SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity
-
Not for a second did I think you read the oral argument transcript. But I didn’t think you were lying outright - I actually did believe you read reporting on it.
Anyway, Robert’s expressed my very concern in orals. Yet he made peace with it. It’s a shame. They could have created two buckets - official acts and non-official, had presumptive immunity for the first but subject to contextual information, and allowed official acts to be at least considered as evidence for unofficial criminal acts, and all the ugly hypotheticals would have gone away. And you’d still have protection for official acts.
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Not for a second did I think you read the oral argument transcript. But I didn’t think you were lying outright - I actually did believe you read reporting on it.
The oral arguments are linked to right there on the SCOTUS website, and they're an easy read. What a strange flex that you read them and nobody else did. I guess you take what you can get, while you're desperately avoiding admitting to being wrong about your core claim - that bribes for official acts will be immune from prosecution. It's really interesting how you've turned this discussion into a dunk for your side, when you're blatantly wrong about your core claim.
I figured that out just by thinking, and the reading I did - which apparently did not include the oral arguments, because that is your truth - only satisfied me that I was on the right track from the beginning.
Anyway, Robert’s expressed my very concern in orals. Yet he made peace with it. It’s a shame. They could have created two buckets - official acts and non-official, had presumptive immunity for the first but subject to contextual information, and allowed official acts to be at least considered as evidence for unofficial criminal acts, and all the ugly hypotheticals would have gone away. And you’d still have protection for official acts.
The ugly hypotheticals are beyond hypothetical, they are fantastical, and at least one of them, the one you mention, is explicitly prosecutable by a careful reading of the ruling.
-
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
You are wrong and Robert’s shared my concern in April. Thank you for lying to me about orals else I never would have read them! Is that a flex?
Jesus jon. The ruling makes it clear that bribes are prosecutable, and you will never admit you were wrong about that. I made no claim that the orals don't contain some preliminary ruminations about anything.
-
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
The prosecution isn’t forbidden, but how do you win it if you can’t even mention the ambassadorship or pardon given? Roberts and I are both curious how that would work in practice.
He wrote in a footnote of the ruling, an example of how it could work in practice. I posted it in this thread. Whether you read it or not, well, I guess that's up to your own truth.
Every bit of evidence the prosecutor has of the bribe transaction and conversation, is admissible. The public record of the official act itself, would be admissible.
-
Not true. Yes you could enter into the record that the man got the ambassadorship, but any conversation about the actual granting of the ambassadorship would be inadmissible. When the chief of staff says ‘but he’s totally unqualified’ and the president says ‘he gave me a million reasons why he’d be good at the job’ you couldn’t use any of that.
It’s the sole reason Barrett wrote a concurrence rather than join the majority opinion.
-
I mentioned before this ruling handicaps prosecutions of presidents the same way the court’s interpretation of the speech and debate clause handicaps the prosecution of senators and I gave the example of Menendez.
Toward the bottom of this piece, under the heading ‘Key Text Messages for Prosecutors’, it outlines really damning evidence against Menendez that prosecutors can’t use. This is now the case for the executive branch too.
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/22/menendez-corruption-trial-prosecutors-00159557
-
It’s a pity that there aren’t other remedies, such as impeachment or having voters remove him from office…
Does impeachment and removal from office strip the office of immunity over the actions that got them impeached?
-
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Not true. Yes you could enter into the record that the man got the ambassadorship, but any conversation about the actual granting of the ambassadorship would be inadmissible. When the chief of staff says ‘but he’s totally unqualified’ and the president says ‘he gave me a million reasons why he’d be good at the job’ you couldn’t use any of that.
It’s the sole reason Barrett wrote a concurrence rather than join the majority opinion.
So we've gone from "bribery is totally immune" to "bribery is practically unprosecutable even if it isn't totally immune", to "a minority of the justices are still worried about this, even though the author of the majority opinion specifically addressed it". And you've made this trek without ever being wrong once, that is impressive.
What you have, is an opinion, and you're welcome to it. Please feel as histrionic about it as you'd like to. But do try to keep in mind Roberts' footnote in the ruling. It speaks very directly to your concern. I mean, if you actually want to alleviate your concern. Some people enjoy their concerns, especially if it validates a certain political tribalism.
the prosecutor may admit evidence
of what the President allegedly demanded, received, accepted, or agreed
to receive or accept in return for being influenced in the performance of
the act. See 18 U. S. C. §201(b)(2). -
@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s a pity that there aren’t other remedies, such as impeachment or having voters remove him from office…
Does impeachment and removal from office strip the office of immunity over the actions that got them impeached?
It strips the ex-president of immunity, that was very clearly agreed upon in the orals, which I did or did not read, according to Jon's truth.
-
@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s a pity that there aren’t other remedies, such as impeachment or having voters remove him from office…
Does impeachment and removal from office strip the office of immunity over the actions that got them impeached?
It brings up an interesting point. Where are the originalists when you need them? There’s none in this decision, it’s just judge made law.
The constitution goes out of its way to say the president can still be tried for crimes he was impeached for - in other words impeachment doesn’t replace the criminal justice process.
So clearly the founders didn’t think presidents were immune from prosecution.
-
Horace - is there any difference between bucket 1 (absolute immunity) and bucket two (presumptive immunity) in your mind? Can the courts probe context and motives for each as they wish? It what sense does the first bucket constrain courts in a way the second bucket wouldn’t?
-
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s a pity that there aren’t other remedies, such as impeachment or having voters remove him from office…
Does impeachment and removal from office strip the office of immunity over the actions that got them impeached?
It brings up an interesting point. Where are the originalists when you need them? There’s none in this decision, it’s just judge made law.
The constitution goes out of its way to say the president can still be tried for crimes he was impeached for - in other words impeachment doesn’t replace the criminal justice process.
So clearly the founders didn’t think presidents were immune from prosecution.
That would seem to include the current justices, since they agreed that Trump wasn’t immune from prosecution, either…
The fact that the Constitution went out of its way to state that the former officeholder can be tried for crimes he was impeached for kinda implies that there is immunity. Otherwise, it wouldn’t need to be stated.
-
-
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Horace - is there any difference between bucket 1 (absolute immunity) and bucket two (presumptive immunity) in your mind? Can the courts probe context and motives for each as they wish? It what sense does the first bucket constrain courts in a way the second bucket wouldn’t?
This was clear from the ruling, which you either did or did not understand, according to your truth. Something about establishing that a prosecution won't interfere with the executive's freedom to exercise its powers. If that bar is met, then there is no immunity. Admissibility of context and motives will be left up to every individual case.
-
@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s a pity that there aren’t other remedies, such as impeachment or having voters remove him from office…
Does impeachment and removal from office strip the office of immunity over the actions that got them impeached?
It brings up an interesting point. Where are the originalists when you need them? There’s none in this decision, it’s just judge made law.
The constitution goes out of its way to say the president can still be tried for crimes he was impeached for - in other words impeachment doesn’t replace the criminal justice process.
So clearly the founders didn’t think presidents were immune from prosecution.
That would seem to include the current justices, since they agreed that Trump wasn’t immune from prosecution, either…
The fact that the Constitution went out of its way to state that the former officeholder can be tried for crimes he was impeached for kinda implies that there is immunity. Otherwise, it wouldn’t need to be stated.
Yes, some immunity for the President's exercise of official powers has always been a thing. Otherwise, the legislative branch could make illegal via new law, stuff that the President would otherwise be allowed to do, in his constitutionally granted powers. That would break separation of powers. This ruling codified that a little bit more, but not so catastrophically as the histrionics in Sotomayor's ruling would have us believe. As for Barrett's worry about the admissibility of evidence of cartoonish bribery scenarios, Roberts specifically addressed it in the majority ruling.
-
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s a clear statement that impeachment is no substitute for the criminal justice system, to which the president is subject.
It’s a clear statement that impeachment is a requisite for the ex-President to stand trial.
-
@Horace said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Horace - is there any difference between bucket 1 (absolute immunity) and bucket two (presumptive immunity) in your mind? Can the courts probe context and motives for each as they wish? It what sense does the first bucket constrain courts in a way the second bucket wouldn’t?
This was clear from the ruling, which you either did or did not understand, according to your truth. Something about establishing that a prosecution won't interfere with the executive's freedom to exercise its powers. If that bar is met, then there is no immunity. Admissibility of context and motives will be left up to every individual case.
Besides being wrong (the ruling forbids considerations of motive for any public act) that doesn’t address the question.
