Official act isn't defined, so it doesn't say that.
Your last paragraph is closer to accurate, except a president doesn't just "appoint" a judge. They have to be voted in by the senate. So, if the president is a crook and nominates a crook and the senate is full of crooks and vote yes to have said crook become a judge, then yes really bad stuff can happen. But if the president is a crook and the majority of the senate are crooks, it's already all over.
So, if the president is a crook and nominates a crook and the senate is full of crooks and vote yes to have said crook become a judge, then yes really bad stuff can happen.
That’s essentially what happened with Kavanaugh, Amy, and Neil minus the judge being a crook part. Well, Kavanaugh is a rapist so for him the crook part applies. The really bad stuff is happening. You just are not aware of it.
Sure, but this is just a single decision, and who are the judges supposed to be complicit with? The current president? The last one? The next one? A specific party?
Complicit in the sense of helping to set the stage for future abuses. Not complicit in the sense of conspiring. SCOTUS has made quite a few bad decisions which set the foundation that I speak of.
The ruling certainly sets the stage for something. It's almost like they didn't want to actually rule, but rather set up a framework for making future rulings. I can't say I disagree with the approach.
> Official act isn't defined, so it doesn't say that.
It is and isn't, which is the problem.
> Your last paragraph is closer to accurate, except a president doesn't just "appoint" a judge. They have to be voted in by the senate. So, if the president is a crook and nominates a crook and the senate is full of crooks and vote yes to have said crook become a judge, then yes really bad stuff can happen. But if the president is a crook and the majority of the senate are crooks, it's already all over.
They more or less do appoint. There's never going to be a judge voted on that doesn't push a President's viewpoint, particularly not in the last thirty years. If a system doesn't take into consideration this particular contingency, it wasn't a very good system, was it?
Your last paragraph is closer to accurate, except a president doesn't just "appoint" a judge. They have to be voted in by the senate. So, if the president is a crook and nominates a crook and the senate is full of crooks and vote yes to have said crook become a judge, then yes really bad stuff can happen. But if the president is a crook and the majority of the senate are crooks, it's already all over.