Looking beyond the fate of this particular prosecution, the long-term consequences of today’s decision are stark. The Court effectively creates a law-free zone around the President, upsetting the status quo that has existed since the Founding. This new official-acts immunity now “lies about like a loaded weapon” for any President that wishes to place his own interests, his own political survival, or his own financial gain, above the interests of the Nation. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U. S. 214, 246 (1944) (Jackson, J., dissenting). 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 ex- change for a pardon Immune. Immune, immune, immune.
Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.
Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I
pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.
This ruling sounds good on its face, but it's mixed at best and somewhat bad in the broad view.
It doesn't define what is or isn't an official duty or act. It gives some examples and then says it's up to the lower courts to decide what is or isn't on a case by case basis. It specifically said some of the current allegations are official acts that can't be prosecuted and said some of the others are probably not official acts but the lower courts will have to rule on them. I'm sure that will be a speedy process that gets done before the election!
It also says it is the government's burden to prove an act isn't official, which will slow everything down and bring the cases back to SCOTUS again on a case by case basis. This also opens the possibility of political assassinations as being argued as official acts.
It mentions Presidents having limited immunity from having to make documents available. It does say it isn't absolute, but it definitely leaves the door open to block current court cases from using many documents as evidence and also leaves the door open to claim immunity for the classified docs case. Evidence fights at the current criminal cases are about to be much harder for the prosecution to win. Now, it does say that former Presidents no longer have this immunity but isn't clear whether that is for all docs or only docs for after they are former Presidents.
Maybe the worst is that it rules INTENT cannot be questioned. That is a core concept of criminal cases: intent matters! They are holding that it would bog down a President to be constantly asked about his/her intent when doing official acts, so therefor courts cannot question it. This REALLY opens the possibility of political assassinations, since intent behind the act cannot be questioned (e.g. it presupposes the person who was assassinated was committing treason or planning a terrorist attack and therefor the Presidential act was official). It does not say that former Presidents no longer have the Intent immunity, so this might be rough to clear in courts.
It specifically ruled that it is 100% OK to fire a person if they don't do the illegal thing the President asks them to do, as long as that person's job is something the President can hire/fire. It also ruled that if the illegal thing the President asks them to do falls within their job duties, then the President is immune from prosecution for asking for that illegal thing.
After mulling this over for these few hours, I realize what this ruling really does is render the President unaccountable to his Oath of Office. Any official act is presumed to be totally legal by the courts, unless he is impeached and removed from office over it. Much of his communications with his staff is now also not subject to review anywhere but Congress, as part of a formal impeachment proceeding.
A President is now officially a king, restrained by no law in what he can use his office to do, as long as he has the support of half of the House, or 1/3 of the Senate.
When this first dropped, all the news media had kind of cautious titles. It wasn't until after their legal reporters actually read it that they started getting the point.
Don't worry, they effectively ruled it's okay as a hobby as well by gutting the Chevron defense last week to kneecap the EPA and every major federal agency.
Would it be illegal for Biden to invalidate every ruling this Court has made, including the Presidential immunity one? Or would that lead to a paradox?
The ruling on presidential immunity today was pretty paradoxical, he has criminal immunity to breaking the law if he argues it's "to take care that laws be faithfully executed." Absolute immunity even since that's right in article 2, so why not?
right, but they also said any exercise of constitutional authority is an official act, so good luck getting anything declared a private act by the courts.
He can be charged for private acts, but as long as he used official communication to discuss it with others that can't be used as evidence. Then the stacked courts get to decide what is official and private, so private is effectively immune as well.
reuters.com
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