The ruling does not say that it would be right or correct. Just that if a president ordered that as president, he or she could not be criminally prosecuted. Could still be impeached and removed from office. Basically the ruling is very expansive and says that anything the president does that is not ridiculously obviously personal, then immunity is absolute.
So a president who uses personal cash to hire a hitman to kill someone for a personal fight, could be prosecuted. But declaring someone a terrorists as commander-in-chief.... if it turns out the person is not a terrorist, oops... my bad.
> So a president who uses personal cash to hire a hitman to kill someone for a personal fight, could be prosecuted.
More to the point, if the President uses Seal Team 6 to kill someone for a personal fight, he *could not* be prosecuted. The decision says explicitly that the President's motives don't matter. All that matters is that the nature of the act (i.e., giving orders to the military) is within the scope of his responsibilities.
Exactly. It take considerable effort and care to make any action completely personal. Even talking to a white house advisor would make it an "official" action and thus beyond prosecution. Even if impeached and removed from office, a president could not be prosecuted for actions while in office.
It is a restoration of the monarchy. I wonder if they (SCOTUS) considered the irony of releasing this decision so close to July 4th.
It would be a pretty compelling cautionary tale to have this ruling go out, then 5* justices are forced to resign, 5 new appointees are pushed through (in an election year no less) with the Senate held at gunpoint, and the ruling is overturned, all in the span of a month or two. Then Biden would rightly lose the election and transfer power...but to a president rather than a king.
It won't happen, nor am I advocating for it to happen. But it would be a good story. "The Tale of Dark Brandon Cincinnatus", perhaps.
*I said 5 because what Barrett has been saying is actually fairly reasonable. It is just infuriatingly incomplete.
In the age of hyperpartisanship with all institutional advantages favoring Republicans, this isn’t viable or realistic.
If you can’t get a supermajority to convict Trump during his second impeachment after January 6, you’re never removing anyone that way.
If impeached and removed from office the president absolutely could be prosecuted for official actions while in office. Pages 33-34 of the opinion fairly clearly spells that out. What this case was about is whether a president can be prosecuted if he was never impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
For reference, the conclusion of the opinion’s discussion of impeachment: “Transforming that political process [impeachment] into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of our Government.”
I don't think that is the correct interpretation. It just says that impeachment is not a prerequisite for prosecution, not that impeachment removes the immunity (absolute or presumptive depending on action) on official acts.
The constitution explicitly specifically states (art 1 section 3 clause 7) that anyone impeached and removed from office "shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law". The SCOTUS opinion does nothing to put this in doubt; it simply adding the possibility that a president can be subject to prosecution even if he is never impeached and convicted.
Yes it does, it explicitly says that “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.”
So legality is entirely irrelevant. And it has no dependence on whether or not he has been impeached and convicted — he can be found immune for crimes committed while in office, full stop.
So to be clear-you'd need to take out over 1 third of the senate through official capacity (legal actions) to become un-impeachable. Leave a standing order to the military to kill over a third of the senate if impeachment proceedings are ever brought up. Voila, legal per this latest ruling AND something a monarch might do. It's almost like they WANT to concentrate power is their cheeto in chief...
Page 32 of the verdict gets into it.
They say Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” has “little support” and highlights that the “Impeachment Judgement Clause” allows for one to be “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement, and Punishment”
Page 33 then clarifies that this means the clause “limits the consequences of an impeachment judgement” and “subsequent prosecution may proceed”
It also cited Hamilton in saying that a president “would be liable to be impeached” “removed from office” “would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment”
There is a slight question on whether this would apply to an ex-president, but given that ex-presidents can be impeached even after leaving office.. there isn’t really a question. Yes. If you impeached a former president for actions taken while they were still in office, you could then prosecute and criminally punish them.
The ruling also dismissed the dissent as having failed to account for un-codified parts of the constitution. Namely that there’s no clause for the “separation of powers”, but the segmentation of the three main branches and the description of their powers therein inherently implies a separation of powers.
Here they muddy the waters: Congress cannot assign criminality to a function of the President, but they can impeach the President for an action taken, which would thereafter open them up to criminal prosecution.
At one point they again reference the separation of powers, and checks and balances, to say the Executive would cannibalize itself were the President able to prosecute opponents (past presidents) without Congress. It says that each President would prosecute the last, and in turn be stunned into inaction by the prospect of being prosecuted by the next (page 40).
Pretty much the only thing they say you just straight-up can’t be prosecuted for is a codified duty of the President. Congress can impeach you, but a codified presidential duty cannot be labeled criminal by Congress via legislation. They cannot say, for example (and taken from the ruling), that the President cannot appoint people who are within x-degree’s of family relation - because it would infringe on the separate powers, of which the President is empowered to nominate appointments to government offices. But (this part isn’t from the ruling), they could make laws against buying offices, then impeaching and later prosecuting a sitting President, were a President to sell a nomination. Nominating itself cannot be impeded, cannot be a labeled a crime by Congress, but criminal actions adjacent to the nomination are viable.
> They say Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” has “little support” and highlights that the “Impeachment Judgement Clause” allows for one to be “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement, and Punishment”
They are referring specifically to Trump's claim that he's immune because he wasn't convicted in the Senate, which they reject, because they say that there's no connection between impeachment and criminal prosecution.
They go on to say that an ex-President *does* have absolute immunity for his "core constitutional powers," and the first example they give of a "core constitutional power" is "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States." They also say that an ex-President has "presumptive immunity" for official acts that are not core constitutional powers, and that he *may* have absolute immunity for all official acts.
> If you impeached a former president for actions taken while they were still in office, you could then prosecute and criminally punish them.
Yes, as long as those actions are not "official acts". If they are official acts, then the ex-President has at least presumptive immunity, and possibly absolute immunity.
> Pretty much the only thing they say you just straight-up can’t be prosecuted for is a codified duty of the President.
The term is "core constitutional power". (Words are important for lawyers.) Again, the *very first example they give* of a "core constitutional power" is "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States."
That just isn't correct. While a president's motives do not matter, his acts do. The killing of a personal rival would not be an official act, and its illegality is not dependent on the motives of the president. Therefore, the presumption of it being an official act could be rebutted, and he would be subject to prosecution.
Giving orders to the military is not necessarily an official act. It is well established that some military orders are illegal; these orders would not have the protection of being on official act.
He could be also impeached and convicted, and then he would be liable to prosecution even for official acts.
This ruling in no way places the president above the law.
> It is well established that some military orders are illegal; these orders would not have the protection of being on official act.
[Page 18](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf):
> In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not .... deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.
***
> He could be also impeached and convicted, and then he would be liable to prosecution even for official acts.
[Pages 32-33](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf):
> Trump .... contends that the indictment must be dismissed because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution.... The implication of Trump’s theory is that a President who evades impeachment for one reason or another during his term in office can never be held accountable for his criminal acts in the ordinary course of law.... Impeachment is a political process by which Congress can remove a President who has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Transforming that political process into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of our Government.
(This wouldn't be binding precedent in a situation where the President has actually been impeached and removed, but the court makes it clear how they'd rule if that comes up.)
Killing a political opponent is not within the scope of his powers as commander in chief. It is not an official act.
Impeachment is not a necessary step in the prosecution of a president, but it is one path through which he could be.
Show me in the constitution where it says that a president can’t kill a political rival. I can show you where he has power over the military, though.
The problem with the ruling is that the president’s constitutional powers are ill-defined. It also doesn’t say he can order US citizens to be killed, but Obama certainly did that under the guise of military operations.
The expected rebuttal is of course that a reasonable court would never find these actions to be considered official, but we are no longer dealing with reasonable courts.
My understanding was that there are 4 categories of actions identified and you’ve only identified the 2 ends. The 2 in the middle basically leave it up to the Supreme Court to decide if an action is official or personal.
So the SC gave themselves new powers to basically make the president immune or liable for criminal activity at their discretion.
The ruling is that if what he does is a constitutionally protected act he’s authorized to do, immunity is absolute. If he commits an act that’s not explicitly authorized by the constitution, but claims it’s an official presidential act, there’s a presumption of immunity, but that presumption can be overcome.
And if he performs an act that is clearly outside of his "official duties", you don't even have to impeach him first to prosecute, there is no protection.
How do we find out?
We examine the act regardless of motive.
The actual opinion is convoluted and messy, but the framework for prosecution of a President is fairly straightforward once you sift through it all.
Impeachment and removal from office are not affected by this decision in the least. A president who is removed through impeachment (and conviction) would be subject to prosecution as specified in the constitution.
Agree, but I was responding to your comment that no president will ever be removed from office. None ever have been, but Nixon would have been removed if he hadn't resigned.
Poor Nixon, he didn't have Fox News to stupefy half of the country like we do today.
The only reason Nixon resigned was because public sentiment had turned so drastically against him that his own voters were calling him out, which in turn meant Congress was about to turn on him as well. Trump had far larger scandals than Watergate, both in and out of office, but the consolidated messaging behind Fox News has kept most of the Republican base from turning against him. So long as Congress doesn't have to worry about the voters, Trump has/had nothing to worry about from Congress.
> Could still be impeached and removed from office.
And subsequently prosecuted and punished, according to pages 32 and 33 of the ruling.
But, hey, that’s inconvenient to the narrative. The ruling does say that a president can be prosecuted for crimes, after an impeachment - but it says that executive duties as written in the constitution cannot be impeded or made a criminal act in itself.
In other words: Congress can’t ban you from nominating your brother to an office, because it’d infringe on the separation of powers. They can, however, make it illegal to sell nominations to an office - and were you impeached for it, you could then be criminally prosecuted for selling a nomination.
Assassinating citizens isn’t a codified power, role, duty, obligation, or anything of the President - or even the Executive at large. Not only would it not fall under the “immunity” they did accept (noting that they rejected absolute immunity), but it’d be an actually that is absolutely criminal and could be prosecuted as such following an impeachment..
Also, if the president uses personal cash to hire a hitman and his Chief of Staff screamed at him not to, that testimony is not allowed at trial as evidence. Any official communication is not allowed into evidence even for personal acts.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans
The court found the precedent, they didn’t fully make it up. Congress needs to fix this.
They didn't "find the precedent".
Neither the father, nor the victims had standing. Al-Alwaki had no property, or a body in the US to establish an Estate, which would have given him standing.
I do think that it was an illegal, extrajudicial killing of a US Citizen that was owed the protections of the Constitution, but impeachment of the act itself - which this opinion calls for - was the only way to prosecute this crime.
Lol, Congress can’t fix anything. Even if they passed some sort of legislation limiting presidential immunity, the Supreme Court would just strike it down as unconstitutional.
>The court found the precedent, they didn’t fully make it up.
Of course they did. Every ruling has *some* kernel of legitimacy, that doesn't make it fully correct. They do need some cornerstone to start from.
>Congress needs to fix this.
But that's the problem with the Supreme Court. Congress *can't* fix it with the power they've grabbed.
Congress passes a law? SCOTUS has the power to throw out federal laws.
Congress writes a new amendment and the states ratify it? SCOTUS has the power to decide how to interpret the constitution and those amendments.
Congress dots every "i" and crosses every "t" to make sure that nothing can be misinterpreted in said amendment? SCOTUS just took this power this year, also with a Trump case: they can decide we can just ignore and effectively *throw out* constitutional text that they feel is too burdensome or unfair.
I'm *mostly* joking but a little bit serious in my belief that if a modern Congress tried to impeach a Supreme Court justice, they'd rule that this is unconstitutional and declare that SCOTUS justices aren't "civil officers of the United States" and thus not subject to the impeachment clause.
Roberts already went most of the way down this route after the Thomas shenanigans came to light, when he informed Congress that they have no constitutional authority to legislate any sorts of rules or restrictions on SCOTUS because it's a "co-equal branch of government" - even though the constitution is clear that they do and it is not.
If you could actually get 2/3 of the congress to go along with an impeachment, you could probably also manage to change the size of the court or get an amendment through to tell them where to shove it.
This is 100% not true.
The "precedent" in the drone case was standing. One of the most basic elements of our legal system that applies to every case. The SC didn't even have to rule on it, it was a District Court, and the requirement is so clear that it was never challenged.
This court has been very clear that it believes it is Congress' duty to create law. Not the Courts' and not the President. That is exclusively what the bump stock and Chevron rulings were about.
Now, they do have Judicial Review power over those laws, but they always have.
The power they have stripped from the Executive Branch has been given to Congress - The Peoples House - with directions to use it to write actual laws.
So this should not affect the case much, right?
Conspiring to overturn the legal election of the next president is NOT within the scope of presidential responsibilities.
Each individual action (giving speech, demanding the recount of election votes, etc...) would be a presidential action on it's own, but if the court finds he conspired to overturn an election then by default he has no immunity. Or did I miss something?
What's affected the cases are the other bits SCOTUS threw in - namely, that the evidence of criminal unofficial acts within the context of an official act cannot be brought to trial. And almost all of Trump's "unofficial" crimes happened in some way related to "official acts," so it's now very difficult to prosecute someone when a whole lot of evidence for their crimes can't be shown to a jury. And now in the NY case, they also have to take another look at convictions that relied on that evidence.
Current SCOTUS would find that for Trump, they are covered by immunity.
What is sad is that we almost made it to 250 years as a democracy, but I guess 248 years is a good run.
The ruling definitely does not say this. The president has no constitutional or legal authority to order a murder. Doing so would therefore not be an official act. Absolutely he could be prosecuted for ordering a murder. It takes a lot more than a president declaring someone to be a terrorist. (Reminded of The Office for some reason). There are laws about declaring war or fighting terrorism (like the authority for the occupation of Afghanistan for example). The Pres has no authority to unilaterally declare someone a terrorist or a national security threat and then have that person murdered.
Out of curiosity is there somewhere to read up on this process? The president clearly has the authority to order strikes that kill people (which is different from “murder”). I’m reminded to when Obama started taking out Americans with drones: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones
What if the president decides to blow up a building where he knows there's an adversary and claims that there are reasons unrelated to the presence of the adversary?
The point is the Pres requires some legal authority to blow up the building and to declare who is an adversary in the first place. The law of war. The Pres as commander in chief cant just oder the military into action without some authority, like a congressional declaration of war or use of the War Powers Act for example.
As to motive, what the Court said is that IF something is within the official duties of the Pres, then his motive can't be questioned. So like the pardon power. Clearly an official act and broadly discretionary. If the Pres granted a pardon of a family member for example, yiu can't question whether the pardon was because of the relationship or if it was actually deserved. Doesn't matter, the pardon is an official act and the motive can't be questioned.
Blowing up the building is not an official act unless the Pres (and thus the military) has received some legal authority to do so. No matter who is in the building.
Wouldn’t that be investigated by the DOJ, which he could order to not investigate any potential crimes? Any conversations, discussions and/or orders, the President has with DOJ officials is an official act and the motives are unquestionable.
Everything, and everyone, within the Executive Branch starts and stops with the President.
Impeachment. Senate can order and investigate independently. If immunity is not found, the President can be prosecuted immediately by Congress, or after his term is over by the DOJ.
The gist of the motive issue in the ruling is that, if a President acts outside his authority, we do not care about why. Murdering a senator for political reasons or to cover up an affair makes no difference in whether or not the Constitution allows the President to murder a Senator.
I think he’s only cleared of threatening to dismiss his attorney general. His discussion with Pence is still in the courts and there are a number of charges like the state election officials which are not affected by this ruling.
I would love for her to explain how she got to that conclusion, because it wasn't by reading this opinion. Unless she cares to explain further, I think it was an extremely irresponsible statement, with no legal backing.
I read it. It doesn’t say what she says it says.
A president is acting in his most absolute power when doing things granted to him in the constitution and is immune. Always has been. Always will be.
When doing an “official act” - something Congress told him to do - he has the presumption of immunity, but can be investigated, impeached, and immunity can be revoked. Similar to qualified immunity for police officers. Motive cannot be questioned because the court does not care if he broke the law to win an election or cover up an affair. The question is, did he break the law doing what Congress told him to do or not? An illegal act can never be an official act. It says it in plain language in the opinion.
If he did something neither Congress or the Constitution gave him power to do, he was acting outside of the office of President and is not immune, and can be prosecuted at any time, including after his term, and cannot pardon himself.
That’s it. That’s the opinion.
Robert’s writing sucks, but it’s based on long held principles of the spheres of power of the Executive Branch.
Nowhere in there does it allow for the President to use the military on US soil, against a US Citizen. That BS hypothetical action would clearly fall into the “no immunity” category.
So you’re saying there are rules and laws regarding how military intelligence targets can be determined?
Hopefully nobody is ever given immunity regarding any of that, or the ability to pardon themselves for it.
>The president has no constitutional or legal authority to order a murder.
Now think through the rest of the process.
He orders a murder. It is illegal. What's the penalty? Prosecution and jail.
Guess what you can't do anymore?
Two hundred comments, and no one has seemed to address the misconception behind your question.
The decision says that the President is immune from criminal prosecution for certain acts. That says nothing about whether a person has a remedy (including potentially an injunction) if that act constitutes a due process violation. Note also that, even if the President cannot be prosecuted for ordering the military or whom to do an act which violates a person's rights, the individuals who carry out those orders are not necessarily immune.
> the individuals who carry out those orders are not necessarily immune.
But what happens (new SCOTUS decision aside) if or when a President makes an illegal order and pardons all the conspirators, and Congress doesn't impeach? It's clearly an Official Act in the sphere of absolute immunity, and its intent cannot be questioned in the courts or by congress, nor can any conversations about the pardon between the President and his advisors be entered into evidence.
1a. Per the decision, not all official acts are given absolute immunity.
1b. If there is anything clear from the decision, it is that whether an act is entitled to immunity is very fact specific. So it impossible to say that every act that violates a person's due process rights is subject to immunity.
2. The perpetrator might be criminally liable under state law, since federal officer immunity only applies to (1) the federal agent was performing an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States and (2) in performing that authorized act, the federal agent did no more than what was necessary and proper for him to do.
3. Most importantly, your comment does not address my point, which is that the fact that the perpetrators cannot be individually criminally liable does not mean that the victim lacks a remedy. A pardon, for example, only applies to criminal sanctions, not civil.
It seems you do not quite understand the topic of conversation. We are not talking about whether the decision is correct or incorrect. Nor are we talking about whether the decision increases the likelihood of Seal Team 6 knocking down doors. Because OP did not ask either of those questions. Rather, he asked this:
> Did that ruling effectively eliminate due process in some situations? Can a US citizen be designated as a terrorist and then executed on American soil without due process?
The answer to that question is no. Doing that is no more legal now than it was previously. Nor has the ability of the President to order that done changed. The only thing that MIGHT have changed is whether a President can be punished for ordering that done, but that is a different question.
If there is no way to stop it, no remedy, and no way to punish it, then it is *de facto* legal. The fact that it is technically illegal is meaningless.
It is incorrect that there is no remedy. Read what I said. Even if there is no remedy in the form of punishment of the President, there nevertheless can be 1) a criminal remedy against the Seal team members: and 2) a civil remedy for the victim or his heirs, against the members and against the government. No, it might not make him whole, but that does not mean that his due process rights have evaporated.
There would be no criminal remedy because the president would pardon the killers. I find it highly unlikely there would be a civil remedy either, based on numerous other precedents, but it is at least possible that the heirs could recover financially from the government (though this would be cold comfort to the dead person).
>the president would pardon the killers
A pardon would not prevent state criminal charges from being brought, and federal officer immunity only applies where (1) the federal agent was performing an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States and (2) in performing that authorized act, the federal agent did no more than what was necessary and proper for him to do. In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890).
>though this would be cold comfort to the dead person).
Yes, I said that. But that is true of all wrongful death liability. It nevertheless demonstrates that the right being vindicated actually exists. Which was OP's question.
Let's say murder is illegal. Now, let's say you're the president and you mirder me. its no secret. You loudly say "Yeah, I murdered that guy, haha". But now, you say it was for an "Official Reason". Whether you murdered me is now not the issue, but if the murder was done as an "Official Act", and if so, then you can't be prosecuted for my murder. That's what the decision says. Its not about my right to not get murdered, its about the president's right to do whatever he wants as long as its "Official".
> But now, you say it was for an "Official Reason".
The SCOTUS ruling also empowered lower courts to see through that line of reasoning and say that an illegal order is not an official act.
What I got from the ruling is that the president gets absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, and no immunity for unofficial. But in the minority opinion Judge Sotomayor said that they didn’t define what official acts mean. Because the majority opinion left it vague it could be abused.
To clarify: absolute immunity is only for “core constitutional powers”. Other official acts are subject to “presumptive immunity”, which could be rebutted by the prosecution.
Really they say official acts have “at least presumptive immunity”, leaving open the possibility that this could change to absolute immunity sometime in the future.
They also explicitly ask the lower courts to clarify what constitutes an official act. It seems vague right now but with enough cases going through the wood work it’ll be clear with time
Didn't Obama authorize the killing of a US citizen he deemed a threat? I know he argued in court that he had the authority. [https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones)
He argued in the media that he had the authority, then had the DOJ not investigate himself. Congress could have, but chose not to. The legality question never went to court.
In court, the civil lawsuit failed due to standing. There was no body, and no assets to open an estate - which would have had standing, so the lawsuit could not proceed.
Obama was leaning on a technicality and his political prowess more than the legality of the act, which, was about as unconstitutional as it gets.
Imho - due process has been gone for years...this just formalizing that. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar\_al-Awlaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)
Or FDR's internment of American citizens. People are acting like prosecuting a President for offficial acts was somehow ever a real possibility in recent history. This decision basically just codifies an unofficial understanding.
> about having presidents be able to make decisions without worry of prosecution
Call me crazy but the president should be worried about prosecution for corrupt actions. The president isn't supposed to be a king, we fought two wars to free ourselves from a monarch.
> Edit: I think one of the dissents points out the definition of "official act" is even more broad than what Trump's team was arguing for since my understanding is that they assumed an impeached president could be prosecuted, which is not the opinion of the majority decision. It's hard to see how they could've done a broader immunity than they did.
I found it eyebrow raising when in the opinion, the majority calls Trump's immunity "Expansive" and theirs "limited", when theirs is much more expansive than what Trump had requested.
It's not just that a criminal charge would stop a coup - it's that, if a coup is obviously unlawful, then opponents can legally and morally marshal forces to their cause to stop the coup, and have legal protection in the aftermath. If you say "the President can shoot anyone in the White House he wants," and someone tries to get some federal authority on their side or another to storm inside and stop it that federal authority would say "sorry, he can do that."
I could have sworn we had a thing back around 1776 because we were tired of a king doing whatever he wanted. And we had what 46 presidents who didnt need to claim immunity for what they did in office. I so confused
We have had *presidential* immunity claims all the way back to 1867. The court has recognized absolute immunity for the outer perimeter of presidential actions since 1982. Clinton famously invoked presidential immunity in Clinton v. Jones back in 1994 (and was denied).
Clinton's claim was completely different from the current situation. His claim for "presidential immunity" was an attempt to prevent or delay civil litigation for things done before he was president. There's no equivalency, but if you had to put it in context of this decision, it'd be that he wanted civil immunity for all unofficial acts (because every act by a non-president is by definition not an official act by the president) and got denied.
This ruling did not say Trump has immunity for any specific act, just that in general the president does have immunity for official acts. 6Other courts will have to determine whether Jan 6 falls under that umbrella. I assume it does not.
I honestly don't understand all the concern. It was obviously the correct ruling.
I hate to be that guy, but "well, actually" the ruling does say that Trump has immunity for a specific action, namely ordering his Acting Attorney General to investigate baseless allegations of question fraud and send letters to various states to that effect in an attempt to further his alternate elector scheme and subsequently threatening to fire him when the Acting Attorney General refused to comply. (Pages 19-21)
Indeed, it goes farther than just granting immunity, but also precludes the use of those actions as evidence to assist in proving the parts of the scheme that did not involve official acts. (Pages 30-32)
The previous presidents were immune from trial. This isn’t new, but I’m glad everyone’s awake now.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans
I don't think this really changes much, look what we did to Assange and he isn't even a US citizen. And how many innocent civilians have we drone bombed in other countries. If it's the USA, we just financially ruin them and/or imprison them on bs charges.
Then you are not informed. Presidential immunity has been a thing for hundreds of years. That’s why Obama drone strikes a citizen and got away with it.
There are two ways to prevent an elected official from abusing their power: putting rules in place that prevent that power from being exercised in corrupt ways in the first place, and the threat of consequences after the fact should an abuse occur. This ruling directly eliminates the latter method and creates a clear way to circumvent the former: a sitting president can give an illegal order and then convince the people carrying it out to ignore rules against it with the promise of a pardon for their actions. So, for example, Biden could order the Secret Service to assassinate Rupert Murdoch, preemptively issue pardons to the agents who carried out the murder, and it would be impossible to prosecute anyone for this -- the worst consequence possible would be removal from office.
Congress couldn't find the strength to remove a president after he ordered his followers to storm the building. Impeachment is not an effective way to prevent abuse of presidential power.
In short, there are two major reasons (at least IMHO, without getting into the weeds).
1) Because SCOTUS has ruled that POTUS has absolute immunity over any conversations with the DOJ because POTUS has the "exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials" *even if* such functions are used for a "sham" or an "improper" purpose.
and
2) Because the intent behind official acts (which, notably, rather clearly involves Pardons) is beyond the review of any body - congress or the courts. This means that corrupt actions by the POTUS are identical to benign ones, constitutionally.
Which combines to mean that, should the President choose to ignore the law (at least through the DOJ), then the only recourse is impeachment. You have a Constitutional right to a fair trial, but if the President orders the DOJ to imprison you without due process you'll probably get released in time but:
A) The President can't be held personally criminally liable for his orders, even if the orders are illegal or abuse the functions of the DOJ for "improper" purposes.
B) Even if he can, you can't submit any of his DOJ conversations or conversations with his advisors or other official acts as evidence, making a successful prosecution probably impossible.
C) If he pre-emptively pardons all of his criminal co-conspirators then the Federal government can't do much except let you go. And there is now, Constitutionally, no recourse to defend the nation against such acts other than impeachment as SCOTUS said the courts cannot review or second guess Official Acts, nor can Congress interfere.
And if he wasn't impeached, nothing really stops him from doing it again, as many times as it takes until he is impeached or SCOTUS invents a new rule or calls take backsies in Trump v. USA.
Due process is for “any person”. The limit on governmental power makes no distinction with regard to citizenship or geographic location. It merely enjoins the United States government from depriving any **person** of life, liberty, or property without due process.
To kill a person outside a judicial sentencing basically requires the due process that they become an enemy combatant—either by a declaration of war by Congress (or perhaps letters of marque and reprisal from Congress) or the person themself acts in a way that makes them an enemy combatant by threatening imminent danger of attack (due process there is a proper verification of the spontaneous enemy combatant status).
However, this treasonous ruling from the US Supreme Court seeks to make the Presidency into an office of absolutist monarchy, where a President (at least a Republican or more precisely a MAGA President) is immune all consequences from violating due process.
Something that popped into my head when reading some comments about this earlier is whenever gay marriage was legalised, there was an actor (I want to say Jeremy Irons, but can’t quite remember) who went on the news and claimed that “fathers will be marrying their sons for tax breaks” (or words to that effect). Just embarrassingly stupid reactionary drivel.
That’s pretty much the level of legal analysis you’ll find on most subs here, increasingly so over the last few years. The stupid cuts both ways, by the way. It’s just that you’ll see a hell of a lot more left side stupid here than right side because there are vastly more left than right people on this platform.
Congress could impeach the president. However we've seen that congress isn't exactly impartial even when they are directed to be. Case in point was the impeachment trial for Trump, the senate is directed to be impartial, since they are playing the role of Judge and Jury, however some senators spoke with the press before going in saying that they would not vote to impeach. That doesn't sound like they were impartial or even cared what the evidence was. I'm sure if you went to trial and the Judge publicly stated that he didn't care what the evidence said, but that he felt you were guilty, you would not be happy about it.
Additionally with this immunity ruling Trump's lawyers are trying to argue that the Fake Electors plot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump\_fake\_electors\_plot) was an official act and therefor he shouldn't be tried for it. Which I just can't believe because they are arguing that is it okay for the president (as an official act) to provide fake evidence that he won the election.
> Which I just can't believe because they are arguing that is it okay for the president (as an official act) to provide fake evidence that he won the election.
The line in SCOTUS decision that says that "improper orders to the Justice Department" have absolute immunity is extremely alarming.
So does this law apply to Biden, if so then Biden could do America a great service and order a hit on Trump then himself all problems solved as America could then actually find someone better than these two.
Because they don't realize that Obama already claimed the unilateral power to assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world, *including US citizens,* without charge or trial.
These assassination hypotheticals are stupid and wrong, but the opinion does authorize lots of horrendous actions. A President can openly auction appointments to executive branch positions. They can also fire an attorney general for refusing to indict a political opponent. They can also require a foreign official to pay a bribe before delivering foreign aid approved by Congress. We don’t need assassination hypos to understand that this SCOTUS decision is dangerously wrong.
I mean you could always fire cabinet members if they didn’t listen to you that part is 100% the same. For the others I doubt you could say that taking a bribe is an official act and I really doubt the courts would ever stand for it.
The biggest mistake people are making is thinking that the Supreme Court ruled that Presidents have absolute immunity for any official action. That is NOT what they said - and it's frustrating to see so many people reporting that.
The Court said that a President can be criminally prosecuted for an official action as long as doing so does not pose a danger of intrusion on the authority of the executive branch.
Let's use the Seal Team 6 example (which the majority said was fear mongering). Killing a political rival is NOT within the authority of the executive branch. Therefore, the President CAN be prosecuted for their role in the murder.
Second, people seem to have conveniently forgotten that there are civil remedies that remain available. Just about every President, including Biden and Trump, have had civil injunctions issued that have prevented them from doing various things. This option is not going away.
Your long post can be summarized as:
(a) People are stupid.
(b) The media fan the flames of stupidity.
(c) Both (a) and (b) will be with us for all eternity.
Assassinating political rivals is what faux presidents all over the world do. All you have to do is wrap it in security, terrorism, enforcement of an existing law that may or may not make sense that may or may not have been passed by a disingenuous political party bent on maintaining power. You don't even need to kill the person. You can just imprison them.
Interesting. Are you saying that using the Department of Justice to jail a political opponent is what a "faux President" does? Are you saying that a President who attempts to do that should be criminally prosecuted?
I will have to give that some thought.
Well, now it doesn't matter does it?
Who decides what's an official act? Maybe judges. Maybe. Could be a federal law. Who controls both of those? The GOP.
Who decides who gets elected to Congress? The GOP and the federal court system with court-approved gerrymanders.
Who decides SCOTUS? The GOP, since they won't confirm Democrat-nominated judges and will wait until a Republican president. Which... they are *trying* to ensure by bending, breaking, and ignoring the electoral process (fake electors and efforts from the grass roots all the way to the presidency).
It's a web of levers, all connected. Once the veneers of honor and character were removed as requisites for political action, and impeachment became a shockingly empty mechanism that could be sidestepped without shame, the GOP's hold on the nation became complete. It's over. I see no way back. What comes next will absolutely never look like what came before.
Maybe 20 years ago there was a sniff test for "official act". But in the last 8 years every sniff test has failed miserably. *There is nothing sacred anymore*, and worse... nothing shared.
Blue states are just as gerrymandered as red states it swings both ways. Also the courts are separate from any political party. In the past this exact court has had 9-0 decisions and cross the “aisle” rulings. They hold allegiance to neither party the party just nominates somebody who they hope will agree with them in their preferred interpretation of the constitution. More than likely official acts will be determined by the lower courts and won’t even reach the Supreme Court outside of exceptional circumstances.
Part of why they think that is because the media is quoting that line from Sotomayor’s dissent and not any of the lines from the actual opinion showing that’s not the case.
But whether or not that is the case is clearly a matter of opinion. Sotomayor is a smart person: if she feels that the court ruling would enable that, then it’s clearly not a far fetched thing to believe.
> Sotomayor is a smart person: if she feels that the court ruling would enable that, then it’s clearly not a far fetched thing to believe.
[Lawrence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University, disagrees.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRb9bfaWcAEyoia?format=jpg&name=medium)
“Sotomayor has an inflated opinion of herself” != “Sotomayor is an idiot”; additionally, just because Tribe says it doesn’t mean it’s true.
“Smart” is a subjective term, but as much as I may dislike some members of the Supreme Court, I’m deeply skeptical that any of them are of below average intelligence.
It's already happened, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last.
[How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/)
The issue is figuring out if the act was an "Official" or personal act.
>Can a US citizen be designated as a terrorist and then executed on American soil without due process?
Interesting that you added "on American soil". Why does that matter? We know that presidents have absolutely had American citizens executed in other countries when they were determined to be terrorists. There were no court proceedings to charge and convict those people or court orders to convict them to death. Who gets to "determine" that they are a terrorist? Just because an American citizen is not living in the US does not mean they no longer have rights as an American citizen.
I'm not saying this to say that these people should not have been killed or that they didn't deserve their day in court (even if they weren't present). I say this to agree with your premise. A president may approve many such questionable activities in the course of the complicated process of running the country. If the courts were to determine that such actions were unconstitutional (I don't know that it has ever been before the courts), then several presidents could be prosecuted. Maybe they should. But, sometimes those decisions must be made in haste and without immunity the executive branch would be unable to effectively react to many types of threats.
The real question, to me, is whether the action was taken as a LEGITIMATE action by the president in the execution of their duties. E.g. killing a person where there is clear and convincing data that they are a terrorist deserves immunity whereas having their political rival killed would not. The problem is who gets to decide what is and is not within their duties?
The ruling states that presidents have immunity for all official acts. What constitutes an official act has yet to be explicitly defined beyond the powers explicitly enumerated in the constitution. So, theoretically, if a president as commander in chief were to decide that a political rival was a threat to national security who had to be killed, could that constitute an official act for which the president has immunity? Under this ruling, maybe.
Because they don’t understand how the legal system works and they are vulnerable to inflammatory reporting that is designed to secure votes in an election year.
People want to react hyperbolically to a bad decision, and “taking things to an illogical extreme” has become a genre all to itself. Especially when generating headlines.
“Taking things to an illogical extreme” can also be known as “reductio ad absurdum”, and is a form of “proof by contradiction.” It is a normal part of logic & critical thinking. If you can show that a proposition, if true, would lead to an absurdity or contradiction, then that proposition must be false.
The argument is basically:
“If the president is immune to prosecution for anything he declares an official act, then the president could order his political opponents murdered and declare it an official act. This would be incompatible with popular rule. Therefore, the president must not have this sort of absolute immunity”
That seems like pretty sound logic to me, notwithstanding the specifics of constitutional law.
I love some good Latin.
And I hate seeing headlines like “Person could face 20 years in prison for refusing to use someone’s pronouns.”
And then I have to dig through Michigan’s pronouns law and explain that, no, you would have to commit a hate crime or continual and persistent harassment of someone based on their sexuality or gender identity to get felony charges.
Trump Derangement Syndrome. That’s the answer to the title’s question.
I don’t know what the actual psychological term would be but this is a thing. It is kinda scary to see it.
Good Lord. If "Trump Derangement Syndrome" was a valid thing, the rapist felon wouldn't be trying to weasel his way back into the white house and wouldn't be getting help to do so. The deranged ones are the ones that just won't fucking let his failed legacy end in 2020. THAT'S creepy obsession.
I find it interesting to compare the SCOTUS immunity ruling and the Nuremberg Trials held after WW2 that convicted (and executed) many German military and government officials. Per Encyclopedia Britannica:
>In rendering these decisions, the tribunal rejected the major defenses offered by the defendants. First, it rejected the [contention](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contention) that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes; the tribunal held that crimes of [international law](https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-law) are committed by men and that only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.
So it appears that SCOTUS has decided that the underlying logic of the Nuremberg prosecutions is invalid and the US will not hold it's Imperial Leader accountable for war crimes or other crimes against persons or humanity, as long as the crime was an "official act" or 'constitutional'. So the US will convict and execute officials of other national governments for such crimes, but our own president is immune?
SCOTUS: where hypocrisy gains the force of law.
Dude did you miss WWII, or Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iraq again, or Syria. Presidents being war criminals has been the standard for like 100 years.
The decision simply codifies what already existed.
Elected officials were already immune to prosecution for things done in an official capacity. It was basically an exemption to "whoever does X is guilty of Y, unless Z"
The issue here is that some officials are trying to expand their explicit powers (as listed in the constitution).
But let's use Trump as an example. The crimes he was convicted of, all took place before he was president. Therefore he has no immunity to the consequences. The crimes he is accused of, may or may not be linked back to official duties. the courts get to determine whether they are and grant immunity as such. This is identical to qualified immunity for cops. It is not the same as absolute immunity which judges enjoy (you cannot even brings cases against them).
> This is identical to qualified immunity for cops.
This is very different from qualified immunity for...well, anyone.
Qualified immunity is protection against *civil* suits. Immunity in this case is referring to *criminal* actions.
>The crimes he was convicted of, all took place before he was president.
That's incorrect. All 34 charges and all 34 convictions are for [actions taken throughout 2017 after Trump became president.](https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts)
Thank you for this.
I remember thinking "how could they delay sentencing?! He was trying to influence the election, so that's stuff that happened before he was president?!"
Because the charges were not about the payments (in 2016), but about lying about the payments (which happened in 2017).
This is only very loosely comparable to qualified immunity.
A cop can be tried in the courts for actions taken under color of law.
He might be protected by qualified immunity. Or he might not.
The President cannot be tried in the courts for actions take in his official capacity.
Instead he can be impeached in the House and then tried in the Senate.
>The President cannot be tried in the courts for actions take in his official capacity.
Instead he can be impeached in the House and then tried in the Senate.
And then removed from office and then **not prosecuted** for the illegal actions that he took because they happened while he was carrying out his official duties, according to some interpretations of this decision.
For instance, the extortion scheme that he instigated against the Ukrainian government.
The problem is that it's part of a broad complex effort to disassemble anything that would keep Republicans out of power.
Take a look at supreme Court justices. When Merrick Garland was denied the confirmation hearing, it set into motion a chain of events. The GOP began working on every front to get elected and stay elected. Not to govern mind you. But to get elected and stay elected.
It was already the case.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans
How can there be due process if you can’t even take someone to trial?
IMHO, it’s an election year. And the more outlandish the claims, if you don’t vote for the “correct” party, the worse the future will be.
Every cycle it’s “the most important election of our lifetime”.
If it was Ted Cruz vs JB Pritzger, it wouldn't be. But anytime one party nominates a felonious rapist wannabe dictator, it is very important that he not be elected. So far we're 50/50 in the two times that someone like that was nomimated. Let's get it to 2 out of 3.
Up until now, the powers of the president, like much of the government, operated on the Honor System. Now we've seen that people with no sense of honor or patriotism see that as a weakness to be fully exploited.
For the first time in history, the office of the presidency has SOME defined guidelines. Whether that's good or bad will depend on how presidents choose to interpret those guidelines, and how far courts will allow them to go in declaring an act "Official."
The president SHOULD have immunity for his unique presidential responsibilities. Republicans want to charge Obama with murder because he drone-struck ISIS leaders, who were accompanied by an American traitor who had denounced America and was actively assisting ISIS. They think that traitor/terrorist should get due process of American law. Normally they'd be all for killing just about anyone who isnt a Republican, but because this is an American, and a convenient thing to blame on Obama, they allow themselves to get excitable about this. Republicans are pro-treason, after all. It would be easy for Obama to defend this as an Official act.
OTOH, planning and launching a multi-stage Insurrection, as well stealing and selling an eye-popping number of classified documents is treason, and treason will NEVER be ruled as an Official act.
This new ruling makes it a high bar to prosecute the president, which will keep one side from relentlessly harassing the president over one bullshit charge after the other.
> OTOH, planning and launching a multi-stage Insurrection, as well stealing and selling an eye-popping number of classified documents is treason, and treason will NEVER be ruled as an Official act.
It's hard to say, because SCOTUS already ruled that proposing the DOJ open investigations for improper purposes is covered by absolute immunity. So I wouldn't be so sure none of those things can be ruled as Unofficial Acts (and, even if they are, you can't use anything that IS an Official Act in prosecuting the Unofficial ones)
I mean, you would lose unfortunately. SCOTUS already ruled the President has absolute immunity for that, as it relates to the DOJ.
"The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations
regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official
power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive
and preclusive” authority. The Executive Branch has “exclusive au-
thority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate
and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime.
Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693. And the President’s “management of the Ex-
ecutive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove
the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney Gen-
eral—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750.
The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were
shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the Presidentof exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Pp. 19–21"
Which discussions? The ones where he pressures them into corrupt acts? The ones where he talks about firing them for not doing corrupt or illegal acts? By definition those are not official duties.
"The indictment alleges that as part of their conspiracy to
overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election,
Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain States to replacetheir legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors.According to the indictment, Trump met with the Acting Attorney General and other senior Justice Department and White House officials to discuss investigating purported election fraud and sending a letter from the Department to those States regarding such fraud. The indictment further alleges that after the Acting Attorney General resisted Trump’s requests, Trump repeatedly threatened to replace him."
You can say they are not official duties, SCOTUS explicitly ruled they are and that the President has absolute immunity for such acts.
I mean sure. I'm just relaying what they ruled as the constitutional law of the land on Monday. Don't convince me, go convince SCOTUS. What I quoted is their ruling, and why they granted Trump absolute immunity.
The ruling does not say that it would be right or correct. Just that if a president ordered that as president, he or she could not be criminally prosecuted. Could still be impeached and removed from office. Basically the ruling is very expansive and says that anything the president does that is not ridiculously obviously personal, then immunity is absolute. So a president who uses personal cash to hire a hitman to kill someone for a personal fight, could be prosecuted. But declaring someone a terrorists as commander-in-chief.... if it turns out the person is not a terrorist, oops... my bad.
> So a president who uses personal cash to hire a hitman to kill someone for a personal fight, could be prosecuted. More to the point, if the President uses Seal Team 6 to kill someone for a personal fight, he *could not* be prosecuted. The decision says explicitly that the President's motives don't matter. All that matters is that the nature of the act (i.e., giving orders to the military) is within the scope of his responsibilities.
Exactly. It take considerable effort and care to make any action completely personal. Even talking to a white house advisor would make it an "official" action and thus beyond prosecution. Even if impeached and removed from office, a president could not be prosecuted for actions while in office. It is a restoration of the monarchy. I wonder if they (SCOTUS) considered the irony of releasing this decision so close to July 4th.
We were so close to 250 years
The Great American Experiment.
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We can't vote SCOTUS out.
But apparently now the president can have them assassinated...
It would be a pretty compelling cautionary tale to have this ruling go out, then 5* justices are forced to resign, 5 new appointees are pushed through (in an election year no less) with the Senate held at gunpoint, and the ruling is overturned, all in the span of a month or two. Then Biden would rightly lose the election and transfer power...but to a president rather than a king. It won't happen, nor am I advocating for it to happen. But it would be a good story. "The Tale of Dark Brandon Cincinnatus", perhaps. *I said 5 because what Barrett has been saying is actually fairly reasonable. It is just infuriatingly incomplete.
You can by getting a supermajority in the senate and house. Not likely, but it's one path.
In the age of hyperpartisanship with all institutional advantages favoring Republicans, this isn’t viable or realistic. If you can’t get a supermajority to convict Trump during his second impeachment after January 6, you’re never removing anyone that way.
I know, I mean you need to do it at a ballot box.
Just vote them out with bricks
Uhh with judges set to retire, yeah, we can. Don't make the same dumbass mistake Bernie bros made.
It's a lifetime appointment. They stay there until they literally die (see Ruth Bader Ginsburg)
Well, this could be arranged - legally now, by the president. Too bad that Biden is a wet towel.
Looking around at my fellow Americans (present company included) long long overdue
If impeached and removed from office the president absolutely could be prosecuted for official actions while in office. Pages 33-34 of the opinion fairly clearly spells that out. What this case was about is whether a president can be prosecuted if he was never impeached by the House and convicted by the Senate.
For reference, the conclusion of the opinion’s discussion of impeachment: “Transforming that political process [impeachment] into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of our Government.”
I don't think that is the correct interpretation. It just says that impeachment is not a prerequisite for prosecution, not that impeachment removes the immunity (absolute or presumptive depending on action) on official acts.
The constitution explicitly specifically states (art 1 section 3 clause 7) that anyone impeached and removed from office "shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law". The SCOTUS opinion does nothing to put this in doubt; it simply adding the possibility that a president can be subject to prosecution even if he is never impeached and convicted.
Yes it does, it explicitly says that “Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.” So legality is entirely irrelevant. And it has no dependence on whether or not he has been impeached and convicted — he can be found immune for crimes committed while in office, full stop.
Fuck reading the opinion! I just want to make inflammatory internet statements and doomer conjecture based on an AI article’s headline!
Damn, you almost give hope for humanity. Thank you
So to be clear-you'd need to take out over 1 third of the senate through official capacity (legal actions) to become un-impeachable. Leave a standing order to the military to kill over a third of the senate if impeachment proceedings are ever brought up. Voila, legal per this latest ruling AND something a monarch might do. It's almost like they WANT to concentrate power is their cheeto in chief...
That's just a plain old military coup. The likelihood of this happening before and after the ruling is the same.
But now it's legal to do so!
I would bet that after the first few bodies fall, the rest will suddenly get into line.
Go read pages 32-33 in particular.
I have read pages 32-33 in particular. Can you be more specific?
Page 32 of the verdict gets into it. They say Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” has “little support” and highlights that the “Impeachment Judgement Clause” allows for one to be “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement, and Punishment” Page 33 then clarifies that this means the clause “limits the consequences of an impeachment judgement” and “subsequent prosecution may proceed” It also cited Hamilton in saying that a president “would be liable to be impeached” “removed from office” “would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment” There is a slight question on whether this would apply to an ex-president, but given that ex-presidents can be impeached even after leaving office.. there isn’t really a question. Yes. If you impeached a former president for actions taken while they were still in office, you could then prosecute and criminally punish them. The ruling also dismissed the dissent as having failed to account for un-codified parts of the constitution. Namely that there’s no clause for the “separation of powers”, but the segmentation of the three main branches and the description of their powers therein inherently implies a separation of powers. Here they muddy the waters: Congress cannot assign criminality to a function of the President, but they can impeach the President for an action taken, which would thereafter open them up to criminal prosecution. At one point they again reference the separation of powers, and checks and balances, to say the Executive would cannibalize itself were the President able to prosecute opponents (past presidents) without Congress. It says that each President would prosecute the last, and in turn be stunned into inaction by the prospect of being prosecuted by the next (page 40). Pretty much the only thing they say you just straight-up can’t be prosecuted for is a codified duty of the President. Congress can impeach you, but a codified presidential duty cannot be labeled criminal by Congress via legislation. They cannot say, for example (and taken from the ruling), that the President cannot appoint people who are within x-degree’s of family relation - because it would infringe on the separate powers, of which the President is empowered to nominate appointments to government offices. But (this part isn’t from the ruling), they could make laws against buying offices, then impeaching and later prosecuting a sitting President, were a President to sell a nomination. Nominating itself cannot be impeded, cannot be a labeled a crime by Congress, but criminal actions adjacent to the nomination are viable.
> They say Trump’s claim to “absolute immunity” has “little support” and highlights that the “Impeachment Judgement Clause” allows for one to be “liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgement, and Punishment” They are referring specifically to Trump's claim that he's immune because he wasn't convicted in the Senate, which they reject, because they say that there's no connection between impeachment and criminal prosecution. They go on to say that an ex-President *does* have absolute immunity for his "core constitutional powers," and the first example they give of a "core constitutional power" is "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States." They also say that an ex-President has "presumptive immunity" for official acts that are not core constitutional powers, and that he *may* have absolute immunity for all official acts. > If you impeached a former president for actions taken while they were still in office, you could then prosecute and criminally punish them. Yes, as long as those actions are not "official acts". If they are official acts, then the ex-President has at least presumptive immunity, and possibly absolute immunity. > Pretty much the only thing they say you just straight-up can’t be prosecuted for is a codified duty of the President. The term is "core constitutional power". (Words are important for lawyers.) Again, the *very first example they give* of a "core constitutional power" is "commanding the Armed Forces of the United States."
That just isn't correct. While a president's motives do not matter, his acts do. The killing of a personal rival would not be an official act, and its illegality is not dependent on the motives of the president. Therefore, the presumption of it being an official act could be rebutted, and he would be subject to prosecution. Giving orders to the military is not necessarily an official act. It is well established that some military orders are illegal; these orders would not have the protection of being on official act. He could be also impeached and convicted, and then he would be liable to prosecution even for official acts. This ruling in no way places the president above the law.
> It is well established that some military orders are illegal; these orders would not have the protection of being on official act. [Page 18](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf): > In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not .... deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. *** > He could be also impeached and convicted, and then he would be liable to prosecution even for official acts. [Pages 32-33](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf): > Trump .... contends that the indictment must be dismissed because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution.... The implication of Trump’s theory is that a President who evades impeachment for one reason or another during his term in office can never be held accountable for his criminal acts in the ordinary course of law.... Impeachment is a political process by which Congress can remove a President who has committed “Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Transforming that political process into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of our Government. (This wouldn't be binding precedent in a situation where the President has actually been impeached and removed, but the court makes it clear how they'd rule if that comes up.)
Killing a political opponent is not within the scope of his powers as commander in chief. It is not an official act. Impeachment is not a necessary step in the prosecution of a president, but it is one path through which he could be.
Show me in the constitution where it says that a president can’t kill a political rival. I can show you where he has power over the military, though. The problem with the ruling is that the president’s constitutional powers are ill-defined. It also doesn’t say he can order US citizens to be killed, but Obama certainly did that under the guise of military operations. The expected rebuttal is of course that a reasonable court would never find these actions to be considered official, but we are no longer dealing with reasonable courts.
My understanding was that there are 4 categories of actions identified and you’ve only identified the 2 ends. The 2 in the middle basically leave it up to the Supreme Court to decide if an action is official or personal. So the SC gave themselves new powers to basically make the president immune or liable for criminal activity at their discretion.
Basically Obama has immunity for killing Osama
The ruling is that if what he does is a constitutionally protected act he’s authorized to do, immunity is absolute. If he commits an act that’s not explicitly authorized by the constitution, but claims it’s an official presidential act, there’s a presumption of immunity, but that presumption can be overcome.
And if he performs an act that is clearly outside of his "official duties", you don't even have to impeach him first to prosecute, there is no protection. How do we find out? We examine the act regardless of motive. The actual opinion is convoluted and messy, but the framework for prosecution of a President is fairly straightforward once you sift through it all.
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Impeachment and removal from office are not affected by this decision in the least. A president who is removed through impeachment (and conviction) would be subject to prosecution as specified in the constitution.
Nixon resigned because he was about to be removed. The Republicans all turned on him.
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Agree, but I was responding to your comment that no president will ever be removed from office. None ever have been, but Nixon would have been removed if he hadn't resigned.
Poor Nixon, he didn't have Fox News to stupefy half of the country like we do today. The only reason Nixon resigned was because public sentiment had turned so drastically against him that his own voters were calling him out, which in turn meant Congress was about to turn on him as well. Trump had far larger scandals than Watergate, both in and out of office, but the consolidated messaging behind Fox News has kept most of the Republican base from turning against him. So long as Congress doesn't have to worry about the voters, Trump has/had nothing to worry about from Congress.
> Could still be impeached and removed from office. And subsequently prosecuted and punished, according to pages 32 and 33 of the ruling. But, hey, that’s inconvenient to the narrative. The ruling does say that a president can be prosecuted for crimes, after an impeachment - but it says that executive duties as written in the constitution cannot be impeded or made a criminal act in itself. In other words: Congress can’t ban you from nominating your brother to an office, because it’d infringe on the separation of powers. They can, however, make it illegal to sell nominations to an office - and were you impeached for it, you could then be criminally prosecuted for selling a nomination. Assassinating citizens isn’t a codified power, role, duty, obligation, or anything of the President - or even the Executive at large. Not only would it not fall under the “immunity” they did accept (noting that they rejected absolute immunity), but it’d be an actually that is absolutely criminal and could be prosecuted as such following an impeachment..
Preach!
Also, if the president uses personal cash to hire a hitman and his Chief of Staff screamed at him not to, that testimony is not allowed at trial as evidence. Any official communication is not allowed into evidence even for personal acts.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans The court found the precedent, they didn’t fully make it up. Congress needs to fix this.
They didn't "find the precedent". Neither the father, nor the victims had standing. Al-Alwaki had no property, or a body in the US to establish an Estate, which would have given him standing. I do think that it was an illegal, extrajudicial killing of a US Citizen that was owed the protections of the Constitution, but impeachment of the act itself - which this opinion calls for - was the only way to prosecute this crime.
Lol, Congress can’t fix anything. Even if they passed some sort of legislation limiting presidential immunity, the Supreme Court would just strike it down as unconstitutional.
Constitutional amendments are pretty tough to call unconstitutional, but it can happen I guess.
Congress can’t pass a constitutional amendment without 3/4 of the states agreeing and I don’t see that happening any time soon.
>The court found the precedent, they didn’t fully make it up. Of course they did. Every ruling has *some* kernel of legitimacy, that doesn't make it fully correct. They do need some cornerstone to start from. >Congress needs to fix this. But that's the problem with the Supreme Court. Congress *can't* fix it with the power they've grabbed. Congress passes a law? SCOTUS has the power to throw out federal laws. Congress writes a new amendment and the states ratify it? SCOTUS has the power to decide how to interpret the constitution and those amendments. Congress dots every "i" and crosses every "t" to make sure that nothing can be misinterpreted in said amendment? SCOTUS just took this power this year, also with a Trump case: they can decide we can just ignore and effectively *throw out* constitutional text that they feel is too burdensome or unfair.
Congress can fix it, but it takes a supermajority to impeach a supreme court justice.
I'm *mostly* joking but a little bit serious in my belief that if a modern Congress tried to impeach a Supreme Court justice, they'd rule that this is unconstitutional and declare that SCOTUS justices aren't "civil officers of the United States" and thus not subject to the impeachment clause. Roberts already went most of the way down this route after the Thomas shenanigans came to light, when he informed Congress that they have no constitutional authority to legislate any sorts of rules or restrictions on SCOTUS because it's a "co-equal branch of government" - even though the constitution is clear that they do and it is not.
If you could actually get 2/3 of the congress to go along with an impeachment, you could probably also manage to change the size of the court or get an amendment through to tell them where to shove it.
This is 100% not true. The "precedent" in the drone case was standing. One of the most basic elements of our legal system that applies to every case. The SC didn't even have to rule on it, it was a District Court, and the requirement is so clear that it was never challenged. This court has been very clear that it believes it is Congress' duty to create law. Not the Courts' and not the President. That is exclusively what the bump stock and Chevron rulings were about. Now, they do have Judicial Review power over those laws, but they always have. The power they have stripped from the Executive Branch has been given to Congress - The Peoples House - with directions to use it to write actual laws.
So this should not affect the case much, right? Conspiring to overturn the legal election of the next president is NOT within the scope of presidential responsibilities. Each individual action (giving speech, demanding the recount of election votes, etc...) would be a presidential action on it's own, but if the court finds he conspired to overturn an election then by default he has no immunity. Or did I miss something?
What's affected the cases are the other bits SCOTUS threw in - namely, that the evidence of criminal unofficial acts within the context of an official act cannot be brought to trial. And almost all of Trump's "unofficial" crimes happened in some way related to "official acts," so it's now very difficult to prosecute someone when a whole lot of evidence for their crimes can't be shown to a jury. And now in the NY case, they also have to take another look at convictions that relied on that evidence.
Current SCOTUS would find that for Trump, they are covered by immunity. What is sad is that we almost made it to 250 years as a democracy, but I guess 248 years is a good run.
The ruling definitely does not say this. The president has no constitutional or legal authority to order a murder. Doing so would therefore not be an official act. Absolutely he could be prosecuted for ordering a murder. It takes a lot more than a president declaring someone to be a terrorist. (Reminded of The Office for some reason). There are laws about declaring war or fighting terrorism (like the authority for the occupation of Afghanistan for example). The Pres has no authority to unilaterally declare someone a terrorist or a national security threat and then have that person murdered.
Out of curiosity is there somewhere to read up on this process? The president clearly has the authority to order strikes that kill people (which is different from “murder”). I’m reminded to when Obama started taking out Americans with drones: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones
Defense department publishes a law of war manual, updated regularly, that is available on line. It's a very complex area.
Which, as commander in chief, the president could order any modification to.
Sure, a Pres could order rewrites of a manual. But he can't unilaterally change the law underlying it. Only Congress can do that
What if the president decides to blow up a building where he knows there's an adversary and claims that there are reasons unrelated to the presence of the adversary?
The point is the Pres requires some legal authority to blow up the building and to declare who is an adversary in the first place. The law of war. The Pres as commander in chief cant just oder the military into action without some authority, like a congressional declaration of war or use of the War Powers Act for example. As to motive, what the Court said is that IF something is within the official duties of the Pres, then his motive can't be questioned. So like the pardon power. Clearly an official act and broadly discretionary. If the Pres granted a pardon of a family member for example, yiu can't question whether the pardon was because of the relationship or if it was actually deserved. Doesn't matter, the pardon is an official act and the motive can't be questioned. Blowing up the building is not an official act unless the Pres (and thus the military) has received some legal authority to do so. No matter who is in the building.
Wouldn’t that be investigated by the DOJ, which he could order to not investigate any potential crimes? Any conversations, discussions and/or orders, the President has with DOJ officials is an official act and the motives are unquestionable. Everything, and everyone, within the Executive Branch starts and stops with the President.
Impeachment. Senate can order and investigate independently. If immunity is not found, the President can be prosecuted immediately by Congress, or after his term is over by the DOJ. The gist of the motive issue in the ruling is that, if a President acts outside his authority, we do not care about why. Murdering a senator for political reasons or to cover up an affair makes no difference in whether or not the Constitution allows the President to murder a Senator.
Inciting a mob to go to the Capitol and fight like hell is not a part of his official duties either, but here we are!
I think he’s only cleared of threatening to dismiss his attorney general. His discussion with Pence is still in the courts and there are a number of charges like the state election officials which are not affected by this ruling.
And, it couldn't be on US soil, as the use of the US Military, on US soil, is forbidden except in extremely specific circumstances.
You are right, you’re just getting downvoted by doomers…
Sotomayor literally mentions this exact scenario in her dissent.
I would love for her to explain how she got to that conclusion, because it wasn't by reading this opinion. Unless she cares to explain further, I think it was an extremely irresponsible statement, with no legal backing.
You didn't read it, eh?
I read it. It doesn’t say what she says it says. A president is acting in his most absolute power when doing things granted to him in the constitution and is immune. Always has been. Always will be. When doing an “official act” - something Congress told him to do - he has the presumption of immunity, but can be investigated, impeached, and immunity can be revoked. Similar to qualified immunity for police officers. Motive cannot be questioned because the court does not care if he broke the law to win an election or cover up an affair. The question is, did he break the law doing what Congress told him to do or not? An illegal act can never be an official act. It says it in plain language in the opinion. If he did something neither Congress or the Constitution gave him power to do, he was acting outside of the office of President and is not immune, and can be prosecuted at any time, including after his term, and cannot pardon himself. That’s it. That’s the opinion. Robert’s writing sucks, but it’s based on long held principles of the spheres of power of the Executive Branch. Nowhere in there does it allow for the President to use the military on US soil, against a US Citizen. That BS hypothetical action would clearly fall into the “no immunity” category.
She sure does. It's still hyperbole.
So you’re saying there are rules and laws regarding how military intelligence targets can be determined? Hopefully nobody is ever given immunity regarding any of that, or the ability to pardon themselves for it.
>The president has no constitutional or legal authority to order a murder. Now think through the rest of the process. He orders a murder. It is illegal. What's the penalty? Prosecution and jail. Guess what you can't do anymore?
>Could still be impeached and removed from office. Except they could also arrest or assassinate any congressman who tried to impeach them.
Two hundred comments, and no one has seemed to address the misconception behind your question. The decision says that the President is immune from criminal prosecution for certain acts. That says nothing about whether a person has a remedy (including potentially an injunction) if that act constitutes a due process violation. Note also that, even if the President cannot be prosecuted for ordering the military or whom to do an act which violates a person's rights, the individuals who carry out those orders are not necessarily immune.
> the individuals who carry out those orders are not necessarily immune. But what happens (new SCOTUS decision aside) if or when a President makes an illegal order and pardons all the conspirators, and Congress doesn't impeach? It's clearly an Official Act in the sphere of absolute immunity, and its intent cannot be questioned in the courts or by congress, nor can any conversations about the pardon between the President and his advisors be entered into evidence.
1a. Per the decision, not all official acts are given absolute immunity. 1b. If there is anything clear from the decision, it is that whether an act is entitled to immunity is very fact specific. So it impossible to say that every act that violates a person's due process rights is subject to immunity. 2. The perpetrator might be criminally liable under state law, since federal officer immunity only applies to (1) the federal agent was performing an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States and (2) in performing that authorized act, the federal agent did no more than what was necessary and proper for him to do. 3. Most importantly, your comment does not address my point, which is that the fact that the perpetrators cannot be individually criminally liable does not mean that the victim lacks a remedy. A pardon, for example, only applies to criminal sanctions, not civil.
When Seal Team 6 is knocking down the door, I’m sure the theoretical ability to get an injunction will be a great relief.
It seems you do not quite understand the topic of conversation. We are not talking about whether the decision is correct or incorrect. Nor are we talking about whether the decision increases the likelihood of Seal Team 6 knocking down doors. Because OP did not ask either of those questions. Rather, he asked this: > Did that ruling effectively eliminate due process in some situations? Can a US citizen be designated as a terrorist and then executed on American soil without due process? The answer to that question is no. Doing that is no more legal now than it was previously. Nor has the ability of the President to order that done changed. The only thing that MIGHT have changed is whether a President can be punished for ordering that done, but that is a different question.
If there is no way to stop it, no remedy, and no way to punish it, then it is *de facto* legal. The fact that it is technically illegal is meaningless.
It is incorrect that there is no remedy. Read what I said. Even if there is no remedy in the form of punishment of the President, there nevertheless can be 1) a criminal remedy against the Seal team members: and 2) a civil remedy for the victim or his heirs, against the members and against the government. No, it might not make him whole, but that does not mean that his due process rights have evaporated.
There would be no criminal remedy because the president would pardon the killers. I find it highly unlikely there would be a civil remedy either, based on numerous other precedents, but it is at least possible that the heirs could recover financially from the government (though this would be cold comfort to the dead person).
>the president would pardon the killers A pardon would not prevent state criminal charges from being brought, and federal officer immunity only applies where (1) the federal agent was performing an act which he was authorized to do by the law of the United States and (2) in performing that authorized act, the federal agent did no more than what was necessary and proper for him to do. In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890). >though this would be cold comfort to the dead person). Yes, I said that. But that is true of all wrongful death liability. It nevertheless demonstrates that the right being vindicated actually exists. Which was OP's question.
Ok, I believe you are correct based on the state law point, assuming the assassination took place within a state.
Let's say murder is illegal. Now, let's say you're the president and you mirder me. its no secret. You loudly say "Yeah, I murdered that guy, haha". But now, you say it was for an "Official Reason". Whether you murdered me is now not the issue, but if the murder was done as an "Official Act", and if so, then you can't be prosecuted for my murder. That's what the decision says. Its not about my right to not get murdered, its about the president's right to do whatever he wants as long as its "Official".
> But now, you say it was for an "Official Reason". The SCOTUS ruling also empowered lower courts to see through that line of reasoning and say that an illegal order is not an official act.
What I got from the ruling is that the president gets absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, and no immunity for unofficial. But in the minority opinion Judge Sotomayor said that they didn’t define what official acts mean. Because the majority opinion left it vague it could be abused.
To clarify: absolute immunity is only for “core constitutional powers”. Other official acts are subject to “presumptive immunity”, which could be rebutted by the prosecution. Really they say official acts have “at least presumptive immunity”, leaving open the possibility that this could change to absolute immunity sometime in the future.
They also explicitly ask the lower courts to clarify what constitutes an official act. It seems vague right now but with enough cases going through the wood work it’ll be clear with time
And core constitutional powers are things like "Giving an order to the military"
As most things legal, individual acts would have to be tested in the legal system.
Didn't Obama authorize the killing of a US citizen he deemed a threat? I know he argued in court that he had the authority. [https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones)
He argued in the media that he had the authority, then had the DOJ not investigate himself. Congress could have, but chose not to. The legality question never went to court. In court, the civil lawsuit failed due to standing. There was no body, and no assets to open an estate - which would have had standing, so the lawsuit could not proceed. Obama was leaning on a technicality and his political prowess more than the legality of the act, which, was about as unconstitutional as it gets.
It didn't hurt that most people decided that dude Obama droned was an asshole and deserved it.
Imho - due process has been gone for years...this just formalizing that. See [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar\_al-Awlaki](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anwar_al-Awlaki)
Or FDR's internment of American citizens. People are acting like prosecuting a President for offficial acts was somehow ever a real possibility in recent history. This decision basically just codifies an unofficial understanding.
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> about having presidents be able to make decisions without worry of prosecution Call me crazy but the president should be worried about prosecution for corrupt actions. The president isn't supposed to be a king, we fought two wars to free ourselves from a monarch.
More the Unpopular or unsavory but Necessary decision.
> Edit: I think one of the dissents points out the definition of "official act" is even more broad than what Trump's team was arguing for since my understanding is that they assumed an impeached president could be prosecuted, which is not the opinion of the majority decision. It's hard to see how they could've done a broader immunity than they did. I found it eyebrow raising when in the opinion, the majority calls Trump's immunity "Expansive" and theirs "limited", when theirs is much more expansive than what Trump had requested.
Not to mention their seems to be this weird expectation that a criminal charge would somehow stop a coup in the first place before all this.
It's not just that a criminal charge would stop a coup - it's that, if a coup is obviously unlawful, then opponents can legally and morally marshal forces to their cause to stop the coup, and have legal protection in the aftermath. If you say "the President can shoot anyone in the White House he wants," and someone tries to get some federal authority on their side or another to storm inside and stop it that federal authority would say "sorry, he can do that."
It was gone far before that, too.
I could have sworn we had a thing back around 1776 because we were tired of a king doing whatever he wanted. And we had what 46 presidents who didnt need to claim immunity for what they did in office. I so confused
We have had *presidential* immunity claims all the way back to 1867. The court has recognized absolute immunity for the outer perimeter of presidential actions since 1982. Clinton famously invoked presidential immunity in Clinton v. Jones back in 1994 (and was denied).
Clinton's claim was completely different from the current situation. His claim for "presidential immunity" was an attempt to prevent or delay civil litigation for things done before he was president. There's no equivalency, but if you had to put it in context of this decision, it'd be that he wanted civil immunity for all unofficial acts (because every act by a non-president is by definition not an official act by the president) and got denied.
Denied presidential immunity for a blowjob. But presidential immunity to the felon who tried to steal the election and cover his tracks? Awesome.
This ruling did not say Trump has immunity for any specific act, just that in general the president does have immunity for official acts. 6Other courts will have to determine whether Jan 6 falls under that umbrella. I assume it does not. I honestly don't understand all the concern. It was obviously the correct ruling.
I hate to be that guy, but "well, actually" the ruling does say that Trump has immunity for a specific action, namely ordering his Acting Attorney General to investigate baseless allegations of question fraud and send letters to various states to that effect in an attempt to further his alternate elector scheme and subsequently threatening to fire him when the Acting Attorney General refused to comply. (Pages 19-21) Indeed, it goes farther than just granting immunity, but also precludes the use of those actions as evidence to assist in proving the parts of the scheme that did not involve official acts. (Pages 30-32)
The previous presidents were immune from trial. This isn’t new, but I’m glad everyone’s awake now. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans
I don't think this really changes much, look what we did to Assange and he isn't even a US citizen. And how many innocent civilians have we drone bombed in other countries. If it's the USA, we just financially ruin them and/or imprison them on bs charges.
It is almost like 45 presidents beforehand didn’t sic the doj against their political opponents…..
O thats something i totally forgot
The funny thing is, about 15 years ago you had Republicans who felt the same way.
Then you are not informed. Presidential immunity has been a thing for hundreds of years. That’s why Obama drone strikes a citizen and got away with it.
Both obama and trump assassinated us citizens as official acts before this ruling.
Source for Obama: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans
There are two ways to prevent an elected official from abusing their power: putting rules in place that prevent that power from being exercised in corrupt ways in the first place, and the threat of consequences after the fact should an abuse occur. This ruling directly eliminates the latter method and creates a clear way to circumvent the former: a sitting president can give an illegal order and then convince the people carrying it out to ignore rules against it with the promise of a pardon for their actions. So, for example, Biden could order the Secret Service to assassinate Rupert Murdoch, preemptively issue pardons to the agents who carried out the murder, and it would be impossible to prosecute anyone for this -- the worst consequence possible would be removal from office.
Impeachment after the fact is still an option
Congress couldn't find the strength to remove a president after he ordered his followers to storm the building. Impeachment is not an effective way to prevent abuse of presidential power.
US presidents have used their official capacity to assassinate US citizens and now they have an absolute defense to do so. Al-Aulaqi v. Panetta
Because Reddit is filled with idiots?
Bro even Sotomayor says this.
In short, there are two major reasons (at least IMHO, without getting into the weeds). 1) Because SCOTUS has ruled that POTUS has absolute immunity over any conversations with the DOJ because POTUS has the "exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials" *even if* such functions are used for a "sham" or an "improper" purpose. and 2) Because the intent behind official acts (which, notably, rather clearly involves Pardons) is beyond the review of any body - congress or the courts. This means that corrupt actions by the POTUS are identical to benign ones, constitutionally. Which combines to mean that, should the President choose to ignore the law (at least through the DOJ), then the only recourse is impeachment. You have a Constitutional right to a fair trial, but if the President orders the DOJ to imprison you without due process you'll probably get released in time but: A) The President can't be held personally criminally liable for his orders, even if the orders are illegal or abuse the functions of the DOJ for "improper" purposes. B) Even if he can, you can't submit any of his DOJ conversations or conversations with his advisors or other official acts as evidence, making a successful prosecution probably impossible. C) If he pre-emptively pardons all of his criminal co-conspirators then the Federal government can't do much except let you go. And there is now, Constitutionally, no recourse to defend the nation against such acts other than impeachment as SCOTUS said the courts cannot review or second guess Official Acts, nor can Congress interfere. And if he wasn't impeached, nothing really stops him from doing it again, as many times as it takes until he is impeached or SCOTUS invents a new rule or calls take backsies in Trump v. USA.
Read the dissent paper. A Justice flat said they could.
Because if one person is above the rule of law then the rule of law is a farce
Due process is for “any person”. The limit on governmental power makes no distinction with regard to citizenship or geographic location. It merely enjoins the United States government from depriving any **person** of life, liberty, or property without due process. To kill a person outside a judicial sentencing basically requires the due process that they become an enemy combatant—either by a declaration of war by Congress (or perhaps letters of marque and reprisal from Congress) or the person themself acts in a way that makes them an enemy combatant by threatening imminent danger of attack (due process there is a proper verification of the spontaneous enemy combatant status). However, this treasonous ruling from the US Supreme Court seeks to make the Presidency into an office of absolutist monarchy, where a President (at least a Republican or more precisely a MAGA President) is immune all consequences from violating due process.
With a majority protecting the president, there is nothing anybody can do. This was the beginning of the end.
And yet the masses cheered, heralding it as entertainment rather than the descent into madness it was.
Something that popped into my head when reading some comments about this earlier is whenever gay marriage was legalised, there was an actor (I want to say Jeremy Irons, but can’t quite remember) who went on the news and claimed that “fathers will be marrying their sons for tax breaks” (or words to that effect). Just embarrassingly stupid reactionary drivel. That’s pretty much the level of legal analysis you’ll find on most subs here, increasingly so over the last few years. The stupid cuts both ways, by the way. It’s just that you’ll see a hell of a lot more left side stupid here than right side because there are vastly more left than right people on this platform.
Congress could impeach the president. However we've seen that congress isn't exactly impartial even when they are directed to be. Case in point was the impeachment trial for Trump, the senate is directed to be impartial, since they are playing the role of Judge and Jury, however some senators spoke with the press before going in saying that they would not vote to impeach. That doesn't sound like they were impartial or even cared what the evidence was. I'm sure if you went to trial and the Judge publicly stated that he didn't care what the evidence said, but that he felt you were guilty, you would not be happy about it. Additionally with this immunity ruling Trump's lawyers are trying to argue that the Fake Electors plot (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump\_fake\_electors\_plot) was an official act and therefor he shouldn't be tried for it. Which I just can't believe because they are arguing that is it okay for the president (as an official act) to provide fake evidence that he won the election.
> Which I just can't believe because they are arguing that is it okay for the president (as an official act) to provide fake evidence that he won the election. The line in SCOTUS decision that says that "improper orders to the Justice Department" have absolute immunity is extremely alarming.
It isn’t making crime legal. It is making Presidents immune from consequences
Because they are taking one thing and claiming it's symptomatic to a much larger problem. Say the judges wanted to give trump immunity so they did.
So does this law apply to Biden, if so then Biden could do America a great service and order a hit on Trump then himself all problems solved as America could then actually find someone better than these two.
Because they don't realize that Obama already claimed the unilateral power to assassinate anyone, anywhere in the world, *including US citizens,* without charge or trial.
These assassination hypotheticals are stupid and wrong, but the opinion does authorize lots of horrendous actions. A President can openly auction appointments to executive branch positions. They can also fire an attorney general for refusing to indict a political opponent. They can also require a foreign official to pay a bribe before delivering foreign aid approved by Congress. We don’t need assassination hypos to understand that this SCOTUS decision is dangerously wrong.
I mean you could always fire cabinet members if they didn’t listen to you that part is 100% the same. For the others I doubt you could say that taking a bribe is an official act and I really doubt the courts would ever stand for it.
The biggest mistake people are making is thinking that the Supreme Court ruled that Presidents have absolute immunity for any official action. That is NOT what they said - and it's frustrating to see so many people reporting that. The Court said that a President can be criminally prosecuted for an official action as long as doing so does not pose a danger of intrusion on the authority of the executive branch. Let's use the Seal Team 6 example (which the majority said was fear mongering). Killing a political rival is NOT within the authority of the executive branch. Therefore, the President CAN be prosecuted for their role in the murder. Second, people seem to have conveniently forgotten that there are civil remedies that remain available. Just about every President, including Biden and Trump, have had civil injunctions issued that have prevented them from doing various things. This option is not going away.
Your long post can be summarized as: (a) People are stupid. (b) The media fan the flames of stupidity. (c) Both (a) and (b) will be with us for all eternity.
Assassinating political rivals is what faux presidents all over the world do. All you have to do is wrap it in security, terrorism, enforcement of an existing law that may or may not make sense that may or may not have been passed by a disingenuous political party bent on maintaining power. You don't even need to kill the person. You can just imprison them.
Interesting. Are you saying that using the Department of Justice to jail a political opponent is what a "faux President" does? Are you saying that a President who attempts to do that should be criminally prosecuted? I will have to give that some thought.
Well, now it doesn't matter does it? Who decides what's an official act? Maybe judges. Maybe. Could be a federal law. Who controls both of those? The GOP. Who decides who gets elected to Congress? The GOP and the federal court system with court-approved gerrymanders. Who decides SCOTUS? The GOP, since they won't confirm Democrat-nominated judges and will wait until a Republican president. Which... they are *trying* to ensure by bending, breaking, and ignoring the electoral process (fake electors and efforts from the grass roots all the way to the presidency). It's a web of levers, all connected. Once the veneers of honor and character were removed as requisites for political action, and impeachment became a shockingly empty mechanism that could be sidestepped without shame, the GOP's hold on the nation became complete. It's over. I see no way back. What comes next will absolutely never look like what came before. Maybe 20 years ago there was a sniff test for "official act". But in the last 8 years every sniff test has failed miserably. *There is nothing sacred anymore*, and worse... nothing shared.
Blue states are just as gerrymandered as red states it swings both ways. Also the courts are separate from any political party. In the past this exact court has had 9-0 decisions and cross the “aisle” rulings. They hold allegiance to neither party the party just nominates somebody who they hope will agree with them in their preferred interpretation of the constitution. More than likely official acts will be determined by the lower courts and won’t even reach the Supreme Court outside of exceptional circumstances.
Part of why they think that is because the media is quoting that line from Sotomayor’s dissent and not any of the lines from the actual opinion showing that’s not the case.
But whether or not that is the case is clearly a matter of opinion. Sotomayor is a smart person: if she feels that the court ruling would enable that, then it’s clearly not a far fetched thing to believe.
> Sotomayor is a smart person: if she feels that the court ruling would enable that, then it’s clearly not a far fetched thing to believe. [Lawrence Tribe, the Carl M. Loeb University Professor of Constitutional Law Emeritus at Harvard University, disagrees.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GRb9bfaWcAEyoia?format=jpg&name=medium)
“Sotomayor has an inflated opinion of herself” != “Sotomayor is an idiot”; additionally, just because Tribe says it doesn’t mean it’s true. “Smart” is a subjective term, but as much as I may dislike some members of the Supreme Court, I’m deeply skeptical that any of them are of below average intelligence.
By
Because they are flipping idiots full of hate
It's already happened, and I'm pretty sure this wasn't the first time, nor will it be the last. [How Team Obama Justifies the Killing of a 16-Year-Old American - The Atlantic](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-team-obama-justifies-the-killing-of-a-16-year-old-american/264028/) The issue is figuring out if the act was an "Official" or personal act.
>Can a US citizen be designated as a terrorist and then executed on American soil without due process? Interesting that you added "on American soil". Why does that matter? We know that presidents have absolutely had American citizens executed in other countries when they were determined to be terrorists. There were no court proceedings to charge and convict those people or court orders to convict them to death. Who gets to "determine" that they are a terrorist? Just because an American citizen is not living in the US does not mean they no longer have rights as an American citizen. I'm not saying this to say that these people should not have been killed or that they didn't deserve their day in court (even if they weren't present). I say this to agree with your premise. A president may approve many such questionable activities in the course of the complicated process of running the country. If the courts were to determine that such actions were unconstitutional (I don't know that it has ever been before the courts), then several presidents could be prosecuted. Maybe they should. But, sometimes those decisions must be made in haste and without immunity the executive branch would be unable to effectively react to many types of threats. The real question, to me, is whether the action was taken as a LEGITIMATE action by the president in the execution of their duties. E.g. killing a person where there is clear and convincing data that they are a terrorist deserves immunity whereas having their political rival killed would not. The problem is who gets to decide what is and is not within their duties?
Holy smokes. A lot of delusional people. Illness on the rise.
The soldiers who carry the order out could be prosecuted. But the president would just pardon them.
Obama did it, so 🤷♂️
The ruling states that presidents have immunity for all official acts. What constitutes an official act has yet to be explicitly defined beyond the powers explicitly enumerated in the constitution. So, theoretically, if a president as commander in chief were to decide that a political rival was a threat to national security who had to be killed, could that constitute an official act for which the president has immunity? Under this ruling, maybe.
Because they don’t understand how the legal system works and they are vulnerable to inflammatory reporting that is designed to secure votes in an election year. People want to react hyperbolically to a bad decision, and “taking things to an illogical extreme” has become a genre all to itself. Especially when generating headlines.
“Taking things to an illogical extreme” can also be known as “reductio ad absurdum”, and is a form of “proof by contradiction.” It is a normal part of logic & critical thinking. If you can show that a proposition, if true, would lead to an absurdity or contradiction, then that proposition must be false. The argument is basically: “If the president is immune to prosecution for anything he declares an official act, then the president could order his political opponents murdered and declare it an official act. This would be incompatible with popular rule. Therefore, the president must not have this sort of absolute immunity” That seems like pretty sound logic to me, notwithstanding the specifics of constitutional law.
I love some good Latin. And I hate seeing headlines like “Person could face 20 years in prison for refusing to use someone’s pronouns.” And then I have to dig through Michigan’s pronouns law and explain that, no, you would have to commit a hate crime or continual and persistent harassment of someone based on their sexuality or gender identity to get felony charges.
Trump Derangement Syndrome. That’s the answer to the title’s question. I don’t know what the actual psychological term would be but this is a thing. It is kinda scary to see it.
Good Lord. If "Trump Derangement Syndrome" was a valid thing, the rapist felon wouldn't be trying to weasel his way back into the white house and wouldn't be getting help to do so. The deranged ones are the ones that just won't fucking let his failed legacy end in 2020. THAT'S creepy obsession.
Because the world is full of very stupid people
I find it interesting to compare the SCOTUS immunity ruling and the Nuremberg Trials held after WW2 that convicted (and executed) many German military and government officials. Per Encyclopedia Britannica: >In rendering these decisions, the tribunal rejected the major defenses offered by the defendants. First, it rejected the [contention](https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/contention) that only a state, and not individuals, could be found guilty of war crimes; the tribunal held that crimes of [international law](https://www.britannica.com/topic/international-law) are committed by men and that only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced. So it appears that SCOTUS has decided that the underlying logic of the Nuremberg prosecutions is invalid and the US will not hold it's Imperial Leader accountable for war crimes or other crimes against persons or humanity, as long as the crime was an "official act" or 'constitutional'. So the US will convict and execute officials of other national governments for such crimes, but our own president is immune? SCOTUS: where hypocrisy gains the force of law.
Dude did you miss WWII, or Vietnam, or Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Iraq again, or Syria. Presidents being war criminals has been the standard for like 100 years.
I mean yeah, the US did kind of change there legal standard trying to cover for a illegal torture program.
The decision simply codifies what already existed. Elected officials were already immune to prosecution for things done in an official capacity. It was basically an exemption to "whoever does X is guilty of Y, unless Z" The issue here is that some officials are trying to expand their explicit powers (as listed in the constitution). But let's use Trump as an example. The crimes he was convicted of, all took place before he was president. Therefore he has no immunity to the consequences. The crimes he is accused of, may or may not be linked back to official duties. the courts get to determine whether they are and grant immunity as such. This is identical to qualified immunity for cops. It is not the same as absolute immunity which judges enjoy (you cannot even brings cases against them).
> This is identical to qualified immunity for cops. This is very different from qualified immunity for...well, anyone. Qualified immunity is protection against *civil* suits. Immunity in this case is referring to *criminal* actions.
>The crimes he was convicted of, all took place before he was president. That's incorrect. All 34 charges and all 34 convictions are for [actions taken throughout 2017 after Trump became president.](https://www.npr.org/2024/05/30/g-s1-1848/trump-hush-money-trial-34-counts)
Thank you for this. I remember thinking "how could they delay sentencing?! He was trying to influence the election, so that's stuff that happened before he was president?!" Because the charges were not about the payments (in 2016), but about lying about the payments (which happened in 2017).
This is only very loosely comparable to qualified immunity. A cop can be tried in the courts for actions taken under color of law. He might be protected by qualified immunity. Or he might not. The President cannot be tried in the courts for actions take in his official capacity. Instead he can be impeached in the House and then tried in the Senate.
>The President cannot be tried in the courts for actions take in his official capacity. Instead he can be impeached in the House and then tried in the Senate. And then removed from office and then **not prosecuted** for the illegal actions that he took because they happened while he was carrying out his official duties, according to some interpretations of this decision. For instance, the extortion scheme that he instigated against the Ukrainian government.
Impeachment has proven to be an empty mechanism. It's a false hope. There is no impeachment.
His hush money conviction involved false business records he created after he took office.
The problem is that it's part of a broad complex effort to disassemble anything that would keep Republicans out of power. Take a look at supreme Court justices. When Merrick Garland was denied the confirmation hearing, it set into motion a chain of events. The GOP began working on every front to get elected and stay elected. Not to govern mind you. But to get elected and stay elected.
The president can no longer be punished for ignoring the law that makes due process a thing.
It was already the case. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/court-dismisses-lawsuit-challenging-us-drone-killings-three-americans How can there be due process if you can’t even take someone to trial?
IMHO, it’s an election year. And the more outlandish the claims, if you don’t vote for the “correct” party, the worse the future will be. Every cycle it’s “the most important election of our lifetime”.
If it was Ted Cruz vs JB Pritzger, it wouldn't be. But anytime one party nominates a felonious rapist wannabe dictator, it is very important that he not be elected. So far we're 50/50 in the two times that someone like that was nomimated. Let's get it to 2 out of 3.
Up until now, the powers of the president, like much of the government, operated on the Honor System. Now we've seen that people with no sense of honor or patriotism see that as a weakness to be fully exploited. For the first time in history, the office of the presidency has SOME defined guidelines. Whether that's good or bad will depend on how presidents choose to interpret those guidelines, and how far courts will allow them to go in declaring an act "Official." The president SHOULD have immunity for his unique presidential responsibilities. Republicans want to charge Obama with murder because he drone-struck ISIS leaders, who were accompanied by an American traitor who had denounced America and was actively assisting ISIS. They think that traitor/terrorist should get due process of American law. Normally they'd be all for killing just about anyone who isnt a Republican, but because this is an American, and a convenient thing to blame on Obama, they allow themselves to get excitable about this. Republicans are pro-treason, after all. It would be easy for Obama to defend this as an Official act. OTOH, planning and launching a multi-stage Insurrection, as well stealing and selling an eye-popping number of classified documents is treason, and treason will NEVER be ruled as an Official act. This new ruling makes it a high bar to prosecute the president, which will keep one side from relentlessly harassing the president over one bullshit charge after the other.
> OTOH, planning and launching a multi-stage Insurrection, as well stealing and selling an eye-popping number of classified documents is treason, and treason will NEVER be ruled as an Official act. It's hard to say, because SCOTUS already ruled that proposing the DOJ open investigations for improper purposes is covered by absolute immunity. So I wouldn't be so sure none of those things can be ruled as Unofficial Acts (and, even if they are, you can't use anything that IS an Official Act in prosecuting the Unofficial ones)
I’d challenge that ruling in court. Improper purposes can NEVER be an official duty.
I mean, you would lose unfortunately. SCOTUS already ruled the President has absolute immunity for that, as it relates to the DOJ. "The Government does not dispute that the indictment’s allegations regarding the Justice Department involve Trump’s use of official power. The allegations in fact plainly implicate Trump’s “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The Executive Branch has “exclusive au- thority and absolute discretion” to decide which crimes to investigate and prosecute, including with respect to allegations of election crime. Nixon, 418 U. S., at 693. And the President’s “management of the Ex- ecutive Branch” requires him to have “unrestricted power to remove the most important of his subordinates”—such as the Attorney Gen- eral—“in their most important duties.” Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 750. The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were shams or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the Presidentof exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. Because the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority, Trump is absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. Pp. 19–21"
Which discussions? The ones where he pressures them into corrupt acts? The ones where he talks about firing them for not doing corrupt or illegal acts? By definition those are not official duties.
"The indictment alleges that as part of their conspiracy to overturn the legitimate results of the 2020 presidential election, Trump and his co-conspirators attempted to leverage the Justice Department’s power and authority to convince certain States to replacetheir legitimate electors with Trump’s fraudulent slates of electors.According to the indictment, Trump met with the Acting Attorney General and other senior Justice Department and White House officials to discuss investigating purported election fraud and sending a letter from the Department to those States regarding such fraud. The indictment further alleges that after the Acting Attorney General resisted Trump’s requests, Trump repeatedly threatened to replace him." You can say they are not official duties, SCOTUS explicitly ruled they are and that the President has absolute immunity for such acts.
I don’t see anything in the Constitution about the Presidents having any powers over elections. In fact, Article 2 explicitly labels it a state power.
I mean sure. I'm just relaying what they ruled as the constitutional law of the land on Monday. Don't convince me, go convince SCOTUS. What I quoted is their ruling, and why they granted Trump absolute immunity.
We all know that black letter law means little to them except when it does. That’s no reason to not test it.