Trump is “absolutely” immune for “official acts” on Jan 6th, SCOTUS rules
It impacts the future of the election interference case.
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.
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.
Yep, it's an "official act".
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.
When haven't presidents been able to order assassinations?
Biden can be the first President since Washington to give back the power to We the People. He needs some official acts that return the power back to We the People. If they're considered crimes by the right wing fascists, don't worry. It would take too long to investigate, prosecute, and hold him accountable. His old age is also a super power!
Biden definitely needs to make a move here, but I don't see that working. There's a difference between "the POTUS is immune from criminal liability", and "the POTUS has the power to alter the government as they choose", at least, there is for a President that isn't going to enforce their changes with violence, which Biden hasn't shown any sign of being.
Perhaps there's a way to swing this new legal freedom in a way that does something like that, I'm not smart enough to figure that out. I do at least know that, if this isn't addressed A fucking SAP, then the US is in some serious trouble.
What a power move that could be.
"Currently, any act, no matter how illegal, is available to me without repercussions due to this Supreme Court decision. So I am going to fix that. I would like an amendment to be put forth explicitly stating as much, and also would like to have an amendment put in place to establish ethical rules for the Supreme Court and an enforcement method for it. Keep in mind, currently any action I consider part of my duties, including... removing... legislators who vote against Democracy itself, until I have enough of a majority of whoever is left t9 accomplish the same goal. Before that, though, I would like a voting reform to establish rules across the nation to maximize voter participation and remove gerrymandering and other systems to diminish the voting power of any group."
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.
But he won't, and neither will any Dem presidents, which is what the right wing SCOTUS is counting on.
Lord Trump the first won't have such qualms...
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
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.
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.
Unfortunately the ones who say that about 2A are on the side of the nationalists.
2A has been toothless for awhile. What good is stock modded AR15 supposed to do against tanks and fighters jets.
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.
When a group of American freedom fighters go to take over a U.S.A. military base and hesitant soldiers aren’t sure if they should follow a traitorous president or their oath to the Constitution, the American freedom fighters being well-armed will make the difference.
20 years of war, 2,459 US lives, plus about 3 months.
Exactly why I think americans who say the 2A needs to stay to overthrow a fascist government is full of shit. I would love to be proven wrong though
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.
cough Vietnam cough
Lol yeah right.
Okay.
Biden should officially execute half the Court with no trial.
Did they just make it legal for the president to be officially crooked?
Yup
Citizens United was the first step to make it blatantly legal by being able to hide donations in a way that makes make it easy to give money directly to candidates from any source, foreign and domestic.
Then that "it was a gratuity, not a bribe" ruling last week means anyone can just buy off politicians in the open.
So as of this morning it is legal for a foreign country to bribe the president to have someone assassinated.
Very legal and very cool
Maybe. But Biden still has time for it to not be so cool for Trump.
Yes
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
Only if you win.
Also if you lose apparently
Then its called a revolution instead.
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.
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.
They don't even need project 2025 now.
Biden, I urge you to, once your cold has passed, begin officially eating treasonous Supreme Court justices. Who’s going to say it’s unconstitutional? Not the Supreme food Court.
Damn, if that's not what they call the cafeteria in the Supreme Court Building, I'm going to be thoroughly disappointed.
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.
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 ream 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...
He was not President at the time of these acts, but I doubt that would stop them.
Are the Dems gonna do anything or is America as we know it just going to die, "get out and vote" isn't going to cut it when they can just say it doesn't count
If we get enough Dems to be able to pack the court then the "they" changes.
Why bother, the president can just make an official act to suspend the elections as the country is being "invaded" by the southern border, and call it treason for anyone to oppose it. A lower court would do what? Say it is wrong and commit treason? Can arrest them faster than judges can have required cases.
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.
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.
I see they have chosen violence. It is regrettable.
Arm phasers.
I'm honestly dumbfounded that there aren't riots, but then again they knew what they were doing with the timing of this and the Chevron ruling.
I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.
The fix was in a long time ago. I’ve said it before… America is a shithole.
Happy cakeday.
Thanks!
You sure do get what you pay for.
The coup marches on.
The key point here is what constitutes an official act. I would say an insurrection is the opposite of official.
Kicking the can down the road to buy him time.
Welp. The Supreme Clergy that now rules what used to be the US has established King Trump as the leader of the Christian Caliphate that's coming. Conservatives are gonma love living in the white version of Iran.
Can you believe all the conservative Supreme Court justices eat lunch together in the same room? Like the ideas that must be floating around that relatively unsecured... what were we talking about again?
Biden can now legally shoot Trump on stage during the next debate. Gotcha.
I don't think having a raspy voice will be the biggest talking point in the aftermath this time.
And if anyone raises a stink and somehow manages to prove that this was illegal anyway, I'm sure it's the same people who have claimed that he's senile, ergo not fit to stand trial.
Biden could, but he won't. We're just going to get more finger wagging and muttering at him about being a scoundrel and shit.
Correct. He's still trying to Chamberlain when it's long overdue that he goes full Kubiš & Gabčík.
"The only way to solve this is by voting harder." They leave out the "for the next 30 years, continuously, until the court is rebalanced through natural causes and decides to undo what is now 'precedent'".
Last person out, please turn out the lights.
Surely if something he does is unconstitutional, it is not within his official capacity or power!?
But somehow I have a feeling I'm being extremely naive just thinking that.
The SCOTUS majority just decided that nothing the president does is illegal, at least in a way that can ever be prosecuted.
The SCOTUS can lick my fucking SCROTUS.
If anyone ever doubted that the DNC and the GOP weren't on the same team, just watch as the DNC let this opportunity slip right through their fingers. Access to the greatest political, strategical, minds and they will let this opening wash away into a river of fascism.
It's a play, we are watching theatre. Meant to keep you distracted. Meant to keep you oppressed.
As an official act, dissolve the current supreme court and reverse every terrible decision they made.
This is just depressing.
Democracy in the USA ended today. It will be in the history books about the end of democracy.
But by then, that history book will be banned, and only the bible will be left in schools (that will all be private)
The rule of law ended today. Democracy will end if the christo-fascists win the election.
The big thing everyone is missing here is the ruling says the president cannot be prosecuted for actions that are constitutional. So this does not mean the end of democracy or whatever people are saying. The president can't stay in office after his term expires. The president cannot order his political opponents killed- in fact, the Supreme Court issued a statement on that just this year.
Amici curae aren't Supreme Court decisions. "Amici curae" means "friend of the court". It's an argument from third parties submitted for a pending case. The dissents by the actual Supreme Court justices explicitly reference the assassination potential.
That is true, thank you for explaining that to me. Although I read the dissent and what Sotomayor said was that the president would get their day in court to determine if those actions were constitutional, not that this ruling pre-approves them to do so. Meanwhile Roberts said these concerns are overblown... idk really, I don't like the ruling, it basically feels like an expansion of qualified immunity to the president, which makes things more difficult for prosecuters but not impossible.
You say that like it's a defined thing that will keep a president in check. SCOTUS rules on constitutionality. Are you really that confident that they'll keep Trump in line if he gets another term and starts really getting to work? The road to fascism isn't paved with goods intentions, it's paved with mealy mouthed, two faced decisions like this that give more and more leeway until it's too late to take back.
Yes, and that is very important and I did not know that, so thank you for clarifying.
That said, this supreme court interprets the constitution however they want. The court in its current form (as a whole) is not ethical, lawful, or legitimate. As soon as a republican takes the presidency, there is no stopping them.
They didn't rule this, that was a "friend of the court" briefing by outside interests.
Yeah well I guess we'll see what happens if the orange jackass gets reelected. I'm not holding my breath.
Everyone needs to vote against the draft dodging felon rapist that is Trump.
I mean... I actually agree with (aspects of) that ruling. A nation's leader is going to have to, by necessity, do some really sketchy stuff. Simply put "war"
The issue is defining what counts as an "official act" and having any kind of checks and balances on that.
For example: Let's look at the purely hypothetical example of an outgoing president engaging in a violent insurrection against the US government in an attempt to prevent losing power. Crazy, right? But, in that example, it is not at all a stretch that said former president is an enemy of the state. There is a lot of legal discussion on whether it is legal to pop them in the head without a series of trials but it is in that range where it is probably better than not to give the elected POTUS immunity in that situation.
But what if that outgoing president insisted that it was an "official act" to lead that violent insurrection? No intelligent person would at all consider that a defense.
From the dissent:
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
When the foremost observers of the fascist cabal say their ruling is "just as bad as it sounds", I will take their word for it.
do some really sketchy stuff. Simply put “war”
Note that as bad as that is and as evil as it has sometimes been, it is "legal", and thus not subject to criminal prosecution. It is specifically legal for the president to do that sketchy stuff.
For an "official" act to be illegal, but not subject to prosecution just makes no sense. It shouldn't be possible for an illegal act to be "official".
Extra bonkers is the 5/4 opinion that you can't even mention official acts, like if you accept a bribe in exchange for an appointment, you can't mention the appointment while trying to prosecute the bribe.
Prior presidents have done all kinds of shady shit without worrying about prosecution. Even the angry orange didn't get charged until he tried to overthrow an election.
There was zero reason to even decide this case except to give immunity to someone who blatantly abuses their authority.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Supreme Court ruled that presidents are “absolutely” immune from criminal prosecution when their actions involve allegedly official acts while they were in office.
In his majority decision, Chief Justice John Roberts remanded the case to the lower courts, which now have to determine whether Trump’s conduct was official or unofficial.
A grand jury approved an indictment against Trump in August for charges including conspiracy to defraud the US and obstructing an official proceeding.
Trump faces a series of legal challenges across the country both at the state and federal levels.
Most recently, he was convicted on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York in a trial over hush money payments, including payments made to porn actor Stormy Daniels to suppress a story about her and Trump having sex.
That means — unlike in the state case — that if Trump were convicted but elected president, he could potentially pardon himself.
The original article contains 298 words, the summary contains 153 words. Saved 49%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Dear Biden, the path forward is now clear. Do what needs to be done.
The thing that bugs me is how any order given to subordinates is a use of executive power, right? So that’s immune. But say the subordinate considered refusing an unlawful order. Why, then would they decide to refuse the order when the president could also choose to pardon them for any crimes they committed during the execution of the unlawful order?
Four years ago, I voted for President Harris as the lesser of two evils.
This year, I vote for Queen Kamala I, as the lesser of two evils.
9 people decide to allow presidents to act as dictators
The vote was 6 to 3, dividing along partisan lines.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/01/us/trump-immunity-supreme-court
Trump's appointments tipped the balance. They didn't "decide" as much as been taken over. It's a part of the judicial system gone rogue and Congress is supposed to reign it back in.
9 people had the influence to decide.
