The right is counting on the Democrats taking the high road. It makes it far easier for them to take absolute control.
…we are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be.
There is ample reason to believe that Clarence and Ginny Thomas may not be fastidiously reporting all sources of income. Perhaps an audit is in order.
And its time for those Trump tax returns to become public.
There are not enough officer votes for this to help Biden in any particular state and that’s before even considering the massive backlash that would accompany such an order. This is the worst idea in this thread and that’s really saying something.
Well done.
The purpose of this thread, as I see it, is not to suggest crimes for Biden to commit and (BWHAHAHA!!!) get away with committing, but rather to suggest that he needs –especially in advance of a Trump Presidency—to test the limits, if any, that the Supreme Court is willing to impose on a POTUS’s freedom to commit crimes disguised as official acts. I think he is obliged to test these limits as severely as he can, to beg them to slap him down, and to acknowledge openly that he understands that he is abusing his powers (in the cause of doing good) because he doesn’t want any future President, including himself if he is re-elected, to think that he has carte blanche. He must pick his spots, of course, and find Executive Orders and such that he believes would accomplish positive goals and are within his legal abilities to issue that run contrary to Republican or centrist goals, but there are plenty of those, and I’d like to hear what people think those would be.
I don’t think there is any problem, by the way, in finding henchmen to carry out these “official acts”—in any administration there are always some folks far more gung-ho (to the left or to the right or to the cray-cray) than the President himself, who would eagerly walk through flames to do his bidding. If Seal Team Six objects to doing what he orders them to do, then ask Seal Team Seven, and Seal Team Eight, and on through Seal Team Infinity. Of course, it goes without saying (though no one has said so thus far) that whatever he asks them to do is accompanied by a full, free, and complete pardon covering the rest of their natural lives and those of his children and grandchildren. This would also create a crisis, but a good crisis to my way of thinking: there is currently zero check on a POTUS’s pardoning powers, and it would be good to revisit this issue, along the way. Any pardons he issues would not be covered under such a revision (ex post facto laws and all—they are clearly forbidden by the Constitution) but the whole idea here, I think, is for Biden to test the Supreme Court’s ruling in such a way that they must come down on him as hard as possible and restore some semblance of accountability to the POTUS before another president takes office.
This SCOTUS doesn’t give a shit about accountability. They’ll happily rule against anything Biden does that looks even a little illegal without a second’s reflection on how it aligns (or not) with their decision about Trump’s immunity. What’s more, they’ll do it the next day, as opposed to waiting five months to rule on Trump.
No, the point of Biden testing the limits isn’t to show the SCOTUS that they’ve made a mistake and maybe change their ruling. It’s to do whatever he can get away with to crush MAGA and stop Trump from becoming president again.
Yes, that would ultimately be the best solution to this mess. Unfortunately, it relies on enough voters caring enough to vote for Biden, which we have little control over. Some people are screaming about the Democrats “Not doing enough” to stop Trump, but ultimately, what can they do? If people don’t get out and vote, then the US is ultimately doomed. This is the essential defect in democracy as an idea, and it can’t really be fixed. We just constantly stop the leaks, and hope the ship of state doesn’t sink this year. Next year is a whole new fight.
He should straight-up buy some votes.
Organize a secret country-wide cash give-away. Only announce it on the day it’s happening, so there’s no time to get an injunction. Have teams in place to drive into low-income areas, and give away bundles of cash to everyone they see. Keep no records, so it will be nearly impossible to track who got what, and recover the money. Have bundles of $10K-50K, with Biden’s picture on them, and “Remember who to vote for!” as the tag line. Perfectly illegal, but an “official act” since he’s distributing tax dollars to low-income Americans as an “economic stimulus”. Does some good, maybe swings a few votes, and is almost impossible to undo after the fact.
Ultimately I think this is Biden’s biggest problem. His whole campaign seems to be centered on “I’m not Trump”. Which was fine in 2020 when he was running as the challenger. But as a sitting POTUS, running a campaign based on not being the other guy probably won’t be enough. But that debate is probably better suited to the thread about who would be a better candidate than Biden.
I like the idea of testing the SCOTUS immunity decision using the pardon power, because it goes to the heart of the problem with this decision.
Separating presidential actions into official and unofficial isn’t the problem. There DOES have to be some kind of immunity for the president to carry out his constitutional powers, else routine federal decisions can be spun as crimes by red-state governors and future red-state presidents.
Nor does this decision give the president endless power. Something has to be within the president’s constitutional power to be the subject of an immunity claim, and the decision clearly states that question is reviewable by the courts. SCOTUS remanded for the district court to answer that question, they didn’t call it an unreviewable political question or some other punt.
If a president Seal-Team-6’d a political opponent, a U.S. citizen, or indeed any other person within U.S. territory, the issue of where the commander-in-chief power ends and the Fifth Amendment due-process right ends would (IMHO) be properly placed before the courts. I don’t think you’ll find a court, even this loony SCOTUS, who’d say that the C-in-C power includes killing or indefinitely detaining an American citizen or subject within American territory or otherwise amenable to civilian criminal procedures (that is, not a U.S. citizen participating as a terrorist beyond the reach of U.S. or allied law enforcement).
The evil of this decision is the ruling that the president’s motive or intent is beyond review. The president has many powers – pardon and clemency being the most prominent – where he has essentially unlimited discretion. If a president’s motive or intent cannot be examined by the courts, then a president taking bribes to grant a pardon or commutation is beyond accountability except for impeachment.
The appointment power is similar: the president can appoint pretty much whoever he wishes to many posts, subject to Senate approval. But if the president’s motives in making an appointment cannot be considered by a court, then even a blatant instance of bribery would again be free from accountability except for the Senate saying no and/or Congress impeaching.
Horatius’s example of outright bribery in the other direction – the president bribing voters to vote for him – is fitting. One of the things the SCOTUS decision said was within the president’s core power is addressing the public. By itself, it’s not ridiculous: the power of the presidential “bully pulpit” and “fireside chat” has long been recognized.
But combine it with the aspect of the decision that the president’s motives or intent in using a core power is irrelevant, and the whole thing becomes patently absurd. A president can openly state his ulterior motives on national television and because he said it to the public on TV it becomes utterly unreviewable. 
The more blatant he is, the more immunized he is.
No public official – federal, state, or otherwise – should have their motives or intent completely beyond judicial scrutiny or inquiry. Using that lack of accountability “to crush MAGA and stop Trump from becoming president again” (as Akaj posted) will NOT end there and will not benefit the public now or in the future.
This isn’t like gerrymandering, where I’d like it to be found unconstitutional but, in the absence of a reasonable SCOTUS, have no problem with blue legislatures gerrymandering their state’s legislative and congressional districts to the Dems’ favor. Having any official’s actions immune from criminal sanction even if they’re the result of blatant corruption is incompatible with the rule of law, and IMHO the more power that official has, the more the backstop of legal (not just political) accountability is needed.
We’re six months away from the official with those powers being the most corrupt, inept, disgusting individual imaginable, and now he’ll be even more reprehensible and dangerous.
I’m fine with unleashing those powers, while they’re in the hands of someone who’s decent human being, to stop that other guy from getting them. Whatever ensues after that will be better than the alternative.
IMHO we’re one step removed from that. The house isn’t on fire yet. But it has been doused in gasoline, and the arsonist is standing read with a match. Which means we don’t need to spray the house with water. But we do need to prevent the arsonist from lighting the match (keep Trump out of office this year) and clean up the gasoline (gradually replace the 6 justices that supported presidential immunity via the normal means).
But I have been told by people on this very forum that using the new-found lack of accountability that the office of the Presidency holds by Biden to prevent the arsonist from torching the building was just as bad as torching the building! Oh, bother.
You’re misunderstanding the motivation of most of these posters.
If we allow this ruling to sit, and become normalized, and be used for progressively worse things, there’s really no recourse, we’re just done as a functional government.
The only chance to show what a horrific policy this is is to abuse it badly to demonstrate exactly what it allows in order to show the public what we’re dealing with and get this un-done as quickly as possible.
You make it sound like democrats were just waiting for the opportunity to do dirty tricks and evil shit and that’s clearly not the case. They didn’t want this ruling and should do whatever they can to reverse it, the most effective of which is probably to demonstrate what’s so bad about it, and in theory to make the republicans realize that if they’re going to play with fire they may get burnt.
But of course in reality, they won’t. They’ll play by the rules and reach out to republicans and try to come to a good faith bipartisan agreement blah blah while republicans just go ahead and laugh at them and now use the full force of the executive branch and any dirty trick or power play they can.
I honestly don’t think this can or would happen. If it did, it’d have to be very carefully planned, messaged, and executed.
(To add: part of the problem may be the wording of the subject line: “for his benefit.”)
My read is, the SC has explicitly said that THEY ALONE can decide if a president can be prosecuted for crimes, and the are pretty clear that they think Trump is in the clear, while Biden is not. Of course there will never be another Democrat in the White House. That is their clear message here.
Given Trump’s comments about military tribunals, why not just order the justice dept to arrest him for incitement to violence and have him held pending trial?
I’m pretty sure there must be a way for Biden to judge shop for someone that won’t give him bail.
I just want to quote this yet again, and maybe put it in full caps to make sure people see it.
THIS RULING DOES NOT GIVE THE PRESIDENT NEW POWERS IT ONLY PREVENTS HIM FROM BEING PROSECUTED FOR THINGS HE DID WHILE HE WAS PRESIDENT!!
This doesn’t make it easier for the president to become a dictator, all it does is possibly eliminate the penalties for what happens if he attempts to become a dictator and fails. If he succeeds then it becomes entirely moot since he’s never going to leave office.
The main place that I see this ruling doing damage is to effectively legalize graft and bribery, since making official acts for any reason including a big pile of money is not prosecutable, although I suppose the person who makes the bribe could be prosecuted so it should probably still be done with some degree of discretion if you want to keep attracting donors.
I asked about this in another thread, because it was confusing me too, and these were the responses I got:
Okay why isn’t the answer to the topic question “nothing, because Biden isn’t a prosecutable ex president yet and as a sitting president is already immune?” That’s why I asked what acts he could be prosecuted for at this point in his term even before the ruling. If there isn’t any, what can he possibly do now that would specifically test the ruling?