If inciting an insurrection towards their own government is an action without legal repercussions, I don’t see how the law would be less lenient about straight up firing a gun at an opponent.
I by no means want any party to resolve to violent tactics. So even though I play with the thought, I really don’t want anything like it to happen. I am just curious if it’s actually the case that a sitting president has now effectively a licence to kill.
What am I missing?
For the record, that would be an illegal order and should be refused by everyone involved in the military chain.
(Whether or not it is refused is a different matter.)
They sent back the question of what is an official act. And when the judge comes back with something like “official acts are those in which a president is acting in an official capacity as the president to fulfill obligations and duties of the president.” (IANAL….so there’s probably some anal retentive detail that is super critical in missing)
In any case, when challenging the election, that is not an official act- that was something done by Trump-the-candidate.
Inviting foreign dignitaries, however frequently is. (But probably not when selling out America and other spies to keep compromat from leaking)
Organizing an insurrection in the US never is, however.
I’m alarmed by the alarm in the dissent- they probably know where this is going, but POTUS has enjoyed some immunity anyhow as far as official acts go. And when it’s kept to a reasonable understanding… that’s more or less good.
Their alarm suggests that the majority here is not going to have a reasonable understanding when that gets appealed.
Who’s to say what’s reasonable.
Why not? He could make the argument that the election was stolen and ignoring it is in the best interest of the United states.
because that act is not POTUS’s job. He’s making the argument as a candidate. he’s not supposed to be part of that process because he’s biased.
as for whose to say what’s reasonable… that is the problem. right now a dangerous number of SCOTUS are bought and paid for, or are absolutely partisan hacks.
His job is to support and defend the Constitution of the United states. You certainly can argue that protecting the integrity of the voting system is part of that job.
It’s very clear this will be abused, most notably by letting Trump off the hook for his insurrection. That’s why there’s huge alarm.
He’s the commander in chief, ordering a seal team or the CIA to assassinate someone is an official act and legal now. What you fail to mention in your haste to try to downplay this is that they also made it impossible to present evidence of crimes by the president, so any non-public action by the president is de facto legal. It would be impossible to prosecute because even if you gathered evidence he ordered the hit, you couldn’t use it in court.
Yes, it’s that bad. No, it’s not that people are over reacting.
Read Sotomayor’s dissent, she says explicitly that this gives the president legal immunity against assassinations.