Guess again! Roberts explicitly calls out orders to the military as covered by absolute immunity. EDIT: and motive is explicitly barred from review too.
An important point here is that there are both legal and illegal orders. Military personnel are instructed obey every legal order, and disobey every illegal order (at least I was).
In the military, we have the UCMJ that allows us to prosecute those military personnel that issue illegal orders. The President is the Commander-in-Chief, but he is a civilian, so the UCMJ doesn't apply. I always thought he would be charged under criminal law in that case, but it seems that this ruling precludes that.
This is true but I don't think it meaningfully checks the president, because the pardon power is also absolute and unreviewable, and does cover courts martial (as we saw in the Eddie Gallagher case). Military personnel are not required to follow illegal orders from the president, but if they do they won't face legal sanction.
Page 14 notes that the President's official responsibilities "include, for instance, commanding
the Armed Forces of the United States; granting reprieves
and pardons for offenses against the United States; and ap-
pointing public ministers and consuls, the Justices of this
Court, and Officers of the United States."
Page 17 states "We thus
conclude that the President is absolutely immune from
criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive
sphere of constitutional authority."
Page 26 states "In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may
not inquire into the President’s motives."
> Page 14 notes that the President's official responsibilities "include, for instance, commanding the Armed Forces of the United States; granting reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States; and ap- pointing public ministers and consuls, the Justices of this Court, and Officers of the United States."
Right below that it clarifies
> If the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere “individual will” and “authority without law,”
the courts may say so. Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 655 (Jackson, J., concurring). In Youngstown, for instance, we held
that President Truman exceeded his constitutional authority when he seized most of the Nation’s steel mills. See id.,
at 582–589 (majority opinion). But once it is determined
that the President acted within the scope of his exclusive
authority, his discretion in exercising such authority cannot
be subject to further judicial examination.
This demonstrates where the court is drawing the lines. Fascist dictatorships are fine, so long as they keep their mitts away from private industry. Of course, at this point, who is going to stop the President if he starts seizing companies?
This ruling is like telling a hungry leopard, "you can eat anyone except for us." The hubris of this ruling is absurd. American's President Jinping won't be a Federalist.
But Truman shouldn't have faced prosecution for that should he? It was after all done to ensure victory in Korea and he stopped after the court said no with apparent authority when he did it. This case goes too far and not far enough.
This court's citation of precedent in one decision is meaningless, since they've shown a lot of enthusiasm for overturning it as soon as it no longer suits their (or their patrons') interests. See also: Dobbs, Loper Bright.
In the military chain of command an order is only an order when it is a lawful order. The president does not have any power to issue an unlawful order. That would be outside of his constitutional powers and not an official act.
Who gets to decide the lawfulness of the order, and what physical power does the Executive have at his disposal to bring to bear to tip their judgment?
iirc every US service man/woman is empowered to disobey orders. I think they call it "answering to a higher authority" or something like that, granted there are severe consequences for disobeying an order that turns out to be lawful no matter how much you don't like it.
The courts. Military courts have been handling this for a long time. No reason civilian courts couldn't apply the same standards in the case of a president.
If the president is able to bring physical power to bear, then it matters little what the law says anyway.
The previous POTUS is accused of using his office to perform a series of actions that culminated in disruption of the function of Congress.
Several Congresspeople then concluded he could not be impeached because by the time they were able to consider the question, he had left office.
This ruling by SCOTUS suggests there is now no avenue to hold such a President accountable for such actions.
... and that's before we broach the question of whether "Removal from the Oval Office" is sufficient punishment for all manner of crime the President could commit from his position of power, because that is the upper limit of the effect of a Congressional impeachment. This seems to give a sitting President carte blanche to throw the Constitution in a wood-chipper if he can interpret it is within his official acts to do so.
>The previous POTUS is accused of using his office to perform a series of actions that culminated in disruption of the function of Congress.
Yes, and was impeached for that.
>Several Congresspeople then concluded he could not be impeached because by the time they were able to consider the question, he had left office.
That's how checks and balances work. They may have made that conclusion, but the impeachment carried on anyway and failed to gain the 2/3rds majority.
>This ruling by SCOTUS suggests there is now no avenue to hold such a President accountable for such actions.
It doesn't suggest that at all.
>whether "Removal from the Oval Office" is sufficient punishment for all manner of crime the President could commit from his position of power, because that is the upper limit of the effect of a Congressional impeachment.
It's removal from office AND "the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.[0]" They can still be found guilty for insurrection after impeachment.
>This seems to give a sitting President carte blanche to throw the Constitution in a wood-chipper if he can interpret it is within his official acts to do so.
That's not how it works because at the end of the day the President doesn't interpret the law, and isn't shielded from impeachment and justice through state/federal courts as I outlined above. This is literally the majority opinion. Similarly, just because a military officer interprets their actions are lawful doesn't make them so.
The military was happy to systematically seize guns from citizens in NOLA during Katrina. They will follow unlawful orders to keep their dental plans active.
