Not exactly. There is a difference between being “immune from prosecution,” and “it’s legal.,”
Not for practical purposes. If Trump orders a Seal Team Six assassination of Sotomayor, it may not be “legal” but if he can’t be prosecuted for it - what difference does it make? She’s still dead and he gets away with it.
Isn’t the difference whether he can be impeached and removed for it?
“High crimes and misdemeanors” are so 18th century. Now we now it’s not a crime if the president does it as part of an official act.
We may now know he’s immune from prosecution. Do we know it’s not a crime?
This is the key, right? I have little doubt that, if Biden, say, tried to overturn our democracy and sent a mob to kill his VP, while extorting an ally to dig up dirt on his opponent in exchange for weapons in perfect phone calls that he would be impeached and removed. I also have little doubt that a Republican president would not be removed for the same actions.
So, this immunity thing only works if you’re a member of a party with little moral compass or integrity.
All he would need is support from 34 senators to avoid being removed.
I don’t think you understand how impeachment works. Impeachment has absolutely nothing to do with legality. It has nothing to do with crimes. The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” has literally no definition. There is no definition of it. It is not explained anywhere in law.
This is what impeachment is… It’s a bunch of people in Congress voting on whether or not they want to get rid of the current President. That’s it. It can be based on the most flimsy premise, or it can be based on the most egregious action. Either way, the mechanism is the same; a bunch of elected officials vote, and what they vote determines the outcome. And that’s it.
If Trump is in office and he drops a nuclear bomb on New York City and there are too many Republicans in Congress who aren’t willing to impeach him, nothing would happen. If Republicans control Congress overwhelmingly and they determine that Joe Biden can’t serve as president because once 50 years ago he had a speeding ticket that was let off with a warning, and they’re convinced that shows he is corrupt to the core and a lifelong criminal, Biden is gone.
The only reason that what the president does has any meaning on the proceedings is whatever blowback might result. Letting Trump stay in office after bombing NYC might lead to too many angry Americans voting them out of office (assuming it’s not too late for voting to matter); or conversely if Biden were impeached by what is clearly a kangaroo court, then that might bring in a tidal wave of angry people voting in Democrats in the next election.
In other words, it is 0% legality and 100% politics.
I think he got support from 48 senators, right? Like I said, impeachment only works for not-totally-corrupt parties, like the Republicans of the Nixon era.
100% agree that impeachment is all politics. Clearly it is not the saving process it should be or Trump would have been removed from office. My point is that the phrase" high crimes and misdemeanors" outlines these as the qualifiers for impeachment. The term “crime” has a commonly understood definition as something illegal, or at least immoral, as well as a more precisely written legal definition. If the president cannot be charged with a crime in the legal sense, it’s a lot harder to argue that he should be impeached because he committed a crime in the moral or political sense. In other words, should a Democratic House try to bring articles of impeachment against a second-term Trump, the argument will be made that nothing he does is a crime (if blessed by SCOTUS) so he cannot be impeached for doing it.
How would such an argument stand? It might be made in Congress, as part of the impeachment proceedings, but that is where it ends. It is not possible to appeal an impeachment to the Supreme Court.
Correct, there is no mechanism for it. Impeachment is supposed to be the way that the legislature can have a check on the executive, and the judiciary is supposed to stay out of it.
As long as they follow the actual processes in the US Constitution, although of course Congress can change them (though that is of course really hard to do). The checks and balances in our government are pretty damn convoluted.
I’m not thinking of formal arguments before the Supreme Court (or any court). I’m referring to the deliberations in the House, statements of the impeachment managers, debates with attorneys representing Trump, statements to the media, bloviators on Fox News.
“They want to impeach my client for high crimes and misdemeanors. The Supreme Court said nothing the president does is illegal, therefore he can’t commit any crimes, therefore impeachment is just a witch hunt!”
I’m not saying it’s a proper legal argument. I’m not saying it would be legally correct. I’m saying you’ll hear that justification against impeachment of Trump for any reason should he be re-elected.
Well, yeah, they can lie anytime; they do it now.
If Individual-ONE were to be elected, the country would become the catastrophic shitshow that Vlad so desires.
The solution is simple. Elect Biden. Very likely two of the RW SCOTUS will need to be replaced. The new 5-4 SCOTUS will interpret “official acts” very narrowly.
This disaster could not have come at a worse time, with Trump likely about to be re-elected. No one would abuse the protections of immunity more than Trump will. For those wondering how he would execute his plan of revenge against his perceived enemies – judges, prosecutors, witnesses, perceived political enemies – wonder no more. He’ll now be able to do it the same way as other tyrants have done it throughout history, with the blessing and protection of SCOTUS – arrest them all on completely fabricated charges. And that’s just the beginning. What he’ll do in advance of the 2028 election is anybody’s guess.
This is first of all probably a topic for another thread and second of all an “overpopulation on Mars” type problem, but if there is a liberal majority in the future they need to wholesale reject a lot of the precedents set by this court. Human rights and democracy are more important than trying to create the appearance of respecting precedent.
That would be a great topic for a new thread, but honestly, I cant think of many. Go start one?
On the slightly brighter side, there have been some hopeful signs lately that of the three nutbar recent appointees, Amy Coney Barrett is the more intelligent of the trio and has sometimes voted against the nutbar majority and sometimes clarified the rulings when she did join them. This is an example of the latter: