Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.

So like, I’m not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I’ve been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.

The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.

I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?

  • andyburke@fedia.io
    151·
    5 months ago

    Article II, Section 3 - the president must take care to execute the laws faithfully. No president meeting the requirements of the office could issue an illegal official order. If the president orders something illegal, it’s necessarily against the oath of office and should not be considered official.

    My feeling is that this ruling means any cases brought against the president would need to establish that an act was unofficial before criminal proceedings could proceed. Thay seems fine to me to adjudicate in each case.

    • atomicorange@lemmy.world
      3·
      5 months ago

      Unfortunately I think you’re missing something here. The court ruled that the president has immunity. Like the kind of immunity diplomats get in foreign countries that enables them to run over people in their cars. Immunity as a concept only makes sense if the action performed is actually illegal. Nobody can be prosecuted for legal actions. The president is now unprosecutable for both legal AND illegal actions.

      It’s a nonsensical and horrifying ruling. The fact that the president would be violating his oath of office doesn’t cancel out the immunity, it just makes the crime that much more disgusting, and the impossibility of justice that much more galling.

      • andyburke@fedia.io
        12·
        5 months ago

        Please back this up with some quotes from the ruling or something because this is not how I read it.

        The reason the president is immune for official acts is to protect people like Obama who ordered extrajudicial killings of American citizens. That is a very grey offical act - these were US citizens in a war zone fighting for the other side. I may not fully agree that that should be protected, but I understand the reasoning around a president feeling free to act (legally) in the best interests of the nation without fear that their actions would lead to legal jeopardy after they leave office.

        (To be clear: I would be ok with a trial to decide if Obama’s actions were official, for instance. And if they were deemed not, then he could be tried for those assassinations. Also, to be clear: I am a progressive who would vote for Obama over Trump in a heartbeat.)

          • andyburke@fedia.io
            12·
            5 months ago

            Personally I am ok with courts not being able to deem something unofficial based on allegations rather than on a decision.

            • atomicorange@lemmy.world
              4·
              5 months ago

              So how do they prosecute then? If the president commits a crime, let’s say he accepts a bribe for a pardon, you aren’t allowed to bring a prosecution unless a court deems the act unofficial. And the court isn’t permitted to find that the act was unofficial because the bribery is merely an allegation and hasn’t been proved. And you can’t prove the allegation because you can’t prosecute a president for official acts.

              • andyburke@fedia.io
                11·
                5 months ago

                The trial court is supposed to determine if there is sufficient evidence such that is not a mere allegation?

                • atomicorange@lemmy.world
                  11·
                  5 months ago

                  What trial court? He’s immune from prosecution.

                  Look, I recommend reading the decision, especially the first few pages, instead of basing your opinions on what you think makes sense. I’m done trying to convince you about what’s in the document, it’s there for you to read if you actually care and aren’t just arguing in bad faith.

                  • andyburke@fedia.io
                    22·
                    5 months ago

                    If you empanel a grand jury and present them with compelling evidence that the president accepted a bribe for a pardon, you could presumably indict them.

                    From there, you would present this evidence that there was a quid-pro-quo bribe and presumably the defense would move to dismiss under “it was an official act, can’t prosecute”. The judge would then need to decide if there is sufficient evidence to call into question if the act was official, given that the president cannot give an illegal order as an official act. If there’s enough evidence, presumably the judge wouldn’t dismiss and the trial would continue. (If they did dismiss, presumably the prosecution could appeal to a higher level court,)

                    I am just not clear on why everyone both thinks, and seem to want to think that this has given up the ball game and now the president is a king.

                    I am trying to argue in good faith. I just don’t agree with you that the president can now do whatever they want. If they could, Biden could order the assassinations of all Republicans sitting in congress, for instance - presuming your reading of this is correct, what’s to stop him? If you think it’s just that he’s not bold enough, perhaps you should call the whitehouse and give your opinion on what he should do with his newfound powers.

    • ProfessorPeregrine@reddthat.com
      31·
      5 months ago

      You are not considering the part where we can’t use relevant testimony or documents to prove that what the President does is illegal in the first place. The President can just say whatever illegal things they did were official acts, and all the evidence that might prove otherwise is off-limits. It relies on other people in the administration to not follow the illegal order, but of course that is a weak protection and the President can fire them or do something illegal to them without consequence too.

      • andyburke@fedia.io
        13·
        5 months ago

        If you follow an illegal order, guess what you just did: broke the law.

        Please, fhis strident unreality being pushed is JUST LIKE the fear mongering on the right.

        This decision is by no means great, it may totally delay trials for Trump until after the election, that’s horeshit in my opinion. But I also don’t beleive this bullshit about this ruling making the president a king. Stop FUDing for them. Trump STILL HAS TO FOLLOW THE LAW IF HE IS ELECTED. Please STOP REINFORCING THE IDEA THAT HE DOES NOT.

          • andyburke@fedia.io
            13·
            5 months ago

            Yes, and I sadly had to agree with John Roberts, not a good place to be.

            The doomerism is just ridiculous to me.

        • Perrin42@fedia.io
          2·
          5 months ago

          How can you have immunity from following the law? The only immunity is from breaking it; any law broken in a president’s effort to execute their core official acts cannot be prosecuted or even investigated, according to this decision.

    • DiddyFingers@lemdro.idEnglish
      22·
      5 months ago

      I appreciate this response. It makes me feel a little better. I still think we should be concerned about SCOTUS probably getting to make some of these decisions of what’s official or not. Seems more corrupt on the judicial branch side of things rather than executive. Overall not great.

      • andyburke@fedia.io
        21·
        5 months ago

        I mean, it’s definitely not great. This court is a sham that never should have had this makeup.

        And this absolutely makes it harder to bring Trump to trial before the election.

        This is not great.

        But it is not “the president can assasinate people!!!”

        At least, not to this layman. I would hope supreme court justices know better, but even the dissent seems a little unhinged to me, a progressive who thinks the rule of law should AND STILL DOES apply to everyone. (I am also not willing to just give up and say “yeah, guess assassination is legal now” - I think that junk is counterproductive and maybe being propagandized against us by unfriendly foreign governments.)

        • Perrin42@fedia.io
          2·
          5 months ago

          The president absolutely can assassinate people according to this. They can have someone picked up on any charge (execution of laws and giving orders to the military are part of their “official acts”), taken to a federal facility, and executed (espionage, national defense, exigent circumstances, whatever), then pardon everyone involved, and no evidence could even be brought up because it is all tied to an official act and investigating it would be impossible because any evidence tied to the official act is prohibited (giving orders to the military, directing federal law enforcement) and the investigation would burden the president’s ability to execute their core responsibilities.

            • Perrin42@fedia.io
              2·
              5 months ago

              Bull. The president giving orders to the military is a core responsibility, and he has full immunity in that regard. That plus a pardon for the military members involved means he can have anyone assassinated and nobody would face consequences. Period.

                • Perrin42@fedia.io
                  2·
                  5 months ago

                  One does not need immunity for legal orders. You are deeply, obviously incorrect in your views and clearly ignoring the context and content of the decision. Under this decision, the President has total immunity for the exercise of his Article II powers, which include being the Commander-in-Chief; as such, he can order the military to do whatever he wants, and cannot even be investigated for it. Were he to order the military to arrest and execute someone, then pardon those that followed his orders, there could be no civil or criminal penalties.

                  I’ll leave some excerpts from the decision below, for your amusement. And I won’t be responding to you further. Please, enjoy.

                  From the decision:

                  Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. … At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. … When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. The Court thus concludes that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. … At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” … In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect. … But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.

                  • Perrin42@fedia.io
                    1·
                    5 months ago

                    And from the dissents:

                    Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him. … Whenever the President wields the enormous power of his office, the majority says, the criminal law (at least presumptively) cannot touch him. … It says that whenever the President acts in a way that is “ ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’ ” he is taking official action. … Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under the majority’s test, if it can be called a test, the category of Presidential action that can be deemed “unofficial” is destined to be vanishingly small. … Under that view of core powers, even fabricating evidence and insisting the Department use it in a criminal case could be covered. … Imagine a President states in an official speech that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legislation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so (official act). He then hires a private hitman to murder that political rival (unofficial act). Under the majority’s rule, the murder indictment could include no allegation of the President’s public admission of premeditated intent to support the mens rea of murder. … The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. … Thus, even a hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics, or one who indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup, has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority’s new Presidential accountability model. … Also, under the new Presidential accountability model, the starting presumption is that the criminal law does not apply to Presidents, no matter how obviously illegal, harmful, or unacceptable a President’s official behavior might be. … Unlike a defendant who invokes an affirmative defense and relies on a legal determination that there was a good reason for his otherwise unlawful conduct, a former President invoking immunity relies on the premise that he can do whatever he wants, however he wants, so long as he uses his “ ‘official power’ ” in doing so. … From this day forward, Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign-affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in Article II however they please—including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal and that have potentially grave consequences for the rights and liberties of Americans.