YSK the full scope of the recent US presidential immunity decision
YSK the full scope of the recent US presidential immunity decision
TLDR: there are no qualifying limitations on presidential immunity
Not only does any US president now have complete immunity from "official" actions(with zero qualifying restrictions or definitions), but if those actions are deemed "unofiicial", no jury is legally allowed to witness the evidence in any way since that would interfere with the now infinitely broad "official" presidential prerogatives.
Furthermore, if an unofficial atrocity is decided on during an official act, like the president during the daily presidential briefing ordering the army to execute the US transexual population, the subsequent ordered executions will be considered legally official presidential acts since the recorded decision occurred during a presidential duty.
There are probably other horrors I haven't considered yet.
Then again, absolute immunity is absolute immunity, so I don't know how much threat recognition matters here.
If the US president can order an action, that action can be legally and officially carried out.
Not constitutionally, since the Constitution specifically holds any elected politician subject to the law, but legally and officially according to the supreme court, who has assumed higher power then the US Constitution to unconstitutionally allege that the US President is absolutely immune from all legal restrictions and consequences.
To this point, the military has remained an independent institution that has followed rule of law--the Iraq War, however awful, was legally authorized (note: I am not saying that soldiers haven't done illegal things, but the military writ large has been beyond the reach of the president to be wielded like a weapon to do explicitly illegal things).
Trump mused bombing antiquities in his presidency, and the military swiftly responded that they are bound not to follow illegal orders.
My fear now is that if military leadership falls into the wrong hands, immunity can be used to argue that the conduct is no longer considered illegal, or the line becomes so blurred that it ceases to functionally exist.
If that happened under a president like Trump, God help us, every horrible nightmare outcome could be on the table.
Great point.
We've passed the point that everything "could be on the table", everything is on the table as of that ruling.
Biden is right now absolutely unfettered by the Constitution, amendments, federal and state laws, according to the supreme Court.
Biden immediately made it clear that no American was above the law, but right now he is above the law and choosing not to take advantage of the now unrestricted power of his office.
Not likely to be a tradition in future presidents.
Yes, this is probably the real motive. “Arrest and execute my political opponents” cannot be ignored by the military without a coup or being in dereliction of duty. I think another nefarious change here is not that the actual power has changed but that the Supreme Court has given face value validity to illegal acts. The President has always has unmitigated pardon power for federal crimes. They could order the military to commit illegal acts and pardon them preemptively so that they were not punished. A reason why that hasn’t happened is that the optics of that are horrifying - the President and military must admit to a crime being committed to pardon that crime. With this ruling there is no admission, no face value legal wrongdoing, and plenty of plausible deniability.
SCOTUS knew precisely what they were doing. This is a significant expansion of presidential power, yes. But they know that the real issue is political. What they want is the President to be able to argue that illegal things are legal because the President did it, instead of arguing that illegal things are not punishable because the President pardoned the criminals.
The President can literally shoot someone in cold blood, in public, and as long as they can deem it an official act it is de jure legal.
You might be asking why the right isn’t worried that Biden will abuse this - the answer is because they know he doesn’t have the balls. The left still thinks we’re in 1968 fighting for rights with mostly peaceful protests. We’re in 1938 and we’ve already lost.
The left still thinks we’re in 1968 fighting for rights with mostly peaceful protests. We’re in 1938 and we’ve already lost.
"Evil always wins, because good is dumb." - Some moron in a helmet
Agree with everything except why Biden won't do it--its a paradox of trying to maintain our status quo democracy with the traditional tools of our status quo democracy.
I recognize that its a horrible asymmetry of power that they will have presidents that abuse power while dems will try to respect traditional lines of power....but the populace and parties themselves are also a correlary assymetry---cult 45 will cheerlead any horrible thing their guy does (or pretend it isn't real, or isn't really that bad, whatever the moment requires to avoid cognitive dissonance), but it Joe abused power, both Republicans and Democrats in power and as citizens across the nation would cry out for accountability.
It's a right clusterfuck, that is for sure.
You might be asking why the right isn’t worried that Biden will abuse this - the answer is because they know he doesn’t have the balls. The left still thinks we’re in 1968 fighting for rights with mostly peaceful protests. We’re in 1938 and we’ve already lost.
Yet again, folks are confusing leftist with liberals.Edit: Never mind; turns out the POS I replied to knows he's lying and is slandering leftists deliberately for some fucked-up reason.
Make no mistake: "the left" knows damn well that this is a fight to the death with fascism. It is 100% liberals like Biden, NOT LEFTISTS, who think what's going on here is politics as usual and that the MAGAs can be appeased, just like Neville fucking Chamberlain thought he could appease Hitler.
Wasn't trump firing a bunch of higher up and placing toadies trying to get the government to back him?
He was but didn't quite get there last time. He's learned from his shortfalls and will do a much more thorough job if he's elected again, you can count on it.
My fear now is that if military leadership falls into the wrong hands
Rome intensifies
Keep in mind the P2025 plan to turn fornerly career roles into appointments. How many of those were military?
Trump wanted to start wars, he assassinated an Iranian general cuz he wanted to… he knows now there is nothing to stop him
Well we still can if we are collectively smart enough that being fascist is worse than being old.
I put the odds at a coinflip.
Will there be a fight to reign in those powers legally in any way? Because it feels awfully convenient and lucrative for someone to win the presidency at all costs now.
Whether it goes anywhere is a crapshoot.
There can be a fight, but it can be stopped at any point by the executive branch for any reason without restriction or consequence.
Plus, now there is a legal precedent for presidential immunity, so even if the best situation occurs and executive balance is restored, the next team of bandits can point to 2024 and say well look, the highest court in the land said their ruling supersedes the Constitution.
Fixing this will require some sort of comprehensive rewrite of either the Constitution to make its powers inviolate or better yet, to make the limitations on the branches inviolate.
Maybe increase the amendments by tenfold to elucidate exactly what is allowed and not allowed, because right now "reasonable judgment" is often invoked as a limitation on important legal rulings, but if you have a conservative majority refusing to honestly engage with "reasonable judgment" and willing to pwrjure themselvesto irritate harmful and unreasonable judgment, as the conservatives on the court are and have been willing to do for decades, then they can do things like violate or invalidate the Constitution.
The problem with all of these solutions is that the limitations on executive power are already very clear, and the supreme Court is objectively violating them.
I don't see a clear resolution at this point, although I'm so shocked by the end of the US government that I'm still working through the consequences and considering hopeful solutions.
Right now, the most hopeful solution I see is like when dumps asked pence to violate the Constitution and declare him president, pence refused.
So if another atrocity is now ordered, right now the only hope is that the person being ordered to do it will risk being executed for treason and not follow that order.
Relying on many someones like pence to all do the right thing is not exactly comforting.
Doesn't that mean Biden could just have Trump assassinated?
Without legal consequence, yes.
That action could not be legally scrutinized or judged and Biden, as president, would be immune from prosecution.
Not even Putin is above the law according to any interpretation of the Russian constitution.
What is more interesting to me is he could have persons of interest detained and disappeared as per the still-active surveillance, national security and anti-terror states from the aughts and 2010s.
I would avoid doing anything to Trump directly as the US wouldn't want to martyr him but it would be delightfully ironic to detain the SCOTUS associate justices for sake of their own safety where they can stay at black sites within earshot of the screaming.
In the meantime there are Heritage Society members and other thinktank analysts who have been caught on hot mic or text discussing policies that would drastically change the character of the United States, that are contrary to the spirit of the Constitution of the United States and parallel to the indictments in the Declaration of Independence.
So it would be entirely justified to introduce them to the US secret detention system and possibly to the enhanced interrogators to remind them what kinds of presidential power they endorsed in eras past.
I'm sure they plan to remind Trump of these resources when Trump wants to make someone sorry they were born.
Right I'm having a hard time not embracing my inner Magneto when I imagine being in Biden's shoes. After all, these guys made it very clear what they will do to me when they have half a chance.
Yes. He can order the military (seal team 6 or something) to put a bullet in his face. That's a presidential action. Whoever does it though could be charged. The president could then pardon (another presidential action) everyone involved.
After Nixon resigned, he was pardoned before he was even charged so...
He shouldn't kill him, that's too devisive. Maybe strap him to the top of a rocket and send him to low earth orbit? And leave him there?
I realized today, by giving the president protection from the law, the opinion also implies the court system, including SCOTUS is too incompetent to adjudicate.
In another country where we had actual jurists on the bench representing the highest council for 320,000,000 people, I'd expect them to be more than capable and willing to wade through the delicate nuances of any presidental action, and determine if criminal acts were justified in the service of the state. But Roberts essentially is admitting he and his associates are either too inept or too corrupt, and either way are not up to the task.
If the US democracy is to survive, we will not just need a constitutional amendment, but a complete judicial overhaul, and a federal election reform to restore power to elections and thus, to the people. Until all this happens, we are governed at gunpoint, rather than by consent.
So put away your fireworks. The nation is too unwell to be celebrated.
It's definitely the latter, corruption.
There's no way the conservative justices could have drawn many of their conclusions with any consistent interpretation of the constitution and the enumerated rights.
The court conservatives are clearly advancing corporate and political partisan interests and interpreting identical constitutional amendments and passages different ways on different decisions.
Thomas has explicitly said that all he wants to do is hurt liberals, and accepted gifts from wealthy donors with connections to cases he oversees.
I'm sure he's not the only one.
I think the most realistic way of undoing this ruling is for Biden to step down and Harris or someone else to take over. They would very likely win, and if the turnout is strong enough, they could use a legislative majority to either pack the courts or impeach/replace a few Republican Justices. The now majority liberal court could contrive some excuse to make a new ruling on presidential immunity and overturn the previous one.
It requires a lot of things to go fairly well and for the Democrats to be more organized and competent than they've ever been, but it is Possible, unlike a constitutional amendment imo.
Early in the morning of July 8, 2025. Seal team 6 begins operation Orange Julius. At the same time, all around the country, under executive orders, sovereign citizens are rounded up and placed in immigration detention centers (you know why).
Maga Americans were swift to respond, but were no match for the US military, Joe Biden declared martial law, and made it a crime to wear red hats or raise the front of your truck only, even listening to Toby Keith could land you in prison.
...it could happen, to you
[Clutches beer can]
The bigger picture is always missing in these posts.
And that is that everything that's happening has already happened in Russia. It's how Putin got power - through the courts.
All a Republican president has to do now is make an official act that they are president for life, the supreme court agrees, and that's that.
The second is that while only the president has immunity (meaning anyone killing people under their official order would still be illegal), the president can also pardon people. So it's a loophole - anyone can kill under their official order, and then the president can just pardon them.
Two salient points:
This has not already happened in Russia.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin does not legally have absolute immunity.
China would have been a better example, since the Communist party is above the law and xi did abolish term limits for himself.
In the US, a president could not pardon themselves for state crimes, and the president murdering someone would have been a prosecutable state crime until this decision.
Not so anymore.
TL;DR the president is a goddamn king and our regulatory bodies that have been defanged over the years has now been all but beheaded
As a trans woman, cool. Real fuckin’ cool.
My worst fears got written down by someone else.
I don’t wanna get shot.
I wanna die of old age.
I happen to be moving to Europe for unrelated reasons, unironically you should consider something similar if you can. Fuck this place.
Fascism is spreading there as well unfortunately.
And will continue to do so as long as corporations have and continue gaining power to rival your governments. Manipulating public opinion is easy when you own all sources of information dissemination.
And I hope we all do, all while living our best life
Absolute immunity is exactly how genocide and civil wars are facilitated.
I doubt it will get as far Rwanda better of societal complexity, but if someone awful is elected and they decide to execute trans, or arab, or left handed people, or decides to murder anyone themselves, there's no reason why they should consider the legal allowance of or consequences of their actions before taking action and no way outside of specific new amendments to scrutinize, prosecute or guard against that action in the future.
The states now have to rely on the personal judgments and courage of everyone under the commander in chief, which is everyone, to refuse to carry out atrocities.
"Roe was legislating from the bench!"
...goes on to carve unlimited executive power out of thin air...
Yyyup.
Even when dumps was elected or roe was overturned, I was very disappointed but rationalized that voting could turn it around, even with a crappy voting system like the US has.
But granting absolute legal immunity to the most powerful branch of government is so broad and so reckless that I no longer clearly recognize any more safeguards on what can happen overnight to the US government.
Counterargument: The US dollar hasn't budged since the ruling, so for some reason nobody else is worried yet.
I don't really understand that.
Here is a great article explaining the extent of the immunity.
The 119-page decision affords the executive immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” in two layers—core constitutional acts that are absolutely protected, and presumptive immunity for official acts that are not core that can be overcome only if the government can show that applying a criminal prohibition on that act wouldn’t encroach on the functions of the executive branch. Unofficial acts are not protected.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but ordering mass executions seems to be barely in the presumptive immunity area, and also would be political suicide. There would be serious repercussions if any president ordered the excecution of any innocent American.
I'm curious about your source of information about the restrictions on what evidence can be presented to the jury. I hadn't heard that before, and I'd like to learn more.
Mass executions being "barely in" the scope of presidential immunity means that even by your interpretation, mass executions are covered by Presidential immunity
Individual interpretation is the problem.
The president thinks to themselves "yea, that's barely in" and then it's official and covered.
Political suicide? Could be. Maybe not.
At the least, mass executions will be part of the official US presidential record. If they are carried out those people are dead and civil erupts, and if they aren't the president is immune and the person(s) who disobeyed him is subject to execution for treason.
Say the president signs an executive order explicitly stating that any act is considered a presidential duty during the day in which a president conducts a minimum of one official act.
Then literally everything is official no matter what.
Although that's unnecessary with how the supreme Court has defended official presidential immunity:
On page 30-31 of the SC decision, the supreme Court makes it known that because they have decided the US president is entitled to immunity and specifically cannot "be held criminally liable" for "certain official acts"(interpreted however broadly one would like), examining an unofficial act related to an official act, like legally examining whether or not dumps knew inciting a violent coup was illegal, "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"
This means that any unofficial part of any official conduct, both interpreted however you see fit, cannot be legally scrutinized as scrutiny of an "unofficial act" could result in the legal scrutiny of an "official act" for which the supreme Court has decided there can be no legal scrutiny or prosecution anymore.
So, "hey, drowning that bag of puppies doesn't seem very official".
"Yea, too bad we can't do anything about it since he has to sign a bill into law this afternoon".
Correct me if I'm wrong, but ordering mass executions seems to be barely in the presumptive immunity area, and also would be political suicide. There would be serious repercussions
Bro. The last US president tried to overthrow the government, and the repercussions now are that they give him immunity...
I was wondering, this rules for immunity in presidents' "official duties". What bad things could a president do that fall under an official duty?
Please inform me, as I've been out of the loop, and I'm kinda stupid.
Unofficial duties especially are not discreetly outlined or prohibited, so anything the US president does during an official act becomes an official act That cannot be legally scrutinized or prosecuted.
The president is commander-in-chief of the US military.
So ordering the US Navy to bomb Seattle is an official, legal act.
The president receives ambassadors. If they decide to shoot someone while waiting for an ambassador to arrive, or set a wildfire in a field of horses while on a "brainstorming jog" for that meeting, that shooting or arson is part of their official duty.
The State of the Union is an official act, so the president burning the flag while garroting an orphan on national television is now an official, legal act immune from legal liability.
The supreme court left it kind of vague in their ruling. The courts are supposed to decide, but for something like this no matter what the lower courts decide, any ruling would almost certainly get appealed up all the way up to the supreme court. So what is or isn't an official act is basically boils to whatever the supreme court decides it to be.
I just want to point out that no matter how much authority the US government gets, it never gets absolute power, because of our guns.
Then ... Maybe do sth?
That's a vaguely optimistic way to think about civil war, but I'm doubtful that
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people perpetually scared enough to find owning guns in urban environments necessary are going to disagree with the fear-mongering rhetoric a president-king invokes.
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owning guns translates into any sort of effective resistance
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it was worth killing children and civilians for decades in the hopes of an eventual opportunity to fight something
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civilians with their own guns won't be choosing their own targets
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a sliver of power finally used to destroy a country is more important than the peaceful maintenance of representative democracy.
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