It's extreme to the point of silliness. If a court decides that would fall under "official acts", we are already doomed.
Think about how the Executive handled rival political movements in the past. The Black Panthers. CPUSA circa 1919. Now imagine Fred Hampton had been running for President when he was killed.
The line between "political opponent" and "enemy of the State" can become pretty blurry. This ruling gives the Executive broad power to act in its own interests when it can claim the line is blurry.
From the article:
> “Under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of presidential power entitles a former president to absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court. “And he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for all his official acts. There is no immunity for unofficial acts.”
There aren't just 2 types of acts. There are 3: constitutional, official, and unofficial.
As such, the phrase "exercise of his core constitutional power" is significantly less straightforward than it might seem at first glance.
If you read through the ruling, a lot more questions arise than answers. And Sotomayor's dissent only highlights how they don't know themselves. And it's not as though it was clear before this ruling. It was unclear, and this ruling says very little in practice.
Everyone thinks lines don't get crossed, until they do.
They’ve also made much of the fact that the presidential authority to pardon is constitutionally unreviewable, so even if the president orders someone to commit a crime, he can pardon them preemptively. His appointment power is similarly in the constitution, so he can also fire and replace them until he finds someone willing to do it.
Are we really left with ‘if the president were to issue illegal orders to his staff, Congress would definitely impeach him’?
This is an opinion that might make sense if we were being asked if a president ordering drone assassinations makes him liable for murder. In the context of the president trying to instigate a coup for not being reelected, to the point that his own government is threatening mass resignation if he carries it out in protest at the sheer unconstitutionality of it... this is the kind of question that almost begs SCOTUS to say "make a narrow ruling as to whether or not this specific instance is permissible" and SCOTUS decides instead to make a grand, sweeping proclamation for all ages and circumstances and neglect to look at the specific facts in this case and leave it unanswered here.
Roberts, let this case be your Dred Scott decision, your Korematsu decision. You've certainly done more to torpedo the credibility of the court in one decision than any other case in the past few decades... and that's saying quite a bit.
But to your main point, do you remember why Democrats tried to impeach Trump? I am leaving it as a question, because I am curious how you are intending to defend that record.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_Donald_Trum... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_inquiry_into_Joe_B...
The first time Trump used his power as president of a superpower to attempt to force a poor country to make up a fake investigation into his political rival. This is bad, basically unprecedented.
> The dissents’ positions in the end boil down to ignoring the Constitution’s separation of powers and the Court’s precedent and instead fear mongering on the basis of extreme hypotheticals about a future where the President “feels empowered to violate federal criminal law.” [...] The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself...
Also important to note is that the hypothetical didn't sprout from thin air, Trump's lawyers (whose arguments SCOTUS in large part accepted) acknowledged that extrajudicial assassinations would fall under official acts.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4398223-trump-t...
> The dissents overlook the more likely prospect of an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself, with each successive President free to prosecute his predecessors, yet unable to boldly and fearlessly carry out his duties for fear that he may be next. ... Virtually every President is criticized for insufficiently enforcing some aspect of federal law (such as drug, gun, immigration, or environmental laws). An enterprising prosecutor in a new administration may assert that a previous President violated that broad statute. Without immunity, such types of prosecutions of ex-Presidents could quickly become routine.
Their argument isn't that it's not likely, it's that there's another failure mode that is even more likely.
The US has a long history of relying purely on executive latitude and good faith to get things done. We now have a bad faith actor who wants back in the Oval Office with far fewer restrictions on his power. A lawsuit or criminal charge would absolutely be a good remedy in that situation.
Furthermore, it's the implementation of a system. What the justices of the majority said today is "there is no system". When there is no system to deal with problems, then humans make them up ad-hoc, which usually results in violence, if history is any indicator - and it is.
It does make one question why this SCOTUS seems to think the future will break with precedent. Almost as if they're laying the groundwork for some significant changes to past decorum...
> Their argument isn't that it's not likely, it's that there's another failure mode that is even more likely.
I know its hard to imagine, but I strongly feel there is some amount of presidential immunity that mitigates what they are worried about without also enabling political assassination.