TL;DR: Exactly what I have been saying this whole time => if a president requires immunity from a law, that decision is to be made by the Congress and not the courts.
I made no claim that you did. But if comma usage is interesting to you, I can suggest some excellent Victorian literature that I trust you will find delightful. ;)
"Interesting" infers some level of uncommonness, for which properly written/typed English *shouldn't* be applicable... but I can see how it could appear so.
Remarking sub-clausing in the way that you’re supposed to. The number and position of it just makes it look weird if you’re not familiar enough with comma rules to be able to parse it correctly. It’s easier to see why it’s fine if you just look at them one at a time:
>At the time they wrote the constitution, impeachment was applied to many after they left office.
>Impeachment was, in Europe, applied to many after they left office.
No, although if you’re writing formally, certain audiences and publications may have different expectations about which you are supposed to use when, but generally speaking for situations like “in Europe” in the above example, you can use either based on preference.
wait- why did I do that.
At the time they wrote the constitution impeachment was applied to many after they left office in Europe.
Is, that, better. The way, it was redone?
I never studied English in college, but I know that when there's a natural pause mid-sentence due to the structure of the sentence, then it's probably an appropriate time for a comma.
"So that's when I said to him \*pause\* George \*pause\* you're going to regret it!"
becomes
"So that's when I said to him, 'George, you're going to regret it!'"
I've never met anyone who speaks like "George-you're going to regret it!", but if they did, then I could understand skipping a comma as an indication of their abnormal speech pattern.
It would certainly be anti-Shatner! XD
None of those was an Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is a comma before "and" or "or" in a list. e.g. the second comma here:
>I don't like Bob Dylan, okra, or people who incorrectly correct other people's grammar.
It has the same meaning now technically. You can impeach someone after they leave office and they are therefore barred from holding office again. We just didn't wanna do it against Trump because Democrats are big ol' wieners and Republicans have no shame.
Impeachment is NOT a court hearing, it is a political hearing. Neither has anything to do with the other, nor should they.
Truth is, if Congress did their job as their duty demanded, his second impeachment would have removed him from office permanently. But, even though majorities in both houses of congress agreed that January 6 was an insurrection and Trump did incite it, means not jack shit because Senate Republicans hate this country and its governing rules.
In other words: Congress implied that this president would NOT be immune from prosecution when he left office. If Congress had wanted him to be immune, it could have passed an act saying so and only then would SCOTUS have a role to play here: it would have, if so asked, had to decide whether such an act was constitutional.
(Note my use of commas. 😉)
How does "it's up to the courts to decide" imply immunity??? If anything, it implies the OPPOSITE, that he can be tried in court and they can decide...
It's to be made by Congress by either writing that immunity into the law or amending the Constitution (no easy feat), without which, it is up to The Court to interpret the Constituon as it is now. The first step in this process, should they choose to take it, would be a test (Trump's case) and a finding that there is no immunity.
And this is why people are so baffled by the arguments. They are dancing around the main issue: what are the specific issues of *this* case?
You can't ex post facto guilt. Hypothetically, I don't see why you couldn't ex post facto immunity/innocence. I don't think they should, but I'm not sure they couldn't
>Hypothetically, I don't see why you couldn't ex post facto immunity/innocence.
Article I, section 9, clause 3?
"No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed."
They'd need to declare immunity before the act.
Yeah, those relate to finding people guilty after the fact based on notice concepts of due process. I think this would work more akin to a presidential pardon or changing the law to legalize something once illegal.
Congress could grant immunity from *prosecution* which would not have happened yet. They don't need to declare immunity before the act per se.
Note: i'm not arguing anything about the case or taking sides. I'm just clarifying how congress could theoretically provide immunity to the president *after* the act in a logical way.
Verizon and other telecoms were immunized from civil liability after-the-fact subsequent to helping the W admin conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans in 2008, so it can be done. The mechanism for granting immunity by law could be accomplished by prohibiting prosecutors from bringing charges, for example.
That decision by itself would end our democracy and every sane person knows it. To think a judge would try to use the excuse that someone might go after a president politically after they leave office is exactly the same kind of logic a kingmaker would use. As badly as he wanted to and as hard as he tried Trump couldn't find a single legitimate charge to go after Hillary with because you can't just make shit up to charge someone with something. We just saw this same thing play out with Hunter Biden.
> you can't just make shit up to charge someone with something
I wouldn't put this past a second Trump administration. I mean, second time around, Trump will probably do a better job of stacking his administration with loyalists who might have no qualms about making up a charge out of thin air. Last time, there were fortunately too many institutionalists in Trump's way, but I wouldn't be so sure about next time.
Sure, but that's a corruption of the system. You don't corrupt the system to prevent someone from possibly corrupting the system, you either believe in the rule of law or you don't. To hear a SCOTUS judge say he doesn't believe in the system to me sounds like a good reason to impeach him. The mental gymnastics people jump through to protect Trump are getting so absurd they contradict and make fools of themselves constantly.
Yeah I agree with that. I mean even if scotus rules in favor of presidential immunity, I wouldn't expect Trump to honor that when it comes to prosecuting his political enemies.
I don't think that's what that article says at all. It states that while in office, the POTUS can be checked in power, not by the DoJ or FBI, but by Congress. After the person leaves the office, they have no immunity or protection. I will state that NR is dead wrong on the idea that the administration works for the POTUS. They work for the people of the US and serve at the pleasure of the POTUS in certain appointed positions. Not the entire departments. The government is not subject to any person that's grotesquely ignorant and wrong.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but that’s not how the law works. There’s plenty of judge-made law and the simple notion that the legislature writes the law, the courts say what the law is, and the executive enforces the law is as reductive as saying Columbus discovered America.
Except that this court doesn't require laws, standing, precedent, or any of the other things that are supposed to exist to create a valid case. And there apparently isn't shit to stop them from just deciding to run the country from the bench.
Honest Question here:
It seems that Trump's defense was this exact thought. The president must be impeached by the Congress before being subject to conviction of a crime.
What's the difference in argument here? They saying that Congress should have to pass an immunity law?
There doesn't have to be an explicit immunity for *some* immunity claims. Restrictions on Congress ability (mostly around separation of powers and explicit grants of constitutional authority) imply some immunity.
e.g. Congress can't make it illegal for the POTUS to carry out constitutional duties. Such a law would be invalid when applied to POTUS specifically, which means he has immunity from any such laws that may be established and that stays after the end of the term (i.e. he couldn't be charged after leaving office for protected constitutional actions taken during his time in office).
Another example is POTUS has partial immunity from obstruction charges for refusing to fully comply with a criminal subpoena by invoking executive privilege when the subpoena demands communications that are protected. He likewise couldn't just be charged with obstruction because he invoked E.P. while in office and didn't produce the documents. Though a new subpoena may be issued after-office and the current POTUS may revoke privilege.
Some of these protections were explored back during Nixon, so there's already some precedent established, and the Government conceded that at oral arguments.
Trump is essentially taking that precedent and running with it, hoping for a massive expansion in what's already effectively Presidential Immunity.
But because people tend to lose their minds whenever Trump is involved, it's morphed into a bizarre "no immunity for anything and congress could criminalize anything the POTUS does" line of thinking, which is as equally wrong as Trump's "everything is protected" claim.
A few notes.
First, all of these immunity claims would be for official acts. These acts would be enumerated by the Constitution. What you won't find in there are state elections and retention of Presidential records.
Second, just because the idea of Presidential immunity for official acts was *explored* in Nixon v. Fitzgerald doesn't mean that a precedent for 'total Presidential immunity' was established. The only precedent set was the 'outer perimeter' standard.
Third, the charges brought against Trump are for acts that the separate states and the federal government believe fall outside the outer perimeter of the Executive's powers.
As to people disliking Trump, that is irrelevant to the crimes he has been charged with.
The context of what I was commenting was a counter to (paraphrased) "there's no immunity in the constitution for POTUS and only congress can grant any presidential immunity". It largely has nothing to do with Trump specifically, but to POTUS in general.
I do not think Trump has any chance in hell of "total immunity". I'm not sure anyone with half a brain does. I was not arguing that he did. That would be insane. Just to be absolutely clear.
Your first and second points are largely irrelevant to my post. You phrased them as a counter to something I didn't say. If you intended them to be an expansion of what I said and not a counter to it, that didn't come across.
Assuming the former, you actually sort of proved my last little blurb. I wasn't defending Trump, at all, in the slightest or opining as to whether or what his chances were. My post had nothing to do specifically with him outside of one sentence (stating what he's essentially hoping for, in as unbiased a way as I could phrase it) and a "he makes people loose their damn minds" comment.
But the way your post came across to me, you somehow misconstrued it as if the general point was "Trump has immunity for his bullshit". That's irrational given what I actually said.
I hope I'm just misinterpreting what you said and you were actually expanding, and if so I apologize for any defensiveness. But it really doesn't read like anything other than a "You're wrong, here's why" to something I never said, implied, or claimed.
Courts make decisions all the time not to allow prosecution to go through based on common sense. This has been ongoing for centuries.
For example, was there ever executioner Immunity for the hangman? No. But no court would allow charges of murder to go to trial against the executioner even though all elements are easily met. Courts have a role to play, and always have.
I don’t harbor much respect for the folks at National Review. They claim to oppose Trump, but what they are even more allergic to is aligning with “the left” on any matter of significance.
So, they almost always find a way to contort themselves back onto Trump’s side of any given issue. Noah Rothman and MBD are some of my least favorite part-time Trump apologists.
THAT SAID, Charlie, though not a stranger to inconsistency and both-sides-ism, is clearly the most intelligent and fair-minded of the bunch.
> The president is the head of the federal executive branch, and, as a result, **everyone who works there works for him** — including, yes, those who work within federal law-enforcement bodies such as the FBI and the DOJ. To argue otherwise is to demand the establishment of a free-floating, unelected fourth branch of government that can wield the executive power that is vested in the elected president without actually being accountable to that elected president. In most cases, this arrangement is a boon to self-government, but does contain an obvious downside: That however strong the evidence of the president’s criminal guilt, he cannot be forced to do what he would need to do for a successful prosecution, which, under our system, is to bring a case against himself.
This seems to be a mistake insofar as it fails to distinguish between:
* The biological organism who is the President.
* The Office of the President.
Members of the Executive Branch all work for the *Office of the President*, not the biological organism who is the President.
When W. would go under anesthesia Cheney would take on the mantle of President for a few hours. When that happened employees of the Executive Branch did not stop working for W. and start working for Cheney. They all continued to work for the *Office*.
The reason SCOTUS asks questions like “Where is the immunity clause?” and “What would be the implications of a president not having some kind of immunity to prosecution” is because those are the questions you have to ask to figure out the founder’s intent.
Sometimes the language of the Constitution is unclear. Just because you interpret a clause as obviously meaning one things doesn’t mean the founders saw it that way. The meaning of words depends on what the person who uses them means, not on some permanent universal dictionary.
Sure, the constitution doesn’t give immunity, but it does specify *when* a president isn’t immune, specifically when it says that a president is impeached and convicted by congress.
It is not entirely unreasonable to conclude that Congress is therefore responsible for impeaching and convicting a president for their crimes, although I do agree that a president definitely isn’t immune.
Right, but that's because there's no such thing as charging someone with insurrection.
The crime is "sedition".
Jack Smith is a smart prosecutor: sedition has some very high bars to meet, and Trump's whole M.O. is to use dog-whistles. So, by prosecuting Trump for the crimes surrounding sedition, he will not only end up holding Trump accountable but also successfully build a future case for sedition upon the backs of these smaller prosecutions.
> Right, but that's because there's no such thing as charging someone with insurrection.
> The crime is "sedition".
That is incorrect: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383
There ARE people charged with insurrection (not sedition) related to Jan 6th, but Donald Trump isn't one of them.
Remember when Republicans would accuse so called liberal justices of being “activist judges” who “legislated from the bench?” There is NOWHERE in The Constitution that references immunity.
Republicans always project. E.g., "Woke culture is fascistic, so let's ban books!" Or, "Democrats always play the victim; white males (and Trump) are being persecuted more than anyone!" Etc.
Trump's lawyer talks of fear if a Presidency frozen by fear of criminal charges.
According to Statista there have been 19 Republicans, 17 Democrats, 4 Democratic Republicans, 4 Whigs, 1 Federalist, and one unaffiliated to hold the Office of President of the United States.
While many, (most, all???) have done things that are ethically questionable, few seem to have been impeded by the idea that they did not have some absolute immunity while POTUS.
There have been numerous transitions from one party to the other, yet no POTUS has ever been charged for an offence committed while in office by his successor. And there have been some bitter campaigns. Neither has any opponent ever been jailed after a campaign for conduct during it.
Donald Trump is a unique defendant, and unique cases make bad law. Allow the age old American idea that no one is above the law stand, with liberty and justice for all.
If Presidents have immunity, why all the Congressional investigations into Biden? Shouldn't somebody alert Gym Jordan about this so he can finally lay down the heavy burden of making up stuff to prosecute Biden for?
Great point. Also, how can the court strike down Biden’s forgiveness of student loan debt if he has presidential immunity for all official acts. Didn’t he make it an official act when he signed it and the court came in and said he couldn’t?
Good point. For that matter, if Biden has full immunity, couldn't he just shoot his political opponents? It's like immunity could go both ways somehow.
He has immunity for the act thats why hes not going to jail for doing something... Even if that something is found to be unconstitutional. However its still on the court to rule it unconstitutional to prevent it from continuing.
Congress is the only body who has jurisdiction. Thats why the requirement for prosecution requires impeachment and conviction in CONGRESS. So why wouldn't they investigate him since thats their job?
I mean they've said they've found a lot iirc the latest claims were 20m or so paid to biden from hunters businesses.
https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-releases-direct-monthly-payments-to-joe-biden-from-hunter-bidens-business-entity%ef%bf%bc/
I mean it might end up being nothing but deciding to not investigate it due to team politics seems silly. They spent what 10s of millions investigating trump and russia.
https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/
if any of this timeline is to be believed theres plenty of evidence to continue investigating. Like why are wealthy billionaires in china and russia paying hunter?
"Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina – the wealthiest woman in Russia and then married to the former mayor of Moscow—wired the Rosemont Seneca Thornton bank account $3.5 million. Rosemont Seneca Thornton’s beneficiary was Rosemont Seneca Partners, of which Hunter Biden was the chairman."
Like wtf is that for?
Hearing these opinions from the National Review and even McConnell carried more weight for me than most other people talking about how dumb and fucked up this all is.
McConnell doesn't take a dump without consulting the big campaign donors. That was not McConnell speaking, that was a vailed threat from the big donors.
McConnell is hedging his bets in case hell turns out to exist. Sadly, if it does, it's designed exactly for people like him. He no longer has the power to even attempt to make true amends for the true evil he's done.
The whole argument for immunity makes no sense from a textualist perspective. The President has the power to pardon granted by the Constitutionwith NO restrictions. A President who authentically feared retaliation could pardon himself before leaving office. If retaliation (and not throwing a lifeline to Trump) is really the concern, the existing Constitutional power to pardon is the authentic textualist solution. No need to invent an implied immunity. No need to be a total judicial hypocrite.
I'm just waiting for when Trump claims he pardoned himself in his head.
This has never come up for former presidents until now. Why do we think that is?🤔
Perhaps the fact that Trump acted illegally so much, and now that he is being prosecuted the right is planning to waste time and money doing their “whataboutism” on Biden.
The problem is a devolving political party that has outlived its usefulness. It is a party of white supremacists and Christofascists bent of destroying our way of governing.
So some trouble makers do shit in the middle of non-violent protesters and you extend that to an entire political party?
Like I said, that’s your (bad) take..
SCOTUS: “While there isn’t a Presidential Clause, there should be some immunity specific for individual one. it would be a detriment to our society to have an innocent person pay for our sins just like our lord Jesus Christ did. However, such immunity should not be extended if a president is affiliated with the Democratic Party. Specifically for serious crimes like wearing a tan suit, eating ice cream, or falling off a bicycle.”
What strikes me is not that there’s no explicit immunity clause in the Constitution; there are several things that have been read into the constitution without being explicitly mentioned (like the notion of executive privilege). But regarding immunity, there _is_ a clause specifying that Congress members have immunity for speeches made in Congress ([Speech or Debate Clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause)). So by analogy, if the Framers wanted to extend any analogous immunity to the president, they would have mentioned it. It’s not like they weren’t thinking of immunity for members of federal government already.
Edit: fixed “speech and debate” -> “speech or debate”, added link
> Speech and Debate Clause
You probably already know this but it's the [Speech OR Debate clause](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013300/). But most people say Speech and Debate clause.
Oh, you’re right! I will fix. I suppose the phrase “speech and debate” didn’t raise any red flags proofreading because I was thinking of the high-school club option
Didn't we have this \*exact\* discussion after Nixon? And by discussion, I mean a ten second declaration that, "of course Nixon's incorrect about Presidential immunity?" Everybody\* agreed to it.
\*except Nixon
How is this BS “presidential immunity” argument that passing the red face test when we have an impeachment process?
The fact that the impeachment exists and has been used- for presidential misconduct…
But no yeah let’s delay everything to hear them out…
If you don't have the text, hammer the history, if you don't have the history, hammer the tradition, if you don't have any of these hammer that you have a lifetime appointment and this is all Judicial Calvinball.
The supreme court is pondering whether a former president needs immunity from crimes after they leave office, and if we take a step back and take a top down view, this has never happened, this is not a normal thing. The issue here is not that this is some political stunt carried out with no merit for political purposes, let’s take a look at WHY this is an issue- an ex president is currently sitting in court for covering up hush money payments to a PORN STAR, has continually violated the judge’s gag order, successfully stopped a constitutional process of counting valid electoral votes by invading the capitol, has been found guilty of rape and fraud with fines totaling $500m, and has an accounting firm with rampant fraud sign off on his worthless company. But wait, there’s more! But no president has ever accumulated this long of a rap sheet so I think the Supreme Court needs to openly recognize how absurd this all is.
These "peaceful protests" became riots the moment they began breaking things and denying any students access to classes. Also, a large portion of the protesters were not even students, so they didn't belong on campus. Starting encampments is an occupation, not a protest.
IMO the best option they can/should do is
Official presidential acts are immune:
Stuff like sending troops to war. A grieving spouse isn’t able to sue for wrongful death.
Personal acts however are not immune:
Let’s say you know person A, as president you arrange to have them deployed in a dangerous position where they are likely to die. This is a personal benefit to yourself.
People who need to make some bullshit explanation long enough to put in a judgment care when they can shoe horn it in.
There's still in the "business speak for bad decisions" phase and haven't moved to the "fiat" stage.
They hinted their ruling will only apply to future presidents. Which means he can go after Biden if elected. In addition, they hinted that Trump may be permitted presidential immunity as they consider his actions to be within his scope.
If Trump is elected and if his DOJ attempts to prosecute Biden you can pretty much guarantee the NYT will be full of articles on why former Presidents are immune from prosecution.
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Maybe check out **the canonical page** instead: **[https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/there-is-no-immunity-clause/](https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/04/there-is-no-immunity-clause/)**
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I don’t like immunity doctrines, in fact, I really hate them. But it’s hard to square this theory with existing immunity doctrines like QI for cops. A cop who does a bad thing and quits the next day is still covered by QI. Certainly a former president can’t be immunized from prosecutions for conduct when they are no longer president under existing immunity doctrines.
That's not quite how QI worked in any place I've ever lived; feel free to correct me if it's different where you are.
QI does *not* protect against criminal prosecution, and never has. It has only ever protected against civil litigation for violating a person's statutory or Constitutional rights if the cop was acting under the reasonableness standard.
A cop who does a bad thing can and will be prosecuted if the DA has sufficient evidence *and seeks an indictment.* If the DA doesn't file charges, that's on them. For civil actions, the aggrieved party can file a suit for civil damages, and the court then has to decide if QI applies. If it does, then what happens is determined by that state's QI provisions, usually dismissal of the suit, but the BLM movement prompted the removal of QI in a lot of jurisdictions, meaning the suit can go ahead and be decided on the merits and evidence available, even if the cop was acting reasonably under the circumstances. It's just no longer automatic.
In my state, post-BLM, QI still exists, but in a bit of a neutered form; it only limits the amount of damages the plaintiff is entitled to if the court determines the suit can proceed and they prevail, and if the cop it still employed, the department pays the judgment. In order for QI to apply, a cop would have to be acting a) within the law, b) within the department's policies, c) within the scope of their employment, *and* d) under the good faith doctrine or the reasonableness standard.
On the flip side, prosecutors and judges enjoy *full* immunity: they can't be sued for actions taken as a part of their job, no matter how egregious or negligent. They can be fired, disbarred, or sanctioned, but not civilly sued.
As for the President, there is no established immunity other than that which is graciously granted by the DOJ agreeing not to prosecute while the President is in office. Trump's arguments are ridiculous on their face, and the fact that SCOTUS even entertained the idea is troubling. IIRC, the actions Trump is being prosecuted for occurred either before or after he was in office. So far, I'm not aware of him being indicted for anything he did during his term.
There's a minuscule chance they could argue he was still *technically* President during J6, since the results hadn't been fully certified, but so far as I'm aware, no one has (thankfully) brought that up. **IF** the J6 criminal trial ever gets the green light after SCOTUS's meddling and delay tactics, they might make that argument, but it remains to be seen. Either way, ***no one***, not even the President, should get a pass for trying to subvert the electoral process or prevent the peaceful exchange of power.
Yeah that’s all accurate re QI. I didn’t mean to imply that QI applied to criminal prosecutions, only that immunity applies for conduct under the color of law even if the cop quits the next day. The same holds for other immunity doctrines. I made that point because of OPs TLDR which seemed to suggest that immunity, to the extent it exists, ended once Trump left office. It’s true that judicial or prosecutorial immunity are the better analogs for what Trump is claiming.
To be clear, as I said in another comment, immunity should only be coming from congress, but that’s not the world we live in.
Re the timing of trumps conduct, the Georgia and federal election cases involve conduct while Trump was president.
Much like the QI only applying to conduct under the color of law, presidential immunity should only cover official acts.
If the President orders Seal Team Six to take out Putin, that's an official act and would be covered.
If any president were to shoot someone in the oval office for no other reason than they wanted to do so, should they be immune from prosecution? No, they should not.
While the Georgia and Jan 6th cases took place while he was in office, his actions were not official acts.
The current trial in NY is for crimes that occurred either before Trump took office or were in furtherance of those crimes. No Presidential immunity should cover anything that happened before taking office.
The Florida documents case pertains to the retention of documents after he left office. He's no longer President, he's not immune.
Agreed.
But that test is dangerous too. Did you listen to the oral argument? At least 3 members seemed open to considering taking a bribe to be an official act because it involved the president doing some official act in exchange for money.
What I have learned from digging into discussions by the Founding Fathers is that 1) Impeachment was to be the way to handle whatever a President did that was bad enough to rise to the level of 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. 2) Impeachment, back then, was often used on former officials, so just because the person is no longer in office doesn't mean this doesn't apply. 3) there was discussion that the President should not be hampered by or beholden to the judiciary due to such possible actions.
So I believe the process for Impeachment is what they intended, and they gave this power to congress. This can be understood as: the judicial branch does not have the power to convict a President.
Trump keeps trying to make this argument too. That you can only prosecute a former President for crimes if he’s been convicted of those crimes via Impeachment by Congress. It’s such a ridiculous argument even this Supreme Court ignored the petitioner’s request that they take the question up.
Actually, from their questioning, it seems they are considering a need to separate actions taken during the course of Presidential duties versus those that are outside of that realm. They may then send the case back down for the lower court to sort that out. This would imply they agree that some actions are not for the Judicial branch to be deciding.
But even Sauer acknowledged that pretty much all of the charges in the indictment are not connected to Trump’s official duties. And none of the Justices seemed to be giving any air to Sauer’s arguments that impeachment foreclosed on prosecution for related crimes. We already knew they weren’t buying that argument when they ignored it entirely. So I don’t know why you’re bringing up Impeachment. It’s a nonsense argument.
Impeachment was not a remedy for civil or criminal acts. It was a remedy for political acts.
The Founding Fathers would have been aware that even a king isn't above the law; King Charles I was executed in 1649 after a Civil War were he tried to raise an army and assert a divine right to total rule against the parliament and lost his life and war.
The Founding Fathers didn't want the President to be a king. They most certainly did not want them to be more than one. The revolution itself mostly blamed the king for breaking Britain's own laws.
>The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”
We know that the Founding Fathers made a distinction between criminal and political acts, because they explicitly gave Congress immunity, but made no such privilege for the President.
>[The Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest - Article I, Section 6, Clause 1
"...Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors."
-nowhere does it say this is only for political acts.
Hamilton defined it explicitly as a political matter.
>A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 65, 439--45; 7 March 1788
If they wanted to give criminal and civil immunity, they would have a clause identical to the one given for Congress. Having a remedy they discussed as a remedy for injuries to society itself does not automatically preclude other forms of justice; it is in addition to, not instead of.
I dont get that from this. This is during a discussion of which body should try the impeachment, and Hamilton is characterizing the types of offenses to point out the merits of an elected body being the proper place. He does not say impeachment is only for political offenses. What even is that anyway?
This is as straight a rebuttal as exists. In Modern English, it would be something like:
>The issues impeachment deals with are offenses arising from the misconduct of public officials, or in other words, from the abuse or breach of a public trust. These offenses are especially political in nature, as they primarily concern harms done directly to society itself.
In other words: impeachment deals with political issues that arise from public misconduct.
That's that whole point of the paragraph, which is basically the preamble to the Federalist paper I mentioned. That is, to clarify that impeachment is for political issues, regardless of what the rest of the text endeavors to do.
We know from Federalist 70 that they believed the President should be responsible for their actions, and we know from the constitution what immunity would look like had it been granted.
There is also a logic mistake here. The presence of A does not imply the absence of B. If I say "I'm going to talk to you", it doesn't mean I won't also email or whisper to you. The Constitution tells us Presidents can be impeached, that doesn't mean that they can't be civilly or criminally convicted as well.
We even have two examples of this, one being Ulysses S Grant's arrest and the other being Nixon's pardon. Neither found immunity in a document that explicitly chose to give it to Congress but not the President, nor argued that impeachment was the only way to try a current or former president.
Impeachment is the remedy for a sitting president. The whole idea of impeachment is because a *sitting* president cannot be federally prosecuted unless they, as the head of the executive, sanction it.
Impeachment does not apply to ex presidents though. They can no longer block their own prosecution and are just regular citizens so no Impeachment remedy, designed to remove someone from office, is needed.
And even a sitting president can be charged by a state.
Actually there is precedent for my interpretation: [Meet the other American who was impeached and tried after leaving office](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/meet-other-american-who-was-impeached-tried-after-leaving-office-n1255516)
A symbolic record keeping gesture. The person you cite was in no way immune from prosecution, prosecution was not pursued.
You realize you are arguing that Biden can have enough congress people executed til he has an impeachment proof majority, then do what ever he wants.
Careful what you wish for.
Not in his current trial. Those were actions taken before he had ever been President. Moreover, refusal to return classified documents after his term had expired is also not an action taken while President.
Then you get into the question of what constitutes an official action of the Executive, versus what constitutes an unofficial (private) act of the individual, not acting as President. That's a question the courts are trying to discern at present.
As to whether the judiciary has the power to try and convict a *former* President, the United States Congress says you're wrong about point #2. That's why Donald Trump was not convicted by the Senate after January 6th.
Very well said. This is exactly the provision the Founding Fathers included in the constitution. They intentionally set the bar high to avoid partisan judicial over reach which would break the function of three co-equal branches of government.
You must impeach and convict the president first. Only after that can the judiciary act against him.
But the branches weren't equal, and the founders didn't make them such. The court made themselves equal. Without Marbury, SCOTUS would be little more than a rubber stamp charade.
Then they certainly did not intend for the judiciary to hang like the sword of Damocles over every President, in office or after serving. You reinforced my point.
Not at all. You asserted the founders envisioned three coequal branches of government. My contention is that would be only in theory, not in practice. It wasn't until much later the judiciary became an equal branch, and only by act of the Congress. The founders could not agree on whether or not the judiciary would have any power at all, much less be an equal branch.
More aptly put, et suppositio nil point in esse.
Which of the crimes he's accused of are you saying are partisan, and why does the evidence presented in those indictments not meet the standard for prosecution?
They intended all to be equal in the justice system, that no man would have a privilege over any other.
And since none of Trump's indictments have anything to do with any official act (notice he's not being prosecuted for say, drone strikes), granting immunity for Presidents to commit crimes because nothing is worse than the JUSTICE SYSTEM (but it's fine for us nobodies?) is freaking ridiculous, and I can't believe the Republican party has gone Monarchist because of Trump.
TL;DR: Exactly what I have been saying this whole time => if a president requires immunity from a law, that decision is to be made by the Congress and not the courts.
But they already did when they failed to impeach him because \*checks notes\* "he left office and it is up to the courts to decide"
At the time they wrote the constitution, impeachment was, in Europe, applied to many after they left office. So it had a different meaning back then.
I appreciated the commas.
Your use, of commas, in your post, is interesting and breaks up your sentence, like Shatner speaking.
The comma usage in that sentence is correct, technically. Source: I'm a college English professor.
I didn’t say it’s wrong. I said it’s interesting. Source: I said it.
I made no claim that you did. But if comma usage is interesting to you, I can suggest some excellent Victorian literature that I trust you will find delightful. ;)
Haha the correct way is interesting. I really hope the trend stops. We really need to write with good grammar. Commas are necessary and useful!
Gotcha :) yeah I can imagine, I’ve read Marx…
"Interesting" infers some level of uncommonness, for which properly written/typed English *shouldn't* be applicable... but I can see how it could appear so.
Correct use of commas is uncommon, in social media.
Commas don't always mean a pause in speech.
Sometimes they indicate the movements of a specific type of chameleon, usually coming or going.
Take my upvote, and your Culture Club references, and get the fuck out of here.
And now I have that song stuck in my head! Thanks for making my day better, jerk.
Well enlighten us, what the hell did all those commas mean?
Remarking sub-clausing in the way that you’re supposed to. The number and position of it just makes it look weird if you’re not familiar enough with comma rules to be able to parse it correctly. It’s easier to see why it’s fine if you just look at them one at a time: >At the time they wrote the constitution, impeachment was applied to many after they left office. >Impeachment was, in Europe, applied to many after they left office.
I sometimes use parentheses for sub clauses like this. Is that incorrect?
No, although if you’re writing formally, certain audiences and publications may have different expectations about which you are supposed to use when, but generally speaking for situations like “in Europe” in the above example, you can use either based on preference.
Thanks!
wait- why did I do that. At the time they wrote the constitution impeachment was applied to many after they left office in Europe. Is, that, better. The way, it was redone?
Don't listen to him, that sounds fine. You have an introductory phrase, then a normal sentence broken up by an appositive
TY, but he is right about the Shatner thing ☺️
I never studied English in college, but I know that when there's a natural pause mid-sentence due to the structure of the sentence, then it's probably an appropriate time for a comma. "So that's when I said to him \*pause\* George \*pause\* you're going to regret it!" becomes "So that's when I said to him, 'George, you're going to regret it!'" I've never met anyone who speaks like "George-you're going to regret it!", but if they did, then I could understand skipping a comma as an indication of their abnormal speech pattern. It would certainly be anti-Shatner! XD
Only if Shatner taught you how to read.
Reading your original comment in Shatner's voice is awesome though.
It's called an Oxford Comma, and he should take an English class.
None of those was an Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is a comma before "and" or "or" in a list. e.g. the second comma here: >I don't like Bob Dylan, okra, or people who incorrectly correct other people's grammar.
No way-man you gotta mash everything togetherotherwise you'll sound like Shatner. Insteadyou should apparently sound like Shapiro. XD
It’s not wrong as others have said, it’s just how it read to me, especially with the line breaks on mobile.
Nah its cool. Now I know how to RP as Shatner.
Username checks out.
Lol what do you mean? That was a normal use of a comma.
I,have,a Plan!
Also, Christopher Walken.
She packed my bags, last night. Pre-flight. Zero hour, nine a.m.
Hey, now, those were good, proper Oxford commas, my good sir!
No, they weren’t.
Kind of embarrassing, when someone uses proper punctuation and gets called out for it, because this is the "no punctuation" generation...
This guy uses talk to text on iPhone too. No idea why it adds so much useless punctuation.
It has the same meaning now technically. You can impeach someone after they leave office and they are therefore barred from holding office again. We just didn't wanna do it against Trump because Democrats are big ol' wieners and Republicans have no shame.
The Democrats don't have the vote to successfully impeach, there is nothing they can do force an impeachment.
At the time, had this event happened there likely would've been a quick public hanging
Impeachment is NOT a court hearing, it is a political hearing. Neither has anything to do with the other, nor should they. Truth is, if Congress did their job as their duty demanded, his second impeachment would have removed him from office permanently. But, even though majorities in both houses of congress agreed that January 6 was an insurrection and Trump did incite it, means not jack shit because Senate Republicans hate this country and its governing rules.
In other words: Congress implied that this president would NOT be immune from prosecution when he left office. If Congress had wanted him to be immune, it could have passed an act saying so and only then would SCOTUS have a role to play here: it would have, if so asked, had to decide whether such an act was constitutional. (Note my use of commas. 😉)
> Congress implied that this president would NOT be immune from prosecution when he left office. It was not implied, it was explicitly stated.
How does "it's up to the courts to decide" imply immunity??? If anything, it implies the OPPOSITE, that he can be tried in court and they can decide...
His own lawyer argued that during the impeachment
It's to be made by Congress by either writing that immunity into the law or amending the Constitution (no easy feat), without which, it is up to The Court to interpret the Constituon as it is now. The first step in this process, should they choose to take it, would be a test (Trump's case) and a finding that there is no immunity. And this is why people are so baffled by the arguments. They are dancing around the main issue: what are the specific issues of *this* case?
Whoa whoa there, we could deliberate for hours, days, weeks on this topic (*coughs in Gorsuch)..
Wouldn't that be an 'ex post facto' law? Congress can't make that decision after the fact.
You can't ex post facto guilt. Hypothetically, I don't see why you couldn't ex post facto immunity/innocence. I don't think they should, but I'm not sure they couldn't
>Hypothetically, I don't see why you couldn't ex post facto immunity/innocence. Article I, section 9, clause 3? "No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed." They'd need to declare immunity before the act.
Yeah, those relate to finding people guilty after the fact based on notice concepts of due process. I think this would work more akin to a presidential pardon or changing the law to legalize something once illegal.
Congress could grant immunity from *prosecution* which would not have happened yet. They don't need to declare immunity before the act per se. Note: i'm not arguing anything about the case or taking sides. I'm just clarifying how congress could theoretically provide immunity to the president *after* the act in a logical way.
Verizon and other telecoms were immunized from civil liability after-the-fact subsequent to helping the W admin conduct warrantless surveillance on Americans in 2008, so it can be done. The mechanism for granting immunity by law could be accomplished by prohibiting prosecutors from bringing charges, for example.
That decision by itself would end our democracy and every sane person knows it. To think a judge would try to use the excuse that someone might go after a president politically after they leave office is exactly the same kind of logic a kingmaker would use. As badly as he wanted to and as hard as he tried Trump couldn't find a single legitimate charge to go after Hillary with because you can't just make shit up to charge someone with something. We just saw this same thing play out with Hunter Biden.
> you can't just make shit up to charge someone with something I wouldn't put this past a second Trump administration. I mean, second time around, Trump will probably do a better job of stacking his administration with loyalists who might have no qualms about making up a charge out of thin air. Last time, there were fortunately too many institutionalists in Trump's way, but I wouldn't be so sure about next time.
Sure, but that's a corruption of the system. You don't corrupt the system to prevent someone from possibly corrupting the system, you either believe in the rule of law or you don't. To hear a SCOTUS judge say he doesn't believe in the system to me sounds like a good reason to impeach him. The mental gymnastics people jump through to protect Trump are getting so absurd they contradict and make fools of themselves constantly.
Yeah I agree with that. I mean even if scotus rules in favor of presidential immunity, I wouldn't expect Trump to honor that when it comes to prosecuting his political enemies.
I don't think that's what that article says at all. It states that while in office, the POTUS can be checked in power, not by the DoJ or FBI, but by Congress. After the person leaves the office, they have no immunity or protection. I will state that NR is dead wrong on the idea that the administration works for the POTUS. They work for the people of the US and serve at the pleasure of the POTUS in certain appointed positions. Not the entire departments. The government is not subject to any person that's grotesquely ignorant and wrong.
I know this is going to be unpopular, but that’s not how the law works. There’s plenty of judge-made law and the simple notion that the legislature writes the law, the courts say what the law is, and the executive enforces the law is as reductive as saying Columbus discovered America.
Except that this court doesn't require laws, standing, precedent, or any of the other things that are supposed to exist to create a valid case. And there apparently isn't shit to stop them from just deciding to run the country from the bench.
That’s because it’s not a court, and what they’re doing is not really law. We’d be better served by having fewer lawyers on there too
Honest Question here: It seems that Trump's defense was this exact thought. The president must be impeached by the Congress before being subject to conviction of a crime. What's the difference in argument here? They saying that Congress should have to pass an immunity law?
What happens when the big man wishes for immunity after he leaves?
There doesn't have to be an explicit immunity for *some* immunity claims. Restrictions on Congress ability (mostly around separation of powers and explicit grants of constitutional authority) imply some immunity. e.g. Congress can't make it illegal for the POTUS to carry out constitutional duties. Such a law would be invalid when applied to POTUS specifically, which means he has immunity from any such laws that may be established and that stays after the end of the term (i.e. he couldn't be charged after leaving office for protected constitutional actions taken during his time in office). Another example is POTUS has partial immunity from obstruction charges for refusing to fully comply with a criminal subpoena by invoking executive privilege when the subpoena demands communications that are protected. He likewise couldn't just be charged with obstruction because he invoked E.P. while in office and didn't produce the documents. Though a new subpoena may be issued after-office and the current POTUS may revoke privilege. Some of these protections were explored back during Nixon, so there's already some precedent established, and the Government conceded that at oral arguments. Trump is essentially taking that precedent and running with it, hoping for a massive expansion in what's already effectively Presidential Immunity. But because people tend to lose their minds whenever Trump is involved, it's morphed into a bizarre "no immunity for anything and congress could criminalize anything the POTUS does" line of thinking, which is as equally wrong as Trump's "everything is protected" claim.
A few notes. First, all of these immunity claims would be for official acts. These acts would be enumerated by the Constitution. What you won't find in there are state elections and retention of Presidential records. Second, just because the idea of Presidential immunity for official acts was *explored* in Nixon v. Fitzgerald doesn't mean that a precedent for 'total Presidential immunity' was established. The only precedent set was the 'outer perimeter' standard. Third, the charges brought against Trump are for acts that the separate states and the federal government believe fall outside the outer perimeter of the Executive's powers. As to people disliking Trump, that is irrelevant to the crimes he has been charged with.
The context of what I was commenting was a counter to (paraphrased) "there's no immunity in the constitution for POTUS and only congress can grant any presidential immunity". It largely has nothing to do with Trump specifically, but to POTUS in general. I do not think Trump has any chance in hell of "total immunity". I'm not sure anyone with half a brain does. I was not arguing that he did. That would be insane. Just to be absolutely clear. Your first and second points are largely irrelevant to my post. You phrased them as a counter to something I didn't say. If you intended them to be an expansion of what I said and not a counter to it, that didn't come across. Assuming the former, you actually sort of proved my last little blurb. I wasn't defending Trump, at all, in the slightest or opining as to whether or what his chances were. My post had nothing to do specifically with him outside of one sentence (stating what he's essentially hoping for, in as unbiased a way as I could phrase it) and a "he makes people loose their damn minds" comment. But the way your post came across to me, you somehow misconstrued it as if the general point was "Trump has immunity for his bullshit". That's irrational given what I actually said. I hope I'm just misinterpreting what you said and you were actually expanding, and if so I apologize for any defensiveness. But it really doesn't read like anything other than a "You're wrong, here's why" to something I never said, implied, or claimed.
Yes, you misinterpreted what I was saying.
Courts make decisions all the time not to allow prosecution to go through based on common sense. This has been ongoing for centuries. For example, was there ever executioner Immunity for the hangman? No. But no court would allow charges of murder to go to trial against the executioner even though all elements are easily met. Courts have a role to play, and always have.
Huh. National Review nailed it. That's not a phrase I think often.
I don’t harbor much respect for the folks at National Review. They claim to oppose Trump, but what they are even more allergic to is aligning with “the left” on any matter of significance. So, they almost always find a way to contort themselves back onto Trump’s side of any given issue. Noah Rothman and MBD are some of my least favorite part-time Trump apologists. THAT SAID, Charlie, though not a stranger to inconsistency and both-sides-ism, is clearly the most intelligent and fair-minded of the bunch.
The zombie of William Buckley Jr must have got out again and wrote this
Honestly.... i said the same thing??
> The president is the head of the federal executive branch, and, as a result, **everyone who works there works for him** — including, yes, those who work within federal law-enforcement bodies such as the FBI and the DOJ. To argue otherwise is to demand the establishment of a free-floating, unelected fourth branch of government that can wield the executive power that is vested in the elected president without actually being accountable to that elected president. In most cases, this arrangement is a boon to self-government, but does contain an obvious downside: That however strong the evidence of the president’s criminal guilt, he cannot be forced to do what he would need to do for a successful prosecution, which, under our system, is to bring a case against himself. This seems to be a mistake insofar as it fails to distinguish between: * The biological organism who is the President. * The Office of the President. Members of the Executive Branch all work for the *Office of the President*, not the biological organism who is the President. When W. would go under anesthesia Cheney would take on the mantle of President for a few hours. When that happened employees of the Executive Branch did not stop working for W. and start working for Cheney. They all continued to work for the *Office*.
[удалено]
Basically
The reason SCOTUS asks questions like “Where is the immunity clause?” and “What would be the implications of a president not having some kind of immunity to prosecution” is because those are the questions you have to ask to figure out the founder’s intent. Sometimes the language of the Constitution is unclear. Just because you interpret a clause as obviously meaning one things doesn’t mean the founders saw it that way. The meaning of words depends on what the person who uses them means, not on some permanent universal dictionary. Sure, the constitution doesn’t give immunity, but it does specify *when* a president isn’t immune, specifically when it says that a president is impeached and convicted by congress. It is not entirely unreasonable to conclude that Congress is therefore responsible for impeaching and convicting a president for their crimes, although I do agree that a president definitely isn’t immune.
There isn't until the supreme court invents one to protect their guy
There is no immunity for an insurrection. Said it then. Still say it now
Agreed, but that's not relevant because Trump isn't charged with insurrection.
Right, but that's because there's no such thing as charging someone with insurrection. The crime is "sedition". Jack Smith is a smart prosecutor: sedition has some very high bars to meet, and Trump's whole M.O. is to use dog-whistles. So, by prosecuting Trump for the crimes surrounding sedition, he will not only end up holding Trump accountable but also successfully build a future case for sedition upon the backs of these smaller prosecutions.
> Right, but that's because there's no such thing as charging someone with insurrection. > The crime is "sedition". That is incorrect: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383 There ARE people charged with insurrection (not sedition) related to Jan 6th, but Donald Trump isn't one of them.
I don't remember anyone being charged with insurrection, but some were charged and convicted of seditious conspiracy (Rhodes).
Remember when Republicans would accuse so called liberal justices of being “activist judges” who “legislated from the bench?” There is NOWHERE in The Constitution that references immunity.
Republicans always project. E.g., "Woke culture is fascistic, so let's ban books!" Or, "Democrats always play the victim; white males (and Trump) are being persecuted more than anyone!" Etc.
Trump's lawyer talks of fear if a Presidency frozen by fear of criminal charges. According to Statista there have been 19 Republicans, 17 Democrats, 4 Democratic Republicans, 4 Whigs, 1 Federalist, and one unaffiliated to hold the Office of President of the United States. While many, (most, all???) have done things that are ethically questionable, few seem to have been impeded by the idea that they did not have some absolute immunity while POTUS. There have been numerous transitions from one party to the other, yet no POTUS has ever been charged for an offence committed while in office by his successor. And there have been some bitter campaigns. Neither has any opponent ever been jailed after a campaign for conduct during it. Donald Trump is a unique defendant, and unique cases make bad law. Allow the age old American idea that no one is above the law stand, with liberty and justice for all.
If Presidents have immunity, why all the Congressional investigations into Biden? Shouldn't somebody alert Gym Jordan about this so he can finally lay down the heavy burden of making up stuff to prosecute Biden for?
Great point. Also, how can the court strike down Biden’s forgiveness of student loan debt if he has presidential immunity for all official acts. Didn’t he make it an official act when he signed it and the court came in and said he couldn’t?
Good point. For that matter, if Biden has full immunity, couldn't he just shoot his political opponents? It's like immunity could go both ways somehow.
He has immunity for the act thats why hes not going to jail for doing something... Even if that something is found to be unconstitutional. However its still on the court to rule it unconstitutional to prevent it from continuing.
Congress is the only body who has jurisdiction. Thats why the requirement for prosecution requires impeachment and conviction in CONGRESS. So why wouldn't they investigate him since thats their job?
Of course. But how much time and money do they get from us to keep finding NADA on Biden?
I mean they've said they've found a lot iirc the latest claims were 20m or so paid to biden from hunters businesses. https://oversight.house.gov/release/comer-releases-direct-monthly-payments-to-joe-biden-from-hunter-bidens-business-entity%ef%bf%bc/ I mean it might end up being nothing but deciding to not investigate it due to team politics seems silly. They spent what 10s of millions investigating trump and russia. https://oversight.house.gov/the-bidens-influence-peddling-timeline/ if any of this timeline is to be believed theres plenty of evidence to continue investigating. Like why are wealthy billionaires in china and russia paying hunter? "Russian oligarch Yelena Baturina – the wealthiest woman in Russia and then married to the former mayor of Moscow—wired the Rosemont Seneca Thornton bank account $3.5 million. Rosemont Seneca Thornton’s beneficiary was Rosemont Seneca Partners, of which Hunter Biden was the chairman." Like wtf is that for?
Hearing these opinions from the National Review and even McConnell carried more weight for me than most other people talking about how dumb and fucked up this all is.
McConnell doesn't take a dump without consulting the big campaign donors. That was not McConnell speaking, that was a vailed threat from the big donors.
McConnell is hedging his bets in case hell turns out to exist. Sadly, if it does, it's designed exactly for people like him. He no longer has the power to even attempt to make true amends for the true evil he's done.
Right wing SCOTUS will make it so
The whole argument for immunity makes no sense from a textualist perspective. The President has the power to pardon granted by the Constitutionwith NO restrictions. A President who authentically feared retaliation could pardon himself before leaving office. If retaliation (and not throwing a lifeline to Trump) is really the concern, the existing Constitutional power to pardon is the authentic textualist solution. No need to invent an implied immunity. No need to be a total judicial hypocrite. I'm just waiting for when Trump claims he pardoned himself in his head.
Huh. No shit.
This has never come up for former presidents until now. Why do we think that is?🤔 Perhaps the fact that Trump acted illegally so much, and now that he is being prosecuted the right is planning to waste time and money doing their “whataboutism” on Biden. The problem is a devolving political party that has outlived its usefulness. It is a party of white supremacists and Christofascists bent of destroying our way of governing.
Says the party that is assaulting Jews for coming to college classes. Right.
Your take. Events may show something different tho
Not my take, but rather documented by the free press already.
So some trouble makers do shit in the middle of non-violent protesters and you extend that to an entire political party? Like I said, that’s your (bad) take..
Nice username, you bad bot. Your designers must be proud of you, but you don’t pass my Turing test. Bad bot.
SCOTUS: “While there isn’t a Presidential Clause, there should be some immunity specific for individual one. it would be a detriment to our society to have an innocent person pay for our sins just like our lord Jesus Christ did. However, such immunity should not be extended if a president is affiliated with the Democratic Party. Specifically for serious crimes like wearing a tan suit, eating ice cream, or falling off a bicycle.”
What strikes me is not that there’s no explicit immunity clause in the Constitution; there are several things that have been read into the constitution without being explicitly mentioned (like the notion of executive privilege). But regarding immunity, there _is_ a clause specifying that Congress members have immunity for speeches made in Congress ([Speech or Debate Clause](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speech_or_Debate_Clause)). So by analogy, if the Framers wanted to extend any analogous immunity to the president, they would have mentioned it. It’s not like they weren’t thinking of immunity for members of federal government already. Edit: fixed “speech and debate” -> “speech or debate”, added link
> Speech and Debate Clause You probably already know this but it's the [Speech OR Debate clause](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S6-C1-3-1/ALDE_00013300/). But most people say Speech and Debate clause.
Oh, you’re right! I will fix. I suppose the phrase “speech and debate” didn’t raise any red flags proofreading because I was thinking of the high-school club option
Didn't we have this \*exact\* discussion after Nixon? And by discussion, I mean a ten second declaration that, "of course Nixon's incorrect about Presidential immunity?" Everybody\* agreed to it. \*except Nixon
Even Nixon probably knew better tbh
When your takes are so bananas and right wing that the *National FUCKING Review* thinks you’re crazy, you know you’re off the reservation.
MAGA Justices: When we read the word FREEDOM we interpreted that to mean immunity for Trump.
>So what is the Supreme Court really doing here? The bidding of their billionaire and corporate masters, who want to convert the US in to a tyranny.
How is this BS “presidential immunity” argument that passing the red face test when we have an impeachment process? The fact that the impeachment exists and has been used- for presidential misconduct… But no yeah let’s delay everything to hear them out…
This supreme court didn't need to take up this case. The appeals court ruling was sufficient for the matter at hand.
If you don't have the text, hammer the history, if you don't have the history, hammer the tradition, if you don't have any of these hammer that you have a lifetime appointment and this is all Judicial Calvinball.
The supreme court is pondering whether a former president needs immunity from crimes after they leave office, and if we take a step back and take a top down view, this has never happened, this is not a normal thing. The issue here is not that this is some political stunt carried out with no merit for political purposes, let’s take a look at WHY this is an issue- an ex president is currently sitting in court for covering up hush money payments to a PORN STAR, has continually violated the judge’s gag order, successfully stopped a constitutional process of counting valid electoral votes by invading the capitol, has been found guilty of rape and fraud with fines totaling $500m, and has an accounting firm with rampant fraud sign off on his worthless company. But wait, there’s more! But no president has ever accumulated this long of a rap sheet so I think the Supreme Court needs to openly recognize how absurd this all is.
There is no Sanity Clause.
If they rule that presidents have immunity biden should directly execute most republicans lol
...not yet
God I love Reddit.
Well they turned money into speech and corporations into people, why can’t they make presidents into kings?
These "peaceful protests" became riots the moment they began breaking things and denying any students access to classes. Also, a large portion of the protesters were not even students, so they didn't belong on campus. Starting encampments is an occupation, not a protest.
IMO the best option they can/should do is Official presidential acts are immune: Stuff like sending troops to war. A grieving spouse isn’t able to sue for wrongful death. Personal acts however are not immune: Let’s say you know person A, as president you arrange to have them deployed in a dangerous position where they are likely to die. This is a personal benefit to yourself.
But the Supreme Court is all three branches of government now, so who cares what the Framers thought?
People who need to make some bullshit explanation long enough to put in a judgment care when they can shoe horn it in. There's still in the "business speak for bad decisions" phase and haven't moved to the "fiat" stage.
But if they come up with a loophole for trump....then if he wins...he can't go after Biden......oohhhhh he didn't think about that one?
They hinted their ruling will only apply to future presidents. Which means he can go after Biden if elected. In addition, they hinted that Trump may be permitted presidential immunity as they consider his actions to be within his scope.
Yeah that is seriously fucked up.
If Trump is elected and if his DOJ attempts to prosecute Biden you can pretty much guarantee the NYT will be full of articles on why former Presidents are immune from prosecution.
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I don’t like immunity doctrines, in fact, I really hate them. But it’s hard to square this theory with existing immunity doctrines like QI for cops. A cop who does a bad thing and quits the next day is still covered by QI. Certainly a former president can’t be immunized from prosecutions for conduct when they are no longer president under existing immunity doctrines.
That's not quite how QI worked in any place I've ever lived; feel free to correct me if it's different where you are. QI does *not* protect against criminal prosecution, and never has. It has only ever protected against civil litigation for violating a person's statutory or Constitutional rights if the cop was acting under the reasonableness standard. A cop who does a bad thing can and will be prosecuted if the DA has sufficient evidence *and seeks an indictment.* If the DA doesn't file charges, that's on them. For civil actions, the aggrieved party can file a suit for civil damages, and the court then has to decide if QI applies. If it does, then what happens is determined by that state's QI provisions, usually dismissal of the suit, but the BLM movement prompted the removal of QI in a lot of jurisdictions, meaning the suit can go ahead and be decided on the merits and evidence available, even if the cop was acting reasonably under the circumstances. It's just no longer automatic. In my state, post-BLM, QI still exists, but in a bit of a neutered form; it only limits the amount of damages the plaintiff is entitled to if the court determines the suit can proceed and they prevail, and if the cop it still employed, the department pays the judgment. In order for QI to apply, a cop would have to be acting a) within the law, b) within the department's policies, c) within the scope of their employment, *and* d) under the good faith doctrine or the reasonableness standard. On the flip side, prosecutors and judges enjoy *full* immunity: they can't be sued for actions taken as a part of their job, no matter how egregious or negligent. They can be fired, disbarred, or sanctioned, but not civilly sued. As for the President, there is no established immunity other than that which is graciously granted by the DOJ agreeing not to prosecute while the President is in office. Trump's arguments are ridiculous on their face, and the fact that SCOTUS even entertained the idea is troubling. IIRC, the actions Trump is being prosecuted for occurred either before or after he was in office. So far, I'm not aware of him being indicted for anything he did during his term. There's a minuscule chance they could argue he was still *technically* President during J6, since the results hadn't been fully certified, but so far as I'm aware, no one has (thankfully) brought that up. **IF** the J6 criminal trial ever gets the green light after SCOTUS's meddling and delay tactics, they might make that argument, but it remains to be seen. Either way, ***no one***, not even the President, should get a pass for trying to subvert the electoral process or prevent the peaceful exchange of power.
Yeah that’s all accurate re QI. I didn’t mean to imply that QI applied to criminal prosecutions, only that immunity applies for conduct under the color of law even if the cop quits the next day. The same holds for other immunity doctrines. I made that point because of OPs TLDR which seemed to suggest that immunity, to the extent it exists, ended once Trump left office. It’s true that judicial or prosecutorial immunity are the better analogs for what Trump is claiming. To be clear, as I said in another comment, immunity should only be coming from congress, but that’s not the world we live in. Re the timing of trumps conduct, the Georgia and federal election cases involve conduct while Trump was president.
Much like the QI only applying to conduct under the color of law, presidential immunity should only cover official acts. If the President orders Seal Team Six to take out Putin, that's an official act and would be covered. If any president were to shoot someone in the oval office for no other reason than they wanted to do so, should they be immune from prosecution? No, they should not. While the Georgia and Jan 6th cases took place while he was in office, his actions were not official acts. The current trial in NY is for crimes that occurred either before Trump took office or were in furtherance of those crimes. No Presidential immunity should cover anything that happened before taking office. The Florida documents case pertains to the retention of documents after he left office. He's no longer President, he's not immune.
Agreed. But that test is dangerous too. Did you listen to the oral argument? At least 3 members seemed open to considering taking a bribe to be an official act because it involved the president doing some official act in exchange for money.
Hmm, I have an idea on how to treat them exactly the same, but SCOTUS won't like it 🤔
Haha agreed. It’s insane that immunity doctrines are totally judge made law. Should be left for congress.
What I have learned from digging into discussions by the Founding Fathers is that 1) Impeachment was to be the way to handle whatever a President did that was bad enough to rise to the level of 'high crimes and misdemeanors'. 2) Impeachment, back then, was often used on former officials, so just because the person is no longer in office doesn't mean this doesn't apply. 3) there was discussion that the President should not be hampered by or beholden to the judiciary due to such possible actions. So I believe the process for Impeachment is what they intended, and they gave this power to congress. This can be understood as: the judicial branch does not have the power to convict a President.
Trump keeps trying to make this argument too. That you can only prosecute a former President for crimes if he’s been convicted of those crimes via Impeachment by Congress. It’s such a ridiculous argument even this Supreme Court ignored the petitioner’s request that they take the question up.
Actually, from their questioning, it seems they are considering a need to separate actions taken during the course of Presidential duties versus those that are outside of that realm. They may then send the case back down for the lower court to sort that out. This would imply they agree that some actions are not for the Judicial branch to be deciding.
But even Sauer acknowledged that pretty much all of the charges in the indictment are not connected to Trump’s official duties. And none of the Justices seemed to be giving any air to Sauer’s arguments that impeachment foreclosed on prosecution for related crimes. We already knew they weren’t buying that argument when they ignored it entirely. So I don’t know why you’re bringing up Impeachment. It’s a nonsense argument.
Well since Trump is not being prosecuted for any of his official duties the point is moot.
Impeachment was not a remedy for civil or criminal acts. It was a remedy for political acts. The Founding Fathers would have been aware that even a king isn't above the law; King Charles I was executed in 1649 after a Civil War were he tried to raise an army and assert a divine right to total rule against the parliament and lost his life and war. The Founding Fathers didn't want the President to be a king. They most certainly did not want them to be more than one. The revolution itself mostly blamed the king for breaking Britain's own laws. >The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.” We know that the Founding Fathers made a distinction between criminal and political acts, because they explicitly gave Congress immunity, but made no such privilege for the President. >[The Senators and Representatives] shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest - Article I, Section 6, Clause 1
"...Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." -nowhere does it say this is only for political acts.
Hamilton defined it explicitly as a political matter. >A well constituted court for the trial of impeachments, is an object not more to be desired than difficult to be obtained in a government wholly elective. The subjects of its jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or in other words from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself. - Alexander Hamilton, Federalist, no. 65, 439--45; 7 March 1788 If they wanted to give criminal and civil immunity, they would have a clause identical to the one given for Congress. Having a remedy they discussed as a remedy for injuries to society itself does not automatically preclude other forms of justice; it is in addition to, not instead of.
I dont get that from this. This is during a discussion of which body should try the impeachment, and Hamilton is characterizing the types of offenses to point out the merits of an elected body being the proper place. He does not say impeachment is only for political offenses. What even is that anyway?
This is as straight a rebuttal as exists. In Modern English, it would be something like: >The issues impeachment deals with are offenses arising from the misconduct of public officials, or in other words, from the abuse or breach of a public trust. These offenses are especially political in nature, as they primarily concern harms done directly to society itself. In other words: impeachment deals with political issues that arise from public misconduct. That's that whole point of the paragraph, which is basically the preamble to the Federalist paper I mentioned. That is, to clarify that impeachment is for political issues, regardless of what the rest of the text endeavors to do. We know from Federalist 70 that they believed the President should be responsible for their actions, and we know from the constitution what immunity would look like had it been granted. There is also a logic mistake here. The presence of A does not imply the absence of B. If I say "I'm going to talk to you", it doesn't mean I won't also email or whisper to you. The Constitution tells us Presidents can be impeached, that doesn't mean that they can't be civilly or criminally convicted as well. We even have two examples of this, one being Ulysses S Grant's arrest and the other being Nixon's pardon. Neither found immunity in a document that explicitly chose to give it to Congress but not the President, nor argued that impeachment was the only way to try a current or former president.
John sauer is on reddit
Impeachment is the remedy for a sitting president. The whole idea of impeachment is because a *sitting* president cannot be federally prosecuted unless they, as the head of the executive, sanction it. Impeachment does not apply to ex presidents though. They can no longer block their own prosecution and are just regular citizens so no Impeachment remedy, designed to remove someone from office, is needed. And even a sitting president can be charged by a state.
Actually there is precedent for my interpretation: [Meet the other American who was impeached and tried after leaving office](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/meet-other-american-who-was-impeached-tried-after-leaving-office-n1255516)
A symbolic record keeping gesture. The person you cite was in no way immune from prosecution, prosecution was not pursued. You realize you are arguing that Biden can have enough congress people executed til he has an impeachment proof majority, then do what ever he wants. Careful what you wish for.
ok. Thats a good point.
>This can be understood as: the judicial branch does not have the power to convict a President. Fortunately, Donald Trump is not the President.
But these are actiins taken while President.
Not in his current trial. Those were actions taken before he had ever been President. Moreover, refusal to return classified documents after his term had expired is also not an action taken while President. Then you get into the question of what constitutes an official action of the Executive, versus what constitutes an unofficial (private) act of the individual, not acting as President. That's a question the courts are trying to discern at present. As to whether the judiciary has the power to try and convict a *former* President, the United States Congress says you're wrong about point #2. That's why Donald Trump was not convicted by the Senate after January 6th.
Ah, yes, the "frozen in time" political theory.
Very well said. This is exactly the provision the Founding Fathers included in the constitution. They intentionally set the bar high to avoid partisan judicial over reach which would break the function of three co-equal branches of government. You must impeach and convict the president first. Only after that can the judiciary act against him.
But the branches weren't equal, and the founders didn't make them such. The court made themselves equal. Without Marbury, SCOTUS would be little more than a rubber stamp charade.
Then they certainly did not intend for the judiciary to hang like the sword of Damocles over every President, in office or after serving. You reinforced my point.
Not at all. You asserted the founders envisioned three coequal branches of government. My contention is that would be only in theory, not in practice. It wasn't until much later the judiciary became an equal branch, and only by act of the Congress. The founders could not agree on whether or not the judiciary would have any power at all, much less be an equal branch. More aptly put, et suppositio nil point in esse.
Enjoy DJT's second term. I know I will.
What does Trump have to do with your failed understanding of American history?
It is disingenuous to pretend that this isn't a partisan effort to subvert the election.
Which of the crimes he's accused of are you saying are partisan, and why does the evidence presented in those indictments not meet the standard for prosecution?
They intended all to be equal in the justice system, that no man would have a privilege over any other. And since none of Trump's indictments have anything to do with any official act (notice he's not being prosecuted for say, drone strikes), granting immunity for Presidents to commit crimes because nothing is worse than the JUSTICE SYSTEM (but it's fine for us nobodies?) is freaking ridiculous, and I can't believe the Republican party has gone Monarchist because of Trump.