At a crucial crossroads for American democracy, the Supreme Court slow walks Trump’s immunity issue
With the Supreme Court granting certiorari to Donald Trump on his immunity claims regarding the January 6th trial in Washington, we have reached a historic moment. The high court will now review the lower court ruling that a former president isn’t immune from prosecution for crimes he committed in office. but not until April. If the court agrees with Trumphim, it could lead America down a dark road.
Yes, broadly exposing the president to lawsuits or prosecutions for the thousands of judgment calls a president makes in the line of duty would cripple the presidency. But no one prosecuting Trump claims presidents should be broadly exposed to liability for their official decisions. Instead, the issue is framed by the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Nixon v. Fitzgerald. It held that the president is immune from damages liability “for acts within ‘the outer perimeter’ of his official responsibility.” The court has never extended that limitation to the president’s responsibility for a crime. Moreover, the court has never suggested that a president who commits a crime unconnected to his official duties enjoys any immunity at all.
SCOTUS is so anti-democratic. Why the hell does the fate of our democracy rest on the whims of Nine people holding lifetime appointments? I get that they want these people outside of the transitory world of politics, but that doesn’t really seem to have prevented politics from creeping into the Court anyways. If SCOTUS rules that POTUS has immunity while in office, then Biden should just suspend the election, declare martial law, arrest Trump, and lock up all the Russian sympathizers in Congress. Protecting the country from foreign agents seems like it should fall within the scope of the President’s powers.
I’m worried their plan is to wait until after the election. If Trump is elected, they then rule he has absolute power and democracy is basically dead at that point.
It already is. The rest of us just get to fight for scraps now.
This decision is just the Supreme Court saying “let them eat cake.”
It’s a shame we didn’t even make it to 250 years, but the Christians had to force a theocracy again. They don’t feel right unless they get to murder people for being different.
Democracy died when Dubya got elected by the court almost 25 years ago.
Trump’s own lawyers said that the president could kill his political adversaries and be free from any charges.
We placed the fate of democracy on some greedy white guys who want nice motor coaches and luxury vacations
White?
White?
It kinda seems like the sort of hallucination a bot would make without a working knowledge of race in practice.
Excellent point
Especially when anyone who’s watched last week tonight recently. Will point out that the only fashy fuck openly wanting a motor coach was Clarence Thomas.
A SCOTUS ruling in Trump’s favor would absolutely grant him the power to do that. For better or worse, though, I just don’t see that happening as it would set a very dangerous precedent. We may avoid a dictator in the short run, but it would absolutely enable the next.
Half of those 9 we’re put there by not democratically elected presidents, also nice detail to add there
That’d be a hoot!
Looks like they are choosing the route of pitchforks, torches and chaos.
Which is fine because they’ve allowed a police state to be built. Police officers have broad de facto immunities across the country.
Notably, they are not immune to 5.56.
Depending on their loadout. Let’s make sure to get plenty of NATO 7.62 black tip
So in war, the way is to avoid what is strong, and strike at what is weak. -The Art of War.
If I understand the argument correctly, a sitting president near the end of their term, like say shmoe shmiden, decided to order the death of his political rival Tonald Drump and then step down as president before getting impeached, he could cause they didn’t impeach him before leaving office for said crime. I’m I getting that correct? I mean sure, in that hypothetical we’d have our first woman president for a very short time in the dumbest way, which is also on brand for the record.
also worth noting the extension to that situation:
Shmoe Shmiden decides not to step down, and tells the same people who he originally ordered that they need to sit in the room for the impeachment vote with guns just to make sure the vote is fair. also if we lose the vote it was a sham thus anyone voting for impeachment is an undercover operative and should be handled accordingly… voila, no impeachment, no consequences
You have this correct which I why it is so ridiculous that they not only agreed to hear this but did so in a way that both allows Trump to avoid prosecution and will result in a legal precedent that he can use to stay in office and commit crimes while there. Pretty great for Trump.
Is impeachment actually limited to those in office?
No but the only punishments that can be imposed if the person is found guilty is removal from office and being barred from holding future office.
SCOTUS would do well not to seriously fuck up here.
It’s important to remember that they’d be giving Biden carte blanche to do whatever he wants, because he’ll still be in office when the ruling is made. Not that he’d actually have the balls to use the power they had given him, but if they grant blanket immunity to presidents then there’s nothing stopping Biden from simply dropping a missile on the SCOTUS, cancelling the election, and declaring himself the new POTUS-for-life.
After all, what are they going to do? Prosecute him?
After all, what are they going to do? Prosecute him?
Yes. And be bald-faced hypocritical. They don’t give a shit about the rule of law. They only care about “winning”
After all, what are they going to do? Prosecute him?
Yes, they will.
Why do you believe a group that doesn’t follow the rule of law will start doing so after they’ve empowered their biggest enemy? It makes no sense.
Trump will likely gain immunity but the SCOTUS could declare it starts with the next president, or convict Biden of something else, citing an exception to immunity.
We can’t assume they’re going to start playing by the rules when they’re actively rewriting the rulebook as we speak.
The SCOTUS kicked off the civil war and we’re pretty much back there again. I have no hope.
I have a feeling they’re going to find that there is immunity for acts taken as part of official duties. Which will get this kicked back down to the district court where the judge would rule these accusations have nothing to do with acts taken in his official capacity.
The issue is that this all takes time and the schedule was tight enough beforehand. I doubt there’s a chance any trial is settled before the election, especially if the Supreme Court waits until the end of the term to rule on this.
it’s already extremely dictator-y letting these obvious scumbags have lifetime control of the country
On the day of oral arguements, Joe Biden should invite seal team 6 to the white house. You know, for coffee and a foto op. Just to drive home the point.
I can’t fucking believe this is still even a debate.
I might be reading into it too much, but I think even if the Supreme Court did the right thing and prosecute Donald Trump, the first spark has been struck towards the burning fascist fire in America. The AskHistorians podcast drew plenty of similarities and parallel between the prelude to fall of the Roman Republic and the rise of Trump and January 6 insurrection. There were many times when the Roman Republic was under threat even before Julius Caesar came into scene but had been mitigated. However, corruption by the elites had been getting worse and populist anger had been piling up until it could not be contained anymore and thus the decline of Roman Republic was inevitable. This seems to be the case with USA at the moment. Trump is a buffoon and could be prosecuted. But someday, someone more intelligent than him could erode American democracy for good. Trump only set the precedence and spark, and a calculating demagogue could learn from Trump’s mistakes…
“With Jan. 6 case, the Supreme Court takes America down the dark path to dictatorship.”
FTFY
I don’t understand why the supreme court even agreed to hear this case. If the President is immune from criminal liability while in office, then he is de-facto not subject to the very checks and balances that make up the language of the Constitution.
How can you say the legislative has the authority to impeach and convict the President if the President himself can have them all publicly assassinated before a vote can occur? What happens when the President decides he doesn’t think Congress can override his veto and simply ignores them? What happens when the President decides he wants Rudy Giulianni, Ben Shapiro and the MyPillow Guy to replace all the liberal justices on the bench? Who is going to be able to stop the guy who has immunity from the rules from changing them as they see fit?
King Donald the first of America
It is time to get ready for the worst timeline because that is what we are getting at this point. This country has always been a fascist country.
SCROTUS will do it and Democrats will let them.
Ideally what would the Democrats do?
Most people here have no idea how the US government actually works. They just come here to bitch.
indeed
Absolutely agree. It’s getting better though.
If it makes you feel better, businessinsider will steal it and publish it wholesale without attribution. It’ll run next to a trump-sympathetic article. See? Both sides.
Yeah hah, probably. I just think the amount of people discussing/up-voting a tabloid article is hilarious
Marketing: 1 The people: 0
Do you realize that this is commentary, not news? It’s supposed to be offering opinion. That’s the whole point.
I don’t even know who salon.com is - honestly seems like they’re fear-mongering for clicks and views.
100%
Tabloids are the OG click baiters
Eww, gross. I’ll stick with Reuters and Associated Press for news lol
