Wouldn’t this mean a president has an obligation to kill his political opponents if they’re seen as a threat to the United States, and as an official act, it would be completely legal? Effectively making one man above the law.
Even if it’s not seen as an official act, you can’t charge the president while they’re in the office, and with that power and a loyal justice department, you could eliminate anyone who might try to argue the legality of your actions.
Good luck convincing anyone to bring a case against the guy who keeps making people disappear when they investigate him.
This + project 2025 & a trump presidency is the end of US democracy. I don’t even wanna start thinking about the impacts globally…
Trump could now argue he, as sitting president, was threatened in his functioning by the new president elect, and it was an official act to block the transfer of power as long as the sitting president has concerns about the validity of the votes. (Ofcourse he always has those concerns)
And now with the coming elections he will claim the same and as a bonus he officially and in the open has the republicans refuse to certify a losing vote because that also threatens his position and impedes his functioning.
If the lower courts now claim his acts were not official he will just appeal that back to the Supreme Court, thereby still delaying any closure of the case well after the elections.
Biden should just pass an official law that SCOTUS must be evenly split between major parties.
This couldn’t be illegal to do anymore, as Biden will be immune, as it’ll be an official act.
Biden can’t pass laws, Congress does that.
Are you saying it might be a crime for a President to unilaterally invent a new law and make the federal government enforce it? Well, you see…
No just unconstitutional which is what the scotus exists to make judgments about. They just take it upon themselves to judge everything else too…
You are confusing the United States that existed until this decision with the United States that exists after this decision. As long as it’s an official act, the president can now do whatever it wants. If the supremes court objects, the president and threaten or assassinate the justices as long as it’s an official act. The President is now effectively a king. Read Sotomayor’s dissent in this decision. She explicitly states this.
That’s the thing, for the executive branch, passing laws is not an official act. It’s outside that branch of government. That’s what the Legislative branch does.
It would be like Biden overturning a court ruling. That’s the Judicial branch, not your dance.
I get it. This is how government functions according to the constitution. Please understand however, under this new interpretation there is no effective legal check on the executive doing anything at all. Yes, it’s not official for the president to do that, but there is no enforcement mechanism, and the president now has authority to coerce anyone or any institution. I know it is difficult to grasp the implications of that, but that is in fact what the Supreme Court did today.
That’s the plan right, that’s part of Project 2025, to instantiate Unitary Executive Theory to make everything they do legal regardless of courts and impeachment trials.
The Constitution as we knew it is null and void.
So in your opinion, did they just reaffirm something like the presumption of innocence but it’s tailored for someone who’s job it is to sometimes order the deaths of people? So he has “The presumption of immunity” when making otherwise illegal orders, until it’s otherwise determined by a court case, or impeachment hearing? Is that what’s going on?
It protects any official action.
So, for example, the notorious drone strikes that Obama ordered which killed a bunch of innocent people.
As commander in chief, that’s an official act, he would have immunity.
Bush and Abu Ghraib torture? Same.
Bear in mind that the drone strikes are less attributed to Trump because he revoked or ignored accountability rules and authorized the CIA and defense department to conduct drone strikes without seeking authorization from the White House.
It’s easy to assume that Trump was ‘better’, but nope. He was much, much worse. He just hid the evidence and delegated the crime to others.
Under Donald Trump, drone strikes far exceed Obama’s numbers – Chicago Sun-Times
That’s…not how it works. Like where your heart is, but this makes no sense.
That’s not how it worked. Past tense!
We all know it’s not how it works, but that’s precisely what Trump et al will try to do. This is just malicious compliance.
Presidents can’t pass laws any more then you or I can. Even Trump isn’t insane enough to think he can.
Well now you’re just speaking out your ass
Yes.
Sotomayor’s written dissent explicitly says that this decision makes the US President a king that and can now act with impunity. This is effectively the end of the republic as described by the constitution.
Ok, so biden can officially order the assassination of the right wing supreme court justices and Trump, then appoint replacement judges and lobby congress for a constitutional amendment permanently stripping presidents of their absolute immunity. Since his orders would have occurred while he had immunity, he’d be in the clear, he’d have illustrated the flaw in the ruling, removed a dangerous individual, and prevented future abuses. Win.
He won’t. Too honourable.
The Democrats’ achilles heel.
Summon Genocide Joe where he’s actually needed.
He won’t, but honor has nothing to do with it. He’s a democrat and therefore unwilling to wield power he’s been given.
Yep, it’s an “official act”.
When haven’t presidents been able to order assassinations?
He could just dissolve the supreme court, it would be a little easier. I doubt the (current) military would actually carry out any sort of assassination. The military leadership are selected and it is instilled in them to pledge loyalty to the nation, not the president.
That’s a bingo!
Well, fellow Americans. This experiment with democracy was fun while it lasted. Every significant goal of the founding fathers has been systematically thwarted by these Christofascists. We once again have a de-facto monarch.
The consequences of this decision will be dire, and unpredictable. Every law, every right, every freedom can now be undone by an official wave of the president’s hand. Rights to privacy? Gone. Due process? Gone. Bill of Rights? Gone.
No one—democrat or republican—should be happy about this. The right to bear arms is now on the chopping block right along with LGBTQ+ and abortion rights.
Hopefully I’m wrong. Hopefully I’m misreading the situation. But it sure sounds like every right that previously defined us as American people now hinges on the benevolence of our president. Americans can no longer brag about “American freedom.”
And Europe’s next. Another far right puppet of Putin will be elected to run a European country in the next few weeks. Just shows that Europe follows the US in lockstep with a 5 year delay.
The sad thing is that you’re completely correct.
It’s over. This is the beginning of the true end. The end has been in sight for a while now, but it was always over the horizon.
Now we can actually see it.
There is not a way for us to legally come back from this.
In retrospect, I guess that we should have seen it coming that the Supreme Court of lifelong, unelected officials would be our undoing.
It’s pretty sad that we’re all taking this lying down with all of our Second Amendment talk.
Joe Biden is ABSOLUTELY IMMUNE if he decides to Assassinate a Supreme Court Justice according to the Supreme Court Justices!
He doesn’t even have to assassinate 1 or 2. Thomas committed tax fraud on his RV deal and Alito probably did on his bribes. Joe Biden apparently has dictatorial powers over the IRS and DOJ. Start arresting people and when Trump supporters act up, use emergency powers to drone strike Mar-a-Lago. Those are all official acts.
Biden doesn’t have the balls to do this. It would be cool as heck if he did.
No. No, it would not. The cooler thing would be to deny SCOTUS in this. Their interpretation of this is far and away the wrong decision. Playing by the new rule only legitimizes it. Pull an Andrew Jackson, deny SCOTUS their ruling and continue as though nothing happened. Same with the end of Chevron deference and Roe.
Wild response
The idea od suggesting following any prior tactics of Andrew Jackson is revolting, as cool as your response is
Ah, right, certainly the next President will also behave the same way…
This feels terribly naive. It would be one thing if we could cement into the Constitution that the President does not have immunity, but Congress can barely pass a funding bill, let alone an amendment. But failing to use the power granted to try and set the country on a better path just ensures that a dictator will rise who does not care about keeping the status quo. And Trump will have a rubber-stamp SC that will say any act he seems to be official is.
Maybe not. But Dark Brandon does…
If there were ever a time for Dark Brandon to emerge, this would be it!
You know as well as I do that this ruling will only apply to Trump. They’ll have some other bullshit to come up with if Biden wants to do literally anything, but Trump will have absolute immunity.
Trump IS going to win and with this ruling we just created a king…
Who’s gonna apply it?
60% of the house and 51% of Congress
So Biden should just shoot Trump… Let the courts decide if it’s an official act or not, delay delay, appeal to the supreme Court like all these decisions will be, and Biden may have shrugged of this mortal coil by the time all that happens
Removed by mod
I’m pretty sure those are fake addresses
They’re real addresses and cross streets. They’re where previous protests were held near justice residences.
Sorry, I mean fake as in not where the justices live. I’m pretty sure someone just took random addresses from vaguely around where the justices live and put them on there, I think the residents are just random fellows
Edit: Google searching has proven inconclusive in my quest for the truth, but there are articles claiming those are their addresses so I could be wrong. But people online keep saying the information is outdated by 1-2 decades and wrong (like this Redditor) so idk.
That’s no how this works. He is a democrat so by default unofficial. No matter if he orders a hit on Cheeto by Seal Team 6. /s
Democrats = unofficial MAGA/republicans = official.
This may become the 1933 of this century if november the wrong guy gets elected and fast forward to 1939.
deleted by creator
What he did was not official. Now the lower court gets to decide what is official, and it’s being intentionally slowed down until AFTER the election so the current admin can’t go ballswild with the new allowances. Fuck these Maga-locing shitheads on the SC.
I’m positive Cannon will decide that relocating documents to Mar-A-Lago was an official act.
It happened before AND after he was out of office, and they were caught on tape moving locations. Knowingly relocating Presidential documents outside of the chain of command in itself is a crime. It’s technically treasonous.
More treasonous than inciting armed insurrection?
Removed by mod
Unfortunately the ones who say that about 2A are on the side of the nationalists.
I’m clairvoyant and I can see the future: They won’t. It’s always been all bark and no bite when it comes to armed revolution here in the states.
2A has been toothless for awhile. What good is stock modded AR15 supposed to do against tanks and fighters jets.
To be fair, the fighting would be guerilla warfare which the us hasn’t been that great at dealing with.
It’s still good enough to shoot people who accidentally step on your lawn, or the teachers and co-students you had a disagreement with.
20 years of war, 2,459 US lives, plus about 3 months.
We could probably mount a pretty decent resistance with what we have available. look what happened in iraq during the occupation. insurgency would be the way to go in a rebellion against the us govt.
Removed by mod
And that’s why they didn’t bother with guns in Iraq. Defeating the Americans was hopeless; mission accomplished.
This response is so weird I can’t quite tell what your point is. Are you suggesting that the Iraqis resisted with small arms fire? Because that’s not the case.
More US citizens die each year in the US from guns than US soldiers died in the entirety of the Iraq war. And it’s not a small difference either - each year 4-5x as many citizens die from gun violence. Not including suicides (which would more than double the number)
So was your post trying to say the small arms resistance in Iraq was effective?
Lol yeah right.
Did they just make it legal for the president to be officially crooked?
Yup
Fucking insanity.
Civil immunity makes sense because anyone can sue anyone for anything at anytime, and allowing people to sue the president for official acts would leave him vulnerable to a nonstop barrage of lawsuits. Crime doesn’t work that way. The only way the president should be facing criminal prosecution is if he’s breaking the fucking law. That’s kind of the opposite of what the president is supposed to be doing. You know, faithfully executing the laws and all that. If a presidential action violates the law, it can’t really have the legitimacy that’s being presumed for all official acts here, because by definition it violates his official duties under the constitution.
Now, I would never suggest that a sitting president order the unlawful detention or summary execution of political opponents and/or corrupt justices. But I might suggest that, in the interest of national security, that he order intelligence agencies to troll through communications records, financial records, etc. to search for signs of treason and corruption at the hands of foreign powers. And if that search should happen to find evidence of any kind of illegal activity among his political opponents or on the Court, well…
…Then justice for those criminals should be swift and harsh. There I finished your thought for you :-)
So, is insurrection an official act?
Only if done by a republican.
IOKIYAR
The only sane thing to do, full on assassinate, or kidnap in secret and report youve assassinated, all the justices that ruled in favor of presidential immunity. Nominate a new set of justices, with confirmation under threat of further assassinations, bring the case back before the new supreme court to rule against presidential immunity
Yes. Remove the conservative justices, institute new ones, undo all the bad SCOTUS decisions of the last 4 years, implement standards/ethics/accountability laws for the justices, put greater limits on their powers, and then remove the president’s “king” status. Also put Trump in jail for life. It is the only way to save this country. Today, democracy in the US is completely gone. It’s over.
deleted by creator
Yes. The supreme court just made it legal for the president to destroy the country by doing all that. Do you see the problem?
deleted by creator
Justice Sotomayor wrote a dissent that basically says that anything can be an official act (with enough creativity i’m sure) and it’s not hyperbole.
No one is going to believe your arguments over the dissenting judges.
It is also very telling you’ve responded to no comments mentioning what the dissenting judges have said.
The dissent is in bad faith and should be discarded. The president enjoys no authority to assassinate anyone and therefore enjoys no immunity for doing so. The dissent is not serious and should be treated as such.
The president enjoys no authority to assassinate anyone
obama thanks you for not remembering that time he assassinated a 16 year old american citizen.
The dissent is in bad faith and should be discarded.
Based upon what?
The bar for internet rando invalidating legal expert is pretty high BTW.
deleted by creator
They don’t even need project 2025 now.
Didn’t our founders have something to say along the lines of when the government becomes tyrannical it’s a duty to overthrow it?
https://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/historical/Declaration_of_Independence.htm
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
That sounds easy
message me if you need some help brother
God, we’re so fucked. SCOTUS is turning the Presidency into an autocracy, Biden refusing to get out of the way for a capable candidate…that judge sentencing Trump to jail time in the Stormy Daniels case is basically the only thing that can save us from a right-wing theocracy at this point.
Surely Trump just appeals to the SCOTUS and they free him in line with today’s ruling?
Wouldn’t be that simple. The Stormy Daniels case was about things that happened before he became president. Sure reimbursing Cohen might have occurred at least in part while Trump was president, but Cohen was never part of the administration. They were disguising the reimbursement as paying Cohen in his capacity as Trump’s personal lawyer. So there’s pretty much nothing that this ruling does to hamper this case.
That said, I have no doubts that they’d find some way to rule in his favor if an appeal managed to land in front of them. But I think he’d have to go through normal appeals first, he can’t just go straight to SCOTUS.
It’ll be interesting to see how stiffing your lawyer is an official act
You’re right, but I’m confident he’ll get there in the end.
Yeah. The Roberts Court has been nothing if not the Court of Post-Hoc Justification. They’re great at concocting the most batshit crazy of legal theories to reach the outcome they want after shopping for the perfect cases to do so. I’m absolutely positive that if/when he gets an appeal to reach SCOTUS they’ll give him exactly what he wants even if they have to tie themselves in logical pretzels or even directly contradict themselves to do it.
SCOTUS can’t do shit for state charges. Doesn’t mean they won’t try.
However, His legal team will argue literally any punishment is too harsh and appeal the NY state charges, which will be granted because he was a president and has money. Then it will be delayed past the election and not matter anyway because this system is not made to resist willful destruction by those entrusted to protect it.
Edit: Turns out they can. The NY prosecution has agreed to postpone charges less than a day after the ruling. Trump’s team asserts that the criminal activities occurred before he was president, but since the evidence was gathered during, he can not be prosecuted. Apparently concealing evidence unrelated to the presidency is an official act…
There’s move afoot by the GOP to get any state charges against the president to be elevated to the Federal court.
Guess who can pardon himself or have federal charges dropped?
That’s not how Federalism works. The President is not a member of any state government, and has no immunity from state crimes. There’s no way to move this case from state court to federal.
They cannot currently cancel state charges, but the GOP is trying to change that. It is one of a raft of measures underway. Some are truely frightening, such as using Red State National Guard troops against non-compliant Blue States. Check out Project 2025 - the Republicans are even trying to hide their planned dictatorship.
He was not President at the time of these acts, but I doubt that would stop them.
Did you read the article? The scope of this ruling is pretty narrow.
Not that narrow. They are saying fomenting an attack on Congress and conspiring to subvert the electoral college are official acts.
Where are you getting that? That question wasn’t put to SCOTUS.
Trump was charged. Trump claimed he had “absolute immunity”, and didn’t have to face charges. Court rules against him in this issue; he appealed. Appellate court ruled against him, sending the case back to the trial court. He appealed to SCOTUS. SCOTUS said he doesn’t have absolute immunity, and that the limit of his immunity is on his “official acts”. SCOTUS then sent the case back to the trial court. The trial court will have to determine whether his actions were “official” or “unofficial”.
From the decision:
Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official re- sponsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the Jan- uary 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification pro- ceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presump- tively immune from prosecution for such conduct.
What part of that statement is about attacking Congress or subverting the electoral college?
It is certainly within the president’s and vice president’s responsibilities to determine whether to certify the count. They have to be able to say “no, this should not be certified”.
Saying “no” can still be used as evidence of another crime, it’s just not a crime in and of itself.
Trying to convince the VP to fraudulently say no to the EC count is the crime. The president and the vice president don’t get to pick the next president. The electoral college does. The only legitimate reason the VP could say no to the EC count is if for some reason the count itself were wrong, in which case the VP and Senate should correct it and move on.
That, of course, wasn’t the basis for the discussion. Trump was trying to get his fake electors counted, or to at least have Pence declare that he couldn’t tell which electors were real.
Trying to convince the VP to fraudulently say no to the EC count is the crime
Knowingly making a false statement to the VP would, indeed, be a criminal fraud, but the passage you cited does not contemplate such an act.
Trump was trying to get his fake electors counted
That, too, is not contemplated in the passage you cited.
BTW, my Lemmy instance isn’t showing replies to your comment, including my own reply, so if it didn’t come across, I’m sorry but I don’t know what else to try.
People aren’t reading the article. They did not rule that he is immune because his acts were official.
They ruled that official acts, and not unofficial acts, convey immunity, and remanded to lower courts to determine whether his acts should be considered official or unofficial.
The problem is that they effectively expanded everything the President does to be an official act, and foreclosed a reasonable inquiry into whether an action is actually official.
They’ve already said Donny is most likely immune for pressuring Pence to overturn the electoral college. Yeah, they’ve remanded it to lower court, but it’s already clear if the lower court doesn’t go the way they want, the Supremos will just flip it.
They gave it absolute immunity. That means there is no way to appeal, to argue, to halt, stop, or sue any act by a president. Even arguing whether or not the act is official would be a type of qualified immunity. Meaning that, if you are the office holder of president, everything you do has carte blanche, de facto legality. Sure, some future court could devise a test for this official vs unofficial distinction, but it means nothing for the near future. Biden is now a monarch with no legal method of stopping whatever he wishes to do, so long as it doesn’t explicitly fall outside of the extremely broad powers of the executive as defined by SCOTUS and the constitution. Likewise with any future officer holder.
That’s not what they ruled at all. They said there was immunity for official acts, specifically citing constitutional powers like appointing judges, commanding the military and recognizing foreign states. That was honestly never in question. A lot of people are reading this wrong. This was a massive punt, which basically opens up the door for a jury to decide what constitutes an official act.
Hi! I’m a real big dumb dumb, cause I never, ya know, studied law. But I sure do know that with SCOTUS decisions, the dissenting should be read as well, to get the proper context of the decision that the opinion won’t state. Sotomayor sums up the majority decision like this, and she’s a damn sight more knowledgeable than I could ever be:
The majority makes three moves that, in effect, completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability. First, the majority creates absolute immunity for the President’s exercise of “core constitutional powers.” Ante, at 6. This holding is unnecessary on the facts of the indictment, and the majority’s attempt to apply it to the facts expands the concept of core powers beyond any recognizable bounds. In any event, it is quickly eclipsed by the second move, which is to create expansive immunity for all “official act[s].” Ante, at 14. Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence con- cerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him. See ante, at 30–32. That holding, which will prevent the Government from using a President’s official acts to prove knowledge or intent in prosecuting private offenses, is nonsensical.
You should really read it, it’s such an important read.
PS: Sorry for formatting, it’s copied verbatim from the dissenting pdf
Yeah? And who decides what’s official? Ultimately, that also will end up with the SC
I felt like I must have misread the ruling after seeing all of the articles and comments.
Former presidents also have a “presumption of immunity” for their official acts while in office — but, the court ruled, there is no immunity for “unofficial acts.”
So chutkin is going to decide what acts were official acts and which were unofficial.
But “presumption of immunity” is a weird fucking phrase too because it makes it seem like you can prove they aren’t immune? Like presumption of innocence–you start there and work the other way. So presumably(pardon the pun) you can start there with this and work the other way still?
I’d need actual lawyers to make this make sense.
But either way it didn’t seem as “carte Blanche presidents can do anything” to me when I read it.
We’re waiting at this point for the lower courts to to decide which of Trump’s egregious crimes were “official” or not. In the meantime, all his trials get suspended. In January, if he takes office, they will vanish when he becomes a dictator on day one (his words).
I’d need actual lawyers to make this make sense.
You mean like the dissenting judges?
But either way it didn’t seem as “carte Blanche presidents can do anything” to me when I read it.
Read the dissent. The most qualified people say it is literally carte blanche in the dissent.
