6 ms·

Presidential Immunity in the United States

79 points by pinkmuffinere 10mo ago

jmkni 10mo ago
gonna next some context here lads
- Y-bar 10mo ago
  My guess is that Sotomayor’s words from 2024 are becoming relevant again: > 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. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
  - esotericimpl 10mo ago
    [dead]
  - RRWagner 10mo ago
    It would seem now that Sotomayer was not speaking totally hypothetically.
- lenerdenator 10mo ago
  I mean... gestures broadly
  - deleted 10mo ago
    [deleted]
0xbadcafebee 10mo ago
> all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts The Final Solution to The Jewish Problem was an official act too. So according to this ruling, you get immunity for genocide. Fun stuff.
- FeteCommuniste 10mo ago
  Is the commission of genocide a "core constitutional power" of the presidency? I guess maybe if it were spun as "national defense" or somesuch.
  - selectodude 10mo ago
    The Supreme Court says that the President (if republican) can declare anything an official act and once something is an official act it is immune from prosecution. So yeah, I don’t see any “laws” stopping the commission of genocide. Trump knows it, too. The only thing stopping him is his own morality.
    - Morromist 10mo ago
      I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. He also has to think about what happens after he's out of office/dead, or if he upsets the supreme court enough that they tell him to stop. The more egregious his acts the more likely the people carrying them out will be prosecuted by outraged people after he's gone so it might be difficult to find competant people to do his dirty work. OTOH Even if he did send immigrants and liberals to deathcamps there's no way hard core trump voters would turn on him so he never has to worry about getting removed from office through impeachment with a 2/3rds majority after the midterms.
      - selectodude 10mo ago
        > I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. It was a direct quote. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-intervi...
sigmoid10 10mo ago
>However, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.
- Loudergood 10mo ago
  It appears noone considered a congress controlled by sycophants when designing the system.
  - sigmoid10 10mo ago
    To be honest, what could congress even do given what the supreme court has said? If Trump went full Hitler and decided to burn down the Capitol and have everyone in it killed who doesn't do his bidding, he couldn't even be held accountable by them in theory.
    - stvltvs 10mo ago
      They could remove him from office. Theoretically anyway. If it hasn't happened in ~240 years, then it's probably a paper tiger.
      - JohnBooty 10mo ago
        Yeah, "theoretically" is doing a lot of work there. Removal requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate, which is absolutely neverfuckinghappening in a 2-party system. POTUS is now unstoppable and untethered.
      - Tadpole9181 10mo ago
techdmn 10mo ago
How did Voldemort put it? "There is no g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ law, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." The law doesn't matter if there is no one to enforce it, or if enforcement is selective, etc.
sethev 10mo ago
I recall when this ruling was made, there was a BBC opinion piece that took an outraged position on this and contrasted it with the position of the prime minister in British politics. It struck me as funny because they literally have a person (the monarch) who is immune from arrest or prosecution for any act at all - not just official acts. It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...
- vharuck 10mo ago
  >There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate That is not a substitute for prosecution, it is a political process for removing a president. The Constitution's authors likely meant it to be used when a president ignored their duty, violated the Constitution, or lost public support before the end of their term. These are not federal crimes, so they don't go through the federal courts. The impeachment and removal process does imitate indictment and trial, but that's because there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice. Historically, officials weren't prosecuted for official acts unless it was shown the act was part of another crime. So if the President delayed a FEMA response because of budget worries or incorrect forecasts, nobody would be prosecuted or open to lawsuits from citizens who suffered. But now, no official investigator can interview an appointed official to find out if the act was done as part of a crime. Worse, if the act was a presidential power enumerated in the Constitution, there is almost no way to investigate its use in an obvious crime. If the President only pardons people after they pay him $20,000 dollars, the President is immune from investigation. A hypothetical raised in the dissent is still an open question: what could be done if Donald Trump orders a military strike team to kill the next Democratic presidential nominee? Do you expect this Congress to actually impeach him? After he lied to, riled up, directed, and have plenty of time to a mob who invaded Congress and built a gallows to hang the Vice President? And Congress didn't prevent him from ever holding office again? I am not swayed by any argument along the lines of "But the President will be too worried about vindictive prosecution to make the right choices." If we really need to prevent that, I'd rather have every president thrown in prison for life after their term. No need to worry about prosecution, because you already know what awaits you. The office is more important than any individual holding it.
mjmsmith 10mo ago
Future generations watching the Frost/Nixon interview and wondering why Nixon even has to point out that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
legitster 10mo ago
It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison. The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power. America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.
- nullocator 10mo ago
  It's not cleat to me that the constitution implies immunity for the president? It shouldn't imply or provide immunity for anyone. The president is a citizen. If the whole bill of goods all citizens are sold is "you have no fear of criminal prosecution if you've committed no crimes" and that supposed to be good enough for every day joes, it should be good enough for temporary and previous state actors.
  - legitster 10mo ago
    Well - we do have similar immunity extensions for common citizens if their role warrants - if a soldier or police officer kill someone in the line of duty, they don't necessarily get charged with a crime. > “The President… is amenable to [the law] in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.” - James Wilson - one of the drafters and early Supreme Court justice I'm not arguing that the constitution gives the president broad immunity for all personal crimes. But it was pretty understood at the time and in the text of the constitution that impeachment was to proceed all legal criminal charges.
- atmavatar 10mo ago
  > It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison. How so? Please elaborate. I would point out that there's explicit language in Article I, Section 6 about House and Senate members being immune from prosecution for carrying out their duties: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. However, there is nothing in Article II regarding a grant of immunity to the President. I could see an argument that the President should probably be protected from arrest during his term, similar to Congressmen, but there's very clearly no mention of such protection in in the Constitution I can find. However, that's nothing compared to the broad protections the Roberts court handed him in Trump v. United States: protection from investigation, even after his term expires.
StoneAndSky 10mo ago
Thanks to Roberts and McConnell, the United States has a Presidential "Purge" window: The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.

79 points by pinkmuffinere 10mo ago

jmkni 10mo ago

gonna next some context here lads

Y-bar 10mo ago
My guess is that Sotomayor’s words from 2024 are becoming relevant again: > 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. Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
- esotericimpl 10mo ago
  [dead]
- RRWagner 10mo ago
  It would seem now that Sotomayer was not speaking totally hypothetically.
lenerdenator 10mo ago
I mean... gestures broadly
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]

0xbadcafebee 10mo ago

> all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts The Final Solution to The Jewish Problem was an official act too. So according to this ruling, you get immunity for genocide. Fun stuff.

FeteCommuniste 10mo ago
Is the commission of genocide a "core constitutional power" of the presidency? I guess maybe if it were spun as "national defense" or somesuch.
- selectodude 10mo ago
  The Supreme Court says that the President (if republican) can declare anything an official act and once something is an official act it is immune from prosecution. So yeah, I don’t see any “laws” stopping the commission of genocide. Trump knows it, too. The only thing stopping him is his own morality.
  - Morromist 10mo ago
    I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. He also has to think about what happens after he's out of office/dead, or if he upsets the supreme court enough that they tell him to stop. The more egregious his acts the more likely the people carrying them out will be prosecuted by outraged people after he's gone so it might be difficult to find competant people to do his dirty work. OTOH Even if he did send immigrants and liberals to deathcamps there's no way hard core trump voters would turn on him so he never has to worry about getting removed from office through impeachment with a 2/3rds majority after the midterms.
    - selectodude 10mo ago
      > I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. It was a direct quote. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-intervi...

sigmoid10 10mo ago

>However, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts. I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.

Loudergood 10mo ago
It appears noone considered a congress controlled by sycophants when designing the system.
- sigmoid10 10mo ago
  To be honest, what could congress even do given what the supreme court has said? If Trump went full Hitler and decided to burn down the Capitol and have everyone in it killed who doesn't do his bidding, he couldn't even be held accountable by them in theory.
  - stvltvs 10mo ago
    They could remove him from office. Theoretically anyway. If it hasn't happened in ~240 years, then it's probably a paper tiger.
    - JohnBooty 10mo ago
      Yeah, "theoretically" is doing a lot of work there. Removal requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate, which is absolutely neverfuckinghappening in a 2-party system. POTUS is now unstoppable and untethered.
    - Tadpole9181 10mo ago

techdmn 10mo ago

How did Voldemort put it? "There is no g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ law, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it." The law doesn't matter if there is no one to enforce it, or if enforcement is selective, etc.

sethev 10mo ago

I recall when this ruling was made, there was a BBC opinion piece that took an outraged position on this and contrasted it with the position of the prime minister in British politics. It struck me as funny because they literally have a person (the monarch) who is immune from arrest or prosecution for any act at all - not just official acts. It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...

vharuck 10mo ago
>There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate That is not a substitute for prosecution, it is a political process for removing a president. The Constitution's authors likely meant it to be used when a president ignored their duty, violated the Constitution, or lost public support before the end of their term. These are not federal crimes, so they don't go through the federal courts. The impeachment and removal process does imitate indictment and trial, but that's because there's no reason to reinvent the wheel. The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice. Historically, officials weren't prosecuted for official acts unless it was shown the act was part of another crime. So if the President delayed a FEMA response because of budget worries or incorrect forecasts, nobody would be prosecuted or open to lawsuits from citizens who suffered. But now, no official investigator can interview an appointed official to find out if the act was done as part of a crime. Worse, if the act was a presidential power enumerated in the Constitution, there is almost no way to investigate its use in an obvious crime. If the President only pardons people after they pay him $20,000 dollars, the President is immune from investigation. A hypothetical raised in the dissent is still an open question: what could be done if Donald Trump orders a military strike team to kill the next Democratic presidential nominee? Do you expect this Congress to actually impeach him? After he lied to, riled up, directed, and have plenty of time to a mob who invaded Congress and built a gallows to hang the Vice President? And Congress didn't prevent him from ever holding office again? I am not swayed by any argument along the lines of "But the President will be too worried about vindictive prosecution to make the right choices." If we really need to prevent that, I'd rather have every president thrown in prison for life after their term. No need to worry about prosecution, because you already know what awaits you. The office is more important than any individual holding it.

mjmsmith 10mo ago

Future generations watching the Frost/Nixon interview and wondering why Nixon even has to point out that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."

legitster 10mo ago

It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison. The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power. America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.

nullocator 10mo ago
It's not cleat to me that the constitution implies immunity for the president? It shouldn't imply or provide immunity for anyone. The president is a citizen. If the whole bill of goods all citizens are sold is "you have no fear of criminal prosecution if you've committed no crimes" and that supposed to be good enough for every day joes, it should be good enough for temporary and previous state actors.
- legitster 10mo ago
  Well - we do have similar immunity extensions for common citizens if their role warrants - if a soldier or police officer kill someone in the line of duty, they don't necessarily get charged with a crime. > “The President… is amenable to [the law] in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.” - James Wilson - one of the drafters and early Supreme Court justice I'm not arguing that the constitution gives the president broad immunity for all personal crimes. But it was pretty understood at the time and in the text of the constitution that impeachment was to proceed all legal criminal charges.
atmavatar 10mo ago
> It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison. How so? Please elaborate. I would point out that there's explicit language in Article I, Section 6 about House and Senate members being immune from prosecution for carrying out their duties: The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place. However, there is nothing in Article II regarding a grant of immunity to the President. I could see an argument that the President should probably be protected from arrest during his term, similar to Congressmen, but there's very clearly no mention of such protection in in the Constitution I can find. However, that's nothing compared to the broad protections the Roberts court handed him in Trump v. United States: protection from investigation, even after his term expires.

StoneAndSky 10mo ago

Thanks to Roberts and McConnell, the United States has a Presidential "Purge" window: The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.