An example of how this ruling is already being bandied about by Trump lawyers to excuse things that shouldn't be excused:
"An attorney for former President Trump suggested the so-called “fake electors” scheme qualifies as an “official act,” which would prevent it from being prosecuted under the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
"Trump attorney Will Scharf told CNN Monday night that some acts alleged in the former president’s federal election subversion indictment do constitute private conduct but the effort to put forth slates of alternate electors in 2020 from key battleground states is not one of them."
It doesn't matter if it was a WRONG act, so long as I was an OFFICIAL act, according to Trump's attorney. Sixty courts said Trump failed to show the election was rigged, but officially acting as president to present slates of fake electors is fine ... because it was official, so immunity must be presumed.
"The Supreme Court ruled Monday that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution and that presidents are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions, the high court said.
"In Trump’s federal election subversion case, the justices made clear that some allegations in the indictment fall squarely in his official duties, like meetings with Justice Department officials to investigate purported election fraud."
Those things must all now be presumed as areas of immunity because they happened as official acts, even IF it should happen to be the case that Trump knew the election was not rigged.
"In his CNN interview Monday night, Scharf contended that once the official acts are stripped from Trump’s federal election subversion indictment, special counsel Jack Smith 'doesn’t have a case.'”
"'I don’t think there’s sufficient private conduct here to support the indictment, to support the ongoing prosecution, and that’s what we’re going to be litigating in front of the district court now,' he said."
All that matters is that whatever Trump did happened as official actions, not as strictly private actions. He could have KNOWN the election was not rigged and that his claims were corrupt, and that becomes irrelevant because putting forward a slate of fake electors (even if he knew the reasons for doing so were fake) has immunity because he did it as an official act.
I’m not sure that your signing on to “The Wide Latina” Sotomayor’s wacko hypotheticals is the best strategy, David. I cannot find that ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival is mentioned in the Constitution as one of the President’s official duties. Ditto with organizing a military coup to hold onto power and taking a bribe in exchange for a pardon. And by the way, Clinton’s getting BJs from Lewinsky in the Oval Office was not an “official duty” covered in the Constitution, either. Perhaps you should read the actual SCOTUS ruling instead of getting your talking points from MSNBC.
Sure ordering Seal teams is in the constitution as one of the president's duties. The constitution says it is his duty to be Commander-in-Chief of the entire military, and it has always been within the purview of presidential powers and duties to direct the military as the president sees fit.
What you're mistaking is the crime part with the duty part. Ordering the assassination of a political rival is a crime. Seeking a personal bribe for a pardon or other government provision is a crime. The actual crime is NEVER going to be a duty mentioned in the constitution because the constitution NEVER prescribes crimes. What the Supreme Court said is NOT that he has to be doing actions that are constitutional duties (because that would be an irrelevant decision because it would never be illegal) but that if he does commit acts that ARE crimes AND does them within the scope of his constitutional roles, then he cannot be prosecuted even though they ARE crimes.
In other words, it is a crime under federal statute to access recordings of all your phone calls and emails (which the government has for ALL of us) without a FISA warrant. However, it is also the duty of the president to secure the nation. So, if he doesn't get a warrant when he orders your phone conversations to be handed over to him because he suspects you of being harmful to the nation (as Obama did with Trump), you cannot prosecute him. He was acting within his judgment of what was necessary to protect the nation, as is his constitutional duty. What he did is STILL criminal, but he has ABSOLUTE immunity.
You don't think presidents in both parties will find endless ways to creatively dress up crimes by wrapping them into the carrying out of official functions? It is not even clear that it has to look like a judgment error or lapse of knowing that it's against the law (as that is never an excuse for a crime anyway), versus totally intentional with full knowledge it is illegal.
Clinton was never in illegal jeopardy over what happened with Lewinsky, so that was never an issue because, just as such acts are not in the constitution, such acts are not crimes either.
So, let me recommend that YOU read the entire SCOTUS ruling, as you want me to do (all 96 pages). It will always be the case, if the act is criminal, that it was never prescribed in the constitution. The Supreme Court's ruling would be totally irrelevant if the ACTION had to be part of the president's constitutional duties because that situation could never even exist. No, the illegal ACT just has be carried out within his constitutional duties.
The difference is this: If a president is angry with his neighbor in Delaware because the neighbor's dog keeps pooping on his lawn, so he goes over and shoots him, that's personal, and he's not immune. It had nothing to do with his constitutional duties. If, on the other hand, the president is carrying out congressional approval of military aid for Ukraine that was put in his hands by congress to work out the details of delivery, and slips in something completely illegal, well that was done in his constitutional role. So, now there is a much higher likelihood he gets away with it as the bar for going after wrong actions in the context of his constitutional role has been raised to "absolute." There is nothing here that would even require he dress them up as looking reasonable or essential because the immunity is absolute.
Chief Justice Roberts delivered a rebuke of the dissenting justices’ fearmongering. He said, “As for the dissents, they strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today… Unable to muster any meaningful textual or historical support, the principal dissent suggests that there is an “established understanding” that “former Presidents are answerable to the criminal law for their official acts.” Conspicuously absent is mention of the fact that since the founding, no President has ever faced criminal charges—let alone for his conduct in office. And accordingly no court has ever been faced with the question of a President’s immunity from prosecution. All that our Nation’s practice establishes on the subject is silence. Coming up short on reasoning, the dissents repeatedly level variations of the accusation that the Court has rendered the President “above the law.” Roberts continued, “The dissents’ positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President “feels empowered to violate federal criminal law” … The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next.“ [References omitted.]
Thank you for that perspective. It's true that has been the de-facto reality that no president has been tried under criminal law. However, many have said for some time that no president has been as ostentatious in breaking the law as Trump has either. No president has brazenly said things like, "I could shoot someone in the streets of Manhattan, and no one could touch me" or "I want to rule as czar for just one one day," knowing that a president can pass hundreds of pre-planned edicts in a single dayl
No president has appointed fake electors outside of the electoral college process or been told by every court he went to that none of his claims of election fraud were courtworthy, even as he did all he could to thwart the outcome of that election. Until Trump, we've been a nation that may have disagreed with the courts but all agreed to live with their final verdict. Trump has refused to do so.
It's only my opinion UNTIL you see Democrat presidents using this decision to cloak their own illegal actions within constitutional duties; then it it will be your opinion as you state clearly how absolutely unfair and outside the rule of law it is when presidents of the party you most dislike do illegal actions toward YOU or your candidate and have "absolute" immunity. It's fine so long as it's your guy being protected. Anything is always fine with people in either party in that case. That is outside my way of thinking about anything.
Let Trump move top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago as personal possessions and even frame them and put them on the wall if he wants, effectively giving access to the info to anyone willing to pay to go inside Mar-a-Lago, and that's fine. He was president at the time; so, he's immune. Store them illegally in an unlocked bathroom, also no problem. Let Biden sell them to our enemies for a personal profit, however, and he should go down for treason! Never mind that access to the documents may be the very reason dignitaries are paying big prices for Mar-a-Lago memberships.
This now become a very gray and shady area of illegal activity, given ABSOLUTE immunity.
Me, on the other hand: I will say Trump should never be president again after what he did at Mar-a-Lago (which this case came out of) even if it were not illegal because it shows such a gross lack of judgement. NO ONE who is so cavalier with top-secret documents is qualified to be president. If Obama had done this, Republicans would be all over it like junkyard dogs on red meat.
That's why I hate both parties. They are only concerned with preserving power to their party and never with true justice. It's always party over country, even on national security, even with Republicans as we see in the Mar-a-Lago situation. If Dem's were that casual with top secrets, Republicans would be OUTRAGED. Let it be their own guy, and they make endless excuses and call the investigation a "witch hunt."
The politicos, with the help of an "illegal" special council, have spun this up as if they had found all of these "classified" documents. But, when you review the list from the raid, most of the "classified" documents where just empty folders.
They want you to believe that these EMPTY folders held the "classified documents" and that they are now missing , possibly in the hands of some "visitor" who gained access to the storage area they where held (conjecture). They have also never said, correct me if I'm mistaken here, what the missing documents supposedly were in these empty folders. They also wanted you to believe that the documents where "haphazardly" stored in storage areas, bathrooms, and that they where all over the ground so anyone could see them. Mostly exaggerated for effect and every lapdog "media" outlet proudly posted pictures to make us believe this is how the President files his effects. All of this is disingenuous at the least but, it is an effective tool to deceive and influence low IQ Americans, especially those showing signs of induced derangement.
They also spin it as (with no proof) that these folders contained "Top Secret" information that should have been turned over for safe keeping to the "proper authorities". Maybe they were, maybe the were not, or maybe they were destroyed, we will never know the truth on what was actually in these but don't put it past these people to fabricate stories. It was RUSSIA remember.
Just remember this, the FBI has a license to lie. With a coordinated effort between "Justice" and FBI, just about anything can and will be fabricated to take down any political rival, especially a rival who tells them daily that they are going to be exposed for the evil frauds and tools they have just about all become.
As to your opinion of the SCOTUS decision, I really don't believe that much was changed if anything. I'm no legal scholar as you may be, but it seems as though presidential privilege has always been the precedent. Are presidents above the law? Actually, they are.
Maybe. There is nothing in what you've said that I have any basis to disagree with, but isn't that exactly my point here? For example, when you write, "Just remember this, the FBI has a license to lie. With a coordinated effort between 'Justice"' and FBI, just about anything can and will be fabricated to take down any political rival."
While that is what some are claiming Obama and Biden did, that is also exactly what some are claiming now that Trump had a RIGHT to do based on this new Supreme Court ruling--that anything between Trump and the DOJ is covered by absolute immunity. Won't it now be true that all future Democrat presidents will find it safer and easier to use the DOJ or FBI to attack their political opponents, as Obama and Biden may have done, now that they know their dealings within their own executive branch are absolutely immune if they fall under constitutional roles and presumed immune for all other official interactions?
America has been in a state of Lawfare against her people since the middle of the Obama administration. They will do all that they can to get around the law. This ruling is far from carte Blanche fot them but it won't catch everything. The bad guys are playing to win.
And no, i do not lump Teump in with the Obama-ClInton-Biden bad guys. I am also not a Trump partisan. I am a Christian and an American. That is where my loyalties rest.
“That proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly — invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution to nonetheless prove his liability on any charge.”
Second, the ruling applies to official actions taken that are within the POTUS purview; i.e., within the Executive Branch.
…“The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”…
Third, the Court was very clear that the immunity is “presumed,” meaning that the burden of proving that immunity should not be granted falls 100% on the moving party. While the burden is high, characterizing it as ‘absolute’ in all cases is not correct.
The court stated that absolute immunity is only given for official “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
I would argue that many of the examples you cite (wiretapping of a political opponent for example) fall far outside his
This is a double edged sword. The ruling helps Trump, no doubt. But it also ensures that Obama will never have to pay for all the crimes he committed.
I hope you're right on the first claim. You're definitely right about this being a double-edged sword, which was my argument, too.
On the second claim, remember that Obama illegally wire-tapped Trump, according to Trump, but there would be no problem with that now because Obama did it as "conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution," because that certainly includes protecting the US from concerns about Russian election interference or Russia corrupting a candidate by having illicit information on him or Russia spying through a candidate. Those are concerns “within [Obama's] conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
There is no burden under absolute immunity of proving he was RIGHT about his concerns because he has a constitutional duty to investigate them. It's just that he had to go through legal procedure. Now he clearly does not. He can break the law if it's in the course of carrying out his constitutional duties. Obama wouldn't even have to APPLY for a FISA warrant today ; because he could just do the bugging illegally and then claim immunity if he is challenged on it. If I recall, he got the warrant because the FISA "court" deemed it a reasonable matter to investigate, given the CIA docs; so, arguing it was in the proper course of duty would have been easy. Today, the fact that the warrant sidestepped some of the obligations would be irrelevant; so would not getting the warrant at all. (Obviously absolute immunity from criminal prosecution always means you can do ANY crime. So, it is only a question of doing it within his constitutional duties.)
I'm sure plenty of lawyers on both sides of the aisle will find a way to stretch the interpretation as wide of the law as possible because they regularly do when their guy is in office.
I hope you're right on the third part, but my understanding was that their ruling stated there was "presumptive immunity" in the case of all actions that were NOT in the course of duty--that the president must be presumed to be immune even in personal matters unless the prosecution can prove the actions were not in the course of duty and were purely personal; but for anything done in the course of official duty, no matter how criminal, there was ABSOLUTE immunity. Absolute seems pretty absolute to me.
I may be reading it wrong, but three Supreme Court justices agree with that reading. Some people who love Trump will argue (and already have in these comments) that the other three justices all just want to get Trump, and maybe they do. Maybe the other six all just want to save him. We'll see how Republicans feel when the Dems use the extreme breadth of this ruling, and then we can go fight about the real meaning for decades in court.
I imagine it assures that Biden will never have to pay for any crimes he did in terms of accepting bribes for access to the White House or in his official dealings with Ukraine, even though he was only VP, so long as Obama says they were done under his command.
In my view, we needed something that limited prosecutors but didn't protect illegal activity. I don't want any president doing illegal activity. If it MUST be done to protect the United States, then congress can make it legal. I don't want them ordering illegal torture in the course of their duty or illegal searches of US citizens or illegal assassinations. Some no doubt have done some of those things, but I don't want their ability expanded.
Sotomayor's dissent reads (to me) like, "But he is a former president. We need to indict him." The main decision is careful to not determine what defines an official vs. unofficial action and expressly leaves this to the lower courts to continue working out.
I hope you’re happy with that when Biden uses it to illegally wiretap Trump and then you . We’ll just go by what the lower courts interpret because they’re always fair when left by the Supreme Court to leave it to themselves to figure it out. Especially when they’re applying it to conservatives
I generally don't like Supreme Court decisions that intentionally leave everything to be argued out by lower courts for decades to come. Ties up massive amounts of time in litigation and money and always results in people pushing the outside of the envelope to interpret the law to allow as much of their bad behavior as possible.
I find it impossible to believe this will not empower future Democrats to use the office to do all kinds of criminal things, so long as their president issues the order. Of course, I think Republicans will do exactly the same thing. Both parties are more about their own power than they are about the nation. It's not going to be that hard to wrap up the criminal things you'd like to get away with inside official acts of the president even within the general scope of what that act was intended to accomplish.
Jeff Childers is tremendously hopeful that this ruling will actually allow for the prosecution of former presidents for their illegal activities. I am not sure how we are relative to the statute of limitations; but he says,
"By bringing all these silly, creative claims against President Trump for keeping a few boxes of “classified documents,” and because his bookkeeper wrote the wrong thing on a check stub, the Supreme Court got an unprecedented opportunity to end forever the silent, implicit protection previously enjoyed by every other previous President. That de facto absolute immunity is gone, never to return. And now it’s open season on serious crimes committed by Presidents."
I read it because you posted it, but I disagree with its logic, except the part about Biden being a turnip.
Take, for example, this part:
"'The President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.' This blessed tier is only for when a president exercises explicit authority under Article Two of the Constitution. Things like negotiating treaties, issuing pardons, and directing military operations. As you can imagine, this is a small, well-defined tier."
That is SO diminutive. Within the role of "directing military operations" lies an entire vast planet of potential major crimes against humanity where the president now has absolute immunity for his directives. Remember, the directives do not have to be constitutional. That would never be the case, or they wouldn't be crimes in the first place. They just have to be given within the scope of "directing military operations."
So, this is incredibly dismissive writing, because while it may be true that only a few roles are describe in that section, those roles are MASSIVE in scope and power. The president could order multiple assassination as a part of "directing military operations" and be totally immune to prosecution.
Likewise for his constitutional role in negotiating treaties. You can put a whole world of criminal activity, such as bribes, within national treaties. With "absolute" immunity, you can even be brazen about it.
Under Tier Two, his following answer doesn't hold up: "Tier Two answers the Democrats’ most deranged temper tantrums. Prosecuting Presidents who order the military to assassinate (i.e. murder) their opponents would not harm the Presidential office, because presidents are not supposed to murder people, and it wouldn’t hinder the Presidential office to criminalize murder. Duh."
Tier two does NOT apply to areas that are the president's constitutional role. It applies to "official acts" of the president outside those roles versus "constitutional acts." Military assassination would fall under "directing military operations," which comes under Tier One's absolute immunity. Tier Two would apply to statutory duties.
And, of course, with "Tier 3: No Immunity for Unofficial Acts," we have no disagreement as no immunity was conferred anyway. In fact, there the situation IS better because, at least, we now know there is no immunity for unofficial acts.
I would have to disagree with this for the reasons I just gave:
"Let’s do a little thought experiment. Evidence shows President Obama was involved in the now-discredited Russia Dossier matter, which was used as a false predicate to spy on the Trump campaign for partisan political purposes. Evidence suggests Obama knew the Dossier was fake, purchased by the Clinton campaign. Yesterday’s new 3-tier test provides a clear procedure for prosecuting Obama for those very serious allegations."
Obama's action was never predicated on it being for political gain. It was predicated by Obama on it being for national security, which makes it a Tier-One activity, for which there is absolutely immunity, so you cannot even dig into it.
IF you did dig into it, it would be easy for Obama to show he's immune, even if he got no warrant at all, because he had reports from the FBI saying Trump was a national-security concern. It doesn't matter that we NOW know ONE of the dossiers in the reports was fake. Obama would say he didn't know it back then. Even if he did, what does it matter with absolute immunity? What matters is the FBI gave the president intelligence of national security concerns that fall under his Tier One responsibilities. With absolute immunity, Obama doesn't have to PROVE his concerns had rock-solid evidence. He can still say he was carrying out what he believed at the time were national security acts.
I agree with you, Dave. At least, now, there is a vehicle where presidents could be held accountable for their actions. That has never happened before.
Kicking the can down the road also enables the future courts to say, "not so fast." It is far from carte Blanche. I was expecting much worse, based on the coverage. It is a minor decision. The rule of law was bit struck down.
Childers' column is worth a read. I don't agree with him on the gas station case. I agree with Justice Jackson, of all people (in her dissent). She says that the statute of limitations clock should start when the injury takes place. If it is an individual who is injured, it should start when the injury happens. If it is a regulation that causes the injury, it should start when the regulation started.
Childers thinks that it is a good thing that there will be a flood of lawsuits coming with the Chevron deferrence out of the way. Conservatives actually applauded Chevron when it came into being, because there was a flood of lawsuits taking place that the courts were not adjudicating to their satisfaction.
Fundamentally, it's an original sin issue: we won't be satisfied until we get to heaven, because everything here is inherently broken.
Yeah another doomsayer about the fall of the country because the court ruled according to precedent. Meanwhile, the DOJ and the joke aif an AG ignores enforcing the law and gets creative when going in a political witch hunt. Lenin would be proud of you.
There was no precedent here. Even the Supreme Court said this was the first time ruling on a matter that had never been decided and would set the course for years to come. I hope you enjoy your interpretation just as much when Biden decides to have the DOJ illegally spy on Trump and now uses this as his protection for breaking the law. It won’t be hard to dress that up in an official action just as Obama did when he spied on Trump as I wrote in my article
An example of how this ruling is already being bandied about by Trump lawyers to excuse things that shouldn't be excused:
"An attorney for former President Trump suggested the so-called “fake electors” scheme qualifies as an “official act,” which would prevent it from being prosecuted under the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
"Trump attorney Will Scharf told CNN Monday night that some acts alleged in the former president’s federal election subversion indictment do constitute private conduct but the effort to put forth slates of alternate electors in 2020 from key battleground states is not one of them."
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4751339-donald-trump-attorney-fake-electors-scheme-official-act-immunity-decision/
It doesn't matter if it was a WRONG act, so long as I was an OFFICIAL act, according to Trump's attorney. Sixty courts said Trump failed to show the election was rigged, but officially acting as president to present slates of fake electors is fine ... because it was official, so immunity must be presumed.
"The Supreme Court ruled Monday that core presidential powers are immune from criminal prosecution and that presidents are presumptively entitled to immunity for all official acts. They do not enjoy immunity for unofficial, or private, actions, the high court said.
"In Trump’s federal election subversion case, the justices made clear that some allegations in the indictment fall squarely in his official duties, like meetings with Justice Department officials to investigate purported election fraud."
Those things must all now be presumed as areas of immunity because they happened as official acts, even IF it should happen to be the case that Trump knew the election was not rigged.
"In his CNN interview Monday night, Scharf contended that once the official acts are stripped from Trump’s federal election subversion indictment, special counsel Jack Smith 'doesn’t have a case.'”
"'I don’t think there’s sufficient private conduct here to support the indictment, to support the ongoing prosecution, and that’s what we’re going to be litigating in front of the district court now,' he said."
All that matters is that whatever Trump did happened as official actions, not as strictly private actions. He could have KNOWN the election was not rigged and that his claims were corrupt, and that becomes irrelevant because putting forward a slate of fake electors (even if he knew the reasons for doing so were fake) has immunity because he did it as an official act.
I’m not sure that your signing on to “The Wide Latina” Sotomayor’s wacko hypotheticals is the best strategy, David. I cannot find that ordering Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival is mentioned in the Constitution as one of the President’s official duties. Ditto with organizing a military coup to hold onto power and taking a bribe in exchange for a pardon. And by the way, Clinton’s getting BJs from Lewinsky in the Oval Office was not an “official duty” covered in the Constitution, either. Perhaps you should read the actual SCOTUS ruling instead of getting your talking points from MSNBC.
Sure ordering Seal teams is in the constitution as one of the president's duties. The constitution says it is his duty to be Commander-in-Chief of the entire military, and it has always been within the purview of presidential powers and duties to direct the military as the president sees fit.
What you're mistaking is the crime part with the duty part. Ordering the assassination of a political rival is a crime. Seeking a personal bribe for a pardon or other government provision is a crime. The actual crime is NEVER going to be a duty mentioned in the constitution because the constitution NEVER prescribes crimes. What the Supreme Court said is NOT that he has to be doing actions that are constitutional duties (because that would be an irrelevant decision because it would never be illegal) but that if he does commit acts that ARE crimes AND does them within the scope of his constitutional roles, then he cannot be prosecuted even though they ARE crimes.
In other words, it is a crime under federal statute to access recordings of all your phone calls and emails (which the government has for ALL of us) without a FISA warrant. However, it is also the duty of the president to secure the nation. So, if he doesn't get a warrant when he orders your phone conversations to be handed over to him because he suspects you of being harmful to the nation (as Obama did with Trump), you cannot prosecute him. He was acting within his judgment of what was necessary to protect the nation, as is his constitutional duty. What he did is STILL criminal, but he has ABSOLUTE immunity.
You don't think presidents in both parties will find endless ways to creatively dress up crimes by wrapping them into the carrying out of official functions? It is not even clear that it has to look like a judgment error or lapse of knowing that it's against the law (as that is never an excuse for a crime anyway), versus totally intentional with full knowledge it is illegal.
Clinton was never in illegal jeopardy over what happened with Lewinsky, so that was never an issue because, just as such acts are not in the constitution, such acts are not crimes either.
So, let me recommend that YOU read the entire SCOTUS ruling, as you want me to do (all 96 pages). It will always be the case, if the act is criminal, that it was never prescribed in the constitution. The Supreme Court's ruling would be totally irrelevant if the ACTION had to be part of the president's constitutional duties because that situation could never even exist. No, the illegal ACT just has be carried out within his constitutional duties.
The difference is this: If a president is angry with his neighbor in Delaware because the neighbor's dog keeps pooping on his lawn, so he goes over and shoots him, that's personal, and he's not immune. It had nothing to do with his constitutional duties. If, on the other hand, the president is carrying out congressional approval of military aid for Ukraine that was put in his hands by congress to work out the details of delivery, and slips in something completely illegal, well that was done in his constitutional role. So, now there is a much higher likelihood he gets away with it as the bar for going after wrong actions in the context of his constitutional role has been raised to "absolute." There is nothing here that would even require he dress them up as looking reasonable or essential because the immunity is absolute.
Chief Justice Roberts delivered a rebuke of the dissenting justices’ fearmongering. He said, “As for the dissents, they strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today… Unable to muster any meaningful textual or historical support, the principal dissent suggests that there is an “established understanding” that “former Presidents are answerable to the criminal law for their official acts.” Conspicuously absent is mention of the fact that since the founding, no President has ever faced criminal charges—let alone for his conduct in office. And accordingly no court has ever been faced with the question of a President’s immunity from prosecution. All that our Nation’s practice establishes on the subject is silence. Coming up short on reasoning, the dissents repeatedly level variations of the accusation that the Court has rendered the President “above the law.” Roberts continued, “The dissents’ positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President “feels empowered to violate federal criminal law” … The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next.“ [References omitted.]
Thank you for that perspective. It's true that has been the de-facto reality that no president has been tried under criminal law. However, many have said for some time that no president has been as ostentatious in breaking the law as Trump has either. No president has brazenly said things like, "I could shoot someone in the streets of Manhattan, and no one could touch me" or "I want to rule as czar for just one one day," knowing that a president can pass hundreds of pre-planned edicts in a single dayl
No president has appointed fake electors outside of the electoral college process or been told by every court he went to that none of his claims of election fraud were courtworthy, even as he did all he could to thwart the outcome of that election. Until Trump, we've been a nation that may have disagreed with the courts but all agreed to live with their final verdict. Trump has refused to do so.
We'll see how it plays out.
An opinion and only that.
It's only my opinion UNTIL you see Democrat presidents using this decision to cloak their own illegal actions within constitutional duties; then it it will be your opinion as you state clearly how absolutely unfair and outside the rule of law it is when presidents of the party you most dislike do illegal actions toward YOU or your candidate and have "absolute" immunity. It's fine so long as it's your guy being protected. Anything is always fine with people in either party in that case. That is outside my way of thinking about anything.
Let Trump move top-secret documents to Mar-a-Lago as personal possessions and even frame them and put them on the wall if he wants, effectively giving access to the info to anyone willing to pay to go inside Mar-a-Lago, and that's fine. He was president at the time; so, he's immune. Store them illegally in an unlocked bathroom, also no problem. Let Biden sell them to our enemies for a personal profit, however, and he should go down for treason! Never mind that access to the documents may be the very reason dignitaries are paying big prices for Mar-a-Lago memberships.
This now become a very gray and shady area of illegal activity, given ABSOLUTE immunity.
Me, on the other hand: I will say Trump should never be president again after what he did at Mar-a-Lago (which this case came out of) even if it were not illegal because it shows such a gross lack of judgement. NO ONE who is so cavalier with top-secret documents is qualified to be president. If Obama had done this, Republicans would be all over it like junkyard dogs on red meat.
That's why I hate both parties. They are only concerned with preserving power to their party and never with true justice. It's always party over country, even on national security, even with Republicans as we see in the Mar-a-Lago situation. If Dem's were that casual with top secrets, Republicans would be OUTRAGED. Let it be their own guy, and they make endless excuses and call the investigation a "witch hunt."
This FBI's fabrication of "CLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS" story has really, already been debunked along with the "GOOD PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES" fabrication. (https://breakingdigest.com/jack-smith-officially-admits-the-fbi-tampered-with-evidence-in-mar-a-lago-raid/)
I encourage your readers to look at the list of items "seized" and decide for themselves (10,000 government documents without classified markings as well as over 40 EMPTY folders labeled "CLASSIFIED") https://d3i6fh83elv35t.cloudfront.net/static/2022/09/39-main-plus-appendixA.pdf.
The politicos, with the help of an "illegal" special council, have spun this up as if they had found all of these "classified" documents. But, when you review the list from the raid, most of the "classified" documents where just empty folders.
They want you to believe that these EMPTY folders held the "classified documents" and that they are now missing , possibly in the hands of some "visitor" who gained access to the storage area they where held (conjecture). They have also never said, correct me if I'm mistaken here, what the missing documents supposedly were in these empty folders. They also wanted you to believe that the documents where "haphazardly" stored in storage areas, bathrooms, and that they where all over the ground so anyone could see them. Mostly exaggerated for effect and every lapdog "media" outlet proudly posted pictures to make us believe this is how the President files his effects. All of this is disingenuous at the least but, it is an effective tool to deceive and influence low IQ Americans, especially those showing signs of induced derangement.
They also spin it as (with no proof) that these folders contained "Top Secret" information that should have been turned over for safe keeping to the "proper authorities". Maybe they were, maybe the were not, or maybe they were destroyed, we will never know the truth on what was actually in these but don't put it past these people to fabricate stories. It was RUSSIA remember.
Just remember this, the FBI has a license to lie. With a coordinated effort between "Justice" and FBI, just about anything can and will be fabricated to take down any political rival, especially a rival who tells them daily that they are going to be exposed for the evil frauds and tools they have just about all become.
As to your opinion of the SCOTUS decision, I really don't believe that much was changed if anything. I'm no legal scholar as you may be, but it seems as though presidential privilege has always been the precedent. Are presidents above the law? Actually, they are.
Maybe. There is nothing in what you've said that I have any basis to disagree with, but isn't that exactly my point here? For example, when you write, "Just remember this, the FBI has a license to lie. With a coordinated effort between 'Justice"' and FBI, just about anything can and will be fabricated to take down any political rival."
While that is what some are claiming Obama and Biden did, that is also exactly what some are claiming now that Trump had a RIGHT to do based on this new Supreme Court ruling--that anything between Trump and the DOJ is covered by absolute immunity. Won't it now be true that all future Democrat presidents will find it safer and easier to use the DOJ or FBI to attack their political opponents, as Obama and Biden may have done, now that they know their dealings within their own executive branch are absolutely immune if they fall under constitutional roles and presumed immune for all other official interactions?
America has been in a state of Lawfare against her people since the middle of the Obama administration. They will do all that they can to get around the law. This ruling is far from carte Blanche fot them but it won't catch everything. The bad guys are playing to win.
And no, i do not lump Teump in with the Obama-ClInton-Biden bad guys. I am also not a Trump partisan. I am a Christian and an American. That is where my loyalties rest.
You are reading way too much into this decision.
First there is precedent.
“That proposal threatens to eviscerate the immunity we have recognized,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote. “It would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly — invite the jury to examine acts for which a President is immune from prosecution to nonetheless prove his liability on any charge.”
Second, the ruling applies to official actions taken that are within the POTUS purview; i.e., within the Executive Branch.
…“The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”…
Third, the Court was very clear that the immunity is “presumed,” meaning that the burden of proving that immunity should not be granted falls 100% on the moving party. While the burden is high, characterizing it as ‘absolute’ in all cases is not correct.
The court stated that absolute immunity is only given for official “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
I would argue that many of the examples you cite (wiretapping of a political opponent for example) fall far outside his
This is a double edged sword. The ruling helps Trump, no doubt. But it also ensures that Obama will never have to pay for all the crimes he committed.
I hope you're right on the first claim. You're definitely right about this being a double-edged sword, which was my argument, too.
On the second claim, remember that Obama illegally wire-tapped Trump, according to Trump, but there would be no problem with that now because Obama did it as "conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution," because that certainly includes protecting the US from concerns about Russian election interference or Russia corrupting a candidate by having illicit information on him or Russia spying through a candidate. Those are concerns “within [Obama's] conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.”
There is no burden under absolute immunity of proving he was RIGHT about his concerns because he has a constitutional duty to investigate them. It's just that he had to go through legal procedure. Now he clearly does not. He can break the law if it's in the course of carrying out his constitutional duties. Obama wouldn't even have to APPLY for a FISA warrant today ; because he could just do the bugging illegally and then claim immunity if he is challenged on it. If I recall, he got the warrant because the FISA "court" deemed it a reasonable matter to investigate, given the CIA docs; so, arguing it was in the proper course of duty would have been easy. Today, the fact that the warrant sidestepped some of the obligations would be irrelevant; so would not getting the warrant at all. (Obviously absolute immunity from criminal prosecution always means you can do ANY crime. So, it is only a question of doing it within his constitutional duties.)
I'm sure plenty of lawyers on both sides of the aisle will find a way to stretch the interpretation as wide of the law as possible because they regularly do when their guy is in office.
I hope you're right on the third part, but my understanding was that their ruling stated there was "presumptive immunity" in the case of all actions that were NOT in the course of duty--that the president must be presumed to be immune even in personal matters unless the prosecution can prove the actions were not in the course of duty and were purely personal; but for anything done in the course of official duty, no matter how criminal, there was ABSOLUTE immunity. Absolute seems pretty absolute to me.
I may be reading it wrong, but three Supreme Court justices agree with that reading. Some people who love Trump will argue (and already have in these comments) that the other three justices all just want to get Trump, and maybe they do. Maybe the other six all just want to save him. We'll see how Republicans feel when the Dems use the extreme breadth of this ruling, and then we can go fight about the real meaning for decades in court.
I imagine it assures that Biden will never have to pay for any crimes he did in terms of accepting bribes for access to the White House or in his official dealings with Ukraine, even though he was only VP, so long as Obama says they were done under his command.
In my view, we needed something that limited prosecutors but didn't protect illegal activity. I don't want any president doing illegal activity. If it MUST be done to protect the United States, then congress can make it legal. I don't want them ordering illegal torture in the course of their duty or illegal searches of US citizens or illegal assassinations. Some no doubt have done some of those things, but I don't want their ability expanded.
Nixon WAS innocent
Sotomayor's dissent reads (to me) like, "But he is a former president. We need to indict him." The main decision is careful to not determine what defines an official vs. unofficial action and expressly leaves this to the lower courts to continue working out.
I hope you’re happy with that when Biden uses it to illegally wiretap Trump and then you . We’ll just go by what the lower courts interpret because they’re always fair when left by the Supreme Court to leave it to themselves to figure it out. Especially when they’re applying it to conservatives
What would you have rather seen from the decision?
I generally don't like Supreme Court decisions that intentionally leave everything to be argued out by lower courts for decades to come. Ties up massive amounts of time in litigation and money and always results in people pushing the outside of the envelope to interpret the law to allow as much of their bad behavior as possible.
I find it impossible to believe this will not empower future Democrats to use the office to do all kinds of criminal things, so long as their president issues the order. Of course, I think Republicans will do exactly the same thing. Both parties are more about their own power than they are about the nation. It's not going to be that hard to wrap up the criminal things you'd like to get away with inside official acts of the president even within the general scope of what that act was intended to accomplish.
Jeff Childers is tremendously hopeful that this ruling will actually allow for the prosecution of former presidents for their illegal activities. I am not sure how we are relative to the statute of limitations; but he says,
"By bringing all these silly, creative claims against President Trump for keeping a few boxes of “classified documents,” and because his bookkeeper wrote the wrong thing on a check stub, the Supreme Court got an unprecedented opportunity to end forever the silent, implicit protection previously enjoyed by every other previous President. That de facto absolute immunity is gone, never to return. And now it’s open season on serious crimes committed by Presidents."
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/devastating-tuesday-july-2-2024-c
I read it because you posted it, but I disagree with its logic, except the part about Biden being a turnip.
Take, for example, this part:
"'The President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority.' This blessed tier is only for when a president exercises explicit authority under Article Two of the Constitution. Things like negotiating treaties, issuing pardons, and directing military operations. As you can imagine, this is a small, well-defined tier."
That is SO diminutive. Within the role of "directing military operations" lies an entire vast planet of potential major crimes against humanity where the president now has absolute immunity for his directives. Remember, the directives do not have to be constitutional. That would never be the case, or they wouldn't be crimes in the first place. They just have to be given within the scope of "directing military operations."
So, this is incredibly dismissive writing, because while it may be true that only a few roles are describe in that section, those roles are MASSIVE in scope and power. The president could order multiple assassination as a part of "directing military operations" and be totally immune to prosecution.
Likewise for his constitutional role in negotiating treaties. You can put a whole world of criminal activity, such as bribes, within national treaties. With "absolute" immunity, you can even be brazen about it.
Under Tier Two, his following answer doesn't hold up: "Tier Two answers the Democrats’ most deranged temper tantrums. Prosecuting Presidents who order the military to assassinate (i.e. murder) their opponents would not harm the Presidential office, because presidents are not supposed to murder people, and it wouldn’t hinder the Presidential office to criminalize murder. Duh."
Tier two does NOT apply to areas that are the president's constitutional role. It applies to "official acts" of the president outside those roles versus "constitutional acts." Military assassination would fall under "directing military operations," which comes under Tier One's absolute immunity. Tier Two would apply to statutory duties.
And, of course, with "Tier 3: No Immunity for Unofficial Acts," we have no disagreement as no immunity was conferred anyway. In fact, there the situation IS better because, at least, we now know there is no immunity for unofficial acts.
I would have to disagree with this for the reasons I just gave:
"Let’s do a little thought experiment. Evidence shows President Obama was involved in the now-discredited Russia Dossier matter, which was used as a false predicate to spy on the Trump campaign for partisan political purposes. Evidence suggests Obama knew the Dossier was fake, purchased by the Clinton campaign. Yesterday’s new 3-tier test provides a clear procedure for prosecuting Obama for those very serious allegations."
Obama's action was never predicated on it being for political gain. It was predicated by Obama on it being for national security, which makes it a Tier-One activity, for which there is absolutely immunity, so you cannot even dig into it.
IF you did dig into it, it would be easy for Obama to show he's immune, even if he got no warrant at all, because he had reports from the FBI saying Trump was a national-security concern. It doesn't matter that we NOW know ONE of the dossiers in the reports was fake. Obama would say he didn't know it back then. Even if he did, what does it matter with absolute immunity? What matters is the FBI gave the president intelligence of national security concerns that fall under his Tier One responsibilities. With absolute immunity, Obama doesn't have to PROVE his concerns had rock-solid evidence. He can still say he was carrying out what he believed at the time were national security acts.
I agree with you, Dave. At least, now, there is a vehicle where presidents could be held accountable for their actions. That has never happened before.
Kicking the can down the road also enables the future courts to say, "not so fast." It is far from carte Blanche. I was expecting much worse, based on the coverage. It is a minor decision. The rule of law was bit struck down.
I hope you are right that it was only a bit, but broad rulings are more typically "a lot." They also usually result in legal battles forever.
Childers' column is worth a read. I don't agree with him on the gas station case. I agree with Justice Jackson, of all people (in her dissent). She says that the statute of limitations clock should start when the injury takes place. If it is an individual who is injured, it should start when the injury happens. If it is a regulation that causes the injury, it should start when the regulation started.
Childers thinks that it is a good thing that there will be a flood of lawsuits coming with the Chevron deferrence out of the way. Conservatives actually applauded Chevron when it came into being, because there was a flood of lawsuits taking place that the courts were not adjudicating to their satisfaction.
Fundamentally, it's an original sin issue: we won't be satisfied until we get to heaven, because everything here is inherently broken.
Yeah another doomsayer about the fall of the country because the court ruled according to precedent. Meanwhile, the DOJ and the joke aif an AG ignores enforcing the law and gets creative when going in a political witch hunt. Lenin would be proud of you.
There was no precedent here. Even the Supreme Court said this was the first time ruling on a matter that had never been decided and would set the course for years to come. I hope you enjoy your interpretation just as much when Biden decides to have the DOJ illegally spy on Trump and now uses this as his protection for breaking the law. It won’t be hard to dress that up in an official action just as Obama did when he spied on Trump as I wrote in my article