? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
> That's not how the Constitution is supposed to work.
Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
> What's the point of the changing the statute
If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
> So if the president conspires with the AG to illegally prosecute a political enemy...
No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, *obviously*, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
The ruling made such a case unprosecutable as it made any possible evidence in such a case inadmissable. You've been told this multiple times but gloss over it for some reason.
The majority went out of there way to make the president unprosecutable. Not only did they make "official"
(whether or not something is an official act is something this very same majority will decide!) acts unprosecutable they ensured that even if immunity doesn't apply then NONE of the evidence is admissible.
The simple and irrefutable fact is that the ruling allows the president to have a political opponent killed and be wholly immune to any possible prosecution.
For example:
- President has political opponent killed by any means (ask CIA to do it or whatever), or accepts a bribe from someone in return for sending weaponry or anything else
- President's term ends
- Former president is charged for his obviously criminal acts
- Former president's lawyers argue their actions were "official acts"
- Prosecutor appeals
- Gets all the way to the supreme court
- Supreme court decides that the crimes commited were official acts because the president did them (and thus must be official)
or if the court tries to look marginally less ridiculous and corrupt:
- Supreme court decides the crimes themselves weren't official acts but any and all communication related to the acts themselves were official acts and are this inadmissable (making the prosecution impossible)
MAYBE the 'justices' have integrity at that point and don't rule that way... too bad. The president can just have pre-emptively have disloyal 'justices' killed and personally appoint loyalists... and have them rule the way he wants. It's all an official act, after all.
Can you show me what part of the ruling prevents the above?
Whether or not you believe the above is "unrealistic" or "fearmongering" is irrelevant as this is what the majority's absurd opinion allows for. It's simply unjustifiable, unconstitutional, ridiculous and there's no excuse for it.
> ? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
How is that relevant? The fantasy that any opinion that differs from yours is based in emotional interests, whereas your opinion is objective and logical is the root of many misogynistic attacks.
> Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
Your argument is tautological. You're saying "SCOTUS's job is to interpret the Constitution, and there is no appeal to their decision, therefore their interpretetation must be correct." Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS is incorrect. So what's the point of your argument?
> If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
What's deliberate is they opened the door to official corruption, despite the obvious intent of Congress to make that activity illegal. When their judgement goes against the plain language and intent of the written law, SCOTUS is wrong. Now, those wishing to commit official corruption have a clear, SCOTUS-approved blueprint of how to do it. They have, with their decision, ensured that only the most inept cases of official corruption can be prosecuted. And they know full well that Congress, in its current state of disfunction, will not ammend the law.
> No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
You have clearly not read the decision. Any official act using powers vested in the presidency gets presumptive immunity. Conferring with the AG is an official act. All the president has to do is claim a good-faith attempt to enforce the law, and the act cannot be used as evidence in any prosecution against him.
> They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't believe they did. Please provide a citation from the decision.
> I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, obviously, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
This is completely irrelevant. No one is talking about changing the powers, only requiring that they be used lawfully. The president takes an oath to carry out the law; your position, and that of SCOTUS, seems to be that that oath has no meaning.
> The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Again, a tautalogical argument: if his act is Constitutional, then it can't be illegal. That's missing the point. The president can have the Constituional power to command the army, while still not having the legal power to command the army to murder Joe Biden. Do you honestly not see the difference between a means granted by the Constitution and an illegal use of that power? Well, if you don't, you belong on the SCOTUS.
> Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling
This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Based on your responses, I'd say that you are the one letting your emotions get the best of you. You're clearly in the bag for Trump and are willing to distort reality in order to justify your preconceived position.
> This interpretation is not to be found in the ruling.
Then you haven't read it. It's explicit.
> they opened the door to official corruption,
Their job is not to make America moral, that's the job of the congress and the democractic process of government. If they say a statue means A rather than B, it is then the job of elected representatives to clarify they mean B. Or else you believe 9 unelected people should govern the country. Congress often modifies law in light of SC rulings to make these clarifications.
> Your position makes it impossible to ever find that SCOTUS...
I don't think you've understood my point. My point was only that today's ruling asserts what you are asserting. The SC has explicitly said that they will still impose universal injunctions, still invalidate executive orders, etc. Only that district courts cannot.
There is nothing in this principle which means that the courts can no longer constrain the executive. The constitution only prescribes one court, the supreme court -- all others are created by congress and must therefore be granted these powers by congress.
What the SC has said is that these powers were not given to district courts by congress. They still can be if congress wishes. So congress can grant these powers.
All of this is irrelevant anyway, as K explains in his concurrence, that there are many ways to universally challege this order that do not require extraordinary powers to be given to district court judges, powers never given to them by congress.
> Their job is not to make America moral, that's the job of the congress and the democractic process of government. If they say a statue means A rather than B, it is then the job of elected representatives to clarify they mean B. Or else you believe 9 unelected people should govern the country. Congress often modifies law in light of SC rulings to make these clarifications.
I don't recall using the word moral. In this case, their interpretation is not supported by the text or intent of Congress. When they do that, it's called legislating from the bench, which are you are okay with, because in your mind SCOTUS can never be wrong.
> that there are many ways to universally challege this order that do not require extraordinary powers to be given to district court judges, powers never given to them by congress.
There is nothing extraordinary about it. They've been doing it for centuries, but strangely SOCTUS chooses this moment to break with history. And again, you're fine with it, because "rule of law" does not mean anything to you.
The role of the judiciary is to interpret and apply the law. If the executive branch is not constrained by the law (as in your reading, judges cannot tell the executive what to do), then the executive branch is above the law. That's a monarchy. We fought a war to avoid just such an outcome.
EDIT: I feel like you're arguing with someone else. You respond to arguments that I didn't make and ignore the arguments that I do. You've been so conditioned to performatively support "your side" that you can't even bring yourself to read what the other side says. I never suggested that SCOTUS has an obligation to behave "morally", only that that must interpret the law and the Constitution, and then I pointed out cases where they have failed to do that.
Their responses were unnerving and it's honestly frightening that anyone can be so deluded. They've lied multiple times about the contents of the ruling, they've repeatedly ignored your arguments and hallucinated you making arguments you never even implied, and all of that wrapped up in a transparent facade of civility. It is twisted and vile.
There's two types of person I could be arguing with: one who has just misunderstood the ruling by being credulous of the discourse around it; and one who has misunderstood it by having a partial understanding of the legal context. My goal was the address the former by explaining the judgement. A person of the latter kind would take much more of my time than I can give. I'm not trying to win an argument, I'm trying to be helpful by adding explanatory context.
If a person has read the ruling and insists that it places the person of the president, privately, above the law -- then I'd need several hours to explain all the relevant issues. A comment thread isn't a viable place to conduct a seminar on constitutional law, nor exegesis of a SC legal opinion to that depth.
I had hoped I could just explain that the congress and the courts have immunities, and this is just confirming that the office of the president has exactly the same kind of immunity. And that this immunity does not transfer privately to the holder of that office, just as a senator cannot murder someone.
There are deep technical issues surrounding the status of the attorney general which muddies the waters, because this is not a constitutional position, and the constitution does not foresee any one but congress holding the president (as president) to legal account. In that sense, it places the president (as president, not as a private person) outside congress' modern established processes for federal law -- but that's what the constitution actually says. But this process has never worked anyway: the AG is an executive position the president already controls, so it has never made sense to imagine they are answerable to the AG.
The SC confirms the plain text of the constitution which is the office of the president is one of the three branches of government which is held to legal account only by impeachment by congress. The office holder, eg., trump, can still be prosecuted as a private citizen for crimes, in his own private interest, taken during office, when he isnt the president.
? I'm entirely unaware of your sex. I imagine many of the hysterical people in this thread are men.
> That's not how the Constitution is supposed to work.
Correct, the SC is supposed to resolve that. And in this judgement, they affirm that they will.
> What's the point of the changing the statute
If the SC wanted to make bribery constitutionally permissible, they would not have made the ruling statutory. By making a ruling on statutory interpretation they are explicitly inviting congress to over-turn their ruling by amending the law. That's deliberate.
> So if the president conspires with the AG to illegally prosecute a political enemy...
No, this is illegal and prosecutable. A "political enemy" of the person of the president (eg., trump) is a private action. You can read the decision, it has nothing to do with allowing the person-who-happens-to-be-president to do whatever they want. A very wide class of criminal actions of this person are still criminal, this is explicitly there in the judgement.
They even clearly imply many of the things trump has done are prosecutable, and iirc, this is raised in oral arguments.
I don't know where you're getting your information, but it has little to do with these SC judgments or their reasoning. The constitutional powers afforded to the president (, congress, courts) are the very foundation of the constitution. All "immunity" here means is that insofar as these powers are concerned, *obviously*, they can only be changed via a constitutional amendment.
The actions of the president, to form the executive, constitute his presidental power. Just as, eg., writing a court opinion is the power of a judge. A judge cannot "make illegal" constitutional actions of the president, just as the president cannot arrest a judge for a judgement.
Presidental immunity in this case has nothing to do with immunity of the person of the president from criminal action taken to further his private interests, that is explicitly illegal in the ruling