- cross-posted to:
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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that American presidents have “absolute immunity” from prosecution for any “official acts” they take while in office. For President Joe Biden, this should be great news. Suddenly a host of previously unthinkable options have opened up to him: He could dispatch Seal Team 6 to Mar-A-Lago with orders to neutralize the “primary threat to freedom and democracy” in the United States. He could issue an edict that all digital or physical evidence of his debate performance last week be destroyed. Or he could just use this chilling partisan decision, the latest 6-3 ruling in a term that was characterized by a staggering number of them, as an opportunity to finally embrace the movement to reform the Supreme Court.
But Biden is not planning to do any of that. Shortly after the Supreme Court delivered its decision in Trump v. The United States, the Biden campaign held a press call with surrogates, including Harry Dunn, a Capitol police officer who was on duty the day Trump supporters stormed the building on Jan. 6; Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas); and deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks.
Their message was simple: It’s terrifying to contemplate what Donald Trump might do with these powers if he’s reelected.
“We have to do everything in our power to stop him,” Fulks said.
Everything, that is, except take material action to rein in the increasingly lawless and openly right-wing Supreme Court.
If something illegal cannot be official then this protection never applies. Someone would prosecute him for an illegal act, he’d invoke the defense of doing an official act, and then the judge would say “but the conduct you’re being prosecuted for is illegal, so if you did it, it couldn’t have been an official act and immunity does not apply”.
And again, none of the justices on either side of the ruling are making this absurd and nonsensical claim.
None of the judges on either side are making this absurd claim because it’s in the constitution article 2 section 3 and has been settled for 200 years. The president has to follow the law.