If inciting an insurrection towards their own government is an action without legal repercussions, I don’t see how the law would be less lenient about straight up firing a gun at an opponent.
I by no means want any party to resolve to violent tactics. So even though I play with the thought, I really don’t want anything like it to happen. I am just curious if it’s actually the case that a sitting president has now effectively a licence to kill.
What am I missing?
Answer: they would react differently if it were Biden versus Trump who did it. The SCOTUS would find a way to let Trump off while making Biden pay.
It has to be an official act within the scope of the executive branch. So he couldn’t just bring a gun and shot him, however he could direct the justice department to focus on domestic terrorism and cite Trump’s threats for political retribution as a terroristic threat and have him and every other Republican who publicly agreed with him disappeared.
Trump is arguing that his twitter was “official communications”, and thus can’t be used in court. This means that the 34 felony convictions might go away now.
But the truth is that the Supreme Court didn’t say that every “official act” was immune from consequences. The more nuanced reading is that any act that the Court declares official is immune from consequences.
The Conservatives on the Court declared the president King, but only when they feel like it.
Can we book this in for 10:30 tomorrow?
The immunity only applies to Republican presidents.
Bring his own gun? Unofficial act. Have the DOJ black bag his opponent and rendition him to a CIA camp in Saudi Arabia? Official act and immune.
You just need to pull the “it was in the best interest of the United States” card and it’s an official act.
It’s not currently in the best interest.
IF Trump wins the election then it would be in the best interests of the US. It would be akin to a judge throwing out a juries verdict because the jury clearly made the wrong decision.
Well then why hasn’t he done it… I can’t think of something of a more positive interest than to dump trump down a hole.
because biden (and the democratic party in general) are a bunch of cowards who think that they will prevail simply by taking the high road. Fascism was never defeated by strongly worded speeches or political actions, it always took blood.
You are right. They really live in a fantasy land.
I think the Secret Service detail assigned to Trump might have a problem with that. I think Biden killing Trump or canceling the election would be a gift to the Republicans that they don’t need. One can dream though.
Saudi Arabia bad idea, Trump has allies in that nation.
So does Biden. The two parties are much closer than they make it seem.
Biden didn’t sell classified documents to the Saudis. The Saudis didn’t purchase an entire floor in Biden Tower.
I didn’t say he did. I just said he has allies in Saudi Arabia.
A lot of discussion on Lemmy forgets that a very large number of people actually support that Piece of Shit Donald Trump. Tens of Millions. Some of them are begging for a civil war. Killing Trump publicly would be a spark to a great flame.
America is already doomed anyway. Trump is going to win because biden is an unlikable person and nobody really feels inspired to vote for him. and somehow Trump is more popular.
when trump gets elected, america is going to hell in a handbasket. trump will be god-emperor until he croaks, then the next crazy in line will take over. It’s time to start preparations to abandon ship.
Because what they really did was set themselves up as the ones who decide what is and isn’t an official act.
As long as there is a right-wing supreme court, any action by a republican president will be official and immune, but if a democratic president tried to throw their weight around in the same… They’ll get shut down.
Simply replace the SC judges in an official act.
Wait, maybe the justices just gave Biden the authority to do just that.
…
Naw. See, if he did, that’d delegitimize the presidency and cause a constitutional crisis.
But, if a Republican President does it, it’s an exercise in upholding American freedom and the true authority of the office. See the difference?
I would rather have the presidency delegitimized than take the gamble.
The SC will seem that an unofficial act… Got to jail
That’s the perfect! That’s why we nominate someone of Bidens age. Not only can he get away with it now as an “official act” but by the time the next court rules on it, he’ll be long gone
That presumes there’s still a
SCOTUSStar Chamber to rule on the issue…
Declare a national security emergency. Have the SEALS eliminate Trump for being a traitor. Bing bang boom, America is Great Again.
And replace SCOTUS.
Yeah, I mean if we’re going to the store you might as well get a cart full right?
“In a 1 to 9 decision, Biden opened 6 seats in the Supreme Court today, citing official business.”
Trump could bring his own gun and shoot him and the Court would still call it official.
When you own the people that make the laws. You are above the law. So yes. Trump could 100% get away with it. One of the few things he’s said that wasn’t a lie.
He doesn’t even have to shoot anyone. Whoever interferes with an official act is clearly committing treason and can be sent to Gulag
They did not say that he was immune. They said that the president has immunity for certain acts. What acts? Whatever acts they, the SCOTUS, decide they should be immune from. So Biden could shoot Trump dead but the court would rule that that was illegal because some bullshit reason.
So… Biden could target SCOTUS as being treasonous & appoint new justices under immunity with the three remaining liberal justices quickly ruling he has executive privilege to do so?
Yes. I joked about this scenario when I didn’t think the scotus would hand down such a fucked up ruling, but we’re halfway to some really funny shit.
So Biden could shoot Trump dead but the court would rule that that was illegal because some bullshit reason.
Ah! But with what evidence? They also ruled that presidential conduct (paraphrasing here) can’t be used as evidence.
True, but they are also the ones who decide what they can and cannot do without recourse from anyone else (because we need 2/3 of Congress to impeach which is a non-starter.) so they can rule one way and then rule another for whatever reason they want.
Our “justices” (/vomit…) don’t have to have any qualifications, we just pay lip service to norms so we (read: the federalist society) choose vaguely “acceptable” people to be justices, but you or I could be one too which really means that they have almost nothing to do with the actual law. We’re a fucking joke.
We’re a fucking joke.
But nobody is laughing. I’m shivering…
pretty sure the rest of the world is having a good laugh
That court also wouldn’t be able to have the president arrested. He would need to be impeached and removed from office before any of that could happen.
I think that “some bullshit reason” would be murder.
People have gotten fucking ridiculous lately.
They said “some bullshit reason” because the same logic would very clearly not be applied to trump if he were to do the same. Think a bit. It’s ok.
The bullshit in this example is not that they would find Biden guilty but that they could/would find Trump innocent.
That would be bullshit. Biden killing Trump being ruled as murder would not be bullshit, it’d be accurate.
Guilt or innocence is irrelevant in this case. The only thing that matters is whether the President was acting in an “official” capacity or not. If a Republican does it, it was official. If a Democrat does, it was not.
I agree, that’s how it would go. But you can’t start advocating for a Democratic president to murder his opponent with official impunity, just because of some politically motivated bullshit SCOTUS ruling. That way total anarchy and facism lies.
If people start calling for that, then it’s no better than the shit show of a second Trump presidency may be. The rule of law matters, and it should apply to all equally. If Trump did it and got away with it, it would be bullshit, he should not get away with it. If Biden did it, he should not get away with it either, whether it’s “official” or not. Murder is murder.
You’re correct, and I wasn’t saying otherwise. I’m just pointing out that the corrupt SCOTUS has set themselves up as the arbiter of consequences for the President. They can protect or not on a whim, with no way for anyone else to challenge them.
Agreed. It’s properly fucked up. Genuinely worried about the state of the States in the next few years if the Dems don’t get their acts together and win in November (and even if they do, tbh)
If people start calling for that, then it’s no better than the shit show of a second Trump presidency may be.
I cannot disagree more strongly. Biden has this chance to RESTORE rule of law, which SCOTUS has already shredded. I will take the risk of Biden becoming a dictator over the near certainty that Trump will.
The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts. It wouldn’t apply to Biden personally shooting Trump.
It would apply to a military proclamation as commander-in-chief that the Trump movement is a domestic insurrectionist movement that carried out an armed attack on the US Congress; that the Trump movement thus exists in a state of war against the United States; and directing the US Army to decapitate the movement by capturing or killing its leaders, taking all enemy combatants as prisoners of war, etc. (Now consider that the Army is only obliged to follow constitutional orders, and would have Significant Questions about the constitutionality of such an order.)
Further, the immunity is only from criminal prosecution and would not protect Biden from impeachment and removal from office by Congress while the Army is still figuring out whether the order is constitutional.
That sounds both crazy and not actually wildly far fetched. If the tables were turned and Trump was in the position of having the power to declare Biden’s movement as an enemy and carry out violent ways to stop them, I would almost expect it to happen.
It would make for an interesting movie, thatxs hopefully based in fiction.
If you’ve not seen it already, watch Civil War. It’s excellent!
…gonna need some more info. Who’s in it? What year was it released? Is it on Hulu?
- Nope
- Certainly not
- Tara Strong
Wow. I was honestly expecting a movie called “Civil War” to be from the 60s, or something, and actually cover the American civil war. The bad part is, I probably can’t find this on dvd for $3.
He can just pardon himself if he shoots Trump because he has immunity when issuing the pardon, since that is an official act.
Better do it in DC. Murder can be charged under state law, and the presidential pardon power only applies to federal charges.
If the president crossed state lines to commit the murder it is federal!
For that matter, immunity from criminal charges for attempting to pardon oneself is not the same as the pardon being valid.
So, what happens if the president is charged? Is he automatically ousted? I mean, apparently a felon can run for president, so does them being a state criminal actually impede them at all, or no?
DC has a local criminal code.
Not just an official act, it’s explicitly a constitutional power which is given absolute immunity.
So Biden could officially flood the supreme court with democrat judges, then officially ask them to revoke this stupid ruling?
Supreme Court judges must be confirmed by a majority of the Senate before being seated.
The ratio is 50, and dems have 51 senators.
Biden can order the murder of all the right wing justices and then the senate can rubber stamp them in.
the dems would never go for that, though, because then they’d actually be doing something. even if you took away oh no the two senators that somehow always conveniently oppose any action they take, you can be sure that they’d pull some other poor sap up out of the bowels in order to play the villain.
I mean, I would hope senators of any party would oppose a president that “legally” murders a supreme court justice, let alone 6 of them.
The fact that these 6 have it coming is besides the point.
I mean, do I have to say what you could just do to any senators which oppose you? It might be getting into coup territory, but eventually you’d probably reach a point where things just proceed as normal. Or you, as biden, could just take the L on it, make sure the newly stacked supreme court shuts it down, eat the, what, next 10 years of your life, if that, in federal prison or whatever it is, and blammo. Could probably even use the opportunity to step down but I imagine if he did some shit like that his approval rating might go through the glass dome protecting the flat earth aaaand post
Can the president declare them traitors and no longer fit for duty, thus ousting them physically?
They didn’t change anything other than reiterate what the president is immune from, what he has always been immune from and when he is not immune from prosecution
Absolutely nothing about this case is a mere reiteration of anything before it.
Could Biden just say “I officially declare Trump the head of a terrorist organization” before firing the gun?
The ruling is limited to “official acts”, but the same court is the one who decides if an act is official or not
Feel like the next logical step is to throw the 6 justices in question into jail. They obviously can’t rule on their own trial so…
Why couldn’t they? The supreme court is literally the final authority, and there is no mechanism to automatically remove a justice from the bench. There is an ethics code that says they should recuse themselves if they have a conflict in a case but it has no enforcement mechanism - two sitting justices have literally taken bribes in violation of the ethics code
The obvious thing would be the 14th amendment due process clause. Can’t have a fair and unbiased case against someone if they’re the one judging it. Thats been affirmed as far back as The Federalist.
Beyond that, though I said it’d be up to the remaining 3 judges, I’m pretty sure it’d have to go up through the court system, and as Trump has shown, that can be slowboated to the end of time, or until those SC judges wisely decide to retire/get forcibly “retired”, after which the charges get dropped and everyone goes on their merry way, and then the courts (crazily enough!) establish again that the pres does not have that kind of immunity so history doesn’t repeat itself.
But I already know Joe wouldn’t play that kind of hardball.
Well since 2 judges are pro Jan 6 I’d remove them too as part of the conspiracy.
All Biden has to do is claim that it’s an official act, because Trump is a terrorist, a threat to the Constitution, or some other questionable legal pretext. The problem is that there’s no remedy against such a claim. It could be litigated and go to SCOTUS again, who would have to decide whether it’s an official act or not. But this ruling gives no definite rule on what does or does not count as an official act.
So he just has to order the CIA to do it.
The… the CIA and many other government agencies have a stories history of doing absolutely insane things that are absolutely crimes…
…And many of those things only get brought to light by a whistle lower or leak ot some Watergate level fuckup of being caught in the act, or years or decades of actual investigation later.
There are so many problems with this ruling its mind boggling.
The immunity from criminal prosecution has to do with official acts, not personal acts
Trying to overthrow a court and Congress sanctioned vote of the people to retain power is most certainly a personal act.
That’s your OPINION!
They can’t impeach if they can’t assemble a quorum.
Pardon my ignorance but did the court say that inciting an insurection is an official act?
No, but the court says you can’t question the president’s motive when they say it was an official act.
He must say: “This debate is officially over” before pulling the trigger.
I. DECLARE. ASSASSINATION!
“Allow me to retort!”
Hammer falls “Overruled.”
You spelled “reload” wrong.
don’t be ridiculous; it says official acts, so he can’t bring a gun himself.
he has to use seal team 6 instead. see? democracy isn’t dead!
“As an official act as President, I have issued an Executive Order that I blast Trump in the face.”
Boom, checkmate libruls
For the record, that would be an illegal order and should be refused by everyone involved in the military chain.
(Whether or not it is refused is a different matter.)
They sent back the question of what is an official act. And when the judge comes back with something like “official acts are those in which a president is acting in an official capacity as the president to fulfill obligations and duties of the president.” (IANAL….so there’s probably some anal retentive detail that is super critical in missing)
In any case, when challenging the election, that is not an official act- that was something done by Trump-the-candidate.
Inviting foreign dignitaries, however frequently is. (But probably not when selling out America and other spies to keep compromat from leaking)
Organizing an insurrection in the US never is, however.
I’m alarmed by the alarm in the dissent- they probably know where this is going, but POTUS has enjoyed some immunity anyhow as far as official acts go. And when it’s kept to a reasonable understanding… that’s more or less good.
Their alarm suggests that the majority here is not going to have a reasonable understanding when that gets appealed.
Reasonable
Who’s to say what’s reasonable.
when challenging the election, that is not an official act
Why not? He could make the argument that the election was stolen and ignoring it is in the best interest of the United states.
Why not? He could make the argument that the election was stolen and ignoring it is in the best interest of the United states.
because that act is not POTUS’s job. He’s making the argument as a candidate. he’s not supposed to be part of that process because he’s biased.
as for whose to say what’s reasonable… that is the problem. right now a dangerous number of SCOTUS are bought and paid for, or are absolutely partisan hacks.
His job is to support and defend the Constitution of the United states. You certainly can argue that protecting the integrity of the voting system is part of that job.
But that doesn’t sanction military members to break the law or the UCMJ. And that’s the point. They do not have immunity, qualified or otherwise. The order would be unlawful simply because of the issuing parties bias and personal gain from the act.
I’m not saying there are not people in the military who would follow this type of order. I’m saying that they don’t have the protections or immunity, qualified or otherwise, and honestly, a presidential pardon doesn’t do anything for them if the state decides to prosecute them. Plus military members are basically the only people in the US subject to legal double jeopardy because they can be tried by the military separately from state and federal law.
The supreme Court is specifically saying the order is legal. He could say it’s part of his official duties, in which case the order itself would be legal. His official duties include commanding the armed forces. If the president gives an order, a marine or a Navy SEAL cannot choose to not follow that order on legal grounds. They can choose to not follow on moral grounds but that refusal in itself would be illegal. Should it come to that, I would hope the vast majority of the armed forces would refuse the order.
In her dissent, justice Sotomayor specifically said that the president could order an assassination and could not be prosecuted for it. I am assuming she knows more than you are I about how the legal system works.That conflicts not just with other established law, but also with what I actually said and what the ruling says. The problem with it is that the order can’t be considered lawful regardless of what the Supreme court ruled because it doesn’t fit all the criteria of a lawful order.
“What is considered a lawful order in the military? It must not conflict with the statutory or constitutional rights of the person receiving the order. Finally, it must be a specific mandate to do or not to do a specific act. In sum, an order is presumed lawful if it has a valid military purpose and is a clear, precise, narrowly drawn mandate.”
https://ucmjdefense.com/resources/military-offenses/the-lawfulness-of-orders.html
One other thing is that you’re quoting dissenting members of the SCOTUS, not the ruling itself. That’s a single interpretation of it, and one deliberately intended to alarm people so that they push back against it.
It’s very clear this will be abused, most notably by letting Trump off the hook for his insurrection. That’s why there’s huge alarm.
He’s the commander in chief, ordering a seal team or the CIA to assassinate someone is an official act and legal now. What you fail to mention in your haste to try to downplay this is that they also made it impossible to present evidence of crimes by the president, so any non-public action by the president is de facto legal. It would be impossible to prosecute because even if you gathered evidence he ordered the hit, you couldn’t use it in court.
Yes, it’s that bad. No, it’s not that people are over reacting.
Read Sotomayor’s dissent, she says explicitly that this gives the president legal immunity against assassinations.
It would make for a great example of everything that’s wrong with it. I want it to happen. It’d halt a lot of the fascist push along with getting them to make their own counterarguments.
