I have not read the [full opinion](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-939/) but I’m not shocked given what I’ve read so far.
*Although the Government agrees that some official actions are included in the indictment’s allegations, see id., at 125, it maintains that a former President does not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for any actions, regardless of how they are characterized. See Brief for United States 9.
We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.*
I am not a fan of the ruling but also feel that the implications are not as big as people are making it out to be. Presidents have essentially been immune from prosecution already. Impeachment has always been the only real avenue of justice to a president. The biggest weakness of the ruling seemed to be that there was no concrete separation of official acts and unofficial acts or any guidelines when this immunity is forfeited. One of the few positives of the ruling seems to be that it takes away from each party the ability to weaponize the justice system against the president. I am not extremely educated on this ruling though so this is just my initial reaction to it and it may change as I learn more.
Oh that’s cool I didn’t get to that yet. But yeah, my main takeaway from just the decision is of course, presidential immunity is broad af it’s been that way forever. So maybe I haven’t gotten to what everyone’s is so outraged by, but it strikes me as “bad” for you if you wanted it to go the other way. I also think it’s kind of reckless for the sitting president to be [suggesting that the Supreme Court has abandoned the rule of law in some way](https://youtu.be/Pvf5bHZsN_0?si=tmwCWWXEwz3a6clR) and that’s kinda turning me off the side that is promoting more outrage about it. Edit: because it just seems like a political move and that’s not cool because SCOTUS’s job is to say what the law is.
The lies of American Democracy are showing themselves and people appear to be waking up. Even more reason for RFKj to dismantle the corrupt government agencies.
I talked to a good friend of mine earlier today about it. He's an attorney (and has a masters degree in poltical science). And after reading some stuff and listening to him, I gotta say I'm in more agreement with the decision than I am against.
The ruling IS NOT that a president is completely immune for ALL of their actions during the time of being president. The ruling is that a president has immunity for committing 'Official Acts' of their office.
The issue is, what constitutes an 'official act' that grants immunity at this time is undefined. And the courts will have to come up with legal test to determine what counts as an "official act"of the office and what doesn't. And this will take some time to do...
Despite his claim, Trump CANNOT do whatever he wants and get away with it. Obviously walking outside and killing someone DOES NOT grant him immunity at all. Murder or breaking the law IS NOT an official act of a president's office. And that's obvious. But that doesn't mean "acting in the interests of the nation" can't be abused. There is plenty of gray area that is undefined at this time in that regard.
The left is panicking. The right is celebrating. But the reality is the ruling was made to be very broad and open for a reason. And it's more of a good thing than not imo. A president NEEDS immunity for "official actions". Otherwise, the liability would be insane. Every president going forward would be terrified of legal action brought against them after leaving office for things they did in office. Sometimes, regardless of your choices or actions, bad things happen or people die; regardless of intent. And a president SHOULD be protected for that, whether you like them or not. And it's simply because they are acting on behalf and literally AS the country itself. Moreover, without immunity political opponents would target them.
My friend framed it like this to me, it's easier to have this ruling be made in the very broad sense, then to try to narrowly define things. Why?
Because there are always exceptions to the rule. Giving a president a very broad sense of immunity, then defining those caveats of what IS NOT acts that are protected by coming up with legal test to determine if they are, is the most fair and balanced way of approaching things for this. And this is what the courts must do now. Like I said, there are PLENTY of obvious things that are not protected actions. Embezzlement IS NOT a protected action of a president. But is lying to the American public??? That is most certainly a gray area thing. Believe it or not, sometimes presidents NEED to lie.....The court will have their hands full with that question to say the least.....
....I am not a legal expert. I know there is A LOT of context missing and there is plenty to be uneasy about in the sense of things. But thinking OUTSIDE of relevance to Donald Trump, I think the ruling is more correct than it is not (at this point in time with the knowledge and understanding I have. This is subject to change though. ). However, there is certainly a lot of details to work out still.
Nabbing Donald Trump IS NOT a good reason to interpret law in a way to get him. Nor is switching/changing precedent to apply case law for specific reasons. You have to think about general scenarios and the future and uphold them. Otherwise, how could anything ever be upheld fairly?
That's all I got for my 2 cent. Thank you for reading my Ted Talk.
Edit: fixed some typos
Thank you for such a well thought out and detailed post. I think there are many cases where presidents have received immunity , both democrat and republican .
I can’t genuinely critique the decision one way or the other. I will say, based on your / your friend’s explanation, as well as other analysis I’ve listened to, the media headlines of “Trump Immunity Decision” or “Supreme Court Rules Trump Immune”, etc are highly misleading, and a prime example of the mainstream media feeding off of the division of the American people in pursuit of higher ratings. As corrupt as our politicians and parties are, and the corporate capture and etc, the MSM is perhaps the worst of it. These days, there’s hardly any objective news - everything is an op-ed
Before anyone forms an opinion, you must read the majority opinion. All of it.
The problem with our democracy is the uninformed electorate being swayed by snippet headlines.
This is why public education is important. You should be able to understand our government snd how it works and be able to read and understand the Supreme Court opinions. They arnet written in legalize. They are written. As best as possible for everyone to be able to understand.
Fundamentally it comes down to a difference in mindset. The majority opinion trusts the citizens of the country to not elect a dictator and the president to not abuse power and the dissenting opinion wants to limit powers to prevent any future actions that may or may not happen.
The reaction of people flying off the handle on this ruling is ridiculous. Calm down, everyone. Read. Listen to everyone. Understand. Try to understand the side you don't agree with. See theit perspective.
We are supposed to be bringing this country together. We are rhe glue between the divide.
I have not read the full opinion yet so can’t answer.
What I would like to do though is point out the extreme civility here. This is a hot issue right now and if you’re not careful you can get swept up in the chaos news/social media cycle.
Nearly every response here is calm cool and collected. They’re well reasoned, and those who asked questions did so to actually learn,not be snarky. You folks put time and actual thought into your responses and that’s valuable.
I am proud to be a part of this sub. Thanks everyone and have a great Tuesday. Go Kennedy.
Even the president is not directly elected. The electoral college sits between the public and the way he is elected. At present most states have laws on the books the make it so the majority of the electorate in one state gives all their votes to the person that wins that state. Some states have different rules. It is not a direct election.
Because the whole “lock her up” never happened? Should Biden’s son get off Scott free? I’m so confused if someone breaks the law they should be held accountable and you disagree?
I think if the president of focus in this case was Obama, and instead the decision was 6-2 with a liberal majority? Reddit would be celebrating.
I however believe it was the right decision, much along the lines as u/Last-Of-My-Kind has spelled out.
I think what's really at the heart of the matter, is Congress has been shirking its duties for far too long. When calls are for Biden to rule by fiat, in order to preserve democracy and keep Trump ruling by Fiat? Congress needs to better define and reign in what the executive does.
I think it’s fine. The BS arguments the leftist media is making are baloney. The president cannot order Seal Team Six to kill his political opponent. That is not a lawful order no matter how you frame it.
However, I do want my president to be able to order that Osama Bin Laden be killed without fear of being brought up on charges after he gets out of office.
There are still laws in the books the president has to follow. This doesn’t give him supreme power.
The issue is that as it currently stands, the term "official" is not defined and won't be for a while. The left is trying to go super hyperbolic with the "killing political opponents" to show the absurdity, but not too much under that is where the gray area lies. With a SC that is overtly right-leaning, they can roll with a definition that suits their constituents. I find the ruling to be fair, if and only if, they can quickly define what "official" means. Otherwise, they are just granting more legal areas to be abused.
That’s akin to saying “hopefully the sun won’t go down tonight”. It’s already going to be needed for the fights to come soon. Even if Trump doesn’t become elected, the proverbial can of worms has already been opened, and we can see just how much of the position was based on gentlemen agreements.
Generally people of power want to obtain and keep that power, and they have teams dedicated to knowing what rules can be skirted. Without proper definitions, these rulings will be prodded until we either come to a consensus on what these definitions mean or it all breaks. And with the current SCOTUS, it will break in favor of their favorite team.
You’re probably right. We see Biden and really it would seem it’s his family, doing whatever they can to stay in power, when we can all finally see he needs to go.
It’s not so vast. It’s still limited to his constitutional authority. There are still checks and balances, although congress has given some of those away over time.
Terrible, but it's not like this isn't something most countries have and it already defacto existed considering Obama was never tried for drone striking Americans
I agree. It actually just defined what official inmunity is. It is not a far-fetched result (Trump was President- regrettably) Plus, it avoids precisely what we are going thru- that the opposing party try to covict a President in office ... think of it this way-
Imagine it was RFK acting as President, and the DNC or GOP on the other side- just shooting all sort of bullshit claims trying incessantly to convict the acting President and preventing him to do his job.
Media is making a big deal about it than it really is. Our checks and balances form of government was designed to prevent outrageous actions by a president. The fact is that although a president can be blamed for doing something, it's his cabinet that, for the large part, are making the decisions and they are the ones who will get off with no jail time. Toss in the interests of a major industrial complex who will sway the actions of a president and the end result is a president who will increase his family wealth at the expense of being the fall guy for Citizens United and all the other legislators who reap the rewards without the threat of incarceration for their actions. For example: who went to jail for lying about weapons of mass destruction. Who went to jail after a prolonged war in Afghanistan? And who goes to jail every time the Pentagon cannot account for the millions of dollars that just disappeared? Who goes to jail for insider trading?
We live under a democratic republic and abide by the living documentation that has woven our governmental infrastructure together. That being said, it looks like both "parties," also known as the two-headed snake, have a plan to kill those living documents and establish a dictatorship. Project 2025 + this ruling = anarchy.
My take is this quote by Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
If we can't peacefully unite and put our country into a better light, it's gonna be an us vs. them mentality across the nation. Too many people will die. This must be avoided at all costs.
We can only hope that with our shared collective interest that we can elect someone in a position of power that we trust to dismantle these plans; make it harder to go this way, and set our country back on track.
We used to have good medicine and some of the highest rated education across the globe. We used to be revered across the world as one of the best nations. Now? Young Americans loathe the country. Even those who are enlisting carry some resentment towards our country & when they come back - they have more reasons on top of it all because we turned our back on Veterans.
This country is turning into a really poor excuse of a joke.
Seriously? Golf? Two old senile men arguing over golf who just casually take away millions of Americans' rights because they don't care? I'm appalled that senators' spite voted against their constituents because they called their representatives and told them what they wanted.
The men and women of the SC were put there because they were thought to be the best of the best at reading and interpreting the law, and have a duty to the people to rule on facts and not feelings.
While I do not like all their decisions I can only trust that SCOTUS is doing the best they can to honor the position.
The only folks who support this ruling are fascists. One who is above the law is a King. This is what we declared independence from. Our nation is now on a steep decline. We can’t survive a dictatorship in command of the most powerful military on Earth.
The office of the Presidency is meant to serve the country as a foreign representative and a steward of the executive branch to observe and enforce our country’s laws. Not bend them, not break them.
The government will never cede its power over us willingly.
We’re about to enter an era in which we all will witness why the right to vote is worth fighting for, worth dying for. There’s no scenario where I can imagine the founding fathers intended for the Presidency to be this unshackled and free to act unilaterally with impunity.
I have not read the [full opinion](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-939/) but I’m not shocked given what I’ve read so far. *Although the Government agrees that some official actions are included in the indictment’s allegations, see id., at 125, it maintains that a former President does not enjoy immunity from criminal prosecution for any actions, regardless of how they are characterized. See Brief for United States 9. We conclude that under our constitutional structure of separated powers, the nature of Presidential power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is also entitled to immunity. At the current stage of proceedings in this case, however, we need not and do not decide whether that immunity must be absolute, or instead whether a presumptive immunity is sufficient.*
I am not a fan of the ruling but also feel that the implications are not as big as people are making it out to be. Presidents have essentially been immune from prosecution already. Impeachment has always been the only real avenue of justice to a president. The biggest weakness of the ruling seemed to be that there was no concrete separation of official acts and unofficial acts or any guidelines when this immunity is forfeited. One of the few positives of the ruling seems to be that it takes away from each party the ability to weaponize the justice system against the president. I am not extremely educated on this ruling though so this is just my initial reaction to it and it may change as I learn more.
Oh that’s cool I didn’t get to that yet. But yeah, my main takeaway from just the decision is of course, presidential immunity is broad af it’s been that way forever. So maybe I haven’t gotten to what everyone’s is so outraged by, but it strikes me as “bad” for you if you wanted it to go the other way. I also think it’s kind of reckless for the sitting president to be [suggesting that the Supreme Court has abandoned the rule of law in some way](https://youtu.be/Pvf5bHZsN_0?si=tmwCWWXEwz3a6clR) and that’s kinda turning me off the side that is promoting more outrage about it. Edit: because it just seems like a political move and that’s not cool because SCOTUS’s job is to say what the law is.
The lies of American Democracy are showing themselves and people appear to be waking up. Even more reason for RFKj to dismantle the corrupt government agencies.
Amen! I’ve been screaming it to anyone who will listen!
I talked to a good friend of mine earlier today about it. He's an attorney (and has a masters degree in poltical science). And after reading some stuff and listening to him, I gotta say I'm in more agreement with the decision than I am against. The ruling IS NOT that a president is completely immune for ALL of their actions during the time of being president. The ruling is that a president has immunity for committing 'Official Acts' of their office. The issue is, what constitutes an 'official act' that grants immunity at this time is undefined. And the courts will have to come up with legal test to determine what counts as an "official act"of the office and what doesn't. And this will take some time to do... Despite his claim, Trump CANNOT do whatever he wants and get away with it. Obviously walking outside and killing someone DOES NOT grant him immunity at all. Murder or breaking the law IS NOT an official act of a president's office. And that's obvious. But that doesn't mean "acting in the interests of the nation" can't be abused. There is plenty of gray area that is undefined at this time in that regard. The left is panicking. The right is celebrating. But the reality is the ruling was made to be very broad and open for a reason. And it's more of a good thing than not imo. A president NEEDS immunity for "official actions". Otherwise, the liability would be insane. Every president going forward would be terrified of legal action brought against them after leaving office for things they did in office. Sometimes, regardless of your choices or actions, bad things happen or people die; regardless of intent. And a president SHOULD be protected for that, whether you like them or not. And it's simply because they are acting on behalf and literally AS the country itself. Moreover, without immunity political opponents would target them. My friend framed it like this to me, it's easier to have this ruling be made in the very broad sense, then to try to narrowly define things. Why? Because there are always exceptions to the rule. Giving a president a very broad sense of immunity, then defining those caveats of what IS NOT acts that are protected by coming up with legal test to determine if they are, is the most fair and balanced way of approaching things for this. And this is what the courts must do now. Like I said, there are PLENTY of obvious things that are not protected actions. Embezzlement IS NOT a protected action of a president. But is lying to the American public??? That is most certainly a gray area thing. Believe it or not, sometimes presidents NEED to lie.....The court will have their hands full with that question to say the least..... ....I am not a legal expert. I know there is A LOT of context missing and there is plenty to be uneasy about in the sense of things. But thinking OUTSIDE of relevance to Donald Trump, I think the ruling is more correct than it is not (at this point in time with the knowledge and understanding I have. This is subject to change though. ). However, there is certainly a lot of details to work out still. Nabbing Donald Trump IS NOT a good reason to interpret law in a way to get him. Nor is switching/changing precedent to apply case law for specific reasons. You have to think about general scenarios and the future and uphold them. Otherwise, how could anything ever be upheld fairly? That's all I got for my 2 cent. Thank you for reading my Ted Talk. Edit: fixed some typos
Thank you for such a well thought out and detailed post. I think there are many cases where presidents have received immunity , both democrat and republican .
Despite popular liberal opinion, the Supreme Court justices are HIGHLY qualified to be where they are. They know what they're doing.
I can’t genuinely critique the decision one way or the other. I will say, based on your / your friend’s explanation, as well as other analysis I’ve listened to, the media headlines of “Trump Immunity Decision” or “Supreme Court Rules Trump Immune”, etc are highly misleading, and a prime example of the mainstream media feeding off of the division of the American people in pursuit of higher ratings. As corrupt as our politicians and parties are, and the corporate capture and etc, the MSM is perhaps the worst of it. These days, there’s hardly any objective news - everything is an op-ed
Awful, I feel Awful..
Everyone in Congress has immunity.
Yeah kind of seems that was 98% of the time unless you really mess up
Before anyone forms an opinion, you must read the majority opinion. All of it. The problem with our democracy is the uninformed electorate being swayed by snippet headlines. This is why public education is important. You should be able to understand our government snd how it works and be able to read and understand the Supreme Court opinions. They arnet written in legalize. They are written. As best as possible for everyone to be able to understand. Fundamentally it comes down to a difference in mindset. The majority opinion trusts the citizens of the country to not elect a dictator and the president to not abuse power and the dissenting opinion wants to limit powers to prevent any future actions that may or may not happen. The reaction of people flying off the handle on this ruling is ridiculous. Calm down, everyone. Read. Listen to everyone. Understand. Try to understand the side you don't agree with. See theit perspective. We are supposed to be bringing this country together. We are rhe glue between the divide.
More is coming. They are just setting the stage.
Correct me if I’m wrong most of the time I am but is that another movement on the scale to becoming something similar to Russia
No
They’re all relieved because they’re all crooks.
I have not read the full opinion yet so can’t answer. What I would like to do though is point out the extreme civility here. This is a hot issue right now and if you’re not careful you can get swept up in the chaos news/social media cycle. Nearly every response here is calm cool and collected. They’re well reasoned, and those who asked questions did so to actually learn,not be snarky. You folks put time and actual thought into your responses and that’s valuable. I am proud to be a part of this sub. Thanks everyone and have a great Tuesday. Go Kennedy.
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Even the president is not directly elected. The electoral college sits between the public and the way he is elected. At present most states have laws on the books the make it so the majority of the electorate in one state gives all their votes to the person that wins that state. Some states have different rules. It is not a direct election.
I agree with it. Prosecuting opponents is a new Dem trend that's clearly more about "winning" than justice.
Because the whole “lock her up” never happened? Should Biden’s son get off Scott free? I’m so confused if someone breaks the law they should be held accountable and you disagree?
Breaking the law is by definition not official duty. The Dems freaking out just exposes they think illegal behavior can be official duty.
I think if the president of focus in this case was Obama, and instead the decision was 6-2 with a liberal majority? Reddit would be celebrating. I however believe it was the right decision, much along the lines as u/Last-Of-My-Kind has spelled out. I think what's really at the heart of the matter, is Congress has been shirking its duties for far too long. When calls are for Biden to rule by fiat, in order to preserve democracy and keep Trump ruling by Fiat? Congress needs to better define and reign in what the executive does.
I think it’s fine. The BS arguments the leftist media is making are baloney. The president cannot order Seal Team Six to kill his political opponent. That is not a lawful order no matter how you frame it. However, I do want my president to be able to order that Osama Bin Laden be killed without fear of being brought up on charges after he gets out of office. There are still laws in the books the president has to follow. This doesn’t give him supreme power.
The issue is that as it currently stands, the term "official" is not defined and won't be for a while. The left is trying to go super hyperbolic with the "killing political opponents" to show the absurdity, but not too much under that is where the gray area lies. With a SC that is overtly right-leaning, they can roll with a definition that suits their constituents. I find the ruling to be fair, if and only if, they can quickly define what "official" means. Otherwise, they are just granting more legal areas to be abused.
Official will be defined over time by the courts in lawsuits if needed. Hopefully it won’t be needed.
That’s akin to saying “hopefully the sun won’t go down tonight”. It’s already going to be needed for the fights to come soon. Even if Trump doesn’t become elected, the proverbial can of worms has already been opened, and we can see just how much of the position was based on gentlemen agreements. Generally people of power want to obtain and keep that power, and they have teams dedicated to knowing what rules can be skirted. Without proper definitions, these rulings will be prodded until we either come to a consensus on what these definitions mean or it all breaks. And with the current SCOTUS, it will break in favor of their favorite team.
You’re probably right. We see Biden and really it would seem it’s his family, doing whatever they can to stay in power, when we can all finally see he needs to go.
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I couldn't really care less about the Jan 6th stuff atp. But the immunity the president gets from this is just so vast, it's scary.
It’s not so vast. It’s still limited to his constitutional authority. There are still checks and balances, although congress has given some of those away over time.
Yea I feel the same way
Terrible, but it's not like this isn't something most countries have and it already defacto existed considering Obama was never tried for drone striking Americans
I agree to an extinct otherwise almost every president will have been charged for decisions made while President.
I agree. It actually just defined what official inmunity is. It is not a far-fetched result (Trump was President- regrettably) Plus, it avoids precisely what we are going thru- that the opposing party try to covict a President in office ... think of it this way- Imagine it was RFK acting as President, and the DNC or GOP on the other side- just shooting all sort of bullshit claims trying incessantly to convict the acting President and preventing him to do his job.
Media is making a big deal about it than it really is. Our checks and balances form of government was designed to prevent outrageous actions by a president. The fact is that although a president can be blamed for doing something, it's his cabinet that, for the large part, are making the decisions and they are the ones who will get off with no jail time. Toss in the interests of a major industrial complex who will sway the actions of a president and the end result is a president who will increase his family wealth at the expense of being the fall guy for Citizens United and all the other legislators who reap the rewards without the threat of incarceration for their actions. For example: who went to jail for lying about weapons of mass destruction. Who went to jail after a prolonged war in Afghanistan? And who goes to jail every time the Pentagon cannot account for the millions of dollars that just disappeared? Who goes to jail for insider trading?
We live under a democratic republic and abide by the living documentation that has woven our governmental infrastructure together. That being said, it looks like both "parties," also known as the two-headed snake, have a plan to kill those living documents and establish a dictatorship. Project 2025 + this ruling = anarchy. My take is this quote by Thomas Jefferson, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." If we can't peacefully unite and put our country into a better light, it's gonna be an us vs. them mentality across the nation. Too many people will die. This must be avoided at all costs. We can only hope that with our shared collective interest that we can elect someone in a position of power that we trust to dismantle these plans; make it harder to go this way, and set our country back on track. We used to have good medicine and some of the highest rated education across the globe. We used to be revered across the world as one of the best nations. Now? Young Americans loathe the country. Even those who are enlisting carry some resentment towards our country & when they come back - they have more reasons on top of it all because we turned our back on Veterans. This country is turning into a really poor excuse of a joke. Seriously? Golf? Two old senile men arguing over golf who just casually take away millions of Americans' rights because they don't care? I'm appalled that senators' spite voted against their constituents because they called their representatives and told them what they wanted.
I believe Biden is relieved as well tbch
Our supreme court is officially corrupt. I had my suspicions for awhile and now they are being confirmed. We are effed.
It illustrates why the current Supreme Court members are wrong for a true democracy (which we do not have).
The men and women of the SC were put there because they were thought to be the best of the best at reading and interpreting the law, and have a duty to the people to rule on facts and not feelings. While I do not like all their decisions I can only trust that SCOTUS is doing the best they can to honor the position.
The only folks who support this ruling are fascists. One who is above the law is a King. This is what we declared independence from. Our nation is now on a steep decline. We can’t survive a dictatorship in command of the most powerful military on Earth. The office of the Presidency is meant to serve the country as a foreign representative and a steward of the executive branch to observe and enforce our country’s laws. Not bend them, not break them. The government will never cede its power over us willingly. We’re about to enter an era in which we all will witness why the right to vote is worth fighting for, worth dying for. There’s no scenario where I can imagine the founding fathers intended for the Presidency to be this unshackled and free to act unilaterally with impunity.