In the sense that the president couldn’t be prosecuted for giving the order, probably. I’m not 100% sure what he’d have been charged with before
But a lot of the discussion of this blurs the distinction between “can’t be prosecuted for making the order” and “can’t be prosecuted for carrying it out”
Oh he 100% could.
But he could have done that before. And I have some doubts that the fear of being prosecuted for… something(?) is the difference between a president willing to order that and one who isn’t.
And, yes, there are other constraints, but the rule of law was a pretty big one.
Trump floated this several times during his presidency. And was told he can’t do that each time.
What happens if he holds up this ruling and says “why not?”
“Plans are already in motion to use this new, historic court decision as a legal shield to help a potential second Trump administration implement his extreme policy agenda with less concern for rules and laws, sources with knowledge of the matter say.”
At least at first blush, the examples of extreme actions which could be aided by this ruling… aren’t
The thing stopping Trump from sending active duty troops to US cities to “bring order” wasn’t his fear of being personally prosecuted, it was that the military would (we hope) refuse unlawful orders
I’m not aware of any instances in which Trump was cowed by “if you do that you will, yourself, have committed a crime you can be prosecuted for.”
The only time I know someone invoked that, he did it anyway and that’s how we wound up here.
Absolutely, but also something that was true yesterday. If the only thing between us and that was that there was a small chance Trump could have been prosecuted before (and now there isn’t) we were already fucked.
