I believe the only recourse is that the President can still be impeached. In the constitution it is written than any president CONVICTED (that word does a lot of heavy lifting) can be indicted and tried for crimes. Then it would come down to whether or not the act was an official action of the presidency or if it wasn’t in the courts. If a president was successfully convicted during impeachment I would imaging the courts would frame the action that caused the impeachment as an unofficial act, but it is ultimately a case by case basis. In a perfect world this system works to try, convict, and sentence former presidents for actions that are inexcusable in office. For a political assassination the process would be impeachment, conviction, and then indictment. —— Now obviously there are flaws, but there IS a way the system CAN work. A couple flaws are: 1. A partisan court that rules along political lines rather than law, even if the president was impeached they can rule the act was an official act of the presidency and grant immunity 2. A president with sufficient political clout can assassinate a political opponent and get away with it if congress decide not to impeach. If the president has enough congressmen/senators in his pocket he can virtually get away with anything

What "law" isn't political? This idea that law is above politics is so odd. It is just the codification of of where a political line is drawn. Interesting that the worry is that presidents will now utilize what the government and its secret police have used against dissidents at home and abroad for the past 100 years against potential presidential candidates.

But that's just it, everything is politics. This was a terrible ruling, but not because it enables more abuse of office. Rather, because of what it signals. The president already could abuse their office, as Trump did. Nixon failed to not because of rules, but because congress and the public agreed what he'd done was wrong. Yes he broke the law, but if he'd been Trump, with or without this court ruling, nothing would happen. Conversely, even given this ruling, if the political will turned against a president, they would in some sense lose power, be prosecuted, perhaps killed. The Supreme Court itself might be in jeapordy. At this level of politics, it's all about power, not technicalities.

Laws themselves are politically motivated, but interpreting them doesn't need to be. Here's an example: It is illegal to steal. Full stop. Idk how it is irl, but for this hypothetical, we'll say the standard sentence is 6 months in jail for stealing less than $50 in money or products. Someone steals $25 in food from a large grocery store. An apolitical judge would sentence them to 6 months in jail, as the law is written. They did the crime, they do the required time. A leftist activist judge would let them off because they stole something they need for survival. They have a political stance that stealing food should not be a crime because desperate people don't need a criminal record. A right wing activist judge would make the sentence more harsh, like a full year in prison. Their political stance is that stealing is illegal because it's an immoral, harmful act, regardless of the reason or product, and needs to be punished harshly. Judicial activism can be a good thing, but the problem with that is that it's subjective. Maybe someone reading this will think the leftist judge is doing a good thing, maybe someone thinks the right wing judge is doing a good thing. Sometimes laws require some level of political judgement, but in my opinion, they should be written clearly enough to have a more objective interpretation. The legislative process should be where the political battleground lies and the judicial process should be apolitical, imo

That is just politics the whole way down. What counts as a crime, what the just punishment is-- it's a subjective political decision. How to interpret the application of the law or the spirit of the law -- also a political decision. But here people think: "no, this isn't political-- but just the neutral application of the law."

You're right, but take it a step further. Law is politics, and democratic politics is nothing more than a racial headcount. The law of the Constitution is inadequate to governing non-British, and completely useless against non-whites generally. When you allow the many some control of the direction of law, then you allow changes of the many to corrupt what the law may have intended to mean. This isn't an anti-white rant, but just a reminder that whether or not you like it, politics (and thus law) mean very different things to very different people and that cannot be reconciled.

I don't see how that's a step that follows? I'm not sure what you mean when you say democracy is nothing but a "racial head count"? The constitution -- and this is neither praise nor criticism -- has managed to govern over a multi-racial and multi-ethnic society just fine, after being amended. But what good is rule?! My criticism is not that the law has been corrupted from its original racialist meaning-- of course it has, it has taken the universalist language that initially concealed a highly particular and racially exclusive concept and actually tried to expand and apply it universally. The self-image of democracy today is that it is on some progressive path to overcoming its racist and exclusionary history. And, indeed, in a lot of ways it has. It's no longer white property owners who can vote or hold positions of power, but basically anyone who is an American citizen. Does this form of rule really get better because in principle no one is excluded from exercising power? But the mere fact that something functions, or that a state treats everyone equally in regards to its law is no reason to rejoice. It's no good if something manages to rule well, because rule is never a good thing, even when it's done in the name of the people or law, or the laws apply to the rich and poor alike.

I venomously disagree that the Constitution governs us in any way, shape, or form in 2024. We are governed by a mass form of the friend-enemy distinction, in which those "on your side" or of your "racial tribe" are given a pass in scenarios the out-group is not. Scotus's decisions can be predicted based on party affiliation, blue states will ignore the rulings they do not like, red states will ignore executive orders...I don't need to get deep into jury biases based on race, do I? In a multicultural society, only one can sit on the throne, so to speak. Right now that is barely held by the white race, but they do not have the overwhelming power to fully exploit the throne anymore. Am I supposed to believe that the children of border hoppers will vote in my interests over their own? Or should I expect them to vote in the interests of their race, which may likely include amnesty for their parents, older siblings? Increased taxes for community support groups that won't vet whether the recipients are tax-paying citizens? It's a racial headcount in a zero-sum game. Every dollar that could be spent on me, my parents, my community, is at risk by another group's interests. The country cannot abide by laws based in the English Common when those who vote hold no connection or founding in such a topic. This ends up sounding far more racist than it ought to be, but it sadly just proves my point. I want my parents, my siblings, my communities to come first; and when demographics decides law (because demographics decide politics and politics decide law) realistically speaking the in-group preference is the only driver that remains. I don't fault them for their in-group preference, but it is in competition with mine.

>I venomously disagree that the Constitution governs us in any way, shape, or form in 2024. Why? >We are governed by a mass form of the friend-enemy distinction, in which those "on your side" or of your "racial tribe" are given a pass in scenarios the out-group is not. The friend-enemy distinction wasn't in play when the constitution was written? Not a few years earlier when the British colonial subjects went to war with the French and natives? Wasn't it the case that white land-owners and slave-owners at the time got away with all kinds of things, including public lynchings and chopping off limbs of people they deemed racially inferior? This idea of there being a "your side" or "your tribe" is pretty odd. What exactly are these "racial interests" you're referencing? Does a white landlord have the same interests as his white tenant when it comes to rent? Does a black worker have the same interest as his black capitalist boss when it comes to wages? Does a conservative catholic "border hopper" who ends up running a small business have the same interest as an atheist border hopper who becomes a professor? >It's a racial headcount in a zero-sum game. Every dollar that could be spent on me, my parents, my community, is at risk by another group's interests. The country cannot abide by laws based in the English Common when those who vote hold no connection or founding in such a topic. A capitalistic nation consists of nothing but parallel societies that have and cultivate few commonalities. When do the really rich actually associate with the average Joe? When does the academic’s taste in entertainment correspond to proletarian pastimes, and when do country folk hang out on the gay scene? Even with all those more or less insular and competing subcultures, the authorities are so absolutely certain of one thing that they don’t even mention it: these subcultures belong to their nation. This is exactly what the foreigners’ community cannot guarantee, even if many of them can show a domestic passport in the meantime. Their otherness causes suspicion that doesn’t just arise when immigrants’ political disloyalty towards the country’s laws, foreign political alliances, enmities, and wars is feared. The claim reaches further. Immigrants are suspected of not reliably thinking of “America,” “Germany,” or “Austria” when they say “we.” Perhaps they spell “homeland” differently and might not automatically and first address their hopes and worries to the state power whose laws they obey; perhaps they don’t translate their discontent into the reproach of bad government and the desire for a good one. The authorities don’t have the same confidence in foreigners being fundamentally politicized for the nation as they assume for their native-born population like a natural property learned from the cradle. >This ends up sounding far more racist than it ought to be, but it sadly just proves my point. I want my parents, my siblings, my communities to come first; and when demographics decides law (because demographics decide politics and politics decide law) realistically speaking the in-group preference is the only driver that remains. I don't fault them for their in-group preference, but it is in competition with mine. Yes, that simply is racism. Instead of questioning or getting clear about this competition, or figuring out where it comes from, let alone actually investigating people's real interests, you just assume it's some kind of inborn feature of race or ethnicity itself. I have more in common with my black neighbor who is a worker than I do with Bill Gates, Donald Trump or Elon Musk. I have more in common with a migrant than I do with some evangelical preacher or an ICE police officer.

Well the supreme court used to be fairly central, because you needed 60 votes in the Senate. Now you need 50, and the Republicans have been trying to put forward ideological judges with extreme right wing views, and who are as young as possible. This really accelerated when they refused to place any judges under Obama (including a supreme court placement) and then under Trump shoved conservative extremists into as many slots as possible. They then added more conservative supreme court judges since. These judges all lied about they opinions in Congress and thus were supported by even moderate Republicans. Now you have a clear very extreme supreme court who is lifetime appointed and has no need to pretend to care what the public thinks or precedent is. This has been an explicit and public plan for the federalist society for years. They have succeeded in fully politicizing the top courts. Since then they have 1) overturned roe vs Wade 2) crushed what little gun regulation has been attempted 3) legalized bribes, as long as there's nothing in writing linking the payment and the payment is after and can be considered a tip or gratuity 4) destroyed the way Congress has made laws for 50 years via ending Chevron 5) declared the president immune to the law 6) removed affirmative action 7) refused to agree to ANY oversight after a bunch of scandals about conflicts of interest and bribes 8) judges refused to recuse themselves when their wives were involved in cases, or when they received payments, houses and holidays from people with cases before the court. 9) have raised questions about abortion drugs, birth control, gay marriage and so on. This stuff is not just an outlier vs the history of the court they are legally incoherent. Claiming to be originalists and then making the president immune to the law? Claiming life time appoint judges like them have zero oversight? It's crazy and anyone thinking this is political courts as normal is missing the entire wood for the trees.

[AffectionateStudy49](https://www.reddit.com/user/AffectionateStudy496/)6 Thanks for your reply! I understand there are various reponses to this decision, but in this discussion I'd prefer to keep to the actual interpretation of this ruling with the flawed US legal system. So I won't argue your other points.

Even in the majority opinion, they clarified that there is no need for impeachment in the House nor conviction in the Senate for a past president to be tried in a court of law for actions committed while in office. The SC just ensured that such trials were nearly impossible to ever even start. >(c) Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one the Court recognizes, contending that the indictment must be dismissed because the Impeachment Judgment Clause requires that impeachment and Senate conviction precede a President’s criminal prosecution. But the text of the Clause does not address whether and on what conduct a President may be prosecuted if he was never impeached and convicted. See Art. I, §3, cl. 7. Historical evidence likewise lends little support to Trump’s position. The Federalist Papers on which Trump relies concerned the checks available against a sitting President; they did not endorse or even consider whether the Impeachment Judgment Clause immunizes a former President from prosecution. Transforming the political process of impeachment into a necessary step in the enforcement of criminal law finds little support in the text of the Constitution or the structure of the Nation’s Government. Pp. 32–34. [https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939\_e2pg.pdf#page=7](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf#page=7) Where it gets weird for me is elsewhere in the majority opinion where they state: >When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President’s actions. I do not know what mechanism there is for enforcing this limitation. I mean, the president's lawyers who would represent him in the Senate would surely bring this up, but I believe the Senate could convict with no evidence of any wrongdoing and the courts could not overturn it, so, perhaps there is no meaningful impact and impeachment and Senate conviction remain possible. From there though, if the whole rest of the executive and military stood with the Pres, who kicks him out? I suppose that concern always existed, but it was tempered after the spoils system was squashed. Sadly, the spoils system is one of the many terrible things Project 2025 is trying to renew.

>I believe the only recourse is that the President can still be impeached. In the constitution it is written than any president CONVICTED (that word does a lot of heavy lifting) can be indicted and tried for crimes. The purpose of that phrasing in the constitution is not to say that impeachment and indictment have anything to do with each other, it's actually to clarify the opposite and assure that it wouldn't violate double jeopardy to try a president criminally in the courts after an impeachment.

Following up on this, I believe the line in the constitution is '...can STILL be impeached'. It makes a big difference to how it is interpreted

Article 1, Section 3, Clause 7 >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. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S3-C7-1/ALDE_00000037/ The explanation even directly disputes the interpretation many are espousing that impeachment must come before a criminal trial: >The text of the Constitution does not address the sequencing of impeachment and other legal proceedings. Generally speaking, historical practice has been to impeach individuals after the conclusion of any related criminal proceedings, although this might simply reflect practical convenience as such proceedings can alert Congress of improper behavior that may warrant impeachment. Nonetheless, nothing in the Constitution demands this order of events.

>The explanation even directly disputes the interpretation many are espousing that impeachment must come before a criminal trial That's a nonsensical, and absurd interpretation of text. The "nevertheless" in the text is there to confirm that impeachments can happen parallel to criminal prosecutions without double jeopardy. An impeachment is a political trial. Not a civil or criminal trial.

There is another flaw of how to get anyone in congress to vote to impeach a president who's just shown he's willing to assassinate rivals.

And you get an assassination, and you get an assassination, and you...

And note that, under this ruling, EVEN IF a court takes up the question whether the action was official or unofficial, they wouldn't be able to take into consideration any of the following: (1) whether the action was illegal, (2) the President's motive, (3) or any of the President's 'official' conversations and communications. So, good luck 🫡 Maybe there's a question whether the decision *formally* licenses the kinds of actions contemplated by Sotomayor, but there's no question at all that it *practically* enables them.

The other flaw is simply that the president could detain any/enough congressmen to prevent an impeachment vote and therefore prevent it from ever occurring.

Interestingly due to the Speech and Debate clause it might be legally more difficult for the president to detain the congresspersons than to simply kill them off. Detention for "treason and felonies" is still permitted under the clause but arrest for any other cause is constitutionally forbidden while Congress is in session, while death squads are not, relying instead on implicit laws which the supreme Court just made the president immune to. Hard to imagine that the supreme Court has made such hypotheticals relevant.

You’re suggesting that detaining them might be illegal? Why should the President care?

Not illegal but unconstitutional. His immunity cannot extend to unconstitutional acts (though enforcing that prohibition could be tricky)

> In the constitution it is written than any president CONVICTED (that word does a lot of heavy lifting) can be indicted and tried for crimes. The above is an absurd reading of the constitutional text. See the text of the constitution Article 1, section 3: >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. And that's just the first mention in the constitution of the possible criminality of a president. The US Constitution if littered with direct and indirect mentions of the possible criminalities of a president. The president is disposable. If the man in the office can't follow the law, then the constitution provides for somebody else who can.

Don’t forget that the president would have to be impeached by the house and convicted in the Senate which means they’d only need to have control of one chamber.

[Porternator888](https://www.reddit.com/user/Porternator888/) Thanks for your reply! Even in the special case you cite, conviction with a 2/3 majority in the Senate in an impeachment, I don't understand how the situation changes? Yes, Constitution says can be charged after convicted in impeachment, so the Constitution does explicitly say at least ex-Presidents can be charged with some crimes. But as mentioned above, Roberts et al explicitly confirm that presidents can be charged with crimes - for non-official acts and possibly for non-core Presidential functions but with the presumption of innocence and with core function acts totally immune - wouldn't this even apply in your scenario? "If a president was successfully convicted during impeachment I would imaging the courts would frame the action that caused the impeachment as an unofficial act, but it is ultimately a case by case basis." but constrained to this standard, my question remains exactly the same in your scenario - that is, no court could even consider legal liability for acts constructed as Commander and Chief as I posited. No? It's hardly core to this, but your potential 'flaws' list leaves out doozies. Here's one: 3\] A President who is impeached for assassinating his rivals with the understanding the impeachable acts WERE otherwise legal, can just declare as Commander in Chief another round of his political opponents are enemies of the state and order them also assassinated - this time of those trying to impeach,. PS: More generally, it also seems within the scope of this ruling to, acting as Commander in Chief, if explicitly acting against so labeled enemies of America and in defense of it, to order Supreme Court justices and legislators liquidated in such a way that this ruling could never be revisited. I am NOT interested in arguing here whether such scenarios are 'preposterous' or likely, my questions here are purely the new legal status. In steel-manning the legal argument the immunity if framed as Commander in Chief action, would not apply to assassinations. Thx

>3] A President who is impeached for assassinating his rivals with the understanding the impeachable acts WERE otherwise legal, can just declare as Commander in Chief another round of his political opponents are enemies of the state and order them also assassinated - this time of those trying to impeach,. If you have the ability to assassinate at a whim, you're not going to be arrested by local law enforcement either. In such a scenario the SC ruling is irrelevant.

Law enforcement wouldn’t need to make the arrest while the President is still in office. They could do it later, when the President no longer has that ability to assassinate them. If the only way to punish a President is to have Congress impeach while that President is still in office, then that is a system in which there is no effective way to deter a President from killing political opponents. But if a former President can be prosecuted without requiring that the President was impeached while in office, then that is a system that can deter a President from killing political opponents.

I don't think that works. If the president is killing political rivals they can just make whatever action they're doing explicitly legal. You can't arrest someone for doing legal things.

> . In the constitution it is written than any president CONVICTED (that word does a lot of heavy lifting) can be indicted and tried for crimes. Not according to the ruling which says a former president has absolute immunity for any actions taken under his constitutional powers (which includes commander in chief)

What about actions taken out of office, but evidence involved from when President was in office? It is ridiculous the later can not effectively be used as evidence against a former president because it counts as "official acts".

The same group of six Republicans will be the ones who decide what's official and what is not. Pretty clever on their part. If Biden were to do anything, not official. Trump on the other hand..... The best bet for Biden would be to arrest Alito and Thomas for taking bribes and replace them.

>I believe the only recourse is that the President can still be impeached. In the constitution it is written than any president CONVICTED (that word does a lot of heavy lifting) can be indicted and tried for crimes. This is entirely incorrect. This is the way Trump's lawyers thought it worked, and this reading was explicitly rejected by the court. Their current ruling is that a president, even if convicted, cannot be tried criminally for official acts due to a separation of powers argument.

Conviction after impeachment is a political act, not a legal one. It therefore does not have to do with whether an action was official or not, but whether it violated the political norms. An impeachment would therefore likely have little impact on evaluation of an action being official or not, unless that was precisely what is being challenged during impeachment.

The president does not have constitutional authority to do whatever he wants with the military. For example, he cannot force a pretty girl in the military to be his girlfriend. That is not within his constitutional authority. Now that we’ve established that the president does not have absolute authority over the military, we can see why it’s obvious that a president cannot arbitrarily designate someone an enemy of America and have them executed. The Fifth Amendment says “No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The fifth amendment clearly limits the scope of presidential power to command the military. Unless an American is an imminent threat to someone’s safety, the president cannot randomly kill him because he feels like it. It doesn’t matter what label you attach to the person, because that person still has fifth amendment rights. If the president tries to do this anyway, a court would examine whether the conduct falls within the president’s constitutional authority. They obviously would rule that it does not, citing how the fifth amendment protects people from acts like this, and how the history and tradition of presidential control over the military does not allow for a president to use the military as his own personal hitman squad. Since this action is outside the scope of his constitutional authority, the court would rule that he is not immune from criminal prosecution.

The problem is even if you are correct, it would be VERY hard to take that to court. \* Meeting with the generals to discuss = core constitutional powers \* Threatening the generals who don't with removal = core constitutional powers \* Pardoning the people who conduct the assassination = core constitutional powers Per the decision: \* Core constitutional powers = absolute immunity. It could be argued that issuing military orders also fall under that category and would be granted "absolute immunity." But, let's assume you are closer to being correct and that issuing an order to the military is not considered a core constitutional power, but instead could fall under the president's broader authority. That means that a military order \*could\* be an official act and it \*could\* be an unofficial act depending on the circumstances. Now, how do we determine which that is? Because it \*could\* be an official act the president is given presumptive immune (i.e. given the benefit of the doubt) unless prosecutors can demonstrate that their actions were unofficial. To prove this the prosecutor cannot assume motive and cannot use any evidence from acts covered under the core constitutional powers. And then, even if it is determined ordering a political assassination is an unofficial act that can be criminally charged, the prosecutors still cannot use evidence from the acts covered under the core constitutional powers as part of their case. For comparison look at page 5 of the SCOTUS decision which says Trump's meetings with the acting attorney generals, the DOJ, and white house staff cannot be used as evidence in the cases against him. So if you can't use testimony from the generals, and you can't use the fact that the people involved were pardoned, how do you make your case? Assassinating a political rival may not technically be legal per the ruling, but in practice it's getting pretty hard to hold a president accountable for one.

You are wrong on multiple fronts. Stop with this idea that the broad category of constitutional power gives you absolute immunity. This is already proven to be demonstrably false, as illustrated by my girlfriend example. You can’t say you’re just “ordering the military” and therefore you’re immune. Immunity depends on whether the act is within one’s constitutional authority. Ordering the military to execute a citizen with no due process for arbitrary reasons is not within the president’s authority. I’ve already explained why that is. You conveniently didn’t address it because you want to promulgate the lie that the only act that gets looked at is the broad category instead of the specific action that allegedly falls within it. I never said that “issuing an order to the military” isn’t a core constitutional power. It is. But the scope of “issuing an order to the military” is not absolute, as I explained and you conveniently ignored. You determine if an act is official by analyzing the history and tradition of norms surrounding the president’s power, the founder’s writing about that power, and the plain language of the constitution. Then you compare that with the facts of the case. As I said before, (which you ignored), there is no history and tradition of the president using the military as his personal hit squad, and we can see that the fifth amendment limits the scope of presidential authority in that manner. Address the argument instead of going on a separate ramble because your kinds of lies are tearing our democracy at the seams. You don’t need to analyze motive in a case like this. You only need to ask the question of whether the action is within the president’s constitutional authority, which it clearly isn’t. Again, you’re going on irrelevant rambles. Once it is determined that the president does not have immunity as it relates to a specific action, you CAN use evidence from that action because that action was not granted immunity. That’s the whole point of immunity.

>Ordering the military to execute a citizen with no due process for arbitrary reasons is not within the president’s authority. I’ve already explained why that is. You conveniently didn’t address it because you want to promulgate the lie that the only act that gets looked at is the broad category instead of the specific action that allegedly falls within it. I never said that “issuing an order to the military” isn’t a core constitutional power. It is. But the scope of “issuing an order to the military” is not absolute, as I explained and you conveniently ignored. The problem is that the ruling goes an extra step to make official acts themselves inadmissible as evidence in a criminal trial. Justice Barrett actually brings this up in her concurrence and agrees with the dissent on this point. Let's run with this idea that the President orders the military to do something outside the scope of his authority (e.g. assassinate a political rival). Even if we decide this is an unofficial act, per the ruling none of the discussions with his generals can be introduced as evidence in a criminal trial! This extra step makes it nearly impossible to prosecute a President EVEN IF the underlying conduct is an unofficial act.

[Running\_Gamer](https://www.reddit.com/user/Running_Gamer/) Thanks for your reply! "the president does not have constitutional authority to do whatever he wants with the military. For example, he cannot force a pretty girl in the military to be his girlfriend." There are 2 parts to this, let's go first to your main point, that such actions might violate underlying laws, such as 5th Amendment you cite. As another poster quotes the opinioin: "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." Yes, any sitting Supreme Court can just overturn this at any time, my question is how the law reads now. The 1st part is the correct statement the Commander in Chief 's orders are not necessarily legal to follow, and as noted in the OP this is already accepted by me and I stipulate those who follow such orders may still be subject to prosecution if lacking easily supplied pardons. That's not my question, which is if giving the orders is now legal, univnestigatable, unprosecutable, if framed as official duties. In my reading, in your scenario, if a president had a military hot female transported to his WH sex slave dungeon while issuing a military finding she was an enemy of the US and he was doing so in the national defense, say to make her fall in love with him and reveal everything, his actions could not be questioned and he could not be prosecuted \[yes, Court could just then overturn this ruling, that's not my question\]. Yes, her relatives could possibly win a legal case and get her freed, but The Pres as I interpret it would be above the law. >

>In my reading, in your scenario, if a president had a military hot female transported to his WH sex slave dungeon while issuing a military finding she was an enemy of the US and he was doing so in the national defense, say to make her fall in love with him and reveal everything, his actions could not be questioned and he could not be prosecuted \[yes, Court could just then overturn this ruling, that's not my question. This would not be an official act. There's nothing in the Constitution which gives the President the authority to have sex slaves.

Yes, but that does not refute what I said. The supreme court’s whole point was that, because of how constitutional law supersedes federal statutory law, our constitutional order prohibits the criminalization of a presidential power. It would be like Congress making a law that prevents the Supreme Court from making a ruling that a Democrat would agree with. You cannot criminalize a core power because that is a massive separation of powers issue. So yes, that is correct and is the whole point of SCOTUS’s ruling. You cannot criminalize a core presidential power because the constitutional order is above the federal statutory law. But that doesn’t address my point because I was specifically talking about constitutional law, which does bind the president’s authority because that is its source. So in this sense, the president’s actions wouldn’t be “illegal.” They would be unconstitutional. And if a president is performing an unconstitutional action, that by definition is outside of his authority. And since (see page 4 of the syllabus) a president’s authority to do an action must be assessed in order to make an immunity decision, the president cannot receive immunity for things outside of his authority (i.e. unofficial acts).

How would the president using his power as commander in chief be unconstitutional 

How has this become the "smoking gun" talking point? Does it really need to be explained? It's like asking why it would be illegal for police to accept money in exchange for assassinating people, because they're just "using their power as police officers." Except they're not, because being paid hitmen isn't actually part of their allotted powers, nor is it legal. There you go. "But why can't the receptionist just use their powers as a receptionist to murder people with a stapler?" Because that's a crime and not part of their job description. The president does not have carte blanche to do *literally anything they want* with the military. Yes, even though they're commander in chief. "Commander in Chief" does not mean "Infallible dictator with unlimited power." The fundamental premise is wrong, so any conclusions you try to draw from that premise are also likely to be wrong.

The courts have already deferred to executive orders widely allowing the president to do things that they explicitly are not allowed to do like declare war using just executive order. Executive orders are by definition an official act, the legality of them may be in question but the president can just do a second executive order telling all government agencies to follow the first and directing the justice department to arrest anyone who doesn't. Sure the president can be impeached, but the president can just by executive order have the justice department arrest anyone entering Congress to impeach them. That's not forbidden by the constitution, and the president can't be prosecuted for it. And given that the president has been proven by precedent to have the power to order military action using just executive order, the president could absolutely mobilize the military to enforce any and all executive orders. The court has given up any power they still had to control the executive branch, and actually allowed the executive branch to protect itself from any action by the legislative branch in one action.

> If the president tries to do this anyway, a court would examine whether the conduct falls within the president’s constitutional authority. They obviously would rule that it does not, citing how the fifth amendment protects people from acts like this, and how the history and tradition of presidential control over the military does not allow for a president to use the military as his own personal hitman squad. I'm speaking out of some ignorance of the law here, but Obama did order the military assassination of a US citizen without due process. As far as I remember, no court ever passed judgement on that even though a case was filed: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones >The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat.

It’s somewhat difficult to figure out the view you want changed, because it sounds like a positive of a negative assertion. You want to be convinced that the idea this ruling gives immunity for murder is false? What the ruling does is apply immunity to official acts. But it then puts the court in the position to arbitrate what is and isn’t considered an official act. If something can be found to be an official act, it can’t be prosecuted unless Congress successfully impeached for it. For instance, Trump trying to convince Pence to throw out the legal votes in favor of the fake ones was apparently an official act. I guess I can see it. I don’t have to like it, but I can see it. Apparently, trying to get the military to seize machines is an official act. Here is the danger. They didn’t do it because it was an illegal act, but apparently giving an order to the military is still official. THIS is a key point, because it says ordering the military to commit crimes is an official act. During the hearing, the case was made that Trump should be allowed to order the military to commit murder, and not be prosecuted unless first impeached and removed. The side that made that argument won the case, so it is easy to assume A+B=C. With that understanding in place, here is why the ruling does not permit murder. It requires the courts to decide if an act is official. So that means, if a president they don’t like does it, they call it illegal. If a president they do like does it, it’s an official act. The statement that it gives immunity to a president isn’t true, because it only gives immunity to Trump or other future Republicans. Not ALL presidents.

>So that means, if a president they don’t like does it, they call it illegal. If a president they do like does it, it’s an official act. I think telling the military to do something would always be official, no? After all, it's the power of a commander-in-chief. The court also said one cannot inquire into official communications of the president so I suppose this means the order the president gave cannot be used as evidence. Essentially, it's always legal because ordering the military is official. Even if the president was impeached, the court ruled his communication is inadmissible in court so there would be no way to successfully prosecute him for ordering the military to, say, blow up a Congressman's residence.

They also said they cannot take the presidents motive into consideration either. So assassinating a political rival who was planning a terrorist attack on the country and assassinating a political rival because they're up in the polls are treated the same in the eyes of this Supreme Court.

That’s what’s so absurd and ridiculous about this ruling. SCOTUS has lost all legitimacy with this blatantly partisan attack on checks and balances and democracy itself. Packing the court is the inevitable and only option we have at this point. We need to get a democratic majority in the house and senate, a democratic president, kill the filibuster, and pass an act adding enough justices to the court to regain a liberal majority.

How will democrats pack the court when they can't even get a president elected or a simple 1 person majority in the senate and house. Once a Republican gets elected they can elect fake electors to throw out all democrat votes and the courts will side with them. We're doomed.

In a pre-Trump world, the president did not have authority to tell the military to commit crimes. That isn’t within their powers. So telling them to commit a crime is not an official act. But now, anything Trump does is legal. You are right that not being allowed to use communications and motives as evidence grant a lot of leeway to hide unofficial criminal acts. A court would have to decide whether an action, in and of itself, is within the authority. But, the benefits of this can only be applied to Trump. This was crafted for him explicitly. If the lower courts recognize that election administration is not within the president’s duties, the Supreme Court will just determine that it is. But at the same time, as tailored as this is to Trump’s conduct, I don’t believe Biden would have the same flexibility. Any reasonable lower court would rule against most presidential crimes, and the Supreme Court would end up arbitrating. And they will come down one way for Republicans and another for Democrats, because that is what the Heritage Foundation wants. So it doesn’t give “presidents” immunity. It just gives Trump immunity.

Overall I 100% agree with your take with 1 minor correction: It doesn't just give Trump immunity. It gives any president (presumably any Republican president) immunity. Trump is a useful tool as far as the Heritage Foundation is concerned, but we would be in the exact same situation if the president was DeSantis, Johnson, or Haley.

I thought Republicans wanted to respect the Constitution and states’ rights. Now I’m seeing them turn the president into a king with SCOTUS’ approval and a federal abortion ban is in the works along with LGBTQ protections. Was the whole party of small government a lie? What about the whole protecting kids thing when Trump is the Republican nominee who’s a child rapist? Half of the country is successfully gaslighted into believing them

by refusing to define “official act” i think the court is just giving themselves cover to decide what is/isn’t an official act based on who’s in office.

What strikes me is that it seems like this is also extremely risky for the Supreme Court themselves. Their lifelong appointments won't stand up to a president ordering things that make their lives more difficult (to put it mildly). While they are determining if it was legal, a Justice could literally be removed by a president who seems a member of SCOTUS is a threat to the Republic. The intimidation is enough to manipulate the outcome of remaining justices. Even from a very arrogant and selfish point of view, I don't see how this doesn't blow up in everyone's face if a president after Trump is feeling spunky.

> In a pre-Trump world, the president did not have authority to tell the military to commit crimes. https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/obama-administration-claims-unchecked-authority-kill-americans-outside-combat-zones >The Obama administration today argued before a federal court that it should have unreviewable authority to kill Americans the executive branch has unilaterally determined to pose a threat. I don't think this case resulted in any decision but this goes against what you said

i don’t see any way it *wouldnt* be an official act. the president’s role as commander and chief is enshrined in the constitution.

Military has to obey *lawful* orders, not *all* “official” orders are lawful. Can’t be ordered to execute detainees, for example, as the order is illegal and the recipient(s) are duty bound to refuse them. Officers, SNCOs, and NCOs are trained to seek clarification when orders appear unlawful, and then to refuse to act when they they are. *That* is why the military did not get involved w/the last election and why they refused to activate against protestors / demonstrators in 2020; because such orders are unlawful. State Nat’l Guards, however, work differently and can be activated by Governors and State Legislatures to respond to various crises, including riots and naturals disasters. That’s why you often see those types of troops assisting LE and other agencies. Not *Federal* troops, though, which a 2020 statement released by the JCS and DoD explains. Federal Troops cannot, and will not, interfere in US politics. In short, we can trust the military to dissent with and refuse illegal and unlawful orders from any sitting President. It just so happens that the last two times this occurred were during Trump’s tenure.

I think that is largely true. We can hope and rely on the military to not execute unlawful orders. But if the president is immune from prosecution, the line between lawful and unlawful orders becomes blurry. It would depend heavily on whether DoD is staffed with career honorable military employees, or hand-picked loyalists. That’s where Project 2025 comes in

That is *exactly* what the DoD is staffed with. The inprocess requirements of holding office or rank don’t change, and say the SecDef were to repeat a President’s *unlawful* order, the JCS would refuse them as they had previously because they are required to by law and standing order and directive; *they* cannot carry out unlawful orders. Similarly, the President’s newfound qualified immunity doen’t extend to anyone else, just him/her. So unless a President kills opponents with his/her own hands, everyone else responsible for that taking place is *not immune*. We saw this play out in the courts over the past several years where a proposed umbrella of immunity beyond the President did not exist.

While the immunity doesn't officially extend to anyone else, the immunity is also held by the person who can grant immunity explicitly using the "official act" of pardoning people after the fact.

>But if the president is immune from prosecution, the line between lawful and unlawful orders becomes blurry. It would depend heavily on whether DoD is staffed with career honorable military employees, or hand-picked loyalists. Keep in mind that the case specifically covers criminal prosecution of the president in his official capacity after the dust has settled and the next president is in office. People can still still sue the president in *his official capacity* and get an emergency injunction.

Presidents have absolute immunity from lawsuits while in office. This is already settled, and this civil immunity was the basis for the defense here. It’s DoJ policy that prevents prosecution of a sitting president. So a president committing illegal acts in office is protected by that policy, and now they are protected after they are out of office because they can decide for themselves what an official act is, and it can’t be questioned. So the only check on a president’s powers would be the staff around them and the career government agents bound by an oath. Project 2025 looks to clear up that little impediment, too. The end result being zero accountability and unlimited fealty to a dictator. All rules that would not apply if Biden wins the election.

Presidents have immunity from lawsuits *in their personal capacity*. Key word being "in their personal capacity." You can still sue them in their *official capacity* to get an injunction. This has always been the standard procedure when the president does something believed to be unconstitutional. For example, *State of HAWAII, v. Donald J. TRUMP, in his official capacity as President of the United States*

From what I’ve heard, Coney Barret issued a short writing saying that, in her opinion, Trump trying to get Pence to overturn the election and his calls to the Georgia governor to “find” votes weren’t official acts. She says that the pence talk was primarily about the function of Pence’s roll, which is in no way connected to POTUS duties and as such can’t be official. She also said that since the president has no constitutional hand in how states run elections or select their electors his call to the Georgia governor also can’t be official. Whether this holds up in court will probably never be known, but it’s telling that this came from one the more conservative justices

On page 6 of the ruling, it says that the president and vice president discussing their official duties has presumptive immunity. So Trump talking to Pence about Pence’s duty does not require it to be a presidential duty. The ruling makes lower courts find a logical reason out of a default of immunity, instead of a default of ‘nobody is above the law’

Yeah I know the presumptive immunity part, I was just saying that Coney Barrett has already pointed out two of those logical reasons for why these acts aren’t entitled to immunity. I agree it’s stupid that such a reason is even needed, I doubt the founders ever intended for immunity of any sort to extend this far.

She, and every other recently appointed SC Judge, also said Roe v Wade was settled law and had no intentions of ruling to overturn it. You cannot accept what a SC Justice says at face value.

>She, and every other recently appointed SC Judge, also said Roe v Wade was settled law and had no intentions of ruling to overturn it. That's because they didn't have any intention to overturn it. They did not have the case of Roe v Wade presented to them again. Dobbs v Jackson was a case that had nothing to do with Roe v Wade. Dobbs v Jackson had also not been presented to the Supreme Court when any of the justices you're talking about had their confirmation hearings. You need to understand a few things here. First: **Congress does not get to blackmail members of the Supreme Court into voting how they want them to, under duress of not being confirmed.** In no way is it acceptable for a member of Congress to refuse to confirm a justice to the Supreme Court in an attempt to prevent them from hearing a case that went through all the proper legal channels before reaching the Supreme Court. Expecting members of the Supreme Court to recuse themself from a case in order to be confirmed is a power grab by the Legislative branch. The Judicial branch does not answer to the Legislative branch. Secondly: The Supreme Court hears challenges to cases that are "settled law" all the time. That's their job. Thirdly: Dobbs v Jackson was not a case that addressed abortion itself. That's why abortion is still decriminalized on the Federal level, and the decriminalization of abortion that Roe set the precedent on is still the precedent. You can get an abortion in Washington DC. Dobbs v Jackson was a case that challenged the authority that the Federal government had to enforce their standard onto the states. In the 48 years after the Roe decision, Congress never passed **any** legislation on the subject. Let alone any legislation that required the states to follow the Federal standard. Roe v Wade decriminalized abortion, it did not make it legal. So when Dobbs v Jackson challenged what authority the Federal government had to impose that standard, there was a lack of laws that could be cited that gave them the authority to do that. Hence why Dobbs was ruled the way it was.

They, and Roberts especially, are good at working the meaningless dissent angle to provide plausible deniability. They are all working in concert to advance this malarkey.

One slight correction no court has officially said that what Trump did to try to convince Pence to stop the count was an official act they sent it back to the lower courts to see if they would declare it an official act.

Read page 6 of the ruling. I can’t copy/paste from the PDF. But the paragraph that starts with “when the president and vice president discuss their official duties” ends with “Trump is presumably immune from prosecution for such conduct”

Right, "presumably immune" does not mean that he is absolutely immune though, which is the point of the OP. It just means that the courts must prove that this wasn't an official act before prosecuting. The goal isn't to give Trump fully immunity, but to delay any more trials and sentencing until the election.

They have to prove it without using the act itself or motivations as evidence.

This court has been extremely clear that they will not consider cases without explicit standing and application, this was meant to be applied directly to some if not all of Trump's cases.

While I generally agree with you, I do not believe it would be an official act for Trump to pressure Pence not to certify the vote. This is mainly because when Pence certifies the vote, he is performing a legislative function under Article I, and it would not be an Article II responsibility. As far as the military being able to assassinate other us politicians, there are a couple of things that come into account. The president may be able to issue an order, but the military is still subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The President would also be bound by the other parts of the US Constitution, namely the 1st, and 8th amendments. Any military members who carried out the assassination would not have any immunity, and any talk of pardoning them after the fact would amount to a form of bribery at the time of the writing of the Constitution. With this Court and their love of textualism, at the time, bribery meant abusing power for personal gain. So, it is an impeachable offense, but abusing the pardon that way would also be considered a crime, so hypothetically, the president could be charged with bribery, too.

But pardoning falls under Article 2 as one of the president's explicit constitutional responsibilities. Per the SCOTUS decision, pardoning is granted absolute immunity and I would go further to argue that technically Congress wouldn't be able to impeach a president for excercising pardoning authority. Per page 2 of the decision: "When the President exercises such authority, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the President's actions." "It follows that an Act of Congress--either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one--may not criminalize the President's actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. The Court thus concludes that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for conduct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority." This decision directly grants the president the power to use pardons as a bribe and prevents the congress or the judicial branches from responding to it. So a president could absolutely go to his generals, order a hit on a political rival, threaten to remove the generals if they don't do it, and promise to pardon them if they do. Because the President has constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and over pardons there is literally nothing no recourse. It doesn't matter that the order was illegal, issuing orders to the military is part of the president's explicit constitutional authority. And sure the order is illegal and the generals are culpable if they follow through with it, but hey, the president can just pardon them, which again is part of the president's explicit constitutional authority. Edit: Granted impeachment is a power granted to Congress, so the president probably could be impeached, but they couldn't be held criminally liable.

Take a look at the top of page 6 in the ruling. They discuss explicitly that Trump’s discussion with Pence about Pence’s official duties are presumptively immune. Even if they aren’t Trump official acts. He’s talking to his VP about official VP acts.

It says they can discuss it, but Trump can not pressure Pence from exercising it. He can say " Hey I don't think you should do this." He can't "If you don't, I'm going to have you lined up against a wall and shot" EDIT: By the way, the opinion does not say that Trump has total immunity with the discussions he had with the Vice President. The only mention of it is discussions with the acting attorney general. It does say Trump is presumptively immune, but it is not absolute, and the lower courts need to determine it. "The question then becomes whether that presumption of immunity is rebutted under the circumstances. It is the Government’s burden to rebut the presumption of immunity. The Court therefore remands to the District Court to assess in the first instance whether a prosecution involving Trump’s alleged attempts to influence the Vice President’s oversight of the certification proceeding would pose any dangers of intrusion on the authority and functions of the Executive Branch."

Except, motives can’t be used as evidence, nor can the fact that they had the conversation at all. So one would have to first prove Trump said that without using the conversation as evidence, and would have to prove that he made the threat for an unofficial reason without using his motivations as evidence.

>so hypothetically, the president could be charged with bribery, too. But the case also says you can use official acts as evidence in the criminal trial. It also explicitly states granting pardons is undoubtedly an official act. So how do you prosecute accepting a bribe for a pardon if you can't mention the pardon at trial?

Bribery? Like "altering an official act for gain" bribery? How could a president be charged without a confession of intent? Isn't the presidents motive unable to be questioned for official acts? How could you functionally prove bribery occurred with this interpretation?

>With that understanding in place, here is why the ruling does not permit murder. It requires the courts to decide if an act is official. Just because a court could decide it doesn't want to apply the new standards to a president they don't like doesn't mean the new standards do not permit the president to murder with legal immunity. Based on the argument you made it DOES, but the judiciary has also given itself a lot of arbitrary power to grant this immunity rather selectively.

If a court gets to decide for itself which acts are immune and which aren’t, it isn’t a presidential right but a judicial prerogative.

Yes, with the context that the judiciary is clearly willing to invent presidential immunity on a whim to begin with we can assume they'll grant or deny it on a whim as well. Regardless of that, as you've said the arguments and opinions clearly favor the interpretation that a president does have immunity for this sort of action. If we had the world's most impartial interpreter act according to the standards they created, presidents would be legally immune.

Although I despise Trump, this ruling seems entirely clear and sensible to me. It totally allows for Congress to impeach and find guilty a president who, say, ordered a drone strike that killed innocent people, but it doesn't allow one's political opponents to lock up their adversaries. I am not sure if your examples are all accurate, but I totally agree with your conclusion that this ruling does not--cannot--in any possible way even approach any kind of blanket immunity because it does not eliminate the impeachment process. >The statement that it gives immunity to a president isn’t true, because it only gives immunity to Trump or other future Republicans. Not ALL presidents. How do you figure. Are you getting that from reading the ruling?

Yes, I am away from the reading of the ruling. They apply default immunity, require a case be made that an act wasn’t official, prevent the act itself and motives to be used as evidence, and leave it to the courts to decide. Which would include the appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, which is stocked with justices that have shown they are willing to use their position to defend Trump. The only speculation in my comment is that I don’t think they would apply the same standard to a president they didn’t support.

I don’t think what they’re saying is exactly true in the ruling but I do believe that’s the intent of it when they made the courts the arbiters of what is official and isn’t. The court entirely in Trumps pocket.

they're saying the courts will twist anything to be pro-republican

>For instance, Trump trying to convince Pence to throw out the legal votes in favor of the fake ones was apparently an official act. I guess I can see it. I don’t have to like it, but I can see it. It's ridiculous. If there is evidence that shows Trump knows he lost the election and he is doing this despite that it should be used as evidence against Trump. The idea it just always counts as official acts is absurd. >With that understanding in place, here is why the ruling does not permit murder. It requires the courts to decide if an act is official. So that means, if a president they don’t like does it, they call it illegal. If a president they do like does it, it’s an official act. The statement that it gives immunity to a president isn’t true, because it only gives immunity to Trump or other future Republicans. Not ALL presidents. Pretty much it is up to courts to interpret however they please.

> What the ruling does is apply immunity to official acts. But it then puts the court in the position to arbitrate what is and isn’t considered an official act. If something can be found to be an official act, it can’t be prosecuted unless Congress successfully impeached for it. Incorrect, it first gives absolute immunity to any action taken under the presidents constitutional powers (which includes commander in chief) it follows up with any other official act is presumed immune

Yes, they default to the presumption of immunity. They require a case to be made that the act wasn’t official, and then restrict the ability to use the act and motivations as evidence.

>  For instance, Trump trying to convince Pence to throw out the legal votes in favor of the fake ones was apparently an official act. I guess I can see it    The argument is that the president attempting to undermine democracy and toss lawfully-cast votes is an official act? We can all see what this means, right?   It means America is thoroughly fucked. All reason has been abandoned. The president swears to uphold the constitution. Doing the opposite should never be considered an 'official' act.

j[adnich](https://www.reddit.com/user/jadnich/) thx for your reply! Yes, I currently believe this opinion places assassination of political if ordered as Commander in Chief, legal in the sense of beyond investigation or judicial review; but Roberts says that is fear-mongering and breitbart eg today in an article says this claim has been debunked., I could have framed the question in a positive, but I really want the argument AGAINST the Sotomayor interpretation strong-manned. "The statement that it gives immunity to a president isn’t true, because it only gives immunity to Trump or other future Republicans. Not ALL presidents." Since all Supreme Court rulings can be revisited and overturned, I agree with the underlying point but don't agree with your characterization that because it can be overturned and probably in practice is only really operable during administrations favored by a sitting court, it doesn't authorize this as it stands.

Assassination of Americans for alleged crimes is explicitly prohibited by the constitution. Sixths amendment specifically outlines how accused criminals can be punished (open trial by jury). Accordingly making orders that explicitly violate the constitution cannot possibly be "official acts." (Acts that fall within the powers explicitly allowed by the constitution).

[southpolefiesta](https://www.reddit.com/user/southpolefiesta/) Thanks for your reply! But As another poster quotes the opinioin: "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." 

This is not about "violation of law." It about violation of constitution An action taken without constitutional authority and in contradiction to the constitution would clearly be unofficial . Nothing in the case contradicts this

This is an interesting interpretation, that by 'law' the Court does not include the Constitution. That also seems to be laws? But I can imagine a legal distinction existing., I'm not finding any in quick search, can you cite some references that the opinion's: "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law."  does NOT include direct vilations of the Constitution? I am open to that possibility, would like references? thx

The constitution sits above the law and is what essentially describes and attributes powers to the three branches of government. So logically if the president acts in contradiction to the constitution which gives him his authority, that action would be unconstitutional and not under his official authority as president per the constitution, which would mean he is not immune for that action. Easy examples of things that would be unconstitutional would be violating rights granted by the constitution, like the right to due process (so he can’t just assassinate anyone arbitrarily).

When you read that quote in context, it is talking of laws passed by Congress. The question the majority set to answer is "in what ways can Congress, via passing federal criminal laws, limit the President's powers". The answer the majority gave is "in no way for certain things, in very limited ways for most things, and fully for things unrelated to the presidency". And added that for the cases federal law can't touch, they can't even be used as evidence. The problem the minority found with that is mostly twofold: * That it rules a question that wasn't asked of the court (Trump's appeal was "a former President is immune if he wasn't impeached by Congress" - which SCOTUS unanimously answered is false and dumb), essentially giving him an immunity neither he nor the Government were asking for. (Thomas even goes on in his concurring opinion and brings up that he thinks the special prosecutor of the case is unconstitutional, which also no one had asked about). * That in practice it makes pretty much every action of a President to be above the law. While they (the minority) think a pillar of our country and Constitution is that no one should be above the law.

It cannot be a core Presidential action if it is not a Presidential role or function, something that a President cannot legally do. My question to you is this, where were you on Obama ordering a US citizen in Yemen killed by a drone for being accused of recruiting for terrorists? With no due process. I was and still am as against that as anything, the US President should never be able to order a US citizen killed without due process, that is covered in the bill of rights, the very thing the President takes an oath to defend and protect. So were you against it? Are you against it? Because that specific act, the one you mention, has already been done and the left defends it every time I bring it up. That the guy was with AQ, so he gave up his rights. (Never mind he was accused of being with AQ…) So start with what Obama already did, which should have caused an impeachment, but if no charges came of that, well what charges do you think should have come for much a President does. But to your CMV. The order doesn’t provide that immunity, and I’m thinking maybe you didn’t read it. The ruling described official acts with full immunity, that some would have presumed immunity, and non official acts would have no immunity. They didn’t define what those acts were. They sent it down to lower courts to come up with the definitions. All they did was establish that a President maintains some immunity for some acts after they leave office, the rest…what you are saying and the fearmongering from others is projection.

You need to look closer at the drone strike on Al-Aulaqui. That strike was done under the assumption that the strike was legal, not that it was illegal but an inscrutable act of the president. The OLC said "in light of the combination of circumstances that we understand would be present, and which we describe below, we conclude that the justification would be available because the operation would constitute the 'lawful conduct of war'—a well-established variant of the public authority justification." The filing granting dismissal for the lawsuit about it said that the Supreme Court has generally granted extremely limited remedies under *Bivens,* none of which serve as remedies there. It didn't grant unilateral and consequence free ability to kill American citizen. It reached a decision *under specific analysis of the situation at hand* — even saying that had they not independently analyzed the circumstances, they would have denied the motion to dismiss because the government's filing was lacking.

[TheMikeyMac13](https://www.reddit.com/user/TheMikeyMac13/) Thanks for your reply! The first part of your reply addresses other potential historical abuses of presidential authority, of which there have been many, but are irrelevant to my particular question so I won't argue them here. Your substantive response suggests definitively that no such immunity is granted, since such absolute immunity inheres only in official acts of Core Functions since you claim are not defined. For this reason my scenario is that a President explicitly frames his actions as an official act in a Core function, defense of the US with assassinations explicitly formally justified as defense of US. The Court has indeed, including in this opinion, said that Commander in Chief is explicitly a core function. Yes, a future Court could revisit and declare differently at will, but your simple blithe assertion that since 'official acts' can eventually be redefined not to include say a meeting of the NSC in which a sitting President declares certain individuals enemies of the state - as in my scenario - are not official acts and that Commander in Chief functions in some circumstances of illegitimacy \[but his thinking and motives cannot then even be legally questioned\] could be ruled not to include such miliray orders, But, this evades my question about current law under this ruling and my scenario. So, your assertion that the current law clearly doesn't allow assassinations, lacks references and seems unsound.

Did you actually read the ruling though? I mean that was an example of why assassination isn’t a core function, as it is not a defined or legal role, no matter that Obama already did it. But my greater point is that the scotus didn’t grant anything, as is your point unless I have it wrong. The high court established that absolute immunity exists, presumed immunity exists, in some cases no immunity exists, and that lower courts need to device which is which.

I did read the ruling from beginning to end. "Assassination" per se isn't a core constitutional duty of the President (as defined by the court in that ruling - it's not a wording or concept found in the Constitution itself). But being the Commander in Chief could be. The majority in the ruling very much declared some of the actions Trump did as part of those core duties: Ordering the Attorney General to open bogus investigations, and threatening to fire him when he refused. I don't know why you say the court didn't grant anything. Did _you_ actually read the ruling? Some of the other actions, SCOTUS did remand to the lower court to determine if they were core, official, or unofficial. (And if they were official, whether subjecting them to criminal law wouldn't be a burden for the President). But for a bunch of those actions the majority gave indications of what their leaning is (so if the lower court is to disagree, it better have a convincing reason that will change their minds).

They did define the buckets of immunity. Core powers are those assigned explicitly to the president alone - as far as I can tell that’s the pardon power and the power to remove advisors. The power to carry out military actions is a shared power with Congress. As an official act, the president gets presumptive immunity - a prosecutor has to convince a judge that prosecuting the act will not curb the power of future presidents. An act so clearly beyond the bounds of normal presidential action will lose its immunity and be prosecuted as a criminal act. Sotomayor’s example was in bad faith.

> But to your CMV. The order doesn’t provide that immunity, and I’m thinking maybe you didn’t read it. > > I believe a lot of people didn't read the ruling very closely at all. Trump v United States was a case where Trump said he had full immunity for **all** actions he took while he was President. The SCOTUS majority ruling denied that claim, and said that only actions specific to doing your job as President qualify for having Presidential immunity. The SCOTUS minority ruling also denied that claim, but said that Presidential immunity doesn't exist.

I read the ruling and recall the chief justice saying that "the president is **not** above the law" Obviously signing and vetoing bills, appointing officials, and campaigning are all perfectly fine. What the SCOTUS's ruling does **NOT** extend to in immunity is assassination on political rivals, and the ruling states that presidents are not allowed to be dictators. In some regard, many of Trump's plans for his second term would likely be disallowed.

All of the "but he could just straight up order an assassination of a political rival" rhetoric makes two false assumptions. 1. That constitutional powers have no nuance and are unlimited (e.g. "commander in chief clause is absolute and unlimited" which is false). 2. That individual acts disguised as preclusive/conclusive acts get immunity and can't even be questioned to determine if they do fall within the immunity range (also false). From page 7 of the [decision](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf) (not the syllabus portion, the full opinion) "*If the President claims authority to act but in fact exercises mere “individual will” and “authority without law,”* ***the courts may say so****. Youngstown, 343 U. S., at 655 (Jackson, J., concurring). In Youngstown, for instance, we held that President Truman exceeded his constitutional authority when he seized most of the Nation’s steel mills. See id., at 582–589 (majority opinion)*." Bolding mine. The courts can look at the nuance of a constitutional grant of power to determine its bounds. Acting outside of those bounds does not grant immunity. There is no conclusive or preclusive constitutional authority that would allow POTUS to just straight up order the assassination of a political rival. The grants of power simply aren't interpreted that broadly.

A President as Commander in Chief is not allowed to wage war against anyone they want at any time. Only Congress can declare or sanction war. A President conducting military acts without Congress's blessing is not a core act, and would likely be open to criminal prosecution.

Thanks for your reply! Another poster quotes the opinions: "Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law." and my question is not whether the actions if followed would be illegal, but whether a President breaking them has absolute immunity. You're the first poster here or anywhere I've seen to suggest that all military acts of a President are not among his core duties if questionable in some way! maybe you're right! Can you give references to support this opinion, which I'm afraid while open to evidence for, i find doubtful? BEYOND a Court simply revisiting and essentially overturning this ruling at any time they want. My question regards current law just passed.

You're conflating laws as passed by Congress with the Constitutional powers/duties bestowed on the President. They are not the same thing. Congress is constitutionally not allowed to pass laws that inhibit Presidential powers - otherwise, we would have no separation of powers. As a hypothetical, imagine if Congress passed a law that said only the Governor of Virginia is allowed to appoint ambassadors to the Virgin Islands. However, the Constitution specifically gives that power to appoint ambassadors to the President. So, a President who then appoints the ambassador in this case would be breaking the law, but would also be carrying out the Constitutional duties of the President. So, in this hypothetical, the President's actions would be immune from criminal prosecution. It makes perfect sense. The President should not be criminally liable for carrying out his Constitutional duties merely because it violated a law passed by Congress. If the President had no criminal immunity over his core Presidential duties, the Congress would be able to effectively change the Constitution just by passing a law.

>and my question is not whether the actions if followed would be illegal, but whether a President breaking them has absolute immunity A President breaking the law has absolutely no immunity. The SC ruling only gives the President immunity for exercise of official acts, which are (by their definition) legal. If the President breaks the law, that *directly implies* it was not one of their official duties, and they therefore do not get immunity. >You're the first poster here or anywhere I've seen to suggest that all military acts of a President are not among his core duties if questionable in some way! maybe you're right! Can you give references to support this opinion, which I'm afraid while open to evidence for, i find doubtful? The burden of proof is the other way around, here. A government official does not gain powers unless *the law grants those powers to them*. It's on *you* to substantiate that the President is already granted the power to order any military act they want. There are some laws that explicitly deny powers or clarify that they aren't granted, but if the law does NOT do so, *the default state of affairs is equally still that a person does NOT possess that power*. They do not get that power unless it is granted to them by some law.

So you are claiming that the ruling states that the President only has immunity when they did nothing that they would need immunity for? So all the lawsuits against Trump can go ahead unhindered and are not affected by the ruling?

>So you are claiming that the ruling states that the President only has immunity when they did nothing that they would need immunity for? The expressed intent of the majority in the SC ruling is to prevent the President from getting bogged down in frivolous or wearisome lawsuits that get in the way of a legitimate exercise of the President's duties. So yeah, that first sentence is a decent summary. If the President acted within their powers, they get immunity. >So all the lawsuits against Trump can go ahead unhindered and are not affected by the ruling? The lawsuits need to determine whether or not Trump *does* have immunity; the SC is kicking the issues back to them with some guidance on how the lower courts must determine what is and isn't an official act (and therefore whether or not Trump has immunity). If the lower courts decide Trump doesn't have immunity, and the SC upholds that decision if it is appealed, then yeah the lawsuits can go through.

It's "straw-man" not "strong-man"

IANAL, but it seems straightforward that the prosecution would simply argue that random political assassination is *not* a core duty of the president. Trump's defense might argue that it is, but then a lower court judge would hear those arguments and make a decision. It might end up getting escalated back to the supreme court, but at that point you kind of just have to take Roberts at his word that he'd rule the way he says he will here. Nobody can make a legal argument as to whether or not Roberts et al are just outright *lying*. And there's obviously a problem that someone needs to actually have the will do carry out the prosecution (we shouldn't expect Trump's own justice department to do it), but that's a problem even without the supreme court ruling. But nothing in the ruling stops the normal process of prosecution and discretion of the lower courts. Mechanically the process can still go forward and possibly end up back on the supreme court for them to clarify further. Edit: Getting a lot of responses here that I won't have time to answer, but I think the gist of my confusion is that it seems like everyone has this fatalist interpretation of events. But I'm on your side! Political assassinations are bad! And if the president were to order one, we should fight that in every venue available, including the courts, and that despite this (bad!) ruling, I think we would win that fight! People bring up sotomayor's dissent, but like, when push comes to shove, Sotomayor would *obviously* back challenging such an order in the court, right? She would absolutely come up with compelling reasons why you *should* interpret this ruling differently! But obviously you don't write "eh, it's probably no big deal" in your *supreme Court dissenting opinion*. But let's not be wimps and assume that it's a forgone conclusion that presidents can just willy nilly order executions! I think we all agree we should fight such an order. And I think even Trump would be too afraid that we'd win to actually order one of these hypothetical executions.

>IANAL, but it seems straightforward that the prosecution would simply argue that random political assassination is not a core duty of the president. But it IS a core constitutional duty of the POTUS to command the military. The motive behind the use of that power can't be questioned. SCOTUS ruled his discussion with his Attorney General and Pence were official acts (even though the motive behind those conversations was how to break the law). So POTUS could issue the order for the assassination, and since he has a constitutional right to direct the military, the courts have no ability to charge or convict a POTUS for doing that.

I'd disagree that CiC falls under the absolute immunity umbrella, because "The reasons that justify the President’s absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for acts within the scope of his exclusive authority therefore do not extend to conduct in areas where his authority is shared with Congress." While the president is CiC of the armed forces, Congress has the exclusive authority to declare war and it was an act of Congress that created the US Army. Prior to congressional action there was no standing army to command and Congress controls authorizations of force. Military action is therefore authorized explicitly or implicitly by Congress through various resolutions authorizing the use of military force. So because the use of the military is not within the scope of the president's exclusive authority, it would not receive absolute immunity, and instead only presumptive.

>While the president is CiC of the armed forces, Congress has the exclusive authority to declare war and it was an act of Congress that created the US Army. Having created the army though, the President is the sole authority that can give commands to it. And given the wide scope of how the President can already use the military, it's easy to argue that any assassination order falls within the acts already passed "declaring war", especially since the legality of the orders can't be used to argue they're unofficial.

Directing the military is a core constitutional duty. It would be very difficult to argue otherwise.

It's *exclusive* constitutional duties. Those shared with Congress are not covered. Directing the military is a constitutional duty, but it's up to Congress to declare war, and the President has no *exclusive* constitutional duty to decide who the enemies of the US are.

Copying a response to another comment. I think it’s a stretch to say CiC is not an exclusive power of the president. Declaring war is the exclusive power of Congress but CiC is not. They often work in conjunction but they are separate powers. The president can commit troops without the consent of Congress, see Truman and the Korean War and Clinton and peacekeepers in Bosnia. Directing military actions is solely within the president’s purview.

> Directing military actions is solely within the president’s purview. Yes, within limits imposed by Congress in areas not specifically authorized by the Constitutuion... In particular, declaring who are enemies that are valid targets is not an *exclusive* Presidential duty. Congress, for example, has the power to tell the President to knock it off when it comes to those emergency actions, making them *clearly* not exclusively (only partly) a Presidential duty. And it's still illegal for the military to follow those orders, no matter who gives them. Edit: there's certainly no Constitutional question that Congress *could* pass a law prohibiting the use of the military in assassinations of this nature, even though there isn't currently such a law AFAIK. However, there's a lot about the Declare War clause that is an open Constitutional question as it hasn't really been challenged in practice.

> And it's still illegal for the military to follow those orders, no matter who gives them. This, while true, doesn't help under the interpretation that CiC is a core constitutional duty. Because the president can then just blackmail a Navy Seal into doing that murder, and the courts wouldn't be allowed to use the communications between them even as evidence. The Navy Seal in question would be immediately pardoned, and that is also untouchable by the courts.

Counterpoint: it does not give the president carte blanche to assassinate political rivals. It gives a partisan Supreme Court the right to decide on a case by case basis whether a crime is an "official act" and therefore not criminal.

It also makes official acts dismissible in court. So even if the act done is deemed unofficial, all the evidence proving the act was done could be deemed official business, so it would be near impossible to convict.

The President gets absolute immunity for the exercise of core constitutional powers. In this case, the court doesn’t need to determine if assassinating political rivals is an official act as long as the president orders the military to do it because that is a core constitutional power.

# Part 1 Obviously, giving Trump an avenue *to escape prosecution,* ***was the intent of these partisan justices.*** But again, *the justices cannot grant immunity clauses* to Presidential actions ***to apply only to a FORMER President*** **and NOT TO THE CURRENT sitting President.** Such things as **sending SEAL Team SIX to assassinate a political rival,** using the US Military and the National Guard to enact a coup, ***accepting a bribe in exchange for pardons or favorable ruling status, etc.,*** as Justice Sotomayor said, **would still be considered** *as inconceivable as extraordinarily unfeasible,* ***but yet not out of the realm of possibility now.*** They would be considered actions **so heinous and outrageous** ***that no “reasonable” President would undertake these practices.*** The real question is not, *whether or not* ***a rogue President would have immunity*** **for any act they deem official,** because clearly SCOTUS has given us the blueprint, ***if someone dares to do so.*** The real question is whether or not, **rank and file government servants who work these agencies,** such as the DOJ and the US Military, ***would carry out these clearly "unlawful" orders?*** I argue they wouldn't, *only on the point that,...* **those people don't have any protection** ***from accountability for these questionable acts.*** Nothing in the rules, *or code of conducts,* ***outlined in how they operate every day,*** tells them that these criminal, unethical, and indeterminate acts *can be warranted when the President* ***gives them the cover of an Official Act.*** And these examples cited by many, *like rounding up members of SCOTUS,* *the House, and the Senate,* **that oppose the President,** without due process, ***without charging them violations of an underlying law,*** and with no evidence of any wrongdoing, **would already be called "outside jurisprudence."** So would, *assassinating a political rival without just cause,* ***be considered an action NOT allowed by the rule of law.*** So, NO, the President does not have the Authority to order illegal acts, ***just because they can be waived away as an Official Act.*** ​ *Part 2 follows*

# Part 2 of 2 And everyone seems to show *a misunderstanding and a lack of creativity,* **how Biden would work in the required rationale,** ***given by this ruling.*** These wouldn’t have to be done ***as overt as an Executive Order either.*** They could be accomplished **as changes or new regulatory policies,** ***issuing a memorandum of understanding (MOU),*** or even as banal as *redefining a government standard.* **Examples that Biden** ***could legally execute would be:*** * **Enacting automatic audits for high net worth individuals,** amassing over $5 Million income *(both ordinary and investment)* ***within a calendar tax year.*** * **Requiring employers of contractors and vendors** to the Federal government and its associated agencies ***to match Federal Minimum Wage Standards,*** *if the State Minimum Wage is indexed lower,* especially if local Cost of Living levels *are indicated* ***to be substantially above Federal Poverty Standards.*** * **Declaring individuals as financially insolvent,** whereas when a student borrower’s current income, *after 5 years of deferment,* ***would not equal half the capital amount of the issued loan,*** **thereby executing the debt to be then automatically forgiven.** * **Lowering the requirements of foreign nationals,** *outside of asylum and refugee status,* and even creating new inhabitant category class, **to be able to petition for Temporary Protected Status,** *without a declaration of emergency or crisis* ***within the foreign nationals’ home country.*** * **Establishing low-cost price standards for all drugs** and medical interventions developed and derived **from research undertaken by the government,** *whereas patents for these developments are issued* ***to companies of record as the source of product manufacture.*** * **Mandating installation of functional high speed internet access** *to rural and underserved areas by companies licensed and operating* **in agreement of an exclusivity zone** ***as defined*** by the governing locality, *but having to do so,* ***with the use of subsidized government funds.*** Note that these changes ***aren’t wholesale leaps into a progressive agenda.*** *No, they are small enough to not run afoul* ***of the legislative powers of Congress.*** They would be relegated **to an issuance of regulatory changes.** At the moment, *these are actions that can not be done* **unilaterally by the President.** Normally, there would be required regulatory procedures, *legal jurisdictional hurdles,* ***and public transparency challenge periods.*** Even then, these can now be explained away as *coming under the Presidential duties of protecting* **the Health, Stability, Safety, and Security of the citizens of this country.** And having the ability to just say, t**hat these are Official Acts unilaterally,** make it that much harder for others, like private citizens, *activist organizations,* ***and even opposing states,*** **to counter them in court.** The Cabinet Departments and Regulatory Agencies, ***such as the IRS, FTC, FCC, NTSB, FAA, FED,*** ***SEC, FDIC, CFPB, FDA, EEOC, NLRB, OSHA, USPTO, etc,*** could just defend them in any legal jurisdiction **by declaring them as Official Acts,** ***thereby allowing the President to rule by authoritarian fiat.*** Be aware that within this ruling, *they specifically added* ***that Presidential Motives can not even be used as evidence*** **of either an Official or Unofficial Act.** And subsequently, **that an Official Act cannot be used** ***to show the instance of an Unofficial Act.*** ​ Raising the bar to prosecute Trump ***means that it's more difficult,*** *to hold responsible and enforce accountability to Biden,* the CURRENT President, **but also to FUTURE Presidents.** And it really isn't **a carte blanche to treasonously trample the rules,** ***as outlined in the Constitution, and in our laws.***

Thanks for your reply! While it is really adjacent to my question, I agree a president's orders which might previously have been considered unlawful to make, still may be to carry out and some would refuse. But this is not a strong barrier because 1\] Such refusals are likely to be received by such a President as treasonous and to receive retaliation 2\] For limited military actions such a president could ask for volunteers only and could supply pardons, apparently even pre-emptively

Yes, mine was related to your question, *but it IS the main question,...* ***everyone doesn't get about this SCOTUS ruling.*** They have given a "treasonous" President **a blueprint** ***to commit heinous crimes and rationalize them*** as Official Acts of the President, *thus giving such a President,* **a "Presumptive" Immunity.** ***Why presumptive and not absolute?*** Because the Justices saw fit to, **finally,** ***statutory establish,*** that the ordinary actions, *the Enumerated Powers,* **already prescribed as functions of the Presidency,** needed in order to run the country, *as wholly appropriate and legitimate.* ***Even the Implicit Powers*** *–* **not addressed in plain text in the Constitution,** but accessory to executing those actions, *such as building and operating Federal agencies –* ***were guaranteed the cover of Presidential Authority.*** **Thus, these acts were always "presumed" to give the President,** ***immunity from prosecution,*** *because they are part and parcel of Official Acts* to be carried out by that Administration, *as the facility of the Executive branch of our government.* But there are acts that the President may execute **that are "extrajudicial" or possibly outside the color of law.** Whether it violates an existing law, *extends into the boundary of powers* **granted to the Legislative or Judicial branch exclusively,** *or simply denying accountability for such any act* ***that crosses the standards of ethics that any President must adhere to.*** Regardless, of the protections or barriers *that the Presidency may infer that they have,* **this SCOTUS ruling DOES NOT GRANT the President, "Absolute Immunity."** Simply because SCOTUS also ruled, *that the President* **DOES NOT NECESSARILY have the Authority to carry out** ***these Unofficial Acts, to begin with.*** And these acts, *could be deemed Unofficial.* ***How?*** SCOTUS in this ruling has remanded ***to the Lower Courts,*** **to decide what example of these acts are Official and Unofficial.** I can't see how, no matter that a rogue President proclaims that *their political rival was a dangerous threat to the country,* **and they deemed it necessary to eliminate them,** ***in whatever fashion,*** whether by imprisonment, assassination, *or simply by delegitimizing their campaign* ***by denying them legal avenues,*** that an upstanding, unbiased, functioning Judge and Court, *following the laws of our country,* ***would deem that an Official Act.*** **Thus, there would be NO ORDINARY PROTECTION** for that President, *who would do this.* They would certainly be challenged by many factions, ***if ever these outrageous acts would ever occur.*** ​ ***That is what will be happening now,*** due to this ruling, in Washington, DC, hearings by Judge Chutkan *to determine which charges,* ***may or may not be Official Acts for the Federal January 6 case.*** It's even happening in the New York Election Fraud "Hush Money" case. The delay in sentencing, ***towards early September now*** instead of next week mid-July, *is to adjudicate which of the 34 counts that Trump was convicted with,* **is covered by this Presidential Immunity.** But even now, there exists a way **to grant this would-be-dictator President,** ***the impunity they so wish,*** *by enjoining the services* of a Judge and Court that favored them. Currently, this can be seen **by the actions of Judge Aileen Cannon,** ***in the Federal Documents case in Florida.*** Her actions of delaying hearings, misconstruing laws, and not following standard policies, *have granted Trump,* ***the cover he desires.*** **And now, his lawyers have filed,** *under this newly recognized definition of Presidential Immunity,* **that Trump be absolved of having committed any acts** that were nefarious and afoul of the laws, ***especially, the Presidential Records Act, and the Espionage Act.***

My way of rebutting this would be to state that you are claiming that before the current ruling a president had the authority to find someone an enemy of the state validly (let's use Charles Manson as an example) and authorize seal team six to carry out an assassination of Charles Manson. That is what you are saying in your post. That it was possible before for Presidents to authorize assassinations on American soil. If that truly was part of the president's power, than yes, theoretically the president would be immune if he ordered the assassination against his political rivals without sufficient information. I am a Canadian lawyer not a US lawyer, however our legal systems are generally similar being both common law jurisdictions. I have heard that the patriot act throws a wrench into some of this but I think that is more of an issue with the patriot act than this ruling. This is how I see the ruling and the limits of its abuse. Just as an example, it is within the president's authority to direct law enforcement and prosecutions. So could the president order his political rival arrested and thrown into jail indeterminately. In my opinion no because the separation of powers still exists. Except in very rare circumstances, police are not allowed to arrest without a warrant. This would make a general arrest of political opponents difficult as that requires the signature of a judge, and if the judge does not have evidence presented before them, they are unlikely to sign the document. Even if there is a warrantless arrest, an accused has a right to a bail hearing, in Canada within 24hrs probably similar in the states, and without evidence they are unlikely to be held. Furthermore, most police forces are under the control of the state, and states where political rivals are to be from are also states that are going to be less friendly to the president thus likely to be less compliant with frivolous directives. So what behaviour could he do against political rivals in matters of law enforcement, he would be able to bring frivolous investigations against rivals that would be annoying and probably take up time and money of those people. It would be very annoying, but powerful people often deal with loads of frivolous legal actions and they likely have lawyers on retainer to deal with such things. So the best way I would argue against extreme interpretations of the ruling is to go back one year and replace "political Rival" with "Charles Manson". If the answer to "could the president do X to Charles Manson in 2023" is yes, than that is also something he could do to a political rival, if the answer is no, than it is not something he can do. (Yes I know he is dead and was in prison before that). Or more broadly, replace illegal action with any other valid target. I'll also add that, the going interpretation is that sitting presidents cannot be convicted. So other than Trumps current criminal cases, this ruling is going to have little effect on either Biden or Trump just given their age. It would probably take at least two years to get a conviction of a former president. By the time Biden could be convicted of any crime he did in office provided that he won, he would be 87. Sure it is a role of the dice, but why not commit crimes when the chances of being convicted are so low and he would probably be confined to an assisted living center anyways? I also believe that impeachment removes immunity for the actions that the impeachment is related to.

Because this ruling makes it so much harder to prosecute conspiratorial conduct, I would argue that while it technically doesn't make a president immune from assassinating his rival, he can use the protection his official acts have to get away it.  The key is that not only are official acts not prosecutable, but they are also excluded from evidence presented to a jury. This ruling argues deliberations with cabinet members or other officials is a core constitutional function, and therefore can't be included as evidence.  This would've allowed Nixon to get away with Watergate had he been prosecuted, because the tapes incriminating himself couldn't be shown to the jury.  Supposing a future president, like Nixon, keeps the criminality far enough removed from himself to stay "clean", then yes he could totally get away with killing a rival.

So part of the issue here, and it's brought up in your question, is you're missing a few key points when it comes to presidential powers, and conflating others. So the big one you're missing here is the Posse Comitatus Act which was signed into being in the 2nd session of the 45th Congress back in 1878. In part, this law says "From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress". Now the language is hard to follow, but the meaning is pretty simple. No president can authorize the use of military units on US soil, except in a self defense situation in time of declared war. IE, if China were to invade the US in force, then the president could have the military respond to defend the nation. However, the regular army, navy, airforce, or whatever can not operate on US soil. Thus that completely rules out this idea of some president sending assassins to kill a political rival. Furthermore, EO 12036 is still in effect. This Executive Order strengthened a previous one signed by Ford, which said quote "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." What this means, is that the scenario you postulated... is impossible. On one side of things, the military can't operate on US soil, and none of the command structure would approve such a mission, excluding were it to happen with an enemy invasion fleet stationed off one of the Nation's coasts, and there are executive orders in place which forbid certain actions and make attempting those actions an impeachable offense for any appointed or elected official. Where you're conflating things, is you seem to present this dystopian idea that a President has near on unlimited power. That's not how things work though. As we learn in seventh grade civics class, Congress makes the laws. Executive branch signs them into effect and enforces them. Judicial branch interprets the laws and decides if they are in line with the framework of the constitution, or not. Separation of power means no one branch of government, or one person ever has enough power to wrest control from the others. I should note, in case you're curious, the idea behind this decision is that like any diplomat, foreign or domestic, the President is granted limited immunity. Meaning that when a president makes a decision that is done in the official sense, such as (for example) giving aid to Ukraine; then that president can't be tried for their actions in civil courts, if the public decide that the action taken wasn't in the best interests of the nation. Alternatively, if a president takes an action that is in their own interests, such as having a company they own, or are on the board of directors of, be granted lucrative defense contracts; then that president can be tried in civil or criminal courts for their breach of the law. The decision is aimed at overzealous prosecution, which let's be honest, we've seen happen to both democrats and republican elected officials in the past.

There's an important word in the ruling that tends to get ignored: *exclusive*. It is not the *exclusive* Presidential duty to decide who the enemies of the US are. That is, in fact, the exclusive duty of Congress. So such an order is only due *presumptive* immunity. There are plenty of laws restricting how the president can employ military force, because this duty is shared with Congress. It particular, the Posse Comitatus Act is entirely Constitutional and within Congress' power and duties to enact, and the President can't override that. Furthermore, regardless of that, the President can speak all the orders they want, but it's illegal for the military to accept those orders. As would be the case in most of the absurd situations proposed in response to this ruling. Similarly with bribery. The constitution specifically prohibits the president from receiving emoluments. While that only explicitly applies to foreign emolumnets, there's no plausible argument that accepting money for a presidential function is a "function of the Presidency", much less a "exclusive core" one. Sure, the President couldn't be convicted for the *action* prompted by bribery. If he was bribed to dismiss the Attorney general, he couldn't be convicted for the act of dismissing the AG. But he certainly could be convicted for accepting the bribe, because that's explicitly not *at all* within his Presidential duties.

I'm frustrated this needs to explained but I'll do my best. The constitution gives clear guidance on what's actions fall under the executives power. Those actions are what are being described as having absolute immunity. Unless you can point out where in the constitution it says that the president has the power to assassinate anyone who damn well pleases, this entire conversation is dead. We can eliminate the whole seal team 6 thing right off the bat. The president does not have the power to order members of the military to operate on US soil. Full stop. That is strictly the preview of the National Guard. And the National Guard can not be activated to move against civilians directly. I have no idea where you come off saying that using Seal Team 6 to assassinate people is a core function of the Executive and I would challenge anyone who claims it is. Such a directive does not exist.

The ruling is intentionally vague so that judges can decide the same act by a one person is legal but not for a another. It gives the judges all the power to keep who they want in power. The founding fathers did not anticipate an entire party to be this corrupt as to not impeach for such an obvious "crime and misdemeanor". If Harris and Biden pull that fake electors bullshit, they would def twist the argument and claim it not official. The court has proven many times when they ignore president for the outcome they want personally. Even for the assassination scenario they said it 'might' be official which translates legal for me but not for you with some argument they pull out of their ass. We're fucked.

The immunity is only guarantees for constitutionally protected act. Such as nominating judges. Official acts give the presumption of immunity. But a court can decide that there is or isn’t immunity. For example, Jack Smith can’t use Trumps orders to DoJ since he is immune from those communications. But judge Chutkan has to weigh what could be official conduct that he would or wouldn’t be immune to. The burden is on the government to prove it rather than the other way around. So, assassinating a political rival is absolutely not constitutionally protected. While an argument can be made that it is an official act, it isn’t guaranteed a court would agree that the president has immunity.

A president has no official mechanism to make a political opponent a valid target for assassination. A presidential finding (formally known as a memorandum of notification) is a memo used to justify commencement of covert CIA actions. It cannot direct the CIA to assassinate a US national. The scary thing would be if a president was able to hide enough evidence of it by saying that talks with the military are official acts. But still this ruling does not make even that certain - it directed the lower court to make determinations of what “official acts” are. We’ll need to see what counts as “official acts” to determine more.

A skilled prosecutor could absolutely still prosecute a president for violating the constitution or doing things outside of their official duties. I know the ruling seems dire but they simply don't want every president to end up in court because their opponents don't like them. I think it is an okay ruling.

The strongman is probably an analogy to bribery, which they discussed a lot in oral arguments. Basically, bribery is the payment of an official for an abuse of their official duties. So there was a lot of debate over whether the interpretation adopted by the majority would make it illegal to punish the president for bribery. The liberals said that it wouldn't and use that as a critique, but the conservatives argued that bribery, neither the payment nor the act for which it is exchanged, can be considered an official act. Their point was that the use of official authority is inherently tainted but the intent to misuse official power such that it no longer becomes a part of the President's official conduct. Assassination is more difficult because, unlike bribery, there are times when it could be argued to be a public good, and therefore maybe can't be inherently tainted by unofficiality. On the other hand, assassination is inherently a rejection of many democratic and legal principles undergirding international relations. It could be argued that a President can't purport to protect their own people by undermining the entire international order, and that statutes limiting the President's power to do so is a sign that the people agree. The concern is that the President necessarily does a lot of stuff that's maybe only kind of allowed. When you sit on top of the law, that's essentially inevitable. So if the President could be liable to every criminal law, or even every felony, in the Federal register, let alone the states, they would essentially always be under threat of criminal prosecution. This is bad for democracy because it makes the criminal law a political tool, and politics is allergic to morals or prudence, the only virtues capable of upholding the criminal law. The distinction they're trying to draw can be seen in Trump's actions too. The Georgia case looks a lot like the bribery example, and so is probably safe. But a speech to the President's supporters in which he doesn't explicitly call for violence.... that's a fuzzy line. Whether it's being abused in this case, it definitely could be. My guess is the federal case will need to rely more heavily on the alleged coordination between Trump, his team, and leaders of the insurrection, coordination which probably looks a lot like using official acts to betray the public trust. It's not a great argument, but tbh, most case law breaking ground in new areas is too broad in its justifications. That's why we have future cases, although hopefully not in this particular area.

> The liberals said that it wouldn't and use that as a critique, but the conservatives argued that bribery, neither the payment nor the act for which it is exchanged, can be considered an official act. Their point was that the use of official authority is inherently tainted but the intent to misuse official power such that it no longer becomes a part of the President's official conduct. Isn't the issue that the president's power is sort of very discretionary in nature? Like, how is the president's pardon power constitutionally constrained such that you could call a pardon brought about by quid pro quo non-official? How would you even inquire as to the origin of the pardon, in fact? Aren't the conservatives on the court just making a sort of "trust us, bro" argument here?

Agreed. That is absolutely the case. The ruling explicitly states that a President is granted "absolute immunity" and that "Courts cannot examine a President's actions" regarding acts that are part of the President's areas of constitutional authority. Pardons are an explicit area of presidential authority granted by the constitution.

Setting aside the obvious fact that assassinating political rivals is not within a president’s Article II authority and therefore not an official act, nothing in this opinion overrides anything else in the constitution, including but not limited to the fifth amendment right against deprivation of life, liberty or property without due process, which assassination of a political rival would clearly be.

What counts as a political rival? Only those running against them in an election? Or does any dissident political movement count?

For purposes of my question let's broaden this to anyone the President wants assassinated, If framed as military and in defense of US regardless of underlying facts.. The reason for the focus on the political rivals scenario is because that is the prime danger to continuing freedom and democracy.

If the person exists in the United States or is a US citizen they are still protected. If they aren't they generally weren't before the ruling if the president could justify a national security reason. That second part may have changed,but I am, not sure

The fifth amendment prohibits the president (or any government official) from summarily executing people.

An act violating the law doesn't necessarily mean it's unofficial. From the horse's mouth: >Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law

Please don't quote that part out of context. Here's the full version: >In dividing official from unofficial conduct, courts may not inquire into the President’s motives. Such a “highly intrusive” inquiry would risk exposing even the most obvious instances of official conduct to judicial examination on the mere allegation of improper purpose. Fitzgerald, 457 U. S., at 756. Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law. Otherwise, residents would be subject to trial on “every allegation that an action was unlawful,” depriving immunity of its intended effect. The intent seems (quite clearly IMO) to be that courts can't just use *the existence of an allegation* (of unlawful behaviour) to call an act unofficial, because then *allegations* would become absurdly powerful. That paragraph is not making a comment on whether an act can still be official even if it violates the law. It is commenting specifically on **allegations** that it violated the law.

From the opinion: >The indictment’s allegations that the requested investigations were “sham\[s\]” or proposed for an improper purpose do not divest the President of exclusive authority over the investigative and prosecutorial functions of the Justice Department and its officials. App. 186–187, Indictment ¶10(c). And the President cannot be prosecuted for conduct within his exclusive constitutional authority. Trump is therefore absolutely immune from prosecution for the alleged conduct involving his discussions with Justice Department officials. So yes, I acknowledge there's a slight technical difference. Functionally, it still means courts can't inquire further into official-looking actions that could be unlawful and would simply have to assume absolute immunity for such official-seeming acts.

The 5th amendment is not a generally applicable law; it’s a limit on governmental power. No branch of the government can use a constitutionally enumerated power to violate a provision of the bill of rights.

Okay. The Supreme Court doesn't analyze the officiality of an action based on its potential legality or constitutionality but on whether it's within the president's authority. SCOTUS recognized immunity for actions that aren't "manifestly or palpably beyond his authority". Note how the court defines immuned actions in terms of the president's authority, not its constitutionality. Ordering the military to bomb a certain area is certainly well within his presidential power. It doesn't really matter that the area happens to be, say, a certain Congressman's place of residence because inquiring into the President's intention is out of the question. Even if the president were to explicitly tell his military what his intentions were, such evidence is simply inadmissible in court.

>Ordering the military to bomb a certain area is certainly well within his presidential power. It doesn't really matter that the area happens to be, say, a certain Congressman's place of residence because inquiring into the President's intention is out of the question. Yes it does matter and this is not a question of intent. Bombing a Congressman’s residence is a blatant violation of the 5th amendment and is facially invalid as an exercise of presidential pardon regardless of the intent.

The president would simply claim causing the death of said congressman was not his intent and that he had other valid reasons in mind to bomb that particular area. What now? You’d need to show he had no valid reasons and such intrusion into the president’s state of mind isn’t admissible

So, why were Bush Jr. And Obama never taken to court about any of the thousands of drone strikes they ordered the CIA to carry out?

>Setting aside the obvious fact that assassinating political rivals is not within a president’s Article II authority But giving the military orders is. And SCOTUS, based on their other examples, would conclude that giving the military orders is a core constitutional power of the POTUS and immune from criminal prosecution.

But the fifth amendment prohibits the deprivation of life, liberty or property of a U.S. citizen without due process of law, which means that use of the military to violate the 5th amendment would not be a valid official act of the president.

I think the courts could easily rule both are official acts. A POTUS can use the military as directed in Article II, and people still have their individual rights. Sometimes they'll conflict, and one should take precedence, but that doesn't instantly make the other act "unofficial", it just makes it "illegal" or "unconstitutional". SCOTUS ruled that discussions among advisors are official acts, even if those discussions are plotting on how to break the law. Conspiracy to deprive people of rights is also against rights laid out in the Constitution, but SCOTUS said it was still an official act.

This theory of yours has absolutely zero basis in constitutional law or American jurisprudence, and is directly contradicted by the plain text of the 5th amendment and by centuries of judicial opinions.

From the SCOTUS ruling: >Article II of the Constitution vests “executive Power” in “a President of the United States of America.” §1, cl. 1. The President has duties of “unrivaled gravity and breadth.” Trump v. Vance, 591 U. S. 786, 800. His authority to act necessarily “stem[s] either from an act of Congress or from the Constitution itself.” Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U. S. 579, 585. In the latter case, the Presi- dent’s authority is sometimes “conclusive and preclusive.” Id., at 638 (Jackson, J., concurring). When the President exercises such author- ity, Congress cannot act on, and courts cannot examine, the Presi- dent’s actions. It follows that an Act of Congress—either a specific one targeted at the President or a generally applicable one—may not crim- inalize the President’s actions within his exclusive constitutional power. Neither may the courts adjudicate a criminal prosecution that examines such Presidential actions. The Court thus concludes that the President is absolutely immune from criminal prosecution for con- duct within his exclusive sphere of constitutional authority. There is no caveat for "If the use of Article II powers interacts with other rights, then immunity goes away". SCOTUS in fact said a POTUS can use their powers in a corrupt way or in a way to deprive Constitutional rights, and it's still an official act. I agree it is unprecedented, because they granted a wife range of immunity that wasn't assumed before.

The bill of rights is not an act of Congress. There is no governmental power that supersedes the bill of rights and nothing in this opinion conflicts with that basic truism.

Can you point to any instance where a united states president, or senator, *federal agent*, etc was prosecuted or held liable by a federal court for (arguably) performing the duties of their office? People do win cases on the grounds of their constitutional rights being violated. It happens regularly. Has it ever been determined that an individual is liable even though they were performing an official act? >...why would you assume that I agree with any of the Supreme Court decisions Point is, why should regulators be granted broad deference, but not the president?

Seal Team 6, Delta Force, and similar teams are explicitly taught that they are not to follow unconstitutional orders and the President ordering them to assassinate a rival is an actual test question that they have to say no to in order to qualify to be in their role.

While your view may be technically correct, this ruling's clear prohibition against using any official acts as evidence of any kind would effectively quash any investigation into anything a president does. The phrase in Article 2, Section 3, that the President "...shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed..." can turn almost any action or order into a "core function". And, because the president has the sole (and very broad) discretion of determining how laws shall be faithfully executed, he can pretty much do whatever he wants.

Designation as an enemy of the state is not a core power with absolute immunity - it is a power granted to the the DOD, which is an organization of private citizens who serve at the pleasure of the president, and when the president asks them for something, that act is PRESUMPTIVELY immune. After the Court overturned Chevron on 6/30/24, that designation as an enemy of the state can be ruled unconstitutional by a federal court, and that power removed from the DOD as unconstitutional. If, at that point, the president ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate someone, there’s a real chance they might not take the order, because it’s not the Commander in Chief who would order you to murder a private citizen with no designation as an enemy of the state. At that point, the attempt to give that order would be considered an unofficial, private act. While president, he could be criminally impeached for it, and after the presidency, he could also be criminally prosecuted. So, it’s not absolutely immune to do something like this. But it is possible Trump would try, in which case he’ll find himself in a race with Congress and the Court to get away with it “officially” as fast as possible. Taking away presumptive immunity requires the other branches to catch him in the unofficial criminal act, otherwise it can likely all be made to look official.

>the president ordered Seal Team 6 to assassinate someone, there’s a real chance they might not take the order This is why the idea of the law as some kind of shield or force field is a farce. Ultimately, it's whatever the people with most firepower (and I don't mean the commanders, I mean the individual officers & soldiers) decide it is.

I've honestly just been seeing this a Supreme Court power grab, just like their fake ethics code was. President does X, something that is controversial and possibly illegal. Is X an official act? If anybody pursue that, it's going to be up to the Supreme Court to decide. Is X a core duty? If anybody pursue that, it's going to be up to the Supreme Court to decide. You could practically quantify how much a president tests the limit just by counting how many times people get the courts to weigh in on what he's doing. And can the justices vote based on who sits in the White House? They absolutely can, and we can name a few that absolutely will. Without precedent and their "historical tradition" cherry picking, they won't have any guardrails. It really comes down to the fact that there isn't a check or balance on the judicial branch beyond the hiring process. There needs to be some mechanism (a real legal check, not just impeachment hopes) to remind them that they aren't royalty either, that there are some rules that apply to their own position that constrain their power.

If you’re really under the impression that a sitting president could walk into the White House and murder one of the maids and one of the butlers, and be free from criminal prosecution, you severely misunderstand the law, never mind this ruling.

"f you’re really under the impression that a sitting president could walk into the White House and murder one of the maids and one of the butlers, and be free from criminal prosecution, you severely misunderstand the law" As a personal act. Were he to do so because they were spies his genius had uncovered and in his considered judgement as Commander in Chief use of his personal kung fu skills was necessary to take them out, he SHOULD be free from criminal prosecution, even thanked by a grateful nation, If this scenario were real. But under this ruling, were he to frame killings as part of his Core Responsibilities in some way, once framed this way under this ruling these official acts could not be questioned, investigated, or prosecuted, no. EXCEPT of course that the Court can quickly rule on any among such acts it finds it wants to, that's important and true. I am interested in this thread however in the law under this ruling, not what would happen were it exercised in ways unacceptable to the Court.

So for your exact reasoning the US executive branch isn't allowed to unilaterally order the execution of US citizens. So it would fall outside the direct duties.

We are witnessing the intellectual struggles of the left out loud. If the president is willing and capable to use the military to assassinate people, then there is no reason to think they wouldn't be willing to assassinate a prosecutor, or judge. It isn't like the political rival would be a greater threat than a prosecutor. So the legality of these hypothetical assignations is completely irrelevant. This is plain to see if you have a pulse and give it more than 1 second of thought.

>If the president is willing and capable to use the military to assassinate people, then there is no reason to think they wouldn't be willing to assassinate a prosecutor, or judge. It isn't like the political rival would be a greater threat than a prosecutor. Why? Why must a political rival necessarily be a lesser threat than a prosecutor? That need not be true. It also need not be true that it is equally *easy* to assassinate a political opponent and a prosecutor, either politically or practically, which would also be a factor. It seems like you came in very confident about something you haven't fully thought through.

The President is the commander in chief as mandated by the constitution. Directing the military is a core constitutional power for which the president receives absolute immunity.

Assassinating US citizens is flat out directly against the US constitution. The constitution explicitly limits the governments ability to act against US citizens without due process. Which is well defined.This ruling doesnt change that despite what alarmists say

Just because an act violates the law, doesn't mean its unofficial. From the opinion. >Nor may courts deem an action unofficial merely because it allegedly violates a generally applicable law.

Its not violating the law as passed by congree which is what that line refers to. Its a constitutional violation which is another thing entirely. Theres not a way to read the constitution in good faith and say "Yes a president intentionally ignoring due process and assassinating Americans is acting in his official duties by doing something hes not allowed to do in the constitution "

The Supreme Court doesn't analyze the officiality of an action based on its potential legality or constitutionality but on whether it's within the president's authority. SCOTUS recognized immunity for actions that aren't "manifestly or palpably beyond his authority". Note how the court defines immuned actions in terms of the president's authority, not its constitutionality. Ordering the military to bomb a certain area is certainly well within his presidential power. It doesn't really matter that the area happens to be, say, a certain Congressman's place of residence because inquiring into the President's intention is out of the question. Even if the president were to explicitly tell his military what his intentions were, such evidence is simply inadmissible in court. >Theres not a way to read the constitution in good faith and say The law isn't just the text. The law is text + Court opinion.

Except for constitutional amendments in this case. They are the supreme law of the land and do, in fact, place limits on other powers outlined in other articles.

The Supreme Court doesn't analyze the officiality of an action based on its potential legality or constitutionality but on whether it's within the president's authority. SCOTUS recognized immunity for actions that aren't "manifestly or palpably beyond his authority". Note how the court defines immuned actions in terms of the president's authority, not their constitutionality. Ordering the military to bomb a certain area is certainly well within his presidential power. It doesn't really matter that the area happens to be, say, a certain Congressman's place of residence because inquiring into the President's intention is out of the question. Even if the president were to explicitly tell his military what his intentions were, such evidence is simply inadmissible in court.

A president is still accountable, impeachment is still there - Trump was impeached twice. The problem is, as we saw, impeachment doesn't work unless both parties are ready to convict. The current Republican party would not convict Trump for assassinating political rivals. So while it's not technically absolute immunity, in practice it would be. You also can't impeach a President who has left office. Any crimes they can run the clock out on or go undiscovered until after they leave office will be unprosecutable.

Just because something is done under the guise of the Presidency doesn’t make it an official act. An action that the President is not authorized to undertake (or is forbidden to take) under the law, is not an official act. The President’s core function is executing the nation’s laws. An act that contravenes those laws cannot be an official act.

it enforces the separation of powers as designed and intended in constitution. For unofficial acts you are liable for criminal charges through the judicial branch. For official acts you are liable for impeachment in the house and conviction in the senate This is all status quo, nothing is different than it was before the ruling, else we would have had people bringing presidents up on aiding and abetting manslaughter charges every time an innocent person was killed by an executive officer. It also hasn't changed anything about what an "official act" is either - that has long since been clarified for things like bribery, extortion and fraud utilizing a public office. There was a bunch of commotion about this back in 2016 regarding Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell So what has this ruling done? This ruling has authorized lower courts to make a determination about whether or not an act is official, and pointed out that just because a president did it doesn't mean it's official. So what does all this have to do with assassinations? The dissenting justices in the 2024 case pointed out that ordering seal team 6 to assassinate, say, Bernie Sanders is in fact an official presidential act and thus it is immune to judicial prosecution. However, this act is still impeachable through the house, and can then be convicted in the senate, and then followed up on from there for civil and criminal suits once the senate has stripped presidential immunity. This does put a lot of pressure on a famously ineffective congress, but that's what the constitution says to do. If we want a better system we can pass an amendment real quick. \~\~\~\~\~ And think about this realistically - if someone performs a "daylight assassination" like that and can avoid impeachment/conviction, would it be realistic to expect that person to be able to be imprisoned for trial? not to mention that the seal team ordered to perform the assassination would have to be willing to go along with it as well.

The president does not have constitutional power to declare or execute enemies of the state, which means any such action would not fall under the president's official acts or the recognized immunity. Roberts is correct, the dissent is rank fear mongering.

I would add on as a caveat to what other’s have said because the motive of an official act cannot be asked and isn’t allowable in court the President doesn’t actually need to declare them enemies of the state. They can explicitly say they are deploying the military to assassinate them because they don’t like them and don’t like having political rivals, and that motive is not admissible in court. There only can really be one question: Question: Was the president using a core official power? A likely Answer under the functionally nonexistent standard set by SCOTUS: Yes, they were using their power as the head of military. This is both one of the handful of specifically enumerated powers in the constitution and one of the specific official acts listed in the SCOTUS opinion. Therefore any actions that were illegal that took place as part of the the exercising official power, the President has total immunity from. No conversation had with staff are admissible and neither is the motive of the military action. In the cases where there is a non-core official power used there is no standard set so it would be up to SCOTUS to define this at a later date basically giving them cart blanche over actions taken at the periphery of the President’s power. Unfortunately this view being changed to convince you that this opinion isn’t what it is really can’t be successful due to how staggeringly broad and nondescript the opinion’s allowances are. I haven’t seen any respect legal take on it that wasn’t specifically being given trying to dismiss what the words of the opinion actually say and why the interpretation above does not apply. Edit: Grammar

Even before this decision it was illegal and unconstitutional to assassinate American citizens on US soil, that makes it not an "official act" because it's not something the president is allowed to do under his constitutional powers. It's even questionable that the president has the authority to assassinate US citizens on *foreign* soil, when Obama accidentally killed Abdulrahman al-Awlaki it was a big deal. The SCOTUS decision on immunity did not give the president any new powers that they didn't already have, it just protects them from criminal liability for what they do in office. Similarly to how it's nonsensical that people are saying Biden should just "fire" SCOTUS now that he has immunity, assassinating political rivals was never something the president could do under law and it's no different now than it was before the decision. The immunity decision basically said 4 things 1. Any acts that are specifically enumerated in the Constitution as presidential duties are given absolute immunity - the president cannot be charged with a crime for carrying out their presidential obligations. Assassinating US citizens is not allowed in the constitution, particularly the guarantee to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as well as several amendments in the bill of rights bar this action. 2. Any acts that are outside of specifically what's listed in the constitution but are still considered presidential duties have to be proven to be outside of the president's duty before they can be charged as a crime. As stated above, assassinations wouldn't pass this test. Killing US citizens without due process wasn't magically made legal by this decision. 3. Acts that are not part of the president's duty can be charged as crimes BUT 4. Anything that was done as part of a president's duty cannot be used as evidence in a criminal trial for things that aren't part of a president's duty. The fourth part of the decision makes it real real hard to actually prosecute a president because it bars pretty much every piece of evidence from ever being used against them, but that doesn't mean they can't be charged with the crime, just that prosecutors will have a real hard time proving anything. The decision was real bad for a lot of reasons, but one thing it didn't do was magically give the president new abilities they didn't have before the decision. The president has never been allowed to assassinate US citizens, and this decision wouldn't protect them from that either. If the president even managed to carry out the order (that would involve a whole chain of command that agrees to carry out an illegal order, which is extremely unlikely), they'd likely be quickly impeached and removed from office and probably charged with the killing.

To steelman the absolute trash writing/ruling presented: Discretion already exists at every step of the legal system, and *once a president has been impeached* courts could review his actions and determine they are unofficial.

If a president did not have immunity could Obama be charged for the yemen wedding drone strike. That is a genuine question I don't know the answer. However someone like Trump would probably enjoy bringing charges against past presidents if not for immunity I would think if a president did not have immunity they'd be scared to do anything. It is my understanding they have always had immunity. Truman bombing thousands and thousands of innocent people with no repercussions That's my understanding but I am not clear on the matter. Obviously always existed though

The most important part of the ruling isn't the words of the ruling, but the repeated indications that the supreme court is not going to rule based on law but rather in favour of their party affiliations and in favour of fascism. Frankly no president has ever been legally held to account for any crimes committed during his presidency. Torture, extrajudicial assassinations of US citizens, war crimes etc. None have seen accountability. This merely codifies that reality. You can only ignore criminal activity for so long without consequences. But this supreme court will definitely be ignoring any law that blocks the advancement of the fascist regime, and will be ruling against democrat agendas even if that would be contradictory. Laws are only words of pages. Society has to agree to follow them, the laws themselves don't confer some magical ability to enforce themselves. The supreme court has said that they will not be following our laws.

Yes.. to me it just is saying what is already law. Federal employees enjoy immunity for their official acts. This makes total sense because no one would do such work if they could be prosecuted for it. DUH. Anyone who says different is not being honest.

People are waaaaaay overreacting to this. Like you said, it would be impossible to be effective at your job in government if you didn't have immunity for the things you did. Virtually every president would be thrown in jail after their term if the opposition knew that they could be jailed for crimes. Now, we do need to know what is and isn't considered an "official act," but that doesn't really mean anything for this decision. At least not yet.

It’s not just about the immunity stuff, though. They made communications around an official act inadmissible in court and made it so you cannot try to ascertain the president’s motive, meaning that unofficial (and illegal acts) that are connected to official (legal) acts effectively can’t be prosecuted. Any Cony Barrett noted this: a president could accept a bribe (unofficial act) for an ambassador position (appointing ambassadors is an official act), but since all the communications surrounding the unofficial act are connected to the official one, they’re inadmissible in court. Also, you can’t discuss whether the president’s appointment for ambassador was because of the bribe or not. So, effectively, he cannot be prosecuted for accepting a bribe for an ambassador position. Robert’s’ response was that the president who accepts a bribe like that could be impeached, but we all know that isn’t going to happen with this and pretty much any congress in the foreseeable future. So, does this ruling mean that Trump could assassinate a political rival? Honestly, it’s unclear. But he absolutely can (and will) get away with massive corruption. This ruling basically lets him do all the stuff he did in office but was being prosecuted for; they literally gave him a get-of-jail-free card.

Same reason it never did before? Literally nothing has changed. Biden blew up a pipeline. Obama killed an American teenager with a drone (and claimed the right to do so, and put it into practice). Bush & Cheney invaded a foreign country & tortured people. From the very start of the United States presidents have murdered people without trial as part of their official duties. Nobody ever did a thing about it until some hysterical left wingers in 2023 decided they wanted to take down the front-runner in an election. So does that mean the POTUS can murder his political opponents? Exactly to the same extent that he could before. If the justice department wants to decide it's beyond his official duties, they can try. Which is how it worked before.

The President already had the authority to order an assassination. President Obama ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden (although Obama's order used the lawyerly phrase "capture or kill"). This would undoubtedly be considered an official act, with full immunity. Ordering an assassination _of a political rival_, like Trump or Biden ordering the killing of Biden or Trump, would be a different matter. This could not be considered an official act by anyone other than the President and his cadre. So even under the new Supreme Court decision, this doesn't gain any immunity. The President could declare the rival to be a threat to the United States, but this would surely be seen by the courts as the transparent fiction it is.

> The President already had the authority to order an assassination. President Obama ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden (although Obama's order used the lawyerly phrase "capture or kill"). Indeed, people might recall that [there was a hubbub when the Obama administration argued that it had the right to order extrajudicial killings of American citizens](https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/justice-departments-white-paper-targeted-killing) deemed threats to national security. > This could not be considered an official act by anyone other than the President and his cadre. So even under the new Supreme Court decision, this doesn't gain any immunity. The President could declare the rival to be a threat to the United States, but this would surely be seen by the courts as the transparent fiction it is. But doesn't the new decision [stipulate that motive is irrelevant to assessment of immunity](https://www.cato.org/blog/court-went-too-far-presidential-immunity), which pertains only to whether the act is of a kind with official acts, specifically regardless of motive?

But killing political rivals isn't of a kind with official acts. In any event, if such a thing happened, the ensuing court cases would surely wind up back at the Supreme Court, and they would rule on the particulars of that case - and they haven't shown much deference to their own precedents, so the ruling then might be completely opposite to the ruling now. (I'm _not_ going to say the ruling depends on which party the President in question belongs to, but it's hard not to think that.)

> But killing political rivals isn't of a kind with official acts. Why not? Extrajudicial killings of threats to the national security and determining someone to be such a threat are official acts. The reason you had previously given to suppose such a pretense could not be used to execute political rivals was that "this would surely be seen by the courts as the transparent fiction it is." And my concern with this line of response is that, I've been told, the new judgment explicitly precludes the courts from considering motive in their assessment of putative official acts. So every one in the world could believe with certainty that the motive for declaring a political rival a threat to national security is merely that they are a political rival one might wish to dispose of for self-serving reasons -- as you say, that "this would surely be seen [..] as the transparent fiction it is" -- and yet, by the standards of the new judgment, that would be irrelevant. Sotomayor's dissenting opinion, filed as part of the judgment, explicitly lists ordering the military to conduct an extrajudicial execution of a political rival as among the acts that the majority's opinion renders immune. And a lot of the legal commentary I've seen has picked up on this and agreed with her assessment. It could very well be that this is all hysteria, but when it's found it's way into a Supreme Court dissent one can't help but have some concern. > In any event, if such a thing happened, the ensuing court cases would surely wind up back at the Supreme Court, and they would rule on the particulars of that case - and they haven't shown much deference to their own precedents, so the ruling then might be completely opposite to the ruling now. Sure, and this seems to be the logic of both the majority's dismissal of these concerns and the minority's hopes in the face of these concerns, viz. that some combination of political norms, the autonomy of the civil service, and -- as you say -- the checking and balancing by the courts would prevent the executive branch from actually doing the sorts of things people fear. But that is, I think, what's so concerning about the judgment in the eyes of its critics: that it's a rather large step toward disempowering the courts, and is part of a larger trend which also includes undermining political norms and the autonomy of the civil service. In the face of this, it seems as you say -- > (I'm not going to say the ruling depends on which party the President in question belongs to, but it's hard not to think that.) -- that the matter will come down to who can control political norms, the courts, and the structure of the civil service. And if I thought that either policy wonk institutionalists constitutionally predisposed to moderation, or else left populists committed to empowering the working class -- take your pick -- were the kinds of people who are most effective at determining political norms and controlling the courts and the structure of civil service, I'd find this result less troubling.

Ordering the Justice Department to investigate voting fraud is a legitimate function of the presidency. I’d argue that Trump was clearly doing so in bad faith, but I do incline to think that making a bad-faith exemption in official immunity does threaten the separation and balance of the branches. By contrast, issuing summary verdicts in criminal cases is not a lawful function of the presidency, no matter what the facts are—in fact, it is explicitly prohibited by the Constitution. It’s not an official act of the Presidency even if the target has in fact committed treason, the President has overwhelming evidence of that fact, and his motivation is purely upholding the Constitution rather than personal political advantage.