No Kings Act

If the Court believes presidential immunity is afforded under the Constitution, wouldn't the Court simply strike down any legislation that's passed? Or is the goal simply to make the Court do that?

 

The Congress, by a GOP majority of just a few, will defeat it, and provide further evidence that the Trump / MAGA controlled GOP have one agenda and one agenda only, to make a populist lunatic, Emperor.

 

They won't pass this bill with Trump running

 

Read the opinion for yourselves. The opinion does not make any President immune from criminal acts. It adopts a qualified immunity that has been provided for executives (Sheriffs would be best example) for a very long time. Some acts are immune, some acts are not. A court review of the allegations will make the determination if there is immunity - then there is the next step of whether a crime has been committed. That's about as simplistic as I can say it and we could fill hundreds of pages with hypotheticals, historical cases, etc. But, that's the gist. In any event, the ruling did not create a king or emperor as Schumer and other would like to campaign on to invoke fear and hatred.

 

What is your interpretation of the evidentiary limitations?

 

Yeah, it did. The test for whether something is an official act or not is whether it could hamstring future presidents from carrying out their duties, NOT whether or not the actions were official. Also, everything would be a post facto judgment as POTUS would do what he wanted and then months, years later the court would review it.

SCOTUS has set them up as the arbiter of whatever POTUS does as being appropriate which is not a power The Constitution gives them.

 

Yea, that's a good question. I can see the several sides about whether they're necessary, go too far, not narrowly tailored enough, not broad enough, etc. My reading is that this was what USSC saw as the starting point and left the door open enough for individual suits to define/challenge the limits. The concept of delineating the right to discovery/admission of evidence vs fishing expedition/harassment is not foreign to any litigator. I would have preferred there be no expressed limitations in the ruling, but I also got the sense that USSC wanted to send a strong message that trial courts had back-up to curtail overly-litigious parties seeking to charter deep sea ventures without fear of being lambasted on appeal. That's my practitioner perspective without getting too far into the overarching philosophical debate.

 

Everything gets reviewed and judged after the fact. Is there any other way? We don't judge someone liable for an act that has not yet been committed. Maybe shooting a man is negligent/murderous or it's self-defense or protection of an innocent. No system of governance could operate on an executive level if you had to convene the USSC to rule on each decision being made. This is one of the key components of the ruling. Bad decisions will happen even if done in good faith and in an official capacity. Those "bad" decisions may be immune from suit/prosecution. However, there is a judicial review whether those "bad" decisions were outside official capacity, and that is where the fear-mongering being fomented falls apart. POTUS is not the final arbiter despite what the left is screaming. Note also that the Constitution does not specifically address whether a POTUS is or should be liable/subject to prosecution for acts. Accordingly, this was an issue ripe for the USSC to issue an opinion as to the applicability of any immunity as an interpretation of the Constitution. Each case will be dealt with on its own merits. Hey, it's no easy answer, but that's life.