Isn’t that pretty much the definition of “ends justify the means”?
I agree with this, But it wouldn’t get that far. The Supreme Court would slap down Biden’s annti-GOP illegal action.
First the court votes on a case. Then they assign someone to write up a justification. This thread is taking the second part too seriously.
Maybe. Probably. I’m not sure. Being unsure is a bit scary to be honest.
And then what? “If the president does it it’s not illegal” is now the supreme law of the land.
Just to be clear. We are not in an era that the POTUS can literally do anything.
It’s not against the law for me to eat a bowling ball, but that doesn’t mean I can do it.
We are in an era where the POTUS has more freedom to try to do things with fewer consequences, and that is pretty scary and I can’t see how that will end well. But the SCOTUS hasn’t granted omnipotence to the office.
I’m not convinced that Trump himself is the main threat. I’m more worried about Trumpism, the current GOP, the right-wing media, and all the other things that would still be a threat if Trump were to keel over tomorrow.
Also, after thinking about it, I’m not sure how much this SCOTUS decision will change how Trump behaves as POTUS. Because the last time he had the job, it didn’t seem like he was too concerned about breaking the law. He acted as if there were no consequences. So I don’t know that he’d be that much different based solely on this new ruling.
The first time he had a bunch of people around him who would not blindly agree with everything he wanted to do. This was because he was new so he went with establishment types for his cabinet.
To use just the most obvious example: You really think that whomever Trump picks for his Veep is not going to have to say to Trump that if they were in Pence’s shoes on 1/6 they would have acted very differently?
He is going to make sure that anyone on his team is on his team.
The SCOTUS decision didn’t, actually, give more power to the office of the President. The actual ruling says that the judiciary- which ultimately means SCOTUS- gets to decide whether what a given President has done falls under “official acts”.
They didn’t empower the President. They empowered SCOTUS. Now anything the President does which isn’t specifically outlined as falling under a Presidential power- like, oh, defaming a private citizen or hoarding classified documents- must be adjudicated by a court… which can, of course, be appealed all the way up to the SCOTUS which just released this decision. Furthermore, it’ll be almost impossible to investigate whether the President did so in an official capacity, because corroborating documents are considered privileged. So, you know, the justice will have to just use their own best judgement.
It was an expansion of judicial powers, nothing less. People seem to think this decision makes the President a king… but it doesn’t. It makes SCOTUS kingmakers.
Is that relevant?
https://apnews.com/article/biden-donald-trump-e4366ca9e350ef87ebbb7638517cbde3
Not that their scheme would have worked if Pence had gone along, in all likelihood, but now it’s even less ambiguous.
On Jan. 6, Trump targeted Congress’ ratification of the Electoral College’s vote. He tried to exploit the vice president’s role in reading out the states’ electors to get Mike Pence to block Biden from becoming the next president by omitting some states Biden won from the roll. The new provisions make clear that the vice president’s responsibilities in the process are merely ceremonial and that the vice president has no say in determining who actually won the election.
Like he did later in his administration. Bill Barr was willing to do Trump’s dirty work but only so far, and so Trump replaced him as AG with Jeffrey Rosen. Yet that didn’t do Trump much good. Having people willing to try who can’t do things isn’t any better than having people who know they can’t do something and tell you they can’t.
I’m in the Tibetan Buddhism camp. Sometimes a real buddhist has to take on the burden of multiple poor life and death rebirths to rid the world of a scourge.
Yes, “ends justifies the means” is a freaking slippery slope. BUT, this looks like a one off (fingers crossed) time that it would be a good thing. Again, not to Godwinize the debate, but…
You don’t think this gives the president more power? If it’s virtually impossible for him to be investigated, let alone charged, let alone convicted, why wouldn’t he do whatever the fuck he wanted?
Because ultimately, SCOTUS now gets to decide whether what he did was official or not. Investigations don’t matter if they’re going to say he can or can’t do it, based entirely on which political party he belongs to.
Well, before the decision, a sitting president was already immune, for all intents and purposes.
And the decision only refers to official acts.
It may not be an official act of the OFFICE of the presidency, it might be interpreted the the acts of a man or woman.
If that’s the case. Anything goes.
That is incorrect. They’ve ruled that any abuse conducted within an official act is immune from prosecution. That’s it, in a nutshell. He may not be prosecuted for any criminal act conducted within his official capacity as president. It’s still illegal, a crime, and an abuse of power. I agree that’s a somewhat subtle distinction, but it’s an important one.
I also agree that Republicans are way better at power politics. Yes, Dems are the guys who bring a knife to a gunfight. They play by the rules that the GOP pisses on. But this is an instance where ISTM to be proper play.
SCOTUS has created a situation where there’s only one way to prevent these types of abuses: elect a decent man or woman. That’s it. What Biden is hammering home is that we can all be certain Trump will be even more aggressive in his malfeasance. Very believable. Biden, if elected, will not.
That message is lost the second Biden says, fuck it, all bets are off, there’s no more rules. You can disagree that this is the proper strategy (I don’t), but it is a real strategy, as opposed to the typical Democratic obliviousness to what their opponent has brought to the fight. In this instance, it’s jujitsu that turns the standard dynamic to their advantage.
They’ve ruled that any abuse conducted within an official act is immune from prosecution. That’s it, in a nutshell.
I’ll let Jim Wright explain:
The President must have “absolute immunity” for any “official act within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority," reasons the Chief Justice.
Now, again, I’m not a lawyer, but I noticed that the Chief Justice and his conservative Trump-appointed coconspirators on the Court didn’t bother to define “official acts.” That seems a strange omission, doesn’t it? If they didn’t define official acts, who does? The president? And Republicans don’t see this as problematic?
But of course they wouldn’t, would they?
But wait, there’s more.
The opinion also offers up something called “presumptive immunity.”
Now, you’d think “absolute immunity” would cover it. If you have absolute immunity, how much more immunity do you need? That’s pretty much what “absolute” means, isn’t it?
Ha ha. No.
According to John Roberts, the President also gets “presumptive immunity” for any action that falls outside his “official” duties, but within “the outer perimeter of his official responsibility.”
So there’s official official and then there’s also some other sort of official that’s less official but also still official.
See? That’s why I’m not a lawyer.
Anyway, this presidenting gig sounds like good work if you can get it.
As in the above decision regarding absolute immunity for official acts, the court doesn’t provide any definition of “outer perimeter of official responsibility” or what non-official official duties might fall into it.
Confused?
It gets better, because Roberts goes on to say that this presumptive immunity for acts taken in the outer perimeter of officialdom might actually be absolute immunity after all, but “we need not decide that question today.”
So, we’ve determined there are official acts that get absolute immunity and there are less official acts that get presumptive immunity, but those less official acts might actually be official acts and entitled to absolute immunity instead of presumptive immunity but we don’t have to actually spell out what any of those acts actually are today because something something gazpacho and the lower courts will just figure it out. Probably.
I’ll pause for a minute so you can wipe at the blood which is no doubt running from you ear about now.
Unofficial acts, says Roberts, are not entitled to immunity, presumptive or absolute.
Oh, well, that’s good.
We can hold the President accountable for unofficial acts.
Unofficial acts.
Unofficial.
The president can be held accountable for unofficial acts.
Heh heh. Riiiight.
When the president does it, that means it is not illegal!
– Richard Nixon, 1977Guess what? Turns out, Nixon was right.
Wright makes no bones he’s not a constitutional law scholar. But hey, there’s no shortage of those who are who agree with this view.