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.
Explain the difference.