Trump this.

[rareboy]

It is going to be a dark, dark, day tomorrow.

 

[rareboy]

 

[Alistair]

View attachment 2602695

I’m praying for 2

 

[rareboy]

As expected 5 to 3.

Sotamayor:

“Today’s decision to grant former presidents criminal immunity reshapes the institution of the presidency. It makes a mockery of the principle, foundational to our Constitution and system of government, that no man is above the law,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in a scathing dissent.

Sotomayor, who read a summary of her dissent aloud in the courtroom, said the protection afforded presidents by the court “is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless.”

Supreme Court sends Trump immunity case back to lower court, dimming chance of trial before election

In a historic 6-3 ruling, the justices said for the first time that former presidents have absolute immunity from prosecution for their official acts and no immunity for unofficial acts.

www.thestar.com

 

[rareboy]

We are witnessing a slow moving coup d'etat by the judiciary in the United States.

It is so clear at this point that the SC will be the ones who actively help Trump steal this election because he will allow them to enact all the elelments of a corporate oligarchy and far right wing religious agenda.

 

[TX-Beau]

That is not a surprise to anyone who was paying attention. It's what everyone expected.

 

[KaraBulut]

This was the worst case scenario, not solely because it means that Presidential no longer have to fear that they will be held accountable for criminal acts committed in office. Immunity questions can be appealed before a trial judgment. The danger in this is that it creates an opening for Presidents, who the Justice Department refuses to indict while in office, to claim anything and everything "an official act" and then repeatedly appeal and delay any attempt to hold them accountable once they leave office. Former Presidents can flood the Federal courts with appeals before, during and after any trial in Federal Courts.

Originalism is dead. It needs to be dustbinned. No more faux "judicial philosophy" excuses and claims that conservative justices should stick to the text of the Constitution.

Even Coney-Barrett (who concurred!) had reservations:

I would have framed the underlying legal issues differently.

...a President facing prosecution may challenge the constitutionality of a criminal statute as applied to official acts alleged in the indictment. If that challenge fails, however, he must stand trial.

From Sotomayor's opinion:

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.

Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune.

Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority’s message today.

With fear for our democracy, I dissent.

 

[Norri]

This court has made a mockery of the presidential oath of office. He no longer has to uphold the laws of the United States nor defend the constitution. He can do whatever the fuck he wants and then play semantics.

With few limits on the discharge of power the office has become more desirable to a certain type of individual who before this didn’t see the opening.

 

[rareboy]

And yet the nation will still not be outraged enough to act.

Increasingly Americans are becoming numb to all of this, which is exactly what these jurists are counting on.

It is what has happened in every other democracy that is sliding or has completely descended into autocracy.

The SC is absolutely counting on Trump to take this up as a mantle and to commit whatever illegal act is necessary in order to seize and hang onto power for the rest of his life. And to use the presidency to make sure that the US never has a real presidential election again.

As noted, every illegal act will be framed as an ofiicial act and there will be no more accountability at all.

Today the US became a banana republic.

 

[rareboy]

ABC however is putting a more optimistic spin on the ruling...calling it a rejection of Trump's assertion of immunity from all acts. This is probably the more balanced technical view...but we know what an evil person in power will make of the distinction.

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected Donald Trump's sweeping claim of "absolute" immunity from criminal prosecution in his federal election subversion case, but said former presidents are entitled to some protections for "official" acts...

..."The President is not above the law," the opinion read. "But under our system of separated powers, the President may not be prosecuted for exercising his core constitutional powers, and he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity from prosecution for his official acts. That immunity applies equally to all occupants of the Oval Office."

But Roberts also noted that, "Trump asserts a far broader immunity than the limited one we have recognized."

Supreme Court rejects Trump's immunity claim for 'unofficial acts' but grants some for 'official' ones

The Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated ruling in Donald Trump's appeal for presidential immunity from charges related to his efforts to overturn election loss.

abcnews.go.com

 

[KaraBulut]

ABC however is putting a more optimistic spin on the ruling...calling it a rejection of Trump's assertion of immunity from all acts. This is probably the more balanced technical view...but we know what an evil person in power will make of the distinction.

Past acts. However, one of the "official acts" of a President includes the ability to pardon and the ability to appoint underlings who will do things like pursue cases he wants pursued and dismiss cases he doesn't want prosecuted. The controls on those powers just got weaker.

 

[Norri]

And yet the nation will still not be outraged enough to act.

What would you propose they do?

 

[rareboy]

Put their imperiled democracy in front of their own partisanship and on the other side, ahead of their whining about just not feeling it for their president and likely staying home and not voting.

 

[rareboy]

 

[cityboy-stl]

The Supreme Court implemented what is effectively an "Enabling Act".
What they did today is just the intermediate step to later granting full immunity for the president dictatorship for the Führer.
Just like overturning "Chevron" is about removing legal obstacles to implementing Project 2025 on day one.

 

[johaninsc]

 

[Alistair]

 

[johaninsc]

 

[johaninsc]

 

[KaraBulut]

^And Trump's attorney has already filed a motion in the NY fraud case arguing that the Supreme Court decision says that Trump is immune from prosecution, so the fraud conviction should be overturned.

Because fucking a porn star, paying her off and then lying about it is apparently an "official act" of the President.