Hacker News Reader

Comment by squidbeak | Hacker News Reader

I'm unclear why ordering the death of one of his nation's worst foes, whose network was still at war with the US, could ever be illegal?

View on HN

He was never convicted of a crime.

I'm trying to point out that it is not at all easy to draw a line between what a President could be prosecuted for and what he should be prosecuted for.

I'm pretty sure one could find abuse of power committed by about every President.

Even Jefferson - he wasn't empowered to make the Louisiana Purchase, but did it anyway.

I think this particular ruling gets it really wrong, though.

For a president to be able to conduct "official acts" in self interest, with no obvious limits, is quite concerning.

I think the president should enjoy a weak presumption that official acts are legitimate. But this goes way too far-- prohibiting consideration of motives, prohibiting using them as context or evidence in any other proceeding, and appearing to classify what would be horrible abuses as official acts.

There's also the Supreme Court ruling that it was illegal for Biden to do mass loan forgiveness, yet Biden did it anyway.

Should Biden be prosecuted for that?

I think it was an impeachable offense, given that Democrats knew from the start that the president didn't have that power, yet he tried it anyway and let the courts strike it down. Pelosi even said once: "People think that the President of the United States has the power for debt forgiveness. He does not. He can postpone. He can delay. But he does not have that power. That has to be an act of Congress."

I don't know if that would be prosecutable. Is there a federal law against acting as though you have powers you do not while in office?

I suppose the difference is that having SEAL Team Six kill a political opponent on the President's orders seems like it should be classified as first-degree murder.

The court struck him down, and yet he has continued to do it.

Are you implying that should make me want to change my previous answer?

Look-- prosecution and liability of people holding office is tricky.

We neither want a world where every politician faces investigation for misdeeds after leaving office, nor one where apparently the president can act with impunity with no clear limits at all.

We need a middle path, where prosecution is rare and exceptional but true misdeeds can be punished (and deterred).

I feel like we left behind where we were slightly over-investigating and made a massive overcorrection to the other side for blatantly political reasons.

That is a good point. I would happily let Trump go free if it means that Biden can delete all student debt without fear of prosecution.

I wouldn't. Edu debt is insidious, but it's not worth allowing the president break whatever laws desired as long as the actions can be twisted to be considered "official".

He would have been sued with no immunity. Either by Pakistan, or by members of the family, or whomever. The fact that they had no legal basis for it is inevitable, it still would have resulted in years and years of legal pain

Reply on news.ycombinator.com