Law Supreme Court makes watergate legal? President now has near immunity

[WhiteMousse]

In this case, yes.

You couldn't even show where she is wrong and you attacked some twitter goof.

The argument is sound. I don't know who Johnstone is. But you're right.

 

[AWilder]

In this case, yes.

You couldn't even show where she is wrong and you attacked some twitter goof.

enjoy your "notes from the narrative matrix" lmao

 

[AWilder]

The argument is sound. I don't know who Johnstone is. But you're right.

lmao, did you click to see her "article"? it's legitimately schizophrenia

 

[BFoe]

Doesn't seem so broad to me.

“The President is not above the law,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the conservative supermajority. “But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution.”

The 6-3 ruling gave former presidents absolute immunity for duties within their core powers and some immunity for other official actions.

The president’s core constitutional powers include commanding the military, granting pardons, overseeing foreign relations, managing immigration, and appointing judges. Congress and the courts, Roberts wrote, cannot act or examine the president’s actions in this realm.

Roberts said that absolute immunity gets downgraded when the president’s actions fall outside those core areas.

“The reasons that justify the President’s absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of his exclusive authority therefore do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress,” Roberts wrote.

Then you have this hyperbole that implies a different understanding of presumptive immunity.

“Never in the history of our Republic has a President had reason to believe that he would be immune from criminal prosecution if he used the trappings of his office to violate the criminal law,” Sotomayor wrote. “Moving forward, however, all former Presidents will be cloaked in such immunity.”

In a separate dissent, Jackson said the court’s ruling broke new and dangerous ground, making the most powerful official in the American government exempt from criminal law.

Respectfully, I don’t think you really took up my point.
I think we all agree that a POTUS has immunity for official acts, and doesn’t have immunity for unofficial acts. What Roberts said on the surface, which you quoted, seems reasonable—until you start digging into what he thinks constitutes an official act, as well as the limitations on how one would prove what’s official or unofficial.

One I keep coming back to is Trump pressuring Pence to toss lawful electors and use the fake electors instead. So let’s break it down a bit.

In normal life, pressuring or coercing someone to commit a crime is itself a crime. At minimum, one is guilty of solicitation if the act they’re pressuring someone to do is a felony. I would think that violating the Electoral Count Act by using fake electors would have to be a felony: it violates 18 USC 1001 (3), punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
—So how could it be an official act?

Furthermore, the office of VP is unique in that it straddles two different branches of government: the Executive, where POTUS has purview (so for example, VP is Executive in the sense that if POTUS dies, VP becomes POTUS); but also Legislative, where POTUS has no purview at all (VP is President of the Senate, and can cast tie breaking votes to confirm nominees or pass bills into law).
—So again, the POTUS has no power or constitutional duties regarding the Legislative Branch. The only time I can think of where POTUS is mentioned in Article 1 is when it discusses impeachment (the Legislative Branch’s check on the Executive), or POTUS being able to sign or veto bills. And its Pence’s legislative function that was under discussion!

So how could a POTUS pressuring a VP to commit a felony in a legislative function outside the POTUS’s purview ever be considered an official act of the POTUS? It’s inexplicable.

Yet when Roberts takes that exact scenario up, he says otherwise:
“Whenever the President and. Ice President discuss their official duties, they engage in official conduct.”
That’s an absolutely insane thing to say.

He goes further: “The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the VP to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct…”
Now Roberts throws a small bone to the lower courts: he says it’s the government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity, and remands the case back to the lower court so prosecutors can attempt to do that.
—But how would they?

Roberts again: “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives….”
But we don’t have to inquire, do we? Pence kept notes. Plus, he was there. Couldn’t we subpoena his testimony? Couldn’t we enter his notes into evidence?

Robert’s again: “Testimony or records of the former president and his advisors relating to the immune conduct may not be admitted into evidence at trial.”

Lmao so now what??
Roberts and SCOTUS may say that no POTUS is above the law, and they have no immunity for “unofficial acts”—but what they paint as “official acts” is perplexing, and while they remand the case to the lower courts to rebut the presumptive immunity, they’ve essentially hogtied any prosecutor from doing so, as I read it.

 

[Limbo Pete]

Respectfully, I don’t think you really took up my point.
I think we all agree that a POTUS has immunity for official acts, and doesn’t have immunity for unofficial acts. What Roberts said on the surface, which you quoted, seems reasonable—until you start digging into what he thinks constitutes an official act, as well as the limitations on how one would prove what’s official or unofficial.

One I keep coming back to is Trump pressuring Pence to toss lawful electors and use the fake electors instead. So let’s break it down a bit.

In normal life, pressuring or coercing someone to commit a crime is itself a crime. At minimum, one is guilty of solicitation if the act they’re pressuring someone to do is a felony. I would think that violating the Electoral Count Act by using fake electors would have to be a felony: it violates 18 USC 1001 (3), punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
—So how could it be an official act?

Furthermore, the office of VP is unique in that it straddles two different branches of government: the Executive, where POTUS has purview (so for example, VP is Executive in the sense that if POTUS dies, VP becomes POTUS); but also Legislative, where POTUS has no purview at all (VP is President of the Senate, and can cast tie breaking votes to confirm nominees or pass bills into law).
—So again, the POTUS has no power or constitutional duties regarding the Legislative Branch. The only time I can think of where POTUS is mentioned in Article 1 is when it discusses impeachment (the Legislative Branch’s check on the Executive), or POTUS being able to sign or veto bills. And its Pence’s legislative function that was under discussion!

So how could a POTUS pressuring a VP to commit a felony in a legislative function outside the POTUS’s purview ever be considered an official act of the POTUS? It’s inexplicable.

Yet when Roberts takes that exact scenario up, he says otherwise:
“Whenever the President and. Ice President discuss their official duties, they engage in official conduct.”
That’s an absolutely insane thing to say.

He goes further: “The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the VP to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct…”
Now Roberts throws a small bone to the lower courts: he says it’s the government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity, and remands the case back to the lower court so prosecutors can attempt to do that.
—But how would they?

Roberts again: “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives….”
But we don’t have to inquire, do we? Pence kept notes. Plus, he was there. Couldn’t we subpoena his testimony? Couldn’t we enter his notes into evidence?

Robert’s again: “Testimony or records of the former president and his advisors relating to the immune conduct may not be admitted into evidence at trial.”

Lmao so now what??
Roberts and SCOTUS may say that no POTUS is above the law, and they have no immunity for “unofficial acts”—but what they paint as “official acts” is perplexing, and while they remand the case to the lower courts to rebut the presumptive immunity, they’ve essentially hogtied any prosecutor from doing so, as I read it.

You read it correctly

 

[CantCucktheTuck]

lmao, did you click to see her "article"? it's legitimately schizophrenia

takes one to know one.

 

[Natural Order]

This.
This is my main complaint with the Roberts Court in general: so many of their rulings on major issues are so vague it’s not clear how to abide by them. Gorsuch seemed to recognize how important this decision would be, saying it was their task to write a “rule for the ages.” And after months of waiting, this fucked up gibberish is what we get?

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

 

[Rob Battisti]

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

That’s probably worse tbh.

 

[kflo]

If no one even considered charging W for Iraq then I could care less about Trump.

Bunch of hypocrites.

i think most people are smart enough to recognize the clear difference between actions clearly taken as commander in chief, and actions taken outside those responsibilities. the SC just blurred the lines for some reason.

 

[Unknown Pleasures]

So what was "broken" to require this fix?

 

[BFoe]

In this case, yes.

You couldn't even show where she is wrong and you attacked some twitter goof.

Look, I was a huge advocate for charging George W. Bush with crimes, but I think it’s obvious what the rebuttal to Johnstone’s argument would be: that Bush’s actions largely concern what he did as Commander In Chief, which is expressly a power that the Constitution imbues him with.
Even his suspension of the writ of habeus corpus (which I vehemently opposed, btw) is mentioned in the Constitution—and while it’s not clear who can do that or how, we have a precedent in which a POTUS unilaterally suspended it (Lincoln).

Trump though, is totally outside the powers granted to him by the Constitution. By what authority is he submitting electors other than the ones chosen under the laws of the States? By what power is he trying to coerce the VP to disregard the states’ certified electors?

The only argument I’ve ever heard would be that election security is a function of the Executive Branch, and Trump is Chief Executive. To that end, I think a POTUS could potentially order the FBI or DOJ to investigate. But they did investigate. Federal election officials proclaimed it secure on Nov 12, 2020.—here, AG Barr says the DOJ has no evidence of widespread fraud. That was on Dec 1, 2020.
There can’t be any question that Trump was way outside his authority after that, when fake electors pledged on Dec 20, or the election was certified by Congress on Jan 6.

With Bush it’s not nearly so clear.

 

[spamking]

Respectfully, I don’t think you really took up my point.
I think we all agree that a POTUS has immunity for official acts, and doesn’t have immunity for unofficial acts. What Roberts said on the surface, which you quoted, seems reasonable—until you start digging into what he thinks constitutes an official act, as well as the limitations on how one would prove what’s official or unofficial.

One I keep coming back to is Trump pressuring Pence to toss lawful electors and use the fake electors instead. So let’s break it down a bit.

In normal life, pressuring or coercing someone to commit a crime is itself a crime. At minimum, one is guilty of solicitation if the act they’re pressuring someone to do is a felony. I would think that violating the Electoral Count Act by using fake electors would have to be a felony: it violates 18 USC 1001 (3), punishable by up to 5 years in prison.
—So how could it be an official act?

Furthermore, the office of VP is unique in that it straddles two different branches of government: the Executive, where POTUS has purview (so for example, VP is Executive in the sense that if POTUS dies, VP becomes POTUS); but also Legislative, where POTUS has no purview at all (VP is President of the Senate, and can cast tie breaking votes to confirm nominees or pass bills into law).
—So again, the POTUS has no power or constitutional duties regarding the Legislative Branch. The only time I can think of where POTUS is mentioned in Article 1 is when it discusses impeachment (the Legislative Branch’s check on the Executive), or POTUS being able to sign or veto bills. And its Pence’s legislative function that was under discussion!

So how could a POTUS pressuring a VP to commit a felony in a legislative function outside the POTUS’s purview ever be considered an official act of the POTUS? It’s inexplicable.

Yet when Roberts takes that exact scenario up, he says otherwise:
“Whenever the President and. Ice President discuss their official duties, they engage in official conduct.”
That’s an absolutely insane thing to say.

He goes further: “The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the VP to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct…”
Now Roberts throws a small bone to the lower courts: he says it’s the government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity, and remands the case back to the lower court so prosecutors can attempt to do that.
—But how would they?

Roberts again: “In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the president’s motives….”
But we don’t have to inquire, do we? Pence kept notes. Plus, he was there. Couldn’t we subpoena his testimony? Couldn’t we enter his notes into evidence?

Robert’s again: “Testimony or records of the former president and his advisors relating to the immune conduct may not be admitted into evidence at trial.”

Lmao so now what??
Roberts and SCOTUS may say that no POTUS is above the law, and they have no immunity for “unofficial acts”—but what they paint as “official acts” is perplexing, and while they remand the case to the lower courts to rebut the presumptive immunity, they’ve essentially hogtied any prosecutor from doing so, as I read it.

After reading more of what Roberts said it does seem pretty outlandish to offer an excuse for Trump's behavior as an official duty.

But wouldn't the actions of Trump mentioned be open to impeachment regardless?

 

[spamking]

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

Uh, no thanks . . . we can't even find decent candidates for other offices right now.

 

[Beechwood]

Supreme Court strikes proper balance on presidential immunity

Supreme Court strikes proper balance on presidential immunity - Washington Examiner

In the presidential immunity case of Trump v. United States, the Supreme Court struck the right balance.

www.washingtonexaminer.com

As prosecutors nakedly abuse the powers of their office for partisan purposes, the Supreme Court’s decision to extend criminal immunity to a president’s official acts is prudent. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s politically motivated prosecution and special counsel Jack Smith’s politically timed prosecution make the dangers clear.

With lawfare now a routine means of weakening political opponents, the court’s 6-3 majority in Trump v. United States struck the right balance, extending the immunity presidents already enjoy in the civil context, which all nine justices support, to the criminal context.

Critics of presidential immunity are right when they say there is no “presidential immunity clause” in the Constitution. But there is no separation of powers clause either and yet that legal concept has been a guiding principle of constitutional law since the Supreme Court’s first decision.

More than 40 years ago in Nixon v. Fitzgerald, an Air Force employee sued President Richard Nixon in civil court. Nixon was out of office, but the plaintiff sought damages for Nixon’s decision to fire him after he testified to Congress about cost overruns at the Pentagon. In a narrow 5-4 decision, the majority held that “because of the singular importance of the President’s duties, diversion of his energies by concern with private lawsuits would raise unique risks to the effective functioning of government.”

When determining if a president should be exempt from a legal action, courts “must balance the constitutional weight of the interest to be served against the dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” The Fitzgerald majority noted that “there is a lesser public interest in actions for civil damages than, for example, in criminal prosecutions,” but the decision did not preclude immunity from a criminal complaint.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues in dissent that giving a president immunity for official actions but not unofficial ones would let presidents “feel empowered to violate federal criminal law.” The majority saw this as “fear mongering” and we agree. The majority notes that under its holding, after further fact finding by the lower court, former President Donald Trump can still be prosecuted for his efforts to create slates of alternative electors. Under this ruling, no one is above the law.

A presidential crime spree seems less likely, as the majority suggests, than “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 he may be next.”

The majority then correctly notes how broad federal law is, how presidents must make decisions on when and when not to enforce the law every day, and then notes, “Virtually every president is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law such as drug, gun, immigration, or environmental laws. An enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous president violated that board statute. Without immunity, such types of prosecutions of ex-presidents could quickly become routine.”.....

 

[Limbo Pete]

After reading more of what Roberts said it does seem pretty outlandish to offer an excuse for Trump's behavior as an official duty.

But wouldn't the actions of Trump mentioned be open to impeachment regardless?

The issue there (well, one of them) is that impeachment isn't a criminal procedure and can only result in removal from office

 

[AWilder]

takes one to know one.

 

[Sinister]

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

While we have had our disagreements, I am on vehement agreement with this notion. The SCOTUS perceives literally zero threat to their ability to grant or remove power. This is something I use in conversations in person with people who disagree with me on certain social issues, that they need to be cognizant of supporting outright authoritarianism.

Mitch McConnell specifically said to get the Country you desire you must capture and mold the Courts, which was something the Federalist Society dedicated its entire existence to, funded by the billionaire class who desire a more cemented underclass beneath them. To do this, you must remove power from the public (prosecution) and also from agencies that can act independently (the press, Comissioned agencies). I mentioned this before but in the early days of US Governance States started passing wildly progressive legislation for the day...like wanting to abolish slavery. Some of the men who were in power then realized what was coming, giving power to the people (direct democracy) would end up in the people voting for them to be less wealthy, via checks on the means to amass their wealth. I forget who it was recently that accused the Biden administration of "declaring War on crypto"...but if you even look at just one crypto scam, say Logan Paul's "Crypto Zoo"...that guy should be in prison and not parading around with WWE Titles.

The point is, if the public had say most of these robber barons would be in prison. That's HOW the legal system would be used. However now it's being used as asset protection for Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Sugar, all of whom want the continuation of bad Neo-Liberal economics, deregulation, and a disarmed working class to combat them. They want Presidents (or a King, they dont care which) who will cement the oligarchy via promises of tax cuts, and a lack of enforcement of regs that exist to protect the public.

But the bottom line is about being RULED, not represented. The SCOTUS is rogue. These idealogs, again selected by a "Society" whose sole purpose was to convince people who otherwise would have gone into clergy to instead become lawyers and judges, are convinced they are our High Priests. As you said, they are appointed...and their friends in the Senate even blatantly rigged the appointment process by lying (McConmell lied about appointing justices during an election year right to America's face), which even further demonstrates that this is wielding power for sake of wielding power. And giving power for sake of giving power. This should boil the blood of any American who believes in opposing "taxation without representation"...any American who despises the idea of living under monarchy, any American who has EVER declared their opposition to being under the boot of wealthy elites. And yet here we are having our rights re-shaped and revoked largely by people who we know for a fact are showered with gifts by the donor class.

 

[spamking]

The issue there (well, one of them) is that impeachment isn't a criminal procedure and can only result in removal from office

Right. But depending on the situation I'd imagine that being something folks would support. That and being barred from holding office again.

 

[emefer]

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

Yeah, maybe we can get justice MTG

 

[AWilder]

SC should be voted in. This appointed shit needs to die.

im ok with appointments but the current system sucks. I think there should be term limits and some kind of calendar of when judges will be removed due to hitting their term limits that avoids all the justices leaving at once or some kind of issue like that. I think it would be better for everyone and the country knowing when scotus picks are going to happen. Of course an untimely death could still impact the system but that could also be adjusted in many different ways.