Then it sounds like Sotomayor is being extreme by conflating domestic political assassinations as an "official act." Does she not understand the difference?
Not the exact scenario you described, but a similar scenario occurred in the past:
"... al-Awlaki ... was an American-Yemeni lecturer, and jihadist who was killed in 2011 in Yemen by a U.S. government drone strike ordered by President Barack Obama. Al-Awlaki became the first U.S. citizen to be targeted and killed by a drone strike from the U.S. government."
couldn't be it reasonably construed as an official act if the president believed that person was a member of a terrorist group? the post 9/11 Authorization of Use for Military Force grants the president the use of all "necessary and appropriate force" in prosecuting terrorists.
Depriving someone of their constitutional rights cannot be an official act by definition. Arguing that it can be is just word games in a world where words stop mattering.
The court opinion literally says pressuring the vice president to try to not certify the election was an official act related to talking about the limits of his roles and responsibilities.
We are already well into stupid word games territory.
What is your counter argument, from the actual opinion?
> The court opinion literally says pressuring the vice president to try to not certify the election was an official act related to talking about the limits of his roles and responsibilities.
This isn't how Supreme Court cases usually work. Most of the time, as in this case, they clarify some things and send it back to the lower courts.
The Court here ruled that the President is entitled to immunity for official acts and sent the case back to the lower court to determine if Trump was acting in his official capacity as President or in his capacity as a political candidate.
>This isn't how Supreme Court cases usually work. Most of the time, as in this case, they clarify some things and send it back to the lower courts.
I'm actually a member of the Supreme Court bar, and have been involved in a number of supreme court cases, so i'm fairly aware of how Supreme Court cases work :)
They did what I said:
"Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the January 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice
President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct"
No it doesn't. The conclusion III(B)(2) of the opinion:
> It is ultimately the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity. We therefore remand to the District Court to assess in the first instance, with appropriate input from the parties, whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding in his capacity as President of the Senate would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch.
Yes it does - the part you cite was written because they found it an official act with a presumption of immunity that the government has some chance to rebut. If it had been an unofficial act, there would be no immunity at all.
Here:
"Whenever the President and Vice President discuss their official responsibilities, they engage in official conduct. Presiding over the January 6 certification proceeding at which Members of Congress count the electoral votes is a constitutional and statutory duty of the Vice
President. Art. II, §1, cl. 3; Amdt. 12; 3 U. S. C. §15. The indictment’s allegations that Trump attempted to pressure the Vice President to take particular acts in connection with his role at the certification proceeding thus involve official conduct, and Trump is at least presumptively immune from prosecution for such conduct"
> 'Official act' does not currently have a legal definition. It isn't defined in this majority opinion and it hasn't been given a definition previously.
It sounds like it does, from the majority opinion:
> The President enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official. The President is not above the law. But Congress may not criminalize the President’s conduct in carrying out the responsibilities of the Executive Branch under the Constitution. And the system of separated powers designed by the Framers has always demanded an energetic, independent Executive. The President therefore may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled, at a minimum, to a presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts.
So it sounds like "official acts" means an act "exercising his core constitutional powers."
Should an official act done in furtherance of a crime be official?
I think the problem is that the section regarding evidence, c3 iirc, says that any evidence implicating a criminal unofficial act must itself be unofficial, and not related to presidential acts.
The definition of words. It is unconstitutional to infringe on constitutional rights. Official actions are made such by the granted authority. No unconstitutional action is supported by the granted authority of the constitution.
> So if you belive that the election was stolen, and organize a military uprising to fix that, then what?
Or if you don't believe the election was stolen. The court said In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives.
The ruling is extremely wishy washy about what is official vs unofficial, and keeps saying that it is very hard to determine, and even prohibits prosecutors from using certain legal tactics to determine if something is official or unofficial.
The Supreme Court wasn't even asked to define exactly what is official versus unofficial in this case. It will now return to a lower court to address that point, which is the normal way for the process to work.
A president could put a bullet through a political rivals head and say he was "to the best of his ability, preserving, protecting, and defending the Consitution of the United States" if that political rival was calling for the "termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution" and was preparing to do it.
I could see the argument being made that yes, that's an official act. You'd have to argue why it's okay for a President to abandon their oath of office.
That's explicitly arguing for the possibility then? Seems like splitting hairs and not a big leap to understand why the dissent might reference a take so wild as - yeah it's okay to murder your political rivals if it's official!
So, for the next election, if Biden decides to pressure several state officials for them to choose him as the state winner instead of the real election result prevailing, there would be no prosecution. So why wouldn't he do it? Oh yes, basic honesty and being faithful to his country (unless that being old and confused, he decides to do just that, so two reasons there for him not to be held responsible).
During the Supreme Court hearings, has anyone asked the hypothetical of a president deciding to send Team 6 to get rid of some members of the Supreme Court? No prosecution for that too?
Just call it necessary for national security with some BS reasoning and thin or made up evidence and suddenly it’s an official act. There are so many ways a president could twist pretty much anything into an official act.
