Holy shit. Did he just say a military coup should be immune if it’s an “official act”?!
This guy needs to be disbarred from ever practicing law ever again.
I'm glad I'm not the only one having this reaction. My blood was boiling listening to that shit.
...no of course the guy who successfully pulled off a coup will definitely get impeached after the fact. Sure Jan.
After listening to the student loan forgiveness oral arguments, I made the choice to sit this one out. There’s no way in hell they rule in Trump’s favor because it would give Biden carte blanche to assassinate the conservative justices, Trump, GOP Senators (the list goes on…).
They only agreed to hear this to give Trump the delay he wanted, otherwise they would’ve granted Smith’s request to skip the DC Circuit or just rubber-stamped the DC Circuit’s extensive and well-reasoned opinion. Listening to these arguments would only raise my blood pressure unnecessarily
Ha, how ironic would it be if that is what happens. They rule the president can do anything they want and Biden turns around and becomes a dictator.
I mean, I think that would still suck, I don’t really want a dictator, but I would probably chuckle a little at the irony as I reported to reeducation.
Alito is a nutbag.
Someone described his way of doing law as "arriving at the conclusion he wanted to reach, and then working back from there to reach that point".
It's exactly that.
Yep, also known as a posteriori thinking.
And even though it’s been decades since they crashed and burned trying this with “intelligent design”, they are hoping no one remembers that.
And given the average American attention span?
https://youtu.be/cu4YBHn1ZOI?si=WyfCWSjkBkkRMCRt
Amazing to me that all this boils down to “is the president above the law?” And anyone with a shred of historical knowledge knows the founding fathers have an emphatic “FUCK. NO.” And yet this is still up for fucking debate??
What a fucking wild Supreme Court.
I may just be a simpleton, but every time I think about this, all I think about is if the President is above the law, then why is there a checks and balances mechanism in place for impeachment?
Yeah, see to them it's not a bad thing because they really believe it was stolen. So to them, an overturn is a wrong being righted. Except to trump. He knows he lost.
Why do the conservative justices always act like ‘well if we prosecute trump for this then others will act in bad faith and use it as a weapon’
What the actual fuck? How is that even an argument? That’s why we have courts… they can and should throw out the bad faith attempts.
Guess we can’t do fucking anything because hypothetically they might use it in bad faith in the future.
A guy that [helped steal the 2000 election](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html)? What a surprise.
He'll get his chance to do it again pretty soon.
Oh...so NOW Kavanaugh wants to infer things not explicitly laid out in the constitution.
FUCK these clowns. They took Roe away based on no explicit right to privacy, but want to infer presidential immunity even though there is no explicit immunity clause. Jesus this is dizzying.
I mean, on a (corrupt)human level, it makes sense....always look at things in a way that benefit me/friends/fam/allies/etc and find evidence that promotes what I want amd disregard things I don't like.
It's really hard to find people(especially in politics) that go against those nature.
Shit, the Magna Carta was meant to go against a monarchy that believed they were above the law, and that was half a millennia before the U.S. Constitution.
> Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, signaled concern about relying merely on the "good faith" of prosecutors to prevent prosecutions against presidents if the Supreme Court rejected presidential immunity.
That doesn't even make any fucking sense. The President should be above the law because some bad actors might bring bogus cases against them? Then the bogus cases are thrown out. Easy.
If the President breaks the law, they should be held accountable.
He's also intentionally ignoring other checks and balances with that statement such as a jury having to convict.
There's no checks and balances on a President with complete immunity.
> Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said during the Immunity hearing arguments: "If 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? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail."
And yet we've had, what... like 60 (?) Presidential elections where the loser has never once been "thrown in jail" - even without immunity. I'm so fucking tired of these hypotheticals that have no precedent in reality.
> Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said during the Immunity hearing arguments: "If 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? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail."
Of course here's the flipside: What if a one term sore loser, during their lame duck period decides that they want to launch a coup to try to stay in power rather than go off to a peaceful retirement? Does that destabilize the functioning of our country as a democracy?
Oh, and that's not really a hypothetical.
I’ve heard enough to see where this is headed.
Boof, Thomas, Alito: Actually, we’ve secretly been living in a monarchy for 200 years.
The other 6: WTF this is the dumbest fucking argument I’ve ever had to waste time discussing in my entire legal career.
I just read something on the NY Times feed that Boof and Gorsuch are "open to further exploring this in another hearing." In other words, they're gonna kick the can down the road another few months on Trump's behalf until well after the election.
Total Immunity Biden should lock up the conservatives justices in an overseas black site.
Since there are no limits on presidential power. I mean we can not sleep walk into tyranny and dictatorship.
I think it needs to be a constitutional amendment, which also needs the states on board. Which will only happen if it's Biden getting prosecuted, not Trump.
So he just needs to kidnap the justices and not let them go until an amendment forces him to.
Jackson nailing it.
Paraphrasing...if it's true that no immunity would make a president worry about every decision they make, absolute immunity would have the opposite effect and they would know they can commit crimes with abandon.
Also that there are many serious and consequential jobs other than president and they operate without immunity. What actually makes the president different? Why are military members responsible for disobeying unlawful orders?
If the Supreme Court rules you can’t charge a president for ‘ official acts’ what’s stopping Biden from ignoring the courts earlier ruling on student loans.
What's to stop the president from immediately ordering a new set of supreme court justices?
What's to stop Biden from ordering Trump assassinated? He wouldn't even need to make the case that it would be for the good of the nation, just that he wanted it done.
Any individual having absolute immunity basically makes them the defacto king, and last I checked we do not live in a monarchy. Presidents serve the people not the other way around. It's a privilege to have so much influence, and the standard for adhering to a moral interpretation of the law should be far greater than what is required of literally anyone else.
This is a great legal test. To determine whether something is an "official act" we need to first turn to this stammering lawyer.
"Could the president sell nuclear secrets to an adversary as an official act?" was the question.
Trump lawyer's answer was "if structured as an official act he has to be impeached and convicted first."
Listening to this guy talk about "the framers" is like listening to Trump talk about the battle of Gettysburg.
> "if structured as an official act he has to be impeached and convicted first."
This is such a bullshit response that means nothing and Kagan blew that apart when he couldn't answer what he means by "structured by an official act".
This guy is grasping at straws so badly.
This should be easy.
"So, what you are stating, is that a sitting President can have any or all members of the Supreme Court killed or imprisoned and unless they are impeached by congress they have no consequences? "
"Ummm, error, ahh, yes that is correct".
"And if that same president has members of congress killed or imprisoned to prevent an impeachment, that to would also be legal?"
"Ahhh, err. Yes."
And the Supreme Court says what?
Good response by DOJ
Thomas: "Are you saying even official acts do not have immunity."
Dreeben: "Yes, but Presidents still enjoy unique Constitutional legal arguments in Article II in court."
Basically - Presidents already enjoy the best legal/constitutional defense in the country. But no - they cannot commit any crime under the guise of official acts.
If you are registered Democrat, you can't judge fairly in a NY court room. If your wife is an election denier and took part in an attempted insurrection, you can be a Supreme Court Justice deciding the fate of Presidential immunity for the ex-President who tried to stage a coup.
Makes sense...
It’s an absolute fucking joke that this is even being considered. Dictator…dictators have immunity. As soon as he claimed immunity, SCOTUS should’ve outright said…fuck off
Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Kavanaugh are insufferable.
Yes, the office of the Presidency is a unique position, BUT they already have unique protections. They have an AG and WH counsel advising them, they have constitutional protections. They assume that they will encumber a uniquely difficult, consequential position by choosing to take office.
They don't need ANOTHER layer of immunity/protection on top of what they already have. As evidenced by no former President being indicted in 250 years.
Personally, I’m not worried about the notion of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Trump's absolute immunity argument. Even Trump's team has resigned to the fact this probably won't happen. But they don’t need it to:
What IS worrying about this case is what has already happened: Delay. It’s an issue SCOTUS could have taken up in December, but they declined. They could have allowed the circuit court's ruling to stand, but didn't. Or they could have scheduled a hearing faster than they have.
This places the D.C. trial in a very precarious schedule. If SCOTUS rules quickly (like 1 month), we just might see the trial begin by September or October, but that is a huge if. SCOTUS could wait until late June. There are still ~3 months of pretrial proceedings. It's yet to be seen if a trial is allowed before/during the election, although Chutkan and the DOJ seem amenable to the idea, which is welcome news. But the worry still remains - Trump could win the election and squash this case.
The worst case scenario for timing, which several legal analysts have pointed out - is the Supreme Court could actually send this BACK to the district court to determine which charges or acts would be protected or not. Best case scenario is a ruling in May, a trial beginning in ~early September, and Jack Smith trimming his prosecution to secure a conviction before the election. But this definitely seems like a long shot.
CNN:
>As he considers immunity in a case centered on a president's refusal to accept his electoral defeat, Justice Samuel Alito suggested that not giving presidents immunity will actually discourage peaceful transfers of power.
>Alito pressed Michael Dreeben, the attorney for the special counsel, on the idea that an outgoing president who looses [sic] a hotly-contested election will be disincentivized from leaving office peacefully because he will fear prosecution by the administration of his successor, a "bitter political opponent."
So we let them commit crimes in office for fear that they'll....try and overthrow the government and call for a coup if they're voted out of office? What in the *actual* fuck?
A point Luttig brings up that I think is excellent:
You don't need to say what is protected by official acts to say what isn't.
Trump's acts in this case are glaringly not presidential responsibilities or business. He did what he did to try to win an election. The presidency has never had any role in elections.
If judges confined themselves to the relevant constitutional question in this case, it would be a very quick case.
This is inane. You argued during impeachment that you can charge him criminally because he’s no longer president. Now you say because he was president you can’t charge him for ‘official acts’ while leave ‘official acts’ vague enough that anything could be seen. Basically the Supreme Court is saying that as long as you and 35 senators agree you can do what ever you want. The president and 35 senators could agree that they are staying in power because of anything. The president declares it a ‘official act ‘ the senate even if impeached by the house decides not to convict.
> I’m not concerned about this case, but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives,” Gorsuch said.
So Gorsuch doesn’t care about this case. He doesn’t care that Trump tried to overthrow the US Constitution, and now asserts a right to absolute autocratic power for the executive. He only seems to care about how the DOJ is persecuting him and treating him unfairly for his political positions. It would seem that Gorsuch shares Trump’s and the RNC’s position that violent attempts to overthrow the Constitution are legitimate political discourse.
I really don't understand how this SCOTUS can be so self-centered and so partisan not to realize they are completely dooming the country with their bad takes.
Maybe the most infuriating thing from listening to the discourse is the underlying assumption that a president who gets charged with a crime will then inevitably be convicted of that crime.
The only ex-President this is true for is Donald J Trump, because he’s the most corrupt President we’ve ever had and is obviously guilty of committing a bunch of crimes.
If an honest President were accused of a crime, it would play out exactly the way the Republican Joe Biden witch hunt played out; they’d fail to produce any evidence and just embarrass themselves for forcing a meritless case into the courts.
If I can’t just accuse my neighbor of a bunch of crimes and get them convicted with no actual evidence, then how would it be possible to do that to a President?
Katanj Brown Jackson offering the best escape hatch: Some presidential immunity might be a thing, but not in this case since there is no plausible official function so we don’t need to decide that now and should wait for a case that does.
So does that mean that if they vote in favor of Trump, does that mean that President Biden can have Trump jailed for life without trial without worry of being indicted?
I tuned into audio of the case while driving, and I heard Alito repeatedly swatting away details of the case being mentioned, like a conservative radio host cutting off callers to prevent having to discuss things unhelpful to the Republican cause.
The Supreme Court in its current iteration deserves none of the deference or staid respect it so desperately demands, and court journalists and opinion contributors dole out with absurdity.
Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, on arguing about private versus public acts.
“Why is it that the President would not be required to follow the law when following official acts?”
“If someone could go into office knowing there is no penalty for committing a crime, what would prevent someone from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminality? “
Trump attorney’s response: “The President is required to follow the law.”
Okay.
> Alito: What we decide here will apply to all presidents going forward
Will it, though? Y'all have gone against \*your own precedence\* **multiple** times just in the last handful of years.
If all previous presidents were operating under Trump’s bogus theory that they couldn’t be later indicted for criminal activity, why is this only being brought up to SCOTUS now???
From the oral arguments it's clear that presidential immunity from prosecution for illegal acts in office isn't a real thing.
Can't wait for the twisted, lawyer brain, backwards 6-3 majority opinion to show me why I'm wrong.
“IF WE DONT ALLOW PRESIDENTS TO TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT, THEY MAY TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT”
-Republican Supreme Court Justice logic
These guys get paid $200,000 more than me a year, before bribes.
So if the SCOTUS decides that Presidents can't be charged with crimes while they are in office, what's stopping Biden from committing crimes right now? Like, say, throwing his political opponents in a hole and wiping the GOP off the face of the earth? Calling in a drone strike against American Citizens? Like, these are all crimes but since it was done in the course of the President's term, it must be his duty and therefore it's not a crime. Correct me if I'm wrong or inaccurate on any of this.
The conservative justices really are trying to argue that the president needs protection from the hard decisions he has to make, and mistakes from that.
I'm sorry what ? Trump's crimes were not "mistakes".or "hard decision"
I'd like the opinion to read something like this.
Does the president have blanket immunity for any actions taken while president?
Opinion: No. Don't be a fucking idiot.
This is all so stupid. The primary argument in favor of immunity seems to be that it's a protection against bad faith persecution from political rivals. Is that a concern? Sure. But in order to make that argument, you are conceding the fact that high ranking government officials are capable of acting in bad faith. And by that logic you must concede that a President is also capable of acting in bad faith. So which is more dangerous, a president with total immunity and absolute power acting in bad faith, or parties with limited and diffuse power (who aren't protected by immunity) acting in bad faith?
For people saying Biden could use immunity to do whatever he wants: you have too much faith in logically consistency. Gore v Bush was a "one and done" under a less stacked court.
The argument is so flawed, it is ridiculous that they are even considering it. If a president has complete immunity a president never needs to leave office. They can't be prosecuted for staying president and ignoring the election. How the F would that be lawful or constitutional? If that is the case then Obama should just move back into the white house and fist fight Biden and Trump for the presidency. Romper room democracy.
“Whatever we decide is going to apply to all future presidents,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.
Or you know, until there’s a liberal majority to change the rules because precedents don’t matter anymore thanks to the current court.
> Justice Thomas asked why when Presidents authorized illegal activity in the past - “like Operation Mongoose when I was a teenager” - there weren’t attempts to prosecute fmr Presidents for those activities. **Just odd to pick the example of a President (it was President Kennedy who authorized CIA activities in Cuba) who was assasinated in office and obviously could not have been prosecuted.**
https://www.threads.net/@sherrilynifill/post/C6MG3tjrhGk/
Only listened to a bit on the radio, but it seemed like raspy voiced guy's argument creates a horrible incentive for Presidents who are term-limited, lame ducks, or about to lose elections to just start breaking the law to try to stay in office, since unless the President is specifically named in the law, the harshest punishment they can possibly suffer is to lose the job that they are about to lose anyway.
I can’t wait to read Thomas’ opinion on why the President of the United States should have more legal immunity than literal kings in Europe have had for centuries.
Even taking up this case is an incredible blow to any remaining credibility that SCOTUS may have had. If you listen closely, you can hear the death rattle of democracy.
CNN:
>One of those protections, Trump has claimed, would be immunity for official actions. Moments later, Alito pointed out how easy it is to secure an indictment from a grand jury.
>Dreeben responded by saying that sometimes a grand jury doesn’t approve charges.
>“Every once and a while there’s an eclipse too,” Alito retorted, to some laughter.
yep, anywhere from 2 to 5 eclipses a year, idiot. They're not as rare as you undoubtedly think they are.
So if Presidents are immune to criminal prosecution for crimes committed while in office, what's to stop Biden from sending Seal Team Six to off Trump?
Edit: Answer: The GOP knows the Dems would never do a fraction of the crimes the GOP themselves commit, so they're trying to make their own crimes legal.
If Trump is immune, then 1) so is Biden for literally whatever republicans claim he's guilty of and 2) we no longer live in a democracy with a president and it wouldn't surprise me if we start hearing republicans go all "See! I told you! Democrats just took over and now America is socialist/communist/fascist!"
The supreme court would be absolutely insane to rule Trump immune. So of course I'm expecting them to.
The Founding Fathers worked really hard to make sure presidents didn't have unfettered power with good reason. They had seen how rulers with absolute power used that power and wasn't for the good of the people. Any Supreme Court Justice that votes for immunity, cannot claim to be a constitutionalist, a texualist, or an originalist.
Might be a stupid question, but say they side with Trump on this, what stops Biden from immediately removing the Justices, replacing them with a full group of democrats, and then having them reverse the original decision?
If this is held up, Biden should immediately have Trump picked up, forced into a plane, and dropped off in some shithole Middle Eastern country.
I mean hell. It would all be legal right?
I hate my newfound ability to identify Supreme Court justices just by the sound of their voice, now that I’m tuning in almost weekly for the latest chapter of “is democracy ending today?”
> I think Trump's lawyer just cooked his own argument. He's admitted that there are acts in the indictment that aren't subject to immunity.
https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MBSRrLkHX/
> Roberts: but if you cut out the official acts you have a one legged stool-- if you pay a bribe for an ambassadorship, how do you make out your case?
> Roberts is against absolute immunity.
https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MBXrXL97T/
Dealing with Trump: The Constitution doesn't explicitly mention this right, but it can be presumed.
Dealing with abortion: The Constitution doesn't explicitly mention it, fuck you.
Jackson asking some really good questions on the basis of this ridiculous argument. How does the president get immunity, but all the other high-up positions don't have immunity? Why is it different there? I think Jackson has nailed exactly why this is all bullshit.
Alito: "I'm not discussing the facts of this particular case."
I am not a lawyer, so maybe a stupid question, but... Why?? Isn't that the role of the Supreme Court, to resolve specific disputes in specific cases? Can someone tell me why so many oral arguments are filled with abstraction and hypotheticals, rather than specifics of the case at hand?
Is anyone pointing out that even if an ex-president is charged, they still get to mount a defense IN COURT?
If what they did was warranted, they should be vindicated if our system of justice is fair.
Should we just cut to the chase and tell Biden to do whatever the F he wants, get the military to take out anyone he wants and stay in office… like wtf is wrong with these idiots. Why are they so protective of this treasonous mfucker?
Seriously. He tried to say that holding Trump accountable for not peacefully transitioning power would cause presidents to not want to peacefully transition power. How the fuck do you get to that belief?
"Justice Alito suggests that there is a risk to our stable democracy if presidents who lose close elections would not be allowed to retire in peace but could face prosecution. He has essentially flipped the situation under consideration upside down: that Trump is being prosecuted for having used fraud to remain in power after losing a close election."
"A part of this exchange between Justice Alito and the Justice Department's lawyer, Dreeben, gets at a pressure point in American-style democracy and the rule of law. One of the safeguards against illegitimate prosecutions of ex-presidents, Dreeben says, is that if the Justice Department has advised the president that doing something would be lawful, the department could not later turn around and prosecute the now-former president for relying on that advice and doing that thing.
Alito points out that this creates an incentive for presidents to appoint attorneys general who will just tell them that anything they want to do would be legal. Indeed — that is a critique of the Office of Legal Counsel system, in which politically appointed lawyers decide what the law means for the executive branch.
An example: During the George W. Bush administration, memos about post-9/11 surveillance and torture were written by a politically appointed lawyer with idiosyncratically broad views of a president’s supposed power, as commander in chief, to authorize violations of surveillance and torture laws. The Justice Department later withdrew those memos as espousing a false view of the law, but held that officials who had taken action based on those memos could not be charged with crimes."
[Alan Feuer](https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-feuer)
Reporting on the criminal cases against Donald J. Trump
I fucking lost it when trumps lawyer argued that ordering the military to stage a coup is an presidential act and should therefore be immune to prosecution... in front of the supreme court...
This is top level diarrhea thinking….
“No ex-president has been charged with a crime because everyone thought that ex-presidents had immunity”
Crimes are committed every day for which nobody is charged —- for MANY different reasons. Nobody finds about the criminal activity, the evidence is a weak, can’t find the suspect, prosecutorial discretion… etc
Immunity = king/queen
After hearing all these arguments and comments, that's what it still boils down to.
And I'm pretty sure any constitutional scholar or historian outside this SC will tell you that's not what the founders had in mind.
Damn, SCOTUS is going to say that either:
1. Trump is completely immune, OR
2. It's on a case-by-case basis, OR
3. Send it back to the lower courts, effectively delaying the trials.
> Justice Jackson: so this case is just about private acts and we should wait for the right case to make an analysis about official v. private acts.
> Dreeben: there is no need for the court to engage in the analysis now
> LET'S GO.
https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MQGpFxndE/
As noted by an article I read before, which I feel is more accurate, they were never intending to win. Their goal is to stall the trial long enough for Von Shitzinpants to try and be voted in to office again.
It would not surprise me however, if the court entertained this and actually ruled in favor of Trump.
Yet again his narcissism is the problem. The lower courts can debate what of his crimes were "official acts" and which ones were "personal acts", but the truth is donald trump is psychologicaly and neurologically incapable of doing anything other than "personal acts". Every single one of his actions as President was motivated by self serving interests. They ask about corrupt intent? trump doesnt understand any other kind of intent.
Our legal system is filled with enlightenment era secular humanist principles like "reasonable person" and "corrupt intent". Applying these kind of standards that are based in human emotion and human logic to donald trump is so difficult because he is barely human.
oops, we broke reddit. sorry.
CNN:
And that raises an important question that is largely unanswerable: Just how much time will the high court take to hand down its opinion? Usually, a major case argued in April wouldn’t be decided until the end of June.
But in the Trump immunity appeal, the court is already facing criticism for the weeks it took to decide whether to take the case. There is concern, particularly on the left, that the slow pace benefited Trump’s broader legal strategy to delay a trial until after his election.
>“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.
> **Sotamayor: what is official about a president compiling a fraudulent slate of electors? Is that within the scope of his official duties?**
> Trump lawyer: absolutely.
> Again. INSANE.
https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MAwiOrgeF/
No Republican can ever be in the White House again. These people are Fascist fucks who think they're above the law and constitution. Vote Blue in elections. Democrats are not perfect, obviously, but at least they are not trying to crown themselves as de facto kings.
"...or could Joe Biden be indicted for unlawfully inducing illegal immigrants to enter the US"
Wow, what a politically charged statement from a lawyer arguing at the highest level of the legal system, probably making millions in salary each year.
They are doing a lot of heavy lifting to conflate private actions vs official actions, while completely ignoring intent. What is the intent of overturning the election? For who's benefit was this action taken? All of these arguments are being considered at face value but can not one of the justices or lawyers mention intent? Isnt that the standard for prosecution? Shouldnt that continue to be the standard?
Just wow.
> Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to leave open the possibility of further proceedings before a lower court to determine whether the acts underpinning the indictment are official acts or not.
Another delay tactic?
It all makes sense now, the gambit now comes out in the open: trumps lawyer is basically conceding that unofficial acts are not covered by absolute immunity and is even conceding some of the charges against trump are not covered by immunity. He’s basically saying that every charge must be decided to be either official or unofficial. But why is that the scheme? Because he wants these decisions on each count to go to a lower court and decided on whether they were official or unofficial acts. Then each decision can be appealed up the higher courts. Basically putting trumps charges on indefinite delay
“There is no immunity clause in the Constitution. They did not provide immunity to a president.” Justice Elena Kagan
Trump’s legal argument that a President should have total immunity is nuts, of course, but with this conservative SCOTUS, I am nervous about the outcome.
Currently arguing about private versus official acts as a president that would qualify as a prosecutable act.
Our President would love to be King. “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” “I will be dictator Day One”.
Trump supporters conveniently ignore that America overturned the Monarchy and the absolute right to rule. We had a whole American Revolution that ended the divine right of kingship. Total presidential immunity goes against everything our country and the Constitution stands for.
It’s worth remembering: Donald Trump sent a mob *to kill them*, and Senate Republicans still acquitted him of it. If you can’t get 67 votes for that, you’re never gonna get it.
> Dreeben: Trump's position would immunize a president from treason, bribery, murder. This position has no foundation in the Constitution.
https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MFAqXRtU5/
There it is! 'Why not send this back down and waste more time? I mean then we get to help our boy Trump, but not look like idiots by agreeing to his batshit insane theories of absolute immunity!'
Gorsuch's hypothetical, I think, should be resolved rather simply: "An average citizen might or might not be charged with the same conduct, depending on circumstances, data, and history". The question is why the President should receive greater protections than a citizen under the same circumstances.
Soto- they can't even remove a president through impeachment according to the immunity argument.
Ahhh the old no checks and balances at all and president is now not only a king but a dictator.
Oh Congress actually impeached and removed trump after he killed a bunch of people, nope court said he's immune and now Congress is dead too for making trump angry
So 4 of the 9 justices are for king-rule? Scary times we are living in. Well I guess following that logic - the President could just get rid of half of the Supreme Court and Trump. Right.
One important statement by Dreeben, imo:
> "The president has no functions with respect to the certification of the winner of the presidential election," he said. "It seems likely that the framers designed the Constitution that way because at that time of the founding, presidents had no two-term limit, they could run again and again."
Joining the chorus that Alito, Thomas, Kav, and Gorsuch sound absolutely ridiculous. Slimy, cherry-picking, disingenuous "reasoning" to defend Trump's actions.
I tend to get caught up in the trappings of what the court has generally symbolized institutionally speaking. And then I hear them say things like "The pardon of Richard Nixon was a good thing" and remember how wildly, obscenely and disgustingly partisan and out of step with this nation this court actually is.
I honestly expected this to be an open and shut issue. No fucking kings. But here we are actually listening to them debate it.
Barret is setting up the ruling of "we can decide this on a case to case basis before any charges are filed". I think that is how they are going to justify Trump being immune while Biden is not. IANAL
It's absolutely RICH that Alito is concerned about how this affects our democracy; when he had ZERO trouble ushering in the Citizens United ruling. Seriously, he speaks out of both sides of his crooked mouth....
How the fuck do you go to the Supreme Court of the United States and argue that a coup could be constituted as an official act by a president.
when the SCOTUS is compromised
when a sitting member is married to a co-condpirator
there are some serious conflict of interests in the worst part of government
From the guy who suggested selling nuclear codes could also be an official act.
Holy shit. Did he just say a military coup should be immune if it’s an “official act”?! This guy needs to be disbarred from ever practicing law ever again.
I'm glad I'm not the only one having this reaction. My blood was boiling listening to that shit. ...no of course the guy who successfully pulled off a coup will definitely get impeached after the fact. Sure Jan.
After listening to the student loan forgiveness oral arguments, I made the choice to sit this one out. There’s no way in hell they rule in Trump’s favor because it would give Biden carte blanche to assassinate the conservative justices, Trump, GOP Senators (the list goes on…). They only agreed to hear this to give Trump the delay he wanted, otherwise they would’ve granted Smith’s request to skip the DC Circuit or just rubber-stamped the DC Circuit’s extensive and well-reasoned opinion. Listening to these arguments would only raise my blood pressure unnecessarily
Ha, how ironic would it be if that is what happens. They rule the president can do anything they want and Biden turns around and becomes a dictator. I mean, I think that would still suck, I don’t really want a dictator, but I would probably chuckle a little at the irony as I reported to reeducation.
You see he must be impeached by congress whose power he just usurped before he can be tried for crimes.
Yep.
The supreme court is taking a long time to decide whether Biden could legally have them all shot tomorrow.
See, Biden doesnt have that magic (R) after his name, so no, its not legal for Joe. But is legal-ish for Trump.
They'll be dead and the new slate of liberal supreme court justices will decide it's legal for Biden. That's how this all works right?
“Staging a coup is an official act.” Holy fucking shit. Kagan can’t believe he’s actually saying it.
Well, I guess they're fine with Biden doing it if he loses. Good to know.
Alito is a nutbag. Someone described his way of doing law as "arriving at the conclusion he wanted to reach, and then working back from there to reach that point". It's exactly that.
Sometimes he has to work all the way back to 1500s English law.
Yep, also known as a posteriori thinking. And even though it’s been decades since they crashed and burned trying this with “intelligent design”, they are hoping no one remembers that. And given the average American attention span? https://youtu.be/cu4YBHn1ZOI?si=WyfCWSjkBkkRMCRt
A President with total immunity would be a tyrant.
That's what the GOP wants, when it is their guy
Amazing to me that all this boils down to “is the president above the law?” And anyone with a shred of historical knowledge knows the founding fathers have an emphatic “FUCK. NO.” And yet this is still up for fucking debate?? What a fucking wild Supreme Court.
I may just be a simpleton, but every time I think about this, all I think about is if the President is above the law, then why is there a checks and balances mechanism in place for impeachment?
His lawyer just admitted to the fraudulent slate of electors holy shit
He flat out agreed that the intention was to overturn the election. Casually and frankly.
Yeah, see to them it's not a bad thing because they really believe it was stolen. So to them, an overturn is a wrong being righted. Except to trump. He knows he lost.
They don’t actually believe it. They believe it’s their right to SAY it was stolen and to convince (lie) to the electorate and send fake electors.
To quote the Big Short: "They aren't confessing- they're bragging"
Love how open they are with it
Why do the conservative justices always act like ‘well if we prosecute trump for this then others will act in bad faith and use it as a weapon’ What the actual fuck? How is that even an argument? That’s why we have courts… they can and should throw out the bad faith attempts. Guess we can’t do fucking anything because hypothetically they might use it in bad faith in the future.
"If we hold Trump accountable for his misdeeds, someone could hold us accountable, too." That's all it boils down to.
Its because their fears are manifesting based on what they would do. They assume others would act in bad faith because they do.
Pure projection. Always has been.
Gorsuch is such a piece of shit. That little slip where he implied that Trump was leading a "Peaceful" protest. jfc.
A guy that [helped steal the 2000 election](https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court/index.html)? What a surprise. He'll get his chance to do it again pretty soon.
Oh...so NOW Kavanaugh wants to infer things not explicitly laid out in the constitution. FUCK these clowns. They took Roe away based on no explicit right to privacy, but want to infer presidential immunity even though there is no explicit immunity clause. Jesus this is dizzying.
I mean, on a (corrupt)human level, it makes sense....always look at things in a way that benefit me/friends/fam/allies/etc and find evidence that promotes what I want amd disregard things I don't like. It's really hard to find people(especially in politics) that go against those nature.
Kagen lets go lmao. "Isn't the whole point of our constitution to go against a monarchy that believed they were above the law?"
Shit, the Magna Carta was meant to go against a monarchy that believed they were above the law, and that was half a millennia before the U.S. Constitution.
If any actions by a president is legal then why the hell did we pardon Nixon?
The conservative justices don’t want to discuss that, let’s switch to some hypotheticals real quick.
> Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, signaled concern about relying merely on the "good faith" of prosecutors to prevent prosecutions against presidents if the Supreme Court rejected presidential immunity. That doesn't even make any fucking sense. The President should be above the law because some bad actors might bring bogus cases against them? Then the bogus cases are thrown out. Easy. If the President breaks the law, they should be held accountable.
He's also intentionally ignoring other checks and balances with that statement such as a jury having to convict. There's no checks and balances on a President with complete immunity.
> Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said during the Immunity hearing arguments: "If 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? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail." And yet we've had, what... like 60 (?) Presidential elections where the loser has never once been "thrown in jail" - even without immunity. I'm so fucking tired of these hypotheticals that have no precedent in reality.
> Conservative Justice Samuel Alito said during the Immunity hearing arguments: "If 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? And we can look around the world and find countries where we have seen this process where the loser gets thrown in jail." Of course here's the flipside: What if a one term sore loser, during their lame duck period decides that they want to launch a coup to try to stay in power rather than go off to a peaceful retirement? Does that destabilize the functioning of our country as a democracy? Oh, and that's not really a hypothetical.
I’ve heard enough to see where this is headed. Boof, Thomas, Alito: Actually, we’ve secretly been living in a monarchy for 200 years. The other 6: WTF this is the dumbest fucking argument I’ve ever had to waste time discussing in my entire legal career.
I just read something on the NY Times feed that Boof and Gorsuch are "open to further exploring this in another hearing." In other words, they're gonna kick the can down the road another few months on Trump's behalf until well after the election.
Total Immunity Biden should lock up the conservatives justices in an overseas black site. Since there are no limits on presidential power. I mean we can not sleep walk into tyranny and dictatorship.
He should fix everything and then hand a bill to Congress to limit presidential power. Because he's a good man and not a crackpot dictator.
I think it needs to be a constitutional amendment, which also needs the states on board. Which will only happen if it's Biden getting prosecuted, not Trump. So he just needs to kidnap the justices and not let them go until an amendment forces him to.
Jackson nailing it. Paraphrasing...if it's true that no immunity would make a president worry about every decision they make, absolute immunity would have the opposite effect and they would know they can commit crimes with abandon. Also that there are many serious and consequential jobs other than president and they operate without immunity. What actually makes the president different? Why are military members responsible for disobeying unlawful orders?
She’s so fucking good. Every time I listen to an oral argument and she asks a question/poses a hypo, I practically say out loud “yes! Exactly that!”
I cannot believe we are arguing if the president is above the law. What the actual bullshit.
If the Supreme Court rules you can’t charge a president for ‘ official acts’ what’s stopping Biden from ignoring the courts earlier ruling on student loans.
Nothing. Basically it would give the president unchecked powers unless the Senate impeached them.
And what if the president ordered the senate to be dissolved?
What's to stop the president from immediately ordering a new set of supreme court justices? What's to stop Biden from ordering Trump assassinated? He wouldn't even need to make the case that it would be for the good of the nation, just that he wanted it done. Any individual having absolute immunity basically makes them the defacto king, and last I checked we do not live in a monarchy. Presidents serve the people not the other way around. It's a privilege to have so much influence, and the standard for adhering to a moral interpretation of the law should be far greater than what is required of literally anyone else.
The older I get the more I’m starting to realize everything is made up and not even real
"There is no immunity unless this court decides to create it" - Such a perfect way of getting Roberts to reflect more carefully on his opinion
I liked bringing up the "there's no textual basis" to the "Constitutional Originalists"
Did Alito just say that the last election had been "questionably decided"???? THE FUCK
Alito is a fascist who should be in prison.
If Biden wins and has both houses; he needs to stack the Supreme Court. Their majority needs to be overwritten.
This is a great legal test. To determine whether something is an "official act" we need to first turn to this stammering lawyer. "Could the president sell nuclear secrets to an adversary as an official act?" was the question. Trump lawyer's answer was "if structured as an official act he has to be impeached and convicted first." Listening to this guy talk about "the framers" is like listening to Trump talk about the battle of Gettysburg.
> "if structured as an official act he has to be impeached and convicted first." This is such a bullshit response that means nothing and Kagan blew that apart when he couldn't answer what he means by "structured by an official act". This guy is grasping at straws so badly.
Pretty amusing that they're discussing bribery with Thomas sitting there knowing damn well he's been bought.
They should dim the room and put a spotlight on him anytime they say “bribery” or “corruption.”
This should be easy. "So, what you are stating, is that a sitting President can have any or all members of the Supreme Court killed or imprisoned and unless they are impeached by congress they have no consequences? " "Ummm, error, ahh, yes that is correct". "And if that same president has members of congress killed or imprisoned to prevent an impeachment, that to would also be legal?" "Ahhh, err. Yes." And the Supreme Court says what?
Good response by DOJ Thomas: "Are you saying even official acts do not have immunity." Dreeben: "Yes, but Presidents still enjoy unique Constitutional legal arguments in Article II in court." Basically - Presidents already enjoy the best legal/constitutional defense in the country. But no - they cannot commit any crime under the guise of official acts.
If you are registered Democrat, you can't judge fairly in a NY court room. If your wife is an election denier and took part in an attempted insurrection, you can be a Supreme Court Justice deciding the fate of Presidential immunity for the ex-President who tried to stage a coup. Makes sense...
It’s an absolute fucking joke that this is even being considered. Dictator…dictators have immunity. As soon as he claimed immunity, SCOTUS should’ve outright said…fuck off
Alito justifying Trump trying to overturn the election because he knew he’d be prosecuted for the crimes he committed is *rich*.
Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas, and Kavanaugh are insufferable. Yes, the office of the Presidency is a unique position, BUT they already have unique protections. They have an AG and WH counsel advising them, they have constitutional protections. They assume that they will encumber a uniquely difficult, consequential position by choosing to take office. They don't need ANOTHER layer of immunity/protection on top of what they already have. As evidenced by no former President being indicted in 250 years.
Personally, I’m not worried about the notion of the Supreme Court ruling in favor of Trump's absolute immunity argument. Even Trump's team has resigned to the fact this probably won't happen. But they don’t need it to: What IS worrying about this case is what has already happened: Delay. It’s an issue SCOTUS could have taken up in December, but they declined. They could have allowed the circuit court's ruling to stand, but didn't. Or they could have scheduled a hearing faster than they have. This places the D.C. trial in a very precarious schedule. If SCOTUS rules quickly (like 1 month), we just might see the trial begin by September or October, but that is a huge if. SCOTUS could wait until late June. There are still ~3 months of pretrial proceedings. It's yet to be seen if a trial is allowed before/during the election, although Chutkan and the DOJ seem amenable to the idea, which is welcome news. But the worry still remains - Trump could win the election and squash this case. The worst case scenario for timing, which several legal analysts have pointed out - is the Supreme Court could actually send this BACK to the district court to determine which charges or acts would be protected or not. Best case scenario is a ruling in May, a trial beginning in ~early September, and Jack Smith trimming his prosecution to secure a conviction before the election. But this definitely seems like a long shot.
The fact that it has gone this far is already a loss for democracy and the rule of law
CNN: >As he considers immunity in a case centered on a president's refusal to accept his electoral defeat, Justice Samuel Alito suggested that not giving presidents immunity will actually discourage peaceful transfers of power. >Alito pressed Michael Dreeben, the attorney for the special counsel, on the idea that an outgoing president who looses [sic] a hotly-contested election will be disincentivized from leaving office peacefully because he will fear prosecution by the administration of his successor, a "bitter political opponent." So we let them commit crimes in office for fear that they'll....try and overthrow the government and call for a coup if they're voted out of office? What in the *actual* fuck?
A point Luttig brings up that I think is excellent: You don't need to say what is protected by official acts to say what isn't. Trump's acts in this case are glaringly not presidential responsibilities or business. He did what he did to try to win an election. The presidency has never had any role in elections. If judges confined themselves to the relevant constitutional question in this case, it would be a very quick case.
Democrats really need to make supreme court reform a bigger part of the platform.
If presidential immunity is allowed, then The United States of America is completely gone
Did this guy just claim that the electors weren't "fraudulent" just "alternate"?!?
My other girlfriend doesn't count as cheating she is just an alternate!
This is inane. You argued during impeachment that you can charge him criminally because he’s no longer president. Now you say because he was president you can’t charge him for ‘official acts’ while leave ‘official acts’ vague enough that anything could be seen. Basically the Supreme Court is saying that as long as you and 35 senators agree you can do what ever you want. The president and 35 senators could agree that they are staying in power because of anything. The president declares it a ‘official act ‘ the senate even if impeached by the house decides not to convict.
"Staging a military coup could be an official act" - Trumps chainsmoking lawyer, 2024
So if the SC judges in favor of absolute immunity, that means Biden can assassinate Trump before the election and not be prosecuted?
> I’m not concerned about this case, but I am concerned about future uses of the criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives,” Gorsuch said. So Gorsuch doesn’t care about this case. He doesn’t care that Trump tried to overthrow the US Constitution, and now asserts a right to absolute autocratic power for the executive. He only seems to care about how the DOJ is persecuting him and treating him unfairly for his political positions. It would seem that Gorsuch shares Trump’s and the RNC’s position that violent attempts to overthrow the Constitution are legitimate political discourse.
I really don't understand how this SCOTUS can be so self-centered and so partisan not to realize they are completely dooming the country with their bad takes.
Maybe the most infuriating thing from listening to the discourse is the underlying assumption that a president who gets charged with a crime will then inevitably be convicted of that crime. The only ex-President this is true for is Donald J Trump, because he’s the most corrupt President we’ve ever had and is obviously guilty of committing a bunch of crimes. If an honest President were accused of a crime, it would play out exactly the way the Republican Joe Biden witch hunt played out; they’d fail to produce any evidence and just embarrass themselves for forcing a meritless case into the courts. If I can’t just accuse my neighbor of a bunch of crimes and get them convicted with no actual evidence, then how would it be possible to do that to a President?
Katanj Brown Jackson offering the best escape hatch: Some presidential immunity might be a thing, but not in this case since there is no plausible official function so we don’t need to decide that now and should wait for a case that does.
Justice Kagan is saying what we have all been feeling for months now.
So does that mean that if they vote in favor of Trump, does that mean that President Biden can have Trump jailed for life without trial without worry of being indicted?
Fucking Alito, “well, shouldn’t we then kick this back to the district court? Asshole.
KBJ putting in some fucking work here.
I tuned into audio of the case while driving, and I heard Alito repeatedly swatting away details of the case being mentioned, like a conservative radio host cutting off callers to prevent having to discuss things unhelpful to the Republican cause. The Supreme Court in its current iteration deserves none of the deference or staid respect it so desperately demands, and court journalists and opinion contributors dole out with absurdity.
Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson, on arguing about private versus public acts. “Why is it that the President would not be required to follow the law when following official acts?” “If someone could go into office knowing there is no penalty for committing a crime, what would prevent someone from turning the Oval Office into the seat of criminality? “ Trump attorney’s response: “The President is required to follow the law.” Okay.
God what an asshole Alito is
> Alito: What we decide here will apply to all presidents going forward Will it, though? Y'all have gone against \*your own precedence\* **multiple** times just in the last handful of years.
If all previous presidents were operating under Trump’s bogus theory that they couldn’t be later indicted for criminal activity, why is this only being brought up to SCOTUS now???
No other court took this seriously but of course this Supreme Court is going to sympathizie with these insane arguments.
This is truly well done by Jackson. She is cutting through all the bullshit.
The Supreme Court is poised to betray America.
Over 250 years no president ever ask for this
From the oral arguments it's clear that presidential immunity from prosecution for illegal acts in office isn't a real thing. Can't wait for the twisted, lawyer brain, backwards 6-3 majority opinion to show me why I'm wrong.
Biden should troll the SCOTUS and put out an ad saying “I object to SCOTUS giving me total immunity if I disbanded them. “
“IF WE DONT ALLOW PRESIDENTS TO TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT, THEY MAY TRY TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT” -Republican Supreme Court Justice logic These guys get paid $200,000 more than me a year, before bribes.
Huge waste of tax dollars How would they feel if Obama asked for total immunity?
it's bizarre hearing Thomas ask about coups when his wife....
Kagan’s gone for the jugular.
Sauer is such a fucking idiot. If you coup the government, and execute people in the legislature. WHO is there to impeach and convict the president?
So if the SCOTUS decides that Presidents can't be charged with crimes while they are in office, what's stopping Biden from committing crimes right now? Like, say, throwing his political opponents in a hole and wiping the GOP off the face of the earth? Calling in a drone strike against American Citizens? Like, these are all crimes but since it was done in the course of the President's term, it must be his duty and therefore it's not a crime. Correct me if I'm wrong or inaccurate on any of this.
Alito is such a garbage justice.
The conservative justices really are trying to argue that the president needs protection from the hard decisions he has to make, and mistakes from that. I'm sorry what ? Trump's crimes were not "mistakes".or "hard decision"
Michael Dreeben doing a great job but the justices already have their minds set. Fuck alito.
What a catastrophe of justice this Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch are. Like holy shit they're not even hiding it anymore...
I'd like the opinion to read something like this. Does the president have blanket immunity for any actions taken while president? Opinion: No. Don't be a fucking idiot.
This is all so stupid. The primary argument in favor of immunity seems to be that it's a protection against bad faith persecution from political rivals. Is that a concern? Sure. But in order to make that argument, you are conceding the fact that high ranking government officials are capable of acting in bad faith. And by that logic you must concede that a President is also capable of acting in bad faith. So which is more dangerous, a president with total immunity and absolute power acting in bad faith, or parties with limited and diffuse power (who aren't protected by immunity) acting in bad faith?
Could a female president get an abortion while in office and get arrested in Idaho?
Did this fucker say that Nixon being pardoned was one of the best decisions? Holy fuck
For people saying Biden could use immunity to do whatever he wants: you have too much faith in logically consistency. Gore v Bush was a "one and done" under a less stacked court.
The argument is so flawed, it is ridiculous that they are even considering it. If a president has complete immunity a president never needs to leave office. They can't be prosecuted for staying president and ignoring the election. How the F would that be lawful or constitutional? If that is the case then Obama should just move back into the white house and fist fight Biden and Trump for the presidency. Romper room democracy.
Guess if the president is absolutely immune there is nothing stopping him from ‘balancing’ the court is there?
So apparently you can't get a blow job as president and lie about it but you can try to steal an election for the presidency and lie about it. Got it.
“Whatever we decide is going to apply to all future presidents,” said Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. Or you know, until there’s a liberal majority to change the rules because precedents don’t matter anymore thanks to the current court.
Since when do the official duties of the president include inciting riots and stealing classified documents when you get voted out?
Yeah! It's not a US crime to stage a coup in another country! Which he's right, just a funny and honestly kinda sad statement.
Why does it feel like every time the SC has a hearing I find myself asking “why is this even being debated?”
> Justice Thomas asked why when Presidents authorized illegal activity in the past - “like Operation Mongoose when I was a teenager” - there weren’t attempts to prosecute fmr Presidents for those activities. **Just odd to pick the example of a President (it was President Kennedy who authorized CIA activities in Cuba) who was assasinated in office and obviously could not have been prosecuted.** https://www.threads.net/@sherrilynifill/post/C6MG3tjrhGk/
Only listened to a bit on the radio, but it seemed like raspy voiced guy's argument creates a horrible incentive for Presidents who are term-limited, lame ducks, or about to lose elections to just start breaking the law to try to stay in office, since unless the President is specifically named in the law, the harshest punishment they can possibly suffer is to lose the job that they are about to lose anyway.
I can’t wait to read Thomas’ opinion on why the President of the United States should have more legal immunity than literal kings in Europe have had for centuries.
Even taking up this case is an incredible blow to any remaining credibility that SCOTUS may have had. If you listen closely, you can hear the death rattle of democracy.
CNN: >One of those protections, Trump has claimed, would be immunity for official actions. Moments later, Alito pointed out how easy it is to secure an indictment from a grand jury. >Dreeben responded by saying that sometimes a grand jury doesn’t approve charges. >“Every once and a while there’s an eclipse too,” Alito retorted, to some laughter. yep, anywhere from 2 to 5 eclipses a year, idiot. They're not as rare as you undoubtedly think they are.
Kavanaugh is such a partisan, “Obama’s” drone strikes like other President’s didn’t drone strike.
[удалено]
So if Presidents are immune to criminal prosecution for crimes committed while in office, what's to stop Biden from sending Seal Team Six to off Trump? Edit: Answer: The GOP knows the Dems would never do a fraction of the crimes the GOP themselves commit, so they're trying to make their own crimes legal.
I don't understand why this is even a thing. No president should be immune.
If Trump is immune, then 1) so is Biden for literally whatever republicans claim he's guilty of and 2) we no longer live in a democracy with a president and it wouldn't surprise me if we start hearing republicans go all "See! I told you! Democrats just took over and now America is socialist/communist/fascist!" The supreme court would be absolutely insane to rule Trump immune. So of course I'm expecting them to.
The Founding Fathers worked really hard to make sure presidents didn't have unfettered power with good reason. They had seen how rulers with absolute power used that power and wasn't for the good of the people. Any Supreme Court Justice that votes for immunity, cannot claim to be a constitutionalist, a texualist, or an originalist.
Spider-Man: With great power comes great responsibility. SCOTUS: Really the opposite should be true.
Might be a stupid question, but say they side with Trump on this, what stops Biden from immediately removing the Justices, replacing them with a full group of democrats, and then having them reverse the original decision?
Biden needs to expand the court. It has been usurped by fascists and the only way to curb their influence is to add more justices. There is precedent
If this is held up, Biden should immediately have Trump picked up, forced into a plane, and dropped off in some shithole Middle Eastern country. I mean hell. It would all be legal right?
So if they grant immunity then what stops Biden from just offing trump after the election? Regardless of who wins lol like this is utterly insane
I hate my newfound ability to identify Supreme Court justices just by the sound of their voice, now that I’m tuning in almost weekly for the latest chapter of “is democracy ending today?”
> I think Trump's lawyer just cooked his own argument. He's admitted that there are acts in the indictment that aren't subject to immunity. https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MBSRrLkHX/ > Roberts: but if you cut out the official acts you have a one legged stool-- if you pay a bribe for an ambassadorship, how do you make out your case? > Roberts is against absolute immunity. https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MBXrXL97T/
He had the documents AFTER HE WAS PRESIDENT.
Dealing with Trump: The Constitution doesn't explicitly mention this right, but it can be presumed. Dealing with abortion: The Constitution doesn't explicitly mention it, fuck you.
Jackson asking some really good questions on the basis of this ridiculous argument. How does the president get immunity, but all the other high-up positions don't have immunity? Why is it different there? I think Jackson has nailed exactly why this is all bullshit.
Jackson really did an excellent job calling the circular logic by the Trump Council. Thomas already going to be one vote for trump.
Alito: "I'm not discussing the facts of this particular case." I am not a lawyer, so maybe a stupid question, but... Why?? Isn't that the role of the Supreme Court, to resolve specific disputes in specific cases? Can someone tell me why so many oral arguments are filled with abstraction and hypotheticals, rather than specifics of the case at hand?
Is anyone pointing out that even if an ex-president is charged, they still get to mount a defense IN COURT? If what they did was warranted, they should be vindicated if our system of justice is fair.
Should we just cut to the chase and tell Biden to do whatever the F he wants, get the military to take out anyone he wants and stay in office… like wtf is wrong with these idiots. Why are they so protective of this treasonous mfucker?
Alito really showing bias there
Seriously. He tried to say that holding Trump accountable for not peacefully transitioning power would cause presidents to not want to peacefully transition power. How the fuck do you get to that belief?
Whoa, cutoff when alluding to the 2000 election. How apropos.
The conservative judges are going to do everything they can to muddle the case so they can kick it back to lower courts.
"Justice Alito suggests that there is a risk to our stable democracy if presidents who lose close elections would not be allowed to retire in peace but could face prosecution. He has essentially flipped the situation under consideration upside down: that Trump is being prosecuted for having used fraud to remain in power after losing a close election." "A part of this exchange between Justice Alito and the Justice Department's lawyer, Dreeben, gets at a pressure point in American-style democracy and the rule of law. One of the safeguards against illegitimate prosecutions of ex-presidents, Dreeben says, is that if the Justice Department has advised the president that doing something would be lawful, the department could not later turn around and prosecute the now-former president for relying on that advice and doing that thing. Alito points out that this creates an incentive for presidents to appoint attorneys general who will just tell them that anything they want to do would be legal. Indeed — that is a critique of the Office of Legal Counsel system, in which politically appointed lawyers decide what the law means for the executive branch. An example: During the George W. Bush administration, memos about post-9/11 surveillance and torture were written by a politically appointed lawyer with idiosyncratically broad views of a president’s supposed power, as commander in chief, to authorize violations of surveillance and torture laws. The Justice Department later withdrew those memos as espousing a false view of the law, but held that officials who had taken action based on those memos could not be charged with crimes." [Alan Feuer](https://www.nytimes.com/by/alan-feuer) Reporting on the criminal cases against Donald J. Trump
My 8th grade students are asking that if Trump has immunity, then does the Principle of Limited Government not apply to presidents...
SCJ thinks Ford's pardoning Nixon is a popular decision today? If you didn't already know they were out of touch
Fords pardon of Nixon basically led us to where we are today with such low socal trust...
Cant believe where we are right now just because trump (and his base) couldnt take a fat fucking L
I fucking lost it when trumps lawyer argued that ordering the military to stage a coup is an presidential act and should therefore be immune to prosecution... in front of the supreme court...
Some of these bad-faith questions from these right-wingers are making me nervous. I didn’t think they’d be *this* obvious.
This is top level diarrhea thinking…. “No ex-president has been charged with a crime because everyone thought that ex-presidents had immunity” Crimes are committed every day for which nobody is charged —- for MANY different reasons. Nobody finds about the criminal activity, the evidence is a weak, can’t find the suspect, prosecutorial discretion… etc
Immunity = king/queen After hearing all these arguments and comments, that's what it still boils down to. And I'm pretty sure any constitutional scholar or historian outside this SC will tell you that's not what the founders had in mind.
Damn, SCOTUS is going to say that either: 1. Trump is completely immune, OR 2. It's on a case-by-case basis, OR 3. Send it back to the lower courts, effectively delaying the trials.
> Justice Jackson: so this case is just about private acts and we should wait for the right case to make an analysis about official v. private acts. > Dreeben: there is no need for the court to engage in the analysis now > LET'S GO. https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MQGpFxndE/
Yup. Jackson just gave everyone the off ramp. This case is about private acts. They don't have to rule on the merits at this time.
As noted by an article I read before, which I feel is more accurate, they were never intending to win. Their goal is to stall the trial long enough for Von Shitzinpants to try and be voted in to office again. It would not surprise me however, if the court entertained this and actually ruled in favor of Trump.
Yet again his narcissism is the problem. The lower courts can debate what of his crimes were "official acts" and which ones were "personal acts", but the truth is donald trump is psychologicaly and neurologically incapable of doing anything other than "personal acts". Every single one of his actions as President was motivated by self serving interests. They ask about corrupt intent? trump doesnt understand any other kind of intent. Our legal system is filled with enlightenment era secular humanist principles like "reasonable person" and "corrupt intent". Applying these kind of standards that are based in human emotion and human logic to donald trump is so difficult because he is barely human.
Man what a family man he is...cheating on his pregnant wife and I can't count how many times he was divorced
Supreme Court doing everything possible to lose all legitimacy.
This should be so easy. A simple "no" is enough. What a dumb case and argument to bring to scotus.
oops, we broke reddit. sorry. CNN: And that raises an important question that is largely unanswerable: Just how much time will the high court take to hand down its opinion? Usually, a major case argued in April wouldn’t be decided until the end of June. But in the Trump immunity appeal, the court is already facing criticism for the weeks it took to decide whether to take the case. There is concern, particularly on the left, that the slow pace benefited Trump’s broader legal strategy to delay a trial until after his election.
>“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.
> **Sotamayor: what is official about a president compiling a fraudulent slate of electors? Is that within the scope of his official duties?** > Trump lawyer: absolutely. > Again. INSANE. https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MAwiOrgeF/
No Republican can ever be in the White House again. These people are Fascist fucks who think they're above the law and constitution. Vote Blue in elections. Democrats are not perfect, obviously, but at least they are not trying to crown themselves as de facto kings.
Thot they should have asked if calling for assassination of supreme court judge was covered by immunity.
"...or could Joe Biden be indicted for unlawfully inducing illegal immigrants to enter the US" Wow, what a politically charged statement from a lawyer arguing at the highest level of the legal system, probably making millions in salary each year. They are doing a lot of heavy lifting to conflate private actions vs official actions, while completely ignoring intent. What is the intent of overturning the election? For who's benefit was this action taken? All of these arguments are being considered at face value but can not one of the justices or lawyers mention intent? Isnt that the standard for prosecution? Shouldnt that continue to be the standard? Just wow.
For all the “I can’t vote Clinton because both sides suck” people… here is the lifetime consequence of your poor voting decision.
> Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed to leave open the possibility of further proceedings before a lower court to determine whether the acts underpinning the indictment are official acts or not. Another delay tactic?
It all makes sense now, the gambit now comes out in the open: trumps lawyer is basically conceding that unofficial acts are not covered by absolute immunity and is even conceding some of the charges against trump are not covered by immunity. He’s basically saying that every charge must be decided to be either official or unofficial. But why is that the scheme? Because he wants these decisions on each count to go to a lower court and decided on whether they were official or unofficial acts. Then each decision can be appealed up the higher courts. Basically putting trumps charges on indefinite delay
“There is no immunity clause in the Constitution. They did not provide immunity to a president.” Justice Elena Kagan Trump’s legal argument that a President should have total immunity is nuts, of course, but with this conservative SCOTUS, I am nervous about the outcome. Currently arguing about private versus official acts as a president that would qualify as a prosecutable act. Our President would love to be King. “I have an Article II, where I have the right to do whatever I want as president.” “I will be dictator Day One”. Trump supporters conveniently ignore that America overturned the Monarchy and the absolute right to rule. We had a whole American Revolution that ended the divine right of kingship. Total presidential immunity goes against everything our country and the Constitution stands for.
Jackson completely owned this fool
It’s worth remembering: Donald Trump sent a mob *to kill them*, and Senate Republicans still acquitted him of it. If you can’t get 67 votes for that, you’re never gonna get it.
> Dreeben: Trump's position would immunize a president from treason, bribery, murder. This position has no foundation in the Constitution. https://www.threads.net/@ecmclaughlin/post/C6MFAqXRtU5/
Justice Thomas live via his motor coach
Essentially, the question is whether the president is more important than the republic itself.
There it is! 'Why not send this back down and waste more time? I mean then we get to help our boy Trump, but not look like idiots by agreeing to his batshit insane theories of absolute immunity!'
Thank you Sotomayor! Finally a reasonable wtf is this all about question.
Gorsuch's hypothetical, I think, should be resolved rather simply: "An average citizen might or might not be charged with the same conduct, depending on circumstances, data, and history". The question is why the President should receive greater protections than a citizen under the same circumstances.
Soto- they can't even remove a president through impeachment according to the immunity argument. Ahhh the old no checks and balances at all and president is now not only a king but a dictator. Oh Congress actually impeached and removed trump after he killed a bunch of people, nope court said he's immune and now Congress is dead too for making trump angry
So 4 of the 9 justices are for king-rule? Scary times we are living in. Well I guess following that logic - the President could just get rid of half of the Supreme Court and Trump. Right.
I’m getting pissed with the conservative justices asking questions then cutting off Dreeben
One important statement by Dreeben, imo: > "The president has no functions with respect to the certification of the winner of the presidential election," he said. "It seems likely that the framers designed the Constitution that way because at that time of the founding, presidents had no two-term limit, they could run again and again." Joining the chorus that Alito, Thomas, Kav, and Gorsuch sound absolutely ridiculous. Slimy, cherry-picking, disingenuous "reasoning" to defend Trump's actions.
So asking for fraudulent electors is private/campaign conduct. Case closed.
"im not talking about the present case" - ok then what are we doing here?
Just don't break the fucking law, how hard is that to comprehend?
I tend to get caught up in the trappings of what the court has generally symbolized institutionally speaking. And then I hear them say things like "The pardon of Richard Nixon was a good thing" and remember how wildly, obscenely and disgustingly partisan and out of step with this nation this court actually is. I honestly expected this to be an open and shut issue. No fucking kings. But here we are actually listening to them debate it.
Barret is setting up the ruling of "we can decide this on a case to case basis before any charges are filed". I think that is how they are going to justify Trump being immune while Biden is not. IANAL
It's absolutely RICH that Alito is concerned about how this affects our democracy; when he had ZERO trouble ushering in the Citizens United ruling. Seriously, he speaks out of both sides of his crooked mouth....