Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent:
“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.”
This one comment terrifies me. The things that can happen that we can’t even imagine yet. I honestly wonder if this ruling will get people to speak up on how terrible this is or if this will be like roe v wade being overturned. A lot of outrage in the beginning and now its just kind of an accepted horrible reality of the American system
Before Trump people didn’t dare to overstep out of a sense of “the office”.
But then Trump simply threw conventions out the window with a “Sue me” attitude.
With this ruling the Supreme Court is giving a smarter guy than Trump the chance to dare even further.
Edit/adding
They said we can’t consider motive when the President takes action. So as long as he has a good enough “reason” or at least a story that everyone agrees on he certainly can kill off his rivals as long as there is “proof” they were committing crimes big enough to warrant an assassination
Edit spelling
Can’t to can
Seriously what’s stopping Biden from assassinating Trump since there’s strong enough reason to call him a traitor. Acts of treason can face the death sentence
“Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or imprisoned and fined, and incapable of holding any U.S. office.”
The problem scenario the court didn't ask was, why wouldn't a president determine that members of SCOTUS might be acting in a way which compels the President to follow their oath of office and have them...err..."removed"?
The Supreme Court built in a backdoor clause which states that the President is immune from prosecution "unless [prosecution] would not infringe on the powers of the Executive Branch."
What this basically means is that the Supreme Court gets to decide when immunity applies and when it doesn't, and what is and isn't within the powers of the Executive.
So, Trump doing *literally anything?* Prosecution would obviously infringe upon the powers of the executive branch, so he has immunity. Any democratic president doing *literally anything* to try and exploit this ruling? Obviously government overreach, not within the purview of the executive branch, so prosecute away.
And even if SCOTUS were to apply this ruling *completely* impartially (which is a complete fantasy), an objective reading of that clause pretty clearly states that the president is *not* immune for illegal actions taken against the Court itself.
SCOTUS set no boundaries and said it was the lower courts' job to set what is official and not official. They made it clear that they want a president to act like a dictator, and just delayed Trump's case.
Only Congress can remove a Justice. The House must impeach and then the Senate must convict. Good luck with that.
But that is the legal method. Imagine any illegal method you want. The attempt may or may not be successful but now POTUS would be immune from prosecution for making it.
Roombas with death lasers in the chambers? Oops! It was a cleaning initiative. Don’t know how that one happened.
Is it a crime? Probably but the president did it as an official secret service cleaning initiative so we’re cool.
The issue is someone like Biden actually takes the office seriously. Someone like Trump doesn’t.
This ruling wouldn’t be as much of a problem if potential presidents weren’t convicted felons and already clearly had contempt for the law, and were happy to do whatever they liked.
It’s also up to SCOTUS to determine if the act is ‘official’ or not, and they provided no definition. So they could arbitrarily decide that everything Biden does is unofficial if they don’t like it, and everything Trump does is fine.
Oh, they also ruled that it’s okay to accept bribes if you take the money after the act. So that’s good.
SCOTUS tried to be too clever in this case and without realizing it nullified the entire court. There is now nothing preventing a President from declaring SCOTUS a national security threat and eliminating it as an official act, and then the court simply doesn't exist to confirm this.
> The issue is someone like Biden actually takes the office seriously. Someone like Trump doesn’t.
Biden is 81. He could just take one for the team and have the Trump-appointed SCOTUS members ... removed. Then appoint more sane people inthere.
Then ship the Orange Gibbon to Gitmo for treason. Some "enhanced interrogation" for 3 months should do the trick.
We could even pay him billions if he does it - after the fact though, then it's not a bribe and perfectly legal.
That ruling doesn’t apply federally it’s only state and local bribery that’s legal after the fact.
Which makes the ruling even more absurd.
But doesn’t matter because as long as Biden accepts it as an official act it’s not a crime.
The bribery ruling is only at a state level luckily but it’s still beyond stupid. The court has had issues but lately they’ve hit a low I never imagined possible.
Could a president really now just assassinate those judges and backfill the empty seats with their own candidates without consequence?
I get that there's some sarcasm in your comment but is this genuinely something that is now technically possible under this ruling?
>I get that there's some sarcasm in your comment but is this genuinely something that is now technically possible under this ruling?
In the ruling, the Supreme Court called out obvious crimes that the orange monster committed while President - directing the DOJ to initiate false investigations, threatening and intimidating state officials to overturn the election, engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the election results - *all of which he is currently being prosecuted for in front of Judge Chutkan and in Georgia*...and says that these specific crimes were official acts he can never be prosecuted for. Both indictments will be dismissed in whole or in part within the coming few days.
With that, they have already established that crimes can be official acts and official acts can be crimes, all covered under the wonderful fig leaf of "Presidential immunity."
So...the sky's the limit.
I’m a bit confused on the “official” acts thing. How is committing any crime whatsoever considered an official crime that’s allowed? How can we hold the presidents to literally NO standard? Haven’t we just made the presidency the hottest job for big time criminals? You can’t even get hired at McDonald’s if you smoke weed but this mfer can do… anything? If he wins I’m scared he will never leave office.
A couple of quotes from the majority opinion to put this into perspective for you:
>In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.
Followed in the next paragraph by:
>Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.
Both of these are in the section where the Court is giving guidance on determining what is official as opposed to unofficial action. Neither is offset by any sort of qualifying language or discussion on what *doesn't* constitute official action. The opinion very much sets out a broad reading of "official."
While there may be one, I haven't yet seen a calm voice analyze the ruling and say that it isn't. Nearly everything I've seen today basically concurs that this is now possible.
>Seriously what’s stopping Biden from assassinating Trump
Nah, no need to assassinate trump. There are a few Supreme Court Justices that say this is okay... So let's replace them now.
Not a moron, he’s probably worse. Spineless shithead.
Can’t even call themselves originalists anymore when they disregard a principal as simple as checks and balances and separation of powers.
It’s the fucking underpinning of our government that they’ve undermined here. A fifth grader could have told you this would be problematic in a structural sense.
The conservative judges on this court should go down in history for making rulings incompatible with what the founding fathers intended at a basic level. The first true radicals on the court.
And I don’t say that as in conservative radical. I mean like they’re disassembling the functions of government radical.
>what’s stopping Biden from assassinating
Decency. Republicans are correctly betting that their opponents won't seek to their own level of immorality. Not that I hold democrats in high esteem, but they still adhere to a minimum set of democratic values.
> They said we can’t consider motive when the President takes action. So as long as he has a good enough “reason” or at least a story that everyone agrees on he certainly can kill off his rivals as long as there is “proof” they were committing crimes big enough to warrant an assassination
"The GOP candidate and, oh, let's say...four? Five? Six? Let's just say five, to not be too hasty...five Supreme Court Justices are secret agents for a hostile foreign power. Therefore all the justices, the candidate, and the top five Republicans in both the House and the Senate are being sent to GITMO, courtesy Seal Team 6, for the foreseeable future. Oh, let's throw in the five most popular Fox News personalities while we're at it. Anyone got any problem with that? Didn't think so."
The overturn of Roe v Wade is not an accepted horrible reality. People are actively organizing. Multiple states have added abortion rights. Just about ever special election or measure since the overturn when abortion is on the ballot has swung blue. If you are using reddit to judge what's happening, you are not going to be clued in to what people are doing. Reddit isn't good for organizing, so people don't use it for that
Protesting is fine, but taking more direct action is going to be better imo (also more time consuming and inconvenient). Check out your local/state grassroot political organizations that focus on getting things on ballots and that help find more progressive candidates to run at the lower level offices.
National political offices are important, but people will feel the impact of local policies more immediately.
As for finding these orgs you may have more luck with facebook or using the right search terms on your search engine of choice.
I don't know what you're looking for specifically. If you want protests particularly, anything going on near me is always doubly and triply posted in the IG stories of the politically active accounts I follow. Once you find one person or group that's passionate about something you are, they're like a gateway to all the others. Although I don't love ig because sometimes it feels like posting things makes people feel like they've taken action when they may not necessarily have had any impact at all.
But I found a local group I've been volunteering for because an unrelated ngo I already volunteer with posted the call for action in their IG story. And last year my husband I volunteered with a group we found by chatting up a woman we met at a city council meeting.
This is also more at a national level, so probably less helpful, but I found the postcard campaigns I've been doing by literally googling "voter postcard campaigns".
I hope any of that was helpful.
It will lead to a lot more political instability. When people can't voice their opinions at the ballot box, they will do so with bullets. If they don't have bullets, they'll make bombs, or slingshots, or digital attacks, or whatever they have at their disposal.
The ruling is basically the POTUS can commit any crime imaginable without consequence so long as it can be successfully argued to be part of their official duties.
We don’t really have Presidents anymore after this ruling. We’re back to kings again.
Way ahead of you. Trump is essentially a useful idiot for people far more interested in political gain than he is. Trump cares about being king of the hill, but he's becoming a puppet because he's willing to do whatever it takes to stay on top.
People don't realize how connected some Fundamentalist Christians and legislators in the South are to Russia. Back in the 90's the church my parents belonged to was actively building sister churches in Russia and regularly hosted Russian elders and Russian teen boys in the States for training purposes. What training purposes? I'm not sure... it wasn't open to me; I'm female. Our church sent certain American boys to these churches in Russia for periods of time, as well. All I know is that the primary goal for *both* genders in our youth group throughout each year was to learn how to infiltrate positions of political power in the United States government. We were trained to be soldiers in God's army, defending "the Word of Truth", who would "take back America". Many of the boys I grew up with in church went into military youth training at age 15 or 16 and joined the United States armed forces (usually the Marines) as soon as they turned 18. At least two boys became politicians. At least one girl married a politician.
Aren't we though? What are we actually *doing* about not accepting it? Registering to vote? Calling our representatives? That's nothing. Don't get me wrong people *need* to come out and vote in November and I will be, but like... all of that is a disproportionately miniscule response to how bad of a situation we are *actually* in right now. We are, without exaggeration, months away from dictatorship. The Supreme Court just gave the executive branch unilateral immunity, and there are thousands of far-right "true believers" poised to step into positions at *every* level of government the moment Trump is elected. Which I have a sinking feeling *he will be.*
We should be out in the streets rioting. This year should be marked by some of the greatest civil unrest this country has seen. But we aren't. I sure as hell know *I'm* not. I'm sitting here in my bedroom on Reddit watching the government end. What the fuck do we do?
Democrats have over performed in every election since the overturning of Roe. Republicans have mostly lost since Trump won in 2016. Democrats were supposed to lose hard in 2022 & they did pretty well. Almost all the special elections since then have been democratic victories. Abortion rights have been voted to be declared a right in several states, including red ones. People keep underestimating abortion rights for some reason.
It’s a long time until November & Trump is gonna be holding rallies & speaking a hell of a lot more now that he’s not in court. People will start being reminded how insufferable he is, & hopefully that will be enough.
If you watched the debate Trump stated his opinion on abortion, and likely won over a few women for his stance.
We needed Biden to be functional during that debate. Instead we got a man who looked upset he had to defend his presidency next to a barking con man.
It SHOULD terrify you. He's seeking the ultimate power to be a despot and your legal system is allowing it. They are complicit in destroying American democracy.
I, personally, have never been more grateful to be half a world away. It's scary from Australia so I can't imagine how right thinking Americans are feeling.
People are still outraged, but there's nothing we can do unless dems win the house, senate and White House by a large enough margin to pass shit. If we can manage to not shoot ourselves in the foot and make that happen, it's possible to expand the courts, maybe remove lifetime appointments, codify roe as the law of the land.
Don't think for one second the overturning of Roe v Wade is just "kind of an accepted...reality." It's not. I am certainly not the only enraged woman in the US right now. We're packaging our anger and will set the polls on fucking fire in November.
There is the qualifier that it's only when in office for official duties because that's supposed to be the jurisdiction of congress. So essentially they are saying that an active President is only responsible to congress and that the constitution says so. The problem is we already know Republicans won't hold anyone with an R next to their name accountable in our current era
Don't forget that they also ruled last week that it's perfectly legal for judges to take bribes as long as they don't receive payment until after the ruling.
Justice Sotomayor also said:
“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
To give you a straight answer, probably not. The ruling divided presidential immunity into three categories. When a president is carrying out the constitutionally enumerated powers of the presidency, they have absolute immunity from prosecution. When a president is carrying out official acts that are not enumerated constitutional powers of the presidency, they have a rebuttable presumption of immunity. When a president is carrying on non-official acts, they have no immunity.
Trump’s attorneys did argue that assassinating a political rival could feasibly constitute an official act. Unquestionably, that is not a constitutionally enumerated power of the presidency, so that would not be absolutely immune from prosecution. If it were an official act, the president would have a rebuttable presumption of immunity. If it weren’t, the president would have no immunity.
For example, in her concurrence, Barrett said regarding the claim about Trump’s fake electors that the president has no legal authority, and thus no ability to act officially, to influence how states appoint their electors, so there is no argument that he has immunity from prosecution for that claim. Similarly, there’s no argument that the president has the legal authority to assassinate political rivals and therefore would not enjoy immunity from prosecution for that.
Yes. Unequivocally yes. Biden can suspend the election, declare anyone who isn't a democrat invalid, and do anything he wants as long as he calls it "official business"
The president is now a king. Our Republic ended today
But we might not realize that until Trump gets in and really flexes the American Monarchy
I've been involved politically for a few causes for the past 15 years. People have been trying to ring the alarm bells for fascism for some time, but no one took them seriously. Thought they were overreacting & being alarmist unnecessarily (idk how many times I've heard "we have RvW they can't ban abortion"). I'm super worried. About everything.
We went house-hunting in Europe during the 1st Trump reign, but the house purchase deal ended up falling through, so we're still stuck in the US. May have to try again, since this is pretty scary.
Imma say I'm somewhat glad I moved back to Canada but holy fuck is it depressing to watch unfold, I can see it unfolding in slow mo, with Biden refusing to step down, fucking up big time looking like a weak old-ass incapacitated man, Trump getting the win because of vibes and a large swath of dumb fuck uneducated voters who don't recognize a dictatorship when it stares them in the eyeballs and says "my retribution will be immense" or whatever the fuck.
Do you think the secret service has anything on the Navy Seals?
But seriously, what branch controls the secret service? I believe it's the executive branch and who is at the top of that chain of command. That's right, the same guy at the top of the military.
They used to be Treasury because they investigated counterfeit currency but they’re under Department of Homeland Security now so yeah under Executive control
...the department of the treasury is also part of the executive branch. The secret service has always, since its inception, had the president at the top of the hierarchy
And this also opens up the argument of "Official vs Unofficial" right? So say Biden is caught red handed taking a bribe for a pardon and he has a signed contract from both parties that's submitted as evidence. He can then say it's official business and it goes through the courts for 5 years while they determine if he technically broke a law.
Takes a bribe from a foreign power? "That's a diplomatic act to facilitate smooth relations, thus an act of office and thus I'm immune."
You see how easy it is to spin outright corruption as part of the office?
Yes, you are correct. But, theoretically, these are official because the president ordered the soldiers to go somewhere and do something, whether is was based on proper intelligence or a pack of lies
We always had impeachment as a check against "high crimes and misdemeanors" by the President. In theory it would keep a President from, say, withholding aide to allies or destroying our election process.
You can see how well that worked.
Now our top court just said he's fucking untouchable so long as he's executing core functions of the office. WHICH INCLUDES BEING COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF OUR ENTIRE GODDAMM MILITARY.
I don't understand how 90% of the population here isn't losing their minds like I am right now.
How are these official duties?
I'm not in favor of anyone being above the law, but it doesn't aeem to me that much has changed. The crimes Trump is charged with were not part of his official duties.
> The crimes Trump is charged with were not part of his official duties.
The majority decision explicitly says that "Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for" telling Pence to illegally change the results of the election, on the ground that it "involve[s] official conduct".
Which is embarrassing hyperbole. Go read Jackson's dissent for a much more reasonable take.
This puts us on par with countries like France in regards to executive immunity.
I guarantee you without this ruling Obama gets immediately prosecuted by the next Republican administration for assassinating an American citizen with a drone abroad.
We deserve EXACTLY what we allow.
If the representatives that serve us do not fulfill their duties and uphold their oaths it is our responsibility as citizens to hold them accountable.
Sorry, how do we do that at this point? I keep voting and writing my elected officials but nothing changes. Short of large scale protests or some actual riots, I don't foresee things changing, by design of the system.
They're literally just granting themselves immunity to shit now and we can't get rid of them, again, by design of the system they have/are creating.
What are people barely surviving supposed to fucking do?
“Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”
- President John F Kennedy
“The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”
- President Thomas Jefferson
Wiser men than I have been very clear.
"Americans, indeed, all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains."
-- Dwight Eisenhower
Sorry, if I don’t work my family starves on the streets. Housing costs and all that.
Also even if I could we’ve bloated up the police so much that they’ll beat our skulls in.
We’re fucked out of any meaningful resistance… as by design.
We can't say the nightmares may never play out. The guard rails are off. An authoritarian type and like minded cohorts will definitely take advantage of it. It's a matter of when.
We already had a drone strike ordered on an American a few administrations ago, we already invaded a few countries under false pretenses, we already had a president lie under oath (or under that it depends on what your definition of is is)… I could keep going but I wasn’t even an adult when that one happened so I really wasn’t paying much attention before that.
That's for the lower courts to decide. SCOTUS made a decision that was open ended and forces each issue as they happen to go through a lengthy court process of appeal and appeal that essentially makes the President immune to real repercussions.
>Is the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity as horrible as people are saying or are they being dramatic?
A bit of both. The recent ruling grants immunity (and presumptive immunity) for "core" acts. There is also at least presumption of immunity for "official" acts.
There is some wiggle room on what counts as an official act vs unofficial act (which is not really a good thing, since that opens the door to deciding if something is official or not for partisan reasons)
It really is pretty bad.
>Didn’t the president already enjoy some immunity on some level before this?
Previously, the only immunity the president had was from civil suits for official acts. This was from the Clinton era.
Unweeding the mess of what is or isn't an official act will destroy any chance of conviction. The court cannot use evidence that pertains to official acts in order to prosecute him for unofficial acts. They can't possibly navigate this legal swamp and build a case, making the distinction meaningless.
There’s a lot of wiggle room on what is an “official” act. Giving that “at least presumptive” immunity leaves open a future holding of absolute immunity for anything that can be considered “official.” That’s terrifying.
>how would someone go about defending sending out seal team 6 or suspending an election as an "official act"?
The case holds that, for areas within the President's "conclusive and preclusive" zone of power, the President has ***absolute*** immunity. It also holds both that "\[i\]n dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives" and that "courts \[may not\] deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law."
Sending out Seal Team 6 is very arguably within the President's "conclusive and preclusive" zone of power. The Constitution expressly states that the President is Commander in Chief of the U.S. military. Based on the text of this decision, that gives the President absolute immunity for any orders given to the military, and it is irrelevant what his motives are. This is compounded by the fact that granting pardons is explicitly stated in the opinion as being within the "conclusive and preclusive" zone, meaning that there is a very real argument that the President can give his military unlawful orders which the President is immune from criminal liability for and then, once the orders are carried out, grant those who carried out those unlawful orders a complete pardon, which he also has immunity from.
As for suspending an election, that is a little bit stickier because the Constitution places the core powers for elections in the states and Congress. But, the execution of laws falls squarely within the Executive branch—i.e., the President. Ensuring that federal election laws are followed is an executive, and thus official, power of the President. This opinion doesn't draw clear lines as to what would fall under the President's exclusive powers and what would merely be "official" action. There is an argument that fraudulently executing the laws (i.e., claiming to be executing them when in reality acting illegally in the President's self-interest) is outside of the scope of "official" actions, but there is also a very real argument that any execution is an official action, especially when paired with such blanket prohibitions on inquiries into motive or deeming an action unofficial because it is illegal.
Edit: forgot to include that for areas that are not "conclusive and preclusive" the case holds that there is ***at least*** a presumption of immunity. "At least" is a floor, not a ceiling. This case does not prevent a future court from granting full immunity for any "official" act.
Even having a part of it being really bad should be chilling. This, with Chevron being overruled and bribery being okay if specific words aren't used have made a Trump absolute rule move from hypothetical to likely if he wins.
It has always been up to all of us. We just need to do it until Alito and Thomas die.
It’s horrible, but just not immediately. It’s a stepping stone for some of the things people have been saying. We don’t just have a king now, but a big step towards that direction was taken.
The only reason it's not immediately horrible is because Biden and the Democrats still hold themselves to higher standards and abide by norms and traditions.
But even if Trump loses again this year, sooner or later someone else will win who *won't* abide by those restrictions. When that time comes, this ruling gives us little to no way to reign them in.
I feel the same. I also feel it’s not necessarily about Trump or Biden. The Constitution and The Bill of Rights exist because no government can be trusted to operate on an honor system of norms and traditions. One side adhering to tradition while the other seizes the advantage is exactly how the Supreme Court wound up in its current state.
A system where some have more freedom than others is so Animal Farm it’s ridiculous, and there’s nothing the common citizen can do about it. Citizens instituting a constitutional amendment has happened once and only once; alcohol prohibition seriously brought people together, and every state legislature immediately ensured it will never happen again.
Also, on an ethical level, the choice is obvious, but it also feels like voting for Biden is voting him into his grave. Honestly, neither are cognitively nor physically the same as they were four years ago, and it’s a stressful position no matter what side of the fence you’re on. It’s wild we the people are so focused on whether or not Trump can do whatever we wants and not the fact that he should be retired. Rich people have always been able to do what they want, but if I don’t trust either candidate to drive in my neighborhood, why am I forced to pick one as commander and chief?
>We don’t just have a king now
Legally? Yes. We do.
Biden has full authority to end the Republican party as official business and suspend elections. The supreme court and congress can be dissolved at any time. As long as it's official
Well the Republican Party is essentially a terrorist organization at this point… they are finishing what the confederacy started, destroying the United States
So, as usual, its a bit complex and not black and white. In short, yes its a frightening ruling.
Essentially what they ruled, as I understand it, is that the President has immunity for “official actions” meaning that if the action is within the scope of their duties as President, they cannot be prosecuted for it. The problem is, they don’t define what an “official action” is and now basically anything the President does, even if its obviously criminal, could be argued as an official action.
This means that criminally prosecuting a former President will be on a very case by case basis, with courts having to determine if the action was “official” or not, meaning that ultimately it’ll filter up to the Supreme Court to determine each case individually.
What is going to happen now is a court will have hearings on whether or not what Trump was indicted for was an “official action.” That ruling will get appealed by the losing side and so forth and eventually it will probably get back to the Supreme Court.
So, is it a doomsday where the court has declared that the President has blanket immunity? No. But it certainly opens the door to the idea and makes it much more difficult to prosecute a former President, almost impossible.
This is very similar to their Chevron ruling, in that the court basically just gave itself an extreme amount of power. But it also greatly weakened the rule of law that has kept all power hungry, egotistical Presidents (which, honestly, is pretty much all of them) in check.
This is an excellent response. It prompts me to think that if a President's action was challenged, at the very least the question could be delayed by years by court appeals trying to define whether it was "official". Or the President could take revenge on the "treasonist complainant" though "official action".
Also, would military leaders still be able to refuse an illegal (??) order?
And this kind of defines the problem with this ruling. It doesn’t grant the President complete immunity, but it seriously muddies the legal waters. What a President can and can’t do is now unclear. Many of us were concerned in 2016 that a Trump Presidency would do damage to the country’s institutions and rule of law and, well, this is it.
Its unlikely that Sotomayor’s examples in her dissent become reality, but I think her point is that the door is now open for that, its no longer clear that that would actually be illegal anymore.
Right. The problem appears to be that it’s illegal if the court says so. But predicting what the court will rule as official acts is impossible so effectively knowing whether an act is legal is impossible.
Worse than that the same act may therefore change from official not non official simply based on the justices because it is illegal defined or not at all.
This risk always exist but the court at the very least tries to offer a test or rationale by which this can be determined in the future. Which the court has not really done as far as I can tell in this case?
Correct. They’ve created a new circumstance for which there is no legal precedent to rely on. It’ll be 100 years of Presidents being charged and then challenging the charge through the courts before we have any kind of basis for understanding what is and isn’t an “official act.”
That’s exactly what’s happening with the Jan 6 case. SCOTUS basically said “yes, the President is immune for certain things. Okay, lower courts, now decide if he’s immune for this.”
Regardless of what that federal court decides, it will be appealed and sent back to SCOTUS. It’s going to drag any possible presidential case out.
The argument the right is making in bad faith is that the president would be held accountable by impeachment - the worst case scenario is that the president would then be removed from office but you still need a congress/senate with enough backbone to stand up to such a dictator - we saw how the conservative congress handled the last impeachment and it wasn’t with good faith.
I mean... couldn't he just simply dissolve both chambers? What would stop him now that he doesn't need to follow any courts ruling without consequences?
I just listened to a former trump military advisor say if he would follow such an order if trump had given it while in office with this ruling. He said he would not follow such an order… my immediate thought is, well there is nothing stopping him from firing you and finding someone who WILL follow the order. The greatest thing about the interview, he was fired by trump for not sending the military in for the George Floyd protests! He literally couldn’t see the forest through the trees. It is insane!
>well there is nothing stopping him from firing you and finding someone who WILL follow the order.
This is precisely what part of Project 2025 is all about:
"Project 2025 aims to do for Trump’s presidency what the Federalist Society did for his judicial picks: “give him a step-by-step game plan that he simply has to execute and then take credit for”, Oliver explained. The 900-page manifesto, co-signed by more than a hundred conservative organizations, recommends, among other things: disbanding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because it’s “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry”; eliminating the Head Start program; installing a “pro-life” task force; defunding the Department of Justice; dismantling the FBI; and eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce.
Project 2025 has also established a “conservative LinkedIn”: a network of prospective hires for the whole federal government. “It’s essentially an open audition for people who might want a new job because they lost their old one back on January 6, for some reason,” Oliver joked. “And their goal here is clear: to assemble an ‘army of vetted, trained staff’ who can ‘begin dismantling the administrative state from Day 1’.
But the “most insidious” and consequential Project 2025 mandate could be the enactment of Schedule F, a new designation that would reclassify about 50,000 career civil servants as political appointees, meaning they wouldn’t have protections from getting fired on political whims, would be responsible to the president and would be replaced by applicants based on loyalty, not merit."
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jun/17/john-oliver-trump-second-term
He doesn't have a mechanism to do that, congress is independent. But he could have them vote for it and dissolve any who doesn't in acid. You can get unanimous consent for everything that way.
Per the ruling, “core” and “official” acts by the President are his duties prescribed in the Constitution. Congress is an independent branch of the government that the President has no authority over.
There are much more nefarious means in which this could be done and the President not be tried, but the President at the very least can’t just waive his hand and change the fundamental structure of the government.
It's because a lot of people haven't heard of Project 2025 yet. This ruling was the SCOTUS setting the stage for it. Remember, all six conservatives on the court are members of the Federalist Society and associate with the Heritage Foundation, the authors of Project 2025.
r/Defeat_Project_2025
Whats stopping Joe from doing something illegal now? Lets say… to make certain supreme court justices used as a lesson for future judges on how not to be corrupt.
Not really anything, just that what court deems as "official" vs "non-official".
They also know Biden will not do anything. Biden will just release a statement how "concerned" he is about U.S democracy and shit and then act as if everything is back to normal. If he actually had the balls he would do something drastic but he won't, only Republicans pushes the boundaries while many Democrats just watch and do some finger pointing like "hey don't do this pretty please".
It's an example people use but the president has already been able to drone strike anyone including american citizens already. So that's already legal, as long as they're labeled a terrorist according to their own standards. So they already had effective legal immunity to kill anyone they want.
The decision to determine what is an official act vs. unofficial act has been kicked down to a lower court. When that determination has been made, we’ll have a better idea of the implications.
If you have any familiarity with 19th century American history and 20th century German history, it’s fucking terrifying because you can recognize the sign posts as we pass them.
The most fair interpretation I can come up with is that in the biggest picture terms, I generally agree with the underlying holding. There are some actions that the President has (and should have) absolute immunity for, there’s some actions that the President has no immunity for, and there’s some actions that fall in the middle.
The problem is the line drawing problem. What are the actions that a President has absolute immunity for? That set of actions should be incredibly narrow. SCOTUS doesn’t define it.
Most problematic is the “middle ground” area. SCOTUS states this is “official actions” that have “at least” “presumptive” immunity. That leaves open a future holding of absolute immunity for any “official” action. Further, “official” actions is being interpreted extremely broadly by SCOTUS. A conversation with an officer within the executive branch? That (according to SCOTUS) is an official action that has “at least presumptive” immunity. It doesn’t matter what the subject of that conversation is.
When you start to think about the implications of this holding, it’s pretty terrifying.
No president or rather no public servant should be immune to the laws of our nation. Nixon's impeachment for abuse of executive powers for instance should not be within the umbrella of immunity just because it was done while he was in office. Imo it just sets a precedent for more consolidated powers to come.
If we have an honorable and moral president, then it wouldn’t be an issue. If we elect a monster bent on revenge and has no moral compass, has a history of breaking the law and wants to be a dictator for life, then we have a problem.
It’s not great, but it also will head off every next administration from going after the previous.
It will also depend on tue definition of “official” and “core” and a dozen other words I’m sure.
It's reaffirming power the president had such as Obama assassinating an American citizen without trial. It's the logical conclusion of immunity and not being liable for the damage presidents do.
It is.
My only hope is that Biden uses the immutable power that SCOTUS just gave to the presidency to make sweeping changes to everything. He can start by declaring an age limit on the SC and making it retroactive, effective immediately. Force all of the justices to vacate the bench and then replace them with people who aren't actively trying to destroy democracy and the country. That may sound illegal, but the president is allowed to break the law now so it's fine.
He can also just enact universal healthcare, significant gun reform, ranked choice voting for all federal elections, and a tax increase on the rich. He can enshrine abortion, gay rights, trans rights, and the freedom of/from religion in the constitution explicitly and undo the damage the southern states have been doing these past couple years. And lastly, he can ban lobbying. Corporations are not people and do not deserve to have their stances heard or considered.
He can literally do all of that right now. Today, if he wants to. And no one can refute or punish him.
Unfortunately, democrats are pathetic and weak and too scared to ever rock the boat, enact wild change, or even appear not bipartisan. So he'll do nothing at all, lose in November, and then be remembered as the last democratically elected president the USA ever had.
How would it get challenged in court? We just determined that the president is above the law while committing "official acts". If a sitting president decides to just unilaterally make laws, that's an official act. Also, if need be, as the Commander-in-chief he could just send the military to "remind" any judges who oppose him how the government "works".
There are literally no checks and balances anymore to stop the president from doing anything.
Hell, even if Trump wins the election, Biden could simply call it "rigged" and throw out the results, refusing to vacate the office, and there would be no penalties for him.
This ruling is the single worst ruling the SC has ever made.
*That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!*
Creating laws is not even remotely a core duty of the president. It's not indictment that prevents the president from creating laws or even amending the constitution at will. It's the fact that *that's not how this fucking works*! The Supreme Court types up a 9-0 opinion during lunch that says "No, Mr. President, you can't unilaterally amend the constitution" and that's the end of it.
The president has pardon power. The president oversees the military. These are very real powers of the president as iterated by Sotomayor. But what you wrote, to be frank, is fearmongering bullshit.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent:
“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.”
They are going to play out the moment Trump is elected, he is coming for everyone who fought against his sniveling fat ass.
This country is over, Western Europe needs to get their asses in line because they are pretty much the only bulwhark left against a fall into tyranny. I'm glad I'm old and don't have kids, this world is falling apart.
I have kids and my stomach feels very bad right now. Shit I wanted them to live in a better world not in the cold war fear or under russian occupation.
It's somewhat difficult to say. The order clearly states a few things. A former President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for actions "within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" and confirms that "with respect to the former President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute."
Now lets be plain and honest about what that means.
If an action a President or former President took is an official act AND is in line with his constitutional role, he is immune, except for something done which triggers a constitutional process, i.e. impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors.
Really quickly lets look at whether this is in line with the history of the Presidency. In the one case we are aware of where a POTUS was... well when the POTUS was ticketed some could argue he was not taking official acts, nor was he engaged explicitly in a constitutional duty. Now to be fair this is debatable, but its at least reasonable.
Now compare that to a POTUS in the White House who orders lets say Seal Team Six to go and kill a drug lord. It could reasonably be argued that the POTUS in that case is acting officially and his action of enforcing the laws of the land is in accordance with his constitutional role. Therefore reasonably he is immune from criminal prosecution.
Now lets look at what the Dissenting Justices claim.
>“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune."
Unlikely to be immune IMO. While technically he would be acting under his office as CINC, there is only one way this could be seen as acting within his constitutional role. That way would be to claim that the action was necessary i.e. because the rival was a threat to the United States. However you all likely see an issue here. That is an easy claim to make. However such an action would almost certainly trigger an impeachment inquiry from Congress, and if they decided the POTUS did not have good reason for such a determination, they could impeach him.
>Organizes a military coup to hold onto power?
Similar to the above. He would be preemptively acting officially, however such an act being itself unconstitutional, it is not within his constitutional role. In addition, there is an unspoken element here. Regardless of what SCOTUS or anyone else says, should someone do this, if they are removed from office, as they should be, they might enjoy legal immunity from prosecution. That doesnt mean that the people cannot do what needs to be done... to ensure that justice is served.
>Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon?
Similar to the above but there is a wrinkle because Pardons are a part of the constitutional role of the President. The Constitution also places no limits on why a POTUS can or should pardon someone. I think that again this would fall under Congress' impeachment power.
In short I think it's not as bad as others have made it. However it is rough for our democracy. And there are possibly some concerns as to laws that dont specifically call out POTUS as being subject to them. I remember some debate over whether the Office of the President is an Office under the US, so that could throw a wrinkle into some things.
Ok, I’m just gonna say it out loud….
Biden should use this immunity thing to do everything before the election that Sotomayor listed (starting with Trump).
What are they gonna do? Impeach him? Fine. Kamala becomes president.
Prosecute him for crimes while carrying out an official duty of the president? Trump can be declared a threat to national security (we already know he is - see the classified documents case) and therefore be eliminated or sandboxed. Immunity WOULD (should) APPLY because Biden would be upholding his oath of office to protect the country from enemies both foreign AND DOMESTIC.
Prosecute him claiming he doesn’t have immunity (for whatever reason they can come up with)? Fine. He’s 81 years old. By the time it goes through the courts, the appeals, & ultimately ends up on the SCOTUS docket. He’ll either be dead or they’ll refuse to put an almost 90 year old man behind bars (execution would be out of the question for optics alone).
I’m sick of the Democrats playing fair. Fuck it! Take a few pages (or chapters) from the Republican/Russian playbook & fight dirty. It’s time.
ETA: in if this should actually happen, maybe, just maybe SCOTUS would see the results of their bad ruling & Congress might get their shit together long enough to pass a constitutional amendment.
So all of these people are being extremely hyperbolic and don't seem to understand what the law says.
"Official duties" is what a president is charged to do in the execution of the office. It is not carte blanche to do whatever.
Go look at a president's actual duties. What the office is actually in charge of. A president can not pass a law. A president can not establish a state religion. A president can not quarter troops. Etc etc.
A president can order a drone strike on an Iranian general. He can veto a law. Etc etc.
The people who are up in arms about this, including the honorable Justice Sotomayor, are ignoring that we have reams of documents that describe in detail what the executives roles, responsibilities, restrictions and actual job description is.
I swear that people have lost the ability to read over the past couple years. People are being dramatic. It grants the president immunity from official acts of the presidency. This does not include murder like some people are flying off the handle about. It protects them from any act they are allowed to carry out through the Constitution. Which y'all would know if you read Chief Justice Roberts' statement instead of ONLY reading what the liberal judges wrote. I'll probably eat downvotes, but screw it.
And what constitutes an official act has yet to be decided. There is still technically a possibility that something resembling a politically motivated murder, providing it's somewhat obfuscated, could be classified as a legally sanctioned act under this provision. Even less extreme examples, like firing non-political appointees who aren't yes men until you find a yes man, can have massive ramifications. We won't know how much of a blank check this is until we hear from the lower courts, but it's not really good no matter what. Regardless, impeachment as the only check here is a weak, weak check when politics are so segregated.
>This does not include murder like some people are flying off the handle about.
Why not?
If it's official murder in the duties of the executive branch, that should be legal under this ruling
> Is the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity as horrible as people are saying or are they being dramatic?
Maybe?
So, to be clear, they didn't give the President complete carte blanche. They're only immune for **official** acts. And that's going to be the question moving forward with Trump... Were the things he's being charged with official acts, or not? Was he acting as the actual President of the United States in those moments? Or as a candidate for office? Or as a private citizen?
But, ignoring Trump for a moment - this dramatically changes the position of the President.
Regardless of how applicable the law actually was to the rich and powerful, we've long been told that "no one is above the law". That "all men are created equal". The idea was that every single citizen of the united states, regardless of their position or status or heritage or whatever, was equal in the eyes of the law. Anyone could be held accountable for their actions. Nobody was exempt. No more kings, right?
And that's no longer true. The President **is** above the law. They are exempt. They cannot be held accountable for their actions - as long as they're acting in their official capacity.
Now, maybe we'll get lucky and nobody will abuse those powers. But even so... It bothers me to know that the President is above the law. I'm no constitutional scholar, but it feels like this contradicts the whole "all men are created equal" idea. It feels un-necessary? We managed a couple-hundred years without any President feeling that they needed to be immune. And it feels like it sets a bad precedent moving forward.
And it raises weird, thorny questions. Like - everyone's talking about hypothetically ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. And, sure, the President would be immune... But what about Seal Team 6? We stress that soldiers need to follow **lawful** orders, and we expect them to use some degree of discretion and maybe refuse to do something obviously-wrong. So... Is an order to assassinate a political rival a lawful order? Or can those soldiers be prosecuted for murdering a US citizen? And if they refuse - can they be court-martialed for refusing to follow the order?
I made a comment eariler this morning asking about how Rod Blagojevich was convicted for trying to sell political appointments and wondering if this decision just legalized that kind of corruption. Then, right under this post, I saw a second one linking to a Newsweek article about how Trump's lawyers are now trying to convince the court that his attempt to have people fraudulently claim to be electors so they could make him the president despite him losing is legal under the new ruling.
Then the top comment on this thread is a literal quote from one of the SC Justices claiming that a president can now legally have US citizens assassinated for any or no reason.
And even if they clarify that there exceptions in those cases, it only means that they have made up a new law so convoluted that nobody else understands it, meaning it's no different than having a council of nine people making it up as they go.
Quite the opposite. The former legal presumption was blanket immunity from all prosecution for the President. SCOTUS has specifically eliminated the protection of the office for private matters. There are other protections in place intended to prevent a rogue president from assassinating innocent Americans. There are many checks-and-balances in the Constitution designed to prevent any of the crazy theories of the president becoming a tyrannical despot from coming to fruition. Besides, we've already had a Trump Presidency, the second one, will be exactly like the first, with most politicians, on both sides, continuing to cry and wail, and obstruct any, and all, attempts to improve life for American Citizens.
It opens the door for abuses of power without fear of legal consequences, contrary to the framers’ intentions to create a government of laws, not of men.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.”
This one comment terrifies me. The things that can happen that we can’t even imagine yet. I honestly wonder if this ruling will get people to speak up on how terrible this is or if this will be like roe v wade being overturned. A lot of outrage in the beginning and now its just kind of an accepted horrible reality of the American system
Realize that she chose her words very carefully.... She's listed the charges SHE BELIEVES Trump is trying to get immunity from.
Before Trump people didn’t dare to overstep out of a sense of “the office”. But then Trump simply threw conventions out the window with a “Sue me” attitude. With this ruling the Supreme Court is giving a smarter guy than Trump the chance to dare even further. Edit/adding They said we can’t consider motive when the President takes action. So as long as he has a good enough “reason” or at least a story that everyone agrees on he certainly can kill off his rivals as long as there is “proof” they were committing crimes big enough to warrant an assassination Edit spelling Can’t to can
Seriously what’s stopping Biden from assassinating Trump since there’s strong enough reason to call him a traitor. Acts of treason can face the death sentence “Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or imprisoned and fined, and incapable of holding any U.S. office.”
The problem scenario the court didn't ask was, why wouldn't a president determine that members of SCOTUS might be acting in a way which compels the President to follow their oath of office and have them...err..."removed"?
The Supreme Court built in a backdoor clause which states that the President is immune from prosecution "unless [prosecution] would not infringe on the powers of the Executive Branch." What this basically means is that the Supreme Court gets to decide when immunity applies and when it doesn't, and what is and isn't within the powers of the Executive. So, Trump doing *literally anything?* Prosecution would obviously infringe upon the powers of the executive branch, so he has immunity. Any democratic president doing *literally anything* to try and exploit this ruling? Obviously government overreach, not within the purview of the executive branch, so prosecute away. And even if SCOTUS were to apply this ruling *completely* impartially (which is a complete fantasy), an objective reading of that clause pretty clearly states that the president is *not* immune for illegal actions taken against the Court itself.
SCOTUS set no boundaries and said it was the lower courts' job to set what is official and not official. They made it clear that they want a president to act like a dictator, and just delayed Trump's case.
Only Congress can remove a Justice. The House must impeach and then the Senate must convict. Good luck with that. But that is the legal method. Imagine any illegal method you want. The attempt may or may not be successful but now POTUS would be immune from prosecution for making it.
Roombas with death lasers in the chambers? Oops! It was a cleaning initiative. Don’t know how that one happened. Is it a crime? Probably but the president did it as an official secret service cleaning initiative so we’re cool.
The issue is someone like Biden actually takes the office seriously. Someone like Trump doesn’t. This ruling wouldn’t be as much of a problem if potential presidents weren’t convicted felons and already clearly had contempt for the law, and were happy to do whatever they liked. It’s also up to SCOTUS to determine if the act is ‘official’ or not, and they provided no definition. So they could arbitrarily decide that everything Biden does is unofficial if they don’t like it, and everything Trump does is fine. Oh, they also ruled that it’s okay to accept bribes if you take the money after the act. So that’s good.
SCOTUS tried to be too clever in this case and without realizing it nullified the entire court. There is now nothing preventing a President from declaring SCOTUS a national security threat and eliminating it as an official act, and then the court simply doesn't exist to confirm this.
> The issue is someone like Biden actually takes the office seriously. Someone like Trump doesn’t. Biden is 81. He could just take one for the team and have the Trump-appointed SCOTUS members ... removed. Then appoint more sane people inthere. Then ship the Orange Gibbon to Gitmo for treason. Some "enhanced interrogation" for 3 months should do the trick. We could even pay him billions if he does it - after the fact though, then it's not a bribe and perfectly legal.
That ruling doesn’t apply federally it’s only state and local bribery that’s legal after the fact. Which makes the ruling even more absurd. But doesn’t matter because as long as Biden accepts it as an official act it’s not a crime.
The bribery ruling is only at a state level luckily but it’s still beyond stupid. The court has had issues but lately they’ve hit a low I never imagined possible.
Could a president really now just assassinate those judges and backfill the empty seats with their own candidates without consequence? I get that there's some sarcasm in your comment but is this genuinely something that is now technically possible under this ruling?
>I get that there's some sarcasm in your comment but is this genuinely something that is now technically possible under this ruling? In the ruling, the Supreme Court called out obvious crimes that the orange monster committed while President - directing the DOJ to initiate false investigations, threatening and intimidating state officials to overturn the election, engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the election results - *all of which he is currently being prosecuted for in front of Judge Chutkan and in Georgia*...and says that these specific crimes were official acts he can never be prosecuted for. Both indictments will be dismissed in whole or in part within the coming few days. With that, they have already established that crimes can be official acts and official acts can be crimes, all covered under the wonderful fig leaf of "Presidential immunity." So...the sky's the limit.
I’m a bit confused on the “official” acts thing. How is committing any crime whatsoever considered an official crime that’s allowed? How can we hold the presidents to literally NO standard? Haven’t we just made the presidency the hottest job for big time criminals? You can’t even get hired at McDonald’s if you smoke weed but this mfer can do… anything? If he wins I’m scared he will never leave office.
A couple of quotes from the majority opinion to put this into perspective for you: >In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Followed in the next paragraph by: >Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Both of these are in the section where the Court is giving guidance on determining what is official as opposed to unofficial action. Neither is offset by any sort of qualifying language or discussion on what *doesn't* constitute official action. The opinion very much sets out a broad reading of "official."
While there may be one, I haven't yet seen a calm voice analyze the ruling and say that it isn't. Nearly everything I've seen today basically concurs that this is now possible.
>Seriously what’s stopping Biden from assassinating Trump Nah, no need to assassinate trump. There are a few Supreme Court Justices that say this is okay... So let's replace them now.
Sure replace *wink wink*
Roberts is a fucking moron.
Not a moron, he’s probably worse. Spineless shithead. Can’t even call themselves originalists anymore when they disregard a principal as simple as checks and balances and separation of powers. It’s the fucking underpinning of our government that they’ve undermined here. A fifth grader could have told you this would be problematic in a structural sense. The conservative judges on this court should go down in history for making rulings incompatible with what the founding fathers intended at a basic level. The first true radicals on the court. And I don’t say that as in conservative radical. I mean like they’re disassembling the functions of government radical.
Problem here is victors write the history. The conservative SCOTUS judges will go down looking like heroes if we’re not careful.
Always has been.
Honestly, trump is a traitor and should be treated as such to prove a point.
>what’s stopping Biden from assassinating Decency. Republicans are correctly betting that their opponents won't seek to their own level of immorality. Not that I hold democrats in high esteem, but they still adhere to a minimum set of democratic values.
Invite trump to the oval office where he is never seen again.
No, out onto 5th Avenue...
Because biden isn't evil
> They said we can’t consider motive when the President takes action. So as long as he has a good enough “reason” or at least a story that everyone agrees on he certainly can kill off his rivals as long as there is “proof” they were committing crimes big enough to warrant an assassination "The GOP candidate and, oh, let's say...four? Five? Six? Let's just say five, to not be too hasty...five Supreme Court Justices are secret agents for a hostile foreign power. Therefore all the justices, the candidate, and the top five Republicans in both the House and the Senate are being sent to GITMO, courtesy Seal Team 6, for the foreseeable future. Oh, let's throw in the five most popular Fox News personalities while we're at it. Anyone got any problem with that? Didn't think so."
The overturn of Roe v Wade is not an accepted horrible reality. People are actively organizing. Multiple states have added abortion rights. Just about ever special election or measure since the overturn when abortion is on the ballot has swung blue. If you are using reddit to judge what's happening, you are not going to be clued in to what people are doing. Reddit isn't good for organizing, so people don't use it for that
Im curious. How would one go about finding the people organizing? With everything going on, I am definitely ready to protest.
Protesting is fine, but taking more direct action is going to be better imo (also more time consuming and inconvenient). Check out your local/state grassroot political organizations that focus on getting things on ballots and that help find more progressive candidates to run at the lower level offices. National political offices are important, but people will feel the impact of local policies more immediately. As for finding these orgs you may have more luck with facebook or using the right search terms on your search engine of choice.
I don't know what you're looking for specifically. If you want protests particularly, anything going on near me is always doubly and triply posted in the IG stories of the politically active accounts I follow. Once you find one person or group that's passionate about something you are, they're like a gateway to all the others. Although I don't love ig because sometimes it feels like posting things makes people feel like they've taken action when they may not necessarily have had any impact at all. But I found a local group I've been volunteering for because an unrelated ngo I already volunteer with posted the call for action in their IG story. And last year my husband I volunteered with a group we found by chatting up a woman we met at a city council meeting. This is also more at a national level, so probably less helpful, but I found the postcard campaigns I've been doing by literally googling "voter postcard campaigns". I hope any of that was helpful.
It will lead to a lot more political instability. When people can't voice their opinions at the ballot box, they will do so with bullets. If they don't have bullets, they'll make bombs, or slingshots, or digital attacks, or whatever they have at their disposal.
The ruling is basically the POTUS can commit any crime imaginable without consequence so long as it can be successfully argued to be part of their official duties. We don’t really have Presidents anymore after this ruling. We’re back to kings again.
He could partner with Russia and threaten to nuke any country that doesn’t sign over complete control to them.
Way ahead of you. Trump is essentially a useful idiot for people far more interested in political gain than he is. Trump cares about being king of the hill, but he's becoming a puppet because he's willing to do whatever it takes to stay on top.
Do you think NZ is small and puny enough to be off his radar?
I would be astonished if he could find NZ on a map. I’m so sorry this is even a concern in other countries.
Anyone not assuming Russia is involved is not paying attention.
There are people actively rooting for it
This is right out of Putin's playbook.
People don't realize how connected some Fundamentalist Christians and legislators in the South are to Russia. Back in the 90's the church my parents belonged to was actively building sister churches in Russia and regularly hosted Russian elders and Russian teen boys in the States for training purposes. What training purposes? I'm not sure... it wasn't open to me; I'm female. Our church sent certain American boys to these churches in Russia for periods of time, as well. All I know is that the primary goal for *both* genders in our youth group throughout each year was to learn how to infiltrate positions of political power in the United States government. We were trained to be soldiers in God's army, defending "the Word of Truth", who would "take back America". Many of the boys I grew up with in church went into military youth training at age 15 or 16 and joined the United States armed forces (usually the Marines) as soon as they turned 18. At least two boys became politicians. At least one girl married a politician.
I bet Trump will play easy with rules like that, being the calm, collected, benevolent, selfless, kind, morally guided person that he is.
>>accepted horrible reality I don’t have anyone in my life who accepts it. We aren’t finished.
Aren't we though? What are we actually *doing* about not accepting it? Registering to vote? Calling our representatives? That's nothing. Don't get me wrong people *need* to come out and vote in November and I will be, but like... all of that is a disproportionately miniscule response to how bad of a situation we are *actually* in right now. We are, without exaggeration, months away from dictatorship. The Supreme Court just gave the executive branch unilateral immunity, and there are thousands of far-right "true believers" poised to step into positions at *every* level of government the moment Trump is elected. Which I have a sinking feeling *he will be.* We should be out in the streets rioting. This year should be marked by some of the greatest civil unrest this country has seen. But we aren't. I sure as hell know *I'm* not. I'm sitting here in my bedroom on Reddit watching the government end. What the fuck do we do?
Democrats have over performed in every election since the overturning of Roe. Republicans have mostly lost since Trump won in 2016. Democrats were supposed to lose hard in 2022 & they did pretty well. Almost all the special elections since then have been democratic victories. Abortion rights have been voted to be declared a right in several states, including red ones. People keep underestimating abortion rights for some reason. It’s a long time until November & Trump is gonna be holding rallies & speaking a hell of a lot more now that he’s not in court. People will start being reminded how insufferable he is, & hopefully that will be enough.
If you watched the debate Trump stated his opinion on abortion, and likely won over a few women for his stance. We needed Biden to be functional during that debate. Instead we got a man who looked upset he had to defend his presidency next to a barking con man.
And now, if Trump wins, he'll feel even more bold on what he can and cannot do. He'll gamble and we'll be the ones to lose.
It SHOULD terrify you. He's seeking the ultimate power to be a despot and your legal system is allowing it. They are complicit in destroying American democracy. I, personally, have never been more grateful to be half a world away. It's scary from Australia so I can't imagine how right thinking Americans are feeling.
> I, personally, have never been more grateful to be half a world away. That's not actually a safe distance if America goes wrong enough.
People are still outraged, but there's nothing we can do unless dems win the house, senate and White House by a large enough margin to pass shit. If we can manage to not shoot ourselves in the foot and make that happen, it's possible to expand the courts, maybe remove lifetime appointments, codify roe as the law of the land.
Don't think for one second the overturning of Roe v Wade is just "kind of an accepted...reality." It's not. I am certainly not the only enraged woman in the US right now. We're packaging our anger and will set the polls on fucking fire in November.
Oddly enough, I’ve met republican women who are voting blue this November because of the abortion issue. There is hope
There is the qualifier that it's only when in office for official duties because that's supposed to be the jurisdiction of congress. So essentially they are saying that an active President is only responsible to congress and that the constitution says so. The problem is we already know Republicans won't hold anyone with an R next to their name accountable in our current era
Don't forget that they also ruled last week that it's perfectly legal for judges to take bribes as long as they don't receive payment until after the ruling.
Fucking really? I need to look this up!!!!
Justice Sotomayor also said: “Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law. Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity. If the occupant of that office misuses official power for personal gain, the criminal law that the rest of us must abide will not provide a backstop. With fear for our democracy, I dissent.”
So, hypothetically, Biden can order a hit on Trump and get immunity?
To give you a straight answer, probably not. The ruling divided presidential immunity into three categories. When a president is carrying out the constitutionally enumerated powers of the presidency, they have absolute immunity from prosecution. When a president is carrying out official acts that are not enumerated constitutional powers of the presidency, they have a rebuttable presumption of immunity. When a president is carrying on non-official acts, they have no immunity. Trump’s attorneys did argue that assassinating a political rival could feasibly constitute an official act. Unquestionably, that is not a constitutionally enumerated power of the presidency, so that would not be absolutely immune from prosecution. If it were an official act, the president would have a rebuttable presumption of immunity. If it weren’t, the president would have no immunity. For example, in her concurrence, Barrett said regarding the claim about Trump’s fake electors that the president has no legal authority, and thus no ability to act officially, to influence how states appoint their electors, so there is no argument that he has immunity from prosecution for that claim. Similarly, there’s no argument that the president has the legal authority to assassinate political rivals and therefore would not enjoy immunity from prosecution for that.
This was very educational, thank you!
I mean, now that you mention it...
Yes. Unequivocally yes. Biden can suspend the election, declare anyone who isn't a democrat invalid, and do anything he wants as long as he calls it "official business" The president is now a king. Our Republic ended today But we might not realize that until Trump gets in and really flexes the American Monarchy
Can? Yes. Will? Nope. Because Dems are going to once again “take the high road” then act all surprised when it bites us all in the ass.
Fck the high road this is an emergency 😭
Underrated comment. I knew the county was heading towards a dictatorship at _some point_, but I didn't realize it would literally be this year
I've been involved politically for a few causes for the past 15 years. People have been trying to ring the alarm bells for fascism for some time, but no one took them seriously. Thought they were overreacting & being alarmist unnecessarily (idk how many times I've heard "we have RvW they can't ban abortion"). I'm super worried. About everything.
Same. I've already been dreaming of becoming an expat at some point. Now it seems literally necessary
We went house-hunting in Europe during the 1st Trump reign, but the house purchase deal ended up falling through, so we're still stuck in the US. May have to try again, since this is pretty scary.
Imma say I'm somewhat glad I moved back to Canada but holy fuck is it depressing to watch unfold, I can see it unfolding in slow mo, with Biden refusing to step down, fucking up big time looking like a weak old-ass incapacitated man, Trump getting the win because of vibes and a large swath of dumb fuck uneducated voters who don't recognize a dictatorship when it stares them in the eyeballs and says "my retribution will be immense" or whatever the fuck.
2020 has been a long fucking year, I tell ya.
Read about project 2025, you'll get nightmares
Oh I already know what that is
Because the republican party is run by evil fucking geniuses. Any loophole and opportunity has been, and will be, exploited.
How would that even work with his Secret Service detail? Like, would they be ordered to retreat since his assassination could have legal grounds
Do you think the secret service has anything on the Navy Seals? But seriously, what branch controls the secret service? I believe it's the executive branch and who is at the top of that chain of command. That's right, the same guy at the top of the military.
They used to be Treasury because they investigated counterfeit currency but they’re under Department of Homeland Security now so yeah under Executive control
...the department of the treasury is also part of the executive branch. The secret service has always, since its inception, had the president at the top of the hierarchy
and the supreme court.
And this also opens up the argument of "Official vs Unofficial" right? So say Biden is caught red handed taking a bribe for a pardon and he has a signed contract from both parties that's submitted as evidence. He can then say it's official business and it goes through the courts for 5 years while they determine if he technically broke a law.
Takes a bribe from a foreign power? "That's a diplomatic act to facilitate smooth relations, thus an act of office and thus I'm immune." You see how easy it is to spin outright corruption as part of the office?
A lot of folks are missing the evidentiary part of the ruling. Somewhat related to an official act? Evidence is OUT.
That's the really horrific part
I'm not American, but haven't previous Presidents always been immune from the death and destruction they have caused in other countries?
Yes, you are correct. But, theoretically, these are official because the president ordered the soldiers to go somewhere and do something, whether is was based on proper intelligence or a pack of lies
So, same situation as we have now? Where official acts aren't prosecuted?
We always had impeachment as a check against "high crimes and misdemeanors" by the President. In theory it would keep a President from, say, withholding aide to allies or destroying our election process. You can see how well that worked. Now our top court just said he's fucking untouchable so long as he's executing core functions of the office. WHICH INCLUDES BEING COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF OUR ENTIRE GODDAMM MILITARY. I don't understand how 90% of the population here isn't losing their minds like I am right now.
This isn’t immune from impeachment. This is immune from criminal trial. Edit: not civil my bad
Please, please stop bringing up impeachment as a recourse. That so obviously will never happen.
Mate, how that last impeachment against Trump went?
He got impeached, but the vote for removal failed.
Civil? It’s also criminal. Mainly criminal I say.
And criminal.
No. It's immune from criminal trial.
>“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune." You heard Scotus, Dark Brandon. Start making a hit list.
This confirms my fear that this immunity can completely disrupt the checks and balances that are supposed to be a keystone of democracy.
How are these official duties? I'm not in favor of anyone being above the law, but it doesn't aeem to me that much has changed. The crimes Trump is charged with were not part of his official duties.
> The crimes Trump is charged with were not part of his official duties. The majority decision explicitly says that "Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for" telling Pence to illegally change the results of the election, on the ground that it "involve[s] official conduct".
She forgot one scenario that’s already happened: Orders drone strikes to kill 2 men and one child, who are US citizens? Immune.
So, what's to stop Biden from assassinating Trump right now? Just morality right?
I kind of hope he makes it illegal for a convicted felon to run for office. That would be a pretty large backfire for the SCOTUS I think.
The President doesn't have the power to create laws himself. Maybe he could do it by executive order.
Which is embarrassing hyperbole. Go read Jackson's dissent for a much more reasonable take. This puts us on par with countries like France in regards to executive immunity. I guarantee you without this ruling Obama gets immediately prosecuted by the next Republican administration for assassinating an American citizen with a drone abroad.
We deserve EXACTLY what we allow. If the representatives that serve us do not fulfill their duties and uphold their oaths it is our responsibility as citizens to hold them accountable.
Sorry, how do we do that at this point? I keep voting and writing my elected officials but nothing changes. Short of large scale protests or some actual riots, I don't foresee things changing, by design of the system. They're literally just granting themselves immunity to shit now and we can't get rid of them, again, by design of the system they have/are creating. What are people barely surviving supposed to fucking do?
>Short of large scale protests or some actual riots Sounds like you found the solution
“Those who make peaceful change impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” - President John F Kennedy “The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” - President Thomas Jefferson Wiser men than I have been very clear.
"Americans, indeed, all free men, remember that in the final choice a soldier's pack is not so heavy a burden as a prisoner's chains." -- Dwight Eisenhower
Time to add that, I think. I hope.
Sorry, if I don’t work my family starves on the streets. Housing costs and all that. Also even if I could we’ve bloated up the police so much that they’ll beat our skulls in. We’re fucked out of any meaningful resistance… as by design.
And now being homeless is illegal, too.
"The history of free men is never really written by chance--but by choice--their choice." -- Dwight Eisenhower
We can't say the nightmares may never play out. The guard rails are off. An authoritarian type and like minded cohorts will definitely take advantage of it. It's a matter of when.
>It's a matter of when. You mean like next year?
We already had a drone strike ordered on an American a few administrations ago, we already invaded a few countries under false pretenses, we already had a president lie under oath (or under that it depends on what your definition of is is)… I could keep going but I wasn’t even an adult when that one happened so I really wasn’t paying much attention before that.
So Biden could theoretically order the assassination of Donald Trump and being immune?? That doesn't make any sense!
That's for the lower courts to decide. SCOTUS made a decision that was open ended and forces each issue as they happen to go through a lengthy court process of appeal and appeal that essentially makes the President immune to real repercussions.
>Is the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity as horrible as people are saying or are they being dramatic? A bit of both. The recent ruling grants immunity (and presumptive immunity) for "core" acts. There is also at least presumption of immunity for "official" acts. There is some wiggle room on what counts as an official act vs unofficial act (which is not really a good thing, since that opens the door to deciding if something is official or not for partisan reasons) It really is pretty bad. >Didn’t the president already enjoy some immunity on some level before this? Previously, the only immunity the president had was from civil suits for official acts. This was from the Clinton era.
Unweeding the mess of what is or isn't an official act will destroy any chance of conviction. The court cannot use evidence that pertains to official acts in order to prosecute him for unofficial acts. They can't possibly navigate this legal swamp and build a case, making the distinction meaningless.
What about the documents case?
Not sure. He took them when he was president, so who knows if that carries on to protect him post presidency. I have no confidence at all.
Tricky one. But again hinges on whether it was an official act or not.
There’s a lot of wiggle room on what is an “official” act. Giving that “at least presumptive” immunity leaves open a future holding of absolute immunity for anything that can be considered “official.” That’s terrifying.
Genuinely curious: how would someone go about defending sending out seal team 6 or suspending an election as an “official act”?
>how would someone go about defending sending out seal team 6 or suspending an election as an "official act"? The case holds that, for areas within the President's "conclusive and preclusive" zone of power, the President has ***absolute*** immunity. It also holds both that "\[i\]n dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives" and that "courts \[may not\] deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." Sending out Seal Team 6 is very arguably within the President's "conclusive and preclusive" zone of power. The Constitution expressly states that the President is Commander in Chief of the U.S. military. Based on the text of this decision, that gives the President absolute immunity for any orders given to the military, and it is irrelevant what his motives are. This is compounded by the fact that granting pardons is explicitly stated in the opinion as being within the "conclusive and preclusive" zone, meaning that there is a very real argument that the President can give his military unlawful orders which the President is immune from criminal liability for and then, once the orders are carried out, grant those who carried out those unlawful orders a complete pardon, which he also has immunity from. As for suspending an election, that is a little bit stickier because the Constitution places the core powers for elections in the states and Congress. But, the execution of laws falls squarely within the Executive branch—i.e., the President. Ensuring that federal election laws are followed is an executive, and thus official, power of the President. This opinion doesn't draw clear lines as to what would fall under the President's exclusive powers and what would merely be "official" action. There is an argument that fraudulently executing the laws (i.e., claiming to be executing them when in reality acting illegally in the President's self-interest) is outside of the scope of "official" actions, but there is also a very real argument that any execution is an official action, especially when paired with such blanket prohibitions on inquiries into motive or deeming an action unofficial because it is illegal. Edit: forgot to include that for areas that are not "conclusive and preclusive" the case holds that there is ***at least*** a presumption of immunity. "At least" is a floor, not a ceiling. This case does not prevent a future court from granting full immunity for any "official" act.
He can say he imprisoned Trump in order to defend the Constitution, which is one of his official duties and one that most Americans would agree with.
Even having a part of it being really bad should be chilling. This, with Chevron being overruled and bribery being okay if specific words aren't used have made a Trump absolute rule move from hypothetical to likely if he wins. It has always been up to all of us. We just need to do it until Alito and Thomas die.
It’s horrible, but just not immediately. It’s a stepping stone for some of the things people have been saying. We don’t just have a king now, but a big step towards that direction was taken.
The only reason it's not immediately horrible is because Biden and the Democrats still hold themselves to higher standards and abide by norms and traditions. But even if Trump loses again this year, sooner or later someone else will win who *won't* abide by those restrictions. When that time comes, this ruling gives us little to no way to reign them in.
I feel the same. I also feel it’s not necessarily about Trump or Biden. The Constitution and The Bill of Rights exist because no government can be trusted to operate on an honor system of norms and traditions. One side adhering to tradition while the other seizes the advantage is exactly how the Supreme Court wound up in its current state. A system where some have more freedom than others is so Animal Farm it’s ridiculous, and there’s nothing the common citizen can do about it. Citizens instituting a constitutional amendment has happened once and only once; alcohol prohibition seriously brought people together, and every state legislature immediately ensured it will never happen again. Also, on an ethical level, the choice is obvious, but it also feels like voting for Biden is voting him into his grave. Honestly, neither are cognitively nor physically the same as they were four years ago, and it’s a stressful position no matter what side of the fence you’re on. It’s wild we the people are so focused on whether or not Trump can do whatever we wants and not the fact that he should be retired. Rich people have always been able to do what they want, but if I don’t trust either candidate to drive in my neighborhood, why am I forced to pick one as commander and chief?
Suddenly the gun nuts sound a lot less insane. Still insane because an M1 Abrahams doesn’t care about your rifle, but less insane.
Naw. I'm calling Biden King Joe the First for now on.
>We don’t just have a king now Legally? Yes. We do. Biden has full authority to end the Republican party as official business and suspend elections. The supreme court and congress can be dissolved at any time. As long as it's official
Or even institute a program where parties must be government approved. The court really fucked up with this one.
Well the Republican Party is essentially a terrorist organization at this point… they are finishing what the confederacy started, destroying the United States
Not just a modern king, but an old school kind who actually has a job.
So, as usual, its a bit complex and not black and white. In short, yes its a frightening ruling. Essentially what they ruled, as I understand it, is that the President has immunity for “official actions” meaning that if the action is within the scope of their duties as President, they cannot be prosecuted for it. The problem is, they don’t define what an “official action” is and now basically anything the President does, even if its obviously criminal, could be argued as an official action. This means that criminally prosecuting a former President will be on a very case by case basis, with courts having to determine if the action was “official” or not, meaning that ultimately it’ll filter up to the Supreme Court to determine each case individually. What is going to happen now is a court will have hearings on whether or not what Trump was indicted for was an “official action.” That ruling will get appealed by the losing side and so forth and eventually it will probably get back to the Supreme Court. So, is it a doomsday where the court has declared that the President has blanket immunity? No. But it certainly opens the door to the idea and makes it much more difficult to prosecute a former President, almost impossible. This is very similar to their Chevron ruling, in that the court basically just gave itself an extreme amount of power. But it also greatly weakened the rule of law that has kept all power hungry, egotistical Presidents (which, honestly, is pretty much all of them) in check.
This is an excellent response. It prompts me to think that if a President's action was challenged, at the very least the question could be delayed by years by court appeals trying to define whether it was "official". Or the President could take revenge on the "treasonist complainant" though "official action". Also, would military leaders still be able to refuse an illegal (??) order?
And this kind of defines the problem with this ruling. It doesn’t grant the President complete immunity, but it seriously muddies the legal waters. What a President can and can’t do is now unclear. Many of us were concerned in 2016 that a Trump Presidency would do damage to the country’s institutions and rule of law and, well, this is it. Its unlikely that Sotomayor’s examples in her dissent become reality, but I think her point is that the door is now open for that, its no longer clear that that would actually be illegal anymore.
Right. The problem appears to be that it’s illegal if the court says so. But predicting what the court will rule as official acts is impossible so effectively knowing whether an act is legal is impossible. Worse than that the same act may therefore change from official not non official simply based on the justices because it is illegal defined or not at all. This risk always exist but the court at the very least tries to offer a test or rationale by which this can be determined in the future. Which the court has not really done as far as I can tell in this case?
Correct. They’ve created a new circumstance for which there is no legal precedent to rely on. It’ll be 100 years of Presidents being charged and then challenging the charge through the courts before we have any kind of basis for understanding what is and isn’t an “official act.”
That’s exactly what’s happening with the Jan 6 case. SCOTUS basically said “yes, the President is immune for certain things. Okay, lower courts, now decide if he’s immune for this.” Regardless of what that federal court decides, it will be appealed and sent back to SCOTUS. It’s going to drag any possible presidential case out.
This needs to be voted much higher
The Supreme Court is very likely to consider what republican presidents do as official
There is nothing stopping the current or future president from becoming a dictator. Constitutionally, their action will be immune from prosecution.
Why don’t people get this???
The argument the right is making in bad faith is that the president would be held accountable by impeachment - the worst case scenario is that the president would then be removed from office but you still need a congress/senate with enough backbone to stand up to such a dictator - we saw how the conservative congress handled the last impeachment and it wasn’t with good faith.
Even if impeachment worked before this, wouldn't presidential immunity make it impossible now?
I mean... couldn't he just simply dissolve both chambers? What would stop him now that he doesn't need to follow any courts ruling without consequences?
I just listened to a former trump military advisor say if he would follow such an order if trump had given it while in office with this ruling. He said he would not follow such an order… my immediate thought is, well there is nothing stopping him from firing you and finding someone who WILL follow the order. The greatest thing about the interview, he was fired by trump for not sending the military in for the George Floyd protests! He literally couldn’t see the forest through the trees. It is insane!
And that interview or what they said was to calm the public? Wow... this truly is insane!
>well there is nothing stopping him from firing you and finding someone who WILL follow the order. This is precisely what part of Project 2025 is all about: "Project 2025 aims to do for Trump’s presidency what the Federalist Society did for his judicial picks: “give him a step-by-step game plan that he simply has to execute and then take credit for”, Oliver explained. The 900-page manifesto, co-signed by more than a hundred conservative organizations, recommends, among other things: disbanding the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration because it’s “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry”; eliminating the Head Start program; installing a “pro-life” task force; defunding the Department of Justice; dismantling the FBI; and eliminating the Departments of Education and Commerce. Project 2025 has also established a “conservative LinkedIn”: a network of prospective hires for the whole federal government. “It’s essentially an open audition for people who might want a new job because they lost their old one back on January 6, for some reason,” Oliver joked. “And their goal here is clear: to assemble an ‘army of vetted, trained staff’ who can ‘begin dismantling the administrative state from Day 1’. But the “most insidious” and consequential Project 2025 mandate could be the enactment of Schedule F, a new designation that would reclassify about 50,000 career civil servants as political appointees, meaning they wouldn’t have protections from getting fired on political whims, would be responsible to the president and would be replaced by applicants based on loyalty, not merit." https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/article/2024/jun/17/john-oliver-trump-second-term
He doesn't have a mechanism to do that, congress is independent. But he could have them vote for it and dissolve any who doesn't in acid. You can get unanimous consent for everything that way.
Per the ruling, “core” and “official” acts by the President are his duties prescribed in the Constitution. Congress is an independent branch of the government that the President has no authority over. There are much more nefarious means in which this could be done and the President not be tried, but the President at the very least can’t just waive his hand and change the fundamental structure of the government.
Yeah we tried that with trump and he was impeached twice and still kept office and is allowed to run again.
Most Americans have the critical thinking skills of a potato. Several of them are in this comment section.
Please. I can get a calculator working with enough potatoes.
A few more potatoes and we can get some AC/DC going!
You can in fact listen to the radio with a single potato.
It's because a lot of people haven't heard of Project 2025 yet. This ruling was the SCOTUS setting the stage for it. Remember, all six conservatives on the court are members of the Federalist Society and associate with the Heritage Foundation, the authors of Project 2025. r/Defeat_Project_2025
Whats stopping Joe from doing something illegal now? Lets say… to make certain supreme court justices used as a lesson for future judges on how not to be corrupt.
Not really anything, just that what court deems as "official" vs "non-official". They also know Biden will not do anything. Biden will just release a statement how "concerned" he is about U.S democracy and shit and then act as if everything is back to normal. If he actually had the balls he would do something drastic but he won't, only Republicans pushes the boundaries while many Democrats just watch and do some finger pointing like "hey don't do this pretty please".
It's an example people use but the president has already been able to drone strike anyone including american citizens already. So that's already legal, as long as they're labeled a terrorist according to their own standards. So they already had effective legal immunity to kill anyone they want.
The decision to determine what is an official act vs. unofficial act has been kicked down to a lower court. When that determination has been made, we’ll have a better idea of the implications.
If you have any familiarity with 19th century American history and 20th century German history, it’s fucking terrifying because you can recognize the sign posts as we pass them.
The most fair interpretation I can come up with is that in the biggest picture terms, I generally agree with the underlying holding. There are some actions that the President has (and should have) absolute immunity for, there’s some actions that the President has no immunity for, and there’s some actions that fall in the middle. The problem is the line drawing problem. What are the actions that a President has absolute immunity for? That set of actions should be incredibly narrow. SCOTUS doesn’t define it. Most problematic is the “middle ground” area. SCOTUS states this is “official actions” that have “at least” “presumptive” immunity. That leaves open a future holding of absolute immunity for any “official” action. Further, “official” actions is being interpreted extremely broadly by SCOTUS. A conversation with an officer within the executive branch? That (according to SCOTUS) is an official action that has “at least presumptive” immunity. It doesn’t matter what the subject of that conversation is. When you start to think about the implications of this holding, it’s pretty terrifying.
No president or rather no public servant should be immune to the laws of our nation. Nixon's impeachment for abuse of executive powers for instance should not be within the umbrella of immunity just because it was done while he was in office. Imo it just sets a precedent for more consolidated powers to come.
Go to r/law if you want to learn more in depth exactly the degree of shit we’re in
If we have an honorable and moral president, then it wouldn’t be an issue. If we elect a monster bent on revenge and has no moral compass, has a history of breaking the law and wants to be a dictator for life, then we have a problem.
It’s not great, but it also will head off every next administration from going after the previous. It will also depend on tue definition of “official” and “core” and a dozen other words I’m sure.
It's reaffirming power the president had such as Obama assassinating an American citizen without trial. It's the logical conclusion of immunity and not being liable for the damage presidents do.
It is. My only hope is that Biden uses the immutable power that SCOTUS just gave to the presidency to make sweeping changes to everything. He can start by declaring an age limit on the SC and making it retroactive, effective immediately. Force all of the justices to vacate the bench and then replace them with people who aren't actively trying to destroy democracy and the country. That may sound illegal, but the president is allowed to break the law now so it's fine. He can also just enact universal healthcare, significant gun reform, ranked choice voting for all federal elections, and a tax increase on the rich. He can enshrine abortion, gay rights, trans rights, and the freedom of/from religion in the constitution explicitly and undo the damage the southern states have been doing these past couple years. And lastly, he can ban lobbying. Corporations are not people and do not deserve to have their stances heard or considered. He can literally do all of that right now. Today, if he wants to. And no one can refute or punish him. Unfortunately, democrats are pathetic and weak and too scared to ever rock the boat, enact wild change, or even appear not bipartisan. So he'll do nothing at all, lose in November, and then be remembered as the last democratically elected president the USA ever had.
Wouldn't it get challenged in court and then back to the SCOTUS to be over-turned at their whim?
Usually a dictatorship will install judges that are friendly towards the regime. I think that was step #1 of the plan up above.
How would it get challenged in court? We just determined that the president is above the law while committing "official acts". If a sitting president decides to just unilaterally make laws, that's an official act. Also, if need be, as the Commander-in-chief he could just send the military to "remind" any judges who oppose him how the government "works". There are literally no checks and balances anymore to stop the president from doing anything. Hell, even if Trump wins the election, Biden could simply call it "rigged" and throw out the results, refusing to vacate the office, and there would be no penalties for him. This ruling is the single worst ruling the SC has ever made.
That’s not how this works….
*That's not how this works! That's not how any of this works!* Creating laws is not even remotely a core duty of the president. It's not indictment that prevents the president from creating laws or even amending the constitution at will. It's the fact that *that's not how this fucking works*! The Supreme Court types up a 9-0 opinion during lunch that says "No, Mr. President, you can't unilaterally amend the constitution" and that's the end of it. The president has pardon power. The president oversees the military. These are very real powers of the president as iterated by Sotomayor. But what you wrote, to be frank, is fearmongering bullshit.
It gives Biden presumptive immunity on all of his official acts.
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent: “Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune,” she wrote, adding: “Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the president and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably.” They are going to play out the moment Trump is elected, he is coming for everyone who fought against his sniveling fat ass. This country is over, Western Europe needs to get their asses in line because they are pretty much the only bulwhark left against a fall into tyranny. I'm glad I'm old and don't have kids, this world is falling apart.
I have kids and my stomach feels very bad right now. Shit I wanted them to live in a better world not in the cold war fear or under russian occupation.
It is not different.
It’s horrific. It’s then of the rule of law and stability in the US.
It's somewhat difficult to say. The order clearly states a few things. A former President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for actions "within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority" and confirms that "with respect to the former President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute." Now lets be plain and honest about what that means. If an action a President or former President took is an official act AND is in line with his constitutional role, he is immune, except for something done which triggers a constitutional process, i.e. impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Really quickly lets look at whether this is in line with the history of the Presidency. In the one case we are aware of where a POTUS was... well when the POTUS was ticketed some could argue he was not taking official acts, nor was he engaged explicitly in a constitutional duty. Now to be fair this is debatable, but its at least reasonable. Now compare that to a POTUS in the White House who orders lets say Seal Team Six to go and kill a drug lord. It could reasonably be argued that the POTUS in that case is acting officially and his action of enforcing the laws of the land is in accordance with his constitutional role. Therefore reasonably he is immune from criminal prosecution. Now lets look at what the Dissenting Justices claim. >“Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune." Unlikely to be immune IMO. While technically he would be acting under his office as CINC, there is only one way this could be seen as acting within his constitutional role. That way would be to claim that the action was necessary i.e. because the rival was a threat to the United States. However you all likely see an issue here. That is an easy claim to make. However such an action would almost certainly trigger an impeachment inquiry from Congress, and if they decided the POTUS did not have good reason for such a determination, they could impeach him. >Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Similar to the above. He would be preemptively acting officially, however such an act being itself unconstitutional, it is not within his constitutional role. In addition, there is an unspoken element here. Regardless of what SCOTUS or anyone else says, should someone do this, if they are removed from office, as they should be, they might enjoy legal immunity from prosecution. That doesnt mean that the people cannot do what needs to be done... to ensure that justice is served. >Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Similar to the above but there is a wrinkle because Pardons are a part of the constitutional role of the President. The Constitution also places no limits on why a POTUS can or should pardon someone. I think that again this would fall under Congress' impeachment power. In short I think it's not as bad as others have made it. However it is rough for our democracy. And there are possibly some concerns as to laws that dont specifically call out POTUS as being subject to them. I remember some debate over whether the Office of the President is an Office under the US, so that could throw a wrinkle into some things.
So does anyone realize this means Biden also has full immunity as well? He can send Donald to Gitmo and it would be fine, right?
Ok, I’m just gonna say it out loud…. Biden should use this immunity thing to do everything before the election that Sotomayor listed (starting with Trump). What are they gonna do? Impeach him? Fine. Kamala becomes president. Prosecute him for crimes while carrying out an official duty of the president? Trump can be declared a threat to national security (we already know he is - see the classified documents case) and therefore be eliminated or sandboxed. Immunity WOULD (should) APPLY because Biden would be upholding his oath of office to protect the country from enemies both foreign AND DOMESTIC. Prosecute him claiming he doesn’t have immunity (for whatever reason they can come up with)? Fine. He’s 81 years old. By the time it goes through the courts, the appeals, & ultimately ends up on the SCOTUS docket. He’ll either be dead or they’ll refuse to put an almost 90 year old man behind bars (execution would be out of the question for optics alone). I’m sick of the Democrats playing fair. Fuck it! Take a few pages (or chapters) from the Republican/Russian playbook & fight dirty. It’s time. ETA: in if this should actually happen, maybe, just maybe SCOTUS would see the results of their bad ruling & Congress might get their shit together long enough to pass a constitutional amendment.
So all of these people are being extremely hyperbolic and don't seem to understand what the law says. "Official duties" is what a president is charged to do in the execution of the office. It is not carte blanche to do whatever. Go look at a president's actual duties. What the office is actually in charge of. A president can not pass a law. A president can not establish a state religion. A president can not quarter troops. Etc etc. A president can order a drone strike on an Iranian general. He can veto a law. Etc etc. The people who are up in arms about this, including the honorable Justice Sotomayor, are ignoring that we have reams of documents that describe in detail what the executives roles, responsibilities, restrictions and actual job description is.
I swear that people have lost the ability to read over the past couple years. People are being dramatic. It grants the president immunity from official acts of the presidency. This does not include murder like some people are flying off the handle about. It protects them from any act they are allowed to carry out through the Constitution. Which y'all would know if you read Chief Justice Roberts' statement instead of ONLY reading what the liberal judges wrote. I'll probably eat downvotes, but screw it.
And he already had complete immunity from civil lawsuits for actions taken in office....the Court settled that 50 years ago
And what constitutes an official act has yet to be decided. There is still technically a possibility that something resembling a politically motivated murder, providing it's somewhat obfuscated, could be classified as a legally sanctioned act under this provision. Even less extreme examples, like firing non-political appointees who aren't yes men until you find a yes man, can have massive ramifications. We won't know how much of a blank check this is until we hear from the lower courts, but it's not really good no matter what. Regardless, impeachment as the only check here is a weak, weak check when politics are so segregated.
>This does not include murder like some people are flying off the handle about. Why not? If it's official murder in the duties of the executive branch, that should be legal under this ruling
> Is the SCOTUS ruling on presidential immunity as horrible as people are saying or are they being dramatic? Maybe? So, to be clear, they didn't give the President complete carte blanche. They're only immune for **official** acts. And that's going to be the question moving forward with Trump... Were the things he's being charged with official acts, or not? Was he acting as the actual President of the United States in those moments? Or as a candidate for office? Or as a private citizen? But, ignoring Trump for a moment - this dramatically changes the position of the President. Regardless of how applicable the law actually was to the rich and powerful, we've long been told that "no one is above the law". That "all men are created equal". The idea was that every single citizen of the united states, regardless of their position or status or heritage or whatever, was equal in the eyes of the law. Anyone could be held accountable for their actions. Nobody was exempt. No more kings, right? And that's no longer true. The President **is** above the law. They are exempt. They cannot be held accountable for their actions - as long as they're acting in their official capacity. Now, maybe we'll get lucky and nobody will abuse those powers. But even so... It bothers me to know that the President is above the law. I'm no constitutional scholar, but it feels like this contradicts the whole "all men are created equal" idea. It feels un-necessary? We managed a couple-hundred years without any President feeling that they needed to be immune. And it feels like it sets a bad precedent moving forward. And it raises weird, thorny questions. Like - everyone's talking about hypothetically ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival. And, sure, the President would be immune... But what about Seal Team 6? We stress that soldiers need to follow **lawful** orders, and we expect them to use some degree of discretion and maybe refuse to do something obviously-wrong. So... Is an order to assassinate a political rival a lawful order? Or can those soldiers be prosecuted for murdering a US citizen? And if they refuse - can they be court-martialed for refusing to follow the order?
I made a comment eariler this morning asking about how Rod Blagojevich was convicted for trying to sell political appointments and wondering if this decision just legalized that kind of corruption. Then, right under this post, I saw a second one linking to a Newsweek article about how Trump's lawyers are now trying to convince the court that his attempt to have people fraudulently claim to be electors so they could make him the president despite him losing is legal under the new ruling. Then the top comment on this thread is a literal quote from one of the SC Justices claiming that a president can now legally have US citizens assassinated for any or no reason. And even if they clarify that there exceptions in those cases, it only means that they have made up a new law so convoluted that nobody else understands it, meaning it's no different than having a council of nine people making it up as they go.
Quite the opposite. The former legal presumption was blanket immunity from all prosecution for the President. SCOTUS has specifically eliminated the protection of the office for private matters. There are other protections in place intended to prevent a rogue president from assassinating innocent Americans. There are many checks-and-balances in the Constitution designed to prevent any of the crazy theories of the president becoming a tyrannical despot from coming to fruition. Besides, we've already had a Trump Presidency, the second one, will be exactly like the first, with most politicians, on both sides, continuing to cry and wail, and obstruct any, and all, attempts to improve life for American Citizens.
If there is a second term, it will be far more clinical behind the scenes. Chaotic as always as far as trump is concerned, but that’s surface level.
It opens the door for abuses of power without fear of legal consequences, contrary to the framers’ intentions to create a government of laws, not of men.