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Supreme Court returns Trump Jan. 6 immunity judgment to lower court
(abcnews.go.com)
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this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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"Outer perimeter of official responsibility"?
WTF is that? How is that enforceable?
You know what is much easier to enforce?
"No. One. Is. Above. The. Law."
As the Founding Fathers obviously intended.
It's like the universe is trying to make it obvious that this is a stupid and nonsensical path but our "supreme" judges keep setting us up for absolute failure as a nation.
We actually had to pass section 1983 of the federal code in 1871 for that exact reason. The founders may have intended it, but they didn't write it down specifically. Then in 1874 an unnamed secretary illegally revised the law while "copying" it from the Congressional Record to the Federal Register. This led to the Qualified Immunity argument that was the crux of Harlow v Fitzgerald.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/15/us/politics/qualified-immunity-supreme-court.html
Remember when there was that standoff between Texas and the Feds along the border? There was a lot of bloviating about how it was an invasion force, and that Biden was somehow using it to orchestrate an overthrow of the US Government. Of course, the truth was nothing of the sort. Biden, as President, and the Homeland Security department under him, has a lot of leeway in terms of how they execute laws, but Congress still makes the laws, and Republicans in Congress have deliberately let the situation at the border fester to score political points.
However, if this Supreme Court ruling had gone fully the other way, and the President was ruled to have no particular immunity whatsoever, it would only be a matter of time before some local prosecutor in Texas would decide to prosecute Biden for insurrection, as retribution for Trump's current situation. Even though there are no facts that actually back up a case against Biden, while we all saw what happened on Jan 6th.
So, the idea that Presidents can't be prosecuted for simply doing their jobs has some merit. But the Supreme Court went way too far constructing way too high a burden for prosecutors who need to investigate crimes committed by the President outside that perimeter. Under this guidance, the President could direct the Secretary of State to include a discussion of building a golf course in treaty negotiations, and even if that is found out, prosecutors can't call the Secretary to testify or use that evidence in court in a bribery investigation