Rachel Maddow Warns That SCOTUS Trump Immunity Decision Is ‘a Death Squad Ruling’ | Video
Rachel Maddow Warns That SCOTUS Trump Immunity Decision Is 'a Death Squad Ruling' | Video
the easiest way to fix the courts is to appoint "all american citizens of voting age currently and any future citizen when they reach voting age" to the court - this means presidents would simply no longer be appointing people to the court. The current justices could still write opinions they would just be nonbinding without a vote of the public.
The Liberal Sean Hannity has something to say
Maddow is possibly the worst person to get any kind of informed analysis from, maybe only a short and curly above Jimmy Dore.
What is your expert legal opinion on why this corrupt court just ruled to destroy democracy?
Broken clocks are correct twice a day.
I would place her below Jimmy Dore and on par with Sean Hannity
Edit sp
Yeah, I would definitely rather listen to someone that can't write or punctuate a single sentence.
I mean look at the downvoters.
No wonder this place is such a circle jerk, they learned from the goonlord edging queen Maddow herself, who single handedly managed to jerk off an entire nation about Trump's taxes returns, every night, for 900 days straight.
That's a supreme level of edging.
I don't know why everybody is so upset about this ruling.
The trial court said he didn't have absolute immunity. He said he did, and appealed. The appeals court said "no, you don't have absolute immunity" and sent it back to thr trial court. He appealed again. SCOTUS could have reversed the trial court and appelate court. They did not. They upheld the appellate court decision, and said "no, you do not have absolute immunity. You only have immunity for official acts. Shove your appeal up your ass, we're sending this back to the trial court."
They ruled against him, folks.
They also said pressuring Pence to rig the election was probably fine. Not ok.
If he were legitimately convinced that the electoral college process was improper, it is his duty to pressure Pence not to certify. He can't be criminally charged simply for pressuring Pence not to certify.
However, that same act of pressuring Pence can be considered a component of election fraud. He cannot be charged for merely pressuring Pence, but the act of pressuring Pence can be used as evidence of that wider fraud. The trial court is free to decide that the wider fraud is not an official act.
The upsetting thing is that we think all Presidents should be accountable for their official acts as well as their unofficial ones. We believe that nobody should ever be above the law.
As long as the law polices itself, those in it will always view themselves as above it.
I feel like "official acts" would be something like, say, if say a former president died while the US military was attempting to secure confidential documents being stored at a golf resort, the sitting president wouldn't be charged with murder, however, if you were to say, incite a riot and Order an elected official to defy election results to push the election that you clearly lost in your direction, you would not be protected. Since you are working in your own interests, not the interests of the country.
The immunity the court is talking about means they can't be charged with murder for sending troops to war. Such an act is not "above the law". The law specifically authorizes the president to perform such an act.
The legal remedy for a president who improperly sending troops to war is impeachment, not a criminal charge.
The president's immunity extends only to those acts that he is specifically authorized by law to perform. Those are "official" acts. The acts that Trump is accused of are well outside the scope of his former office. The trial court is going to burn his ass. SCOTUS didn't save him.
While not explaining what an "official act" is. Every trial involving Trump is severely hamstrung right now because they'll have to litigate whether or not every single crime was an "official act."
Biden could just declare Trump or whoever an enemy of the state then "officially" drone strike them and he'd probably die of old age before any courts untangled that mess.
They said he has unquestionable absolute immunity for his uses of any power delegated in the constitution. That's why in Sotomayor's dissent she picks these three examples:
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
Those are all powers directly derived from article 2 of the constitution, and their use is totally unquestionable by courts according to the majority's ruling now. This also includes an incredibly ambigous phrase "to faithfully execute the nation's laws" which the majority was interpreting as allowing him to do so many things without any question even Barrett dissented to that part.
And it goes further, anything the president generally has the power to do but is not specifically a constitutional power, he gets presumed immunity for.
This is a victory for Trump. They gave Trump everything he asked for and more. And that's not my opinion, that's what Sotomayor herself said in her dissent.
I suggest you read both hers and Jackson's dissent, this is a horrific ruling.
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
In all three of those cases, the question as to whether those actions are required or permitted under the law is put to a judge, and that judge is free to rule that they are not. The trial judge is free to rule that they are "unofficial" acts, and deny that immunity.
This ruling is terrible for Trump.
You also missed the part where SCOTUS said official acts can't be admitted as evidence. So what if a President gets $5B from some company so regulators look the other way. A jury would only hear, at best, that a President received money for an act that never occurred.
As president, I officially declare Trump a terrorist and award a $5 million bounty for his head on a copper platter.
Best I can do is his clogged up heart on a plastic cutting board from IKEA..
[They] only have immunity for official acts
"Only". This is exactly why they issued such a nebulous decision, so people like you will say, "Look! It's not actually unlimited!" The only act they give any specific answer for is the president's right to prosecute anyone they want without justification, which they say is a-ok. Everything else they sent back to the district courts, not to "shove it up his ass", but because they are the "court of final review and not first view". In other words, they'll deem it all "official acts" later, when (they hope) Trump is in office and this pony show won't matter anymore.
My understanding is that immunity for official acts WOULD cover an airstrike on Trump, or a death squad assassination.
But that possibly the speech in front of the capital where he said "we're going to go fight like hell to take our country back" is most likely NOT an official act? Maybe they could hold him accountable for that since it was NOT communication with one of his departments?
Interested in any clarification anyone can offer.
the ruling is basically "the courts get to decide what an 'official act' is and that 'official acts' can't be used in court, eg courts get to decide without jury nor law what is legal or illegal for the president to do and open the door of barring whatever evidence they please from lower courts" aka, they created a loophole in the constitution the size of an ICBM that the courts can drive whatever they want through.
The Court now confronts a question it has never had to answer in the Nation’s history: Whether a former President enjoys immunity from federal criminal prosecution. The majority thinks he should, and so it invents an atextual, ahistorical, and unjustifiable immunity that puts the President above the law.
The majority makes three moves that, in effect, completely insulate Presidents from criminal liability. First, the majority creates absolute immunity for the President’s exercise of “core constitutional powers.” Ante, at 6. This holding is unnecessary on the facts of the indictment, and the majority’s attempt to apply it to the facts expands the concept of core powers beyond any recognizable bounds. In any event, it is quickly eclipsed by the second move, which is to create expansive immunity for all “official act[s].” Ante, at 14. Whether described as presumptive or absolute, under the majority’s rule, a President’s use of any official power for any purpose, even the most corrupt, is immune from prosecution. That is just as bad as it sounds, and it is baseless. Finally, the majority declares that evidence concerning acts for which the President is immune can play no role in any criminal prosecution against him. See ante, at 30–32. That holding, which will prevent the Government from using a President’s official acts to prove knowledge or intent in prosecuting private offenses, is nonsensical.
from a forum I used to be on:
https://www.lushstories.com/profile/Magical_felix/forum (a bit nsfw)
I mean, it would ensure there are no more classified documents there
That seems like official business to me.
AFAIK, the FBI pulled documents out of the sewage pipes. Where could they possibly hide more, under the golf course turf?