Is anyone else highly concerned with the SCOTUS ruling that the POTUS is immune from criminal liability?

I'm back on my BS 🤪@lemmy.autism.place to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 801 points –

Sorry if this is not the proper community for this question. Please let me know if I should post this question elsewhere.

So like, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic or jump on some conspiracy theory crap, but this seems like very troubling news to me. My entire life, I've been under the impression that no one is technically/officially above the law in the US, especially the president. I thought that was a hard consensus among Americans regardless of party. Now, SCOTUS just made the POTUS immune to criminal liability.

The president can personally violate any law without legal consequences. They also already have the ability to pardon anyone else for federal violations. The POTUS can literally threaten anyone now. They can assassinate anyone. They can order anyone to assassinate anyone, then pardon them. It may even grant complete immunity from state laws because if anyone tries to hold the POTUS accountable, then they can be assassinated too. This is some Putin-level dictator stuff.

I feel like this is unbelievable and acknowledge that I may be wayyy off. Am I misunderstanding something?? Do I need to calm down?

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I appreciate this response. It makes me feel a little better. I still think we should be concerned about SCOTUS probably getting to make some of these decisions of what's official or not. Seems more corrupt on the judicial branch side of things rather than executive. Overall not great.

I mean, it's definitely not great. This court is a sham that never should have had this makeup.

And this absolutely makes it harder to bring Trump to trial before the election.

This is not great.

But it is not "the president can assasinate people!!!"

At least, not to this layman. I would hope supreme court justices know better, but even the dissent seems a little unhinged to me, a progressive who thinks the rule of law should AND STILL DOES apply to everyone. (I am also not willing to just give up and say "yeah, guess assassination is legal now" - I think that junk is counterproductive and maybe being propagandized against us by unfriendly foreign governments.)

The president absolutely can assassinate people according to this. They can have someone picked up on any charge (execution of laws and giving orders to the military are part of their "official acts"), taken to a federal facility, and executed (espionage, national defense, exigent circumstances, whatever), then pardon everyone involved, and no evidence could even be brought up because it is all tied to an official act and investigating it would be impossible because any evidence tied to the official act is prohibited (giving orders to the military, directing federal law enforcement) and the investigation would burden the president's ability to execute their core responsibilities.

I'm not reading this. Your first sentence is incorrect.

Bull. The president giving orders to the military is a core responsibility, and he has full immunity in that regard. That plus a pardon for the military members involved means he can have anyone assassinated and nobody would face consequences. Period.

Legal orders. The president is bound by Article II, Section 3.

One does not need immunity for legal orders. You are deeply, obviously incorrect in your views and clearly ignoring the context and content of the decision. Under this decision, the President has total immunity for the exercise of his Article II powers, which include being the Commander-in-Chief; as such, he can order the military to do whatever he wants, and cannot even be investigated for it. Were he to order the military to arrest and execute someone, then pardon those that followed his orders, there could be no civil or criminal penalties.

I'll leave some excerpts from the decision below, for your amusement. And I won't be responding to you further. Please, enjoy.

From the decision:

Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power entitles a former President to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority. ... At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. ... When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not criminalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. The Court thus concludes that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. ... At a minimum, the President must be immune from prosecution for an official act unless the Government can show that applying a criminal prohibition to that act would pose no “dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.” ... In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, Presidents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect. ... But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts.

And from the dissents:

Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him. ... Whenever the President wields the enormous power of his office, the majority says, the criminal law (at least presumptively) cannot touch him. ... It says that whenever the President acts in a way that is “ ‘not manifestly or palpably beyond [his] authority,’ ” he is taking official action. ... Under that rule, any use of official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt purpose indicated by objective evidence of the most corrupt motives and intent, remains official and immune. Under the majority’s test, if it can be called a test, the category of Presidential action that can be deemed “unofficial” is destined to be vanishingly small. ... Under that view of core powers, even fabricating evidence and insisting the Department use it in a criminal case could be covered. ... Imagine a President states in an official speech that he intends to stop a political rival from passing legislation that he opposes, no matter what it takes to do so (official act). He then hires a private hitman to murder that political rival (unofficial act). Under the majority’s rule, the murder indictment could include no allegation of the President’s public admission of premeditated intent to support the mens rea of murder. ... The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. ... Thus, even a hypothetical President who admits to having ordered the assassinations of his political rivals or critics, or one who indisputably instigates an unsuccessful coup, has a fair shot at getting immunity under the majority’s new Presidential accountability model. ... Also, under the new Presidential accountability model, the starting presumption is that the criminal law does not apply to Presidents, no matter how obviously illegal, harmful, or unacceptable a President’s official behavior might be. ... Unlike a defendant who invokes an affirmative defense and relies on a legal determination that there was a good reason for his otherwise unlawful conduct, a former President invoking immunity relies on the premise that he can do whatever he wants, however he wants, so long as he uses his “ ‘official power’ ” in doing so. ... From this day forward, Presidents of tomorrow will be free to exercise the Commander-in-Chief powers, the foreign-affairs powers, and all the vast law enforcement powers enshrined in Article II however they please—including in ways that Congress has deemed criminal and that have potentially grave consequences for the rights and liberties of Americans.