6 ms·

Supreme Court rules Trump gets limited immunity from prosecution

34 points by Anon84 2y ago

Atreiden 2y ago
> Trump's motion takes that to the extreme by claiming that anything he does is protected by presidential immunity. > The case came from the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, where Trump's lawyers were asked whether their argument was that the president could go so far as to order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival. Trump's lawyers agreed. TL;DR: "I am the Senate"
- elmerfud 2y ago
  The seal team 6 example is a bit extreme, but you don't have to look back very far and you see both political parties leveraging the justice department or the IRS or other agencies to make life difficult for their rivals.
tekknik 2y ago
[flagged]
- elmerfud 2y ago
  If you view this as a Trump only specific ruling I would agree it's politics. The supreme Court was hearing a case in regards to Trump but the ruling is about the broader power of immunity for all presidents.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kstenerud 2y ago
Jackson (page 98) lays out why this is such a dangerous thing. Essentially, the court has said that the president is immune if the crimes are carried out as "official" acts. Only "unofficial" acts can be prosecuted. The trouble is, what constitutes "official" vs "unofficial" has been left extremely vague (and by their own admission probably unsolvable), and so only the Supreme Court can decide which is which on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, the Supreme Court now decides when and if the president is accountable for any criminal actions, and the judiciary and congress can do nothing about it. This is in stark contrast to how the law applies to everyone else.
- jl6 2y ago
  Could any of the acts that Trump is currently being prosecuted for be plausibly described as official?
  - kstenerud 2y ago
    They don't have to be plausible. The Supreme Court simply has to say that they're official and that's good enough.
    - fuzzfactor 2y ago
      I think what it means is that the President decides what he thinks are official duties, and if anybody questions that they will have to take it to court. And that there are now much fewer restrictions on Presidential power than there were yesterday, nothing like the narrow band experienced since the time of Geo Washington. Any restriction is now in question if it ties the Presidents' hands as much as in the past. Unprecedented extreme actions are moved from black & white to a grey area. Whatever might be brought to court is made more difficult to decide, and more likely to end up in the highest courts. Decided by the same unelected officials who ceded more of the citizens' balance of power to an Executive who is already difficult to hold accountable, while gaining a greater portion of power for Judiciary also, as collateral damage.
  - Arnt 2y ago
    I don't see how. I don't follow his antics very closely, but there's some accounting/tax shenanigans and there's the matter of an election in one of the states. Let me try to consider both. If those tax things were official, then wouldn't that mean that the owner would be his employer? You can do your employer's or customer's tax paperwork during office hours, so if he did that during office hours the owner of the that ugly buidling is the federal state. Which doesn't make sense, right? So therefore he didn't do that in his official capacity. If you work with the Georgian elections in an official capacity, then you're either an official of the State of Georgia. Is a federal official such as the president empowered to act on behalf of states? If not, then time spent calling a Georgian official about Georgian elections cannot reasonably be called official.
Tomte 2y ago
Jackson left out the conventional „respectfully“ from „I dissent“.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  Sotomayor went further: > With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
  - morkalork 2y ago
    Don't worry, it's all very legal and very cool. America will still have democracy, it'll just be more like the kind in Belarus, Hungary and Türkiye.
- lurking15 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Typically for the same amount of time Republicans spend whinging about personal freedoms when a populist democrat is elected. The years are inversely proportional to the number of terms the US voters choose to elect them for, much to the outspoken chagrin of whoever's unpopular at the time.
    - lurking15 2y ago
      Except personal freedoms are actually continuously encroached by the federal govt and bureaucrats across the board. Whereas democrats whine when they don’t have absolute unchecked authority, it’s not enough that they control media, regulatory agencies, schools, universities and corporations. If you complain well “reality has a liberal bias” don’t ya know.
      - talldayo 2y ago
        Personal freedoms aren't all-encompassing. One of the best lessons you can take away from America's free market is that a laissez-faire government would destroy everything we take for granted today. Without base regulation, how would the United States protect it's markets from blatantly evident abuse? Without rudimentary law, how do you ensure someone's personal freedoms aren't being encroached by another person? This is always how it ends up. The point is that your complaints are almost parallel to the outraged liberals that demand sweeping social justice in response to minor political slights. Unless you're willing to adopt a holistic view of democracy then you're bound to be disappointed when change doesn't revolve around your personal demands. In the words of Republicans from a decade ago, sorry snowflake.
wumeow 2y ago
[flagged]
fzeroracer 2y ago
Another remarkably dumb ruling. As I mentioned before with the Chevron ruling (though people seem incredibly blind about the real intent behind that ruling), the court is making a ton of naked power grabs both for itself and the power of the executive branch. Saying that the president has absolute immunity for 'official' acts is insanity and making it so only the supreme court can decide whether or not they're accountable is also clearly saying 'the only thing that matters is our decision'.
- lurking15 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - amodee 2y ago
    Example of a vaccine mandate being upheld by Massachusetts Supreme Court (1905): https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep197/usrep197011/usrep197011.pdf https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep...
    - lurking15 2y ago
      Why should we extend a ruling from a state court from 1905 to the entire US? By any stretch this seems like cherry-picking and goes to show how baseless the argument for mandates is.
      - amodee 2y ago
        There have been many other rulings in support for vaccine mandates since that landmark decision. Reducing such measures to nothing more than 'a gross violation of bodily autonomy' and having 'no legal basis' is just ignorant and inane.
        lurking15 2y ago
        > is just ignorant and inane My workplace was enforcing a vaccine mandate through an unconstitutional authoritarian justification jammed through a federal regulatory agency. The vaccine does not prevent transmission and offers little benefit to someone who's already survived the disease and is otherwise healthy and especially young. And it was the same sort of ultimatum that Harvey Weinstein would use "I'm not forcing you but if you don't have sex with me you don't get the job."
f38zf5vdt 2y ago
This is a really interesting ruling for American politics. On one hand, Trump appears to have considerable immunity from his actions as president. On the other hand, Biden also appears to have considerable immunity from his actions as president.
mandeepj 2y ago
So when the same Courts and legal system act in his favor, it's all hunky and dory. But, when they act in opposition - I'm a victim of a political prosecution, witch hunt, revenge, and blah blah.
legitster 2y ago
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
lelandfe 2y ago
People on r/scotus have pointed out that this would have simply made much of Watergate fall under official actions, and would have blocked the admission of the Oval Office tapes, being "private records" of the president. A pretty bleak day.
- legitster 2y ago
  Not an accurate reading of the decision. Firstly, gathering evidence is not protected by absolute immunity, per the decision: > By contrast, when prosecutors have sought evidence from the President, we have consistently rejected Presidential claims of absolute immunity. Watergate would not have necessarily fallen under an "official" action if the prosecutors can successfully argue that it was done in personal interest or towards the political campaign. And congress is still free to impeach a president for the official acts.
  - lelandfe 2y ago
    Certain evidence is now off limits: > Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence Emphasis mine. There's quite a lot in Watergate that would be changed by this decision, it seems.
    - legitster 2y ago
      The argument they are making in the full context is that you can use the Nixon tapes admitting to the crimes in question, but you cannot use tape of Nixon discussing with his advisors the legality of such crimes. A counter example is that we have recordings of JFK planning and discussing the legality of Operation Northwoods, but simply discussing or planning a potential crime is not a crime in itself.
legitster 2y ago
Here is a very simplified TL;DR of the decision: A president's internal planning and discussions with his team are are at least granted "presumed" immunity unless the prosecutor can establish that the act in question fell outside of the office. So for the President pressuring Pence to uncertify the election results, prosecutors would need to make a case that it was outside of his power to do so - the reasoning behind it is largely irrelevant. When it comes to interactions with external groups - be it local election officials or even the press/media - prosecutors need to establish whether the president was acting on an official basis or an unofficial basis. (And they are clear that the president acting on behalf of his party or his campaign would be unofficial). > "The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. 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." My reading of the decision is that of the four counts against Trump, three can proceed so long as prosecutors can make a case the actions were not official acts.

34 points by Anon84 2y ago

> Trump's motion takes that to the extreme by claiming that anything he does is protected by presidential immunity. > The case came from the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, where Trump's lawyers were asked whether their argument was that the president could go so far as to order Seal Team Six to assassinate a political rival. Trump's lawyers agreed. TL;DR: "I am the Senate"

elmerfud 2y ago
The seal team 6 example is a bit extreme, but you don't have to look back very far and you see both political parties leveraging the justice department or the IRS or other agencies to make life difficult for their rivals.

tekknik 2y ago

[flagged]

elmerfud 2y ago
If you view this as a Trump only specific ruling I would agree it's politics. The supreme Court was hearing a case in regards to Trump but the ruling is about the broader power of immunity for all presidents.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

kstenerud 2y ago

Jackson (page 98) lays out why this is such a dangerous thing. Essentially, the court has said that the president is immune if the crimes are carried out as "official" acts. Only "unofficial" acts can be prosecuted. The trouble is, what constitutes "official" vs "unofficial" has been left extremely vague (and by their own admission probably unsolvable), and so only the Supreme Court can decide which is which on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, the Supreme Court now decides when and if the president is accountable for any criminal actions, and the judiciary and congress can do nothing about it. This is in stark contrast to how the law applies to everyone else.

jl6 2y ago
Could any of the acts that Trump is currently being prosecuted for be plausibly described as official?
- kstenerud 2y ago
  They don't have to be plausible. The Supreme Court simply has to say that they're official and that's good enough.
  - fuzzfactor 2y ago
    I think what it means is that the President decides what he thinks are official duties, and if anybody questions that they will have to take it to court. And that there are now much fewer restrictions on Presidential power than there were yesterday, nothing like the narrow band experienced since the time of Geo Washington. Any restriction is now in question if it ties the Presidents' hands as much as in the past. Unprecedented extreme actions are moved from black & white to a grey area. Whatever might be brought to court is made more difficult to decide, and more likely to end up in the highest courts. Decided by the same unelected officials who ceded more of the citizens' balance of power to an Executive who is already difficult to hold accountable, while gaining a greater portion of power for Judiciary also, as collateral damage.
- Arnt 2y ago
  I don't see how. I don't follow his antics very closely, but there's some accounting/tax shenanigans and there's the matter of an election in one of the states. Let me try to consider both. If those tax things were official, then wouldn't that mean that the owner would be his employer? You can do your employer's or customer's tax paperwork during office hours, so if he did that during office hours the owner of the that ugly buidling is the federal state. Which doesn't make sense, right? So therefore he didn't do that in his official capacity. If you work with the Georgian elections in an official capacity, then you're either an official of the State of Georgia. Is a federal official such as the president empowered to act on behalf of states? If not, then time spent calling a Georgian official about Georgian elections cannot reasonably be called official.

Tomte 2y ago

Jackson left out the conventional „respectfully“ from „I dissent“.

jcranmer 2y ago
Sotomayor went further: > With fear for our democracy, I dissent.
- morkalork 2y ago
  Don't worry, it's all very legal and very cool. America will still have democracy, it'll just be more like the kind in Belarus, Hungary and Türkiye.
lurking15 2y ago
[flagged]
- talldayo 2y ago
  Typically for the same amount of time Republicans spend whinging about personal freedoms when a populist democrat is elected. The years are inversely proportional to the number of terms the US voters choose to elect them for, much to the outspoken chagrin of whoever's unpopular at the time.
  - lurking15 2y ago
    Except personal freedoms are actually continuously encroached by the federal govt and bureaucrats across the board. Whereas democrats whine when they don’t have absolute unchecked authority, it’s not enough that they control media, regulatory agencies, schools, universities and corporations. If you complain well “reality has a liberal bias” don’t ya know.
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Personal freedoms aren't all-encompassing. One of the best lessons you can take away from America's free market is that a laissez-faire government would destroy everything we take for granted today. Without base regulation, how would the United States protect it's markets from blatantly evident abuse? Without rudimentary law, how do you ensure someone's personal freedoms aren't being encroached by another person? This is always how it ends up. The point is that your complaints are almost parallel to the outraged liberals that demand sweeping social justice in response to minor political slights. Unless you're willing to adopt a holistic view of democracy then you're bound to be disappointed when change doesn't revolve around your personal demands. In the words of Republicans from a decade ago, sorry snowflake.

wumeow 2y ago

[flagged]

fzeroracer 2y ago

Another remarkably dumb ruling. As I mentioned before with the Chevron ruling (though people seem incredibly blind about the real intent behind that ruling), the court is making a ton of naked power grabs both for itself and the power of the executive branch. Saying that the president has absolute immunity for 'official' acts is insanity and making it so only the supreme court can decide whether or not they're accountable is also clearly saying 'the only thing that matters is our decision'.

lurking15 2y ago
[flagged]
- amodee 2y ago
  Example of a vaccine mandate being upheld by Massachusetts Supreme Court (1905): https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep197/usrep197011/usrep197011.pdf https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep...
  - lurking15 2y ago
    Why should we extend a ruling from a state court from 1905 to the entire US? By any stretch this seems like cherry-picking and goes to show how baseless the argument for mandates is.
    - amodee 2y ago
      There have been many other rulings in support for vaccine mandates since that landmark decision. Reducing such measures to nothing more than 'a gross violation of bodily autonomy' and having 'no legal basis' is just ignorant and inane.
      - lurking15 2y ago
        > is just ignorant and inane My workplace was enforcing a vaccine mandate through an unconstitutional authoritarian justification jammed through a federal regulatory agency. The vaccine does not prevent transmission and offers little benefit to someone who's already survived the disease and is otherwise healthy and especially young. And it was the same sort of ultimatum that Harvey Weinstein would use "I'm not forcing you but if you don't have sex with me you don't get the job."

f38zf5vdt 2y ago

This is a really interesting ruling for American politics. On one hand, Trump appears to have considerable immunity from his actions as president. On the other hand, Biden also appears to have considerable immunity from his actions as president.

mandeepj 2y ago

So when the same Courts and legal system act in his favor, it's all hunky and dory. But, when they act in opposition - I'm a victim of a political prosecution, witch hunt, revenge, and blah blah.

legitster 2y ago

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf

lelandfe 2y ago

People on r/scotus have pointed out that this would have simply made much of Watergate fall under official actions, and would have blocked the admission of the Oval Office tapes, being "private records" of the president. A pretty bleak day.

legitster 2y ago
Not an accurate reading of the decision. Firstly, gathering evidence is not protected by absolute immunity, per the decision: > By contrast, when prosecutors have sought evidence from the President, we have consistently rejected Presidential claims of absolute immunity. Watergate would not have necessarily fallen under an "official" action if the prosecutors can successfully argue that it was done in personal interest or towards the political campaign. And congress is still free to impeach a president for the official acts.
- lelandfe 2y ago
  Certain evidence is now off limits: > Presidents cannot be indicted based on conduct for which they are immune from prosecution. On remand, the District Court must carefully analyze the indictment’s remaining allegations to determine whether they too involve conduct for which a President must be immune from prosecution. And the parties and the District Court must ensure that sufficient allegations support the indictment’s charges without such conduct. Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence Emphasis mine. There's quite a lot in Watergate that would be changed by this decision, it seems.
  - legitster 2y ago
    The argument they are making in the full context is that you can use the Nixon tapes admitting to the crimes in question, but you cannot use tape of Nixon discussing with his advisors the legality of such crimes. A counter example is that we have recordings of JFK planning and discussing the legality of Operation Northwoods, but simply discussing or planning a potential crime is not a crime in itself.

legitster 2y ago

Here is a very simplified TL;DR of the decision: A president's internal planning and discussions with his team are are at least granted "presumed" immunity unless the prosecutor can establish that the act in question fell outside of the office. So for the President pressuring Pence to uncertify the election results, prosecutors would need to make a case that it was outside of his power to do so - the reasoning behind it is largely irrelevant. When it comes to interactions with external groups - be it local election officials or even the press/media - prosecutors need to establish whether the president was acting on an official basis or an unofficial basis. (And they are clear that the president acting on behalf of his party or his campaign would be unofficial). > "The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. 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." My reading of the decision is that of the four counts against Trump, three can proceed so long as prosecutors can make a case the actions were not official acts.