www.thenation.com/article/society/trump-immunity-supreme-court/
The President Can Now Assassinate You, Officially
PoliticsWhat if a sitting president assassinated a former president? Does he have to do it with his own hands or can he have it done? I’m just so curious!
They need to behead them. There can be only one!
For a real answer - if he does it with his own hands, it’s murder. If he orders a government employee under his purview to do it - it’s fine.
Although technically he could just do it with his own hands, then order people under his command to kill anyone who tries to prosecute him for it.
He can also pardon himself if he kills them across state lines
He who passes the sentence should swing the sword!
Have his trained direwolf maul the usurper, the way it should be.
If he orders a govt official to do it, then it's official.
Only one way to find out. Let's test it!
FOR SCIENCE!
What if he assassinated current sitting Supreme Court justices?
Right? I mean who’s the real threat to the constitution right now?
If the article is correct, it is fine. So Biden could do it now, not likely, or Trump could do it if he won, very likely. And no one is going to be able to do anything about it for a generation if ever.
What if Biden just orders some CIA house painters to repaint the Mar-a-Lago master suite? It would be a great way to show the country that the President’s newfound powers need limiting.
That's really, really funny and would be a superbly effective flex. Which generates even more absurdity, and has its own terrifying implications.
Biden prob won't live long enough to see prosecution anyway but how terrifyingly interesting. Just so I'm getting this straight tho, if elected president, that makes you above the law?
A king... basically.
Next up, double taxation
British kings have been subject to the rule of law under Magna Carta since King John. We’re going back to pre-13th century days.
Just so I'm getting this straight tho, if elected president, that makes you above the law?
If you are elected president you cannot be prosecuted for official acts related to the Article 2 powers the people grant to the office of president. Similar to how if you are elected to the legislature you cannot be prosecuted for official acts related to the Article 1 powers the people grant to legislative officers. Similar to how if your are elected or appointed to the judiciary you cannot be prosecuted for official acts related to the Article 3 powers the people grant to judicial officers.
I'm hoping that Biden takes the Cincinnatus approach to the problem.
Someone made a post that was interestingly funny. If former-President Trump went to prison, SS agents would have to go, too. Duty calls.
It's not funny, it's true.
That is brilliant, would be fun to watch that play out
A rainbow of colours ...
Replace the golden toilets with that porcelain shit the paupers use!
No-nock-raid Dream Home Makeover! Make it the new hit interior design show!
Just commandeer the entirety of Mar a Lago via federal eminent domain.
According to SCOTUS, it has to be ordered and carried out by a different person.
Sotomayor gave him the instructions. Gotta call Seal Team 6.
How does that work with the secret service? Does the ex-pres' service people get told to stand down? Are they just removed from protecting the ex-pres to leave him vulnerable and therefore with advance notice? SS Mexican standoff?
Truthfully the President would tell someone on his staff to work with ST6 to get this done. This way prosecutors can’t question anyone in the White House. So it’s both official and unprovable in a legal sense. “Oh gee wiss fells looks like he died jumping out a window. Don’t bother even looking into it since we are all Immune starting 2023 because this was not needed for 250 year before ( and we went through a civil war’.
If he does it as an official act, they can’t even investigate it. If he orders someone to do it, he is immune and can pardon the murderer. If he does it as a tangentially official act, he’s presumed immune. If he does it as an unofficial act, he can be prosecuted for murder (assuming he doesn’t self-pardon, which shouldn’t be an option it with this Supreme Court it might be and likely is at least if the President is a Republican)
It’s absolutely in the interest of national security.
Not American, but don't presidents swear to protect the constitution? Given that the biggest threat to it is Trump, Biden is practically obligated to end that threat.
👌🏼👌🏼👌🏼
We all know that this is the correct and logical deduction from the idiotic supreme court decision but we also should know that if Biden did this they would rule it as illegal and also flay Hunter Biden.
brilliant
Well, it would be tried in lower courts for murder...
Per the scotus opinion.
You think this is bad? (cuz its really not) Just wai till you hear about citizens united, or obergefell v. hodges, those are a real doozy.
Even better is thomas's dissent on virginia V black.
He can order the military to assassinate someone, and give pardons to anyone doing it, and himself. If the anyone refuses, he can fire them and/or have them killed too.
All totally legal.
I think it would be more of an “official act” if he ordered someone to do it and that person/agency carried out the order.
In all honesty, I’m legitimately scared for my family and my country.
This SCOTUS just in the last few weeks has made clear they want (a) civilians to have fully automatic guns, which only function as human killing machines, (b) little to no regulations to prevent suffering and injustice, (c) insurrectionists should go free, and now (d) some people ARE above the law.
They are literally setting up the perfect environment for total anarchy, total despotism, or a some of both where conservatives run wild and everyone else lives in fear.
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5d
just has the think about it and its official.
Or a Supreme Court Justice? And does he have to wait a day to nominate a new one, or can he just do it right away?
The president can order someone in the federal government to “assassinate” say one of his political rivals and be immune from it.
Whichever fed he asks to do so wouldn’t get that same immunity and would face those consequences. It’s solely up to whoever the fed is to decide if they want to carry out the order and risk their own livelihood.
If he does it personally, it's a personal act and he can be tried. If he orders an official staffer under him in the chain of command, it's an official act and therefore immune.
I'm not kidding. That's the nuance as I understand it.
The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.
-Ned Stark
According to the ruling, if he has someone in the government do it, it’s far more likely to be an official act. And the kicker is that courts cannot hear any of the discussion where the president ordered the hit - it’s privileged.
If he does it with his own hands, it might be deemed “unofficial” and thus unprotected.
Apparently you can do whatever you want and not bother to say it was official until you've been out of office for years.
In this case, he just has wait
So Biden can do whatever he wants now? Including imprisoning political foes over national security concerns and refusing to leave office?
Sounds like the Supreme Court might have overlooked an obvious way for Dems to just stay in power forever.
Their (safe) assumption is that Democrats will continue to follow political norms, and, you know, not do that stuff.
And the Republicans.. they'll follow the political norms too, right??
Sure, just like they always have.
...
🥲
Yes, the political norms of Putin, their leader.
The Republicans have been evil since before Putin’s balls dropped. Not everything can be blamed on Putin. This is a very homegrown problem, believe it or not.
Rupert Murdoch is the one who has been holding the wound open in the side of western civilization for decades. Putin just poured some salt in.
I didn't assert that he caused The Republican Party to fail, only that they will follow his orders.
Since when? Everything they’re doing now is perfectly in line with their trajectory since at least Nixon if you’re being charitable. But I would argue in reality since Hoover put down the Bonus Army, Republicans have been taking more or less the same tact in eroding civil protections and liberties or reinforcing existing social hierarchies. They are who they’ve always been at this point and acting like they’re doing Putin’s bidding elides the actual danger they represent.
Yep, people are forgetting the tea party days of the GOP
Maybe the SCOTUS made the ruling to see if it would scare a majority of voters to vote for Biden in the next election.
The Dems need another SOB like LBJ.
The guy who declined to run for re-election?
If Dem POTUS does criminal stuff, GOP would do an impeachment, DEMS would agree.
If GOP POTUS does criminal stuff, DEMS would impeach and GOP congress would say "SCOTUS says it's okay" ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
There is a democratic mechanism as a failsafe, and the GOP is a-ok with that.
Biden has a responsibility to the institution. This institution just fractures other institutions, he has a responsibility to reign things in.
Don't need to assassinate, but maybe time to detain the Megas until we can find out how deep Russia and China go with them.
The court just made kings lol fatal shot to the American experiment.
Imo Biden needs to use this power to make sure no president has this power.
There is no longer a chance at that
I mean, theoretically the executive has the ability to officially drone strike enemies foreign and domestic. Like say, certain fundamentalist judges and a fascist political opponent. Theoretically anyway.
Thats what I always try to get across to people. Dems are expected to follow the rules and play nice, and actually do the job. People can spout whatever wild conspiracies' they want, but at the end of the day, the two parties are
Dems: trying to do the job despite republican interference/obstruction; and
The Reps: who just want to stop the Dems, no matter what. They simply need to win.
They said they wouldn't. This is America's final litmus test, they don't break democracy. Instead, they leave it to a vote, to see if Americans are okay with it.
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5d
The DNC and GOP don’t have any legal, civil, or even ethical requirement to nominate who their constituents choose.
This scenario has existed for as long as those institutions have.
It only became public when Bernie Sanders/Democratic voters filed a lawsuit, and the DNC argued openly in court that they had no obligation, because it wasn’t written in their charter. And they won.
The real “gotcha”, is that you can’t run if you aren’t nominated by one of these third parties.
It’s a farce. The US political system just hides it in layers rather than stuffing ballot boxes like Putin
The courts get to decide what is an official act... The courts are Republican.
This is the real power grab.
Rounding people up and putting them in prison over national security concerns would most assuredly be an "official act", not a personal one.
All Biden needs to do is issue an EO to make it an "official act".
The courts are so partisan I wouldn't be surprised if they determined the president signing a bill wasn't an official act if they wanted to.
Send those judges to Guantanamo Bay too. Official act
so he could presumably still be checked on his actions by the courts. But if he tells a Navy Seal to kill someone and they do it, he won’t get in criminal trouble (but the Seal possibly would).
Imprison any of the judiciary the case goes before.
Nope, it was a lawful order from the President and his motives couldn’t be questioned according to the ruling. The SEAL would be safe. And even if someone tried to prosecute the SEAL, he could just pardon them, like Trump did with the last SEAL murderer.
I mean, even “small” acts of criminality are fully protected by this ruling. The president can go on tv and say he’s selling pardons, even for terrorists being held by the U.S.. If Al-quaeda gives him a $1,000,000 per head, he’ll release who they want, and that would be perfectly legal and he’d be immune from prosecution because pardons are a clear official act of the presidency.
Hell Iran-Contra was fully legal and Congress had no right to hear testimony about it according to this ruling.
Maybe someone could enlighten me, but this seems it is just codifying an already present norm. No one was trying to prosecute FDR for putting American citizens in camps. No one prosecuted Obama for killing Anwar Al-Aulaqi. Reagan Iran-Contra. They didn’t even challenge the Nixon pardon in court. There is not a single President that did not break the law.
The presidency as an office has always been above the law. In 1997 liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer wrote: “a lawsuit that significantly distracts an official from his public duties can distort the content of a public decision just as can a threat of potential future liability.” Presidential immunity has always been more or less an implied privilege.
Now they’re saying the quiet part loud because circumstance has forced them to. But I don’t really see how this breaks with any acting precedent in how the president has been treated from a legal perspective.
IANAL, but I checked that quote, and Breyer was commenting on a civil lawsuit, not on criminal proceedings, as is the case here. He was arguing that the threat of civil suits after the president’s term was over may distract him from his duties. He cites Nixon v Fitzgerald:
In Fitzgerald, the Court held that former President Nixon was absolutely immune from civil damage lawsuits based upon any conduct within the "outer perimeter" of his official responsibilities.
However, he says little on criminal proceedings.
Sending all the court justices to Guantanamo bay for "national security" is an official act, just saying.
Only if he's able to frame it as an exercise of an "official" power. So he probably couldn't stab you but he could order a marine to do it.
I'm sure this only applies to Republican presidents.
They’re all colluding. It’s a massive coup.
bOtH sIdEs!!!1111
This narrative only benefits the establishment
Benefits the Kremlin from whence the propaganda/disinfo originated
Why do people keep saying this. They said official acts as president were covered, public acts were not. What is the difference, no one knows, they said lower courts would determine. But all that will get appealed to supreme court which means its whatever 6 republican judges decide, which means republican always an “offical act” democrat always a “public act”
mitch mcconnell did this.
Reagan and his corpo buddies did this.
Dems had decades to stop this and other terrible things but decided to fundraise instead
It’s the DEMs fault they didn’t stop the GOP from destroying our democracy /s
In light of the Supreme Court giving the POTUS the presumption of immunity from criminal prosecution when conducting "official acts," Elie Mystal laments that a president can now go on a four-to-eight-year crime spree and then retire from public life, never to be held accountable.
Simple answer to all this madness is for congress to enact laws that limit presidential power.
From the article:
The court here says that absolute immunity is required by the separation of powers inherent in the Constitution, meaning that Congress cannot take it away. Congress, according to the Supreme Court, does not have the power to pass legislation saying “the president can be prosecuted for crimes.”
Imo a constitutional amendment is the only remedy.
The chances of the US ever passing another constitutional amendment on anything are incredibly low. It requires too many people to agree and vote on the same thing to be feasible any longer.
the last one took over 100 years and it only said congress couldnt give itself a raise and take it, in the same term, they can only pass raises for future terms.
so that 500 people couldnt just decide to give themselves all our money and then quit as congress controls the purse.. before that amendment theoretically they could raise their salary to a billion each and then happily get voted out.
Or new majority in the Supreme Court
Imo reforming SCOTUS is a better remedy
Or you can also read other justice's opinion:
The chief justice insisted that the president “is not above the law.” But in a fiery dissent for the court’s three liberals, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”
Let them enforce it
It is important to look at the actual ruling in these matters. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
Congress has and will always have the ability to write laws -- including changes to the constitution which the president is bound by law to follow. The president is also not granted absolute immunity in authority shared with Congress. Hence, the "simple answer to all this madness is for congress to enact laws that limit presidential power."
(1) Article II of the Constitution vests “executive Power” in “a President of the United States of America.” §1, cl. 1. The President has duties of “unrivaled gravity and breadth.” Trump v. Vance, 591 U. S. 786, 800. His authority to act necessarily “stem[s] either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 585. In the latter case, the President’s authority is sometimes “conclusive and preclusive.” Id., at 638 (Jackson, J., concurring). When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. The Court thus concludes that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. Pp. 6–9. (2) Not all of the President’s official acts fall within his “conclusive and preclusive” authority. The reasons that justify the President’s absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of his exclusive constitutional authority do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress. To determine the President’s immunity in this context, the Court looks primarily to the Framers’ design of the Presidency within the separation of powers, precedent on Presidential immunity in the civil context, and criminal cases where a President resisted prosecutorial demands for documents. P. 9.
"simple answer to all this madness is for congress to enact laws that limit presidential power."
Except it can't be a law. It would need to be a constitutional amendment since the president can pardon himself and is immune to breaking federal laws since the powers shared with Congress are defined by the Constitution. Now the president can also jail Congress to prevent amendments from being passed and it's all legal
I don’t like this joke anymore.
Or to repeal the Patriot Act, that made all this possible. It was unheard of before that.
Well... They were already doing that. Bush, Cheney and Obama are war criminals who will never be punished
I get Bush/Cheney, I only half understand you including Obama without also mentioning Trump.
Trump also! Didn't think it needed to be said
Dont forget Trump! Dude had Americans killed simply because they stood in his way.
four-to-eight-year crime spree
I love how optimistic people are, but no. First you get your guy into power, then you introduce legislation to remove the term limit. Anybody who would vote against that legislation is arrested without charges or trial and stuffed into a black site for as long as the president feels like it (and it's not even a question of if that's official or not since it's been happening to "suspected terrorists" for years already). Then you introduce legislation to suspend elections indefinitely, and oh look all the people who aren't on your side are already gone, and anyone who might be thinking about not being on your side knows better than to rock the boat.
Now you officially have a dictator for life, congratulations! All it took was decades of a slow descent into fascism while one side corrupted every institution they got their hands on and the other side pretended not to notice.
ELI5. how is this different from how we treat police officers to a lesser scale?
Part of the decisions is remanded back down to district court to define what “official acts” are / qualify as
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5d
Police officers have to be in lawful performance of their duties. Now the president just needs to be an official act.
But they way they defined it is fucking weird - where if he is using a mechanism granted to him by his role (like commanding the military or ordering the DOJ around) it is considered an official act, and no inquiry can be made into what the presidents intent was when engaged in that act.
The direct example they gave under the allegation is that he was threatening to fire the attorney general if that attorney general did not put out knowingly false statements that they found fraud in the election.
In that instance, the president is absolutely immune from prosecution.
They have qualified immunity, which can be pierced. President's now have absolute immunity for everything they do or say, no questions asked.
It's all fun and games until someone decides to start shooting people with his freedom maker.
Rulings like this are going to get people killed.
Rulings like this will get judges killed because there are enough extremists on either side that have a breaking point.
Some peoples breaking point is a completely illegitimate SCOTUS that is in a criminals pocket.
We honestly wouldn't care if it weren't for the fact that the GOP wants to point the guns at political rivals. This is the end of the two-party system, and we don't get more than two, we get one.
That’s the point.
Scotus is setting up the stage for the next conservative president to become a king.
They are taking a gamble right now that Biden is too moderate to do anything crazy. I bet they are right. But, they also “official” up for interpretation and didn’t define it what so ever.
"If you ever wondered what you’d have done in ancient Rome, when the Roman Republic was shuttered and Augustus Caesar declared himself the “first” citizen of Rome, the answer is: whatever you’re doing right now. It’s what you would have done during the Restoration of King Charles II in England, and what you would have done when Napoleon declared himself emperor of France. This, right here, is how republics die."
That hit me like a ton of bricks.
This is what happens when a country still had a 200+ years old constitution that hasn’t received any updates in 100 years this is also the reason why all modern republics allow the president to dissolve the parliament and call for snap elections.
Modern republics codify in their constitution ways to quickly respond to events like this. Dissolving Congres, asking for snap elections right now will cause both houses to become blue. Congres could then take appropriate actions to rectify whatever the fuck the Supreme Court is doing.
But then again no modern Republic has its Upper House in the Parliament so dysfunctional as the US Senate.
Augustus came to power following multiple civil wars and dictatorial triumvirate, him declaring himself "first citizen" was far removed from the decline of senatorial authority.
The 1660 restoration of the monarchy was done by parliament as Richard Cromwell wasn't deemed a strongest unifier to hold the Commonwealth together. Charles' Breda Declaration empowered parliament quite a bitt, and he largely respected it until the end of his reign, which would eventually result in the 1689 Glorious Revolution.
Revolutionary France was horrifically unstable, with five seperate forms of government between 1789 and 1804, only the consulate created by Napoleonic could realistically be considered a stable state. Even up to 1815, Napoleon's Empire maintained a large amount of revolutionary values which would be revived in 1830 after the peope started singing angrily.
None of these are really comparable historical events. The latter two were generally positive and held either political and/or popular support, and the former was the result of a series of bloody civil wars.
God the Rome analogies are so obnoxiously uninformed. Augustus is not a good parallel to this at all, nor is the Senatorial oligarchy that “he” destroyed (it had been in practice been dead for the better part of a century by that point) remotely analogous to modern representative democracies.
So your answer is, "pedantic bickering."
That sounds exactly what's going on now though
And here is what Biden should release:
"I declare that Donald Trump represents a clear and present danger to the United States of America and to the Constitution. Given the new powers provided my by the latest Supreme Court decision, I hereby order the immediate arrest and imprisonment of Donald Trump. Doanl Trump, due to the 14th Amendment of the Constituion is hereby barred for life from ever holding any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States. Furthermore, I hereby terminate the government employment of Chief Justice Roberts, Justice Alito, Justice Thomas, Justice Gorsuch, and Justice Kavanaugh. I will announce their replacements, which will be directly appointed and not subject to Congressional approval within the next month. Signed with sorrow and in protest, Joseph Biden"
You can disagree with a rule change in whatever game you are playing. But you will lose the game if you don't play by the new rules.
Dont forget Coney Barrett!
he doesn't have to do anything yet. Remember, after the election Biden is still president till the end of the term.
Yea, no reason to do anything right now.
It would be easier to just revoke Trump's US citizenship. Then he's not qualified to run for office and no longer has any valid forms of identification. He'd be legally dead for all intents and purposes.
But he would actually have to get shit done to do this? Instead of being a pushover puppet. Instead, he'll rollover so Trump can come do it.
I think it would be a nice flex to send the Justices to Gitmo for a while and bomb their houses while they are away. Let them stay there until they admit they made a mistake. Allowing the president to use the power of the government however they see fit with no repercussions is a ridiculous idea.
So we still all complaining about sleepy joe or is this enough of an existential threat or nah?
"Well Biden did poorly in a debate, so now everyone is required to vote for Trump and enact a fascist kleptocracy. Sorry, it's the rules" -every Russian bot on the Internet.
But... he's old...
THEY are old. They’re not even 3 years apart
Biden needs to read the writing on the wall. Round up Trump and the SCOTUS. Break it all. Rebuild it. Because he’s going to use this.
It's not just on the wall. They published a book. Project 2025 is disastrous for the continuity of a civilized nation. This is about as overt as a coup gets, but how do you put down such a broad based coup while remaining civilized yourself?
Impossible. It's the intolerance paradox.
There is only one 'egregious' thing Biden needs to do, and it is this.
More importantly, the president can detain SCOTUS justices in black sites, officially.
People are so fucking dumb.
Pretty sure they did that anyways, unofficially
This Supreme Court has consistently enabled corruption to an astounding degree. After deciding citizens united, it has constantly narrowed anti-bribery laws. Now, it has effectively ruled that the president can now freely accept bribes without any criminal consequences. The Republican scotus majority is a clear and present danger to our democracy.
And GOP president can officially rig election and call it national security
It’s been pretty clear through all the hyperbolic Reddit posts that many Redditors do not understand what classifies as an official act.
Well technically -and I am glad the conservative Justices have now made this clear, President Biden COULD decide that these conservative Justices are no longer needed on the Supreme Court and have them removed. I mean, why not?
Oh, the hypothetical possibilities are endless and Biden has 4 months to take full advantage of this new ruling before we get to re-elect Biden to finish wiping the slate clean!
Russian State Television propagandists are going to go apeshit over this
They have the lifetime immunity for presidents already. Literally, you can be a president for one term(good luck with it, haha) and you have full immunity for whole life.
Well... get to work, Uncle Joe! If the old man truly wants to be reelected, he would go balls out, nasty against Congress, in order to add justices to the court. They want no rules? Give it to them...hard! What's the worst that can happen? He KNOWS Republicans will do ANYTHING to take power... why should he not do the same? But, the Democrats are so enamored with the bullshit they've sold to the electorate that they can't even move outside of the imaginary lines they themselves created.
I figured that the drone-killing of American citizen Anwar Al-Awlaki already proved that to be the case.
Yup came here to say this. Obama already did it, but he has a Nobel prize so it’s okay
It's okay when my team does it.
At the end of the day that's all that matters for most Americans; If it's my guy in red or my guy in blue. Very few people actually care about the rule of law or the society as a whole.
well, precedent is 9/10ths of the law…
well, precedent is 9/10ths of the law…
Seems like the President is 9/10ths of the law now
If Congress impeaches and convicts, does the president still get to serve out the term?
He can just go kill them, who's gonna vote to impeach?
Would not be considered an official act, so no. Just like Biden getting rid of Trump right now wouldn’t be either.
Technically, no, but who knows if the president decides they need to stay in power to “investigate irregularities” with the impeachment vote then that could very well be an official act.
There’s always the question of whether or not congress could or would have a vote, too, given the new reality. They could conceivably be prevented from doing so by threats of prison or worse.
This is perfectly suited to r/nottheonion
I’d like to know how interfering with an election and the transfer of power, is an official act of a presidency
Funny. A very similar thing happened in Germany about a century ago before they became a nazi dictatorship.
“No one is above the law” is now formally incorrect.
No.
You guys might want to actually read their response. Yeah, I know it's lengthy, but it's worth actually reading.
They stated nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that isn't already well established.
They also made ZERO DECISIONS today. They threw the case back down to the lower courts so the lower courts can actually finish the case. They basically complained about the lower courts not doing their job and pushing a very incomplete case up to the Supreme Court.
Basically, the Supreme Court gave everyone a history lesson on the position of the president, and you all cherry picked tiny parts and took it way out of context.
READ THEIR RESPONSE. READ ALL OF IT.
Then make posts.
I agree with you but encourage you to read the dissent as well
It is a bit concerning when the dissenting opinion says that this decision could open the door for a sitting president to assassinate their political opponents. Sonia Sotomayor's dissent articulates what the mainstream media is reporting - it's not like the media is fully making this up - a sitting supreme court justice bluntly said that the majority opinion implies with this ruling that "assassination" could be considered an "official act" of the presidency.
Assassination was already considered an official act. Obama signed the NDAA allowing indefinite detention and used the drone program to kill US citizens without a trial.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/feds-must-release-targeted-killing-program-documents-court-rules
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/president-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-bill-law
So arguably , if Biden had substantial classified evidence that Trump was a threat to the state (Russian connection, selling nuclear secrets), he could legally assassinate him.
Healthy system of checks and balances here 🙏
Yes, and any president could use these laws to go after cop city protesters or climate change protesters as long as they are referred to as terrorists, as they have been in the past. Based on past precedence, though, they don't really need good evidence.
You mean the thing Obama already did when he killed a US citizen without due process?
Apparently yes, and you will shut up about it from now on
No, I don't think I will.
Which Republican initiated criminal proceedings against him, since it was so clearly a crime?
Why would they prosecute a crime that they are also happy to commit?
Also:
"The requests came after a September 2011 drone strike in Yemen killed Anwar Al-Awlaki, an al-Qaida leader who had been born in the United States, and another U.S. citizen, Samir Khan, and after an October 2011 strike killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, al-Awlaki’s teenage son and also a U.S. citizen. Some legal scholars and human rights activists complained that it was illegal for the U.S. to kill American citizens away from the battlefield without a trial."
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/feds-must-release-targeted-killing-program-documents-court-rules
The ACLU did.
Supreme Court today ruled that presidents are entitled to “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution for official acts
No, they clearly separated “official acts” from “core constitutional powers”.
A core constitutional power offers absolute immunity except for impeachment by Congress- eg, a President can’t be charged with murder if bad intel causes a military strike to kill civilians.
An “official act” has presumed immunity that can be challenged in court.
Assassinating a citizen would explicitly violate Due Process as granted in the Bill of Rights, meaning it wouldn’t qualify for the total-immunity claim as a core constitutional power. So the Courts could strike down the President’s order immediately, and courts could also start the process for prosecuting President The Person
You're acting like people on Reddit are actually reading what's going on... They wanna be upset and rage out. The only thing they know how to do. The whole immunity thing is breaking their minds. Acting like it's an absolute get out of jail free card lol it's a true example of just how much of a hive mind reddit is.
To be fair, the president has been able to assassinate you since Obama killed US citizens without due process via drone.
More boogie man BS. Is the fear mongering working? How about watching the hospice president debate and thinking 4 more years is a good thing…that’s my fear.
Anyone who believes this either didn’t read the decision or needs their head examined! Oh, other possibility, listens to too much left wing propaganda.
Funny that Democrats are now making such outlandish threats to make a bombastic point and inflame people. Shows their true intent
Fun fact: Obama literally filed an argument before the courts to literally claim immunity for this very action.
Gas lighting special here by the rag tome. Cheered on by those sans sufficient white matter connections in their prefrontal cortices. Right up there with “losers and suckers” and”very fine people on both sides”. Tiresome at best. They will never ever cease their disinformation, to borrow a term.
We have never prosecuted presidents for their crimes, how will this be any different?
How old are you? What platform does your AI run on?
The threat of prosecution holds the power of the office in check. The ability to prosecute anyone for their crimes has been a staple of American jurisprudence since the founding of the country and is a stark, hallmark difference the Framers hailed as a watershed in global statesmanship and helps form the basis that government is “by the people, for the people.”
But if you want to simply repeat what MSM is claiming without understanding the core of the issue, go forth and enjoy being sheeple.
No he cant
this is totally not true. Sotomayer again uses emotion instead of legal fact to back her argument. Read today's WSJ 7/2/24 on the facts of the case for illumination, or the Free Press.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/07/01/scotus-trump-immunity-jan-6/
Where it is stated, the president can now remove any elected official. And in the SAME article, “More important, Mr. Trump notched a win on the substance — and, really, so has any president or candidate for president keen on abusing the office. The court explicitly addressed certain parts of Mr. Smith’s indictment: Mr. Trump’s attempts to pressure his Justice Department to investigate supposed voter fraud, for instance, is “readily categorized” as an official act. His conversations with Mike Pence pressuring the then-vice president to nullify the 2020 election results, meanwhile, occupy uncertain territory. One might imagine his speech on the White House Ellipse urging his supporters to march on the Capitol was clearly an unofficial act — but one can only imagine, until the courts weigh in.”
So where did we read it wrong, from the article you cited? The president can tell the justice department to do his bidding and overthrow elections, as long as it is an official act of which there is no definition.
LOL
man Reddit is wild..... Y'all the Qanon now
Come on. This is the most stupid hyperbolic statement . Please explain the “official act” that a POTUS would perform to assassinate a justice.
As opposed to before when they didn't order drone strikes, CIA coups, extra judicial killings, etc, etc.
Y'all are very naive if you think ex-presidents didnt order a bunch of extra judicial killings
The topic is if the president can make himself a full blown dictator, no actual restrictions
Six reports, none of them legitimate.
Yes, the article is hot trash and puts forward a false claim, but 3000 of you upvoted it, so...