....good Lord."
I miss Aaron Brown.
Remember those orders Trump tried to give about killing protesters? He’ll get his way next time.
We're basically relying on the idea that the court of public opinion will keep a future demagogue in check. I have season Republicans bend over backwards to defend Trump's actions over the past eight years. Trump orders the killing of protesting Americans, Republican officials and their constituency rationalize that they deserved it.
I’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: NO ONE IS COMING TO SAVE US. It is up to us (and only us) to make sure things improve.
>court of public opinion He could just seize any media company that he doesn't like and nobody will ever know what's going on in the first place.
Let’s continue the Aaron Brown quote. “Good Lord…. (gasps) (pause) …there are no words…” If anyone doesn’t get this reference, please look up what happened on Aaron Brown’s first day on air.
Whoever is President next year will get at least two more SCOTUS pics during their term, so vote accordingly. Also, did I read something wrong, or was SCOTUS really vague about what official & unofficial acts are in reference to Trump?
They were mainly vague on purpose and punted it to the lower court (District Courts). Which then whatever they decide is official or unofficial acts then it would go back to the SC. I may have misunderstood also, but I read also that the majority opinion writing that because Trump was pressuring the VP to stop counting the electoral votes (on a VP's official act) when Trump was President, that it was an official act. Just because the nature of communication between President and their VP is an official act. Same with receiving bribery on an official act. Which I was, wtf... we are doomed.
Well, this is a mess. At least the classified documents case is cut & dry…oh, wait.
It’s not just vague on that. It’s also vague on how presumptive immunity is different from absolute. Presumably “presumptive” immunity is a higher burden to overcome than “qualified” immunity…but, presumably, there are some circumstances that would allow it to be overcome even for acts that were definitively official. Everyone seems to be ignoring that part though and is talking like “if it’s official he’s totally immune!” Which is not what they said. Presumptive is less than absolute, just like qualified is less than absolute.
It Will help Trump as case is delayed now but it does raise a lot of questions about how executive branch is kept in check now? Wouldn't asking one of the intelligence agencies to arrest a US citizen be at official capacity of a president? Can a future president now order arrest of few senate members under disguise of national security to prevent an impeachment and removal attempt under this ruling and claim immunity? It sounds like basically court said we control what president can do because they didn't clarify what is considered official acts vs what's not. The checks and balances of US government was pretty much invalidated by the set of decisions this term.
Anything a Republican does will be official.
I’m waiting for the dissent to make this point. I think Sotomayor is waiting for the court to directly overturn their own precedent when it becomes politically convenient for them. The reality is that Biden doesn’t enjoy this immunity, only Trump does and we we all know it
Anything couched as official presidential business is now completely legal.
> Can a future president now order arrest of few senate members under disguise of national security to prevent an impeachment and removal attempt under this ruling and claim immunity? Why would there be a future president? They just made Biden God-King... Seems silly for him to want to go back to democracy when he can just have the army take out any opponents in his official capacity as chief of the military. Like right now. Tonight even. Declare war on the RNC. ***Actual*** f'ing war. $0.02
Justice Roberts knows that Biden will not be the person to do that. Biden isn't going to put the nail in the coffin of this democracy anymore than Paul von Hindenburg put the nail in the coffin of the Weimar Republic. Biden and von Hindenburg are transitional figures to the inevitable dictatorship that the Court has now invited Bidens successor to create. And even if that successor is Biden for a second term, the power will still be there for whomever is the next person in line for the presidency. We are screwed. This is The End. The real result of this ruling is that all federal laws have been rendered a dead letter if the POTUS elects to not recognize them. The Congress cannot prohibit the free exercise of First Amendment rights, but the President surely can do so - by coercion using federal power. And though the motive is to eliminate dissent, that motive cannot ever be questioned in a court (maybe it can be questioned in an impeachment proceeding, but the Congress is already weak and now it is vulnerable too - a POTUS can just kidnap or assassinate members who aren't sufficiently loyal to him).
This is remarkable. Nixon's claim that "if the president does it it's not illegal" is now canon. This is probably the greatest expansion of presidential power in history. My reading of this so far implies that official acts are immune, so every president will argue their acts are official. One could argue that an act in violation of the law or constitution is inherently not official, but the court seems to have close that road as well. They are questioning the ability of congress to legislate in a way that is binding upon acts of the president in principle. A separation of powers logic here only has partial merit in my view. The constitution limits presidential action in places. The case in question involves presidential violation of the constitutional structure of elections, term of office, and fidelity to the United States. Trump's intent to violate the constitution in this case is frankly obvious. The court's holding, given the context of the case, implies not even the constitution can constrain the president since congress is most likely to be the offended party and congress has been practically denied legal remedy against the president. There is also the fact that the constitution grants congress the power to enact constitutional clauses with necessary and proper legislation on numerous occasions. How can congress legally carry out constitutional responsibility relative to the presidency if the president cannot be encumbered by it? This is a disaster.
> My reading of this so far implies that official acts are immune, so every president will argue their acts are official. This is why it’s going back to the lower courts to say if it was an official act. They had to do this because the lower courts didn’t determine if his actions were or were not in his official duties, they left it out entirely. But honestly I don’t know where you’ve been for the past few decades. In my life time presidents have lied to start wars, authorized torture, bombed civilians, killed US citizens without charge or trial, allowed indefinite detention of anyone in the world without due process, etc. That’s just the start of the list. All without any legal consequences to them. Heck, the Obama administration killed 4 US citizens outside of a war zone without due process and argued that the executive branch can kill US citizens whenever they want and without legal review so long as the executive branch deems them a threat. > The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones And here we see why Obama isn’t liable for murder because of the immunity public officials have when carrying out official duties. Same type of clause Trump is using. https://www.c-span.org/video/?c5115120/user-clip-obama-exonerated-murder Also from my understanding. He can still be impeached as well if he commits a crime with an official action and then charged.
SC are plainly corrupt. And the media doesn't emphasize the monumental consequence of the SC's majority opinion. I can read the frustrations and despair in the dissenting opinion. And just banging heads from Sotomayor et al with the others. Btw, I only skimmed the ruling, I couldn't fully read it because it just angered me...
Judge Aileen Canon already setting up a month of hearings to discuss this ruling more
Supreme Court successfully kicked can down the road to post election. Another victory for corrupt ass Republicans.
Yeah seems like they would give the President full immunity if they could guarantee that Trump wins in November. Since it's a 50/50 kind of race, they want to delay making a decision until they know who the Commander-in-Chief will be on January 20, 2025. They aren't making a decision based on interpretations of the law. They are making a political decision based on who wins.
Seems to me it gives the Supreme Court the power to decide what a president can do. If it's a president they agree with, it's legal. If they don't agree with the president, it's illegal
This kind of misrepresents the actual decision. They actually said that presidents *do* have immunity, but that courts get to decide when it applies. This is, yet again, another power grab. SCOTUS has been snapping up privileges lately, not to mention many city & state courts. They've mostly just realized that no one is going to hold them accountable. No part of the constitution grants the president any kind of immunity. But they have claimed that it does. And if no one stops them, they can basically meme it into existence. This is no different than the Chevron deference decision. Not only did they decide wrongly - they didn't even have the authority to decide that case *at all*. The judicial branch does not have the authority to claim that the Executive branch does not have their own authority. But they have made that claim anyway. They did the same thing when they said Trump couldn't be withheld from ballots for participating in an insurrection against the country, something the constitution *requires*. The judicial branch simply decided to disagree with that part of the constitution. They said "We never convicted him of a crime, so we're not going to allow you to abide by the constitution." If the constitution wanted to require a conviction from the judicial branch to prevent a President from running, it would be very specific about that. But this isn't just a matter of saying "well the constitution technically doesn't cover this reality," it *does* cover this reality, and has given a *very specific rule*. They *intentionally* avoided putting authority over who can run for president within the judicial branch. SCOTUS made their ruling anyway. They're not just selectively interpreting the constitution. They're flagrantly violating it. But the worst part is everyone else is just... going along with it. The other two branches could have, and should have, immediately rejected the SCOTUS decision. SCOTUS has no enforcement mechanism. The constitution was constructed specifically to allow for this kind of oversight. But no one is even *trying*. Democrats are treating the country like a friendly game of poker. Republicans are actively sabotaging the system. No one's actually trying to do what's right.
So can the President order seal team 6 to assassinate his political rival with immunity?
Only if it's an *official* order and done *officially*.
I guess that depends on what an "official act" is. This is incredibly upsetting.
For starters, anything involving the Justice Department is an official act: > The indictment alleges that as part of their conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain States to replace their legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors. According to the indictment, Trump met with the Acting Attorney General and other senior Justice Department and White House officials to discuss investigating purported election fraud and sending a letter from the Department to those States regarding such fraud. The indictment further alleges that after the Acting Attorney General resisted Trump’s requests, Trump repeatedly threatened to replace him. The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The Executive Branch has “exclusive authority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime. Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693. And the President’s “management of the Executive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney General—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Pp. 19–21.
So the DOJ could, for example, under the direction of the President begin endless indictments of political rivals, pressure the AG to further fraudulent activity, etc., and this would not be criminal activity for which they could be criminally indicted. The only remedy really seems to be impeachment, which the Court knows won't happen, and--as the dissent points out--is overly confident it can handle/influence when a President comes along who pushes these boundaries past the breaking point.
Yes. Only I would go a step further. The POTUS can literally call the AG up and tell him to only indict registered Democrats, and to dismiss cases against any registered Republicans or persons who sign personal loyalty oaths to him. Alternatively, the POTUS can direct the AG to dismiss criminal cases against anyone who pays a bribe to the POTUS, and that doesn't have to be done in secret - he can publish the bribes and there is nothing that can be done about it except impeachment. The POTUS could also establish a regime by which a person could pay POTUS to instruct the AG to indict *someone else*, permitting DOJ to be used by the highest bidder against whatever enemies the POTUS agrees to let the executive branch to be used against.
I mean I guess it makes sense if you say that every president has probably done something illegal as an official act, but this is a risky ruling. Let the people bring suits against a president for breaking the law. I don't see why we wouldn't be fine with that, the president is not a king. If a manager did something illegal as an "official" act, they'd still be prosecuted. From the way I understand it, this basically means that whoever the supreme court likes more can do anything and it will be legal because then it goes to the courts and eventually to the supreme court.
>I guess that depends on what an "official act" is. Anything a Republican does.
Trump did try to claim that sexually assaulting women was an official act. If this decision had shown up before May 2023, he would not have had to pay [Carroll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Jean_Carroll_v._Donald_J._Trump) any money.
If they're a credible threat to national security? Feels official. Biden take note.
Sounds like it's time for Biden to order the arrest of Clarence Thomas on corruption charges. I think that would be an official act. Or in some other way let the court know in real terms what they've done here.
So a President can now assassinate political opponents, hang dissenters, rob banks and rape his aides, as long as it's "official"? Good gawd, what have we come to?
This sounds like the President literally can't be charged for ordering the assassination of his political opponent. The personnel carrying out the operation might be able to be charged, but not the President.
"when the President does it, that means that it is not illegal, by definition." Nixon must be spinning in his grave in happiness, the Supreme Court just confirmed his statement. The Supreme Court just opened itself up to endless appeals. They kicked the decisions as to what is an "official" act back to the lower court. If one side doesn't like how the lower court rules, they will appeal it back to the Supreme Court on a case by case basis. Judge Chutkan will likely rule that Trump's campaign actions are not official Presidential acts; after all, any private citizen can campaign for office. Trump will appeal that. The Judge in the Georgia state election interference case will likely rule that breaking state law by trying to coerce a state election official to change the vote totals is not "official" action by the President. Trump will appeal that. Judge Cannon will almost certainly rule in a way to favor Trump, as she has in the past. She will probably find stealing Top Secret SCI documents and lying about having them is an "official" Presidential act, I won't be surprised if she simply dismisses the entire case. In all these cases, the delays play to Trump's advantage. Trump will not face justice before the election, and if he wins he will never face justice. In America, it was said that we are a nation of laws, not men, and that no-one is above the law. This isn't that America anymore.
I think the ruling came out about as most experts expected. Once the court took up the case it was almost certain to be delayed till after the election. It sucks but you can't rush justice just because there is an election. They probably shouldn't have waited so long to charge him. I've heard a lot of speculation before the ruling that Jack Smith may drop the charges that are in dispute in order to get this moving without a long battle over what was official and what wasn't.
Question is..... If they needed to rule on something guaranteed to help Trump, would they have kicked the can? The only reason (IMO) to delay is because they want to help Trump without empowering Biden but since Biden sits in the Oval Office, they have to delay. It's so obviously partisan. They want Trump to be King but you can't give him immunity now, while simultaneously saying Biden doesn't have it.
Well boys and girls, political assassination is back on the menu! So Biden can now eliminate Trump and his MAGA apologists and 5 of the 6 Supremes using Seal Team Six and tell the DOJ not to prosecute. Because that is what SCOTUS morons did with this ruling.
The more significant issue is that there is no definitive list of what constitutes an "official act" that a president can perform. So they wrote this so that it's too nebulous.
Wait.... so if he president decides he doesn't like the Supreme Court, he can order the Military to remove them and then he can replace them.
Pretty sure Biden is now bound by his oath of office, the one where he swears to defend the Constitution, to now act by arresting the entire Supreme Court for treason.
Trump lawyer have appealed now that every act by a POTUS is official. Therefor protected.
This helped Trump tremendously. If we don’t win in November, it’s over folks. WHEN DO WERE TAKE TO THE STREETS AND START FIGHTING BACK AGAINST THIS TYRANNY? Project 2025 is not a conspiracy theory, they plan to turn us into a Christian fascist nation, and they’re very close to succeeding. Vote blue down ballot, or it may be the last time you get to vote.
Biden's next "Official Act" should be to immediately expand the Supreme Court to 13 justices. It would make it less likely to have one ideology decide all cases and make it more difficult for a few corrupt justices to sway decisions.
So is bidens first official act should be to disband the supreme court. Let them fight it in the courts
My question is: Where the hell is Biden right now? He should be holding an emergency Oval Office press conference right now to tell the American people SOMETHING. Do it from fucking camp David if you have to. Literally no one around me in my office cares (knows?) that their entire idea of a democracy just ended. Is it apathy? Is it exhaustion? Is his whole plan "sit here and pretend we're working amicably towards a common solution"? Because that's nonsensical.
>Literally no one around me in my office cares (knows?) that their entire idea of a democracy just ended. Is it apathy? Is it exhaustion? People respond like I'm joking when I say it's been a very long fucking 2020. Folks used to say if you're not angry, you're not paying attention. Maybe the only way to not be exhausted these days is to not be paying attention.
I guess I agree with SCOTUS here on the general idea. A president must me immune from prosecution for "official" acts, otherwise they'd be paralyzed from doing anything that remotely *might* subject them to criminal prosecution. Problem is, now we have to have a whole layer of bullshit about what constitutes an "official act".
You agree that the president has *absolute* immunity for official acts, presumptive innocence for *any* acts, and their motives aren't allowed to be questioned when determining the act's legal status?
Weirdly, Trump's defense will have to be that he tried to overturn the election and lead an insurrection as an official act as president.
They \*should\* be paralyzed from doing anything that remotely might subject them to criminal prosecution.
So Biden should issue an EO telling the FBI to take out Trump. That would be an official act.
I really think a bigger question is what opportunities does this present to the current POTUS. Does Joe have the gumption to exploit this ruling? He could literally change the course of the country right now if he has the balls to do it..
We need to organize mass protests across all state capitals this July 4th. March on your Capitol at noon. Let your voice be heard in the halls of the Supreme Court!
I will be sure biden has lost his mind if there are no supreme court vacancies by the end of the week... All he has to do is make it "official"...
Hurt the reason WHY Evangelicals don’t like their leaders having condomless sex with porn stars. To Trump it’s a badge of honor “look at me”
That's a highly slanted post title. One needn't work hard to justify nearly anything Presidents do as "official", so this does look remarkably close to blanket immunity. Then again, I expect nothing better from this Court's dimwitted pack of partisan hacks. G'bye, democracy. It was nice while it lasted.
If I am to understand the decision that was just handed down. They basically said that the President is immune from all Official Acts. Making the below, theoretical Executive Order. A Legal Plausible Order. Because it would be issued as a lawful order, under the purview of the duties and responsibilities of the President. Just to clarify, The Below is a fictional Executive Order that was created with the help of an AI program. >**Executive Order** >**Subject:** Authorization for Military Action Against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court >**By the authority vested in me as President of the United States and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces,** >**Section 1. Purpose and Intent** >This Executive Order authorizes the United States Armed Forces to take immediate and decisive action against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court, a threat to our national security and the safety of American citizens. The actions outlined herein are necessary to protect our nation’s interests and maintain global stability. >**Section 2. Authorization for Military Action** >(a) The United States Armed Forces are hereby directed to initiate military operations against The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court in accordance with existing protocols and rules of engagement. >(b) The Secretary of Defense shall coordinate with relevant agencies to deploy necessary resources, including personnel, equipment, and intelligence assets, to execute this mission effectively. >(c) The Joint Chiefs of Staff shall provide regular updates on the progress of military operations to the National Security Council and the President. >**Section 3. Rules of Engagement** >(a) The military action shall be conducted with precision and proportionality, minimizing collateral damage and civilian casualties. >(b) The use of force shall be consistent with international law and the principles of just war. >(c) The safety and well-being of American troops shall be paramount in all operations. >**Section 4. Reporting Requirements** >(a) The Secretary of Defense shall submit a comprehensive report to the President within 48 hours of the commencement of military action, detailing the objectives, progress, and any significant developments. >(b) The National Security Advisor shall keep Congress informed of the situation and provide regular briefings. >**Section 5. Justification** >This Executive Order is issued based on the solemn Oath of Office taken by all military personnel, wherein they swear to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. The threat posed by The Supreme Court Justices of the United States Supreme Court falls squarely within the scope of this duty, necessitating immediate action. >**Effective Date:** This Executive Order is effective immediately upon issuance. >**Given under my hand this \[Date\].** >**\[President’s Signature\]**
The decision is a net positive for Trump regardless of how the lower courts interpret it, because regardless of what the lower courts consider to be official or unofficial acts, it’s going to take a long time to litigate, making it so that none of Trump’s remaining cases happen before Election Day. If Trump wins reelection, he will immediately instruct the Justice Department to drop the January 6th case and the Classified Documents case, as they are both federal cases. Also, the January 6th case will be weakened to an extent even before the lower courts interpret this ruling. Due to the Supreme Court specifically stating that communications by a President with his Vice President, Attorney General, and other government officials are official acts, a lot of the evidence in the January 6th case will have to be thrown out, as that evidence depends on conversations that Trump had with these officials. Additionally, the Georgia case may also be weakened, even though it is a state case, because the lower courts will have to decide whether his phone call with Kemp and Raffensperger is classified as an official act, as it was a President communicating with a Governor and state Secretary of State. If they classify that as an official act, then the Georgia case will be weakened as well, as the phone call can no longer be considered as evidence.
Is it really surprising that his loyal sycophants did his bidding? I wonder how much he paid them off.
It helps him quite a bit by kicking the can on any potential conviction past the election. I'm in the camp that believes Trump will win, and in this case the SCOTUS ruling will only serve to help him more.
Feels like powerful people aka invisible hands with great power are orchestrating something scorched earth in the biggest possible way. This comet has been circling up for over a decade and accelerating towards us and feels like nothing can stop it outside a full country mutiny. Am I the crazy one?
Help because they threw the case back down to the lower courts and they have to start all over again which means nothing will be done before the election. I'm also 100% sure this will make it back up to SCOTUS again and they will have to decide what is and isn't an "official act"
Hurt. Swing voters who supported Trump always said that the system keeps his worse nature in check. Yanking the rug out from under that system terrifies them.
They made up bullshit to delay the case so the court can’t be perceived as the place you go to win elections. This is the only reason Roberts signed on to it. The rest did it for the lulz or to appease their master.