It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison.
The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power.
America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.
It's not cleat to me that the constitution implies immunity for the president? It shouldn't imply or provide immunity for anyone. The president is a citizen. If the whole bill of goods all citizens are sold is "you have no fear of criminal prosecution if you've committed no crimes" and that supposed to be good enough for every day joes, it should be good enough for temporary and previous state actors.
Well - we do have similar immunity extensions for common citizens if their role warrants - if a soldier or police officer kill someone in the line of duty, they don't necessarily get charged with a crime.
> “The President… is amenable to [the law] in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.”
- James Wilson - one of the drafters and early Supreme Court justice
I'm not arguing that the constitution gives the president broad immunity for all personal crimes. But it was pretty understood at the time and in the text of the constitution that impeachment was to proceed all legal criminal charges.
> It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison.
How so? Please elaborate.
I would point out that there's explicit language in Article I, Section 6 about House and Senate members being immune from prosecution for carrying out their duties:
The Senators and Representatives shall receive a Compensation for their Services, to be ascertained by Law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their Attendance at the Session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.
However, there is nothing in Article II regarding a grant of immunity to the President.
I could see an argument that the President should probably be protected from arrest during his term, similar to Congressmen, but there's very clearly no mention of such protection in in the Constitution I can find.
However, that's nothing compared to the broad protections the Roberts court handed him in Trump v. United States: protection from investigation, even after his term expires.
This passage just says that they can't arrested while they are actually in the house while it is in session. Reads to me, once they leave they can be arrested in the parking lot.
Thanks to Roberts and McConnell, the United States has a Presidential "Purge" window:
The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.
I recall when this ruling was made, there was a BBC opinion piece that took an outraged position on this and contrasted it with the position of the prime minister in British politics. It struck me as funny because they literally have a person (the monarch) who is immune from arrest or prosecution for any act at all - not just official acts.
It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...
>Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy was restored in 1660, with Charles's son Charles II as king.
lol and immediately restored the monarchy with his son
>There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate
That is not a substitute for prosecution, it is a political process for removing a president. The Constitution's authors likely meant it to be used when a president ignored their duty, violated the Constitution, or lost public support before the end of their term. These are not federal crimes, so they don't go through the federal courts. The impeachment and removal process does imitate indictment and trial, but that's because there's no reason to reinvent the wheel.
The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice. Historically, officials weren't prosecuted for official acts unless it was shown the act was part of another crime. So if the President delayed a FEMA response because of budget worries or incorrect forecasts, nobody would be prosecuted or open to lawsuits from citizens who suffered. But now, no official investigator can interview an appointed official to find out if the act was done as part of a crime. Worse, if the act was a presidential power enumerated in the Constitution, there is almost no way to investigate its use in an obvious crime. If the President only pardons people after they pay him $20,000 dollars, the President is immune from investigation.
A hypothetical raised in the dissent is still an open question: what could be done if Donald Trump orders a military strike team to kill the next Democratic presidential nominee? Do you expect this Congress to actually impeach him? After he lied to, riled up, directed, and have plenty of time to a mob who invaded Congress and built a gallows to hang the Vice President? And Congress didn't prevent him from ever holding office again?
I am not swayed by any argument along the lines of "But the President will be too worried about vindictive prosecution to make the right choices." If we really need to prevent that, I'd rather have every president thrown in prison for life after their term. No need to worry about prosecution, because you already know what awaits you. The office is more important than any individual holding it.
> The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice.
The ruling was specific to the President, not other officials. Donald Trump is the only president in US history who has been formally charged with committing a crime while in office, so I don't see how the ruling went far beyond historical practice. I do think it went far beyond what some people had assumed would be the case if it were ever tested.
The fact that Nixon resigned rather than triggering a test of this and then was pardoned by Ford (also avoiding a test of immunity) are indicators that historical practice was closer to immunity than not (i.e. past presidents did whatever was in their power to avoid having immunity scrutinized).
Commanding the military is a "core constitutional power". Thus he has immunity regardless of if said commands are illegal. He (probably) can't go and shoot someone on main Street as he once bragged, but ordering the military to do so...
The Supreme Court says that the President (if republican) can declare anything an official act and once something is an official act it is immune from prosecution. So yeah, I don’t see any “laws” stopping the commission of genocide. Trump knows it, too. The only thing stopping him is his own morality.
I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. He also has to think about what happens after he's out of office/dead, or if he upsets the supreme court enough that they tell him to stop. The more egregious his acts the more likely the people carrying them out will be prosecuted by outraged people after he's gone so it might be difficult to find competant people to do his dirty work.
OTOH Even if he did send immigrants and liberals to deathcamps there's no way hard core trump voters would turn on him so he never has to worry about getting removed from office through impeachment with a 2/3rds majority after the midterms.
Probably not of the presidency, although maybe one of congress, since it would affect interstate commerce and thus genocide is part of the enumerated powers authorized to congress.
My guess is that Sotomayor’s words from 2024 are becoming relevant again:
> 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.
Future generations watching the Frost/Nixon interview and wondering why Nixon even has to point out that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
>However, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts.
I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.
According to the constitution, impeachment is literally for treason, bribery, high crimes or other serious misdemeanours. But the SC basically said it fundamentally can not be treason, bribery, a high crime or any misdemeanour if he did something in his role as president. So the whole process has become stale.
Ultimately, the Senate decides on whether to convict/remove for impeachment. The SC does not decide it. Sure, I imagine the Senate would generally want to broadly stay in agreement with the SC, but they don't have any obligation to do so.
At least that is my understanding; I'm not a lawyer or constitutional scholar :)
That's not how it works - in the case of impeachment the Senate holds a trial, and they are allowed to use their own definitions of treason, bribery, etc. The Supreme Court is in charge of what the regular courts do and can make rulings that bind them, but they can't bind Congress in the same way. After all, the justices of the supreme court are also subject to the impeachment process like the President is and it'd be weird if they could make rules about how that works.
You added the adjective "serious" to misdemeanors, which is not in the Constitution. The "high" in "high crimes and misdemeanors" means crimes and misdemeanors committed by high officials, not crimes and misdemeanors that are extreme.
If I understand you correctly, then if a President's cabinet (high officials) break the law the President can be impeached. Which makes sense to me. It places accountability on the President to pick trust worthy people and to immediately get rid of them if they break the law (to lessen the chances they'd be impeached for not doing something about it and insuring they are prosecuted).
>I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered.
This is not true.
The framework defines how to interpret the law. If the president were to do as you say, the subesequent criminal case (brought by federal or state authorities) would interpret those actions in the standard judicial process. If a jury were to determine that the president was acting in the interest of himself, then the president does not get immunity.
>If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president
This is a hyperbolic misreading of the court's decision. The president was only cleared to act with impunity with the DOJ, as the department is part of the executive branch. For the other issues revolving around election interference, the court actually invited the case to be reheard - the prosecutors though must make a case that the illegal interference wasn't related to his duties as a president.
That said, I don't know why there has been a huge failure to re-litigate this issue. The previous administration could have followed up but never did - and I fear it was done out of a terrible political miscalculation.
To be honest, what could congress even do given what the supreme court has said? If Trump went full Hitler and decided to burn down the Capitol and have everyone in it killed who doesn't do his bidding, he couldn't even be held accountable by them in theory.
Yeah, "theoretically" is doing a lot of work there. Removal requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate, which is absolutely neverfuckinghappening in a 2-party system.
"For official acts under core constitutional powers". Arresting all his political enemies is not a core constitutional power (still less having them executed).
Everyone is spinning this as "total immunity". It's not. At least, it's not worded that way.
What's actually going to happen is that, the first time someone tries to prosecute it, it's going to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, as it is constituted at that time, will judge whether the action in question was an official act under core constitutional powers. Until then, we don't actually know what that line looks like. I suspect it's going to be less blanket than everyone seems to be assuming... but we will see.
It’s conditional immunity: the Roberts court is openly an instrument of Republican power, but they knew there was a good chance that the Democrats would win an election and so the ruling was carefully crafted to allow them to pick the opposite outcome if a Democrat were accused of abuse of power.
You can see a similar play at work with the unprecedented use of the shadow docket to prevent lower courts from restraining the executive branch without having to take credit for positions which are highly dubious from a constitutional standpoint. If the political tides shift, they can quietly unblock the lower court’s ruling and pretend they hadn’t deliberately given this administration a window of opportunity without creating a permanent precedent empowering a future Democratic administration.
Arresting all his political enemies is not a core constitutional power
Unless he leaves a smoking gun in the vein of a note saying "kill this guy I don't like" -- and perhaps not even then -- nothing will happen.
What he will do is... what he is already doing. What every dictator for hundreds of years has done. His enemies will be persecuted and prosecuted under the guise of legal action: tax fraud, national security, whatever. The sort of compromat that exists, or can be fabricated to exist, for every single person on Earth.
To even have a hope of stopping Trump (or any other POTUS) there would have to be clear proof of malicious intent completely divorced from his job duties, and you'd need a Congress or Supreme Court that gave half a shit about opposing him.
Doesn't it also imply that the US Gov was doing something illegal. If the President is immune if doing something official, then the government was doing something officially illegal.
Even Bush/Cheney went through the motions of coming up with a legal reasoning for torture. Even Bush got Congressional approval for military actions.
This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
> This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
Rather he has a nerve to declare US War powers act illegal and threatened, abused, and yelled at those 5 republican senators who voted with democrats. Wild times!!
> > This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
The problem is Trump but also he's a symptom of a larger problem.
Left and right are so at odds with each other that all the reforms that a modern country would have to undertake in order to have less traumatic and less 'winner take all' elections not only weren't undertaken like they were in other countries, but the odds of actually happening are close to 0% ever since 2016
It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison.
The problem is not really with presidential immunity - it's that the check on presidential powers was supposed to be Congress. But Congress is clearly powerless and has slowly been gutted of its power.
America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world. Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed. And it's fairly telling that when we successfully rebuilt countries after WWII, we largely pulled from other government models and established parliamentary systems.
It's not cleat to me that the constitution implies immunity for the president? It shouldn't imply or provide immunity for anyone. The president is a citizen. If the whole bill of goods all citizens are sold is "you have no fear of criminal prosecution if you've committed no crimes" and that supposed to be good enough for every day joes, it should be good enough for temporary and previous state actors.
Well - we do have similar immunity extensions for common citizens if their role warrants - if a soldier or police officer kill someone in the line of duty, they don't necessarily get charged with a crime.
> “The President… is amenable to [the law] in his private character as a citizen, and in his public character by impeachment.”
- James Wilson - one of the drafters and early Supreme Court justice
I'm not arguing that the constitution gives the president broad immunity for all personal crimes. But it was pretty understood at the time and in the text of the constitution that impeachment was to proceed all legal criminal charges.
> America so far has been incredibly lucky - we have the oldest constitution in the world.
Not even remotely.
* the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1922 - present) carried forward the Constitution of
* the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (1801 - 1922) which itself carried forward the Constitution of
* the Kingdom of Great Britain (1707 - 1801), which carried forward the Constitution of
* the Kingdom of England (and Wales) (1536 - 1707), which carried forward the Constitution of
* the Kingdom of England* (927 - 1707)
The phrase you likely wanted was "the oldest and shortest written constitution still in force."
> Yet nearly every government that has tried to copy it has failed.
Sure. It's flawed. That's why, for example, some countries just picked the servicable parts and went hybrid with (say) "Washminster" systems.
> It's pretty clear that constitution implies some sort of immunity, and that it is necessary to protect successive presidents from throwing each other in prison.
How so? Please elaborate.
I would point out that there's explicit language in Article I, Section 6 about House and Senate members being immune from prosecution for carrying out their duties:
However, there is nothing in Article II regarding a grant of immunity to the President.I could see an argument that the President should probably be protected from arrest during his term, similar to Congressmen, but there's very clearly no mention of such protection in in the Constitution I can find.
However, that's nothing compared to the broad protections the Roberts court handed him in Trump v. United States: protection from investigation, even after his term expires.
This passage just says that they can't arrested while they are actually in the house while it is in session. Reads to me, once they leave they can be arrested in the parking lot.
Thanks to Roberts and McConnell, the United States has a Presidential "Purge" window:
The President can "officially" suborn the murder of anyone, and as long as there is insufficient time for an impeachment trial or he leaves office before the act is discovered or he is charged with impeachment, cannot be held accountable for it by any means.
How did Voldemort put it? "There is no g̶o̶o̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶e̶v̶i̶l̶ law, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it."
The law doesn't matter if there is no one to enforce it, or if enforcement is selective, etc.
I recall when this ruling was made, there was a BBC opinion piece that took an outraged position on this and contrasted it with the position of the prime minister in British politics. It struck me as funny because they literally have a person (the monarch) who is immune from arrest or prosecution for any act at all - not just official acts.
It does seem kind of backwards that this kind of immunity is required - although i think the Supreme Court ruling made something official that was already true in practice. There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate, it's just not very likely to happen...
Britain (technically England) has prosecuted a monarch [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England
>Charles was tried, convicted, and executed for high treason in January 1649. The monarchy was abolished and the Commonwealth of England was established as a republic. The monarchy was restored in 1660, with Charles's son Charles II as king.
lol and immediately restored the monarchy with his son
>There is a mechanism for prosecuting presidents, impeachment and a trial in the Senate
That is not a substitute for prosecution, it is a political process for removing a president. The Constitution's authors likely meant it to be used when a president ignored their duty, violated the Constitution, or lost public support before the end of their term. These are not federal crimes, so they don't go through the federal courts. The impeachment and removal process does imitate indictment and trial, but that's because there's no reason to reinvent the wheel.
The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice. Historically, officials weren't prosecuted for official acts unless it was shown the act was part of another crime. So if the President delayed a FEMA response because of budget worries or incorrect forecasts, nobody would be prosecuted or open to lawsuits from citizens who suffered. But now, no official investigator can interview an appointed official to find out if the act was done as part of a crime. Worse, if the act was a presidential power enumerated in the Constitution, there is almost no way to investigate its use in an obvious crime. If the President only pardons people after they pay him $20,000 dollars, the President is immune from investigation.
A hypothetical raised in the dissent is still an open question: what could be done if Donald Trump orders a military strike team to kill the next Democratic presidential nominee? Do you expect this Congress to actually impeach him? After he lied to, riled up, directed, and have plenty of time to a mob who invaded Congress and built a gallows to hang the Vice President? And Congress didn't prevent him from ever holding office again?
I am not swayed by any argument along the lines of "But the President will be too worried about vindictive prosecution to make the right choices." If we really need to prevent that, I'd rather have every president thrown in prison for life after their term. No need to worry about prosecution, because you already know what awaits you. The office is more important than any individual holding it.
> The SCOTUS ruling went far beyond historical practice.
The ruling was specific to the President, not other officials. Donald Trump is the only president in US history who has been formally charged with committing a crime while in office, so I don't see how the ruling went far beyond historical practice. I do think it went far beyond what some people had assumed would be the case if it were ever tested.
The fact that Nixon resigned rather than triggering a test of this and then was pardoned by Ford (also avoiding a test of immunity) are indicators that historical practice was closer to immunity than not (i.e. past presidents did whatever was in their power to avoid having immunity scrutinized).
> all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts
The Final Solution to The Jewish Problem was an official act too. So according to this ruling, you get immunity for genocide. Fun stuff.
Is the commission of genocide a "core constitutional power" of the presidency? I guess maybe if it were spun as "national defense" or somesuch.
Commanding the military is a "core constitutional power". Thus he has immunity regardless of if said commands are illegal. He (probably) can't go and shoot someone on main Street as he once bragged, but ordering the military to do so...
That sort of thing you mentioned is always spun as that other sort of thing you mentioned.
The Supreme Court says that the President (if republican) can declare anything an official act and once something is an official act it is immune from prosecution. So yeah, I don’t see any “laws” stopping the commission of genocide. Trump knows it, too. The only thing stopping him is his own morality.
I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him. He also has to think about what happens after he's out of office/dead, or if he upsets the supreme court enough that they tell him to stop. The more egregious his acts the more likely the people carrying them out will be prosecuted by outraged people after he's gone so it might be difficult to find competant people to do his dirty work.
OTOH Even if he did send immigrants and liberals to deathcamps there's no way hard core trump voters would turn on him so he never has to worry about getting removed from office through impeachment with a 2/3rds majority after the midterms.
> I'll bet he would do a lot more illegal stuff if only his morality were stopping him.
It was a direct quote.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-intervi...
Probably not of the presidency, although maybe one of congress, since it would affect interstate commerce and thus genocide is part of the enumerated powers authorized to congress.
gonna next some context here lads
My guess is that Sotomayor’s words from 2024 are becoming relevant again:
> 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.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf
It would seem now that Sotomayer was not speaking totally hypothetically.
[dead]
I mean... gestures broadly
Future generations watching the Frost/Nixon interview and wondering why Nixon even has to point out that "When the President does it, that means it's not illegal."
>However, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Trump v. United States (2024) that all presidents have absolute criminal immunity for official acts under core constitutional powers, presumptive immunity for other official acts, and no immunity for unofficial acts.
I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered. So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person keeping the US from becoming a fascist dictatorship.
> So there is literally only the goodwill of one single person
Well, not quite. Immunity from prosecution is not immunity from impeachment/removal (which is a political, not judicial, process).
Of course, that has its own problems, but just pointing out that in theory there are more checks than just the one you mention.
According to the constitution, impeachment is literally for treason, bribery, high crimes or other serious misdemeanours. But the SC basically said it fundamentally can not be treason, bribery, a high crime or any misdemeanour if he did something in his role as president. So the whole process has become stale.
Ultimately, the Senate decides on whether to convict/remove for impeachment. The SC does not decide it. Sure, I imagine the Senate would generally want to broadly stay in agreement with the SC, but they don't have any obligation to do so.
At least that is my understanding; I'm not a lawyer or constitutional scholar :)
That's not how it works - in the case of impeachment the Senate holds a trial, and they are allowed to use their own definitions of treason, bribery, etc. The Supreme Court is in charge of what the regular courts do and can make rulings that bind them, but they can't bind Congress in the same way. After all, the justices of the supreme court are also subject to the impeachment process like the President is and it'd be weird if they could make rules about how that works.
You added the adjective "serious" to misdemeanors, which is not in the Constitution. The "high" in "high crimes and misdemeanors" means crimes and misdemeanors committed by high officials, not crimes and misdemeanors that are extreme.
If I understand you correctly, then if a President's cabinet (high officials) break the law the President can be impeached. Which makes sense to me. It places accountability on the President to pick trust worthy people and to immediately get rid of them if they break the law (to lessen the chances they'd be impeached for not doing something about it and insuring they are prosecuted).
This is why there is a general sense that the POTUS is now more or less completely untethered from any possible consequences for his actions.
>I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work. If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president in an official manner (for example by signing an executive order), nothing can stop him from having all his political enemies arrested, exiled or straight-up murdered.
This is not true.
The framework defines how to interpret the law. If the president were to do as you say, the subesequent criminal case (brought by federal or state authorities) would interpret those actions in the standard judicial process. If a jury were to determine that the president was acting in the interest of himself, then the president does not get immunity.
As I understand it, the ruling was left as open-ended as possible and was something that was intentionally vague within the Constitution.
>If the president can break any law as long as he is doing it as the president
This is a hyperbolic misreading of the court's decision. The president was only cleared to act with impunity with the DOJ, as the department is part of the executive branch. For the other issues revolving around election interference, the court actually invited the case to be reheard - the prosecutors though must make a case that the illegal interference wasn't related to his duties as a president.
That said, I don't know why there has been a huge failure to re-litigate this issue. The previous administration could have followed up but never did - and I fear it was done out of a terrible political miscalculation.
It appears noone considered a congress controlled by sycophants when designing the system.
To be honest, what could congress even do given what the supreme court has said? If Trump went full Hitler and decided to burn down the Capitol and have everyone in it killed who doesn't do his bidding, he couldn't even be held accountable by them in theory.
They could remove him from office. Theoretically anyway. If it hasn't happened in ~240 years, then it's probably a paper tiger.
Yeah, "theoretically" is doing a lot of work there. Removal requires a 2/3 majority of the Senate, which is absolutely neverfuckinghappening in a 2-party system.
POTUS is now unstoppable and untethered.
Just wait til America is ruled by someone with high intelligence AND tRump's guile.
Fixes: for the love of God, fixed terms for Supreme Court nominees. No?
Do the EU Elite and the Democrats still think that its Putin who is the Evil One?
"For official acts under core constitutional powers". Arresting all his political enemies is not a core constitutional power (still less having them executed).
Everyone is spinning this as "total immunity". It's not. At least, it's not worded that way.
What's actually going to happen is that, the first time someone tries to prosecute it, it's going to go all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court, as it is constituted at that time, will judge whether the action in question was an official act under core constitutional powers. Until then, we don't actually know what that line looks like. I suspect it's going to be less blanket than everyone seems to be assuming... but we will see.
It’s conditional immunity: the Roberts court is openly an instrument of Republican power, but they knew there was a good chance that the Democrats would win an election and so the ruling was carefully crafted to allow them to pick the opposite outcome if a Democrat were accused of abuse of power.
You can see a similar play at work with the unprecedented use of the shadow docket to prevent lower courts from restraining the executive branch without having to take credit for positions which are highly dubious from a constitutional standpoint. If the political tides shift, they can quietly unblock the lower court’s ruling and pretend they hadn’t deliberately given this administration a window of opportunity without creating a permanent precedent empowering a future Democratic administration.
What he will do is... what he is already doing. What every dictator for hundreds of years has done. His enemies will be persecuted and prosecuted under the guise of legal action: tax fraud, national security, whatever. The sort of compromat that exists, or can be fabricated to exist, for every single person on Earth.
To even have a hope of stopping Trump (or any other POTUS) there would have to be clear proof of malicious intent completely divorced from his job duties, and you'd need a Congress or Supreme Court that gave half a shit about opposing him.
> I think future law philosophers and historians will cite this as an example of how immunity should not work.
Today, pretty much everyone is citing this as an example of how immunity should not work.
Doesn't it also imply that the US Gov was doing something illegal. If the President is immune if doing something official, then the government was doing something officially illegal.
Even Bush/Cheney went through the motions of coming up with a legal reasoning for torture. Even Bush got Congressional approval for military actions.
This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
> This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
Rather he has a nerve to declare US War powers act illegal and threatened, abused, and yelled at those 5 republican senators who voted with democrats. Wild times!!
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-intervi...
> > This president is off the rails not even trying to have even a flimsy cover of legality.
The problem is Trump but also he's a symptom of a larger problem.
Left and right are so at odds with each other that all the reforms that a modern country would have to undertake in order to have less traumatic and less 'winner take all' elections not only weren't undertaken like they were in other countries, but the odds of actually happening are close to 0% ever since 2016