If presidents could be prosecuted for their official acts then the next time the other party takes over they will just immediately find various crimes their predecessor “committed” (there are probably 10s of 1000s of them).
The issue is that blanket immunity for official acts is not just raising the bar, it's launching it into orbit. Not only can a president not be prosecuted for questionable decisions or on scant evidence, they can not be prosecuted when their crimes are heinous and obvious so long as it is plausibly within their domain.
I have no problem choosing between the chance there will be a President who abuses immense power over everyone in the nation with no real accountability, and the chance a slew of people (prosecutors, investigators, judges) will act maliciously and repeatedly to persecute a single person. Does SCOTUS really fear that federal Judges like them can't recognize malicious and baseless indictments?
What issue? That's never been an issue in 200 years.
I can't make up my mind if this is "movie plot threat" or not. Has it happened to other important figures before?
And can the prosecution be punished for this kind of behaviour?
Then again, I guess if you can shop around for (politically-appointed) judges, it wouldn't be too hard to find a judge to indulge some bullshit prosecution.
SLAPP-suits do exist, but they're generally against poor folks who can't a long legal process rather than richer individuals.
This is laid out clearly in the dissent, complete with references for further reading. Meanwhile the majority’s argument is “lack of immunity (which has, so far, not existed!!!) would make the president too timid, so we’re adding immunity”.
It has existed, it just hasn't been tested. The supreme court didn't "grant" immunity, they interpreted the Constitution to come to the conclusion that immunity already exists.
And the reason that it's happening now is because no political party has been willing to escalate political differences with presidential candidates to the point of criminal charges before.
That's changed recently, hence the need for the ruling.
> they interpreted the Constitution to come to the conclusion that immunity already exists.
The constitution saying nothing about immunity except that it is not conferred to someone who has been impeached, no, they did not interpret the constitution.
[edit] specifically, it’s this bit:
> Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law.
That is: impeachment can’t impose punishments aside from removal & disqualification, but that ought not be taken to mean that further prosecution for the same acts may not be undertaken. That’s all it says on the matter. They relied on the Federalists stating in the Federalist Papers and elsewhere that they wanted a fairly active President to conclude the President needs immunity. Meanwhile the Federalists also wrote that the President ought not be above the law, as that’s what separates our system from monarchy, but that’s inconvenient so you have to keep reading to the dissent to see that presented.
What a horrible corrupt court.
I'm 1000% sure that if trump wins and starts prosecuting his political rivals the court will give it the nod as being AOK.
And for every one of these rulings, which frankly were all him blatantly ignoring/violating the law in ways that even this court couldn't ignore, there were 10 cases where the courts moved forward conservative agendas.
Further, many of those rulings happened while Ginsberg was still alive with Roberts as the swing vote. That's no longer the makeup of the court.
You are playing the "yeah but what about" game. The reality is the supreme court just vested kingship on the next conservative president.
Impeachment is only a prerequisite to the Senate possibly convicting in the political rather than criminal trial and removing the person from office, and then possibly disqualifying them from future federal office. It has no bearing on whatever criminal procedures are not blocked by immunity.
More specifically, the role of the house impeachment and senate hearing is removal someone from office. That's it. There's no potential for punitive action (fines, jail, etc).
> More specifically, the role of the house impeachment and senate hearing is removal someone from office. That's it. There's no potential for punitive action (fines, jail, etc).
Judgement in impeachment can extend to "disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States" [1]
But, judgement in impeachment is political, and if you could get enough votes to impeach a former President in order to disqualify them from running again, it seems pretty unlikely that they'd be able to get nominated and elected in a future election; so it's not a big threat IMHO; at least assuming a two-thirds majority is required to remove, then a majority to disqualify.
The constitution is not clear that removal from office and disqualification are linked, although in practice, disqualification has happened only after a removal, and the Senate has determined simple majority for removal is sufficient. [2] So, it might be possible to do a disqualification as a simple majority, without a removal.
[1] https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-1/#ar...
[2] https://law.justia.com/constitution/us/article-2/49-judgment...
Only, the requirement of a supermajority means that a minority can prevent a president from being convicted of blatantly criminal acts. This system is demonstrably weak against corruption, to which the USSC has given its full-throated approval.
Trump was acquitted by the Senate for his conduct on Jan 6. It’s OK to disagree with the acquittal but it did in fact happen.
Ultimately it’s really hard to design a constitution that is effective in opposing half of the population. You can’t solve mass social issues with laws.
"there are probably 10s of 1000s of them" also feels a little lacking to me. Do we have concrete examples?
[1] https://mwi.westpoint.edu/ten-years-after-the-al-awlaki-kill...
(Or you have the Coast Guard lead the mission with the SEALs as "advisors".)
How many former presidents or rivals tried to prevent the transfer of power?
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-coup
There's a specific reason why Trump is being investigated. We're not talking about jay-walking here.
And there's also intent with action, using yet another case: Biden had classified documents in his home residence, but he handed them back to the government with minimal fuss. Trump had classified documents and moved them around even after being subpoenaed to return them:
* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/12/donald-trump...
* https://apnews.com/article/trump-justice-department-indictme...
As best I can tell, most who voted for him didn't actually believe he would do that - and he didn't. The whole "because you'd be in jail" was Trump being Trump, not a campaign promise.
When Trump says something like that, knowing whether he's in earnest or being bombastic is like knowing what parts of the Bible are literal and what parts are figurative - it's very much open to individual interpretation.
Not for lack of trying.
The lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, rebuffed the president, saying that he had no authority to order a prosecution. Mr. McGahn said that while he could request an investigation, that too could prompt accusations of abuse of power. To underscore his point, Mr. McGahn had White House lawyers write a memo for Mr. Trump warning that if he asked law enforcement to investigate his rivals, he could face a range of consequences, including possible impeachment.
We now live in a world where in a future Trump administration:
- Trump knows even if he's impeached he will not be removed because his party will protect him, since he was impeached and not removed for far more serious matters.
- SCOTUS just told Trump that any conversations he has with his DOJ are under the umbrella of core authority and cannot be reviewed.
- The current purity tests being employed at the RNC by his kin show a future Trump administration will not hire someone like Don McGahn who will tell him "no" about anything.
Why are you so sure a future President Trump would not try again and be successful?
What illegal acts did Obama do, while POTUS, yet outside of his 'official duties', what would warrant prosecution?
Remember the context for this decision: Trump's participation in the events of January 6:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
You know, the insurrection in which people have been found guilty of seditious action:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_proceedings_in_the_Ja...
Were his January 6 actions part of his official duties?
No one (that I know of) seriously thought he should go to prison for those acts, but honestly the argument seems pretty easy to be made without some sort of immunity.
We have monarchy after monarchy to show that sovereign immunity builds toxic ontological relationships between participants of a political system, and often invites tyranny. Your suspicions, for 238 years straight, have been amiss.
This ruling serves one specific purpose: to protect one single person from the consequences of their crimes.
This has always been presumed to be the case yet it has never resulted in what you say. It's a nonsense theoretical as cover for what is otherwise utterly indefensible as making the president king.