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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.
Generally, the ruling makes sense to me: neither Congress nor the States may criminalize the presidency itself. Acts such as firing generals or political officers at the agencies are protected and are not subject to review. Acts further away from the core are subject to commensurately more scrutiny. Just the same, the States may not criminalize the act of ruling against them in court and then arrest judges. Assassinating uncooperative judges is not a core function of the office and would be subject to review.
Clearly we need some balance here. A narrow ruling would result in opposing states’ AGs bringing endless criminal charges against the sitting president, effectively making the office subservient to the states.
The peaceful transfer of power will only exist as long as we don’t prosecute our political rivals as such. If the penalty for holding office is jail, may as well just hold onto it for as long as possible.
For some reason this problem only seems to come up with one specific guy. McConnell isn't buried in criminal accusations; neither is Desantis, Abbott, or pretty much any other major Republican leadership figure. Maybe Trump really is just unusually shady?
Hillary faced calls for criminal consequences for her emails as secretary of state. Biden also inappropriately retained classified information and faced a criminal investigation.
But yeah, I'll bite the bullet, Trump is unusually shady.
Yeah. I mean he ordered the assassination of a fifteen year old in a cafe. Oh wait no that was Obama.
Oh well Trump must have tortured a lot of people. No wait that was W.
Well Trump must have sicced his DOJ on parents for exercising their constitutional rights with respect to school boards. No that was Joe.
No one else has done anything comparable to January 6th
Trump probably doesn't get immunity for his acts on January 6th under this decision. Unfortunately for the prosecution, since those acts consist of Tweets containing clearly protected speech, which do not urge violence, that's going to be tough to pass Constitutional muster for other reasons.
As for whether anyone has done anything comparable, I'd be very surprised if no President has urged on a rally by supporters. Whether any has told them to go home after the rally turned to a riot, I don't know.
This is a ridiculous way to describe January 6
I am not describing January 6 that way. I am describing Trump's speech starting at 11am that way. The riot had not yet started; it started during the speech but Trump didn't know about it, since he was at the Ellipse, not the Capitol. The breach of the Capitol building wasn't until 2pm.
He did, several times. From the Newsweek timeline.
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Why? What specific elements justify stronger language?
The special status applied to J6 was cemented with deliberate lies about the violence committed by the protestors. We know now that they did not, in fact, kill police officers, or anyone for that matter. We know that there was a complete failure of preparation and policing on the part of the government, which made crowd control completely ineffective. We can be pretty sure that there were many plainclothes government agents and informants in the crowd, encouraging others to break the law. We know that the police, lacking manpower, began waving the crowds through, and then that security forces shot an unarmed woman when the crowd tried to enter the chambers themselves.
We know that the protestors brought no guns, even though they could have. We know that they generally did not bring other weapons, despite lies to the contrary. We know they engaged in no serious violence, no serious destruction of property, nor even serious looting, despite complete failure to control the crowd. We know that protesters interrupting congressional deliberations is not some unprecedented event, and in fact Blue protesters have done it repeatedly in the past. We know protesters breaking into secure areas to confront and harass congressional officials is not some unprecedented act; blue protesters have done it before, and without being shot in response.
What's the actual argument?
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"Insurrection" is a ridiculous way to describe J6. "Riot" is probably the most accurate, but it evokes massive BLM-style destruction, so I can understand going for something milder.
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