TLDR: there are no qualifying limitations on presidential immunity
Not only does any US president now have complete immunity from “official” actions(with zero qualifying restrictions or definitions), but if those actions are deemed “unofiicial”, no jury is legally allowed to witness the evidence in any way since that would interfere with the now infinitely broad “official” presidential prerogatives.
Furthermore, if an unofficial atrocity is decided on during an official act, like the president during the daily presidential briefing ordering the army to execute the US transexual population, the subsequent ordered executions will be considered legally official presidential acts since the recorded decision occurred during a presidential duty.
There are probably other horrors I haven’t considered yet.
Then again, absolute immunity is absolute immunity, so I don’t know how much threat recognition matters here.
If the US president can order an action, that action can be legally and officially carried out.
Not constitutionally, since the Constitution specifically holds any elected politician subject to the law, but legally and officially according to the supreme court, who has assumed higher power then the US Constitution to unconstitutionally allege that the US President is absolutely immune from all legal restrictions and consequences.
I just want to point out that no matter how much authority the US government gets, it never gets absolute power, because of our guns.
That’s a vaguely optimistic way to think about civil war, but I’m doubtful that
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people perpetually scared enough to find owning guns in urban environments necessary are going to disagree with the fear-mongering rhetoric a president-king invokes.
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owning guns translates into any sort of effective resistance
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it was worth killing children and civilians for decades in the hopes of an eventual opportunity to fight something
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civilians with their own guns won’t be choosing their own targets
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a sliver of power finally used to destroy a country is more important than the peaceful maintenance of representative democracy.
Here is a great article explaining the extent of the immunity.
The 119-page decision affords the executive immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts” in two layers—core constitutional acts that are absolutely protected, and presumptive immunity for official acts that are not core that can be overcome only if the government can show that applying a criminal prohibition on that act wouldn’t encroach on the functions of the executive branch. Unofficial acts are not protected.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but ordering mass executions seems to be barely in the presumptive immunity area, and also would be political suicide. There would be serious repercussions if any president ordered the excecution of any innocent American.
I’m curious about your source of information about the restrictions on what evidence can be presented to the jury. I hadn’t heard that before, and I’d like to learn more.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but ordering mass executions seems to be barely in the presumptive immunity area, and also would be political suicide. There would be serious repercussions
Bro. The last US president tried to overthrow the government, and the repercussions now are that they give him immunity…
Mass executions being “barely in” the scope of presidential immunity means that even by your interpretation, mass executions are covered by Presidential immunity
Individual interpretation is the problem.
The president thinks to themselves “yea, that’s barely in” and then it’s official and covered.
Political suicide? Could be. Maybe not.
At the least, mass executions will be part of the official US presidential record. If they are carried out those people are dead and civil erupts, and if they aren’t the president is immune and the person(s) who disobeyed him is subject to execution for treason.
Say the president signs an executive order explicitly stating that any act is considered a presidential duty during the day in which a president conducts a minimum of one official act.
Then literally everything is official no matter what.
Although that’s unnecessary with how the supreme Court has defended official presidential immunity:
On page 30-31 of the SC decision, the supreme Court makes it known that because they have decided the US president is entitled to immunity and specifically cannot “be held criminally liable” for “certain official acts”(interpreted however broadly one would like), examining an unofficial act related to an official act, like legally examining whether or not dumps knew inciting a violent coup was illegal, “would permit a prosecutor to do indirectly what he cannot do directly- invite the jury to examine acts for which a president is immune from prosecution”
This means that any unofficial part of any official conduct, both interpreted however you see fit, cannot be legally scrutinized as scrutiny of an “unofficial act” could result in the legal scrutiny of an “official act” for which the supreme Court has decided there can be no legal scrutiny or prosecution anymore.
So, “hey, drowning that bag of puppies doesn’t seem very official”.
“Yea, too bad we can’t do anything about it since he has to sign a bill into law this afternoon”.
I was wondering, this rules for immunity in presidents’ “official duties”. What bad things could a president do that fall under an official duty?
Please inform me, as I’ve been out of the loop, and I’m kinda stupid.
The supreme court left it kind of vague in their ruling. The courts are supposed to decide, but for something like this no matter what the lower courts decide, any ruling would almost certainly get appealed up all the way up to the supreme court. So what is or isn’t an official act is basically boils to whatever the supreme court decides it to be.
Unofficial duties especially are not discreetly outlined or prohibited, so anything the US president does during an official act becomes an official act That cannot be legally scrutinized or prosecuted.
The president is commander-in-chief of the US military.
So ordering the US Navy to bomb Seattle is an official, legal act.
The president receives ambassadors. If they decide to shoot someone while waiting for an ambassador to arrive, or set a wildfire in a field of horses while on a “brainstorming jog” for that meeting, that shooting or arson is part of their official duty.
The State of the Union is an official act, so the president burning the flag while garroting an orphan on national television is now an official, legal act immune from legal liability.
“Roe was legislating from the bench!”
…goes on to carve unlimited executive power out of thin air…
Yyyup.
Even when dumps was elected or roe was overturned, I was very disappointed but rationalized that voting could turn it around, even with a crappy voting system like the US has.
But granting absolute legal immunity to the most powerful branch of government is so broad and so reckless that I no longer clearly recognize any more safeguards on what can happen overnight to the US government.
Counterargument: The US dollar hasn’t budged since the ruling, so for some reason nobody else is worried yet.
I don’t really understand that.
The bigger picture is always missing in these posts.
And that is that everything that’s happening has already happened in Russia. It’s how Putin got power - through the courts.
All a Republican president has to do now is make an official act that they are president for life, the supreme court agrees, and that’s that.
The second is that while only the president has immunity (meaning anyone killing people under their official order would still be illegal), the president can also pardon people. So it’s a loophole - anyone can kill under their official order, and then the president can just pardon them.
Two salient points:
This has not already happened in Russia.
In Russia, Vladimir Putin does not legally have absolute immunity.
China would have been a better example, since the Communist party is above the law and xi did abolish term limits for himself.
In the US, a president could not pardon themselves for state crimes, and the president murdering someone would have been a prosecutable state crime until this decision.
Not so anymore.
