373

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.

But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.

Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.

“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.

Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 4 months ago

the president already has immunity as well? Though i believe specifically, it's civil immunity, which tbf is probably most of the cases that would arise.

Regardless it's literally enshrined in the founding papers of america, that the president is not treated any different from a normal civilian. It's a foundational part of our government.

And if you really wanted immunity. Why not provide immunity during their tenure? And not outside of it. We can't justifiably hold our president from the prospects of criminal charges, and we don't (privately), and haven't (entirely) for the past 200 years. And even if they did get charged with something, it's not like you couldn't get a pardon. That's what happened with nixon.

Here's a better question though. Why would the president ever break a law, could you provide a example where it would be obviously beneficial for the president of the US to be immune (across the board) from prosecution? Because in most cases where you would argue for it, it's already explicitly immune due to a separate exclusive immunity, rather than inclusive immunity, as this provides. At best this seems incredibly redundant, and at worst this literally removes an entire segment of checks and balances against the executive, as currently defined, it basically blanket removes a check and balance.

Why not institute some form of decorum for processing and handling criminal charges against the executive that ensure that no duties are "inhibited" without providing a total immunity, except for cases that are not currently defined. It's not like the president doesn't have any legal experts around him.

And while it's true that it's dependent on what's classified as an "official duty" the sole discretion of that is left up to the supreme court. Which removes the independent nature of the congress performing a check and balance. Especially considering the often turbulent nature of the modern supreme court.

[-] Akuden@lemmy.world -4 points 4 months ago

The discretion of official duty is left up to the trails court, not the supreme court. It's literally in the ruling.

The president has always had immunity. This changes nothing.

If I order someone to be murdered in another country I can be prosecuted. If the president does it they cannot be prosecuted (if, obviously, it was for the protection of the United States). There is your example. SCOTUS didn't give the president anything. The president already had it. Because SCOTUS doesn't make law.

Have a nice day / night.

this post was submitted on 03 Jul 2024
373 points (94.5% liked)

politics

19107 readers
3028 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS