Biden Campaign Brushes Off Idea of Reforming the Supreme Court
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
I don’t understand how he can make changes to the Supreme Court using this new Supreme Court ruling. My understanding is that change requires Congress and the recent ruling just means he can’t be held accountable for crimes committed as official acts.
What crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
Kill the judges using his own immunity granted by them. Elect new ones that will take away this immunity. They are very obviously a threat to democracy and they themselves have said that whether something is an official order cannot be questioned.
He doesn't need to kill them. Take all their personal property using eminent domain, sell all their office space in D.C. and close the court buildings where they operate. Leave them running SCOTUS out of a store front in a strip mall in the most crime ridden part of D.C. He could even use extraordinary rendition (Thanks Dubya) to nab their families and hold them in black sites in foreign countries. There are any number of non-lethal official acts that he can use to make their lives a living hell until they consent to make the changes we need to keep this country safe from fascism. When your enemy hands you a gun, use it.
Can you cite that last part? I didn't read the whole brief, and that wasn't in the summaries I saw
The president is now entirely above the law while on the clock.
But where did they say no one can question whether something is official?
Who do you think decides when it’s an official act?
Yeah, but killing people is still illegal, so even if it was official, he can be impeached.
But that's not all. They also ruled that you can't use official acts in the process of determining what wasn't an official act. If Biden ordered the military to assassinate Trump, the fact that the President is Constitutionally the head of the military and that the military must obey orders from the President couldn't be used as evidence that he gave an illegal order.
This situation is fucked up.
The US military can choose to ignore illegal orders to execute citizens protected by the Constitution. They did not swear an oath to the president, only an oath to protect the Constitution.
No military leader will want to go to a military tribunal where arbitration is decided as punishment and has no jury by peers. It would be either a death sentence if any military official followed the order, or a hard life in a military prison.
In fact, I read that it is codified in the US law Uniform Code of Military justice to be obligated to deny an illegal or an immoral order.
My dude, you're acting like Monday's decision didn't happen.
SCOTUS delineated presidential immunity into three situations:
Unofficial acts- no immunity.
Official acts- presumed immunity. However, no official acts can be used to determine the legality or official-ness of an act.
Constitutionally delegated exercises of authority- total immunity.
In other words, laws are subordinate to Presidential exercises of Constitutional authority. Under the decision rendered by SCOTUS on Monday, as the President is the Commander in Chief of the military, any order he gives the military he would have total immunity for and thus wouldn't be "illegal" as such. Also, because the pardon power is listed in the Constitution, there's no oversight for it either.
So yes, the President could absolutely order the military to assassinate a citizen with the promise of pardoning them, and there's literally no recourse anyone could take.
Unquestionable pardons all around!
Can you even consider the killing in the impeachment trial? He has absolute immunity from criminal acts.
He has absolute immunity from Prosecution for official acts. Impeachment is not a Prosecution (a criminal court proceeding) in that sense: it's a legislative act which looks a lot like a prosecution, but is fundamentally different. So impeachments are not bound by this same rule. Presidents can be impeached for anything, even the color of their shirt, if a majority of the House thinks it's a "high crime or misdemeanor".
But who's going to do the impeaching when everyone who would oppose it can simply also be killed?
Either you go buy a fucking gun and aggressively protest, or keep complaining online. I'm just saying it's going to buff out either way.
You can be impeached for basically anything. But you still need 67 votes in the senate to be removed. And senators can also be murdered. Being able to have immunity for murder as long as you murder anyone who would deny it is a self-empowering ability.
The president acts through people. Asking the military to murder Americans on American soil is the easy slam dunk straight to pound me in the ass federal prison for life idea you've ever come up with.
I don't think you're quite getting the "he can kill anyone who would oppose him" issue.
And literally that he has absolute immunity for acts in his constitutional powers, which including telling the military to kill people. At best the order would be refused, but that's still not an illegal act. You don't need to trust me, you can just read the dissenting Supreme Court justices. The "Seal Team 6" hypothetical was never addressed by the majority, because it's a pretty direct consequence of the ruling, just something they hope wouldn't happen or wouldn't work.
The president can't kill anyone who opposes him. The president is subject to the laws just like anyone else. Breaking the law is not part of his official duty. Assassinating someone the president doesn't like is against the law.
Assassinating an enemy of the United States is a different story. The president cannot claim a citizen of the United States with no criminal activity or record against the United States is an enemy. Furthermore, the military cannot use force on citizens of the United States. The FBI can, and the president doesn't control the FBI the judicial branch does.
Aren't checks and balances fun?!
LOL, this is all just fantasy law, and the stuff that's real is stripped by this ruling. The president can use powers designated to them in the constitution with absolute immunity. Regular law can't change what those powers are, only constitutional amendments. They used to make using them in certain ways illegal, but that's exactly what this ruling gives immunity against. All the guys doing the order, they could still be liable for doing illegal actions, but the president is immune, and they may not actually have any reason to think the president has not determined that the correct circumstances exist to make it legal. And if they agreed with the president he could just pardon them so no one was liable.
Also, I have no idea why you think the FBI is a judicial organization. It's in the executive. It's normally, by custom, treated as semi-independent, but that's a custom, not a law, and the only non-constitutional act the ruling explicitly said is official is the president telling the justice department to do things. Again, the people doing the things may have to worry about the law, but the president ordering them does not and can pardon them if he wants to.
Any power outlined in the constitution is absolutely official, which arguably covers murder via the military. But if you murder the people who would say something isn't official, an entire world of options opens up. The survivors will either agree with you or want to not die.
Which is notably why it's so dangerous under Trump. Trump can get the broad immunity without murdering most of the court (and rightfully setting off alarm bells/triggering rebellion) first.
No, the president has immunity during official duties much like a first responder. If they break the law that isn't an official duty.
Biden has been fighting Congress since he took office on this...
When we had the numbers, he said he'd "look into it" and then we didn't hear back till after the midterms when we no longer had the numbers to do it.
The reason it wasn't done when we could, is Joe Biden.
https://abcnews.go.com/US/biden-support-expanding-supreme-court-white-house/story?id=85703773
Because the bipartisan commission claimed fixing it would do more harm then letting the current corrupt court do shit like repeal Roe v Wade and all the other shit Biden now says was so terrible.
But if elected again, he still won't fix.
That's a big reason Biden has a 37% approval rating, he opposed actually fixing things. And just wants to maintain the status quo.
It's not a valid long term strategy.
Moderates just want to complain, they don't want to actually fix shit. We've been ignoring it since Obama's pick was stolen, ignoring it more won't magically solve it.
Ok, but what crimes are being suggested to change the Supreme Court?
He could throw them in prison extrajudicially for actions against the US government including treason for their support of 1/6... Hell, he can ship em to Gitmo even tho theyre US citizens.
Although I've seen far less civilized but more permanent suggestions.
It's not even a crime, or false accusation.
And as an official act, no one can go after Biden for it.
If Biden believes trump is the threat he says he is, then he needs to do that. But ideally he would have expanded the SC back in 2021 when we had the numbers.
Like, we're backed into this corner because Biden decided to walk into it...
My understanding is many supporters of Biden don’t want a coup or fascism.
If Biden engages in those acts wouldn’t that result in less votes and support? And also increase the chances republicans get away with a coup/facism?
Also, my understanding is a supermajority is required in Congress to change the Supreme Court. Which we did not have in 2021. Am I wrong?
Republicans are gonna republican. But we're literally fight fascism so...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Can be done with a simple majority, which we had till 2022. If Dems really fought and tossed out the filibuster, but they didn't.
Instead Biden created a bipartisan committee to investigate if the corrupt Republican SC should be allowed to stand as is. He gave them 6 months, and after 2 years (as soon as Dems.lost the House) they decided we should just let it go.
At every step, Biden and party leadership refuse to fight.
We can't afford that. If trump is as dangerous as they say (he is) then we need to actually fight.
Even if we lose, it motivates voters for the next election.
But he could still, this very day, arrest them for treason and jail them indefinitely and no one can stop him due to the SC's recent ruling.
From what I’ve read, impeaching a Supreme Court justice requires the same impeachment process as the president so 2/3rds. Not a simple majority.
But even if it could be done with a simple majority, your statement depends on the vote of Manchin and Sinema.
I didn't say anything about impeachment...
From 2020-2022 we could have added justices with a simple majority after throwing out the filibuster.
We didn't.
We are running out of actions because we are running out of time. I wish Biden wouldn't have wasted those two years with a bipartisan commission to find out if everything was fine...
But he did.
Due to the recent SC ruling, Biden faces no punishment for actions committed in office. So he can jail Clarence and everyone else who's corrupt in jail and thus remove the conservative majority. Hell, legally he can have them executed for treason without trial, but I think Gitmo and no communication is more than enough.
There's lots of people in GITMO who have done far less
If trump is the threat Biden says (he is) then we need to do whatever we can to prevent trump.
Do you disagree that trump is an existential threat to American democracy and we may never recover if he becomes president.
For Biden to face no punishment for his actions a judge has to decide that the actions were official acts of a president. So what he can and can’t do are decided by a judge.
Again, you’re strategy for adding justices depends on the vote of Sinema and Manchin. But you’re blaming Biden instead. That makes it seem like a bad faith argument.
if I recall correctly, the words were... "nothing will fundamentally change". a man of his word.
There was a whole commission, likely designed to justify inaction, that made a report in December 2021. It's VERY easy to find lawyers who put a great deal of faith into the legal system as it is and despite evidence and their general political persuasion they get panicky at suggestions it's losing legitimacy or a political body.
The report was bad then. I imagine reading it now would be infuriating.
Yeah, that's a good point, I've seen a lot of suggestions that seem to go beyond the scope of this terrible terrible ruling. I guess he could order the military to prevent congress and the SC from meeting or doing anything. Then he could just issue executive orders, or declare war on a faction of politicians trying to stage a coup maybe?
That’s what it sounded like to me also but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions.
Are these people suggesting that Biden assassinate politicians and stage a coup arguing in good faith? Seems like something that would be suggested by an enemy nation.
Basically, the Supreme Court decides what is an official act, so any actions Biden would use this new power for to correct this would be ruled over by the hostile Supreme Court. So the hostile Supreme Court would have to be removed, then the replacement could remove the right for the president to do all this. The first action would have to be to attack the Supreme Court. How bleak. Dammed if you do and SUPER dammed if you don’t
I mean, if Trump wins the election, it might literally be our last election. They have a plan to dismantle our government. So no, unfortunately, I think they're arguing in good faith, trying to use this tool the GOP has set up against them to save the country.
Saving the country means voting for Biden.
I mean, I'm definitely voting for Biden, but I hope it saves the country.
Just do it.
Have anyone who tries to stop you (including Congresspeople who would vote against it) killed.
Call it an "official act."
That's legal now.
What about the voters that are voting Biden because they don’t want a coup or assassinations? Biden would lose all those votes. Then how does he win the election?
Obviously it's ethically horrific, but (from utilitarian and game theory perspectives) it's the least-bad option I can think of right now.
Nope. That is not within the duties of the president. Declaring something official doesn't make it official.
You say that as if it wouldn't be a moot point once SCOTUS has five or six vacancies on it all at once, along with who knows how many in the Senate.
That's how power actually works, you know. Don't believe me? Watch Saddam Hussein's 1979 purge to see how it goes down.
That's the kind of power that exists here in the US now, thanks to the fascist Supreme Court. If Biden doesn't use it against itself in order to destroy it, the next Republican President will use it to consolidate his own rule much the same way Saddam did.
Is Saddam Hussein in the room with us now?
What a useless non-response.
You can be in denial all you want, but the factual reality is that, since this SCOTUS ruling, the US is an autocracy now. Practically speaking, the only way for it to stop being such in the short term is for the autocrat (i.e., Biden) to forcibly change it back.
That's because your fantastical scenario is exactly that, fantasy. You do not understand whatsoever the implications of the ruling because you cannot grasp the duty of the president, checks and balances, and the rule of law. Did they stop teaching civics in school?7
Well golly gee, mister, if I'm so ignorant can you please explain to me how I'm wrong? Be specific, now!
If not, then by all means, please continue with your point-free ad-hominem attacks. It's entertaining! 🍿
Absolutely not. You're insane, you wouldn't consider anything I'd say.
Oh, by the way: no, I'm not insane. SCOTUS is insane. I'm just discussing the implications of their insane decision.
LOL, you're just saying that because you can't actually refute my point and you know it.
Prove me wrong, I dare you.