Damn, I love Legal Eagle and was secretly hoping he’d have a video explaining things aren’t nearly as bad as the media is making it out to be. But yeah, just further confirmation of just how terrible this decision was.
LE: What ever you think it’s worse.
Me: That’s depressing and hard to believe.
5min later
Me: oh… It is worse. FML
If anything it seems like the media hasn’t grasped just how bad this is. Too focused on plastering the front page every day with more anonymous source opinions on if Biden is going to stay in the race or not. The whole official vs unofficial acts thing just has tricked people to believing there’s some discretion or something. There’s not. If it’s a power listed in the constitution, like the military or pardons, the president can legally do whatever they want with that power for any reason. And the unofficial vs official acts determination explicitly doesn’t allow consideration of motives or results. So talking to justice department employees is official? Alright, then talking with justice department employees to coordinate a bribe or a coup means immunity. As long as the president is using functions of government to commit crimes basically, they’re golden.
Even inciting a mob with “you gotta fight like hell” could be construed as the President making a speech to motivate people to fight in a figurative sense. And since it’s possible to interpret it that way, the motivations can’t be considered.
So the President gets immunity for stochastic terrorism.
Dark days if Trump (or someone like him) gets into the Whitehouse.
No longer voting for who will be President but who will be King.
Exactly, that’s what’s so scary about this. The courts now explicitly can’t consider things like motive to determine any of this. Just the action in a general sense. And since of course restricting the ability of a president to speak publicly to supporters in the general sense could infringe on the power of the executive, immune.
And even if by some miracle some act was declared unofficial, he could either pardon the person or himself (automatically an official act), or fire the prosecutors bringing the case (automatically an official act). Or in the extreme case, order an assassination (automatically official act). Those core powers in article 2 mean even when the president uses some power not described in article 2, even when a court overcomes the extremely high hurdle placed to declare something not an official act and without immunity, it will still all be for naught. There’s effectively no limits.
Well a pardon would be something he could have done even before this ruling. That is a power the President has always had.
But generally someone that’s been pardoned can’t take the 5th, since you can’t incriminate yourself for an action you’ve gotten a pardon for. So a pardon would usually come with the risks that those he pardons could be compelled against him. But now evidence about a Presidential act is no longer admissible.
I feel like the probability of another Trump presidency leading to a civil war has gone up a few notches. Yes, he can order Seal Team Six to assassinate someone, but it would be an illegal order. Trump would have immunity, but people in the military swear an oath to defend the constitution. So some in the military might refuse to follow the illegal order. But not everyone in the military is a constitutional scholar so they’d feel compelled to follow the order. What happens if part of the military feels duty bound to follow Trump’s orders and another part of the military feels duty bound to not follow certain orders?
Yeah, an actual lawyer running through of it made it so much worse. I was focused on the absolute immunity cases because those don’t require any knowledge of the law to understand, but all the interlocking ways this kind of says “immunity for everything” is far far worse.
Damn, I always thought Roberts was a conservative, but not a piece of shit. His opinion in this ruling puts him firmly in the “piece of shit” category.
I thought he was a little bit of a piece of shit. I was surprised to find out he’s a facist who doesn’t believe in the rule of law though. Not surprised at all about Alito and Thomas though. Or Thomas making a concurrence to explicitly try and help give Trump even more ammo. I guess both literally and figuratively if he gets back in office.
Biden crime spree when? Use that immunity while he’s got it
Commanding the military is an official act and absolutely immune.
Command the military to jail anyone standing in the way of a couple constitutional amendments to fix this.
One amendment to fix the Supreme Court. Another amendment to make the President not above the law.
The amendment can even include the phrase “With the exception of direct actions taken to create this amendment” which will permanently document this stain on our democracy.
I keep repeating this, but “moderate” conservatives are mythical creatures much like unicorns or ethical billionaires.
Every conservative either outright supports authoritarianism, or would be fine with it as long as it’s their side in power because of course the leopards won’t eat their faces. “Moderates” will always choose co-operation with literal fascists over co-operation with the left because they ultimately have fewer ideological disagreements with them – just look at what’s happening here in Europe with all the “moderates” lining up to kiss Meloni’s ring (remember that her FdI party is literally a descendant of the original Fascist Party and multiple of its members including Meloni have voiced admiration of Mussolini)
I can’t watch this video. I know the topic and it’s just too depressing. It’s like a survival mechanism to me to avoid this type of content.
You’re honestly right to do so. I knew it was bad when I heard the scotus ruling, but it’s even worse than it sounds. Watching that video gave me a some really dark thoughts, anger and a feeling of hopelessness.
Youtube link
Invidious Link
just in caseThe Roberts court is arguably the worst since The Taney court (before the Civil War). It’s Calvinball and whole textbooks probably have to be rewritten after this term. Several justices are openly corrupt. Half their decisions just cause chaos for lower courts because they’re too chickenshit to even be bad in a clear way and define a simple test. (What is an “official act”? Only the Supreme Court knows for sure but they’ve decided to let lower courts try to decide so they get a menu of options.)
Just open hostility to the rule of law. There’s been worse decisions but bribed judges deciding “gratuities” aren’t bribes is top 5 for most shameless.
bad in a clear way and define a simple test.
The reason for this is both terrible and simple. It’s because they don’t want to be caught in obvious contradictions when “If a republican does it, it’s fine. If a democrat does it, it’s wrong”.
This is absolutely so that if a Democrat president decided to do exactly what trump did, they’ll allow prosecution because “inciting a riot to steal an election is obviously not an official act.” This leaves the door open for Ken Star style witch hunts against their political opponents.
We have a fascist supreme court.
When you spend your entire life talking about how amazing the law is and then the copium runs out
If you’re referring to “Rule of Law,” then yes, it is amazing and worth praising. Unfortunately the US is in an accelerating downhill backslide away from Rule of Law back to Rule of Men. And we will all be worse off for it. There is no copium involved in appreciating adherence to Rule of Law because the alternative is tyranny.
At this point I am having to hold out hope telling myself that we are probably in for a couple decades of horror until the old guard dies off and the pendulum swings back to liberalism and progressivism. I love the idea of America but I don’t love America right now, which is painful to acknowledge.
