SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity
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@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@Horace said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@jon-nyc how do you feel about this ruling?
It went too far, though there were obvious tradeoffs. The 'core functions' provision is too broad, future prosecutors can't even question motive. I think a president could openly auction off pardons under this, for example.
I know they used this example in Advisory Opinions, but I doubt the courts would allow this. The act of taking money to provide a pardon, could easily be framed as outside the core function. Nothing about giving a pardon requires a president to sell it first. That would be optional, and personal, and private, in the third bucket. I think that that's how this court would view that.
The second bucket, where there is the presumption of immunity, is also pretty broad. It would make it far more difficult to prosecute an obvious bribery case, in the same way the speech and debate clause is making it harder to prosecute Menedez.
Blatant abuses of power would be inhibited by impeachment just as well as they'd be inhibited by criminal prosecution. If a president really wants to do something blatantly illegal and not in the interest of the US (even their own voters), they won't be president for long. It just won't be happening. But what will happen, is less lawfare against the president, which we clearly need.
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They specifically said motive can’t be taken into account with core functions. Pardoning is a core function.
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@Horace said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Blatant abuses of power would be inhibited by impeachment just as well as they'd be inhibited by criminal prosecution. If a president really wants to do something blatantly illegal and not in the interest of the US (even their own voters), they won't be president for long. It just won't be happening. But what will happen, is less lawfare against the president, which we clearly need.
Criminal prosecutions are a lot more difficult if you can’t introduce evidence.
You have a lot more confidence in impeachment ever properly working again than I do.
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@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
They specifically said motive can’t be taken into account with core functions. Pardoning is a core function.
I know they said that. Sectioning off the auction as the criminal act question is not criminalizing the pardon per se. An auction where the sale price is funneled to the president's personal accounts could be framed as a private act. One would be hard pressed to view it as an official function, in fact.
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@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
You have a lot more confidence in impeachment ever properly working again than I do.
Well these thought experiments about the dangers of this immunity are cartoonish to the extent that I do trust that impeachment would happen. Of course we will never find out, because these cartoons will never happen. As Roberts wrote in his rebuttal to Sotomayor. Far fetched and implausible, words to that effect. Much more plausible is the threat of petty lawfare, which is imminent and obvious.
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@Horace said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
They specifically said motive can’t be taken into account with core functions. Pardoning is a core function.
I know they said that. Sectioning off the auction as the criminal act question is not criminalizing the pardon per se. An auction where the sale price is funneled to the president's personal accounts could be framed as a private act. One would be hard pressed to view it as an official function, in fact.
It’s not illegal to give former presidents money. Motives for core presidential functions have absolute immunity- indeed they can’t even be entered as evidence supporting a private-act crime. (That part was only 5-4, Barrett joining the liberals).
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
It’s not illegal to give former presidents money.
One can certainly imagine a candidate taking money for their war chest from a special interest that wants some political prisoner released, and I don't think that's ever been illegal. How hard would it be to trace political pardons back to some money somewhere?
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What would be the point if it has absolute immunity?
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
What would be the point if it has absolute immunity?
Or if it wasn't illegal even without immunity? The cartoon grifting scenarios actually meld into things that have always been legal without immunity. That's why I gave the example of special interest groups, their donations, and their requests for certain pardons, pardons which may even become part of a candidate's platform. Trump has been talking about pardoning the Silk Road guy Ross Ulbricht. Think that might be traceable to some money from some contributing special interests? Maybe. Does anybody care? It seems fair play.
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This post is deleted!
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@AndyD said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
So if Joe officially commands a Seal Team to assassinate, say for example, Donald, because he honestly deems him a threat to the Country, does he now have immunity for that assassination?
I was reading a analysis on this opinion and the hypothetic about calling for Seal Team 6 to do an assassination.
The analysis was that if the president commanded Seal Team 6 to carry out an assassination, he would be immune from prosecution. Because one of the "core powers" that is given to the President is authority to command the military, as the Commander in Chief. So, it would be difficult to say he was not immune from prosecution, because this is a core function of being president.
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As a thought experiment, I'd guess that an unconstitutional order (which the military has already taken an oath not to follow) would not be considered to be within the constitutionally-granted powers of the president. In any case, an expedited impeachment would be forthcoming, and therefore the act would have no purpose. If a president actually wanted to assassinate a rival, they would probably not use the military, or any official power. They would just try to do it secretly and get away with it, like the Clintons.
Something vaguely similar happened when Obama drone striked some US citizens in the middle east, knowingly killing them as collateral damage to get some other targets. Immunity or not, he was not prosecuted.
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I heard a conversation with Ian Millhiser, dedicated leftist, legal journalist, and author of two books about how evil SCOTUS is. Even he admits that the scenario where a president auctions off pardons is fanciful, in that the auction would be the corrupt act susceptible to prosecution. But not to worry, he's still a catastrophist in many other ways. Not for the first time, I'm disappointed in Sarah and David's ability to think clearly about their area of professional expertise.
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@taiwan_girl said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
@AndyD said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
So if Joe officially commands a Seal Team to assassinate, say for example, Donald, because he honestly deems him a threat to the Country, does he now have immunity for that assassination?
I was reading a analysis on this opinion and the hypothetic about calling for Seal Team 6 to do an assassination.
The analysis was that if the president commanded Seal Team 6 to carry out an assassination, he would be immune from prosecution. Because one of the "core powers" that is given to the President is authority to command the military, as the Commander in Chief. So, it would be difficult to say he was not immune from prosecution, because this is a core function of being president.
Ordering a military action on a civilian target is not a core powers granted by the constitution.
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The idea that you can rope context and motive into ‘core function’ is contrary to the idea of absolute immunity.
That’s how the second category is treated where the immunity is merely presumptive.
DON’T let them eat cake.
- RFK Jr -
@jon-nyc said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
The idea that you can rope context and motive into ‘core function’ is contrary to the idea of absolute immunity.
That’s how the second category is treated where the immunity is merely presumptive.
An act either is or is not a core function, by some definition. That definition is not that a President thinks it's a core function. I'm comfortable with how the court would decide, if it needed to determine whether an ordered assassination of a US citizen without due process was a core function granted to the Commander in Chief by the constitution.
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Well, it could always be tested. Have Biden order Trump’s death. I mean, he is the greatest threat to DEMOCRACY, EVER! So it’s a double win. He’s gone and you can test the limits of the immunity in courts. And since it would be Biden giving the decision, it would make it easier for the Dems to replace him with Whitmer.
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@LuFins-Dad said in SCOTUS rules POTUS has limited immunity:
Well, it could always be tested. Have Biden order Trump’s death. I mean, he is the greatest threat to DEMOCRACY, EVER!
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2024/07/stark-raving-mad-3.php
You might think the Democrats would be able to keep it together, given that they control the presidency, the Senate, the federal bureaucracy, and the press, and are only a few seats away from controlling the House. But, for whatever reason, they have gone mad. Democrats have reached a fever pitch of hysteria that I doubt we have seen before in our history.
One example among many is their mental breakdown over the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision, Trump v. United States. As I wrote here, that decision was moderate, middle of the road, and entirely predictable. While it addressed a novel issue, it is consistent with past Supreme Court decisions.
But to hear the Democrats tell it, the Court has unleashed anarchy and turned the president into a dictator. This kind of thing is typical:
Other Democrats have suggested that Biden has authority, under the Court’s decision, to assassinate the six members of the Court who comprised the majority. This is, of course, complete insanity. But to be fair, it is insanity that began with the three dissenting Democratic Party justices.
In a disgraceful dissent authored by Sonia Sotomayor and joined in by Democrat loyalists Kagan and Jackson, the minority deliberately fanned the flames of ignorance. Sotomayor wrote:
The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
It takes a special kind of dishonesty to read Chief Justice Roberts’ majority opinion as authorizing political assassination, military coups and bribery. The “Seal Team 6” reference is to a question that was asked during oral argument. Trump’s lawyer, arguing for the broadest possible immunity, said that a president would have to be impeached first, and then prosecuted criminally for such an act. But the Court’s majority didn’t adopt that theory; on the contrary, they rejected it in favor of a middle of the road rule.
What the majority opinion actually holds is:
[T]he nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.
Note that Sotomayor dishonestly fails to characterize the majority’s holding correctly. She claims that immunity attaches when the president “uses his official powers in any way,” such as by ordering a political assassination. But obviously, ordering assassinations, pulling off military coups, and taking bribes are not “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority.” The president has no constitutional authority to order murders, carry out military coups or take bribes. On the contrary, murders and coups would be high crimes and misdemeanors, and the Constitution specifically calls out taking bribes as a ground for impeachment.
Do these justices seriously think that if a future president were to carry out a political assassination, and the case were to come before this Court’s majority, they would say, “Yes, that is what we had in mind. Political assassination is A-OK!” Of course not. These three are not intellectual giants, but they can’t possibly be that stupid.
The Democrats’ dissent is so dishonest, and so obviously a political rather than a judicial document, that it must sadden anyone who believes in the rule of law, and who has any respect for the Supreme Court as an institution. It was obviously intended to provide fodder to rile up Democratic voters so as to help Joe Biden (or whoever) win the 2024 election. Justices Sotomayor, Kagan and Jackson should be ashamed of themselves, but it seems that on the Left, shame is an obsolete concept.
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Some people’s reasoning in this thread, including by some of the pundits quoted, seems to be something like the following:
“The majority is reasonable, ergo the decision would allow reasonable things and disallow unreasonable things.”
Can I ask Horace and LD to answer the following question?
In your reading, what is the difference (in the way the courts should act according to this ruling) between the cases where the president has absolute immunity and the cases where he has only presumptive immunity?
