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Trump v. United States, the presidential immunity opinion, dropped this morning. In broad strokes it goes like this:
1. For those acts that are pursuant to the President's "conclusive and preclusive" authority there is absolute immunity.
2. For those acts which are official acts by the President but not covered by (1) there is a presumption of immunity that can only be overcome by showing the prosecution would pose no "dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch."
3. For those acts which are unofficial there is no immunity.
4. Those acts for which the President has immunity cannot be used as evidence to demonstrate any element of a crime for which the President would not have immunity.
I think it's just incredible that the six justices in the majority looked at the Navy-SEALs-assassinate-a-rival hypothetical and went "yep, sounds right, no liability." Roberts' majority opinion even mentions the President's orders to the armed forces as one of the things that falls under (1).
I think the way is clear. Biden orders Trump, the six justices in the majority, and let's say the next 2-3 top Republican candidates whacked (just for safety). He probably gets impeached and removed but can't go to jail (thanks SCOTUS!) Harris takes over as President and I think it's unlikely she would also get impeached. Dems don't want to hand the presidency to Mike Johnson. That gives Harris plenty of time to stack the court. Republican convention in disarray due to the deaths of their prominent candidates. Biden obviously out, he'd be ineligible anyway if impeached and removed. Dems probably dump Harris to create a clean break with Biden admin, clearing the way for Whitmer/Newsom/Pritzker/whoever.
The above is fan fiction, of course.
If the only thing stopping POTUS from assassinating his political rivals is the threat that his own Attorney General is going to prosecute him for the crime, then we were already in a world where authoritarian dictatorship was inevitable. Any such POTUS that has consolidated enough political power to even consider such an option would clearly have a strong enough political ally as AG to not prosecute him.
In general, they say that coups aren't often the birth of a new distribution of power; they're the sudden realization (as in "being made real" not "people mentally realize") of what the distribution of power actually was already. Think Saddam Hussein publicly executing opposing members of parliament (there's a crazy video on youtube of that day if you have an odd curiosity to see how exactly these things can go down). It is wholly irrelevant whether or not a correct interpretation of Iraqi law made this a criminal offense. He had the power; he had the allies; anyone who could have plausibly prosecuted him for the offense was either already confirmed as an ally, already targeted, or at least wasn't stupid enough to have not gotten the message. The types of considerations that could actually constrain such a political actor's actions are just entirely different in type.
There are a variety of hypos that are within the domain of, "This is a possible problem that can arise in situations where everything is not already a lost cause and where having a different rule could actually make a difference," but this one isn't in that domain (it fails the first test).
I agree with your points that this does not really have a material impact right now. But the prevention of authoritarianism also relies on a broader culture of accountability and respect for democratic norms in addition to the legal framework. I worry this opinion negatively influences this culture. I imagine the slide towards authoritarianism to be “death by a thousand paper cuts” so-to-speak, and this is one of the paper cuts.
This is very plausible, though I think the traditional answer in the US is that the primary mechanism of accountability and respect for democratic norms is political, i.e., impeachment. There are tradeoffs in using political mechanisms vs. criminal law mechanisms, for sure. A complete discussion of those tradeoffs is probably even bigger than the 500000 character limit of a mottepost and would require significant engagement with an extremely large body of centuries worth of political theorizing. I don't think there is currently a singular tome in existence that is generally regarded as the 'bible' of this topic.
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