“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 in dissent
“A
former aide has claimed that Trump frequently called for the “execution” of
people he didn’t like. The Supreme Court’s ruling this week would grant Trump
immunity if this conversation had led to actual executions, because it was
“official”. Many Americans found it difficult to celebrate July 4 this
week given its commemoration of our founding democratic principles, and were
left recalling John Adams’s ambition of creating “a government of laws, and not
of men”.
The
Declaration of Independence includes a long list of indictments against King
George — the justifications for the first American Revolution. These include:
“He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries”, and “He has excited
domestic insurrections amongst us.”
The case for the prosecution against Mad King George looks a great deal like
that against Trump. Instead, the Supreme Court decided to hear a case with the
chilling name Donald J Trump vs United States — and ruled in favour of Donald J
Trump.”
Sarah Churchwell,
“Amidst Trump-Biden Chaos Americans Should Not Forget Their History’, Financial Times
The
Supreme court finally ruled on presidential immunity Monday, issuing a 6-3
decision that agreed former presidents have immunity from criminal prosecution
for official acts but not for unofficial acts. The decision, basically, is a judicial atrocity amounting to “inventing immunity for corrupt acts” in the words of Justice Sonya
Sotomayor in her dissent. By way of
example, the ruling de facto grants absolute immunity for Trump when he
pressed Mike Pence not to certify Biden’s election on January 6th,
2021. The reason? That came under the court’s
designation of an “official act.”
Justice Sotomayor, adopting a scathing tone, said the court’s 5 conservatives (Amy Coney Barret actually backed out of the ‘presumptive immunity with official acts’ BS) would effectively allow presidents to commit clear crimes without punishment. This marked an expansion of presidential powers that put democracy at risk. She and fellow liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson laid out the hypothetical ways the court’s ruling could create crises in the U.S. Including a power hungry autocrat (like Trump) dispatching Seal Team 6 to assassinate political rivals. Or dispatching a covert team of allies to instigate a coup, say to overthrow a free and fair election - perhaps by employing military. Sotamayor wrote in her powerful dissent:
“The President of the United States is the most powerful person in the country, and possibly the world. When he uses his official powers in any way, under the majority’s reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution,”
“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.
“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.”
All of which is resoundingly valid and indicates how far the court’s Trump renegades have gone down the rabbit hole of ruthless abandonment of the rule of law and the Constitution. Indeed, this single ruling of ‘presumptive immunity for official acts’ is similar in many ways to the changes made to the Weimar justice system after Hitler ascended to the Chancellorship in 1933. There followed the mutation to the Reich courts and the multifold ways the Nazis perverted state power – just as Trump plans to do with an agenda for a 2nd term based on sheer retribution, e.g.
Now thanks to these SC imps, Trump will have a speedway to wrecking what’s left of our laws and any respect for their adherence.
Nina Totenberg, legal specialist appearing on
Rachel Maddow’s show last night, commented on how mind- boggling the ruling was
for those of us who recall how Nixon’s use of the DOJ was taken down in the 1973 SC rulings. As she put it, “he’d love to have a re-do of those Watergate rulings based on this
new Supreme Court”. Why not? Hell, he’d
never have had to hand over the Watergate tapes since that evidence would be
disallowed given he’d have “presumptive immunity” for “official acts.” Just like Trump now has presumptive immunity
for his efforts to use the DOJ to install fake electors and impede
certification of Biden’s electoral votes on January 6th.
Naturally, the sane realm of anti-Trump voters are in a state of rage at the prospect that this orange swine will now escape all major federal accountability for his actions. He will skate basically through the November 5th general election - and if indeed elected- can finish the justice system off as an autocrat with his own decrees and stacking the DOJ with toadies and hacks. So no wonder this traitor was cheering as the news broke. His pet toadies on the court had done his bidding and made his picks of the final three clowns worthwhile.
Again, a stark reminder that elections have critical consequences and even if you are not entranced by a particular candidate, you better damned well vote for him if he is in opposition to Trump. And I am writing here of Joe Biden, no one else. Because no one else amongst all the wacko calls for him to bow out have the name cachet or campaign war chest, operations to compete against Trump. No more BS about "sitting this one out" or voting 3rd party as if one has real alternative choices. No you don't. It's either the hellfire doom of the Trump proto-Nazi landscape or a decent man in Joe Biden - who may be frail and slow of speech, but still knows right from wrong and what underpins our Constitution. But evidently, none of these 5 conservo Supremes do.
Indeed, Chief Justice John Roberts had the temerity and mental torpidity to downplay Justice Sotomayor's warning with this limp dick response that the liberal justices "strike a tone of chilling doom that is totally disproportionate to what the court actually did today."
Confirming Roberts is a foursquare fool like the four other Trump bots. So either Roberts hasn't been paying attention to the litany of Trump's threats and vows of vengeance, or thinks they are a joke. But in any case confirming again the takes of commentators from Chris Hayes to David Frum and Stuart Stevens, i.e. we cannot count on the justice system to save us from a mega criminal like Trump. We have to do it ourselves by voting this maggot gone once and for all.
The decision came more than nine weeks, a travesty in itself, as I've already written about e.g.
Noting:
The Supreme Court's MAGA faction of right wing imps have now confirmed they are in Trump's pocket to keep him out of harm's way before the November election. Their anodyne a certiorari ("cert") acceptance of his claim for absolute presidential immunity case yesterday confirms it. The reason is that such interference was totally unnecessary given the D.C. Appellate Court had already given an exhaustive ruling. Especially exposing the insanity of Trump's lawyer John Sauer claiming absolute immunity even for the use of assassination for a political opponent would be justified under certain circumstances.
Now we the voters are left to do what the Trump-owned Supremes would not: pass the final judgment on him in the November 5th election. By re-electing Joe Biden in a landslide. Before that day of reckoning, Judge Juan Merchan - in the New York hush money case - has a chance next week to hold Trump to account by sentencing the orange roach (now delayed until Sept. 18th). That ought to be to at least one year in Rikers Island, thereby delivering a hearty finger in the eye to the Trumper Supremes.
As for the Trump lawyers' plea that Judge Merchan now toss out the sentence and case based on the SC traitors ' ruling of "presumptive immunity", I say let them suck cow dung. Given the slimeball has shown zero remorse and violated dozens of gag orders he merits at least a year in the can. Thereby Judge Merchan can show the Supremes are not the only ones who can wield a mallet.
See Also:
by Thom Hartmann | July 2, 2024 - 6:18am | permalink
They did it. The U.S. Supreme Court handed a massive victory to former President Donald Trump in this so-called “immunity” case, and it will probably take a year or more before there’s even a chance he’ll be held to trial for trying to overthrow the 2020 election and, thus, the government of the United States.
As feared, the six Republicans on the court essentially threw Trump’s sedition case back to the lower court (with caveats) where there will be numerous decisions to make—which are all further appealable, resetting the case so Trump can drag things out for another year or more—about whether the crimes he’s committed are “official” or “private/personal” acts.
But that’s not the worst of it. They also turned Trump or any future fascist president into our first American king or führer.
Unless Congress acts quickly to overturn this obscene 6-3 decision—which won’t happen so long as Republicans control the House—democracy in America has been wounded, perhaps fatally, and the president has been made into a dictator, should he or she choose to behave that way.
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | July 2, 2024 - 5:22am | permalink
Donald Trump was the luckiest man alive last Thursday. President Joe Biden's abysmal debate performance overshadowed what should have been the biggest story of the night: Trump, as he did in the 2020 presidential debate, winkingly encouraged his supporters to commit political violence. Biden correctly noted during the debate that Trump has promised to pardon the over 1,200 people charged with federal crimes for the January 6 insurrection. Trump responded by calling the rioters "innocent" and saying Biden "ought to be ashamed" because his Justice Department charged them with crimes. This echoes Trump's increasingly rabid defense of the insurrectionists on the campaign trail, where he often calls them "hostages" and "political prisoners" and holds ceremonies honoring those who are imprisoned.
Trump doesn't just glorify the insurrection because he is a narcissist who can never admit he's done anything wrong. It's part of a larger campaign to encourage more political violence from his supporters. He frequently uses "warnings" to threaten public officials. Using the pseudo-warning, Trump has threatened "bedlam" if he's prosecuted. He begged his followers to "go after" New York Attorney General Letitia James for prosecuting him for fraud. He posted a video fantasizing about kidnapping Biden. He threatened "death and destruction" if he was charged in the New York "hush money" case. He even had a rally in Waco, Texas around the anniversary of the Branch Davidian self-immolation, an unsubtle dog whistle to far-right militias that use that event to justify anti-government violence.
And:
by Amanda Marcotte | July 4, 2024 - 7:05am | permalink
Even though attempted murder is not one of his 34 felony convictions, Donald Trump has never been coy about his longing to kill people. During the 2016 campaign, Trump famously mused in a speech, "I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters." In 2020, he threatened to murder Black Lives Matter protesters by tweeting, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." Throughout and after his presidency, there was a steady stream of stories from aides alarmed at how Trump would repeatedly ask if they would kill people for him. He requested bayonets and spikes on the southern border, hoping for grisly deaths of migrants crossing. He had Oval Office meetings in which he demanded the military "crack skulls" and "shoot" lefty protesters. Former Attorney General Bill Barr appeared to confirm reports that Trump regularly ordered him to "execute" government staff for speaking to the media. Barr did pretend Trump wasn't serious, despite how often he circled back to the topic of extra-legal executions.
Even before he got into politics, Trump's bloodthirstiness was on public display. In the 1980s, Trump demanded the death penalty for five young men falsely convicted of rape, a position he did not back down from, even after they were formally exonerated. (Trump himself was found liable for sexual assault last year by a jury, but does not feel he should face his own recommended punishment.) In 1990, Trump praised the Chinese government for killing peaceful protesters in Tiananmen Square. In the same interview, he lamented that the Soviet Union did not murder enough people, calling the Soviet government "out of control" for allowing more dissent than they had in the past.
And:
Decision sharply expands presidential power and sends Trump’s D.C. trial back to lower court, assuring delays
— from Robert Reich's Substack
The Supreme Court just decided, along party lines, that Trump will enjoy immunity in the federal election case in Washington from any allegation in the indictment concerning his “official acts” while president.
The court has remanded the case to the trial judge, Tanya Chutkan, to determine which of the allegations should be thrown out because they involve official acts.
The practical consequences of this ruling:
- The case Donald Trump v. United States will almost certainly not be concluded before the election, meaning that a verdict against Trump could be rendered meaningless if Trump is elected and he orders the Justice Department to, in essence, throw the case out.
- Allegations in the indictment concerning Trump’s dealings with the Justice Department, in which he sought to install a loyalist, Jeff Clark, as acting attorney general in order to claim there was fraud in the election, will probably be thrown out by Judge Chutkan.
- Allegations that Trump tried to strong-arm his vice president, Mike Pence, into using his role overseeing the election certification proceeding on January 6, 2021, to throw him the election, will in all likelihood be thrown out as well.
- The Supreme Court has ordered up a similar fact-finding process on most of the remaining allegations in the indictment — those concerning Trump’s attempts to pressure state officials into helping him win the election as well as his plot to gin up false slates of electors declaring that he won in states he actually lost. It’s doubtful that these will be found to be within his official duties.
- Finally, the Republican-appointed justices have given a dangerous amount of discretion to presidents — broad enough, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted in her dissent, to protect presidents from prosecution for bribes and assassinations. A president already has the authority under the Insurrection Act to order troops into American streets. After today’s ruling, those troops would be under the command of a person who would almost certainly enjoy absolute immunity for the orders he gives them.
In other words, today’s ruling makes it even more important that Trump is trounced in November
At any
other time, and with any other president, Monday’s landmark decision by the US
Supreme Court vastly expanding presidential powers would generate little more
than scholarly hand-wringing. Indeed, the 6-3 majority’s ruling that a
sitting president should have “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution
from actions he takes when exercising “his core constitutional powers” has a
certain pragmatic logic to it.
Since the
1990s, American political leaders have increasingly attempted to criminalise
policy differences, be it Democrats seeking to prosecute George W Bush for war
crimes in Iraq or Republicans launching impeachment proceedings against Joe
Biden’s homeland security secretary for a surge in illegal border crossings.
New Deal-era Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson once said that the US
Constitution is not a suicide pact, and an American president should not fear
that an action sincerely taken to provide for the common defence, or to insure
domestic tranquility, or to promote the general welfare, will later be picked
over by federal prosecutors and land them in jail.
The
founding fathers built checks into the federal system, but having the justice
department setting up shop outside the Oval Office to adjudicate presidential
decision-making — even those that fail spectacularly — wasn’t one of them. The
problem is that Donald Trump is not any other president, and we are living in
an era that could see a man who has vowed to use the power of the US government
to take revenge against his political enemies, and rule as a dictator for at
least a day, returned to office in a little more than six months.
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