Donald Trump on Tuesday filed a U.S. Supreme Court brief in his bid for criminal immunity for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss, arguing that a former president enjoys "absolute immunity from criminal prosecution for his official acts."
The case is due to be argued before the justices on April 25. Trump has appealed a lower court's rejection of his request to be shielded from the criminal case being pursued by Special Counsel Jack Smith because he was serving as president when he took the actions at the center of the case.
The filing advances arguments similar to ones Trump's lawyers previously have made and echoes statements he has made on the campaign trail as he seeks to regain the presidency.
"The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office," the filing said.
If an "official act" is anything that happens while they're in office, Biden should just shoot Trump on his last day in office. Following this argument, he'd be immune to prosecution.
A denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future president with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.
It's funny that this hasn't happened in 45 presidencies, yet his argument is that it's suddenly going to be a problem for every future president...
"The president cannot function, and the presidency itself cannot retain its vital independence, if the president faces criminal prosecution for official acts once he leaves office," the filing said.
The presidents from 1789 to 2016 did seem to manage, one way or another.
It also presumes that the independent presidency is of any value to the republic, pretty consistently it has actually been a source of conflicts both over the authority it holds and over the authority it is not supposed to but does anyways because an independent executive will inherently form a parasitic relationship against any legislative body it is unaccountable to.
By that logic, doesn't that mean he's endorsing the idea that Biden can toss Trump in jail and fuck up his family, and save us all the hassle of a trial. And get away with it, since he's president and immune, according to Trump.
He clearly hasnt thought this one through. Biden can just order that trump be execjted by a hitsquad and have complete immunity lol. Ohh u dont like a political opponent and u are still presedent just execut them.
I bet he could get federal officers that would arrest Trump on charges for insurrection and deny bail. And then similarly for Republican members of Congress who would support such obvious treason. It's not necessary to execute political enemies but to enforce the law more quickly and not leave a treasonous SCOTUS in charge to undermine democracy.
I'm sure Biden could find people willing to do that. And it's not the kind of thing Biden would do without being certain he had the people to follow through. But Biden wouldn't do it. Which is a huge problem as SCOTUS can effectively call this bluff. That will give Trump a huge political advantage and effectively make him dictator if he wins.
I'm surprised that the supreme court would even hear this request. He's just a normal citizen now and the brief sounds a lot like someone requesting retrospective absolution for their crimes.
Unfortunately I really doubt Biden would break the law even if SCOTUS said he couldn't be prosecuted. It would effectively stain him forever and he'd need to keep breaking the law in order to stay in power. He imprisons Trump he's probably looking at impeachment. So then he needs to jail dissidents in congress. Now he's definitely not winning re-election so he needs to suspend the election.
Either way dictators win if this decision gives Presidents absolute immunity. Which is the only reason I'm hopeful the corrupt SCOTUS won't decide along those lines. The SCOTUS, and the entire country would effectively be held hostage under the dictator President.
Remind repubs that absolute immunity would cover sexual crimes against children. Let's use their insane "think of the children" crap to actually do something positive.
No matter what they do the orange man loses. Either they rule against him and he goes to jail or they rule in his favor and Biden takes full advantage of his own "Presidential Immunity."
Presidential Immunity would be the single worst outcome for the country, regardless of what happened to Trump himself. It would remove all oversight to the Executive branch. And it would confirm that the Supreme Court is utterly corrupt, because there is no way it could be interpreted as constitutional by reasonable people. Even hearing the case is an obscene waste of time and resources.
I'm embarrassed as an American that we are seeing any of this take place.