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The Supreme Court literally said that Trump has absolute immunity for criminal use of presidential power. Combined with the statistical impossibility of a 2/3
by axus 2y ago
The Supreme Court literally said that Trump has absolute immunity for criminal use of presidential power. Combined with the statistical impossibility of a 2/3 senate majority for impeachment, this is a license to grab as much power as that same court will allow.
- bagels 2y agoRepublican Senators want this. It's not about statistics. They believe in this stupid Unitary Executive thing (aka, we should have a King).
- masklinn 2y agoThey don’t actually believe in unitary executive theory, as can plainly be seen any time a democrat is elected president.
- rowanG077 2y agoI'm curious how do we know this? I don't plainly see this it all.
- michaelt 2y agoI think masklinn is arguing that, if Republican senators truly believed the president should be an elected king with nigh-limitless power, then during Democrat administrations they would have been eager to approve anything the president put forward, as he was the president-king at that time. Whereas what we saw instead was them blocking everything they could, government shutdowns etc. Unless "Unitary Executive" means something a good deal more nuanced than the president being king, that is.
- nerdponx 2y agoThey do truly believe it, but only when a Republican is the sitting president.
- crooked-v 2y agoThey believe in it, but they also believe that all Democrats are actually filthy cheats who stole every election and thereby inherently illegitimate.
- Sharlin 2y agoThey don't believe that about Democrats. Maybe their constituency does, thanks to propaganda, but the politicians simply just want to be in power.
- rowanG077 2y agoI don't think that follows at all. Republicans, just like every party really, do the best given the system they are in. They don't act as if they are in the hypothetical system they would like to have, it would be totally counterproductive to their goals. Think of it this way. I may be against paying taxes. That doesn't mean I just stop paying them. The best I can do is try to get the government to lower the taxes.
- acomjean 2y agoIt was a while ago. But late last century the "line item veto" which allowed presidents to get rid of things in bills they didn't like was rejected by the courts. Oddly Reagan (R) asked for this power initially, but Clinton (D) ended up getting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-item_veto_in_the_United_S... "Congress granted this power to the president by the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 to control "pork barrel spending", but in 1998 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the act to be unconstitutional in 6–3 decision in Clinton v. City of New York. The court found that exercise of the line-item veto is tantamount to a unilateral amendment or repeal by the executive of only parts of statutes authorizing federal spending, and therefore violated the Presentment Clause of the United States Constitution. Thus a federal line-item veto, at least in this particular formulation, would only be possible through a constitutional amendment. Prior to that ruling, President Clinton applied the line-item veto to the federal budget 82 times."
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- imglorp 2y agoDisbanding of both the legislature and judiciary would be on any dictator's playbook from the last N centuries. I can't imagine either of those bodies would be ok with getting shuttered but it seems they are both pushing for it. Why?
- bagels 2y agoThey get something out of it and lack of scruples? Money, influence, seeing their religious views pushed on others, who knows what else.
- tfigueroa 2y agoMany would be adjacent to the new ruler. The startup shutters but the VP of Engineering is already starting something new with his old reports.
- philk10 2y agoPerfect timing when he's just tweeted out that he is The King
- bagels 2y agoThey created the circumstances where this could happen. It's a long term project. Supreme court picks, disenfranchisement, propaganda, refusing to hold Trump accountable for his crimes.
- fhdkweig 2y agoJust because it took me a while to find the reference: The full quote on Truth Social and Twitter is "CONGESTION PRICING IS DEAD. Manhattan, and all of New York, is SAVED. LONG LIVE THE KING!" https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114032082899254855 https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1140320828992...
- 4ndrewl 2y agoYour courts and judiciary don't have any power - he'll just write an EO to release people. Senate and Congress likewise - meaningless talking shops.
- kelnos 2y agoNot even that. Trump controls federal law enforcement. If Congress or a federal court says "arrest cabinet member XYZ for contempt", Trump can just say "no". Congress does have some law enforcement personnel, but I doubt they'd be interested in getting in a standoff with the Secret Service.
- tptacek 2y agoWell, yes, that's how the system works: a determined President can, in fact, grab as much power as the Supreme Court will allow. That's literally what the Supreme Court is there for.
- MichaelZuo 2y agoYeah nearly all the discussion here seems circular…
- DrillShopper 2y agoThe president can arguably pack the court and with his majorities nobody will stop him If you believe the Supreme Court is an effective guardrail against tyranny then you're deeply mistaken. The only true safeguard against tyranny is the American people refusing to comply and responding with force of arms if pushed.
- aaronbrethorst 2y agoI don't care if you're a 3%er or a John Brown Gun Club fan, this is an absurd fantasy.
- mattlondon 2y agoISTR that this is one of the exact excuses people wheel out when "the gun discussion" comes up: to protect the people from tyranny. We'll see how that goes.
- ceejayoz 2y agohttps://theshovel.com.au/2020/06/04/nra-accidentally-forgets-to-rise-up-against-tyrannical-government/ https://theshovel.com.au/2020/06/04/nra-accidentally-forgets...
- kelnos 2y agoAssuming the US military remains loyal to the president... if you really think that the Proud Boys and their ilk, plus a bunch of random disorganized people with guns, have even the remotest chance of winning a war with the US military, well... I have a bridge I'd like to sell you. And if the US military doesn't remain loyal to the president, then on top of a fascist dictator seizing power, then we'll have a military coup.
- beezlebroxxxxxx 2y agoWhat's kind of fascinating is the way they've introduced things like the Major Questions Doctrine (MQD), which asserted the importance (really, necessity, in their view) of Congress's explicit delegation powers, as a way to curtail agency actions. But then faced with something like this EO, they seem quite obviously faced with something that runs up against the fact the Congress gave explicit statutes for how and what they should do. As far as I'm aware, the statues creating these agencies don't explicitly give the president this power...which raises a clear MQD consistency issue for the supreme court.
- masklinn 2y agoIt’s not fascinating in any way, it’s completely habitual for fascists to use every means at their disposal to prevent their opponents from doing anything only to ignore all roadblocks when in power. The GOP has been ramping up their support of unitary executive theory since the 80s yet no democratic president has been able to take a piss without cries of tyranny.
- tiahura 2y agoThere are three branches. Just three. If you are a federal employee, you either work for congress, the courts, or the president. A2S1 invests the president with all executive power. All of it. It doesn’t carve out exceptions for the SEC or the Federal Reserve or USAID. If you’ve put yourself in a place where this arrangement is literally fascism, prepare to be disappointed by the courts.
- boroboro4 2y agoHowever you read the constitution it's not the way courts interpret constitution now. Unitary executive branch doesn't exist for last ~135 years, and was under scrutiny before that (and with way smaller federal government). With current supreme court nothing is sacred for sure, but overturning this and granting universal executive power into hands of president would be a disaster leading towards either authocracy or revolution. And yeah - that's all very similar to how fascism started, whether you would like to see it or not.
- avalys 2y ago“Criminal use of presidential power” is a bit of an oxymoron, which is why people are getting wrapped up in knots here. The Supreme Court said, if the Constitution authorizes the President to do it, then he can’t be criminally prosecuted. That doesn’t mean blanket immunity!
- jmyeet 2y agoA competent Joe Biden would've taken that ruling, said "thank you very much" and "cleaned house" with Seal Team Six of select judges and politicians and then pardoned everyone involved. The fact that SCOTUS wasn't even slightly concerned about that happening belies the problem: the Democrats are ineffectual by design. They knew Biden would throw his hands up citing "norms" and "institutions" as an excuse to do absolutely nothing. SCOTUS completely invented a concept of presidential immunity out of thin air to derail the criminal prosecutions. They also deliberaly took their time. Remember when Jack Smith tried to appeal directly to SCOTUS because everyone knew it was going to end up there? Instead, SCOTUS put everything on hold for another 6 months as a delaying tactic. Even then, the opinion is rushed and haphazard and not at all well thought out. Some in the conservative supermajority allegedly wanted to punt the issue to the next term. The presidential immunity decision is so brazenly political. The Roberts court will go down in history for the kinds of awful decisions in the 1840s and 1850s that led up to the Civil War.
- ModernMech 2y ago> the Democrats are ineffectual by design. The Democrats are people who believe in the rule of law, and they act like it. When pitted against people who have no qualms to win at all costs, even it means breaking the law and destroying the constitution, Democrats lose; if you value those things you can't preserve them by destroying them yourself. We are where we are because Republicans convinced themselves they deserved the power they have taken. The people who voted for them were convinced as well. That's the only failure we should be talking about right now. The Democrats, flawed as they are, did the right thing. That said, they will not be the people to lead us out of this. They know how to fundraise, campaign, and maintain the status quo. They're not built for this, so it's time to just look for someone new rather than try to reform people who are clearly not made for this moment.
- kelnos 2y ago> the Democrats are ineffectual by design In many situations, those who have morals and scruples will be ineffectual when faced with an adversary who has none. Biden didn't "clean house" because he believes in the rule of law, and believes that if he'd done that, he should go to jail, even if he wouldn't. Not everyone has an ethical code that only exists because they're afraid they'll go to jail if they break it. Some people just don't think it's ok to do the wrong thing. Put another way: if you become the monster you're trying to fight, that's often not materially different from the monster winning in the first place. Having said that, I do think that Democrats should fight a little dirtier sometimes. I think that would be possible to do without becoming that monster.
- adrianmonk 2y agoI'm not a lawyer, but I don't see how legal immunity equates to legal authority. If you are a government employee and Trump orders you to do something that exceeds his authority, can't you still say no? It seems like the Supreme Court only said that Trump can't get in trouble for asking. I don't think the court said that you have to answer yes. I'm not trying to say that we're in a great position here or that immunity doesn't have some very destructive effects. But I am saying that we shouldn't act as if he has powers that the Supreme Court hasn't given him.
- 4ndrewl 2y agoAt this point your working assumption should be that the target operating model is similar to Russia.
- eadmund 2y agoI don’t think that’s an accurate description of the decision. I think that it stated that when the President exercises core constitutional power (e.g. the pardon power, or the veto power) then the exercise itself cannot be illegal. I’m not sure if the decision of the Court left open the possibility that the conduct around the exercise of such power can be illegal. If so, then this could be a distinction without much difference: for example, issuing a pardon may not itself ever be criminal, but taking a bribe to issue a pardon is separate from issuing the pardon itself. To some extent, I think that some of this does flow from the structure of the Constitution itself, but I’m not convinced that phrasing it in terms of immunity is particularly helpful. Then there’s a rebuttable presumption of immunity for more conduct. I don’t see that this flows from the Constitution, but perhaps it flows from judicial decisions over the past two centuries? ‘When the President does something official, he probably is immune, but maybe he’s not, and he could still be prosecuted from crimes he commits around the immune act’ doesn’t seem terribly meaningful. It sounds a bit to me like saying that a citizen is immune from prosecution for his vote, but not for selling it or whatever. But I’m not a lawyer, and I could be wrong.
- FranzFerdiNaN 2y agoIt 100% was written with the explicit purpose of giving Trump the power to do whatever he wants. Including ignoring the Supreme Court hilariously enough. Anyway, the whole discussion is moot because Trump is turning America into a authoritarian state, so rules and laws and elections soon don’t matter anymore.