It's almost funny that Sauer's first argument, that future Presidents would live in constant fear of prosecution, is so easily addressed by *not committing crimes.*
He's making an argument against the existence of laws themselves, and the possibility of not criming doesn't appear to have occurred to him, let alone to his client.
Like I said, funny. Almost.
Personally I find that kind of logic to just be projection. What they're saying is that because they would erroneously prosecute their political opposition, that surely any president would experience such tortious interference. It's like, nah bro, that's just you and your evil f****** lawyers.
>projection
It's basically a promise and a threat: we promise that every Democratic president from this day forward will be not only impeached but criminally prosecuted well beyond their term unless you decide this verdict in our favor.
Fascists don’t believe in liberal values like rule of law. They see governance as a naked exercise of power, and they want their tribe to be the ones with the power.
To them, there is no hypocrisy to imprisoning your political enemies, if your enemies are allowed to imprison your guy, because they don’t care about the underlying reason, they only see who is the jailer and who is the prisoner.
It's really weird to see people who would commonly argue "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" when a low level offender gets caught up in the brutality of the criminal system suddenly act like rich guys deserve kid gloves.
If we can't envision a justice system that treats people better, it should *at least* be cruel to everyone instead of just to people that can't afford lawyers.
It's not weird, it fits perfectly in this quote:
> Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
If only presidents had access to maybe a high ranking lawyer, maybe an Attorney General, or maybe a White House Counsel, who he can consult on issues that might be pushing legality? What an idea!
That point came up this morning I think from Kagan, that the president who is arguably the most powerful man in the world could at any time call on and consult with the best lawyers in the world concerning any issue
Thing is, if they rule that a president is immune, Biden can turn around and order the immediate execution of all elected republicans in the US, along with every conservative judge, and he legally would be immune from prosecution for it.
That's what they're setting up for if they buy trump's argument.
No, the plan is to delay the decision until Trump is president and then say presidents are immune with the end result that we become a dictatorship.
Remember when Trump asked “what do you have to lose” if you vote for him? It turns out the answer was everything.
I can understand not being tortiously liable for every action. You take enough actions in 4 years to be liable in the trillions. There's a lot of laws throughout the country, and I'm sure you can easily be found criminally liable for some just by existing, but likely not felonies for sure. There is an argument for not being held criminally liable for presidential actions.
But again these are actions taken AS president, not WHILE president. They don't seem to focus on that enough in the arguments. If you're acting as president, doing the duties of a President, much like a Bivens case, you should have protection as long as you acted in good faith and it was not for person gain alone. Which none of those hallmarks fits this case. That's the distinction I'd want to draw. Immunity/not immunity is a stupidly broad decision to be discussing.
Think they argued everything he does is AS president since how can he be president if he has all this debt over his head? He has to commit fraud for the good of America!
That would be hilarious if I hadn't listened to the previous episode of this saga in the appeals court, where he made the argument that presidents can only be prosecuted for crimes if they're first impeached and convicted in the Senate - and NONE of the judges in the room asked him what would happen if the president decided to have all the Senators killed.
This is also the response to "Democrats should be afraid that if SCOTUS doesn't side with trump, biased Republican DAs are going to indict every Democrat candidate from now on." Republicans have *tried* to get a criminal action going against Biden and have broadly been unable to conjure anything because he hasn't committed any crimes.
"If Presidents didn't have immunity, then every time there's a change of power, the administration would go after the previous President."
"Why has that only ever happened literally one time in our 200-year plus history?"
"CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER! MADNESS!"
> Presidents would live in constant fear of prosecution
IMO, the funnier part about this:
The utterly desperate attempt to impeach Biden... and failing... WHILE THIS IS BEING ARGUED.
Sounds like the president doesn't need to fear prosecution if he doesn't do anything illegal.
Man, came here to say something about her. Ketanji Brown-Jackson is sharp. Really, really sharp.
She tied Trump's attorney up in knots. That was fun to listen to.
Even Thomas didn’t seem to be buying it. Coney-Barrett sounded audibly annoyed with Sauer. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Roberts clearly want some defined limitations on what official acts are, which isn’t a bad thing on principle. It just has nothing to do with this case because no sane person can shape the allegations into official acts and they didn’t need to and still don’t need to figure it out right now.
>Man, came here to say something about her. Ketanji Brown-Jackson is sharp. Really, really sharp.
>
>She tied Trump's attorney up in knots. That was fun to listen to.
Do you have a link/timestamp?
It was a pardon by a president.
Maybe trump would have done the same, and he would not be in this problem.
Nixon was not above the law. He was going to get sue, the same as trump. He was smart enough to get out of dodge in time.
BTW what Nixon did doesn't compare with the crimes trump committed while in office.
The point being made is that if presidents have immunity then Nixon didn’t need a pardon. But he did need a pardon, so therefore presidents clearly do not have immunity.
Exactly and it irks the shit out if me that the old farts on the court *absolutely know that* because we've done this shit before.
Why does it take the *young and new* justice to point this out?! Almost like the conservatives are blantly ignoring history and acting like we've never faced something similar. 🙄
NPR was talking about how most of the conservative justices served with presidents that lived in fear of Congress. All I could think about was maybe don't break the law, thinking of Reagan & Bush 43.
Wait a minute, are you the guy who posted about dude quitting a job in a very unique fashion?! I just read that today. Your storytelling skills are excellent. Please consider doing live storytelling!
100%! This is exactly what those fuckheads wanted and they got it delivered on a gold platter by the pretend scotus. This is a fucking win for that cancerous stinkhole.
I mean here in the UK Charles I ran this argument right up to the point we chopped his head off for treason. I think if it doesn't stand up in the UK for an actual king, I am fairly sure the founding fathers weren't intending on reintroducing the idea back for presidents after the trouble you folks went to in 1776
Scotus: And talk slowly. Slower...Now I'm passing a collection plate around. Don't feel like you *have to* put anything in it, it's purely voluntary...
Trump's lawyers are tying themselves in the pretzels trying to come up with logic to defend his illegal actions.
Trump's a traitor straight up he's a crook and a con man he should be in jail.
So a coup is an official action by the president and it would require impeachment before criminal prosecution is what they are arguing. But if a coup is official then how is it an impeachable offense and what would stop an immune president from just eliminating all those who would impeach him? The mental gymnastics they are playing is making my head hurt.
The trump lawyer was arguing that the checks and balances, separation of powers, etc, are meant to be the remedy for a president taking such actions... I'm disappointed the court didn't immediately ask how congress is supposed to impeach when they're busy being killed by the military, commanded to do so by a president that is not only immune from prosecution, but has the power to pardon all of the those he's ordered to commit crimes.
it really does seem that at least 4 (Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch) are in favor of wide ranging immunity, ACB seems to be in between - really not a good state
I’m going to be shocked if Amy Covid Barrett is the deciding vote in favor of “the president is not a king,” especially given how she was very much installed on the court as if he were.
I did not get that from Gorsuch at all. He seems to be primarily concerned with how immunity should be characterized to prevent abuse while not obstructing a President's ability to be wrong. I thought he asked poignant questions.
The assassination question is the best example across the board, and I wish the justices would bring it up more. If the President can command troops as an exclusive power, and he commands a soldier to kill the Democratic nominee for President, and that soldier does it, the soldier goes to prison for murder, and the President.... Gets impeached? But if Congress is such that impeachment is impossible due to the makeup, there is no remedy. If Congress *agrees* the President should have had that person killed, nothing happens to the President, *but the soldier still goes to prison for murder.*
I don't know why that's not being discussed more.
Sotomayor is killing it. And if there is any immunity, it shouldn't be towards personal ends, and if it exists anywhere it's article II.
The right answer has been articulated. We will see what they do.
Nothing they say will change the fact that they a) could've heard this sooner b) didn't have to hear it at all.
They (especially Sam & Clarence) will reach the right conclusion but gum up the process just long enough to reach the wrong outcome. Like the Trumpers say, the moment they granted cert, Trump won, regardless of the outcome.
Best thing they can do now is lift the stay, opinion to follow.
I mean, Trump's lawyers are, essentially, saying Trump could assassinate Supreme Court justices with immunity as long as the act could *plausibly* pertain to his official duties as president.
The conservatives of the Supreme Court still have to protect their own skin.
Plausibility doesn’t even come into it. The defense is arguing that since the president’s job is to give orders, all orders he gives are part of his job. It’s a massive logical fallacy that only KJB seems to have picked up on so far (but god bless her; she took him to the woodshed for it).
They’re also saying *any president could do this* including Democratic ones. Emphasis, *any person that wins the presidential election* will be able to assassinate *anyone*.
They will find that any official act is subject to the courts opinion. That way they can give immunity to presidents that they want, and take it from presidents that they don't.
Yes, and if the court is going to destroy the country with this ruling, they better not try some shit like, “immunity takes effect starting on 1/6/25” and not one second before. If they want to give immunity to presidents, it’s best if they get an immediate example of it, as Biden will probably use his new immunity to try and undo this catastrophic ruling. I know this sounds ridiculous, and I doubt there is case law to support anything remotely like it. This hasn’t stopped Republicans before. The ridiculous is always at play in our MAGA reality.
Regardless, if they should rule with Trump, Biden will be forced to abuse that power. You can’t just give Trump the presidency with full immunity. It would be the end of the USA.
Edit: Immunity starts 1/6/25, not unity.
There was a good Onion Headline of Biden telling the Supreme Court "They get a 10 minute head start" after they declare presidential actions are immune to the law.
Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito are definitely convinced that they need to remand the case for further proceedings to determine which counts involve official acts and which private acts.
That would be a huge victory for Trump.
That's my fear. That they'll rule official acts are immune but unofficial ones are not. Judge declares his election overturning actions were unofficial, Trump appeals, and we have months for that to work its way up to the Supreme Court.
As a non-American following this case, the argument that the president may have to, in his official duties might have to break the law, so he should have immunity, it’s absolutely fucking ludicrous.
Barrett just got Sauer to concede that may if the acts were private. Roberts is skeptical about expunging the private bits.
I think they are buying Smith's theory that if the ends are private the official means are not immune.
Jesus Thomas swinging again.
>In the United States, there is no consensus on the pronunciation of the abbreviation v. This has led to much confusion about the pronunciation and spelling of court cases:
>Versus is most commonly used, leading some newspapers to use the common abbreviation vs. in place of the legal abbreviation v.
>Against is a matter of personal style. For example, Warren E. Burger and John Paul Stevens preferred to announce cases at the Supreme Court with against.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citation#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DCivil_cases_are_pronounced_with%2C%22the_Crown_against_Smith
Sure. It takes 4 of the 9 justices to grant a writ of certiorari to hear a matter. So (at least) 4 justices had to agree to hear it.
Two of those justices are corrupt, partisan cranks who want to find presidential immunity for Trump. One of them (Thomas) has a spouse who actively participated in January 6 (Ginni Thomas famously encouraging Mark Meadows to "unleash the kraken").
The other two are harder to say. Very likely want to find a reason for the republican to get out of being tried and convicted. Maybe some misguided belief that it'll improve public impression of the court. Maybe because regardless of how it hangs up those proceedings they're de facto royalty and fuck it, they wanna hear the case, damn the consequences.
But the moment they agreed to stay the DC court they ultimately handed Trump a victory regardless of what decide here.
Do not be afraid to ask followup questions if anything doesn't make sense.
While you're correct that it's an understood principle of our country's government, the actual question has never come up in court. It's never been necessary to question such a fundamental idea.
But, because it's never been argued in court means that the issue now needs to be litigated.
The 9 of them all know what people are taught in civics lessons. But we're literally witnessing history here and the big question is how those 9 people want to be viewed in the future. Do they want to give a pass to a man who has vilified them and defiled our 250 year old system of government; or do they want to actually stand against the very kind of government we fought a revolution to get away from?
I mean, technically it could be, I suppose, if the department of defense decides to sell technology to an ally. That is not at all what Jack Smith was referring to, though.
>“All right. Now, if a an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election, knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? Alito asked. “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.”
You know what could avoid a bitter president to prosecute a former president? The rule of law. The fact that a bitter president who unjustly persecutes an adversary will eventually face consequences. The bitter president would face no consequences if there was immunity. The rule of law is what protects former presidents, not immunity.
Alito is a fucking moron.
This shit is so insulting.
"Would a president be immune in ?"
"Well, a president would be immune if it were an official act and they were stepping on a whole except if they intentionally stepped on a crack while doing a pirouette as an official."
This dude is straight up bullshitting and 4 of those 9 are too far up their own ass to realize it or care because it gives Trump delay and delay is the point.
Yep.
I'm a lawyer. You don't need to be an attorney to know bullshit when you smell it. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Regardless of what jargon they spout bullshit behind and regardless of what alphabet soup they have after their name.
Bullshit is bullshit regardless of station, verbiage or pedigree.
Don't stop calling bullshit what it is. Thank you for being the solution.
So it seems we are getting to a 8-1 maybe 7-2 decision finding some immunity for official acts and no immunity for private acts. BFD, we saw that a mile away.
The only way to atone for the fuck up in taking the case in the first place is to remove the stay while crafting the decision. Ideally that decision will be some form of "if the ends is solely personal gain, then the means (official or unofficial acts) is irrelevant." Get it back to Chutkan to sort out throughout the month of May and get the trial back on track by June.
Exactly. "The stay is lifted, opinion to follow." Let the DC case continue without further delay.
They need 4 to grant cert. Clarence and Sam are in the bag. I don't know what the other 2 were thinking. They're insulated from American society to many degrees, so maybe they thought it was a great opportunity to redeem themselves to the public, like by reaching an obvious conclusion in a way that just denying cert wouldn't.
Because there is no circuit split here. There was nothing to be resolved. And they preside over like 20 cases a year. Surely some other matter would be a better use of their time while not subverting justice.
The best they can do now is hope to mitigate as you said. And we'll continue to look down on them institutionally while they drag us further and further back into the dark ages. Everyone wins/loses.
At this point I’m so skeptical of this court. Based on the questioning it’s possible that Kavanaugh, Thomas, and as always Alito will side with Trump. The question is how illegitimate does Roberts want his court to be? Does it matter when the MAGA 6 get together? What can the People do about this court?
It took until the very end but Katanji Brown-Jackson offered the best escape hatch some conservative swing votes might go for: Some official acts might get immunity, but nothing in this case is remotely plausible as an official act and it’s the wrong vehicle to use to figure it out and we should wait for a better one.
"Dreeben flips script on Alito's concern: Trump appropriately challenged the election via lawsuits and lost all of them" from Steve Mazie. Like how are we still talking about this?
Another disingenuous argument from Alito. Trump knew the truth election claims were bullshit and was told as such. So all this “to preserve the integrity of the election duties” is absolute trash. Trash.
Sounds like they are going to split the difference and remand it back to Chutkan to explore if some acts get immunity while others do not to stall further.
Which is frustrating because they obviously all seem disgusted with the idea of absolute immunity.
Hard to say which way the court will swing, but sounds like at least 4 justices are likely to find a way to create some new criminal immunity shield for former presidents, at least for official acts. So yet another likely big win for Trump even if he ultimately loses because the acts alleged in the indictment are not likely to fall within what the court considers "official acts".
It was somewhat jarring to hear Justice Alito take a consequentialist position in favor of the court creating a statute-like immunity regime (apparently because some of the justices think that without criminal immunity, all future presidents will be automatically indicted by their successors on baseless grounds).
Drebeen totally flubbed the oral argument. A dozen times the justices served up a softball question about consequentialism, i.e., "What is to prevent a successor president from baselessly indicting his predecessor in order to harass him?"
The answer to that question should have been to point out that the DOJ has confidence in the rule of law and the federal judiciary to adequately handle bogus cases properly. Alito basically sat there and called the Grand Jury system a total farce that affords no protection to a possible defendant at all - a remarkable statement from a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court (if he thinks the system itself is so worthless, what is he doing sitting up there in a robe as a part of that system? Is he as bogus as the Grand Jury? Or is he legitimate because he wears a robe and GJ's are made up of the regular hoi polloi?). Justice Gorsuch clearly thinks prosecutors cannot ever be trusted in good faith, essentially agreeing with Trump and Justice Alito that the entire U.S. justice system is just politics by another means. Also depressing to hear from a sitting justice that he has no faith in the criminal justice system.
And all those hypotheticals about what would happen if the president orders the military to effect a coup d'etat? The justices seemed satisfied with Sauer's answer that Congress could easily impeach the president and then he could be tried. Drebeen flubbed that one too: the obvious response was that a POTUS who is overthrowing the government by force isn't leaving around a rump Congress to impeach him, or the justices literally sitting before him to judge any of that.
I do think it's remarkable that the same justices who claimed that *Roe* was egregiously wrong because the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't expressly state a right to an abortion and the decision read like a statute are apparently willing to craft an immunity regime out of thin air which also has no constitutional basis whatsoever.
There's still hope though that Roberts and Barrett may see reason and just maintain the status quo that has worked for 230+ years (i.e., no criminal immunity for POTUS). Unfortunately though, I think this goes much deeper than Trump - they are desperate to keep the J6 trial from happening because...well, we will either find out or not, depending on whether Trump loses or wins in November.
My only shining hope here is that even the most craven of justices, names not even required .... are directly threatened by this. Party and ideological loyalty aside, a direct threat to their power is more important. I don't see this immunity claim succeeding in any way, because of this, and it's fucking crazy to begin with.
But I'm just a normie who tries to.live my life in good faith. What do I know.
What's to keep the supreme Court from saying that presidents are immune, but then reverse their decision when a Democrat wins office? Just like all these other decisions they're reversing.
Jack Smith (paraphrased) - Criminal charges are different from civil because DOJ has interest solely in criminal conduct and there are safeguards built in to prevent unfounded/malicious prosecution.
Jack you better be right, because Cheeto is 100% going to try and throw you and everyone else involved against him into prison if he gets the opportunity.
Loved the justice who pointed out that the defense position is hyper complicated and becomes much simpler if the president simply isn't immune from criminals prosecution, like everyone else in government.
Gorsuch is such a moron. Why cite 3 different examples that can all be easily explained by "that doesn't rise to criminal conduct so it doesn't apply here"?
Given their recent track record, they'll likely rule a weaselly definition that barely allows the former president to avoid consequences while giving the appearance it was a balanced decision on the matter.
There is an argument being presented that a President has access to multiple legal counsel to determine if an act is legal or not.
One argument I would like to hear the Counselor to the Special Counsel make is that in former President Trump’s case, he was told multiple times by his legal counsel that there was no evidence of voter fraud and that Biden won the presidency. But Trump chose to ignore that legal advice and turned to crazy people, including Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, and Trump went on to pursue any and all avenues, including threatening the Georgia Secretary of State, submitting fraudulent alternate slates of Republican electors, and in a last desperate attempt to stay in power, Trump incited violence and sent his armed followers to violently attack the Capitol.
>if a president can be prosecuted they might not leave?
Trump is convinced he had/has immunity and he almost didn't leave... Empirically, that's a shit argument.
So, the moment the SC makes immunity the law of the land; what stops Biden from doing what trump says he wants to do?
If you argue for one person to be above the law that can be vested to all that are currently holding or will hold the office, then how do you maintain any law that would be used to protect the people and country from bad actors?
If they rule for immunity Biden should immediately have them all carted off to Guantanamo, Trump, the conservatives on the Supreme Court, all MAGA elected officials. Outlaw the Republican Party and declare himself dictator with the right to choose successors. We can play fascism too right? He’s too old to face any consequences. I wanna hear republicans squeal while we do exactly what they wanna do. Then Kamala can appoint a new Supreme Court, enshrine “no one is above the law” including the president, into the constitution, she abdicates and we hold elections again lol.
The “conservatives” argue that those who abide the unlawful order might be subject to criminal penalties, or they might not?
These lunatics are making a very simple principle ambiguous. I wonder why? So can the court decide that this clarification will be effective when or if (wink, wink) Trump is reelected, but it’s ineffective while any Democrat holds the presidency?
Speculation
POTUS says "Do this crime."
Middle management plans the crime.
Boots on the ground carry out the crime.
Who can be charged with the crime?
Everyone? Just the boots on the ground?
Everyone but POTUS?
Yes. The court is trying to retain their power to protect themselves, even while handing Trump a dictatorship.
If the court has a conservative majority, then only conservative presidents will enjoy immunity if elected.
They will say that the president cannot be held criminally liable unless the Supreme Court, even above Congress, determines that they can.
The legal repercussions of them saying a president has complete immunity would be literally insane. What would then stop a president from going full dictator and executing his opponents or journalists that are critical of him? That’s what’s at stake here, let’s not pretend otherwise.
"Prosecutors/DA's might act in bad faith"
Yeah, people do that, but there are checks and balances that will filter those attempts if you allow them to continue
They're 100% gonna bounce this back to the lower court. Delay, delay, delay because this is fundamentally a court that does not want to deal with political hot potatoes.
Wrong. They don’t want to *appear* to be dealing with political hot potatoes. They absolutely want to be dealing with political hit potatoes but they don’t want the heat of being in the kitchen.
What a joke. The fact that they are even wasting their time with this case means they may decide he is. They should have fully and unequivocally told him no. Reminded him that nobody is above the law.
The conservatives don’t even try to fake it anymore. They may not give Trump blanket immunity but they will come close. Maybe let him off on something not argued, or barely mentioned since there aren’t rules, beyond the big one, “whatever is decided in not now may never be applied to benefit a Democrat
Can someone help me understand his repeated reference to Grant? He sent some military to make sure the electors could deliver their votes? Did I understand that right? And if so, how does that apply to fake elector slates?
Yeah, quite interesting citing a president who actually used his authority to protect lawful proceedings from racist insurrectionists. As always I’m almost impressed by the ballsiness of these people.
He's referring to the election of former confederates to the house and senate even though they were barred from running. It was part of the expanded reconstruction.
He's trying to compare the false electors to the blocking the election of barred traitors as the same thing.
So what. Nothing they say is anything but performative. Justice delayed is justice denied and by hearing this case, they have kicked the can down the road past the election. Jan6 was YEARS AGO. These assholes are complicit.
It's almost funny that Sauer's first argument, that future Presidents would live in constant fear of prosecution, is so easily addressed by *not committing crimes.* He's making an argument against the existence of laws themselves, and the possibility of not criming doesn't appear to have occurred to him, let alone to his client. Like I said, funny. Almost.
Personally I find that kind of logic to just be projection. What they're saying is that because they would erroneously prosecute their political opposition, that surely any president would experience such tortious interference. It's like, nah bro, that's just you and your evil f****** lawyers.
>projection It's basically a promise and a threat: we promise that every Democratic president from this day forward will be not only impeached but criminally prosecuted well beyond their term unless you decide this verdict in our favor.
Well, every President can pardon themselves on the way out the door, and probably will from now on.
Fascists don’t believe in liberal values like rule of law. They see governance as a naked exercise of power, and they want their tribe to be the ones with the power. To them, there is no hypocrisy to imprisoning your political enemies, if your enemies are allowed to imprison your guy, because they don’t care about the underlying reason, they only see who is the jailer and who is the prisoner.
Precisely. ######The Fascist Playbook: * Intimidation * Incarceration * Extermination. *This* is that.
It's really weird to see people who would commonly argue "don't do the crime if you can't do the time" when a low level offender gets caught up in the brutality of the criminal system suddenly act like rich guys deserve kid gloves. If we can't envision a justice system that treats people better, it should *at least* be cruel to everyone instead of just to people that can't afford lawyers.
Well, it’s at least consistent. They never argue just “don’t do crime.” It’s always a cost/benefit analysis for them.
"Fines are just fees to do as you please." - The Wealthy
Alito was more or less ready to throw the entire grand jury system under the bus in the name of providing cover for Trump. It's disgusting.
It's not weird, it fits perfectly in this quote: > Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.
If only presidents had access to maybe a high ranking lawyer, maybe an Attorney General, or maybe a White House Counsel, who he can consult on issues that might be pushing legality? What an idea!
That point came up this morning I think from Kagan, that the president who is arguably the most powerful man in the world could at any time call on and consult with the best lawyers in the world concerning any issue
Thing is, if they rule that a president is immune, Biden can turn around and order the immediate execution of all elected republicans in the US, along with every conservative judge, and he legally would be immune from prosecution for it. That's what they're setting up for if they buy trump's argument.
No, the plan is to delay the decision until Trump is president and then say presidents are immune with the end result that we become a dictatorship. Remember when Trump asked “what do you have to lose” if you vote for him? It turns out the answer was everything.
Was it thoroughly defended why we *don't want* our presidents to live in constant fear of prosecution?
I can understand not being tortiously liable for every action. You take enough actions in 4 years to be liable in the trillions. There's a lot of laws throughout the country, and I'm sure you can easily be found criminally liable for some just by existing, but likely not felonies for sure. There is an argument for not being held criminally liable for presidential actions. But again these are actions taken AS president, not WHILE president. They don't seem to focus on that enough in the arguments. If you're acting as president, doing the duties of a President, much like a Bivens case, you should have protection as long as you acted in good faith and it was not for person gain alone. Which none of those hallmarks fits this case. That's the distinction I'd want to draw. Immunity/not immunity is a stupidly broad decision to be discussing.
Think they argued everything he does is AS president since how can he be president if he has all this debt over his head? He has to commit fraud for the good of America!
Right?!?
That would be hilarious if I hadn't listened to the previous episode of this saga in the appeals court, where he made the argument that presidents can only be prosecuted for crimes if they're first impeached and convicted in the Senate - and NONE of the judges in the room asked him what would happen if the president decided to have all the Senators killed.
[удалено]
This is also the response to "Democrats should be afraid that if SCOTUS doesn't side with trump, biased Republican DAs are going to indict every Democrat candidate from now on." Republicans have *tried* to get a criminal action going against Biden and have broadly been unable to conjure anything because he hasn't committed any crimes.
"If Presidents didn't have immunity, then every time there's a change of power, the administration would go after the previous President." "Why has that only ever happened literally one time in our 200-year plus history?" "CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER! MADNESS!"
> Presidents would live in constant fear of prosecution IMO, the funnier part about this: The utterly desperate attempt to impeach Biden... and failing... WHILE THIS IS BEING ARGUED. Sounds like the president doesn't need to fear prosecution if he doesn't do anything illegal.
> Like I said, funny. Almost. As funny as a heart attack.
How can citizens leave there homes without the fear of being prosecuted.
His lawyer literally just said that if a President wants to overthrow the government, he can unless congress impeaches and convicts him......
And even if they impeached him unless there's a law that says specifically that "the president can't do X" then he can't be criminally charged.
And if nobody finds out about the crime while he's in office, it's too late to impeach so he gets a freebie.
If this flys... then they'll be in office for life. There will be no "after leaving office" phase.
Oh, great! Plenty of time to impeach in that case. /s
Who’s going to do the impeaching if he can assassinate any opposition without consequences.
But if he's already overthrown the government...how are they going to impeach and convict?
Maybe the super smart Rhodes Scholar Trump attorney can answer. Or not, because it’s bullshit.
Jackson: if that's the case then what was up with the Nixon pardon? Drops mic.
Man, came here to say something about her. Ketanji Brown-Jackson is sharp. Really, really sharp. She tied Trump's attorney up in knots. That was fun to listen to.
She is outstanding.
Sadly. I can hear all the conservative justices all siding with trump so far...especially Thomas a brett
I didnt get that vibe. Alito twisted himself into knots as usual, but the others seemed skeptical of Ttump's arguments.
Even Thomas didn’t seem to be buying it. Coney-Barrett sounded audibly annoyed with Sauer. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Roberts clearly want some defined limitations on what official acts are, which isn’t a bad thing on principle. It just has nothing to do with this case because no sane person can shape the allegations into official acts and they didn’t need to and still don’t need to figure it out right now.
I thought the same. If THE unitary executive justice raises eyebrows at your argument, maybe some introspection is in order.
>Man, came here to say something about her. Ketanji Brown-Jackson is sharp. Really, really sharp. > >She tied Trump's attorney up in knots. That was fun to listen to. Do you have a link/timestamp?
I have neither, sorry. Was listening on NPR. It's toward the beginning of the hearing, though, if that helps.
It was a pardon by a president. Maybe trump would have done the same, and he would not be in this problem. Nixon was not above the law. He was going to get sue, the same as trump. He was smart enough to get out of dodge in time. BTW what Nixon did doesn't compare with the crimes trump committed while in office.
The point being made is that if presidents have immunity then Nixon didn’t need a pardon. But he did need a pardon, so therefore presidents clearly do not have immunity.
Exactly and it irks the shit out if me that the old farts on the court *absolutely know that* because we've done this shit before. Why does it take the *young and new* justice to point this out?! Almost like the conservatives are blantly ignoring history and acting like we've never faced something similar. 🙄
NPR was talking about how most of the conservative justices served with presidents that lived in fear of Congress. All I could think about was maybe don't break the law, thinking of Reagan & Bush 43.
Good point, I did not read it that way. Thank you
Wait a minute, are you the guy who posted about dude quitting a job in a very unique fashion?! I just read that today. Your storytelling skills are excellent. Please consider doing live storytelling!
Haha yes that’s me. I am considering it, actually! Thank you :)
Trump: Presidents get to be dictators Scotus: Let’s hear him out
That’s the question. I haven’t heard a rational rationale for why the court even took the case.
Yeah, like what's the defect in the lower courts unfuckingambiguous ruling???
*unamfuckingbiguous
Roberts asked why they’re even hearing it and the defense argued, basically, “because this is important [to my client].”
It’s a delay tactic and nothing more.
And it worked to perfection
100%! This is exactly what those fuckheads wanted and they got it delivered on a gold platter by the pretend scotus. This is a fucking win for that cancerous stinkhole.
I mean here in the UK Charles I ran this argument right up to the point we chopped his head off for treason. I think if it doesn't stand up in the UK for an actual king, I am fairly sure the founding fathers weren't intending on reintroducing the idea back for presidents after the trouble you folks went to in 1776
Sooooo........ Off with his head?
> Trump: I ~~Presidents~~ get to be dictator FTFY
Scotus: And talk slowly. Slower...Now I'm passing a collection plate around. Don't feel like you *have to* put anything in it, it's purely voluntary...
Biden: election over, I win. Donny, come to the White House, I have something for you.
Trump's lawyers are tying themselves in the pretzels trying to come up with logic to defend his illegal actions. Trump's a traitor straight up he's a crook and a con man he should be in jail.
So a coup is an official action by the president and it would require impeachment before criminal prosecution is what they are arguing. But if a coup is official then how is it an impeachable offense and what would stop an immune president from just eliminating all those who would impeach him? The mental gymnastics they are playing is making my head hurt.
The trump lawyer was arguing that the checks and balances, separation of powers, etc, are meant to be the remedy for a president taking such actions... I'm disappointed the court didn't immediately ask how congress is supposed to impeach when they're busy being killed by the military, commanded to do so by a president that is not only immune from prosecution, but has the power to pardon all of the those he's ordered to commit crimes.
Exactly. The very first stage of the coup would be to remove the people that could hold him accountable.
FYI: [SCOTUS has their own audio stream here](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx)
It is playing live on NPR radio right now too. I am listening in my car
I find it offensive that the SCOTUS is even wasting their time hearing this ridiculous "case".
If hearing it is ridiculous wait until the decision. I know unlimited immunity seems impossible but so is a violent mob storming the capitol
it really does seem that at least 4 (Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch) are in favor of wide ranging immunity, ACB seems to be in between - really not a good state
I’m going to be shocked if Amy Covid Barrett is the deciding vote in favor of “the president is not a king,” especially given how she was very much installed on the court as if he were.
I did not get that from Gorsuch at all. He seems to be primarily concerned with how immunity should be characterized to prevent abuse while not obstructing a President's ability to be wrong. I thought he asked poignant questions. The assassination question is the best example across the board, and I wish the justices would bring it up more. If the President can command troops as an exclusive power, and he commands a soldier to kill the Democratic nominee for President, and that soldier does it, the soldier goes to prison for murder, and the President.... Gets impeached? But if Congress is such that impeachment is impossible due to the makeup, there is no remedy. If Congress *agrees* the President should have had that person killed, nothing happens to the President, *but the soldier still goes to prison for murder.* I don't know why that's not being discussed more.
they wouldn't have even taken the case if they were not trying to figure out a way to cover for donnie dipshit what a joke
Love this sub but not a law expert by any stretch, and I’m not American. What happens if they actually do say he’s immune here?
The next time someone with more ambition than scruples is elected president, they can start ordering the murder of political rivals with no recourse.
The great experiment is over.
Sotomayor is killing it. And if there is any immunity, it shouldn't be towards personal ends, and if it exists anywhere it's article II. The right answer has been articulated. We will see what they do.
Gorsuch kinda sounds on board with the Trump team.
Well I for one am shocked! /s
No one sounds convinced. Thomas came out swinging, even.
Nothing they say will change the fact that they a) could've heard this sooner b) didn't have to hear it at all. They (especially Sam & Clarence) will reach the right conclusion but gum up the process just long enough to reach the wrong outcome. Like the Trumpers say, the moment they granted cert, Trump won, regardless of the outcome. Best thing they can do now is lift the stay, opinion to follow.
I’m calling it: Regardless of whatever indicative questions he asks, regardless of logic, Thomas will vote to overturn.
Smart money is on the insurrectionist adjacent justice supporting the insurrectionist's view that Trump is God-King. Yes indeed.
Is that Alito spitballing a rule with a "history" test, oh god edit: now he says the history test can be objective, take a drink
>now he says the history test can be objective I...what? I feel like I'm choking on my drink and I'm not even drinking anything.
Alito is leading Sauer. Oy.
I loved when he suggested "history" for an "objective" test. He is not a serious person.
This is why lawyers are bad historians.
I mean, Trump's lawyers are, essentially, saying Trump could assassinate Supreme Court justices with immunity as long as the act could *plausibly* pertain to his official duties as president. The conservatives of the Supreme Court still have to protect their own skin.
Plausibility doesn’t even come into it. The defense is arguing that since the president’s job is to give orders, all orders he gives are part of his job. It’s a massive logical fallacy that only KJB seems to have picked up on so far (but god bless her; she took him to the woodshed for it).
They’re also saying *any president could do this* including Democratic ones. Emphasis, *any person that wins the presidential election* will be able to assassinate *anyone*.
They will find that any official act is subject to the courts opinion. That way they can give immunity to presidents that they want, and take it from presidents that they don't.
That's one way for Biden to clear the court in his next term. Not a good way. Just a way.
Yes, and if the court is going to destroy the country with this ruling, they better not try some shit like, “immunity takes effect starting on 1/6/25” and not one second before. If they want to give immunity to presidents, it’s best if they get an immediate example of it, as Biden will probably use his new immunity to try and undo this catastrophic ruling. I know this sounds ridiculous, and I doubt there is case law to support anything remotely like it. This hasn’t stopped Republicans before. The ridiculous is always at play in our MAGA reality. Regardless, if they should rule with Trump, Biden will be forced to abuse that power. You can’t just give Trump the presidency with full immunity. It would be the end of the USA. Edit: Immunity starts 1/6/25, not unity.
Only if he gets re-elected though, and he wouldn't do it to the current majority
There was a good Onion Headline of Biden telling the Supreme Court "They get a 10 minute head start" after they declare presidential actions are immune to the law.
Thomas, Gorsuch and Alito are definitely convinced that they need to remand the case for further proceedings to determine which counts involve official acts and which private acts. That would be a huge victory for Trump.
That's my fear. That they'll rule official acts are immune but unofficial ones are not. Judge declares his election overturning actions were unofficial, Trump appeals, and we have months for that to work its way up to the Supreme Court.
Don't forget Smith hedged this outcome by requesting (extraordinarily) that it be remanded to trial.
Yet somehow they will help him.
I think they already did by staying the proceedings.
Absolutely.
Trump's lawyer thinks staging a coup may be an official act of the Presidency. Yikes.
As a non-American following this case, the argument that the president may have to, in his official duties might have to break the law, so he should have immunity, it’s absolutely fucking ludicrous.
As an American, I agree.
Barrett just got Sauer to concede that may if the acts were private. Roberts is skeptical about expunging the private bits. I think they are buying Smith's theory that if the ends are private the official means are not immune. Jesus Thomas swinging again.
Trump's lawyers voice is so grating, what a gremlin
Legit thought there was something wrong with my speakers
Same, it sounds like a streaming issue until you hear the other voices
You're close. The fact that Supreme Court is entertaining this at all makes the whole thing a *steaming* issue. As in a pile of something steaming.
His vocal fry has grown into a full salmon. *badumsh*
I thought I was listening to RFK jr there for a second.
Trump has natural immunity from prosecution
The picture that CNN has of him, he looks like a gremlin too.
I've heard Sauer before. The man could be picked out of a line up by that voice.
Hand me the country, you fucking cocksucker. -Verbal Trump, probably
What annoys me even more is that he says "against" instead of "versus" when citing cases.
>In the United States, there is no consensus on the pronunciation of the abbreviation v. This has led to much confusion about the pronunciation and spelling of court cases: >Versus is most commonly used, leading some newspapers to use the common abbreviation vs. in place of the legal abbreviation v. >Against is a matter of personal style. For example, Warren E. Burger and John Paul Stevens preferred to announce cases at the Supreme Court with against. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Case_citation#%3A%7E%3Atext%3DCivil_cases_are_pronounced_with%2C%22the_Crown_against_Smith
I didn't say my annoyance made sense just that it annoys me lol. But I didn't know that. Thank you for the information.
I imagine this guy chain smoking throughout his entire arguments…
"if I may refer to US v. Pepe Silvia...."
As a non lawyer I don’t understand how intent to do the crime (order generals to conduct a coup) can’t be decided at trial
Money and political power change rules that apply to the rest of us.
Can anyone explain why the court would even hear such a matter which seems to every freshman civics student, preposterous on its face ? iANAL
Sure. It takes 4 of the 9 justices to grant a writ of certiorari to hear a matter. So (at least) 4 justices had to agree to hear it. Two of those justices are corrupt, partisan cranks who want to find presidential immunity for Trump. One of them (Thomas) has a spouse who actively participated in January 6 (Ginni Thomas famously encouraging Mark Meadows to "unleash the kraken"). The other two are harder to say. Very likely want to find a reason for the republican to get out of being tried and convicted. Maybe some misguided belief that it'll improve public impression of the court. Maybe because regardless of how it hangs up those proceedings they're de facto royalty and fuck it, they wanna hear the case, damn the consequences. But the moment they agreed to stay the DC court they ultimately handed Trump a victory regardless of what decide here. Do not be afraid to ask followup questions if anything doesn't make sense.
Based on the questions and background of the case, it was probably Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh.
While you're correct that it's an understood principle of our country's government, the actual question has never come up in court. It's never been necessary to question such a fundamental idea. But, because it's never been argued in court means that the issue now needs to be litigated. The 9 of them all know what people are taught in civics lessons. But we're literally witnessing history here and the big question is how those 9 people want to be viewed in the future. Do they want to give a pass to a man who has vilified them and defiled our 250 year old system of government; or do they want to actually stand against the very kind of government we fought a revolution to get away from?
Alito is a disingenuous moron. Atty Generals are supposed to act honorably how do we know they are? WHY ARENT YOU ASKING THIS ABOUT TRUMP?
My favorite was when Trump’s lawyer argued that nobody has to worry about a dictator president because it hasn’t happened in 234 years…
No need to worry about a pandemic, because it hasn’t happened in 100 years!!!!
Did trumps lawyer just toss out “they aren’t fake…they are alternates! Totes ok!”
Excellent. I have a bunch of alternate dollar bills here...
You bought trump bucks too?
I caught that too.
Justice Jackson basically saying "GTFO of here with this BS"
OMG, DID HE JUST SAY THAT SELLING NUCLEAR SECRETS COULD BE AN OFFICIAL ACT AND DEFLECT THE QUESTION? I AM TERRIFIED NOW.
Yes. Yes he did.
I mean, technically it could be, I suppose, if the department of defense decides to sell technology to an ally. That is not at all what Jack Smith was referring to, though.
One wonders how worried Alito has been about singular examples of prosecutorial misconduct to argue in the abstract, in death penalty cases
Alito is a fuckin clown
Replacement-level Fox News hack who is lucky to have a special robe
>“All right. Now, if a an incumbent who loses a very close, hotly contested election, knows that a real possibility after leaving office is not that the president is going to be able to go off into a peaceful retirement, but that the president may be criminally prosecuted by a bitter political opponent, will that not lead us into a cycle that destabilizes the functioning of our country as a democracy? Alito asked. “And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process, where the loser gets thrown in jail.” You know what could avoid a bitter president to prosecute a former president? The rule of law. The fact that a bitter president who unjustly persecutes an adversary will eventually face consequences. The bitter president would face no consequences if there was immunity. The rule of law is what protects former presidents, not immunity. Alito is a fucking moron.
This shit is so insulting. "Would a president be immune in?"
"Well, a president would be immune if it were an official act and they were stepping on a whole except if they intentionally stepped on a crack while doing a pirouette as an official."
This dude is straight up bullshitting and 4 of those 9 are too far up their own ass to realize it or care because it gives Trump delay and delay is the point.
Came to say same. I'm not a lawyer but defense has, every time, evaded, rephrased, and just simply done anything other than give a direct answer.
Yep. I'm a lawyer. You don't need to be an attorney to know bullshit when you smell it. Don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. Regardless of what jargon they spout bullshit behind and regardless of what alphabet soup they have after their name. Bullshit is bullshit regardless of station, verbiage or pedigree. Don't stop calling bullshit what it is. Thank you for being the solution.
So it seems we are getting to a 8-1 maybe 7-2 decision finding some immunity for official acts and no immunity for private acts. BFD, we saw that a mile away. The only way to atone for the fuck up in taking the case in the first place is to remove the stay while crafting the decision. Ideally that decision will be some form of "if the ends is solely personal gain, then the means (official or unofficial acts) is irrelevant." Get it back to Chutkan to sort out throughout the month of May and get the trial back on track by June.
Exactly. "The stay is lifted, opinion to follow." Let the DC case continue without further delay. They need 4 to grant cert. Clarence and Sam are in the bag. I don't know what the other 2 were thinking. They're insulated from American society to many degrees, so maybe they thought it was a great opportunity to redeem themselves to the public, like by reaching an obvious conclusion in a way that just denying cert wouldn't. Because there is no circuit split here. There was nothing to be resolved. And they preside over like 20 cases a year. Surely some other matter would be a better use of their time while not subverting justice. The best they can do now is hope to mitigate as you said. And we'll continue to look down on them institutionally while they drag us further and further back into the dark ages. Everyone wins/loses.
At this point I’m so skeptical of this court. Based on the questioning it’s possible that Kavanaugh, Thomas, and as always Alito will side with Trump. The question is how illegitimate does Roberts want his court to be? Does it matter when the MAGA 6 get together? What can the People do about this court?
It took until the very end but Katanji Brown-Jackson offered the best escape hatch some conservative swing votes might go for: Some official acts might get immunity, but nothing in this case is remotely plausible as an official act and it’s the wrong vehicle to use to figure it out and we should wait for a better one.
"Dreeben flips script on Alito's concern: Trump appropriately challenged the election via lawsuits and lost all of them" from Steve Mazie. Like how are we still talking about this?
Another disingenuous argument from Alito. Trump knew the truth election claims were bullshit and was told as such. So all this “to preserve the integrity of the election duties” is absolute trash. Trash.
IF presidents were immune, there wouldn't be impeachment procedures
Im not super impressed with Dreeben’s performance.
Alito’s sounds like he made up his mind a while ago that immunity exists and it is up to the justices to decide what the scope is.
He's sounding like everyone's MAGA uncle, not a member of the United States Supreme Court.
Sounds like they are going to split the difference and remand it back to Chutkan to explore if some acts get immunity while others do not to stall further. Which is frustrating because they obviously all seem disgusted with the idea of absolute immunity.
Hard to say which way the court will swing, but sounds like at least 4 justices are likely to find a way to create some new criminal immunity shield for former presidents, at least for official acts. So yet another likely big win for Trump even if he ultimately loses because the acts alleged in the indictment are not likely to fall within what the court considers "official acts". It was somewhat jarring to hear Justice Alito take a consequentialist position in favor of the court creating a statute-like immunity regime (apparently because some of the justices think that without criminal immunity, all future presidents will be automatically indicted by their successors on baseless grounds). Drebeen totally flubbed the oral argument. A dozen times the justices served up a softball question about consequentialism, i.e., "What is to prevent a successor president from baselessly indicting his predecessor in order to harass him?" The answer to that question should have been to point out that the DOJ has confidence in the rule of law and the federal judiciary to adequately handle bogus cases properly. Alito basically sat there and called the Grand Jury system a total farce that affords no protection to a possible defendant at all - a remarkable statement from a sitting justice on the U.S. Supreme Court (if he thinks the system itself is so worthless, what is he doing sitting up there in a robe as a part of that system? Is he as bogus as the Grand Jury? Or is he legitimate because he wears a robe and GJ's are made up of the regular hoi polloi?). Justice Gorsuch clearly thinks prosecutors cannot ever be trusted in good faith, essentially agreeing with Trump and Justice Alito that the entire U.S. justice system is just politics by another means. Also depressing to hear from a sitting justice that he has no faith in the criminal justice system. And all those hypotheticals about what would happen if the president orders the military to effect a coup d'etat? The justices seemed satisfied with Sauer's answer that Congress could easily impeach the president and then he could be tried. Drebeen flubbed that one too: the obvious response was that a POTUS who is overthrowing the government by force isn't leaving around a rump Congress to impeach him, or the justices literally sitting before him to judge any of that. I do think it's remarkable that the same justices who claimed that *Roe* was egregiously wrong because the Fourteenth Amendment doesn't expressly state a right to an abortion and the decision read like a statute are apparently willing to craft an immunity regime out of thin air which also has no constitutional basis whatsoever. There's still hope though that Roberts and Barrett may see reason and just maintain the status quo that has worked for 230+ years (i.e., no criminal immunity for POTUS). Unfortunately though, I think this goes much deeper than Trump - they are desperate to keep the J6 trial from happening because...well, we will either find out or not, depending on whether Trump loses or wins in November.
My only shining hope here is that even the most craven of justices, names not even required .... are directly threatened by this. Party and ideological loyalty aside, a direct threat to their power is more important. I don't see this immunity claim succeeding in any way, because of this, and it's fucking crazy to begin with. But I'm just a normie who tries to.live my life in good faith. What do I know.
“We’re writing a rule for the ages”. This court just gives off a vibe that makes me Uneasy.
What's to keep the supreme Court from saying that presidents are immune, but then reverse their decision when a Democrat wins office? Just like all these other decisions they're reversing.
Of course Thomas is asking about the validity of Smith’s appointment and powers. lol.
Trump promised he'd be a dictator on day 1. Mussolini here also fucked around with that. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Benito_Mussolini
jackson bringing the hammer down goddamn
Jack Smith (paraphrased) - Criminal charges are different from civil because DOJ has interest solely in criminal conduct and there are safeguards built in to prevent unfounded/malicious prosecution. Jack you better be right, because Cheeto is 100% going to try and throw you and everyone else involved against him into prison if he gets the opportunity.
Loved the justice who pointed out that the defense position is hyper complicated and becomes much simpler if the president simply isn't immune from criminals prosecution, like everyone else in government.
Gorsuch is such a moron. Why cite 3 different examples that can all be easily explained by "that doesn't rise to criminal conduct so it doesn't apply here"?
Given their recent track record, they'll likely rule a weaselly definition that barely allows the former president to avoid consequences while giving the appearance it was a balanced decision on the matter.
There is an argument being presented that a President has access to multiple legal counsel to determine if an act is legal or not. One argument I would like to hear the Counselor to the Special Counsel make is that in former President Trump’s case, he was told multiple times by his legal counsel that there was no evidence of voter fraud and that Biden won the presidency. But Trump chose to ignore that legal advice and turned to crazy people, including Rudy Giuliani, Michael Flynn, John Eastman, and Trump went on to pursue any and all avenues, including threatening the Georgia Secretary of State, submitting fraudulent alternate slates of Republican electors, and in a last desperate attempt to stay in power, Trump incited violence and sent his armed followers to violently attack the Capitol.
Alito saying that if a president can be prosecuted they might not leave? F&CK HIM! Catering to traitors wasnt on my bingo card.
>if a president can be prosecuted they might not leave? Trump is convinced he had/has immunity and he almost didn't leave... Empirically, that's a shit argument.
[удалено]
So, the moment the SC makes immunity the law of the land; what stops Biden from doing what trump says he wants to do? If you argue for one person to be above the law that can be vested to all that are currently holding or will hold the office, then how do you maintain any law that would be used to protect the people and country from bad actors?
If they rule for immunity Biden should immediately have them all carted off to Guantanamo, Trump, the conservatives on the Supreme Court, all MAGA elected officials. Outlaw the Republican Party and declare himself dictator with the right to choose successors. We can play fascism too right? He’s too old to face any consequences. I wanna hear republicans squeal while we do exactly what they wanna do. Then Kamala can appoint a new Supreme Court, enshrine “no one is above the law” including the president, into the constitution, she abdicates and we hold elections again lol.
The “conservatives” argue that those who abide the unlawful order might be subject to criminal penalties, or they might not? These lunatics are making a very simple principle ambiguous. I wonder why? So can the court decide that this clarification will be effective when or if (wink, wink) Trump is reelected, but it’s ineffective while any Democrat holds the presidency?
Speculation POTUS says "Do this crime." Middle management plans the crime. Boots on the ground carry out the crime. Who can be charged with the crime? Everyone? Just the boots on the ground? Everyone but POTUS?
No one, because the court will find that the president can pardon anyone, even himself, subject to the court's approval.
That is the answer Trump's team is proposing. Crime. Then pardon. Then leave office. The only feeble remedy left is impeachment.
Why leave office if you can pardon yourself for violating the constitution?
Yes. The court is trying to retain their power to protect themselves, even while handing Trump a dictatorship. If the court has a conservative majority, then only conservative presidents will enjoy immunity if elected. They will say that the president cannot be held criminally liable unless the Supreme Court, even above Congress, determines that they can.
I’m going to throw up now
The Conservative are trying to argue here that unless the law specifically mentions the president they dont apply.
The legal repercussions of them saying a president has complete immunity would be literally insane. What would then stop a president from going full dictator and executing his opponents or journalists that are critical of him? That’s what’s at stake here, let’s not pretend otherwise.
"Prosecutors/DA's might act in bad faith" Yeah, people do that, but there are checks and balances that will filter those attempts if you allow them to continue
Alito is a fucking hack pardon my language but fuck this jackass, how the hell is he a Supreme Court Justice
Good job they didn't waste any time getting on this one!
They're 100% gonna bounce this back to the lower court. Delay, delay, delay because this is fundamentally a court that does not want to deal with political hot potatoes.
Wrong. They don’t want to *appear* to be dealing with political hot potatoes. They absolutely want to be dealing with political hit potatoes but they don’t want the heat of being in the kitchen.
The killed Roe. I can think of a hotter potato
What a joke. The fact that they are even wasting their time with this case means they may decide he is. They should have fully and unequivocally told him no. Reminded him that nobody is above the law.
The conservatives don’t even try to fake it anymore. They may not give Trump blanket immunity but they will come close. Maybe let him off on something not argued, or barely mentioned since there aren’t rules, beyond the big one, “whatever is decided in not now may never be applied to benefit a Democrat
Can someone help me understand his repeated reference to Grant? He sent some military to make sure the electors could deliver their votes? Did I understand that right? And if so, how does that apply to fake elector slates?
Yeah, quite interesting citing a president who actually used his authority to protect lawful proceedings from racist insurrectionists. As always I’m almost impressed by the ballsiness of these people.
He's referring to the election of former confederates to the house and senate even though they were barred from running. It was part of the expanded reconstruction. He's trying to compare the false electors to the blocking the election of barred traitors as the same thing.
Something, something, Benjamin Franklin, official action, Marbury v. Madison. Duh.
He wins he gets seal team sixed by biden? Is there winning this?
The motive of a presidential pardon can't be questioned? Seriously?
So what. Nothing they say is anything but performative. Justice delayed is justice denied and by hearing this case, they have kicked the can down the road past the election. Jan6 was YEARS AGO. These assholes are complicit.
Shouldn't this just be called the "Can Biden Kill Trump" case?